CHAPTER V

SCOOPING THE “SCORCHER”

The start which Larry gave when he heard the voice of the prima donna over the telephone was noticed by the city editor.

“What is it?” asked Mr. Emberg, slipping to Larry’s side, just as the young reporter was telling Madame Androletti over the wire that he would call on her at once.

“It’s the stolen boy case!” he answered, when he had hung up the receiver. “He can’t have come back, and she can’t have had any trace of him, for she was half crying when she told me to come up. I’m going to get the story. It’s ripe now, and it’s a good one. There’s something big back of it all.”

“That’s the way to talk, Larry. Get right after it! Can you get a ‘scoop’ out of it?”

“I’m going to try hard. None of the other papers are on to it yet.”

“Look out that the _Scorcher_ doesn’t spring some fake sensation on you. This is just their kind of a yarn. Beat ’em if you can.”

“I will,” and with that Larry hurried out to catch the elevator. Mr. Emberg stepped out into the corridor with him.

“There are some queer points to this story, Larry,” he said. “I can’t understand why Madame Androletti shouldn’t have raised an alarm at once when she found her son missing.”

“It does seem odd,” agreed the young reporter. “And yet she explains that by saying that the case was so peculiar that if she went out and made a big fuss, and called in the police, the kidnappers might do her, or her son, some harm. It’s just like when some one does something mean to you, and you pretend not to know it for a while, laying low, and holding back, so as to get a better chance to get even with ’em.”

“I see,” agreed the city editor, with a laugh at Larry’s boyish explanation. “And yet the kidnappers must know that Madame Androletti is aware that her son has been spirited away.”

“Of course. And yet if she continues to act quietly, as she has done, it may make them curious to find out what her game is, and they may not carry out their original plan, whatever it is. Then, too, there’s no doubt but what this is done for a ransom, and sooner or later an offer will come from the fellows who have the boy, stating how much they want to return him.”

“I suppose so. There ought to be a heavier punishment for kidnapping than at present. Well, get along, Larry.”

The young reporter lost no time in reaching the apartments of the singer. She had several rooms in a large hotel, on Murray Hill, New York, where she and her maid stayed. Up to the time he was taken away from the theater, her son had also been there.

Larry found Madame Androletti in tears, but she soon composed herself, and began to tell her story.

“I have heard something about you, since I met you last night,” she said, by way of preface.

“Nothing unpleasant, I hope,” spoke Larry.

“On the contrary, good. I was talking with my maid about you. She has been in this country some time, and she reads much of your papers. You are the reporter, are you not, who solved the Wall Street bank mystery?”

“Yes, I was lucky enough to do that,” replied Larry.

“And you also searched for and found Mr. Potter, the missing millionaire. Ah, I have sung at his charming house.”

“Yes, I located him,” said Larry. “But----”

“Ah, you are too modest!” she interrupted. “But I was glad to know this, for after two such celebrated cases I feel sure that you can find my son.”

“I’m going to do my best, Madame Androletti, if I have to trace him clear across the continent. But, if you please, I’d like to hear the particulars about him, and who this man is--the man with the foreign decoration--who probably took him away.”

“Ah, he is a villain, a bad-hearted man!” the singer exclaimed. “I will tell you.”

She then stated briefly, that Delcato Parloti, at the sight of whom in the theater she had fainted, was a distant relative of her late husband.

“My husband, who lived near Rome, Italy, was a very rich man,” she went on, “and had he not married me, all his estate at his death would have passed to Parloti and others. But after our marriage, of course, I was the one who would inherit the property, and this left Parloti nothing but what he had of his own--he had no expectation of a fortune. This made him very bitter against my husband and myself.

“Lorenzo is my only child, and when my husband died, about three years ago, this Parloti at once began to persecute me. He did all in his power to get my fortune away from me, and at last began to threaten me through my son. That made me very much afraid, and I fled from Italy to this country. I thought I would be safe.

“Parloti sent me a message not long ago. He said if I would not sign over to him all my rights in the property my husband had left, my son would be taken from me. But the cruel part of it is that, under the law, I can not sign away those rights. They fall to my son. It is quite complicated, and I do not understand it. Gladly would I give up all my husband left, retaining only such a modest fortune as I have in my own right, to save my son, but I cannot--cannot, under the law sign away those rights, and this bad man will not believe it. He insists that I give him the fortune, or he will take my son until I do.

“So, as I said, I fled from Italy. I hoped I would be safe, and for some years I have been. Then, when I think all is well, that man last night walked into the hall where I was singing. Do you wonder I faint, señor?”

“No, indeed!” exclaimed Larry, who had been making rapid notes of the story, with names, dates and other details that I have omitted here.

“And so they took my boy!” cried the singer. “They have stolen him from me! But with your help, good Señor Dexter, you who solved the million-dollar bank mystery, we will get him back, will we not?”

“We will!” cried Larry enthusiastically, though he knew that there was plenty of hard work ahead of him, and but a slim chance that he would be successful.

“I’ll do all I can,” he said, “and so will every one on the _Leader_. You’ll have all the help the newspaper can give.”

“Oh, how can I reward you?” she cried. “My fortune----”

“All the reward I ask is to have the story alone--exclusively!” cried Larry. “I want a ‘scoop’.”

“Oh, you reporters! Such funny words! First, you want a cabbage is it----?” and she looked at Larry, and smiled.

“No, a ‘beat,’” he corrected.

“Oh, yes. And then you demand what you call a--shovel----”

“No, a ‘scoop.’ I guess it means shoveling all the other fellows out of the way, though,” explained the young reporter. “But if I get either a ‘beat,’ or a ‘scoop,’ it’s all the same. Now I’m off to the office, to write this story, and then I’ll come back and make some plans. I want to know more about this Parloti. If any reporters from other papers come to see you, please----”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the private telephone in the singer’s room. She answered it, repeating some of the message that came to her.

“A Mr. Peter Manton to see me,” she said aloud. “But I know no Señor Manton. Tell him----”

In a flash Larry was at her side.

“That’s another reporter,” he whispered. “My rival. He’s on the _Scorcher_. Don’t give him the story.”

“What shall I do? If I do not see him, he may print some terribly untrue story, and----”

“That’s just what the _Scorcher_ would be likely to do, anyhow,” agreed Larry, “though Pete isn’t such a bad sort himself. Let me think. I’ll tell you. Can’t you fool him in some way? Sort of string him along until I get away, and have my story in the first edition of the _Leader_. Then I don’t care what he prints.”

“Yes, yes! I see. You mean to ‘scoop’ him!”

“That’s it.”

“And I will help you!” The singer was excited now, and she was more like herself, a great actress. “I will fool him! I and Goegi, my maid. We will change places. She shall be the mistress, and I the maid. Remember, Goegi, you are the singer, and I am your attendant. And you speak no English. Do not forget that. I will have to translate what you say to this reporter. We will see him up here, when Señor Dexter has gone. Is it not so?” she asked, turning to Larry.

“Fine!” he cried. “That ought to fool him all right. I’ll hurry in now. Detain him as long as you can. It will be some little while until we can get out an extra on this.”

“I will see Señor Manton in a few minutes,” spoke Madame Androletti over the wire, which she had held open.

Larry hurried out of the room, going down in the servant’s elevator, to avoid landing in the hotel lobby, and so meeting his old rival, Peter Manton.

“I guess I’ve ‘scooped’ the _Scorcher_,” thought our hero, as he hastened toward his office with the big story all ready to write.