CHAPTER VI

A VISIT TO SEÑOR PARLOTI

Larry heard afterward what happened to Peter. The reporter for the _Scorcher_, after waiting impatiently for some time in the hotel corridor, was shown up to the singer’s room. Then came another wait.

Madame Androletti, attired as her maid, came out and announced that the “singer” would see him soon.

“But I can’t wait!” insisted Peter. “I’m in a big hurry. I have a tip that Madame Androletti’s son is ill, or something, and I want a story about it.”

“The Madame will see you at once!” exclaimed the pretended maid, with a smile. In spite of the fact that her heart was torn with anguish at the loss of her son, the singer was enough of an actress to carry out the rôle she had assumed for Larry’s sake.

There was another wait, while Madame Androletti pretended to go and confer with her mistress in another room.

“Oh, this delay is fierce!” exclaimed Peter, who, on looking at his watch, saw that it was nearly first edition time. “I’ll never get the story in time for the paper. And I’ll wager that Larry Dexter is after it, too. I want to beat him!”

Another wait, and then, thinking that this part of the game had been carried far enough, Goegi came in. Attired in the garments of her mistress, and with a veil over her face, the disguise was sufficiently good to deceive Peter.

“Now for the story!” he cried. “Where is your son, madame?” he demanded. “I understand that something has happened to him.”

And now another source of delay developed. It appeared that the pretended singer could not speak English, and the real singer translated to her maid what Peter had asked, and also her replies. This took more time.

“The story! The story!” insisted Peter, walking up and down the room in his excitement. “What about the boy?”

“What has the señor heard, and where?” asked the maid, which question was duly translated, the inquiry of the real singer having been made in Italian.

“Oh, what has that got to do with it?” demanded the representative of the _Scorcher_, but he condescended to state that he had called casually at the theater to learn if Madame Androletti would give the remainder of her performances for the week. There some stage hand, who had heard the excitement of the night before, had hinted that something was wrong with the singer’s son. Like any good newspaper man, Peter had followed this up with a visit to Madame Androletti. He had, however, not the least inkling of what the real story was.

And then began a battle of wits. On his part, by skilful questioning, Peter endeavored to find out what was at the bottom of the affair. On the part of the singer and her maid, to be loyal to Larry, they tangled matters up as much as they could, by reason of two languages being used. They were fighting for delay, and when, finally, Peter did get a glimmer of the truth it was too late for his first edition.

All he knew, when he finally rushed away from the singer’s room, was that her son had mysteriously disappeared, whether kidnapped or not, Madame Androletti would not say positively.

“I’m going to telephone that in,” decided Peter. “It will make a scare head for the _Scorcher_.”

He got his city editor on the wire.

“I’ve got a great story!” exclaimed Peter. “It’s about that Italian singer and her son. It’s a peach!”

“Too late!” said the city editor briefly.

“Too late?” gasped Peter. “Why?”

“Because the _Leader_ is just on the street with the whole yarn, double-leaded, and with scare heads. You’re ‘scooped,’ Peter! Come on in and fix up something to cover us, but we’re beaten to a frazzle.”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed Larry’s rival, as he hung up the telephone receiver. “They fooled me! This is another one you’ve put over on me, Larry Dexter!”

But Larry had other things to think of, now that he had secured his coveted “scoop.” One of them was to provide for a “follow,” or secondary story, and the other was to get on the trail of the men who had spirited the little lad away.

“For there was more than one in this game,” decided Larry.

He thought of the big, well-dressed man, with the foreign decoration on his coat, and the two rather poorly-dressed individuals in the back of the hall to whom the other had signaled.

“I think those three are in it,” decided the young reporter, “and I’ve got to get some clews that will lead me to them. What had I better do first?”

A moment’s thought told him that the best source of information was Madame Androletti herself.

“She may know where to start to look for this Parloti,” reasoned Larry. “I want to see him first. He is the leader in this business, I’m sure.”

“Did you get your turnip?” asked the singer of the young reporter, when she received him again, a few hours later.

Larry looked puzzled, until the maid, who had now assumed her real character, said something in a low voice in Italian to her mistress.

“Oh, I mean your ‘beat’!” exclaimed Madame Androletti. “I never can seem to think of the right name of the vegetable. But did you get it?”

“Yes, thank you,” replied Larry. Then she told him how she had detained Peter until it was too late for him to get in his story.

“And now about Parloti,” suggested the young reporter, after he had been given several more minor facts about the missing boy. He was also provided with a photograph, to use when he made inquiries about him as he worked on the case.

Madame Androletti was not sure of the address of the man she feared, but she told Larry of several hotels where Italians of note were in the habit of stopping.

“I’ll trace him!” exclaimed our hero, as he started out.

It was not as easy as he had hoped, but late that afternoon he did find the place where the suspected man was registered.

“Is he in?” Larry asked the clerk at the desk.

A glance into the letter-box corresponding to the room occupied by Parloti showed that the key was absent.

“He may be in his room,” said the clerk, and a bell boy soon brought word that this was so, and that Larry was to go up.

“Come, this is too easy!” reflected the reporter. “I don’t know that I exactly like this. If he had refused to see me it would have been more natural. He must know who I am, and he has probably seen the _Leader_ by this time, with his name in it. Yet, instead of hiding away, he calmly stays here and sends word that he’ll see me. He doesn’t act like a criminal. I wonder if, after all, Madame Androletti is right. I’m glad I qualified the yarn, and didn’t say, positively, that Parloti was the one who had the boy.”

Larry was enough of a newspaper man to know how to do this. He did not want to involve the paper in a libel suit. For it is one thing to suspect a man of a crime, and it is another to convict him. And, until a person is convicted no newspaper dare, legally, state that he is guilty.

“Ah, Señor Dexter, of the _Leader_,” said Parloti, with a slight raising of his eyebrows as Larry entered the room.

“Yes,” replied the young reporter.

“And what can I do for you?”

“I guess you know why I’m here,” spoke Larry, bluntly.

“I have read your charming paper--yes.” There was a crafty look, not unmixed with anger, in the eyes of the man.

“Is it true, what Madame Androletti says about you?” asked Larry boldly. “Do you know where her son is? Did you have a hand in taking him away?”

“I do not know where he is! I did not take him away!” cried the man excitedly. “I shall also demand a retraction from your paper. You have slandered me.”

“We’ll stand the damage,” spoke Larry, coolly. “But I guess there are certain things true in that story; aren’t they?”

“No! Not a one! Not a one! It is all nonsense! Who am I that I should kidnap little boys? Who am I that I should want the fortune of Madame Androletti? Answer me that, Mr. Reporter?”

“I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care!” exclaimed Larry, boldly, for the manner of the man did not impress him. The young reporter believed Parloti to be “bluffing.”

“You shall soon learn who I am!” the Italian went on. “I am not to be insulted with impunity! I shall demand a retraction from your editor, or he will meet me on the field of honor!”

“We don’t have such fields over here,” spoke Larry with a smile. “We use them for baseball diamonds and football gridirons. I’m afraid you’ll have to think of something else.”

“I shall think of my honor!” cried the Italian. “For what else did you come to see me?”

“To learn if you wanted to make any statement--to give your side of the kidnapping,” replied Larry.

“Kidnapping! There has been no kidnapping!” insisted Parloti, shaking his fist at Larry, who remained cool.

“Madame Androletti’s son has been stolen away,” went on the reporter.

“What is that to me? I tell you I know nothing of it. I have not seen her. I----”

“You were in the music hall last night!” interrupted Larry; “I saw you. I saw you look at her, and it was when she saw you she fainted. I saw you give the ‘ten’ signal to your tools. I was there!” and Larry, with a sudden impulse, laid his hand on his cheek as he had seen Parloti do.

“Ha! What is that? You saw! You! I must----”

The man was very much excited. He fairly rushed at Larry, for the Italian had been taken by surprise.

“I--I--I must--I must be calm,” he whispered, as his arm sank to his side.

“Well?” asked Larry suggestively.

“I will say no more to you! I will answer no more questions. Go! I desire to be alone!”

“Then you won’t tell where the stolen boy is?” asked Larry.

“No! No! A thousand times, no! I will say nothing. Get out of here!” and once more he rushed at Larry, who stood his ground, and looked fearlessly at the infuriated man.

“Leave at once, or I shall summon a porter to remove you!” cried Parloti, reaching for the electric-bell signal.

His voice was high, and his face was red with passion. Larry thought it best to leave, and, as he turned to the door, he became aware of a motion in a room adjoining that in which he and the Italian stood.

A connecting portal swung partly open, and Larry looked eagerly toward it, hoping against hope that he might get a glimpse of the stolen boy.

He did not see Lorenzo, however, but he did see some one, at the sight of whose face he started.

For there, peering at him from the half-opened door, was one of the two men who had been in the rear of the hall--one of those to whom Parloti had signaled.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Larry, under his breath.

“Shut that door!” yelled Parloti in Italian, and the portal was slammed, while Larry hurried off, not caring to risk a personal encounter with the excited man who confronted him.