“And so am I!” cried Larry. “Oh, but I’m too late! Look, is that the boy?” and he showed her a picture of Lorenzo.
“That is him! That is him!” she cried. “Oh, the poor little feller. Who is he?”
“Never mind that now,” spoke Larry. “I’ll tell you later. But where did they go? Did no one see them? Can I have a look in the rooms?”
“For sure you can. I have the keys from the agent of this house. But I know not when those two go—the boy and that man with the bad eyes. One man is only here one day. In the night they go. Listen, detective man: The boy he is never allowed to go out at all. He is kept in the rooms by the bad man. Sometimes another comes—another man—an’ he stays while the first one goes out to buy things to eat; but not much, mind you. Never do they leave that boy alone.
“Sometimes I listen in the nights, and I hears him cry, so sad like. For many years I am sorry that I haf no childrens of my own, but when I hears this boy cryin’, I am glad, for I would not like that one of my little ones should suffer so. Oh, it was sad!” and her honest eyes filled with tears.
“Why did they leave so quickly?” asked Larry. “Did any one scare them away?”
“I know not. Listen, you: One night I hear a noise in the hall, a sort of crying noise. I peek out of my door, and I see them leading the little boy away.”
“Why didn’t you say something—stop them?” cried Larry. “That boy was stolen from his mother! I have been looking all over for him!”
“Stolen! Oh, what a shamefulness! But I did not dare stop them. Listen, you: I live here all alone, and there were two evil men with that boy. In the darkness of the night they took him away, and he comes not back. The rooms are empty.”
“Took him away!” cried Larry softly. “I’m too late! Now I may never find him.”