“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.