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.