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?”