For a theatrical company had replaced the singer as an attraction. The magic of Larry’s card admitted him behind the scenes. He wanted to talk with some of the scene-shifters, the door-keeper, and others, for he had been unable to learn anything of moment from those who made up the personal company of Madame Androletti. They had been too busy with the performance to pay much attention to the boy.
All that they knew was that he had been roving about the wings, watching his mother sing. Then he had mysteriously vanished.
And, after much questioning, Larry was forced to admit that the stage hands and the door-keeper knew little more. A number of the scene-shifters and mechanics had noted the lad, for the singer had played a week’s engagement, and the boy had been present each night, and at the matinees.
“But did any of you see him taken away?” asked Larry.
None of them had.
“How many stage doors are there?” asked the young reporter, and, learning that there were several ways of getting behind the scenes, aside from passing back of them from the front of the theater, Larry inquired of the door-keepers.
None of them had seen the boy go out alone, or in company with any one. The door-keepers were positive that this was so, and they were veterans at their business, and thoroughly to be relied upon.
For it is hard to pass the door-keeper of the stage, unless you are known, or have proper credentials, and no strangers had entered or come out that night, each guard was certain.
“But the boy disappeared!” insisted Larry. “Where did he go to? He certainly didn’t vanish into the air. Some one must have taken him out.”
“Or else he walked out himself, and was captured later,” suggested a stage hand.