“I’d like to, not only for the ‘scoop,’ but because I would like to help Madame Androletti. She is beginning to lose hope. The suspense is terrible for her.”
“I can imagine it would be. Well, do your best for her, and follow the clews wherever they lead. Don’t mind the expense; the paper will stand it.”
Larry redoubled his watch over Parloti, to that individual’s annoyance. He could scarcely go anywhere but either Larry or Detective Nyler, or some one in their interests, watched him. It would have been a hard matter for him to have escaped, but apparently he did not want to do that. In vain, however, did he endeavor to shake off his relentless personal shadowers.
Meanwhile nothing had been heard of the two “tools,” as Larry called them, meaning the men who had been in the back of the hall, to whom Parloti had apparently signaled the night the boy was stolen. The big Italian refused to even talk about them, and, beyond learning the name of one—Ferrot—no information was obtained. Both seemed to have vanished utterly, and Larry suspected that they had the boy in custody, and were holding him until Parloti could join them.
“Then will come a demand for money on poor Madame Androletti,” mused Larry, “and I suppose she’ll give in, for the sake of getting her son back. But I wish I could get him without her paying any ransom. I’d like to catch those kidnappers, too, and see them sent to jail for long terms.”
But the more Larry puzzled over the case the more he became confused. There were few clews of any account and those he seemed to have run to the ground.
“But I am not giving up!” he exclaimed grimly. And he kept on seeking for the clew that would lead him to the hiding place of the stolen boy.
The case was now world-wide, for the singer was a well-known character. Nearly every paper in the country had published a picture of the missing lad, and the reward which his mother had offered stimulated many to make a search for him.
Many false “tips” came into the office of the Leader, as they always do to every newspaper when a big story is on. And, though some of these tips, or bits of information, were false on the face of them, still none was neglected, for there was no telling when one of them might prove to be real, leading to the finding of the boy.
Larry investigated most of these, running them down and finding them to end in nothing. These took up a good deal of his time, but they also made reading matter for the paper, and this was something, for the case of the missing lad had to be kept on the front page, that being the Leader’s policy, and to keep it there made fresh news necessary each day.