Larry Dexter and the Stolen Boy; or, A Young Reporter on the Lakes

by Howard Roger Garis

So close a watch was kept on Parloti that it was believed he could hold no communication with his two tools, as Larry called them, without the fact being known to the police. The suspected man was under surveillance night and day, but nothing developed.

“I can’t understand it,” said Larry, much puzzled, when two weeks had passed, and no trace of Lorenzo had been found.

“The same here,” grumbled Detective Nyler. “I never saw a case that was so plain on the face of it, and yet was so puzzling when you come to work it out. Think of it—a boy in plain sight of his mother in a theater one minute, and the next he disappears as if by magic. And, mind you, not a soul seems to have noticed which way he went, or what became of him after he left the wings for a moment.

“And then this Parloti. I’ve tried every way I know to tangle him up, and trip him, but he just goes on staying at his hotel as if he never had a thought of kidnapping the boy, though he practically threatened to do so.”

“It is queer,” admitted the young reporter. “I’m going to have another talk with him. Madame Androletti is wasting away from grief, and maybe if I put it to him strongly enough he’ll weaken and give himself away.”

“I doubt it, but you can try,” suggested the detective with a shrug of his shoulders.

“It might be a good plan to have Madame Androletti see him herself,” went on Larry. “That would bring him around, if anything would, I should think, to have him see the way she takes it. I’m going to try.”

But that plan failed, though not for want of trying. The singer did indeed visit the man suspected, and though he received her courteously, he denied knowing anything of the matter. He even said he would help her if he could, but this was not believed, for there was that old feud between the two, and the singer did not trust him.

Nor was Larry any more successful. He made what he declared was his last appeal to Parloti, begging him to tell his tools, who had the boy, to name the price of ransom, and end the widow’s suspense.

“It is of no use, Señor Dexter!” exclaimed the Italian fiercely. “I will not receive you again, nor talk to you. I have not the boy, I never had him—nor have my ‘tools,’ as you call them. It is useless to persecute me further. I can tell you nothing. I will tell you nothing. Leave me alone, or——”