“It begins to look that way,” admitted the young reporter. “But what’s to be done next?”
“I don’t know. Still, it isn’t as bad as it was. If they only got possession of the boy for the second time last night, they haven’t much the start of us. Come on!”
Carefully saving the pieces of the note, Larry followed his detective friend from the hotel to police headquarters. There the intricate machinery of the “Scotland Yard” department (so called after the English detective bureau) was put into operation.
Every available man was instructed to be on the lookout for the stolen boy, since it was possible he might yet be in New York. Officers, whose posts took in the Italian, and other foreign sections, of the city were told to be on the lookout, and outgoing steamers and trains were watched.
Larry got a fine story, and a beat, about the finding of the torn note, and the flight of Parloti. All the other papers had to copy the account, and Peter Manton received another severe “call down” from his city editor for being “scooped.”
“Say, there’s no use trying to get ahead of Larry Dexter on this game,” declared Peter, and his city editor was beginning to believe him.
As for Madame Androletti, her hopes revived when the news was brought to her, but after several days had passed, and nothing further developed, she became gloomy again. It began to look as if the clew of the torn note would prove unavailing.
Larry was working hard, but, try as he did, he seemed to be up against a stone wall. The stolen boy was as well hidden as ever. As for Parloti, there was no trace of him. He had disappeared as completely as had little Lorenzo Androletti.
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what to do!” exclaimed Larry one day; “I’m at the end of my rope.”
Then, as he had often done before, when puzzled or worried, he decided to take a walk, and he picked out the Bronx, the upper section of New York, as his destination.