“I want a word with that paper-boy,” he explained. “Happen he’ll give us a line on this Tony; we’ll collar him as he goes back.”
“Balloons again!” Dennis exclaimed in disgust. “Well I know you’ll not talk till your own good time but ’tis in your mind that a balloon had something to do with that girl’s death! I’d better be getting back to the engine house, laying up some good sleep against to-morrow, for it’s small use I’ll be while you keep me in the dark!”
“I’m in the dark myself, Denny,” McCarty confessed in contrition. “’Tis only a wild guess on my part, but I’ve a busted toy balloon in my pocket that I picked up from the floor of that conservatory right foreninst Lucette’s feet after the doctor had gone. I don’t know has it anything to do with the case but ’twas the gas that balloons are sometimes filled with that put me in mind of it. I broke the stick off it and threw it under the bench and when we went back just now it was gone.”
Dennis’ jaw dropped.
“But how in the world could gas, poisoned or no, be put into it—?” he began. “I never heard tell of the like—!”
“Wisht! The lad’s coming now!” McCarty cautioned, then stepped forward. “Hey, just a minute, sonny! Where’ll I find your friend Tony, him that sells toy balloons? I saw him around here this afternoon and I want to get a dozen or so off him for an entertainment. Bill Jennings, the watchman there at the Mall, said you could tell me.”
The boy, an olive-skinned lad with soft, dark eyes and a shy, ingratiating smile, pushed his cap farther back on his curly black hair.
“Tony Primavera?” he nodded. “He ought ter be t’roo bus’ness fer de day now but youse can find him over where he lives wid Joe de ice-man, in a basement on Thoid Avenyer near Eightieth. He’ll have his stock dere wid him, too!”
Thanking their informant they started east to the avenue indicated, and up along that teeming thoroughfare to Eightieth Street where they readily found the steep basement stairs with the sign outside that orders for coal and ice would be taken below.
With Dennis close behind McCarty descended to the dark half-cellar, lighted dimly by a single flaring gas-jet. Besides the table and broken backed chairs, two cots covered with soiled blankets and a stove on which a pot bubbled and gave forth a strong aroma of garlic denoted that the apartment served for living as well as business purposes, but their eyes were caught primarily by the huge basket in the corner bristling with toy balloons so that it seemed a miracle it was not lifted from the floor by its aerial freight.