Donnelly grinned. "That's where I got the idea. This same Narcone is mixed up in the Domenchino case. The kid has been gone nearly a month, now, but the father won't help us. He made a roar at the start, but they evidently got to him and now he declares that the boy must have strayed away to the river-front and been drowned. Well, it occurred to me to treat that Quatrone gang to some of its own medicine by stealing their ringleader."
"There's poetic justice in the idea—that is, if Narcone was really connected with the disappearance of the child."
"Oh, he was connected with it all right. Ordinary blackmail was getting too slow for the outfit, so they went after a good ransom. Now that old Domenchino has kicked up such a row, they're afraid to come through, and have probably murdered the child. That's what he fears, at any rate, and that's why he won't help us."
"It's shocking! But tell me, is this plan your own, or did Bernie Dreux suggest it?"
Donnelly laughed silently.
"So you knew he'd turned fly cop? I thought I'd split when he came to me."
"I hope you didn't offend him."
"Oh, not at all. Those little milliners are mighty sensitive. I told him he had the makings of another Le Coq, but the force was full. I suggested that he work on the outside, and set him to watching a certain dago fruit-stand on Canal Street."
"Why that particular stand?"
"Because it's owned by one of our men and he can't come to any harm there. He reports every day."