See Transcriber’s Note at end of text.

LARRY DEXTER
AND THE
STOLEN BOY

LARRY FORCED THE MAN AGAINST THE WALL.—[Page 198]
Larry Dexter and the Stolen Boy.

LARRY DEXTER
AND THE
STOLEN BOY

OR

A YOUNG REPORTER ON
THE LAKES

BY

HOWARD R. GARIS

AUTHOR OF “LARRY DEXTER’S GREAT SEARCH,” “LARRY DEXTER, REPORTER,” “DICK HAMILTON’S FORTUNE,” “DICK HAMILTON’S CADET DAYS,” “DICK HAMILTON’S FOOTBALL TEAM,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

BOOKS FOR BOYS

By Howard R. Garis

THE DICK HAMILTON SERIES

DICK HAMILTON’S FORTUNE
Or The Stirring Doings of a Millionaire’s Son.

DICK HAMILTON’S CADET DAYS
Or The Handicap of a Millionaire’s Son

DICK HAMILTON’S STEAM YACHT
Or A Young Millionaire and the Kidnappers

DICK HAMILTON’S FOOTBALL TEAM
Or A Young Millionaire on the Gridiron

(Other volumes in preparation)

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

Price, Per volume, 60 cents, postpaid.

THE YOUNG REPORTER SERIES

FROM OFFICE BOY TO REPORTER
Or The First Step In Journalism

LARRY DEXTER, THE YOUNG REPORTER
Or Strange Adventures in a Great City

LARRY DEXTER’S GREAT SEARCH
Or The Hunt for a Missing Millionaire

LARRY DEXTER AND THE BANK MYSTERY
Or A Young Reporter in Wall Street

LARRY DEXTER AND THE STOLEN BOY
Or A Young Reporter on the Lakes

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1912, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

Larry Dexter and the Stolen Boy

PREFACE

My Dear Boys:

Most unexpected things happen to newspaper reporters. That is one reason why, in spite of the hard work attached to the profession, so many bright young lads like it. It was that way with Larry Dexter. It was the unexpected that he was always looking for, and nearly always he found it.

In this, the fifth book of “The Young Reporter Series,” I have related for you something that happened when Larry unexpectedly went to a concert. Before he knew it he was involved in a mystery that had to do with a stolen boy.

How he promised the stricken mother to find her son for her, how he picked up slender clews and followed them, how, seemingly beaten and baffled, he still kept to the trail—all this I have set down for you in this book as well as I knew how.

I hope it is not presuming too much to say that I trust you will like this volume as well as you have my other books. Larry is a character to be proud of, and I have tried to do him justice.

Yours sincerely,

Howard R. Garis.

CONTENTS

LARRY DEXTER AND THE
STOLEN BOY

CHAPTER I
A FRIGHTENED SINGER

“Hello, Larry, just the chap I want to see!” greeted Paul Rosberg, one of the oldest reporters on the New York Leader, as a tall, good-looking young fellow came into the city room one September afternoon. “I’ve been hoping you’d show up.”

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Larry Dexter, the “star” man on the Leader, when it came to solving strange cases and mysteries. “Do you want the loan of five dollars, or has your typewriter gone out of commission?”

“Neither,” replied Paul Rosberg, with a smile, though he knew Larry would oblige him were it necessary. For Larry Dexter had a natural talent for machinery, and often adjusted the “balky” typewriters of his fellow reporters. Also, he would lend them cash when they were temporarily embarrassed, not to say broke. For Larry had made considerable money of late, especially in solving the big bank mystery, and he was always willing and ready to lend to his less fortunate brethren.

“Then, if it isn’t either one of those things, I can’t imagine what it is,” went on the young reporter, as he sat down at his desk. The city room was nearly vacant, all the other reporters having gone home. For the last edition of the Leader was off the presses, and work for the day was over, the sheet being an afternoon one.

“I want you to do me a favor,” went on Mr. Rosberg, who was considerably older than Larry, and, as he spoke the man began reaching in his various pockets as if searching for something. “You haven’t anything on for to-night, have you?”

“No, I’ve been out on a Sunday special story, and I’ve cleaned it up. It didn’t take me as long as I expected, so I thought I’d come back to the office to see if Mr. Emberg had anything else for me.”

“You’re too conscientious Larry; altogether too fussy,” spoke his companion. “But I’m tickled to pieces that you did come in. I was hoping you, or some of the other obliging lads would, for I’m stuck on a night assignment that I don’t want, and it comes at a bad time. There, cover that for me, will you?”

He handed Larry two slips of pasteboard, theater tickets, as was evident at first glance.

“Hum!” mused Larry as he looked at them. “Farewell appearance of Madame Androletti, eh? I wonder how many ‘farewell’ appearances she’s had? This must be about the forty-ninth. She’ll soon finish up at this rate. ‘Grand concert and musicale,’” he went on reading. “Musicale with a final ‘e’ no less. In the new Music Hall, to-night, too. I say, Mr. Rosberg, what does it mean, anyhow? Do you want me to go to this concert with you?”

“No, Larry, I want you to cover it for me. Report it, if you like that better. Say, look here, old man” (Larry was not an old man by any means, but the term was used as a friendly one), “this is my wedding anniversary to-night, and I promised my little lady that I’d come home early to a supper celebration she’s gotten up. Then, at the last minute, the editor wants me to cover this concert. Seems as though Madame Androletti has some pull with the paper, and wants a representative at her concert, though I don’t see why the morning paper reporters wouldn’t do as well.

“But, as you know, I’ve been doing theatricals and musicales for this sheet for some time, and they want me to cover this. Not that I need to do it personally, but they expect me to look after it. Now, I don’t want to go, and that’s why I’m asking you to cover it for me.”

“But look here!” cried Larry, lamely accepting the tickets which the other held out. “I don’t know anything about music. That is, not enough to report a concert. I like it, and all that, but I don’t know how to grind out that stuff about high notes, coloratura work, placement, ensemble, vocal range, and all that sort of thing, that I see in your accounts of musical doings every once in a while. I’d make a mess of it.”

“That’s all right, Larry,” spoke the musical critic. “I’ve thought of that. I’ll do all the fancy ‘word-slinging.’ I’ll write the story to-morrow morning. All I want you to do is to go there and bring me back a program. You can ask the leader of the orchestra if it was carried out. He’ll jot down the names of any extra numbers the madame may have sung as encores. Then it will be up to me. I know nearly all the concert pieces anyhow, and I can fix up an account.

“Just you keep your eyes open, size up the crowd, watch how the lady sings, get me a few notes about her bouquets and all that, and I’ll do the rest. It won’t be the first time I’ve written about a concert without being there.”

“But,” objected Larry, “I won’t know whether she’s singing good, bad or indifferent.”

“No trouble about that,” spoke the other. “Madame Androletti always sings well. I’ve heard her.”

“But won’t Mr. Emberg object?” asked Larry, naming the city editor.

“No, I’ve fixed it with him. I asked him if I couldn’t get some one to cover the concert for me, on account of my celebration to-night, and he said it was up to me. So I’ve drawn you. Pshaw, Larry, it’s easy! Anybody who can solve a million-dollar bank mystery the way you did, can surely cover a simple concert.”

“But it’s so different,” objected the young reporter.

“Not at all. It just needs common sense. Go ahead now, cover it for me,” and with this Mr. Rosberg hurried out of the room, leaving Larry standing there, holding the two concert tickets.

“Take some one with you—your best girl,” the older reporter called back, and he caught the elevator, and rapidly descended to the street.

“Well, I guess I’m in for it,” mused Larry, as he looked at the tickets in his hand. They were choice seats, he noted, and, had he been obliged to buy them, they would have cost five dollars. That was one advantage of being a reporter.

“Take my girl with me,” went on the young reporter. “Well, why not? I wonder if Molly Mason wouldn’t like to go?” and Larry’s thoughts went to the pretty department-store clerk, who had helped him solve the million-dollar bank mystery. “I’ll call her on the ’phone. She can’t have left the store yet,” he went on. A few minutes later he listened to her rapturous acceptance.

“Oh, Larry!” she exclaimed, “of course I’ll be delighted to go. I’ve just got a new dress, and, oh, it’s awfully nice of you to ask me, I’m sure.”

“I’m being nice to myself,” answered Larry. “All right; I’ll call for you about eight.”

And so that was how, a few hours afterward, Larry rolled up to the modest apartment house where Molly Mason lived, the young reporter arriving in a taxicab.

“Oh, what luxurious extravagance!” exclaimed Molly, as she sank down on the cushions. “Why did you do it?”

“Oh, as long as I’m going to report a swell concert I might as well do it in style,” replied Larry. “I hope you’ll like it.”

“Oh, I know I shall!” she exclaimed.

An usher showed them to their seats. The hall was beginning to fill, and Larry and his companion looked around curiously, not that Larry was not used to the members of “swell” society, for his duties had often taken him among them, and he had come to have rather a common regard for that class of persons.

But to Miss Mason it was a dream of delight, as, on her slender wages, she seldom got a chance to attend expensive amusements, for she had to help support her family. The audience was a rich as well as cultivated one, as Larry soon saw.

“There, I forgot to get programs!” he exclaimed, after he and Molly were comfortably seated. “I’ll go back and get a couple. I won’t be a minute.”

She nodded brightly, and resumed her gaze about the rapidly-filling theater. From the depths back of, and under the stage, could be heard the mysterious, and always thrilling, sounds of the orchestra tuning up.

As Larry picked up two programs from the table in the lobby he saw a tall, large man, conspicuous in a dress suit, with some sort of ribbon decoration pinned to the lapel of his coat, enter the rear of the auditorium. The man stood gazing down over the heads of the audience with sharp and piercing eyes, that seemed to take in every detail. He looked to be a foreigner, an Italian, most likely.

“Some count or marquis,” thought Larry as he looked at the man’s decoration, noting that it was a foreign one. “It’s queer how they like to tog themselves out in ribbons and such things.”

The young reporter was about to return to his seat with the programs when he noticed two young Italians in one of the rear rows of the hall. They had turned, and were gazing at the large man in the dress suit. Most of the men in the audience were similarly attired, but the two Italians in the rear, though well dressed, did not have on the clothes that fashion has decreed for such affairs.

It was, therefore, somewhat to Larry’s surprise, that he saw the evidently titled and cultured foreigner make an unmistakable signal to the two men. The big man raised his right hand to his right cheek, with the fingers and thumb spread out. He held it there a moment, and, taking it away, brought it back again, as though to indicate the numeral ten.

As Larry watched, he saw the taller of the two men hold up one finger. Apparently satisfied, the big man turned aside, and approached an usher.

“At what time does Madame Androletti make her appearance to-night?” he asked, with a foreign accent.

“At nine, first, and then at ten,” was the answer, and Larry was at once struck with the answer. The singer came on at ten, and ten was the numeral the big man had signaled to the others. What could it mean? Larry wondered.

“Very good,” answered the foreigner, as he turned aside, and went out into the lobby, with a hasty glance toward the two in the rear seats. Larry saw them both nod their heads.

“Well, I don’t know that it concerns me,” mused the young reporter, as he returned to his seat. “It looks rather odd, but I guess I’ve got so that I’m looking for mysteries in everything. I’ve got to get out of the habit.”

He looked at the program, after handing Molly one, and noted that the cause for the long wait between the two appearances of the singer was because of a heavy orchestral number coming in between her first and second selections. After that she was to sing several songs in succession.

“I’m going to watch when she comes on at ten,” said Larry to himself.

The concert soon began, with an overture, and Larry found himself enjoying it, even though he knew little about classical harmony. Molly was in raptures, for she had a natural taste for music that Larry lacked, and she had taken a number of piano lessons.

“It’s grand!” she whispered to him.

Madame Androletti came on for her first number, being loudly applauded. Larry made some notes, that he might give Mr. Rosberg an intelligent account of the affair, and then gave himself up to the rapture of the music.

The orchestral number followed, and then, as the hour of ten approached, Larry found himself wondering what would happen. The musicians tuned their instruments for what was to be one of the chief vocal numbers, and there was a hush of expectancy.

The curtains and draperies parted and Madame Androletti came on again, bowing with pleasure at the applause. Larry found himself watching her curiously. Then he turned and cast a hasty glance to where the two strange men had been seated. They had left the hall.

“That’s strange,” mused Larry, and then turned back, for the singer was beginning her song, her exquisite voice filling the big auditorium.

She had not sung half a dozen words, throwing into them all the dramatic force of which she was capable, before Larry, who was watching her closely, saw a strange change come over her.

She stepped back, evidently in fear, and then her hands went up over her eyes, as though to shut out some terrifying sight. At first the audience thought it was all part of her acting—though the song did not call for that sort of stage “business.”

A moment later, however, showed the mistake. For Madame Androletti ceased singing, and the strains of the orchestra came to an end with a sudden crash.

The singer cried out something in Italian. What it was Larry did not know, but he could tell, by her tones, that she was frightened.

An instant later she swayed, and she would have fallen to the stage had not her maid and her manager sprung from the wings and caught her.

“Curtain!” Larry heard the manager call quickly, and the big sheet of asbestos slid slowly down. The audience was in an uproar, though a subdued one, and there was no sign of panic.

“She’s fainted!” was whispered on all sides.

Before the curtain was fully down Larry looked under it, and he had a glimpse of the eyes of the stricken singer peering out. And there was fright in them—deadly fright.

Like a flash Larry turned and looked back of him, for it was at some distant point in the hall that Madame Androletti was gazing.

The young reporter saw, standing at the head of an aisle that led directly to the center of the stage, the decorated foreigner who had signaled to the two men the hour of ten. And it was but a little past that now.

This man stood there in plain view, his eyes fixed on the slowly falling curtain that was hiding the frightened singer from view, and on his face was a mocking smile. Then he turned and walked slowly from the place. No one but Larry seemed to have noted him, as the eyes of all others were turned on the stage.

“Oh, what was it?” gasped Molly Mason, clinging to Larry’s arm. “Something has happened! She must be ill!”

“I think she has fainted,” said a lady sitting next to Larry’s companion. “Singers often do so from stress of emotion, or from the heat and strain. She has only fainted. She will probably be all right in a little while.”

The orchestra, in answer to a signal from the conductor had swung into a gay number. The curtain had fallen, concealing what was going on behind it.

“It was a faint—just a faint,” every one was saying.

But Larry Dexter thought:

“It was more than a faint. If ever there was deadly fear on a woman’s face, it was on hers. There’s something going on here that the audience knows nothing about, and I’m going to have a try at it. That big man, and those two others are in it, too, I’ll wager. Maybe I’ve stumbled on something more than just an assignment to cover a concert.”

After events were soon to prove Larry Dexter was right.

CHAPTER II
LARRY SCENTS A MYSTERY

“Madame Androletti craves the indulgence of the audience for but a few moments. She is indisposed, but will resume her singing directly.”

Thus announced her manager, a few minutes after the fall of the curtain, when the orchestra had been quieted by his upraised hand. Applause followed his little address.

“Oh, I’m so glad it didn’t amount to anything,” said Miss Mason to Larry. “She is such a beautiful singer that I shouldn’t want to miss hearing her. And I might never get the opportunity again. Isn’t it nice that it isn’t really anything?”

“Yes,” assented Larry, but he was far from feeling that it amounted to nothing. The young reporter was doing some hard thinking.

“There may be a big thing back of this, and again it may amount to nothing,” he reasoned with himself. “I’m inclined to think, though, that there’s something doing. Now how am I to set about getting it?

“I guess I’ll sit tight for a while and see what develops. If I go to making inquiries now some of the other newspapermen will get ‘wise,’ and I’ll lose any chances of a ‘beat,’ if there’s one in it. I’ll saw wood for a while.”

The orchestra resumed the playing of a spirited air, and while the audience is waiting for the singer to recover, I will take this chance to tell you, my new readers, something more about Larry Dexter, the young reporter.

Larry had come to New York some years before, a farm boy, with an ambition to become a newspaper man. In the first book of this series, entitled “From Office Boy to Reporter; or, The First Step in Journalism,” I told how Larry accomplished this, but not without hard work, and he was in no little danger, because of the mean actions of Peter Manton, a rival copy boy on another paper, the Scorcher. But Larry won out.

In the second book, entitled “Larry Dexter, the Young Reporter,” an account is given of Larry’s “assignments,” or the particular pieces of newspaper work set aside for him. Some of them were very strange, and not a few of them dangerous. Larry had a number of startling adventures in getting big “beats,” or exclusive pieces of news.

His mother, with whom Larry lived, was often worried about him, but Larry had to support her, as well as his sisters, Mary and Lucy, and his little brother James, so he did not give up because his work was hard.

Deserved success came to Larry, and he made considerable money, for he discovered deeds to some land that his mother had a right to, but which was being kept from her, and he managed to get possession of the real estate.

Larry came into real prominence in the newspaper world when he made his successful search for Mr. Hampton Potter, the millionaire, as related in the book called “Larry Dexter’s Great Search.”

In that volume are given the details of why Mr. Potter disappeared, and how the young reporter found him, after a long hunt, in which he ran many dangers. During the time he worked on this case Larry and Miss Grace Potter, the millionaire’s daughter, became good friends.

When the Consolidated National Bank was robbed of a million dollars one day, all Wall Street was astounded. An endeavor was made to keep the robbery secret for a time, but Larry, with the help of Mr. Potter, got the story and secured a “scoop,” or “beat.”

Then he began to solve the bank mystery, for it was a mystery as to where the million had gone. In the volume entitled “Larry Dexter and the Bank Mystery,” I give the details of how our hero solved the mystery, got back the million, and secured the arrest of the thief. He did not do this easily, however, and for a long time he was on the wrong “trail.”

The solving of this mystery added further to Larry’s fame, and he was more than ever the “star,” or chief reporter, on the Leader, where he had first obtained his start in journalism, and where he preferred to remain, though other papers made him handsome offers.

And now Larry was covering an ordinary concert to oblige a fellow scribe.

“But, unless I’m greatly mistaken,” mused Larry, as the orchestra played on, “this is going to be something more than an ordinary concert. Of course all the other papers will have the story about Madame Androletti fainting in the middle of her song, but I don’t believe they’ll find out why she did.

“I believe it was because she saw that man, though why the sight of him should affect her so is a mystery. That’s where I’ve got to begin; at that man with the foreign decoration. I don’t believe many people noticed him staring at her under the curtain. They were all too intent on the singer herself.”

Larry was doing some hard thinking.

“Oh, isn’t that wonderful—that music?” whispered Miss Mason to him.

“What’s that? Oh, yes, it’s fine!” answered Larry dreamily.

“I don’t believe you even heard it,” she went on, as the wonderful melody rose and fell. “You act just as you did lots of times when you came to see me the time you were working on the bank mystery.”

“Well, I feel almost that same way,” spoke Larry with a smile.

“Do you mean to say there’s a mystery here, Larry Dexter?” she asked in a tense whisper. “If there is——”

“Hush,” begged Larry, as the orchestral number came to an end. “Let’s see if she comes out now. I’ll tell you about it later. I may need your help.”

“Oh, fine!” she whispered, with sparkling eyes.

As I have said, Molly Mason had aided Larry in solving the bank mystery, for it was of her that the thief had purchased the valise which he used to hold the million dollars, and Molly gave Larry a valuable clew.

The final chords of the music died away, and there was a hush of expectancy. Would the noted singer be able to go on? Or was her indisposition too much to allow her to do so? Every one waited anxiously for some announcement from behind that big curtain. And Larry looked eagerly toward the stage.

He had made up his mind that he would try to see Madame Androletti after the concert, and ask her what had frightened her. True, she might not tell him, but Larry was too good a newspaperman to mind a refusal. And he had his own way of getting news.

The young reporter looked about the hall. He wanted to see if the big man, with the foreign decoration, was again present. But, if he was, our hero failed to get a glimpse of him. Nor could he see the two more ordinarily dressed men who had answered the man’s signal.

“Well, this looks as if something was doing,” said Larry to himself, as there was a movement behind the curtain. A murmur ran through the audience as the manager again stepped before the footlights.

“Oh, I do hope she can sing,” whispered Miss Mason. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything! Oh, what a strain public performers must be under, to have to appear when they are not able.”

“It’s part of the game,” murmured Larry, narrowly watching the manager.

The latter began to speak.

“I am glad to be able to inform you,” he said, “that Madame Androletti has somewhat recovered from her indisposition, and will be able to continue. She craves your indulgence, however, if she is not just exactly in voice, but she will do her best.”

Applause interrupted him.

“Madame Androletti will omit the number she was singing when she fainted,” the conductor went on, “as it might have a bad effect on her nerves. She will substitute another,” and he named it, Larry making a note for the benefit of the musical critic whose place he was temporarily filling.

The manager bowed, there was more applause, and then the singer herself appeared. The applause burst out into a great volume of sound, for the audience recognized the pluck it took to come back when physically indisposed, and they appreciated what Madame Androletti was doing.

She bowed and smiled, and signaled for the orchestra to begin.

As the first notes of the accompaniment music burst out Larry noticed that the singer cast a glance around the big hall, and even up into the galleries.

“She’s looking for that man,” thought the young reporter. “What strange influence has he over her? What’s the mystery I’m just on the edge of, I wonder?”

Madame Androletti began to sing, and as the first few notes rippled out she cast a quick glance into the wings. Few noticed it, but Larry did, and as his eyes followed hers he saw a boy, of about ten years of age, standing behind a representation of a tree trunk, part of the stage-setting. He was a boy with dark, curling hair, an Italian, evidently, as was the singer. Larry at once jumped to a conclusion.

“That’s Madame Androletti’s boy!” he thought, and the look of love that was on the singer’s face as she glanced toward the youngster seemed to confirm this.

“By Jove! I believe I’m on the track!” thought Larry Dexter, as he saw the boy move out of sight.

CHAPTER III
A STOLEN BOY

“Doesn’t she sing wonderfully?” whispered Miss Mason to Larry.

“Yes,” he answered, but it was plain that his thoughts were on something else besides the music. He was narrowly watching the singer, occasionally casting glances into the wings, or the scenery at either side of the stage. He was watching for another sight of the boy, who looked so much like Madame Androletti.

The concert went on, and it seemed that nothing more out of the ordinary was to happen. The orchestra played its numbers to perfection, as nearly as Larry could tell, and, as for the singing, he made up his mind that he would report to Mr. Rosberg that it was “slick.”

Larry was not very well “up,” on musical terms, but he knew that the Leader was not paying him as a musical critic, and he did not worry.

“Anyhow, there’ll be a good story in how she collapsed in the middle of a song, whether the report of the concert is good or not,” mused Larry.

Madame Androletti came on several times, and sang as encores a number of songs not down on the program. She seemed to be in unusually good spirits, and was roundly applauded. Not a trace of her former indisposition was noticeable.

“I’ll have to wait a bit after the concert is over,” Larry whispered to his companion, during a pause in the program.

“Why?” she asked.

“I want to get an interview with Madame Androletti, and I’ve got to ask the orchestra leader what those extra numbers were.”

“I can do that for you,” offered Molly readily. “I know some of them, as it is, and I can easily get the names of the others.”

“Will you?” he asked eagerly. “That’ll be fine! Then we won’t have to wait so long. Are you sure you won’t mind?”

“Not a bit,” she replied, with a smile. “I fancy I would like to be a reporter.”

“You’d make a better one than lots of ’em who imagine they’re journalists,” said Larry.

The concert was nearing an end. Madame Androletti had sung her last number with great success, and had retired, bowing her thanks for the frantic applause. The curtain started down, and Larry watched it.

Suddenly he became aware that something unusual was taking place behind it. He had a glimpse of the lower part of the singer’s dress, which he could easily distinguish under the curtain. She was the only lady in view among a number of gentlemen, who had also taken part in the program. And Larry was sure he saw the singer running across the stage as fast as she could go, with gentlemen trailing after her. Of the latter Larry could only see their legs from their knees down. The curtain was almost on the stage.

The playing of the orchestra drowned any noise that might have otherwise been heard. Larry looked around. The audience was leaving. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the stage, not even the musicians, who were down too low to see under the curtain, in any event.

Larry noted, with satisfaction, that a number of reporters for other papers, whom he had seen earlier in the evening, had gone. They had not stayed to the finish.

“And maybe here’s where I beat ’em!” thought Larry grimly.

He looked about for a sight of the big decorated foreigner, or his confederates, as the young reporter called them, but none was in sight.

“I’m going back of the scenes,” Larry whispered to Molly. “You just ask the orchestra leader the names of the extra numbers. Say you’re from the Leader, and it will be all right. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Wait in the lobby for me.”

With that the young reporter left his seat, and, crossing through an empty row of orchestra chairs, he made his way to a lower box, whence he could get behind the curtain.

Larry boldly pushed his way in. He was used to doing that. Besides, at this time, there was no one to stop him. He found himself on an almost deserted stage. It was brilliantly lighted, for scene-shifters were at work, putting away the setting just used, and bringing out another that was to come into play for the next performance the following afternoon.

No one seemed to pay any attention to the young reporter. He knew the general location of the dressing-rooms, and started toward them, intending to ask the first door-tender he saw for Madame Androletti. He was dimly aware of some confusion in the left wings, but he could see nothing.

“That’s the place for me!” thought Larry, hurrying on.

He had crossed the stage, and was pressing ahead, when some one hailed him.

“Hey, young feller, where you goin’?”

“Back here,” answered Larry, non-committally.

“Where’s that?”

“To see Madame Androletti.”

“Got a pass? Got any authority?”

Larry took a quick resolve.

“I’m from the Leader!” he exclaimed. “I want to see Madame Androletti. I covered the concert to-night. It was great. There’s my card. See you later—appointment—important—she wants to see me!” murmured Larry, quickly, as he hurried on, thrusting a bit of pasteboard into the man’s hand.

“Wants to see you, eh?” murmured the man.

“Yes,” called back Larry, now some distance away. The young reporter little realized how true his hastily-spoken words would prove to be.

The young newspaper reporter pushed on. He was amid a confusion of scenery now. Tree stumps, castle walls, the ceilings of rooms, a pair of stairs, an arbor covered with trailing vines—the various things used to set the stage. He threaded in and out among them.

A man in a dress suit confronted him, a man whom Larry at once recognized as Madame Androletti’s manager.

“Who are you? What do you want?” the manager asked suspiciously.

Larry realized that he could not bluff this man.

“I’m from the Leader,” said the young reporter quickly. “My card,” and he extended one. “What’s the matter? I’m sure something is wrong. I’ve got to have the story. Why did Madame Androletti faint? What’s up now?”

The manager glanced at Larry’s card.

“Ah, from the Leader, eh? Well, your paper has been very kind to us. I will tell you, though I do not usually see the need of sensationalism. However, there is none here. As you may perhaps know, Madame Androletti, whom I have the honor of representing, personally, travels about with her young son, Lorenzo. He is her only child, and, since the death of his father, he has been en tour with his mother. He is always somewhere on the stage when she sings.

“She is very nervous about him, and just now, after her final number, she missed him. She feared he might have strayed away, and been hurt, and she called out. That raised a little alarm, and, as we all know how devoted she is to him, we all began a search for the lad.”

The manager, who was Señor Maurice Cotta, paused.

“Did you find him?” asked Larry.

“His mother did,” was the answer of Señor Cotta. “He was in her dressing-room, I believe. She is close at hand. Hark, I think I can hear her talking to him now.”

He held up a fat, pudgy hand. Larry listened. Plainly enough he could hear a woman’s voice murmuring:

“My son! My boy! My little Lorenzo!” Then followed something in Italian.

“So, you see, there is no story for you, Señor Leader—I beg your pardon—Dexter,” spoke the manager, with a smile. “I am sorry, but you will have only to write about our concert.”

“And about Madame Androletti fainting,” added Larry, feeling rather disappointed, as all true newspaper men do at a story not “panning out.” It is not through heartlessness that they are thus regretful, but because it is their profession to hunt out news.

“Oh, yes, her indisposition,” murmured Señor Cotta.

“It was plucky of her to keep on,” said Larry. “I’ll have a good story of it.”

“Ah, thank you.”

“Perhaps I could see her, and ask her if she is all right again,” proposed Larry. “A little interview——”

“Ah, exactly!” exclaimed the manager, not at all unwilling to get all the press notices he could for the prima donna he was managing. “This way, I’ll point out her room. She will see you.”

He left Larry at the door of the dressing-room. It was not the first time our hero had interviewed stage people in their rooms. As he paused, before knocking, he heard the murmuring voice again.

“Ah, my Lorenzo! My little Lorenzo!”

Larry was at once impressed by two things. One was that there was no answering tones of a boy’s voice, and the other was that there was, in the notes of Madame Androletti, extreme anguish. It was not as though she was speaking to her son, but, rather, lamenting him. Larry grew suddenly suspicious.

He knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence, and then a strained voice answered:

“Who is there? Go away! I can see no one!”

Larry resolved on a sudden plan. He was going to do a daring thing. There was no other person in sight.

“Madame Androletti!” he called, with his lips close to the portal. “I am a reporter from the Leader. I was at your concert to-night. I saw the man with the foreign decoration. I saw his two confederates. I may be able to help you find your son.”

The door was fairly flung open. The singer, with tears in her eyes, confronted the young reporter.

“What is that?” she whispered hoarsely. “You can find my boy? My Lorenzo—my little boy? Oh, don’t play with me! Who are you? How do you know my boy is gone? Oh, but he is! Why should I try to hide it? He is gone—stolen! Oh, can you help me?” and she held out her hands to Larry with a dramatic gesture.

He had guessed better than he dared to hope. The boy was missing, after all. And she had given the impression to every one else in the theater that he was safe with her! What mystery was here?

CHAPTER IV
LARRY’S NEW ASSIGNMENT

Larry stepped into the singer’s dressing-room. She was still attired as she had been on the stage. Her hair was disheveled, and there were traces of tears on her beautiful face.

As the young reporter entered, a woman came from an inner room, and said something in Italian to the singer. The latter answered her in the same language, and then, turning to Larry, said:

“This is my maid, my faithful Goegi. She alone, besides myself, knows that Lorenzo has been taken away—that is except yourself, Señor, and—and the scoundrels who have taken him. Oh, if you know where he is, speak quickly! End my suspense!”

She had closed the door, so that her anguished words might not penetrate to the regions outside of her room, and she gazed tearfully at Larry.

“I did not say I knew where he was,” the young reporter replied gently. “But perhaps I can find him for you. I have worked on several mystery cases, including those of missing persons. I realized that something was wrong here, almost as soon as you fainted, and so I made up my mind to see you. Why did you let it be known that your son was with you, when he was not?” asked Larry, for a glimpse around the room showed no signs of the boy. There were several pictures of him, however, and Larry easily recognized in them the little lad he had seen standing in the wings.

“Why did I, señor? Because there has been a great crime committed, a crime of cunning and daring, and I must meet cunning and daring with the same weapons. It is no time for force. I realize that. Neither would it have done any good to have started a pursuit at once. The villains are too cute for that.

“So it was that I might have time to think—time to plan—that I dissembled. I pretended that Lorenzo was in my room when he was not. I did not want them all in here. So I pretended. But you—you discovered my secret. Now, can you help me find my boy? Will you? I do not know you, I have never seen you before, and yet from your face I see that I can trust you. And also you reporters—you are so resourceful. Every day I read of the marvelous things you do. In my country it is not so. But, oh, these wonderful United States! Perhaps you can help me. Will you?”

Once more she held out her hands in a mute appeal.

“I will if I can!” exclaimed Larry. “I’ll do all in my power. Listen! I’m a newspaper man, first of all, and though I want to help you, it is only through the power of the press that I can. I ask no reward, only that you let my paper—the Leader—have this news first, exclusively. I’m glad now that you did not raise an alarm. It makes it possible for me to get a ‘beat.’ Tell me all you wish to about the case. Then I’ll get busy.”

“Oh, it is such a long story, I cannot tell half of it now. Sufficient to say that there are enemies of my dead husband who seek to injure me through my only son. They have often sought to get possession of him, but I have foiled them by keeping him close to me always. But this time I failed. Oh, Lorenzo! My poor Lorenzo! where are you?”

She was overcome with emotion for a moment, but soon resumed her story.

“I had been warned,” she said, “but I did not heed. To-night, when I saw that man—my enemy—I was filled with fear. I fainted, and when I was myself again I looked for Lorenzo. He was safe, and I asked him to stand in sight, in the wings, during the rest of the concert. Only by such means would I know he was safe. He did so, and all went well, until the end.

“Then, after my last number, I looked for him. I did not see him. I cried out! I ran! The others were alarmed. They asked me what was the matter. I did not tell them all I feared. I said I thought Lorenzo might have fallen down some trap-door, or have stumbled over some scenery—anything to keep the truth back for a time.”

“Why?” asked Larry curiously.

“Because I realized that if I gave an alarm at once, and took after the scoundrels, they might—they might injure my son. There was but one thing to do—meet cunning with cunning—and I took that way.

“When many of my friends, and the stage hands, were looking for my boy, I rushed to my dressing-room, and called out that he was here. Then I shut the door, and told Goegi to keep my secret until I could make my plans.

“And then you—you—a reporter came along—and you have it at your fingers’ ends. I do not understand. How did you know so much?”

“I guessed it,” replied Larry. “We newspaper men have to guess at a lot, and sometimes we hit it. But how long has he been missing? Where did he go? Who took him? Which way did he go? Did any one see him taken away?”

“Oh, what a lot of questions!” cried the singer, and she smiled the least bit through her tears. “I can not answer them all, but I will do my best. I saw Lorenzo standing in the wings when my last song was almost finished. When I looked again he was gone.”

“But some one must have seen him,” insisted Larry. “There were a lot of people back of the scenes, and they must have noticed him. Did the stage-doorkeeper see him go out?”

“I do not know. I have not asked. Listen. It is necessary to be secret about this at present. I do not want any publicity.”

“But I can’t help you without publicity,” insisted Larry. “That’s my business. I’m a newspaper reporter. I want the story.”

“Yes! Yes!” exclaimed the singer. “I understand. Let me think!”

She paced rapidly up and down the room. Then she exclaimed:

“I have it. Yours is an afternoon paper, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“And you want—oh, such a funny language—you want a carrot?”

“No, a ‘beat,’” explained Larry, with a smile. “An exclusive story—I want to ‘beat’—get ahead of—all the other papers.”

“I see. Well, I will help you. It may be that my son was taken away to but, temporarily, frighten me—to bring me to terms. In that case he will be brought back to me soon—by to-morrow morning, or I will hear from those who have him. Now, then, if I do not hear, then you may print the story, and I will see no one but you until after it comes out. After that—when the world knows—I am afraid many reporters will——”

“Of course they will!” cried Larry. “You’ll be overwhelmed with them, but the more publicity you have the better for you. You’ll have every one in these United States on the lookout for your boy. Newspapers help a lot. All I want is the first story, and after that the others can come in.”

“All right. I agree to your plan. It’s a good one. But do you know who that man with the decoration was? He is Señor Delcato Parloti, a plotter, and schemer, and the enemy of my late husband. Oh, how I fear him!”

“And those other two men—to whom he signaled?”

“I do not know them—perhaps his aids. Oh, this is terrible!” and once more she gave way to her grief.

Presently she mastered herself again, and resumed:

“I have friends—powerful friends, and I will set them quietly on the trail of this Parloti. If I do not have word with him by morning, or if I do not hear from him, then I will send for you, and you may have the story.

“In fact, you may have the story anyhow, for in one case it will be about the return of my son to me, and in the other——”

She could not finish, but Larry knew what she meant.

Rapidly he asked a few more questions, until he had more of the story. With what would be told him later, he knew he would have a startling article for the Leader.

Bidding the singer good-by, and promising to keep her secret until the time for publicity came, Larry took his leave, agreeing to hold himself in readiness for her summons the next morning.

As the young reporter left the dressing-room he saw no signs of excitement on the now almost deserted stage. Clearly all the others had accepted Madame Androletti’s innocent deception, practiced to bring about the return of her son.

“But I don’t see how she’s going to get out of the theater without letting some one see that the boy isn’t with her,” thought Larry. “That’ll be sure to bring up questions. However, she may be actress enough to carry it off with the aid of her maid. Say, but I’m on the track of a big story, all right!”

A few minutes later he joined Molly Mason in the lobby.

“Did I keep you waiting too long?” he asked.

“Oh, no, I enjoyed it! I don’t mean that!” she exclaimed, with a blush at Larry’s queer look. “I don’t mean that I enjoyed your absence. But I was talking music to the leader of the orchestra. He gave me all the information you wanted. I wrote it on this program for you.”

“Thanks! You’re getting to be quite a reporter!” said Larry with a smile. “And now for home!” he added as he summoned the taxicab.

“Oh, but did you get your story?” she asked.

“Part of it,” replied Larry. “I’m hoping for more. It may be a big one.”

Then he turned the subject to the concert proper, and they talked of that until the girl’s home was reached.

“Thank you for a lovely time,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome,” replied Larry, and he thought to himself that, after all, perhaps his substituting for the musical critic might lead to big results.

Late as it was he called up Mr. Emberg, the city editor, at his home, and gave an inkling of what was in the wind.

“Come right over here, Larry,” commanded his chief, and soon the two were in consultation.

“So you’ll get a story out of it, no matter which way it goes,” commented Mr. Emberg, when Larry had told him the facts.

“It looks so. I’ve got to wait until morning, though.”

“All right. Be ready to jump right out on this. As I see it, even if she gets the stolen boy back, we’ll have a two or three days’ yarn out of it. So you drop everything else, Larry, and take this new assignment.”

“And if the boy isn’t returned?”