SCOOPING THE “SCORCHER”
The start which Larry gave when he heard the voice of the prima donna
over the telephone was noticed by the city editor.
“What is it?” asked Mr. Emberg, slipping to Larry’s side, just as the
young reporter was telling Madame Androletti over the wire that he
would call on her at once.
“It’s the stolen boy case!” he answered, when he had hung up the
receiver. “He can’t have come back, and she can’t have had any trace of
him, for she was half crying when she told me to come up. I’m going to
get the story. It’s ripe now, and it’s a good one. There’s something
big back of it all.”
“That’s the way to talk, Larry. Get right after it! Can you get a
‘scoop’ out of it?”
“I’m going to try hard. None of the other papers are on to it yet.”
“Look out that the _Scorcher_ doesn’t spring some fake sensation on
you. This is just their kind of a yarn. Beat ’em if you can.”
“I will,” and with that Larry hurried out to catch the elevator. Mr.
Emberg stepped out into the corridor with him.
“There are some queer points to this story, Larry,” he said. “I can’t
understand why Madame Androletti shouldn’t have raised an alarm at once
when she found her son missing.”
“It does seem odd,” agreed the young reporter. “And yet she explains
that by saying that the case was so peculiar that if she went out and
made a big fuss, and called in the police, the kidnappers might do her,
or her son, some harm. It’s just like when some one does something mean
to you, and you pretend not to know it for a while, laying low, and
holding back, so as to get a better chance to get even with ’em.”
“I see,” agreed the city editor, with a laugh at Larry’s boyish
explanation. “And yet the kidnappers must know that Madame Androletti
is aware that her son has been spirited away.”
“Of course. And yet if she continues to act quietly, as she has done,
it may make them curious to find out what her game is, and they may not
carry out their original plan, whatever it is. Then, too, there’s no
doubt but what this is done for a ransom, and sooner or later an offer
will come from the fellows who have the boy, stating how much they want
to return him.”
“I suppose so. There ought to be a heavier punishment for kidnapping
than at present. Well, get along, Larry.”
The young reporter lost no time in reaching the apartments of the
singer. She had several rooms in a large hotel, on Murray Hill, New
York, where she and her maid stayed. Up to the time he was taken away
from the theater, her son had also been there.
Larry found Madame Androletti in tears, but she soon composed herself,
and began to tell her story.
“I have heard something about you, since I met you last night,” she
said, by way of preface.
“Nothing unpleasant, I hope,” spoke Larry.
“On the contrary, good. I was talking with my maid about you. She has
been in this country some time, and she reads much of your papers. You
are the reporter, are you not, who solved the Wall Street bank mystery?”
“Yes, I was lucky enough to do that,” replied Larry.
“And you also searched for and found Mr. Potter, the missing
millionaire. Ah, I have sung at his charming house.”
“Yes, I located him,” said Larry. “But----”
“Ah, you are too modest!” she interrupted. “But I was glad to know
this, for after two such celebrated cases I feel sure that you can find
my son.”
“I’m going to do my best, Madame Androletti, if I have to trace him
clear across the continent. But, if you please, I’d like to hear the
particulars about him, and who this man is--the man with the foreign
decoration--who probably took him away.”
“Ah, he is a villain, a bad-hearted man!” the singer exclaimed. “I will
tell you.”
She then stated briefly, that Delcato Parloti, at the sight of whom in
the theater she had fainted, was a distant relative of her late husband.
“My husband, who lived near Rome, Italy, was a very rich man,” she went
on, “and had he not married me, all his estate at his death would have
passed to Parloti and others. But after our marriage, of course, I was
the one who would inherit the property, and this left Parloti nothing
but what he had of his own--he had no expectation of a fortune. This
made him very bitter against my husband and myself.
“Lorenzo is my only child, and when my husband died, about three years
ago, this Parloti at once began to persecute me. He did all in his
power to get my fortune away from me, and at last began to threaten me
through my son. That made me very much afraid, and I fled from Italy to
this country. I thought I would be safe.
“Parloti sent me a message not long ago. He said if I would not sign
over to him all my rights in the property my husband had left, my son
would be taken from me. But the cruel part of it is that, under the
law, I can not sign away those rights. They fall to my son. It is quite
complicated, and I do not understand it. Gladly would I give up all my
husband left, retaining only such a modest fortune as I have in my own
right, to save my son, but I cannot--cannot, under the law sign away
those rights, and this bad man will not believe it. He insists that I
give him the fortune, or he will take my son until I do.
“So, as I said, I fled from Italy. I hoped I would be safe, and for
some years I have been. Then, when I think all is well, that man last
night walked into the hall where I was singing. Do you wonder I faint,
señor?”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed Larry, who had been making rapid notes of the
story, with names, dates and other details that I have omitted here.
“And so they took my boy!” cried the singer. “They have stolen him
from me! But with your help, good Señor Dexter, you who solved the
million-dollar bank mystery, we will get him back, will we not?”
“We will!” cried Larry enthusiastically, though he knew that there was
plenty of hard work ahead of him, and but a slim chance that he would
be successful.
“I’ll do all I can,” he said, “and so will every one on the _Leader_.
You’ll have all the help the newspaper can give.”
“Oh, how can I reward you?” she cried. “My fortune----”
“All the reward I ask is to have the story alone--exclusively!” cried
Larry. “I want a ‘scoop’.”
“Oh, you reporters! Such funny words! First, you want a cabbage is
it----?” and she looked at Larry, and smiled.
“No, a ‘beat,’” he corrected.
“Oh, yes. And then you demand what you call a--shovel----”
“No, a ‘scoop.’ I guess it means shoveling all the other fellows out of
the way, though,” explained the young reporter. “But if I get either a
‘beat,’ or a ‘scoop,’ it’s all the same. Now I’m off to the office, to
write this story, and then I’ll come back and make some plans. I want
to know more about this Parloti. If any reporters from other papers
come to see you, please----”
He was interrupted by the ringing of the private telephone in the
singer’s room. She answered it, repeating some of the message that came
to her.
“A Mr. Peter Manton to see me,” she said aloud. “But I know no Señor
Manton. Tell him----”
In a flash Larry was at her side.
“That’s another reporter,” he whispered. “My rival. He’s on the
_Scorcher_. Don’t give him the story.”
“What shall I do? If I do not see him, he may print some terribly
untrue story, and----”
“That’s just what the _Scorcher_ would be likely to do, anyhow,” agreed
Larry, “though Pete isn’t such a bad sort himself. Let me think. I’ll
tell you. Can’t you fool him in some way? Sort of string him along
until I get away, and have my story in the first edition of the
_Leader_. Then I don’t care what he prints.”
“Yes, yes! I see. You mean to ‘scoop’ him!”
“That’s it.”
“And I will help you!” The singer was excited now, and she was more
like herself, a great actress. “I will fool him! I and Goegi, my maid.
We will change places. She shall be the mistress, and I the maid.
Remember, Goegi, you are the singer, and I am your attendant. And you
speak no English. Do not forget that. I will have to translate what you
say to this reporter. We will see him up here, when Señor Dexter has
gone. Is it not so?” she asked, turning to Larry.
“Fine!” he cried. “That ought to fool him all right. I’ll hurry in now.
Detain him as long as you can. It will be some little while until we
can get out an extra on this.”
“I will see Señor Manton in a few minutes,” spoke Madame Androletti
over the wire, which she had held open.
Larry hurried out of the room, going down in the servant’s elevator, to
avoid landing in the hotel lobby, and so meeting his old rival, Peter
Manton.
“I guess I’ve ‘scooped’ the _Scorcher_,” thought our hero, as he
hastened toward his office with the big story all ready to write.