LARRY MEETS A FARMER
“Say, that doesn’t make any sense!” exclaimed Detective Nyler, as he
stared at the few words, and parts of words on the torn note. “I don’t
see what good that’s going to do, after all our success in finding it.”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” agreed Larry. “But I think I can make
something of it.”
“What?”
“Well, in the first place I believe the stolen boy is referred to. Of
course it might be some other stolen boy, but, knowing that Parloti had
an interest in forcing Madame Androletti to come to terms about the
property in Italy, it is evidently her boy who is referred to.”
“Probably,” agreed the detective, “and yet that word we take for ‘boy,’
might be some other one. You can see that the two other words are only
partly here. Maybe ‘boy’ is part of a word.”
“Yes,” assented Larry, “but there are very few words in ordinary use
that end in boy, except, of course, such as bell-boy or copy-boy or
errand boy, or some of those. There is carboy, to be sure, one of
those big bottles they put acids in, and hautboy, but----”
“What in the world is a ho-boy?” asked the detective, pronouncing the
word as Larry had done, but which is not the way it is spelled. “I
never heard of one.”
“A hautboy,” explained the young reporter, “is a sort of musical
instrument, like a clarionet. I don’t believe Parloti’s correspondent
meant that, though, of course, he might. I think he referred to the
stolen boy.”
“So do I,” agreed the detective. “But what do you make of the rest?
‘Ocated’ isn’t a word, and neither is ‘ot.’”
“No, but the first undoubtedly means located, and the last, unless I’m
mistaken is the signature.”
“But who would sign himself just ‘Ot,’ like some African cannibal?”
“Ferrot, the man who probably helped Parloti get the boy,” exclaimed
Larry quickly.
“That’s it!” cried Nyler. “Larry, you’re on the right track! This note,
torn as it is, makes a good clew. Ferrot wrote it, and sent it to
Parloti, telling him he had the boy located, and to come at once. Now I
see my way clear. The first place we want to head for is the district
messenger office nearest this hotel.”
“Why?”
“To ask which of the boys brought a note here last night for Parloti.
And then, from the clerk in charge, we can find out if anyone answering
the description of Ferrot left it to be delivered. We’re on the right
track at last.”
“Just wait a minute,” suggested Larry, who had gathered up the
fragments of the note. “If Parloti had a hand in stealing the boy, or
his men did, why should one of them send him word that the boy was
located? Wouldn’t they know where he was themselves?”
For a moment the detective was silent. Then he burst out with:
“No! By Jove, Larry, I’m beginning to see things now. The boy got
away after they had him, and they’ve only just now located him. That
explains it. That shows why Parloti hung around New York after poor
little Lorenzo was spirited away.
“Some of their plans went wrong, and the boy gave them the slip. He
couldn’t get back to his mother, or communicate with her, or he’d
have done so. Maybe they had him drugged, or something like that.
Anyhow, he was out of their possession, and Ferrot, or some of the
kidnapping gang, happened to locate him. Then they sent word to the
chief conspirator, Parloti, to come at once, and he did. He didn’t dare
go openly, for he knew we’d be after him, so he took the fire-escape
route.”
“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.
Riding in the subway and the elevated trains to Bronx Park, Larry
strolled through that, looking at the animals, but not thinking about
them. Then he branched off into what was as near the country as any
place so near a large city could be. It was in the West Farms section
of the old city of Manhattan, a place of historical interest, but Larry
thought little of this now. His mind was too busy with thoughts of the
stolen boy.
Leaving behind the big apartment houses, which were springing up on
every side, the young reporter soon found himself in a comparatively
quiet spot, and he walked along what was once a country road.
“It’s nicer here than in the city,” reflected Larry. “It’s like where
we used to live. I almost wish I was back on the farm again. This
being a reporter, and solving mysteries, isn’t what it’s cracked up to
be. But I’m not going to quit now,” and he shut his teeth with dogged
determination.
Larry walked on for some distance, getting farther and farther away
from the turmoil of the city. But if he had hoped that the quiet would
help him to think better, or aid him to hit on some plan for finding
the stolen boy, he was doomed to disappointment. The more he puzzled
over the mystery the more tangled up he became.
“Where is he?” he murmured to himself. “Where is Lorenzo? Why can’t I
get some trace of him?”
Looking down the road Larry saw a cloud of dust approaching. At first
he took it to be some one on a motorcycle.
“Guess I’ll get on the other side,” he mused, “so I won’t get so much
of the dust.”
He was about to cross over, when he saw that the cloud was caused by an
elderly man, driving a rather dilapidated wagon, attached to a somewhat
bony horse. The man was urging the animal to top speed, which was not
saying much.
“In something of a hurry,” said Larry to himself. “The truck farmers
around here aren’t usually that way.”
For the outfit looked like one belonging to a small gardener, and
Larry, looking about him, saw several cultivated patches of land that,
one day, would be sites for big apartment houses.
As the farmer came opposite Larry the horse was pulled in with a jerk,
and the man, whose chin whiskers vibrated up and down with a queer
motion as he talked, hailed our hero.
“Say, be I on the right road for police headquarters?” the man asked.
“Well, you can get there this way, if you keep going far enough,”
replied Larry. “But the Bronx station is nearer. Why, have you been
robbed?”
“No, I hain’t, young feller. Burglars has got t’ git up pretty middlin’
early in th’ mornin’ t’ rob Hank Meldron. That’s my name. But I want a
detective, or some one like that, and I reckoned police headquarters
was th’ place t’ find ’em.”
“It is, but there are some attached to the Bronx station. What is the
trouble?” asked Larry, scenting a story at once.
“Matter? Matter enough, I reckon. I want t’ give information about a
boy bein’ held in captivity near my place, that’s what I want t’ do!
It’s suthin’ scandalous th’ way he’s being treated. I’m goin’ t’ notify
th’ police at once!”
A boy in captivity! Larry was all excitement at once. He saw big
possibilities here.