CHAPTER XXV
A HAPPY MOTHER—CONCLUSION
“And so they came ashore in a small boat,” mused Larry, as he neared the hotel. “I begin to see what happened. Either their machinery gave out, and they had to leave their craft, or they were afraid to land in her, for fear of arousing suspicion. But I think this is the beginning of the end.”
He walked up to the clerk’s desk in the hotel.
“Two men and a boy,” began Larry briskly. “The boy is ill. You have them here?”
He was determined to play a bold game now. It was near the end, he believed, and there was no time for dilly-dallying. He must chance all on a single throw. True, he might be mistaken, but the signs of the trail looked good.
“Yes, they are here,” replied the hotel clerk. “The boy was quite ill, but I believe he is better now. He was sick on the water, they said. Italians, all of them, if I’m any judge. They spoke of getting a doctor, and if you——”
“I’ll go right up!” exclaimed Larry, anxious to take advantage of the clerk’s half-formed idea.
“Front!” called the clerk, ringing a bell to summon a boy to escort Larry to the room of the strangers.
“Never mind. I can find my way if you tell me the number,” interrupted the young reporter. For the work he had in hand he wanted no bell-boy to announce his coming.
“All right,” spoke the clerk indifferently. “Room ten on the first floor. It’s in the rear.”
“They always seem to choose the rear,” mused Larry, as he started up the stairs, for there was no elevator. The hotel was little more than a boarding house. “Always the rear. They want to be in a position to escape if they have to, I guess, as Parloti did before, down the fire-escape.
“I wonder if I’ll find him here? His name wasn’t on the register, though of course he wouldn’t go under that name now.” Larry had had a brief glance at the hotel book, and saw where the three strangers had registered. The names were not familiar to him.
The hall of the first floor was not well lighted, but Larry could make out the numbers on the doors of the rooms. He paused for a moment in front of Number Ten, and listened. He heard a low, sobbing sound, and then a voice spoke angrily in Italian. It was a man’s voice. Another answered.
There was a brief and somewhat heated conversation. Then came more sobs—sobs in the tone of a boy! Larry gritted his teeth. He heard a boy’s voice pleading, and a man’s answering in passion.
The young reporter had made not a sound as he approached. He felt that he was at the right room.
“I’ve got them at last!” he exulted, clenching his fists and shutting his teeth grimly. “This is the end.”
In a flash his plan was made. He knew it would not do to knock, and wait for an invitation to enter. Suspicious as the men would naturally be, anyhow, after the chase of the day they would be doubly so.
“I’ve got to break in on them!” thought Larry. “These doors aren’t very strong. The locks are old-fashioned. Here’s for a football rush!”
He backed across the hall, and, with all the speed he could gather, he leaped at the door, aiming with his shoulder at the place where he saw the knob and lock.
With a crash that fairly shook the floor, the door burst inward. Larry’s hat flew off into the hall. Straight into the room he plunged, and such was his impetus that he knocked over a table, scattering the books on it to the floor.
In a flash he noted the occupants. Two men and a boy—and the boy, at a glance, he knew for the stolen Lorenzo! He, with his dark, curling black hair, and his almost girlish face! In spite of what he had gone through the little lad was well dressed.
“Don’t be afraid, Lorenzo!” exclaimed Larry as soon as he could recover himself from the shock of having knocked over the table. “I’ve come to bring you back to your mother.”
The boy was wild-eyed with fright as he stood near the bed in the room, but a look of relief came over his face at Larry’s words. He murmured his thanks and sobbed—but happily.
As for the two men, after the first shock of the surprising entrance of the reporter, they sprang to their feet.
“Who are you? What do you want? How dare you break in here?” demanded one.
“You’ll find out soon enough who I am, and why I came!” cried Larry boldly. “I came for that boy. We chased you in the motorboat to-day, and now I’ve found you. Come on in!” he yelled, looking back at the smashed door, as though he had a force to aid him.
“It is all up! Fly!” yelled the other man, adding something in Italian to his companion.
Larry had a glimpse of a second room opening out of the bed-chamber. It was a room with a fire-escape showing at the window. The man made for this, calling to his companion to follow. But the latter, with an angry cry, sprang toward the boy.
Fearing that some harm might be intended the lad, Larry, with a quick motion, leaped over the upset table. In a second he confronted the man. Baffled in his intention, the fellow raised his hand to strike our hero.
But Larry was not there when the blow came. The young reporter cleverly dodged, and the kidnapper almost overbalanced himself. In a flash, Larry saw his advantage and hit out at him.
This blow found its mark, and the man went down with a crash that shook the room. He uttered a growl of rage as he scrambled to his feet, and again made a rush at our hero.
“That ought to bring help!” thought Larry as he stood on guard, after casting a glance at Lorenzo. “They must have heard him fall all over the hotel.”
But no one came, and the man, with a snarl of anger, again struck out. Larry dodged once more, and the boxing lessons he had taken stood him in good stead.
“It’s queer he doesn’t call out for help!” mused Larry rapidly. Indeed he had but little time to think of anything else but defending himself, and getting things in shape so that he might rescue the stolen boy. Silently, but with a look of hate on his face, the man recovered himself quickly, and made another attempt to hit Larry.
“I have it!” thought the young reporter. “This man dare not call out. He knows no one would come to help him! He daren’t give himself away. That’s why the other one skipped out! I’m going to tackle him, and make all the noise I want to!”
Larry dodged a severe blow, stooping down under the man’s arm, and the next instant he came up inside the guard of the kidnapper. There was a short, sharp struggle, in which the man was hurled forcibly against the wall, again jarring the whole room. But still no one came to interrupt the fight.
“I guess they must be used to rows like this in the hotel,” mused the young reporter.
But the fight could not last long. Out of the corner of his eye Larry could see that little Lorenzo was terribly frightened. The boy might get so alarmed that he would slip away, and then our hero would have all his tracing to do over again.
“I’m going to close in!” whispered Larry to himself, and, a moment later, he hurled himself on the kidnapper, catching him unawares, and nearly taking the wind out of him.
Larry forced the man against the wall, pinning him by the shoulder with his left hand, while he raised his right, ready to drive it into the kidnapper’s face.
“Give it up, you scoundrel!” cried Larry.
The man, with one look into the eyes of the young reporter, weakened. Larry had won, and he had captured at least one of the kidnappers, and recovered the stolen boy.
“Quick, Lorenzo!” cried Larry to the small chap. “Ring the bell for help. Keep pushing the button,” and he motioned to an electric one on the wall near the door. “Ring as if the place was on fire. I’ll attend to this chap.”
All the fight seemed to be taken out of the fellow. He was like a child in Larry’s grasp, though he was bigger than our hero. Lorenzo rang like mad, and soon the corridor outside the room was filled with bell-boys, chambermaids, waiters and porters. Then it was all up with the kidnapper. He was bound.
“There’s another, though!” cried Larry. “He went down the fire-escape. See if you can stop him. It may be Parloti, though it didn’t look like him. Then call the police to take this one. Lorenzo, I’m going to take you to your mother!”
“Oh, señor, the dear Lord will bless you for that!” cried the boy, as he fell weeping into Larry’s arms.
Eager hands took charge of the kidnapper, who was soon turned over to the police. A hasty search failed to disclose his confederate, who escaped, though eventually he was captured.
And then Larry performed what was one of the happiest acts of his life. He restored the stolen boy to his happy mother. In an automobile, one of the few in the town, the trip was made to the motorboat, and then to the hotel where Madame Androletti, Grace and Mr. Potter were stopping.
“Oh, mother!” cried Lorenzo, as he ran into her arms.
“My boy! My boy!” gasped the happy mother, and then when she had kissed him, her next caress was for Larry, who received it blushingly enough.
“I have two boys now,” said the singer proudly. “My own, and the one who brought my own to me.”
“But how on earth did you do it, Larry?” asked Grace, when some semblance to calmness had been restored. The young reporter told his story, modestly enough, and Lorenzo added to it.
“And how did they take you away?” inquired the singer of her son.
“It was in the theater where you sang that night,” he explained. “A man came to me as I stood in the wings. He said you wanted me to get something from your dressing-room. When he had me in a dark corner he put a cloth over my face. It smelled sweet and sickish.”
“Chloroform,” murmured Larry.
“Then I felt myself going down,” resumed the boy. “When I awoke we were in the cellar, under the stage. He had taken me down a trap-door.”
“And that is why none of the theater men saw you taken out,” spoke Madame Androletti.
“Yes,” said Lorenzo. “I was kept in the basement three days. Then again they made me unconscious. In fact, I was so weak all that time that I could not call out. I think they must have given me medicine to keep me quiet. Then they took me away. Where it was I do not know, but we always seemed to be on the move. We always went away at night. I think I was in New York part of the time. Then we went on trains and boats. At last I was kept for some time in one room. From there I sent the letter.”
“Detroit,” said Larry. “I was there soon after they took you away.”
“And from then on,” said Lorenzo, “we have been traveling about. I heard them say something like ‘You Ron’ and I wrote that on a piece of paper, and left it behind. I hoped some one would find it.”
“I did,” said Larry, with a smile. “It gave me the right clew to Lake Huron, though that was a new way to spell it.”
“And from then on we have been on the lake,” resumed the boy, as he sat with his arm around his mother. “They kept me below, most of the time, but I knew we were traveling. To-day they seemed worried. It was the night after the storm. Before the storm broke one of the men had gone off in a small boat.”
“That was when they cut our cable,” said the young reporter.
“Then came the fog,” said Lorenzo, “after we had run as fast as we could. Then our engine broke. I was sick from the waves. They put me in a small boat, left the motorboat afloat, and came ashore. Then—oh, how I begged them to let me go, but they would not. And—and—you came!” he exclaimed, with a bright look at Larry. “That is all!”
“But I can’t understand,” spoke the young reporter. “I’ve been expecting to run up against Parloti, or his two tools, all the while, and I haven’t seen them at all. Did they take you, Lorenzo?”
“No, not Parloti at all. I know him. Mother warned me against him, but he did not take me.”
“Then who was it?” asked Larry. He learned the whole story a little later.
It seems that Parloti, in spite of his denials, did plan to kidnap Lorenzo. The deed was to take place the same night the boy was really stolen, but some one got ahead of the big Italian. He had his two tools in the audience, and gave them the signal for ten o’clock, as Larry had seen.
But, in the meanwhile, a half brother of Parloti, by the name of Baston, who would have shared in the singer’s property had Parloti been able to get possession of it, grew impatient. Baston had several times urged his kinsman to act, and kidnap Lorenzo, but the latter had always some excuse.
Then Baston acted for himself. He managed to make a hiding place in the basement, under the stage, and took the boy there through a trap-door. He gained admission to the stage in the same way, unobserved. Then when the chance came, he fled with the boy and a companion—the same companion whom Larry captured in the hotel. It was Baston who escaped, but was arrested later. The reason he and his confederate did not demand a ransom was because they could not agree on a division.
Parloti was as much surprised as any one at the kidnapping of Lorenzo, and for a time could not understand it. No wonder he was annoyed at the attention Larry gave him.
Then Parloti got a letter. It was from his tool Ferrot, and read:
“The stolen boy will never be recovered. You had better come with us and take your chances. I have a new plan for getting possession of the property.”
It was the fragments of this letter which Larry and the detective found, and which caused them to think that Parloti was the guilty man. But he was not, though he would have been if he had had the chance. He fled to join Ferrot, whose plan, however, did not work. Nor could Parloti, with all his skill, get a trace of Lorenzo. It remained for Larry Dexter to find him. The threatening letter Larry received was from Parloti, who hoped to bluff the young reporter off the search.
“And so the mystery is cleared up!” exclaimed the young reporter, when all the explanations had been made. “And I’m glad of it.”
“And I can’t tell you how glad I am!” cried Madame Androletti, as she caressed her son, restored to her after so long. Though he had been treated meanly, Lorenzo soon recovered his health. He had been drugged a good part of the time, to prevent him from calling for help as his captors took him about the country in their frantic efforts to hide.
“And now to telegraph in the big story!” cried Larry, a little later on that night of excitement. “I guess it will be a ‘beat’ all right.”
And it was. The next day newsboys called through the streets of New York:
“Extra! Extra! Full account ob de findin’ ob de lost boy! Stolen boy recovered! Extra! Extra!”
“Say, I’m going to get out of the business,” complained Peter Manton, when he saw Larry’s exclusive story. “There’s no use bucking against such luck as Larry has.”
But we know that Larry’s luck consisted of a good deal of hard work.
In order to hasten the recovery of the lad Mr. Potter took him and his mother for a cruise on the Great Lakes. Larry went along, for his city editor decided that he was entitled to a vacation. And Larry very much enjoyed the trip. I might add that Miss Grace Potter was also on the Elizabeth.
In due time Madame Androletti resumed her farewell concert tour, and her son was well looked after, so there was no further danger of him being taken away. For that matter, those who had an interest in kidnapping him were serving long terms in prison.
“Oh, Larry, you don’t know how good it seems to have you back!” exclaimed his mother, as the young reporter came home after his vacation cruise on the lakes. “It seemed almost as if you were my stolen boy. You’re not going away again, are you?”
“Well, not right off, mother,” he replied. “I don’t know what my next assignment will be. I think I’ll make one for myself, and hug and kiss you all!” and he did, from his mother down to little James.
And now, after having followed Larry Dexter through a number of mysteries, which he successfully solved, we will take leave of him for a while.
THE END