“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Hosfer, as he watched Mr. Newton place what was left of the blue paper in his pocket.
“I mean that I have a clew to the persons who blew open the safe,” said Mr. Newton. “As soon as I saw that paper which Larry found, with the blue marks on it, I thought it might have been used by the burglars. I was at a loss to know what could have caused the marks, but you, Mr. Hosfer, have solved that problem for me. I think I can manage the rest.”
“But can’t the blue marks wash off?” asked Larry. “What good is the clew then?”
“No! The blue marks will not come off!” exclaimed Mr. Newton. “Will they, Mr. Hosfer?”
“Not for some time,” replied the chemist. “I see now what Mr. Newton is driving at. He is going to solve a horrible, a dastardly, soul-curdling, bloody mystery. The blue marks will not come off. It is a peculiar feature of certain forms of nitric acid, and also of nitro-glycerine, which is made from the acid, that they will stain the skin a bluish color. This color will not come off until the skin wears off, and, as that takes some time, you may be sure that your blue-handed man will have to go around for a number of weeks with the marks on his fingers and thumb. I see what Mr. Newton is up to now. Oh, but you’re a sly dog!”
“It’s mostly a matter of luck,” replied the reporter. “You have been of great service to us, Mr. Hosfer.”
“To think I should be mixed up in a terrible, fearful, awful, shocking, sensational affair like this,” spoke the chemist, with a smile, as though it was the best fun in the world. “That comes of having a reporter for a friend.”
“Well,” said Mr. Newton, “you ought to be glad of a chance to aid the ends of justice by discovering the safe-robber.”
“All I ask is to be let alone with my experiments,” said Mr. Hosfer. “At the same time, if Justice thinks I’m entitled to anything, I might say I have my living to earn, and it’s none too easy a task.”
“I’ll speak to Justice about it,” said Mr. Newton, with a laugh.
Mr. Newton and Larry now took their leave. They had found out what they wanted to know, or at least Mr. Newton had, for Larry had no suspicion of the object of the visit to the chemist’s.
“What are you going to do next?” asked the lad of Mr. Newton.
“I’m going to begin a search for the blue-handed man,” was the answer. “I want you to help me. This will be aside from our regular work on the Leader, though if we are successful, it will mean that we’ll get a good story for the paper. We may have to work nights, and at other times when we’re not busy in the office or on assignments. Do you want to go in for it?”
“Of course I do,” replied Larry.
“There’s no reward offered, as far as I know,” went on Mr. Newton. “The firm is insured in a burglary concern, I understand, so they are not worrying about the loss. But it would be a fine thing if you and I could trace the thieves by reason of this piece of blue-marked paper.”
“It certainly would,” rejoined Larry. “I’ll do my best.”
The next day Mr. Newton had a talk with Mr. Emberg on the matter. He explained about the blue-marked paper, and told how Larry had found it, and how it might form a clew to the identity of the burglars.
Mr. Newton told how he and Larry had formed a plan of hunting for the blue-handed man, and secured permission to leave the office early afternoons, with Larry, on the trail of the safe-blowers.
For several days, however, there was so much to do around the office or out on assignments, that neither Larry nor Mr. Newton had a chance to work on their quest. They did not forget it, however. One afternoon Larry found a note on his desk asking him to call at Mr. Newton’s house that night, as the older reporter had to go out on a late story.
When Larry reached his friend’s house, he found that Mr. Newton had just come in.
“You almost beat me, Larry,” said Mr. Newton, pleasantly. “But I’ll be ready for you in a few minutes, as soon as I have a bite to eat. I’m rather hungry.”
“Is it about the blue-handed man?” asked Larry.
“That’s what it’s about,” was the reply. “That is, not exactly him, but we’re going to get on his trail, and, perhaps, we can land some of his confederates.”
A little later Mr. Newton explained his plan. It was that he and Larry would take every chance they had of going about in the slums of New York, for there it was that they might most naturally expect to find the man they sought.
“I don’t believe any of the gang of safe-blowers has left New York,” said Mr. Newton. “I have talked with the detectives about the matter, and they are sure that the criminals are hiding here. The trouble is, New York is such a big place it makes an excellent place to hide. The detectives have been over every clew, but they have succeeded very poorly so far. There’s not a trace of the men or the missing valuables.”
“Wouldn’t it be a joke if we got ’em!” said Larry.
“Almost too good a joke to be true,” was Mr. Newton’s reply.
The two reporters laid their plans, and put them into operation the next day. All the time they could spare from their office work they used in tramping about the worst parts of New York. Mr. Newton “knew the ropes” from having been on frequent assignments to localities where happenings grave and gay had occurred.
Together they went through the Bowery, into Chinatown, with its Joss houses, heavy with the smell of incense sticks, into Chinese dwellings where the reek of opium lingered, and into dives of all sorts.
All the while they sought but one man, a man who had blue hands, or blue marks on his fingers and thumbs. They were not interested in faces or clothes. All they looked at was hands.
For two weeks they kept up this tiresome work. They had any number of strange experiences. Once they came near to being caught in a raid the police made on a certain place, where, it was said, Chinese gambling was carried on. Again they were in places where fierce fights started, and where the first thing that happened was that the lights went out. But each time they came through all right.
All this while, however, their quest seemed to be fruitless. They could not find the man they sought. They made guarded inquiries, for they did not want it known what their object was, in frequenting the slums. But they did not meet with any success.
Once, indeed, they thought they were on the right track. A woman, of whom they inquired if she had ever seen a man with blue marks on his hands, replied:
“Yes, sure. He lif by me!”
“He lives with you!” exclaimed Larry, thinking, perhaps, he had stumbled upon the wife of the man they sought.
“I means in de same houses,” explained the woman, who was German. “His hands is as blue like de skies. He iss de man vat you vant. His hands is blue as vat nefer vas. He vorks in a place where dey makes bluing for clothes. Ah! sure his hands iss blue, but he iss a goot man!”
“I’m afraid he’s not the man we are after,” said Mr. Newton. “The hands of the man we want are not blue all over, only part blue; a little blue.”
“Ah, den, I knows,” said the woman, with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“It iss his liddles boy vat you vants. His hands is littler as his fader’s, and dey iss not blue all over; only part blue. Ah, yes, I knows!”
Thanking the woman for her information, which, however, was of no value, Mr. Newton and Larry gave up their quest in that direction.
“We’ll have to start on a fresh trail in the morning,” said Mr. Newton, when he and Larry were eating a modest lunch in a cheap restaurant about twelve o’clock that night.
“It doesn’t seem as if we were going to succeed,” spoke Larry. “We’ve been at it a good while, and haven’t accomplished anything.”
“Don’t give up so easily,” counseled Mr. Newton. “I’ve been on the trail of stories for several months before I landed ’em. This business isn’t done in a day.”
The restaurant was almost deserted. At a table in the rear three men sat eating. Larry and Mr. Newton had paid no attention to them. As the men got up to go out they went close by the table where the two reporters sat. As they went by one of them said:
“I suppose Noddy will be helping us again soon.”
To this one of the other men made this rather strange reply:
“Not until he can take his gloves off. You know, he’s all blue from that last affair!”
“Hush!” cautioned the third man, with a glance at the table where the two reporters were sitting, but who could not be seen very clearly, as their chairs were in a shadow.
“Did you hear what he said?” asked Larry, when the men had gone out.
“I did,” replied Mr. Newton, with some show of eagerness. “It may have referred to our man, and again, and more likely, it may not. I wonder who those men were?”
“I know who one was,” said Larry.
“Who?” exclaimed Mr. Newton.
“I don’t know his name,” spoke the lad, “but he’s the same man who called on my mother that second time to ask her to sell him the Bronx property.”
“Are you sure?” asked Mr. Newton, half rising from his seat.
“Very sure.”
“Then I think we are on the trail,” said Mr. Newton.
“Why?”
“Because that man is a sort of lawyer who stands in with criminals of all kinds. He defends them when it is necessary, and helps them out of trouble. Of course, it may be only a coincidence, but I’m almost certain now, that he knows something of the blue-handed man we are seeking. Now we begin to see a little ray of light. We have been working in the dark up to now. I know where to start.”
“Can we do any more to-night?” asked Larry.
“I think not. You’d better go home and go to bed. In the morning I’ll commence in another direction. I have a friend, a detective, who will help us.”
So Larry started home. He would have gone much faster than he did, had he known what strange news awaited him.
When Larry was walking along a street that led to the thoroughfare on which he lived, he was suddenly brought to a halt in front of a brilliantly-lighted cigar store, by hearing someone exclaim:
“Well, if there isn’t my old friend, Larry Dexter! How are you, Larry? Still on the Leader?”
Larry turned, to behold Peter Manton, a former copy boy on the newspaper, a lad with whom Larry had had numerous fallings out, and once quite a fight. He had not seen Peter often since the memorable race to get first to the telegraph office with news of the big flood.
“How do you do?” asked Larry, not very cordially, for he felt that Peter was an enemy.
“I’m fine,” replied Peter. “What’s your hurry? Wait, and I’ll buy you a cigarette.”
“I don’t smoke cigarettes,” rejoined Larry, not caring to announce that, as yet, he did not smoke at all.
“Well, don’t get mad,” said Peter, good-naturedly. “I suppose you have a grudge against me?”
“Well,” replied Larry, frankly, “I think you acted pretty mean when you smashed my boat.”
“I guess I did,” admitted Peter. “But you must remember I was very anxious to get my copy on the wire first.”
“So was I,” added Larry, “and I beat you,” and he could not help smiling at the recollection.
“And you got me fired by it,” spoke Peter, with an injured air.
“How was that?” asked Larry, for though he had seen Peter since the episode, he had not had a chance to talk to him.
“When the people on the Scorcher found out I was responsible for your paper beating them they told me to look for another position. I didn’t have much trouble finding one, though.”
“Where are you now?” asked Larry, thinking it would be no more than common politeness to ask. He was anxious to get home, however, and not very much interested in Peter or his projects.
“Oh, I’m with the Universal Real Estate Company,” said Peter. “I have a swell job. Mr. Perkins is a great friend of mine.”
Larry started. He recollected that it was the same company and the same man who had approached him, and who had seemed so anxious about the deed to the Bronx property. He decided he would not be in such a hurry to go home, but would make further inquiries from Peter. It might lead to something, he thought.
“I wonder you don’t give up the newspaper business,” went on Peter. “It’s hard work and poor pay. Maybe I could get you into our firm,” and he spoke as though he was the senior partner.
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Larry, as if he was thinking of the matter. “I have very little knowledge of real estate.”
“You don’t have to have,” spoke Peter. “You could get along all right. All you have to do is to go around and see people, get descriptions of property, and keep a few books. It’s heaps easier than chasing copy.”
“I’m not chasing copy any more,” replied Larry. “I’m a regular reporter.”
“That’s worse,” went on Peter. “You never know when you’re through working. Now I finish by three o’clock every day, and have the rest of the time to myself.”
“Does your firm do much business?” asked Larry.
“You bet. And say, it’s going to do more. If you came in with us now I could put you on to a good thing. There’s going to be a big raise in land values in a certain locality in a little while, and our firm’s going to make a lot of money.”
“Where is the land?” asked Larry, carelessly.
“Don’t you wish you knew?” sneered Peter. “I’m not telling everyone. But, if you like, I’ll speak to Mr. Perkins for you.”
“You might,” said Larry, thinking it would be no harm to get as much information as possible. “I’d like to make some money.”
During this time the two youths had been standing in front of the cigar store. Larry was thinking it was about time for him to move on, as he did not want to arouse Peter’s suspicions by too many questions, when a short, stout, and dark-complexioned man came hurrying around the corner.
“I was afraid you’d gone,” the man said to Peter.
“No, I was talking with a friend of mine,” replied the former copy boy on the Leader. “Are you through?”
“Yes,” replied the man. “But I had no success.”
Larry looked idly at the stranger. He noticed he wore gloves, and this, at first glance, struck him as peculiar, for the night was warm. Still this fact was not so surprising, and Larry’s mind was about to pass over the incident when his eye happened to catch a glimpse of something blue about the man’s hand.
At first he thought it was the edge of a blue cuff. He looked again, more closely, and was startled to see that part of the glove was turned back at the wrist, and that the flesh which showed was deep blue in color.
Larry was so startled by the sight, so alarmed at the unexpected appearance of the blue mark, bringing as it did to his mind a recollection of the safe robbery, that he was afraid the man might notice his surprise. But Peter’s acquaintance did not pay any attention to Larry. He seemed in a hurry, and anxious to be moving on.
Larry began to wish that there might be some excuse for remaining longer in the company of Peter and the man. Yet he was afraid that if he did so, the stranger might suspect something, and hurry away before Larry had a chance to communicate with Mr. Newton.
In order to be sure of the person when he saw him again Larry looked closely at him. He saw that he had piercing black eyes, a nervous manner, a small, black mustache which he pulled at from time to time, and there was a small scar under his left eye.
“I’ll know him if I ever see him again,” thought Larry.
The man seemed ill at ease. Suddenly he discovered that the edge of his glove was turned back. With a quick motion he buttoned the article up.
As he did so he glanced sharply at Larry, as if anxious to know whether the lad had noticed anything. Larry pretended that his shoelace needed tying, and stooped over to avoid meeting the fellow’s look. As Larry straightened up he heard the stranger call out:
“Come on, Peter. There’s our car,” and, before Larry could have stopped them, had he desired to, or thought it wise, they were running after it.
“Well, that’s finding a man and losing him in a hurry,” thought Larry. “I wonder what I’d better do?”
At first he thought of calling on Mr. Newton. But as the reporter lived quite a distance away Larry decided this would not be wise. Then he thought he would call his friend up on the telephone. But the idea of talking about the blue-handed man over the wire, where anyone might hear it, did not seem to be exactly right.
“I’ll wait until morning,” thought Larry. “We can’t do anything now. Besides we’re on the right trail. I know where to find Peter, and maybe I can get some information out of him.”
With this end in view Larry proceeded on his way home. It was getting close to midnight, and he was a little worried lest his mother be alarmed over his long absence. He found her waiting for him.
“Oh, Larry!” she exclaimed. “You have given me such a fright!”
“Why, mother, what’s the matter?”
“Oh, I thought perhaps those men had done you some harm.”
“What men?”
“Why, the ones who are trying to get the deed away from us.”
“Have they been bothering you again?”
“Yes. One was here a while ago.”
“Was it anyone that had been here before?” he asked.
“No, this was a different one. He came in about nine o’clock when the children were in bed, and Lucy and I sitting here. He seemed nice at first, and then he began to ask me about the deed. He said you had sent him.”
“Me, mother? I never sent anyone.”
“Well, that’s what he said. He wanted me to sign an agreement to sell the property.”
“I hope you didn’t sign, mother.”
“No, I didn’t, Larry, and when I refused the man was very angry. He tried to hide his feelings, but I could see he was mad. Then he wanted to look at the deed, but I remembered what you had said, and I would not show it to him. Pretty soon he went away, but I was very much frightened.”
“What sort of a looking man was he?”
“Rather short, and dark-complexioned. He had a little black mustache which he kept pulling at all the time, and there was a scar under his left eye.”
Larry started as he heard these details. He began to see who the man was.
“Did you notice anything else about him, mother?”
“Nothing special, except that he kept his gloves on all the while he was here.”
“Are you sure of that, mother?”
“Of course, Larry. I spoke of it to Lucy afterward. I even asked him to take them off, as it was rather warm.”
“What did he say?”
“He seemed quite excited, and buttoned up one that had come open.”
“Did you notice anything else?”
“No, I didn’t, but Lucy did. She spoke to me about it afterward. She said she caught a glimpse of the man’s wrist where the glove was turned back, and it seemed to be of a red color.”
“A red color!” exclaimed Larry.
“I mean blue,” went on Mrs. Dexter. “She said it looked as if the man worked in a bluing factory. Perhaps that is why he kept his gloves on. He did not want people to see his blue hands.”
“I guess that’s the reason,” said Larry, trying to speak calmly. But he was greatly excited. The plot, which seemed to involve him and his folks in the safe-robbing, seemed to be growing more tangled.
Larry decided it would be better not to tell his mother anything concerning the blue-handed man, or his connection with the safe-robbery. He felt it would only make her worry, and would be of no particular good.
“I’ll solve this thing myself,” thought the young reporter. “I guess Mr. Newton and I can do it.”
So, after a few more questions, and added injunctions to his mother never to let the deed go out of her possession, Larry went to bed.
His mother soon sought her room, and presently the household was quiet. It was now past midnight, and everyone in the tenement seemed to be asleep.
It was rather a quiet neighborhood, and persons living in it were not in the habit of staying up late. The policemen whose beats took in those streets seldom paid a visit to them, for they knew there would not, in all likelihood, be any disturbances.
It grew a little cooler as the night wore on, and people who had been kept awake by the previous hot spell were making up for their lost sleep.
If any persons in the tenement, or apartment, where Larry and his mother lived, had been awake about three o’clock that morning they might have wondered at the sight of two figures stealthily creeping up through the side alleyway that led to the rear cellar door, and the stairs leading to the back doors of the various rooms. Two dark figures there were, moving along, almost as silently as shadows.
Now and then they would stop and whisper together, but, so quiet were their voices and so silent their steps that not a person heard them.
The policeman on the beat came to the head of the street, and looked down it. He saw nothing. How could he see the two figures in the alley? The officer remarked:
“It’s all quiet there. What’s the use of walking down? I’ll just go over to the avenue, and have a chat with Hennessy, and smoke a cigar before the roundsman comes along.”
So the policeman passed away. Meanwhile the two dark figures crept on. In a little while they had reached the cellar door. Cautiously one of the men drew from his pocket a small instrument like a cold chisel or a screwdriver, except that it had no wooden handle. One edge was broad and sharp, like a wedge.
The man went close to the cellar door. He put the edge of the instrument between the door and the jamb, close to the lock. There was a little crackling sound, hardly enough to waken the lightest sleeper.
“Is it all right?” whispered the man who had remained on guard outside the cellar door.
“All right,” was the whisper in return.
“Then go ahead and start the blaze. Don’t make much of a one. Put it near the dumbwaiter shaft, so the smoke will go up quickly. Use wet paper. It makes more smoke.”
“Go ahead,” came back, in whispered accents. “I’ll do my part, if you do yours. Do you know where they keep the papers?”
“Sure. Under the bed,” was the answer. “The old lady gave it away when I was talking to her to-night, only she never knew it.”
Then, while one of the men made his way into the cellar, the other began creeping up the rear stairs of the apartment house. And, if one had looked closely at the man who was creeping upstairs, they would have seen that his hands were encased in gloves, though it was summer time and quite hot.
Up and up he went, step by step, trying each one, to be sure it did not creak, before he trusted his weight on it. Now and then he would stop, and peer on all sides of him. Then he would listen to catch the faintest sound. But there was no noise. Not even the step of the policeman on the beat disturbed him. From afar came the hum of the big city, the roar of cars and elevated trains, the throb of traffic in the metropolis that never goes to sleep, but in the neighborhood of the tenement house all was quietness.
All at once the man on the steps began to sniff the air, like an animal scenting danger from afar.
“He’s started the fire! I can smell the kerosene oil!” he said, softly. “Now for the final scene!”
Carefully he walked along until he came to the door that led into the kitchen of the Dexter apartments. From his pocket he drew forth a small instrument similar to that which the other man had used. He placed the sharp edge between the door and the jamb, close to the lock. He pried on it. There was a slight crack, and the door had been opened with a burglar’s jimmy.
An instant later there broke out on the night air that most dreaded of all alarms in the midst of the crowded population of New York’s poor:
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
That was the cry that smote on the ears of those who were suddenly awakened from their slumbers.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
How it echoed down into the yard! How it sounded into the sleeping rooms! How it penetrated down the street, and even farther to where the policeman was smoking a cigar before the roundsman came!
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Up through the tenement poured a volume of thick smoke. Thick, stifling vapor that rolled up through the dumbwaiter shaft, that penetrated to the rooms, and set the frightened tenants to coughing.
What a scramble there was then! What a hurrying and scurrying to leap from bed, to grasp whatever garments came nearest to hand, to wrap them about one, and then, if there were children, to grab them up, and run for the hall!
What a scene of terror succeeded what, but a few minutes before, had been a peaceful one! Frightened yells and screams mingled with the alarm of fire shouted by a loud voice. Children began to cry. Women laughed hysterically, and men called to one another to know where the blaze was, for no flames could be seen. Only there was that black and stifling smoke.
The man who had so stealthily crept up the stairs suddenly leaped into the kitchen of the Dexter home.
“Fire! Fire!” he exclaimed. “Hurry up out! The house is on fire!”
Mrs. Dexter screamed. Mary and Jimmy began to cry. Lucy slipped on a robe, and ran into her mother’s room. Larry leaped from his bed, and, pausing only to pull on his trousers, ran to where the others had gathered in the hall.
“Are you all out?” shouted the man, in the darkness. “Come on. I’ll carry the little boy. You take the little girl, lad. The other girl can help the old lady!”
Then grabbing up Jimmy, the man, whose hands were encased in gloves, half led, half pushed the little group on before him. Larry, dazed from sleep, grabbed up Mary, and, seeing that Lucy was leading her mother safely down, followed; the man bringing up the rear with Jimmy, who was hardly awake.
“Is the house on fire?” asked Larry.
“Sure! Can’t you smell the smoke?” asked the man.
“I mean is it bad?” cried Larry. “Because if it isn’t I must go back for some of our clothes and things.”
“Don’t stop for that now,” the man exclaimed. “You’ll be all burned up! Save your lives first!”
In all the excitement of it Larry could not help wondering where he had heard that voice before. But there was little time to think of this.
Down the stairs they ran, being joined by other tenants from every floor, all of whom were fleeing in scant attire. The cries of “fire” were being called now by scores of voices.
In about a minute, though it seemed five times as long as that, Larry, his mother, and all the others had emerged on the street. They found themselves in the midst of a motley throng, but in the excitement no one seemed to mind the strangeness of the attire.
One man was carrying two pillows, while his wife had a bird cage. Another man was trying to put his trousers on for a coat, and a third was endeavoring to drag a brass bed down the stairs.
Then came a shrill tooting whistle followed by the gallop of horses.
“The engines are coming!” cried Larry. “Get back out of the way, mother. Here, Jimmy, you and Mary stay close to me. We’ll go into one of these other houses. The fire doesn’t seem to be bad. Then I must go back after that box of papers.”
The man with the gloves, who had roused the Dexter family, had placed Jimmy down on the sidewalk.
“I’m going back to rescue some more!” he cried, as he sped up the smoke-filled hallway. He seemed anxious to save human lives even at the risk of his own.
By this time half a score of engines and trucks had drawn up in front of the tenement, summoned by the alarm the policeman had turned in.
The various apparatus had not come to a halt before dozens of firemen had leaped to the ground, and run into the house. They wasted no time. While some sprang up the stairs to rescue any persons who had been left behind, others sought the source of the blaze. They soon discovered it to be in the cellar.
Lighting the way with lanterns they carried they dashed down, not minding the choking smoke.
“Run in a chemical line!” shouted a battalion chief through a small megaphone he carried. “It’s only a pile of rubbish on fire. We don’t need any water.”
Quickly a small hose from the chemical engine was unreeled. The engineer turned a crank at one end of a big cylinder, and a bottle inside which contained vitriol was smashed, allowing the contents to mingle with a strong solution of soda water. This created carbonic-acid gas, and forced the mingled liquids out through the hose at high pressure.
On to the blazing pile of rubbish the chemicals were turned, and the little blaze, which was more of smoke than of fire, was soon out.
“It’s all over!” cried the battalion chief, five minutes later. “You can go back to bed!”
The people began to laugh hysterically, so sudden was the relief from anxiety. Several could not believe but what the house was doomed. The firemen, however, assured them there was no danger. Through the open windows the smoke was soon blown away. The engines started back to quarters.
“Come on, mother,” said Larry. “I guess we can go back now.”
“Golly! Wasn’t that just like a circus!” exclaimed Jimmy.
Up the stairs the Dexters went. On the way they were joined by scores of other tenants, all talking at once.
“I wonder if my papers and that deed are safe,” thought Larry.
As soon as he got back to his bedroom he looked for the box. He crawled under the bed, and felt about.
“That’s queer,” he mused. “I’m sure it was here!”
He made a hurried search of the room. The box had disappeared.
“We’ve been robbed during the fire!” exclaimed Larry.
“Robbed!” cried Mrs. Dexter. “I hope no one has taken my gold breastpin and my ring!”
“I hope they didn’t take my book of fairy stories!” came from Jimmy.
“Do you mean thieves have been in here during the fire?” asked Lucy, as she sat down on a chair in the kitchen.
“That’s what I mean,” replied Larry. “The box of papers, in which the deed to the Bronx land was kept, is gone.”
“Perhaps you took it out with you, in your excitement,” suggested Mrs. Dexter.
“No,” replied Larry. “I know we have been robbed. The more I think of it the more I believe the fire was only a make-believe one, started to scare us so we would get out and give the thief a chance to work.”
Mrs. Dexter could hardly credit this, but Larry insisted he was right. The firemen went through the building to make sure there were no lurking sparks, and some of them said the blaze had amounted to nothing more than a small bit of rubbish on fire in the cellar, which confirmed Larry’s belief.
He said nothing more to his mother, however, as she was much excited over the fire. Soon they returned to bed, though Mary and Jimmy were the only ones who slept much afterward, as the others were too nervous.
Larry was much puzzled. That bold and daring men were plotting against the welfare of himself and his relatives he had little doubt. He was convinced that the blaze was only started for the purpose of giving someone an opportunity of getting possession of the deed.
“If they go to such lengths to get it, there must be something very valuable about it,” thought Larry.
Long and earnestly he thought over the matter. He recalled the man who had rushed into their apartments to notify them of the fire, and his suspicions grew that he had heard his voice somewhere before.
“I wonder if he could be someone whom I have been to see to get a story for the paper,” thought Larry.
He reviewed as well as he could the men he had called on since he had been a reporter. None of them seemed to fit.
“I know!” the lad exclaimed to himself, as he tossed on his bed in the darkness; “he’s the man who came up while I was talking to Peter. He’s the man who kept his gloves on when he came to see mother. He’s the blue-handed man!”
Once he had established this fact to his satisfaction, Larry’s mind worked quickly. That there was some connection between the blue-handed man’s operations, the safe-robbery, and the theft of the deed, Larry had no doubt.
“Things are getting into a strange mix-up,” thought the young reporter. “As soon as I think I am on the track of one part of the mystery it gets all tangled up with another part. I would like to catch that blue-handed man. Then, I believe, I would have one of the safe-robbers, I might get the deed back, and learn what is behind this land matter. It might make us wealthy. I wish it would.”
Finally, after much thinking over of the problems without result, Larry dropped off into a doze. When he awoke it was broad daylight, and the only thing to remind him of the night’s excitement was a heavy odor of smoke in the rooms. The whole house smelled as though someone had been curing hams in it.
Larry made a hasty breakfast, for it was getting late. Before he started for the office he made a search of the rooms, hoping against hope that he might come across the box of papers. But it was nowhere to be seen. He crawled under the bed, and lighted a match.
There in the dust, close to the wall, was the mark where the box had stood. Close by was a small, dark object.
“I wonder what that is,” thought Larry.
He reached for it. It was soft. Wonderingly he carried it to the light and examined the article. It was a man’s glove.
“I don’t remember losing any of mine,” he thought.
He looked at the glove more closely. It was too large to have ever fitted his hand. He turned it inside out. To his surprise the lining was streaked with blue, and there was a peculiar odor.
“This was worn by the blue-handed man!” whispered Larry, excitedly. “He has been here! There is no doubt now but that he took the box! I will save this for evidence in case I ever catch him!”
Larry had a number of assignments that day, taking him to various parts of the city. He had to attend a brief session of a church society, then he had to get an obituary of a well-known business man, next he had to cover a session of a subcommittee of the Board of Aldermen, and finally he was sent to see a man who offered to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge backward, provided some other person would jump with him, for a wager.
So Larry was rather tired out when afternoon came, and the Leader had gone to press for the last edition. He wanted a chance to tell Mr. Newton what had happened, and ask his advice.
“Now what would you do?” asked Larry, when he had finally told the older reporter about the fire.
“I wouldn’t do anything,” replied Mr. Newton. “That is, right away. If you go to the police, which is the most natural thing to do, in case of a robbery, these men—for I am sure now that there is a gang of them—will know it very shortly. In some mysterious way the thieves learn what the police know almost as soon as the authorities find things out themselves.”
“What would you do then?” asked Larry.
“I’d just keep quiet,” was the answer. “The thief, or thieves, are waiting to see what you will do. If you can fool them, so much the better. They must be desperate, or they would not venture to take the deed. To make any use of it they must forge signatures, and that is a risky proceeding.
“I am beginning to see what they are up to. I heard a rumor the other day of a plan that will enormously increase real estate values up in the Bronx section. It may be that the gang is behind this. Now while they have an advantage over you in that they have the deed, there is a certain element of risk in it for them. Deeds are bad things to monkey with.”
“What do you think they’ll do?” asked Larry.
“Wait and see,” replied Mr. Newton. “I am in the dark, just as much as you are. We can only wait. It may be that they took the deed in order to gain some hold over you, to force you to do what they want, and sell them the property.”
“Do you think there is any connection between the man who was in to see my mother—the man who took the deed—and the man who was in the safe-blowing gang?” asked Larry, anxious to know how sound his own theories were.
“I think the same man is concerned in all three transactions. The thing to do now is to catch him. If we do we can have him arrested on suspicion of the safe-robbery, and then we can work up the land matter. But wait a few days before you do anything, and if anything new turns up, let me know.”
The next day Mr. Newton was sent out of town on an assignment. Larry, too, had his hands full, for several reporters were on vacations, and it meant doubling up all around. One afternoon, chancing to look over the “personal” advertisement column of the paper, he saw the following:
“BLUE.—If return of document is desired from the fire, L. had better insert personal, making arrangements to sell land. Otherwise will suffer. Address, Mr. Hand.”
“That’s rather odd,” thought Larry. “It almost seems as if it was meant for me, and as if it was put in by the blue-handed man.”
The more he looked at it the more certain he was that some one of the gang had become afraid to try and use the deed illegally, and had taken this means of frightening him and his mother into complying with the gang’s wishes.