Hardly able to drag one foot after another, so tired was he, Jimmy followed his captor to the stairs. Up two flights they went, until they came to the third-floor hall, then along that corridor until they reached a door that had a crude drawing of the rising sun painted upon it. The youth gave three raps, paused a second, rapped four times, and then thirteen times in quick succession. A little panel in the door opened, and a voice whispered:
“Who’s there?”
“The Mikado’s messenger,” was the youth’s answer. “Hurry up and let me in; don’t go through all the usual foolishness.”
“What does he bring?” the voice proceeded.
“A watermelon,” was the youth’s reply. “Come on now, Jake, it’s only——”
“Mention no names!” exclaimed the voice, seemingly in anger. “Remember your instructions.”
The next instant the door opened, and the youth, pushing Jimmy in front of him, entered, when the portal was quickly shut. The man who had been at the slide locked and barred the door, and then followed the youth and Jimmy down a passage that led toward a room where a light glowed.
“Who’s coming?” asked a voice from the room.
“It’s me,” replied the youth.
“Any luck?”
“Sure; I’ve got the kid.”
“No! Good for you, Peter!” and then, as the youth and Jimmy entered the room, a man, who seemed to be scrubbing his hands at a sink, looked up, and laughed. “Good enough, Peter,” he went on. “We’ll see what our friend Larry Dexter has to say now. He’ll sing a different tune, I guess.”
“What you doing?” asked Peter Manton, for it was the old copy boy of theLeaderwho had kidnapped Jimmy, and delivered him into the power of the gang.
“Trying to get rid of that blue stuff on my hands,” was the man’s answer. “It sticks worse than a porous plaster. I’ll not dare to go out now, for that reporter, Newton, will have every detective in New York looking for me, and if they see my hands, even in gloves, they’ll nab me, and the game will be up.”
“Do you think they’ll suspect you?” asked Peter.
“Suspect? They probably know for a certainty that I’m mixed up in this. Those reporters are no fools. They’re better than half the detectives.”
“Will they suspect me?” asked Peter, with something like a whimper in his voice.
“Of course, and if they get us you’ll have to take your medicine with the rest.”
“You said you’d protect me,” said Peter.
“So I will as much as I can,” replied the blue-handed man, “but I can’t fight the whole police force. I’ve done pretty well as it is.”
“I want the steam-engine and the kite,” said Jimmy, his voice trembling. “I want to go home! I want Larry!”
“We must keep him quiet,” the blue-handed man said. “Give him something to eat, and get out some kind of Chinese toys. He’ll be asleep pretty soon, if I’m any judge.”
Jimmy was ready to burst into tears. He had kept his courage up under the strangeness of being taken away from Larry, by the promise of the animals first, then the steam-engine, and next the kite. When none of these was forthcoming, the boy felt that he had been fooled, and this made him feel badly. Then, too, he was really frightened by the darkness and the strange man and place to which he had been brought.
“Here, kid!” called Peter, after rummaging in a closet, “here’s a fine jumping-jack,” and he gave Jimmy a Chinese toy.
It was arranged so that, by pressing two pieces of wood which formed the handle of the jumping-jack, the manikin would cut all sorts of queer capers. For a while this served to take Jimmy’s mind off his troubles.
“Now get him something to eat,” the blue-handed man ordered Peter. “The rest of the fellows will be coming here pretty soon, and we’ll have to talk business. Go out and get him some pie.”
“Pie’s no good for kids,” remarked Peter.
“No? Well, I used to like it when I was a youngster,” the man replied.
“It will give him the nightmare, and keep him awake,” spoke Peter. “I’d better give him crackers and milk.”
“All right, whatever you say. It’s so long since I’ve had anything to do with babies that I don’t know what they need. Now don’t you worry,” the blue-handed man went on, turning to Jimmy, while Peter got out the food. “I’m sorry we had to bring you here, but we’ll take good care of you, and if your friends do the right thing, you’ll soon be allowed to go.”
“I want to go now,” said Jimmy.
“I’d be glad to let you, I’m sure,” spoke the man, “if only that brother of yours would do what we want him to in the matter of land, we would. But, of course, you don’t understand about that.”
By this time Peter had fixed some crackers and milk for the little fellow, who was quite hungry. The blue-handed man resumed the work of trying to remove the stains of nitro-glycerine from his fingers, and while he ate Jimmy watched him curiously.
In a little while, however, Jimmy’s eyes began to grow more and more heavy, his head nodded lower and lower, and, almost before he knew it, he had fallen asleep.
“He’s off,” announced Peter.
“Well, put him to bed,” instructed the blue-handed man. “I’m glad he’s out of the way. Here come some of the fellows.”
As Peter was carrying Jimmy to a bed in an inner room, the sound of steps was heard in the hall. Then came the odd raps, such as Peter had given, and the questions and answers. Then the blue-handed man admitted three other men. They went to the main room, and while Peter prepared to go to bed in the same apartment where Jimmy was, all of the men sat about the table.
“Well, what’s the news?” asked one of the newcomers. “Getting the stains off, Noddy?”
“I wish you’d keep quiet about those stains,” said the blue-handed man, rather angrily. “I’m having trouble enough over them. But, for all that, I’ve done more than you have, Sam Perkins.”
“What have you done?”
“I’ve got the kid.”
“Which one, Larry or his brother?”
“His brother. Peter copped him to-night at the circus. He’s here now.”
“Good for you!” exclaimed Perkins. “That’s something like. Now we can go ahead with that land business. Alderman Beacham was saying the other day, if we didn’t pull the thing off pretty soon the committee would have to make a report. Once the thing becomes public our chance of making a fortune is gone.”
“I guess that Larry will come to time now,” remarked Noddy. “I’ll look for a personal from him in the papers to-morrow, saying he’s ready to sign the deed. I’m getting tired of keeping the paper around. It’s a dangerous document to be found on me.”
“I hope you have it in a safe place,” remarked one of the men, who had not yet spoken save to greet Noddy.
“The safest place in the world,” replied Noddy. He pointed to a mantelpiece, on which were a number of objects. One was what seemed to be a folded newspaper stuck behind a vase, and half showing. “There it is,” he said, indicating the newspaper.
“I don’t call that very secure,” remarked Perkins.
“It is, because it’s so simple,” argued Noddy. “If I had it in a safe or a strong-box, that would be the first place they would look for it if they broke in. But they’d never think of unfolding that piece of newspaper, because it’s so common. They’d say to themselves that I’d never be so foolish as to leave it in plain sight that way, and so they’d pass over it.”
“That’s a good idea,” admitted Dick Randall, the man who had asked about the deed.
“Well, what’s the next thing on the programme?” asked Noddy, after the men had lighted cigars which he produced.
“We’ll wait a few days until we hear from Larry, I think,” spoke Perkins.
“But if he don’t answer, and agree to do as we want?”
“Well, then, we’ll have to drop him a gentle hint that something is liable to happen to the kid here.”
“But you wouldn’t hurt the little fellow!” exclaimed Noddy. “I wouldn’t stand for that,” he went on. “I’m bad enough and desperate enough, as all of you know, but if there’s going to be any game that includes hurting a little chap, you can not only cut me out of it, but I’ll not stand for it, and I’ll——” and the blue-handed man seemed to be very much in earnest.
“Getting chicken-hearted?” sneered Perkins.
“Well, you can call it what you like,” went on Noddy, looking at his stained hands, “but I’m not as low as that yet. I want this deal to go through as much as any of you fellows, but I’ll not step over a certain line, and the sooner you know it the better.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ll peach on us?” asked Randall.
“Not unless I have to,” answered Noddy, calmly. “It depends on how far you go.”
“Noddy’s right,” remarked Randall, with a wink at the other two. “I’m opposed to hurting the child. We’ll only use him for scaring Larry and his mother into doing what we want. After all, we’re giving the young cub and the widow a fair price for this land. We’re taking a lot of risks, and it’s only fair we should be paid for ’em. It isn’t as if we were trying to get the land for nothing.”
“Oh, I’m with you in anything reasonable,” spoke the blue-handed man. “Only, don’t hurt the little kid. That’s my last word. I used to have a little boy once—before I went to the bad,” and he turned his head away.
For a long time the gang sat up and discussed their programme. Their talk revealed that they had laid a well-planned plot to get possession of Jimmy, in order to have a hold over Larry. They had watched and schemed to kidnap him, but Larry’s watchfulness had foiled them a number of times. At last, as has been seen, the opportunity came most unexpectedly.
Peter, who had been appointed to shadow Larry at different times, watched him set out for the circus. The former copy boy, whom association with bad men had made sharp-witted, had seen his chance in the Garden, and taken advantage of it.
Jimmy had been brought to one of the worst dens in New York’s Chinatown. It was hired by a gang of white men who were worse than the lowest Celestial criminals. The room, the door of which had a rising sun painted on it, was the headquarters of a notorious band of men.
The existence of the gang was known to the police, but so cunning were the members, and so elusive were they, that few, and only the least important, had ever been arrested.
It was into the power of this gang and to their headquarters that Jimmy had been brought, a fate which his worst enemy, provided he had one, would never have wished him.
“Well, we might as well break up,” said Randall, at length.
“I don’t see that we can do anything more,” remarked Perkins, “unless our legal friend here, Mr. Snyder, has some advice to give.”
“No,” replied the third member of the party, who had not yet spoken, “I think we’ll let things take their course. When I think you need advice I’ll give it.”
He smiled, and rubbed his hands together as though he was wrapping up ill-gotten money. He was a lawyer who had once been a brilliant member of the bar, but whose tricky practices had driven him from the courts. Now he was the official legal adviser of the Rising Sun crowd, and many was the scrape he had helped them out of. He also planned some crimes, and assisted in carrying them out.
“Well, get along, then,” said the blue-handed man. “I want to close up here, and get some sleep. I’ve got a family on my hands now,” and he laughed in a mirthless sort of way.
“We’ll see you to-morrow night,” remarked Perkins. “We may have some news by then that will relieve you of your charge.”
“I’m sure I hope so,” spoke Noddy, locking the door, as the three men went softly out.
He listened to their footsteps dying away down the hall. Then Noddy went into the room where Peter and Jimmy were. Both had fallen asleep; Jimmy’s face tear-stained, for he had wept when he found there were neither kites, steam-engines, nor even Larry to comfort him.
“Poor little kid,” sighed the blue-handed man. “I wish you were out of this. I’m sorry I ever went into the game, but now I’m in I suppose I’ll have to stay. Well, if they try to hurt you they’ll have me to reckon with,” and then, with another look at the little boy, and wiping what might have been tears from his eyes, Noddy went to his own bedroom.
When the Dexter household awoke the morning after the night on which Jimmy had disappeared, it seemed as if it was all a bad dream or nightmare. It did not seem possible that the little fellow was missing, and Larry, as he roused himself from his uneasy slumbers, and jumped out of bed, was half inclined to believe that it was all only a vision of the darkness.
But the absence of Jimmy’s cheerful call, silence in his room, and the lack of the child’s merry laugh, soon emphasized the fact that he was missing.
No one felt like eating breakfast, and Mrs. Dexter was so much affected that Larry feared she would become ill.
“Now, mother,” he said to her, “you must not worry so. I’ll admit there’s lots of cause for it, but we’ll find Jimmy sooner or later. He can’t be hurt. He’s probably, as I said, been taken by that gang, but it’s to their interest to keep him safe. He has a claim on the property the same as you or I have, and if any—any harm came to him it would only mix things up for them. You can depend on it, they’ll take very good care of Jimmy.”
“Do you think so?” asked Mrs. Dexter.
“Sure,” replied Larry. “Besides we’ll have him back in a few days, no matter where he is. Mr. Newton and I will start on the search. TheLeaderwill help us, and all the police in the city will lend a hand, as they are friendly toward our paper.”
“That’s right, mother,” chimed in Lucy. “Don’t worry, and I’m sure it will all come out right. I feel that Jimmy will come back safe to us.”
“I’ll try,” said Mrs. Dexter, wiping the tears from her eyes, “but it’s a terrible thing to have a little boy kidnapped.”
Larry made a light breakfast, and hurried to the office. Early as he was, he found Mr. Newton there before him. The older reporter showed the strain he was under, for he had slept but little. Pretty soon Mr. Emberg came in.
Mr. Newton soon explained the situation to the editor, and asked for a leave of absence for Larry and himself to enable them to trace down the gang and locate Jimmy.
“Of course you may go,” said the city editor. “Call on theLeaderfor any help you want, financial or otherwise. If you can get at this gang and break it up, or if you can get at the bottom of this land deal and make a story out of it, so much the better. Have your own way, your time is your own. Come back to work, Larry, when you find your brother and clear up the mystery.”
With this roving commission, Larry and Mr. Newton started away.
“Well, Larry,” remarked the older reporter, “we seem to be sort of up against it.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Larry, helplessly. “Mother is almost sick from worry, and if we don’t find Jimmy soon I don’t know what will happen.”
“Larry,” spoke Mr. Newton, solemnly, “we’re going to find the little fellow. I don’t pose as a prophet, and my predictions don’t always come true, but I’m going to succeed in this, and we’re not going to give in to those scoundrels, either. There’s something big in this for you and your mother, or I’m greatly mistaken. Otherwise the gang would not be so anxious to get that land. But we’re going to let that go for a while, and work only on clews that will lead to finding your brother. We’ll begin at the beginning, which is at the Garden, where he disappeared.”
The two reporters went to where the circus was holding forth. It was about ten o’clock in the morning, and the big arena had a very different appearance from the night before, when thousands of lights lent a glamour to the scene, and when gayly-dressed men and women added to the brilliance.
Now everything was dark and dreary. A few men, seemingly too tired to move, were fixing up some of the apparatus, and others were sweeping and dusting. It was a glance behind the scenes with everything at its worst.
Mr. Newton knew several of the managers of the departments, and soon was in conversation with them. He wanted to find out who of the circus men were on duty at the gate Larry and Jimmy left by.
From the man who kept the list of employees Mr. Newton learned exactly what he wanted to know.
“It was Bill Lynch,” the bookkeeper said. “Maybe he can help you, but he’ll not be here until near noon. He’s on guard at No. 16 entrance.”
It was tedious waiting for Lynch, but at last he came in. Larry and Mr. Newton made a dash for him, almost before the man had his coat off, preparatory to donning his uniform.
“What’s this, a hold-up?” he asked, good-naturedly.
“A hold-up for information,” said Mr. Newton. “We want to know something about a boy who is missing, and who is supposed to have passed out the gate where you stood last night,” and the reporter described Jimmy.
“My lands!” the man said. “I can’t remember every boy I see. I don’t take notice of the thousands that pass by me every night. If I did I’d go crazy. All I do is to see that they keep order.”
“But he was with me,” put in Larry. “I had hold of his hand, and I was leading him out, when he asked me to come and see the animals again. But I was in too much of a hurry to get out to pay any attention to him. Now can’t you remember? Right after that I missed him, and made a lot of inquiries.”
“I remember there was quite some stir about a missing boy last night,” remarked Mr. Lynch, “but that happens so often I paid no attention to it. But now that you speak of it, I do seem to recall something about a boy begging to be taken to see the animals again. It was rather odd, I call to mind now, I was thinking, that a lad who had seen all the trapeze stunts inside would be wanting to go back to the animals. Most of ’em, as soon as they comes out, asks their fathers or mothers to buy ’em a trapeze, or some flying rings. But I recall I heard one little lad asking to be taken to the animals, and possibly it’s the one you’re inquiring of.”
“I’m sure it is!” exclaimed Larry. “What happened to him?”
“As near as I can recollect,” went on Mr. Lynch, “I heard someone tell him to come with him, and he’d see the beasts. Didn’t you take him yourself?”
“No,” replied Larry. “Try and think, Mr. Lynch, what sort of a person it was enticed him away.”
The doorkeeper seemed lost in thought. He pondered over the matter, striving to bring back to his mind the scene he had almost forgotten.
“I think I have it!” he exclaimed. “There was a lad about your age,” indicating Larry, “who came up behind the little chap, and said something about taking him to see the animals. I didn’t pay much attention, for I thought you were all together.”
“What sort of a boy was this one you speak of?” asked Mr. Newton, eagerly.
“Well, he was what I’d call a bold-looking lad,” was the answer. “Not a nice sort of a chap at all, though he seemed smart.” He proceeded to describe the boy more fully when Mr. Newton interrupted him:
“I’m pretty sure I know who he was!”
“So am I!” cried Larry. “It was Peter Manton!”
“The very one I had in mind,” spoke Mr. Newton. “That only proves what we believed all along. It is the gang with the blue-handed man at the head that has Jimmy. Peter is only one of the tools. Yet we may be able to get a clew through him. He’s liable to make a false move, not being as well versed in crime as the older ones. I think we are beginning to see daylight, Larry.”
“But it’s a pretty faint clew,” objected Larry.
“Yes, of course, but we can’t expect everything. We’ve got a clew quicker than I expected we would. Now we will have to develop it and work it up. I’m sure it will lead to something. We must get on the trail of Peter. Do you think you could do that?”
“I guess so,” answered Larry.
“Then we’ll split up this work,” went on the older reporter. “You devote your time to locating Peter, or find out where he hangs out. If you get a chance, follow him. Sooner or later he’ll go to the headquarters of the gang. I’ll work on another end.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Larry.
“I’m going to start my investigations from the sign of the blue hand,” replied Mr. Newton.
“Not from the place in Chinatown where you were nearly injured by those men?”
“That’s what I’m going to do. But don’t be alarmed. There’s no one at that place now. The gang moved out soon after I traced them there, and have not been back since. I learned that from some detectives. So there’s no danger in going back there.”
“But what good will it do?”
“It may put me on the track of the gang’s new headquarters. That it is somewhere in Chinatown I’m certain, but to locate it is a harder proposition. I may be able to make friends with someone in the house where the room with the sign of the blue hand on the door is located, and he may be able to tell me where the members of the gang hold out. Once I get a clew the rest will be comparatively easy.”
“Well, I hope you’ll succeed,” spoke Larry. “In the meanwhile I’ll see if I can locate Peter.”
Arranging to meet again late that night at Mr. Newton’s house, Larry and his friend separated. The boy hardly knew where to begin. Without experience in this sort of work, for which Mr. Newton’s training as a newspaper reporter fitted him, Larry thought the only way to do would be to walk about the streets, taking a chance of seeing Peter in the crowds that passed by. He even tried this plan, but he saw that it would be apt to fail, since the chances were so much against him.
“I ought to start at the beginning,” he said. “That is, if I knew where the beginning was.”
Then it occurred to him that the most natural way would be to find out where Peter lived, or had lived, and to go there.
“I wonder why I didn’t think of that at first?” mused Larry. “Of course I should have. I’ll go back to the office. They’ll probably have Peter’s address on the payroll.”
Back to theLeaderoffice he went. He explained what he wanted to Mr. Emberg, who soon ascertained from the cashier’s books where the former copy boy had lived.
“But he probably doesn’t live there now,” said the city editor. “This was nearly a year ago. He’s likely moved since.”
“I’ll trace him!” exclaimed Larry. “I’ll get on his trail and find him, if he’s in the city.”
The address Larry had as that where Peter had lived took him to a poor, though respectable, part of the city. It was pretty well uptown, on the East Side, and the young reporter soon found himself in a thickly-settled tenement district. The streets were filled with children, among whom pushcart peddlers shoved their vehicles laden with everything from fish to calico, and from books to suspenders. After some search Larry located the house where Peter had resided.
There were five floors, and four families lived on each.
“That makes twenty places to inquire, if I don’t strike the fight place first,” reasoned Larry. “Well, it’s like hunting a needle in a haystack, but it’s got to be done.”
He knocked at the door of the first apartment on the first floor. No one answered, and Larry tapped again, this time quite loudly. Suddenly a door across the hall opened, and a woman stuck her head out.
“Vell?” she inquired.
“Does Peter Manton live here?” asked Larry.
“Vat is?” asked the woman.
Larry repeated his question, at the same time coming closer to the door, thinking the woman had not heard him.
“Ich weiss nicht,” she replied, that being the German equivalent for “I don’t know,” and then, having satisfied her curiosity, she closed the door.
“I guess that’s what most of ’em will say,” remarked Larry, who understood a little German.
He was about to knock on the third door of the first floor, when a boy stuck his head out of one apartment, and of him Larry asked where Peter lived.
“Has he a wart on his nose?” asked the boy.
“No,” said Larry, who knew Peter was not marked in any such way.
“Does he squint with his left eye?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Can he turn a double somersault?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is one of his front teeth gone?”
“No, his teeth are all right.”
“Then I don’t know him. All the fellers I know has something the matter with ’em, or else they can do somethin’. I guess the feller you want has moved away.”
But Larry did not want to trust to any chances. He went to the next floor, and made inquiries without success. Then he proceeded to the third floor. At the last apartment where he knocked an old man came to the door.
“Vell, mine friendt?” he inquired, and Larry was beginning to think all the people in the house were German Jews. “Vat can I do for you to-day?”
“Do you know Peter Manton?” asked Larry.
“Peter vat?”
“Peter Manton.”
“Does he sell suspenders?”
“Not that I ever heard of.”
“Collar buttons, maybe yet, eh?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Den he keeps a store alretty yet?”
“I guess not.”
“Oh, vell, den I doan knows him by yet. I only know peoples vat is in business. Run avay, leedle poy, an’ doan bodder mit a business man,” and then, while Larry watched him, the old fellow went back, leaving his door open, and proceeded to resume his slumbers in an easy-chair, whence Larry had aroused him.
“I guess I’ll get very little information here,” thought the searcher. Yet he would not give up. Not until he had knocked at the last door did he get any trace, and that came when he had almost despaired.
A woman answered the door, and, at the sight of Larry, she began to scream in a loud voice, and cried out:
“Goniff! Goniff! Goniff!”
“I’m not a thief!” exclaimed Larry, for he recognized the Yiddish word for robber, having heard it in his travels about the Jewish quarter of New York. “I haven’t stolen anything, and don’t intend to.”
He spoke sharply, for he feared the woman’s cries would rouse the neighborhood, and, perhaps, make trouble for him. Fortunately, however, there was much noise caused by the children in the street shouting, and no one appeared to pay much attention to the woman’s exclamations.
In a little while, when she saw that Larry had no evil designs, and did not attempt to steal her brass candlesticks or brass samovar, or tea-brewing apparatus, her two choicest possessions, the woman became calmer.
“Do you know Peter Manton?” asked Larry, who was beginning to tire of his own question.
“Hass he got funny eyes alretty yet?” asked the woman. “Eyes not like yours, vat look one in the face, but eyes vat always move about so——” and she shifted hers rapidly.
“Yes, he has,” replied Larry, recognizing one of Peter’s characteristics.
“I know him,” the woman said.
“Where is he?” cried Larry.
“Come in,” the woman requested, opening the door wider. “You must excuse me, young gentlemans. I am all alone here, and ven you comes by my door I t’ou’t you vas a robbers yet. Once alretty dey comes and takes mine moneys. So I am of a carefulness when I goes py de door.”
Then, as Larry questioned her, she told in broken English how Peter had once lived in the house on the same floor she did. She remembered him because he was always playing tricks on her little nephew who had lived with her. But Peter had moved away, she said, and she did not know where.
“Can’t you think?” begged Larry, to whom finding the former copy boy meant so much.
“I vas so glad to see him go I care not where he lives yet,” the woman answered. “But he has an aunt vat lives somewheres about t’ree blocks from here. Maybe she can tell.”
Larry got the location of Peter’s aunt, and with a somewhat lighter heart he set off to the address the Jewish woman had given him.
He had a little difficulty in finding Mrs. Jackson, the former copy boy’s aunt, as she had moved twice since the Jewish woman knew of her, but eventually Larry discovered her. At first she was very guarded in her answers.
“What do you want to know for?” she demanded.
Then Larry told her as much of the story of his missing brother as he thought necessary. He described how he came to believe Peter had a hand in taking him away.
“I always knew Peter would come to no good end,” said his aunt. “I warned my brother to whip him at least once a day to make him a better boy, but he would not, and now see what he has come to. Well, if I can help you, young man, I will. I’d just like to get hold of Peter,” and she looked as though Peter’s experience under her administration would be anything but pleasant.
She looked over some old letters, and from them got the address of Peter’s father, who had died some time before, leaving the boy in charge of a stepmother. To that address Larry went, only to find that the stepmother had married again, and gone away. Neighbors said Peter had not been seen about the place where he used to live, in some time. Larry was about to leave, when a boy, about his own age, who had heard his questions, said:
“I know how to find him.”
“How?” asked Larry, his heart beating high with hope again. “Tell me where he is.”
“I can’t tell you where he is,” the boy answered, “but I know he hangs out in Chinatown. You go down there, and near the end of Pell Street is a Chinese grocery, with a funny image in the window. The image has a red stone in one eye, and none in the other. I know, ’cause I went with Peter once, when he was going to have me join a gang of fellers, only my mother wouldn’t let me. They used to meet over that grocery. Maybe he ain’t there now, but he used to be. You’ll see the image in the winder. The gang he belongs to was called the Red Eye Gang.”
Thanking the lad for his information Larry hurried away. He felt that at last he was on the trail, and wanted to follow it up at once. He made his way to Chinatown, and was soon in that section of the city where so much crime abounds.
He had seldom been there, for only the older reporters were sent on stories in that locality. It was not altogether safe in daytime, and at night it must be a bold man who would venture there alone.
At first all the streets seemed made up of groceries and Chinese laundries. Pell Street appeared to be one continuous string of them, and each one seemed to have some sort of an image or idol in the window.
“I guess I’ll have my own troubles picking out the place,” thought Larry. “They all look alike. However, I’ll be on the watch for the one-eyed image.”
He had almost reached the end of Pell Street when, in the window of a small store, that seemed to be trying to hide away from sight between two larger ones, he spied a big wooden idol in the window. Before it burned a number of Joss sticks, and, as Larry placed his nose against the pane, he discerned dimly through the smoke that the image had one eye, made of a red stone, but that the socket of the other was empty, giving an odd expression to the grinning face.
“This must be the place,” thought Larry, his heart beating rapidly with hope. He looked up at the windows. They were screened with red curtains, and seemed never to have been washed. There was a door leading to a hallway at one side of the grocery entrance. Larry resolved to try the store first. He found a fat Chinese smoking behind a counter.
“Wha’ bloy wan’?” inquired the Celestial. “Glot nice clulumbler, melon sleed, ginger loot, nuts. Wha’ bloy want?”
“I didn’t come to buy anything,” Larry explained, speaking slowly, so the almond-eyed one could understand him. “Do you know anybody named Peter Manton? He’s a boy I’m looking for. Do you know Peter Manton?”
The answer of the Chinese was no less prompt than it was startling. He leaped to his feet, dropping his pipe to the floor, and seizing a heavy vase from the counter threw it straight at Larry’s head. The boy ducked only just in time, and the ornament was shattered against the wall.
“I show you, Pleter Manton!” exclaimed the Celestial, running from behind the counter, while Larry, who had straightened up, after ducking down, did not know what to make of it at all.
“What’s the matter?” asked Larry, thinking he might have stumbled in on a crazy man. “I haven’t done anything to you.”
He did not move, more, perhaps, because it was so sudden, than from any bravery, and when the Chinese stood in front of him, shaking his fist, Larry maintained his ground.
“Your name Pleter Manton?” asked the Chinese, in a high-pitched voice.
“No, my name’s Larry Dexter,” replied our hero. “I want to find Peter Manton.”
“Yo’ sure yo’ no Pleter Manton?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Then me solly,” the Celestial went on. “Me t’ink yo’ him. Yo’ ’scuse me?”
“Of course,” replied Larry, seeing that a mistake had been made.
The Chinese quieted down from the rage into which the mention of the name Peter Manton had seemed to throw him. He looked Larry over closely, and then a smile came stealing upon his face.
“No; yo’ no Pleter,” he remarked. “First me take yo’ fo’ him.”
“What makes you mad at him?” asked Larry, anxiously.
“He blad bloy,” the Chinese went on. “He mlake tlouble for Ah Moy. He have looms up stails, an’ him an’ odder bloys bleak windows, an’ make all bad. Me lose money.”
“Did Peter use to have a clubroom here?” asked Larry, feeling that at last he was getting on the right track.
The Chinese nodded vigorously in the affirmative.
“Where has he gone now?” asked Larry.
At this question the Chinese, who had seemed to be very frank, regarded Larry suspiciously. He half shut his eyes, which at the best were not very widely open, and asked:
“Wha’ flo’ yo’ want know?”
“I want to see him.”
“S’plose he no want see yo’?” suggested Ah Moy.
That was a puzzler for Larry. He was not used to answering such sharp questions as the Chinese put, and he could not understand the Celestial’s sudden interest in the welfare of Peter, when, before, the Oriental had appeared to want to punish the lad.
“Well, I want to see him, even if he doesn’t want to see me,” replied Larry, at length.
“He glot some yo’ money?”
Arguing that the deed might be considered money, as it represented a large sum, and feeling sure that if Peter did not have it, he knew where it was, Larry replied:
“Peter has some of my money.”
“If me tell yo’ where Pleter is, yo’ give me some money?” asked Ah Moy.
“What for?” Larry was trying to gain time to think.
“He make me lose tlee dollar bleakin’ my windlow,” the Chinese went on. “He an’ odder bloys what are in club. He no pay me. Maybe yo’ pay me.”
“If you tell me where to find Peter I’ll give you the three dollars,” Larry answered, thinking it would be a sum spent in a good cause.
“All light,” announced Ah Moy, cheerfully. “Give me money.”
“Here it is,” replied Larry, producing the bills, and holding them where the Chinese could see them. “Now you tell me.”
Ah Moy leaned forward, first taking care to look out toward the street, and see that no one was headed for his store. Then he whispered:
“Yo’ find door where Lising Sun painted, an’ yo’ find Pleter, an’ maybe somebody else, li’l feller what cly all time.”
“Do you mean my little brother?” exclaimed Larry, in great excitement.
“Give me money!” cried Ah Moy, snatching the bills from Larry’s hand. “Me tell yo’ where yo’ go. Look for Lising Sun, an’ you find Pleter. Now go. Me no like to have yo’ here!”
Then, before Larry could make any objections, if he had thought to do so, the Celestial grabbed the boy by the shoulders, and thrust him, though not very roughly, out of the front door and into the street. Larry heard Ah Moy close and lock the portal behind him, and realized the Chinese had taken an effective method of getting rid of him.
“Well, of all the queer proceedings,” remarked Larry. “I seem to be getting deeper and deeper into the mystery.”
He turned to look at the one-eyed image, but Ah Moy had pulled down the shades, and the place had every appearance of being deserted.
“The rising sun,” murmured Larry. “I wonder what he meant. Seems to me that’s what they call China or Japan, I’ve forgotten which. I hope they haven’t taken Jimmy away off there.”
His heart grew cold at the thought, but he reassured himself that the gang would hardly go to that length, particularly as they might want to produce the little fellow at short notice.
“Maybe it’s some place in Chinatown,” reasoned the young reporter. “I must find out, but I’ll have to go slow.”
From what Ah Moy had told him it seemed that the doings of Chinatown were known to most of the members of the under-world. Consequently, if he began making inquiries, the news would be communicated to the members of the gang. If they heard someone was on their trail they might depart to another hiding-place, and make it all the harder to locate them.