Larry Dexter, Reporter/Chapter 30

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 new-comers. “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.