“What a sweet, sweet singer!”

Doodles turned quickly from Caruso, to see a child on the threshold. He had not heard a footfall.

She was an odd little creature, straight and slender, with a mop of jet-black curls, skin dusky as a gypsy’s, and eyes like the bluest sky. Her coarse dress of red cotton stuff reached nearly to her ankles, and a curious beaded bodice of dark green scalloped with gold added a foreign, fantastic touch to her appearance.

“How soon will he sing again?” The question was anxiously put, with a swift backward glance.

Doodles started “Annie Laurie,” and at once the bird took up the tune, the listener in the doorway clasping her tiny hands in delight.

“Here, you kid you! what yer doin’ out there? Didn’t I tell yer to keep where yer b’long!”

A woman, in dingy yellow and black, strode across the hall, and with a jerk of her bony arm the little one was snatched away. Dolly Moon’s door slammed, and Doodles suddenly felt lonesome.

“She might have let her stay and hear Caruso,” he lamented. “Don’t see what hurt she was doing.”

As soon as his brother came home he told him about it.

“That’s the crowd I heard coming in last night,” Blue decided. “Guess you’d gone to sleep. ’T was ten or eleven. I knew ’t must be some new ones. They had a lot of traps, by the clatter. Bet they’ve got Gaylord’s room, too. The door was ajar when I went for some water this morning, and two men were in there.”

“I wish Mr. Gaylord was here now,” sighed Doodles.

“Oh, don’t you worry!” returned his brother. “He’ll be back again. You always have to go with the folks that hire you, and he had to. Mrs. Graham’ll get tired o’ spinnin’ round in an auto soon as it’s cold—by September prob’ly. That’ll be here before you can say,—

“Oh!” cried Doodles gleefully.

“There, I did! And it hasn’t come! I’m afraid Mr. Gaylord won’t too.” His voice dropped into sadness.

“You didn’t say it right,” laughed Blue.

“Why not?”

“Nobody does till they catch on.”

“Say it again, please!”

The bit of nonsense was repeated with a dash that made Doodles gasp in admiration. But his second trial showed no improvement.

“I don’t care!” he cried disgustedly. “It wouldn’t bring Mr. Gaylord any quicker if I said it right a million times! He’s a lovely man—I wish he was here this minute! And now they’ve got his room!”

“Huh! this crowd won’t stay long,” declared Blue. “They ain’t the kind. Oh, say! I forgot! Joe’s comin’ round at ten o’clock, and we’re going up on Seip’s Hill.”

“I, too?”

“Well, what do you take me for? Prob’ly we shall leave you here in the rocking chair, and Joe’ll wheel me all the way!”

Doodles chuckled.

“Where’s your brush?” called Blue from the bedroom. “S’pose you’d have a fit if your hair wasn’t fixed up! If mine was curly like yours, catch me fussin’ to brush it every other minute!—There’s Joseph now!” as a foot was heard upon the stairs. And he ran to welcome him.

On the following day Dolly Moon’s door was again ajar. It had long had a habit of unlatching with the least puff of air. Coming up from the street Blue spied it, and he turned that way. The picturesque little stranger was in range of the slit of light.

“Hello, kiddie!”

It was a cheerful, friendly greeting; but the only answer was the prompt banging of the door. The boy retreated, surprised and angry.

“They needn’t put on airs!” he muttered indignantly. “They aren’t any better than other folks. Granny O’Donnell wouldn’t do that, nor anybody else in this house.”

Little was seen by the Stickneys of their new neighbors. Occasionally the woman or one of the men appeared in the corridor; but the child was not in sight. Late one afternoon, however, Blue discovered the door again unlatched. Cautiously he stole across the passage. In a farther corner of the room was a bed, and above the coverlet the boy discerned the little one’s face.

“That’s why I haven’t seen her,” he thought. “Measles, prob’ly—they’re all round.”

The rustling sounds back of the door were broken by a moan. Then, in a man’s voice, was observed:—

“Bet she’s goin’ to die!”

“Just our luck!” responded another beyond Blue’s vision.

“All the same—”

The speaker approached the door, but when a slam announced its shutting the nimble listener was out of sight.

It was barely half an hour afterwards when a man stepped out of the room and beckoned Blue into the corridor.

“Say,” he began in a hushed voice, “my kid’s sick. Can you go for the doctor? I’ll pay you,” he added, as the boy hesitated.

“How much?”

“A quarter.”

“What doctor you want?” came with an indifference that Blue did not feel. Quarters were not picked up every day right in The Flatiron.

“Dr. Alford, up on Boniface Street,” returned the man with a wary glint in his narrow eyes.

“Boniface Street! Why, that’s a mile, sure! There’s a doctor round the corner—”

“It’s Dr. Alford or none!” interrupted the man defiantly.

“It’s awful hot to tramp ’way over there,” argued Blue, seeing in the sparkling scarf pin a possible increase of fee, although only the day before he had walked double the distance simply to save Granny O’Donnell’s rheumatic legs and to hear her hearty, “God bless ye, me b’y!” But he remembered his recent rebuff.

“Well, call it half a dollar, then. Will you go, or not?”

“Oh, I s’pose I’ll have to, seeing you’re a neighbor!” returned the lad, his heart skipping merrily at prospect of the big silver piece.

The physician delighted Blue by bringing him back in his car; but he shut his patron’s door with such precision that it stayed latched, and the boy scowled disappointedly.

Then, the doctor’s voice coming to his ears, he bent to the keyhole.

“Please fetch me a glass of water—”

Not an instant to spare! When the door opened, Blue was safe in the dust closet opposite. It was a handy retreat, and—to admit the truth—this was not the very first time it had had an occupant.

Presently, when all was again quiet, the boy emerged, sprinkled with the sweepings of the top floor of The Flatiron. He was gleeful at finding the door ajar.

The doctor was holding a glass to the lips of his little patient, who—it looked to the peeper—clutched it so frantically with her teeth that it was removed only with force.

“We didn’t dare give her a drop,” remarked the woman, standing by.

“It is what she needs. Another glass, please.”

“Oh, no! not so much!” she objected.

“Do as the doc’ says!” commanded one of the men.

Blue, absorbed in the talk, had delayed too long—the dust closet was out of the question. So the woman met him sauntering towards his own door, as if he, too, had been on an errand to the public faucet.

When the eavesdropper returned, the physician was saying:—

“She would not have lived more than four hours. She was dying for lack of water. When she wakes give her more if she wants it, and, unless she sleeps quietly, keep up the medicine through the night. I will see her again in the morning. It is a plain case of measles, and I shall report it to the health officials.”

Blue’s admiration of the man who could keep one from dying by simply administering water was sufficient to hold him on the sidewalk an hour and a half awaiting the doctor’s second visit. He spied the runabout when it was still far up the street, and he was at the curb when the car stopped.

“How is your little friend?” the physician asked.

“She isn’t my friend,” the boy answered. “Huh! they wouldn’t let me say hello to her. But,” lowering his voice confidentially, “I should think they were all dead in there. Haven’t heard a sound this morning.”

“They are sleeping late.” Dr. Alford was mounting the stairs.

Blue followed. Curiosity made him bolder than usual.

A knock brought no response. Another rap, more authoritative than the first, and yet another and another left the two still listening for the sound that did not come. Finally the doctor grasped the knob and slowly opened the door. Blue had drawn back, ready for flight; but he peeped around the corner—the room was vacant! The small adjoining apartment was also empty of life.

“Bet they couldn’t pay their rent!” ventured the boy. “Lucky I got my fifty cents last night. He gave me that for going after you.”

“You are fortunate. It doesn’t look as if I should get rich on the case, does it?”

“Didn’t they pay you?”

The physician shook his head.

The lad suddenly grew grave. His hand closed over the silver piece in his pocket.

“You can have this.” He thrust his half-dollar into the doctor’s palm.

“No, no! Keep your money—”

“But you earned it more’n I did!” protested Blue. “You saved the kid’s life, and you ought to have it.”

Dr. Alford said his thanks with an odd little smile; but he dropped the coin back into the boy’s pocket.

“Queer,” Blue told Doodles, “how that crowd could get out, traps and all, and we not hear ’em! They made noise enough comin’ up. There was the Muldoons,” he mused, “their duds bumped along all the way downstairs. I should think Granny would have heard ’em—and maybe she did!” Off he dashed, bursting into the room at the foot of the flight.

The old Irish woman was paring potatoes. She looked up with a happy, “Good-mornin’ to ye!”

“Good-morning!” responded the boy. “Feel first-rate?”

“Oh, as good as annybody cud, an’ not shleep more’n two winks all th’ night!”

“What kept you awake, Granny?”

“Sure, me poor old achin’ legs!”

“I didn’t know but ’t was folks goin’ up and down past your door,” replied Blue with artful innocence.

“No, they wa’ n’t manny of ’em. Mary Ottatoe, I heerd her come up ’long ’bout nine, an’ McCabe was just afther. Th’ Frinchman with th’ sthrange name—I do be always f’rgitt’n ut—he sthayed up there all th’ avenin’. An’ th’ new folks acrost f’m ye on’y go out now an’ thin f’r a bite or a drink. ’Long toward mornin’ I heerd ’em stheppin’ round soft somewheres—goin’ to th’ sink, prob’ly. But they wa’ n’t noise enough all night to kape a dog awake.”

The boy was puzzled. It was clear to him that the crowd did not take their goods down by way of the staircase unless Granny dozed more than she realized. One thing was certain,—they were gone! But how did they get out?

“Blue, me dear,” Granny was saying, “if ye be down to Mis’ Flaherty’s befure dinner, will ye fetch me a loaf? Ye’ll find a nickel in th’ cup on th’ shilf there. Ye’re a good b’y, Blue—none knows ut betther ’n mesilf, with ye always runnin’ here an’ there an’ savin’ me old legs!”

Mrs. Flaherty, proprietor of the little corner bakery, tore a piece from an old “Morning News” that lay on the counter, and wrapped the bread in it.

On the end of the package the boy spied a picture. He did not care for pictures, but Doodles did. He was always carrying home gay cards, hand-bills, and stray sheets from illustrated papers that blew his way. So he begged the wrapper from Granny, and carried it upstairs to his brother. Then he sauntered along the corridor to the recently vacated apartment, and lingered searchingly over the litter that was there, vaguely hoping to find an answer to his puzzle. But the bits of paper and the empty boxes, the broken plates and fragments of cloth told no secrets, and he finally closed the door softly and went back to Doodles.

“Oh, come here quick!” cried his brother. “I thought you’d gone away. Just look at that!” He held out the newspaper which had wrapped Granny’s bread, and pointed to a picture.

“Yes, it’s pretty,” Blue responded indifferently.

“No, no!” protested Doodles, his eyes big with excitement, “don’t you see?”

“Why, no, I don’t see anything very wonderful—nothing but a kid’s picture.”

“Oh!” the voice dropped to an eager breath, “it’s the little girl in there!—that was!” He nodded towards Dolly Moon’s door.

“Wh—what?” It was Blue’s turn, as with astonishment he scanned the picture. “I b’lieve it is!” he ejaculated softly. “But how—”

“I knew her in a minute!” Doodles broke in. “Only her hair is light there and she’s dressed so different.”

“But what is it anyhow?” Blue turned to the headlines—“Oh! kidnaped!—The crowd stole her!” The words died in a startled breath.

“Read it all!” prodded Doodles, as if his brother were not as hungry as he for every item of the article.

“‘Marshall Fleming’s youngest child ... Daphne, six years old ... beautiful suburban home ... playing on the grounds,’” muttered Blue along the paragraphs, “‘... missed her at three o’clock ... police ... detectives ... no clue ... mother nearly crazed with grief.’”

“Isn’t it dreadful?” sorrowed Doodles. “I could cry! Such a pretty little girl—and her poor mother!”

“If we’d only known it before!” lamented Blue. He flung off his cap with a gesture of disgust. Yesterday rescue would have been easy—but now!

Doodles picked up the paper and gazed regretfully at the picture.

“Le’ ’s see it again!” Blue put out his hand. “Maybe ’t isn’t she after all; but it does look like her. Why, this paper’s three weeks old! I should think the doctor’d ’a’ known her.”

“You didn’t,” smiled Doodles.

“I ain’t sure now,” laughed the other.

“I am,” Doodles declared. “Look at her chin, with that cunning little dimple! And her eyes—just exactly like ’em! That mite of a curl over there, and the funny little pucker in her forehead—I noticed ’em both while she was listening to Caruso.”

“You’d see what nobody else would,” laughed Blue. “Yes, I guess it’s her fast enough.” He shook his head sadly. “Wish I knew where they’ve gone. I don’t see how they could lug all those chairs and things—”

“Say! you don’t s’pose they could get ’em into the triangle, do you?” Doodles’s soft voice lowered hesitantly.

“Naw!” scouted Blue. “Why, ther’ wouldn’t be room for half their duds, let alone themselves. Besides, they couldn’t get in—door’s always locked—and they couldn’t stay in if they did!”

“I know,” Doodles agreed, “it’s little and stuffy.”

“Stuffy! I guess it is now! When that old tramp made such a row over it, ’t wasn’t such awful hot weather, but he couldn’t stand it only one night. He said it wasn’t fit to put a dog in, if you wanted any more of the dog. Ther’ ’s just one little mite of a skylight—why, the kid couldn’t live there a minute!—no, the crowd ain’t in that hole!”

“I s’pose not,” replied Doodles sadly. “I only thought—”

Blue did not heed the unfinished sentence. With all his arguments to the contrary, he was wondering if it were possible for them to—but, no, of course, it couldn’t be!

Beyond the sink the passageway narrowed, and led to a closet where by means of a rough ladder one might climb to the roof. At the foot of these steps Blue presently stood, telling himself that he was a fool for taking any pains to prove such an absurd idea. Yet he mounted the ladder, and gained a view of the broad expanse of shabby tin that covered The Flatiron, and the big, crumbling chimneys,—that was all. The tiny skylight, which was what he had come to inspect, was behind a chimney, only a bit of the framework being visible.

“Of course, it isn’t open,” he muttered; “it never is! A week ago, when Winkle was in there, it was shut tight as a drum. And he locked that door all right, too,—I heard him!” He started down the steps, and then halted. “I’ll find out!” he decided, and turned again.

At the top, he threw a foot from the opening; but the rusty tin cracked warningly. “Bother!” he ejaculated, and drew back.

The next building was somewhat lower than The Flatiron, but beyond rose a new block that overtopped its surroundings.

“If I were in one of those rooms,” he mused, “I could tell quick enough.”

At the foot of the ladder he hesitated, ears alert; then he tiptoed to the door at the end of the passage, his bare feet noiseless as a cat’s.

Not a breath from within!

“Of course they couldn’t be there,” he argued disgustedly. Nevertheless he told Doodles that he was going down on the street, and when he reached the sidewalk he sauntered towards the Empire Building. At the entrance he accosted a boy with the New York papers.

“Say, Tom, let me have a couple of those to sell!”

“What for?”

“For fun.” Blue drew forth the proper number of coins.

With the papers under his arm he went boldly up the stairs. On the fifth floor several doors stood invitingly open. He chose an office where a man sat writing near a farther window. As soon as he was well in the room, however, he was arrested by a bluff “No!” and he walked meekly away.

Three times his efforts were baffled; but the fourth attempt found him not only making a sale but put in possession of a fact that whirled his brain—the small roof window in the three-cornered room at the top of The Flatiron was atilt!

“It couldn’t have been left open all this time! It would have rained in. Besides, when old Winkle was there lookin’ round, it was shut—I know that! They must be—but how could they, with the door locked?”

Fragments like these chased one another through his perplexed mind. He and Doodles consulted long and earnestly over the situation.

“This afternoon I’ll find out for sure!” declared Blue.

“How?”

“I’ll watch in the dust closet!” he whispered. “Some of the crowd’ll be comin’ to the sink, and they’ll take the time when they think everybody’s out.”

“Splendid!” beamed Doodles softly. “I’ll keep just as still, and they’ll suppose I’ve gone to ride.”

“Oh, I forgot your ride!” Blue looked dismayed. “And you will roast in here with the door shut!”

“No, I shan’t!” asserted Doodles pluckily. “It’s the only way—and think of that poor little girl’s mother!”

After much discussion it was agreed to say nothing of the matter to any one while it was in so uncertain a stage.

“Mother worries over everything nowadays,” reasoned Blue, “and this would only be an extra trouble. But if we should nab ’em—oh, wouldn’t she be glad!”

The dinner hour never seemed so long. Two or three times the big secret almost burst from its keeping. At last, however, Mrs. Stickney was off, the top-floor lodgers that came home at noon had disappeared down the stairway, the one o’clock whistles had shrieked their final summons, and Blue was free to begin his eager lookout from the dust closet.

At first time passed swiftly. If they should come—oh, if only they would!—then he could get that pretty kid away from those horrid people. How glad her mother would be to have her back again! But could the little thing live, sick as she was, in that roasting oven! All at once Blue doubted more than ever that the crowd was there. Probably no one was in the room after all, and he was staying here just for nothing! Wouldn’t folks laugh if they should hear of it! But, then, how came that skylight open? Of course, Winkle might have come in and opened it, to air the place. The more he thought of that, the more probable it seemed. He could have gone by their door a dozen times when they did not see him,—perhaps the day before while he was taking Doodles out to ride. But could those folks have got down the stairs without Granny’s hearing them? Oh, if they were coming to the sink, he wished they’d hurry up! How hot it was! The closet suddenly became suffocatingly close. He opened the door wider and drew a long, deep breath. He had half a mind to give it up and go and give Doodles a spin. It must be three or half-past!

The bell in a nearby tower struck the hour.

“Only two o’clock!” Blue complained scowlingly.

The moments dragged. He didn’t believe the crowd was there, he told himself. He wouldn’t stay and be such a fool! Cautiously opening the door, he put one foot beyond the sill—a thought came to him of that little girl’s mother. He hesitated, and a picture of Doodles arose in his mind—Doodles waiting patiently for news from the lookout. With a determined toss of his head he stepped softly back and began again his watch from the narrow peephole.

“I’ll stick it out if I have to stay here all night!” he vowed grimly.

It was very quiet on the top floor. Not a sound reached the boy’s ears save the far-away buzz of a sewing machine and the more distant clatter of the street. He leaned against the door frame, and closed his eyes. Presently his head slipped past its support, and he awoke with a start. He was about to move, when he realized where he was and stood motionless—somebody was at the sink! It was the man who had sent him for the doctor!

With furtive glances down the hall, the pitcher was filled. Then without a sound the figure glided out of sight.

Blue waited long enough to be sure of a safe passage, and then sped noiselessly back to Doodles. An exultant gesture told of success, and with a few quick words he was away.

First he must find Thomas Fitzpatrick; that was his plan. He knew where he would be likely to catch him at this hour, and down to Tremont Street he ran. Soon the policeman was spied far ahead. Blue’s feet made short the intervening distance, and he grabbed the officer’s sleeve just as he was turning Gates House Corner.

Fitzpatrick smiled his, “Hello!”

“Say,” began the boy in an eager undertone, “d’ you want a dandy job?”

“What’s up? Bird swiped again?”

“No! He’s all right. R’member the Fleming kid ’t was stole two or three weeks ago?”

The officer nodded.

“I know where she is! In five minutes you can get her an’ the whole crowd!”

“Oh, go ’long! I’m too old a boy to swallow such flummery!” The policeman laughed good-humoredly.

“Honest, I ain’t foolin’! But I can’t do it alone, an’ I thought you’d like the job. You’d better hurry though—they might skip! Don’t b’lieve they will before dark, but they might if they got scared.”

Fitzpatrick scanned Blue’s face, but found no hint of a hoax.

“Where are they?”

The boy cast a quick glance behind. There was nobody near.

“Flatiron! But you’d never guess whereabouts to look for ’em!”

“Come in here!” The man led the way to a telephone booth. “Now shoot out yer story!”

Blue did, the officer repeating it briefly to his chief.

It was all managed so quickly that the little party of four was soon under way, Fitzpatrick and Blue ahead, and two big policemen following.

It was the most exciting hour of Blue’s life when he guided the uniformed trio to the little triangular room at the top of The Flatiron. There were silent hand greetings to Doodles as they passed the kitchen door, but nobody ever guessed how the helpless little lad longed to be one of the party.

Blue pointed to the door at the end of the corridor, and each man grasped his revolver. Fitzpatrick motioned the boy back, and he allowed the others to go by; yet he kept close behind, losing sight of danger in his determination to see the affair to its finish.

Without warning the door was burst open, there were quick commands, mingled with oaths and pistol shots, followed by a fierce scuffle. Then the law-breakers were powerless in the hands of their captors, and Fitzpatrick turned to the little one on the floor, who in her fright had cuddled close under her ragged coverings.

“Hello, kiddie!” came a cheery voice from behind the tall officer, and as the child was tenderly lifted from her wretched bed she gave a quivering smile to Blue in return for his assurance that she was “going right home to mother.”

“Bring her into our room,” said the boy; “it’s much cooler there. Yes, we’ve had measles, Doodles and I, both of us,” in answer to the question.

“I want to hear the bird sing!” demanded the child, as she spied Caruso, and in response to her implied praise the mocker caroled a welcome.

The officer threw him a glance and word of approval. “He can do it, can’t he!”

“Huh!” laughed Blue, “that ain’t anything. Make him sing, Doodles!”

As the lad began to whistle, the bird did not seem to notice. He continued to eat and drink, quite as if music had no interest for him. Then, suddenly, without a preliminary note, he burst into “Annie Laurie,” and sang it to its end, delighting the small girl, and astonishing Fitzpatrick.

“I wouldn’t have believed it of him! Sure, I wouldn’t!” The man eyed the slim bird incredulously.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” beamed Doodles.

“He is that!” agreed the officer.

Whereupon Blue was for showing his further accomplishments; but the man smilingly shook his head, and bade a hasty good-bye, coupled with a promise to come again when he had no kidnapers on hand.

As he went down, Granny O’Donnell came up. Granny was never so happy as when nursing a sick child, and by the time Dr. Alford arrived she and little Daphne Fleming were the best of friends.

Since they had not succeeded in hearing direct from her parents, the doctor took his patient to the hospital, and they were scarcely away before the neighbors began to flock in, rumors of the affair having flown to all parts of The Flatiron.

Blue started to recount the exciting story, but remembering his undelivered papers he was obliged to leave it to the telling of Granny and Doodles.