ng for us in the dark hall. With a
motion that indicated silence, he led us up the stairs to the second
floor, and quickly opened a door into what seemed to be a fair-sized
private dining-room. A man was pacing the floor nervously. On a table
was some food, untouched. As the door opened I thought he started as if
in fear, and I am sure his dark face blanched, if only for an instant.
Imagine our surprise at seeing Gennaro, the great tenor, with whom
merely to have a speaking acquaintance was to argue oneself famous.

"Oh, it is you, Luigi," he exclaimed in perfect English, rich and
mellow. "And who are these gentlemen?"

Luigi merely replied, "Friends," in English also, and then dropped off
into a voluble, low-toned explanation in Italian.

I could see, as we waited, that the same idea had flashed over Kennedy's
mind as over my own. It was now three or four days since the papers had
reported the strange kidnapping of Gennaro's five-year-old daughter
Adelina, his only child, and the sending of a demand for ten thousand
dollars ransom, signed, as usual, with the mystic Black Hand--a name to
conjure with in blackmail and extortion.

As Signor Gennaro advanced toward us, after his short talk with Luigi,
almost before the introductions were over, Kennedy anticipated him by
saying: "I understand, Signor, before you ask me. I have read all about
it in the papers. You want someone to help you catch the criminals who
are holding your little girl."

"No, no!" exclaimed Gennaro excitedly. "Not that. I want to get my
daughter first. After that, catch them if you can--yes, I should like to
have someone do it. But read this first and tell me what you think of
it. How should I act to get my little Adelina back without harming a
hair of her head?" The famous singer drew from a capacious pocketbook a
dirty, crumpled letter, scrawled on cheap paper.

Kennedy translated it quickly. It read:

Honourable sir: Your daughter is in safe hands. But, by the
saints, if you give this letter to the police as you did the
other, not only she but your family also, someone near to you,
will suffer. We will not fail as we did Wednesday. If you want
your daughter back, go yourself, alone and without telling a
soul, to Enrico Albano's Saturday night at the twelfth hour.
You must provide yourself with $10,000 in bills hidden in
Saturday's _Il Progresso Italiano_. In the back room you will
see a man sittin