BOSTON — A man armed with a knife walked into Madeleine's Candy Shop on Clarendon Street in the South End on Tuesday night, ordered everyone in the store to sit in the corner, and emptied the cash register before walking out and disappearing.

Nobody stopped him. Police couldn't find him. He's still out there.

Madeleine's is a small, independent candy shop — the kind of place that makes a neighborhood feel like a neighborhood. Parents bring their kids after school. Couples stop in on evening walks. It calls itself "the caviar of candy stores" and sells everything from Swedish gummy mixes to gluten-friendly treats. It's the opposite of a high-value target. And on a Tuesday evening at 7:30 PM, someone decided to rob it at knifepoint.

The robbery happened shortly after 7:30 PM, according to Boston Police. A witness told officers that the suspect demanded the register be opened while holding what appeared to be a red knife, then ordered customers to sit in the corner of the store as he removed an unknown amount of cash.

The suspect then left the store and took off in an unknown direction. Officers searched the surrounding area but came up empty.

No one was injured. The case remains under investigation.

Clarendon Street is one of the South End's most recognizable blocks — lined with brownstones, boutiques, and restaurants, in a neighborhood where a one-bedroom apartment rents for north of $3,000 a month. Residents pay a premium to live there.

What they're getting in return is a rising tide of street-level crime and disorder that City Hall has shown little interest in confronting.

The South End sits in the direct path of the dysfunction radiating from the Mass and Cass corridor, where the city's hands-off approach to open-air drug use and encampments has pushed addicts, dealers, and petty criminals into surrounding neighborhoods for years. Residents have complained repeatedly about aggressive panhandling, property crime, car break-ins, and people using drugs openly on residential streets.

The city's response has been to cycle through task forces, outreach programs, and press conferences — none of which have made the streets safer for small business owners like the people who run Madeleine's.

A candy shop on Clarendon Street getting robbed at knifepoint at 7:30 on a Tuesday is not a random event. It's what happens when a city signals that low-level crime won't be met with consequences — and the people who live and work in these neighborhoods are left to absorb the result.

Anyone with information is urged to contact District D-4 Detectives at (617) 343-4683.