"Now," he said, "give me the money,"--and the man complied with an oath.

"Any more tricks?" Curtis asked complacently.

"I know heaps," the man rejoined. "There's one you won't guess--the seven card trick."

He did it. And so did Curtis.

"Well I'm----" the man called Lemon e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"He's the dandiest cove at tricks we've ever struck. Try him with the Prince and Slipper, Arnold!"

Arnold rather reluctantly a.s.sented, and Curtis burst out laughing.

"Why!" he said, "that's the simplest of all! See!" And it was done.

"You two had better come to an understanding with us or you'll not shine to-night. How about a game of Don?"

Lemon and Arnold agreed, but they had barely begun before Curtis cried out, "It's no use, Lemon, I can see those deuces up your sleeve.

You've some up yours, too, Arnold--the deuce of clubs and the deuce of hearts. Moreover, you can tell our cards by notches and thumb smears on the backs. I'll show you how." He told the cards correctly--there was no gainsaying it. The men were overwhelmed.

"What are you, anyway?" Lemon asked; "tecs?"

"Never mind what we are!" Curtis said savagely. "We know what you are--and that's where the rub comes in. Now what are you going to pay us to hold our tongues?"

"Pay you!" Lemon hissed. "Why, d.a.m.n you--nothing. We're not bankers.

All we've got to do is clear out and try somewhere else."

"That might not be so easy as you imagine," Hamar interposed. "We would make it our business to have a scene first. Why not come to terms? We'll not be over exorbitant--and consider the convenience of not having to shift your quarters."

"Well, of all the blooming frousts I've struck, none beats this,"

Lemon said. "Fancy being pipped by a couple of suckers like these.

Farmers, indeed! Why don't you call yourselves parsons? How much do you want?"

After a prolonged haggling, Hamar and Curtis agreed to take fifty dollars; and, considering their penniless condition, they were by no means dissatisfied with their bargain.

They were now ready to go, and looking round for Kelson, found him engaged in a desperate _tete-a-tete_ with the young lady at the bar, who, despite her avowed lack of faith in mankind, counted half the room her friends. She promised Kelson that she would meet him at eight o'clock that evening; but as both she and he were quite used to making such promises and subsequently forgetting all about them, their rencontre resulted in only one thing, namely, in furnishing the three allies with the nucleus of the big fortune they intended making.

On finding themselves outside the dive Hamar, Curtis and Kelson first of all divided the spoil. They then went to a clothes depot and rigged themselves out in fashionably cut garments; after which they took rooms at a presentable hotel in Kearney Street, next door to k.n.o.bble's boot store. Then, dressed for the first time in their lives like n.o.b Hill dukes, they paraded the pet resorts of the beau-monde--of the bonanza and railroad set--and making eyes at all the pretty wives and daughters they met, cogitated fresh devices for making money. As they sauntered across Pacific Avenue, in the direction of Californian Street, Kelson suddenly gave vent to a whistle.

"What the deuce is wrong with you?" Hamar exclaimed. "Seen your grandmother's ghost?"

"No! but I've seen the inner readings of that lady yonder," Kelson replied, indicating with a jerk of his finger a fashionably dressed woman walking towards them on the other side of the road. "The deuce knows how it all comes to me, but I know everything about her, just the same as I did with the girl in the dive--though I've never seen her before. She is the wife of D.D. Belton, the cotton magnate, who lives in a big, white house at the corner of Powell Street--and a beauty, I can a.s.sure you. Supposed to be most devoted to her husband, she is now on her way to keep an appointment with the Rev. J.T.

Calthorpe of Sancta Maria's Church in Appleyard Street, with whom she has been holding clandestine meetings for the past six months."

"Whew!" Hamar e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "You speak as if it was all being pumped into you by some external agency--automatically."

"That's just about what I feel!" Kelson said, "I feel as if it were some one else saying all this--some one else speaking through me. Yet I know all about that woman, just as much as if I had been acquainted with her all my life!"

"It's the first power," Hamar said excitedly, "the power of divination. It takes that form with you, and the form of card tricks with Ed--with me nothing so far."

"But what shall I do?" Kelson cried. "How can I benefit by it?"

"How can't you?" Curtis growled. "Why, blackmail her! If it is true, she will pay you anything to keep your mouth shut. If once you can tell a woman's secret, your future's made. All San Francisco will be at your mercy--G.o.d knows who'll escape! After her at once, you idiot!"

"Now?" Kelson gasped.

"Yes! Now! Follow her to Calthorpe's and waylay her as she comes out.

You can refer to us as witnesses."

"I feel a bit of a blackguard," Kelson pleaded.

"You look it, anyway," Curtis grinned. "But cheer up--it's the clothes. Clothes are responsible for everything!"

After a little persuasion Kelson gave in, but he had to make haste as the lady was nearly out of sight. She took a taxi from the stand opposite Kitson's hotel, and Kelson took one, too. Two hours later, raising his hat, he accosted her as she stood tapping the pavement of Battery Street with a daintily shod foot, waiting to cross. "Mrs.

Belton, I think," he said. The lady eyed him coldly.

"Well!" she said, "what do you want? Who are you?"

"My name can scarcely matter to you," Kelson responded, "though my business may. I have been engaged to watch you, and am fully posted as to your meetings and correspondence with the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe."

"I don't understand you," the lady said, her cheeks flaming. "You have made a mistake--a very serious mistake for you."

For a moment Kelson's heart failed. He was still a clerk, with all the humility of an office stool and shining trousers' seat thick on him, whilst she was a _grande dame_ accustomed to the bows and sc.r.a.pes of employers as well as employed.

Several people pa.s.sed by and stared at him--as he thought--suspiciously, and he felt that this was the most critical time in his life, and unless he pulled through, smartly in fact, he would be done once and for all. If he didn't make haste, too, the woman would undoubtedly call a policeman. It was this thought as well as--though, perhaps, hardly as much as--the look of her that stimulated Kelson to action.

He hated behaving badly to women; but was this thing, dressed in a skirt that fitted like a glove and showed up every detail of her figure--this thing with the paint on her cheeks, and eyebrows, and lips--artistically done, perhaps, but done all the same--this thing all loaded with jewellery and b.u.t.tons--this thing--a woman! No! She was not--she was only a millionaire's plaything--brainless, heartless--a hobby that cost thousands, whilst countless men such as he--starved. He detested--abominated such luxuries! And thus nerved he retorted, borrowing some of her imperiousness--

"Do you deny, madam, that for the past two hours you've been sitting on the sofa of the end room of the third floor of No. 216, Market Street, flirting with the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe, whom you call 'Mickey-moo'; that you gave him a photo you had taken at Bell's Studio in Clay Street, specially for him; that you gave him five greenbacks to the value of one hundred and fifty dollars, and that you've planned a moonlight promenade with him to-morrow, when your husband will be in Denver?"

"Don't talk so loud," the lady said in a low voice. "Walk along with me a little and then we shan't be noticed. I see you do know a good deal--how, I can't imagine, unless you were hidden somewhere in the room. Who has employed you to watch me?"

"That, madam, I can't say," Kelson truthfully responded.

"And I can't think," the lady said, "unless it is some woman enemy.

But, after all, you can't do much since you hold no proofs--your word alone will count for nothing."

"Ah, but I have strong corroborative evidence," Kelson retorted. "I have the testimony of at least two other people who know quite as much as I do."

"Adventurers like yourself," the lady sneered. "My husband would neither believe you nor your friends."

"He would believe your letters, any way," said Kelson.

"My letters!" the lady laughed, "You've no letters of mine."

"No, but I know where the correspondence that has pa.s.sed between you and the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe is to be found. He has sixty-nine letters from you all tied up in pink ribbon, locked up in the bottom drawer of the bureau in his study at the Vicarage. Some of the letters begin with 'Dearest, duckiest, handsomest Herby'--short for Herbert; and others, 'Fondest, blondest, darlingest Micky-moo!' Some end with 'A thousand and one kisses from your loving and ever devoted Francesca,'

and others with 'Love and kisses ad infinitum, ever your loving, thirsting, adoring one, Toosie!' Nice letters from the wife of a respectable n.o.b Hill magnate to a married clergyman!"

The lady walked a trifle unsteadily, and much of her colour was gone.

"I can't understand it," she panted; "somebody has played me false."