For the sake of the public whose servant I have been for the last thirty years, I would blush to put on paper what I know to have occurred in the adjoining room, and which only served to further convince me of the depths of infamy to which she had sunk; and I will pa.s.s on to those things only necessary to acquaint the reader with my plan of operation to bring her into the public notoriety and scorn which she had years before only too richly deserved.

But a short time had elapsed after Mrs. Winslow and Le Compte had been given their room when I heard Fox's footsteps coming along the hall. He pa.s.sed their room slowly, evidently locating it, and after a few moments stealthily returned and listened at the door. He then stole away, but returned again with a bold, firm step, as though conscious of being on legitimate business, walked right up to the door and gave the k.n.o.b a quick turn, as if he had intended to at once walk into the room.

The door did not open, however, and Fox stepped back as if surprised, saying: "Why, I can't be mistaken; the register surely said Room 30!"

while within there were quick, though smothered exclamations of surprise, fright, and rage of an unusually profane nature.

Fox immediately returned to the attack as if certain that he was in the right, and knocked at the door sharply.

There was no response but the quick hustlings about the room, from which I, as an attentive listener with my ear close to the key-hole, learned that the inmates were preparing for discovery.

Fox knocked again, this time louder and more persistently than at first.

I now plainly heard Mrs. Winslow ordering Le Compte under the bed among the dust, bandboxes, and unmentionables, at which he protested with innumerable "_Sacres!_" But she was relentless, and finally, seeing that he would go no other way, took him up like a recalcitrant cur and flung him under bodily.

Again Fox attacked the door, shook the k.n.o.b furiously, and knocked loud enough to raise the dead, following it up with: "Say you?--Jones? Why in thunder don't you open the door?"

At this Mrs. Winslow plucked up the courage of desperation, and asked in a loud and injured voice, "Who's there?"

"Why, me, of course; Barker, Jones's partner. I want to see Jones!"

"What Jones do you want?" asked Mrs. Winslow, to get time to think further what to do.

"Jones, of Rochester, of course," yelled Fox. "Two ship-loads of spoiled grain's just come in; don't know what to do with 'em."

"Sink 'em!" responded Mrs. Winslow, breathing freer.

"Where's Jones?" persisted Fox, banging away at the door again.

"There's no Jones here, you fool!" answered the woman hotly.

"Yes there is, too," insisted Fox. "Landlord told me so."

"Well," parried the female, raising her voice again, "Jones ain't in the wheat trade at all; he's a professor of music; and besides that, he ain't in here, either."

"Oh, beg pardon, ma'am," said Fox apologetically, "It isn't your Jones I want _this time_, then. Hope I haven't disturbed you, madam," and he walked away, having clinched the matter quite thoroughly enough for any twelve honest and true men under the sun.

Mrs. Winslow stuck her head out of the door, launched a threat, coupled with a well-defined oath, against Fox, who was leisurely strolling along the hall, to the effect that he ought to be ashamed of himself for "insulting a defenceless woman in that way, and that if he came there again she would have him arrested." To which he cheerily responded, "No offence meant, ma'am; 'fraid the wheat'd spoil, ye see;" and as he went whistling down the stairs, she slammed the door, locked it, drew the trembling Le Compte from under the bed, and amid a chime of crockery set him upon his feet again with a snap to it, and then threw herself into a rocking-chair and burst into tears, insisting that she was the most abused woman on the face of earth, and that Le Compte, with his "_Sacres!_" and "_Diables!_" hadn't the sense of a moth or the muscle of an oyster, or he would have followed the brute and given him a sound beating!

Not desiring to be seen by Fox, I ordered my dinner sent to my room, as did the unhappy couple in the adjoining apartment, who seemed to be greatly put out by the intrusion, and who were for an hour after speculating as to the cause of the interruption, and as to whether it was accidental or not.

"We mustn't come here any more, Le Compte," said the woman dolefully.

"And for why, my angel precious?" anxiously asked the man.

"Why, do you know," replied Mrs. Winslow with earnestness, "I sometimes really believe I am being watched!"

"No, that was impossible!" said Le Compte, with a start.

"And sometimes," she continued, paying no attention to him, "it seems as though I could not stand this terrible keeping up appearances any longer."

"You should have pleasure in the appearance," responded Le Compte insinuatingly, "it breaks him down already. He is now like one weak infant."

"That's so, that's so," she answered quickly, in a tone of vengeful joyousness. "I'll bring the old devil to my feet yet. I'll crush him out and ruin his fortune, if it takes me all my life. I'll get the biggest part of it, too; and then, Le Compte, we'll get out of this cursed country and enjoy ourselves the rest of our lives."

"Yes, in Paris, the magnificent, the beautiful, the sublime! Then we will live in one heaven of love. Oh, beautiful, beautiful!" cried the little Frenchman excitedly.

"There, Le Compte," said his companion, suddenly becoming practical again, "don't make a fool of yourself! Take this bill and go down and get a bottle of wine; and mind you, don't keep the change either."

As the train returned at two, and I had but little time to reach it, as soon as Le Compte had come back with the wine and they had become sufficiently noisy to admit of it, I quietly left my room, paid my bill, went to the train, avoiding Fox entirely, and, with him, was soon again in Rochester, leaving the roystering couple at the little hotel at Charlotte building their vain dreams and air-castles about crushing out Lyon--which would have been an easy matter if left to himself--their beautiful, magnificent, and sublime Paris, and their "one heaven of love" within it.

As soon as Fox stepped from the train I quietly handed him a slip of paper directing him to make his report to me at the Waverley House, where I was stopping under an a.s.sumed name, which he a.s.sured me he would do, without a word being spoken or even a look of recognition being pa.s.sed.

Although the public may not be aware of it, this is an absolute necessity in detective service. Though I employ hundreds of persons as detectives, preventive police, and in clerical duties, at my different agencies, on no occasion and under no circ.u.mstances is there ever on the street, or in any public place whatever, the slightest token by which the stranger might know that there had ever been any previous communication between any of my people.

On the next day, Sunday, Lyon called to see me at the hotel and brought with him two notes from Le Compte--one having been received late Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and the other delivered at his house that morning--both imperatively insisting that Lyon should come to his rooms and leave that "untractable man" behind.

I complimented him extensively on his having refrained from visiting the winsome little villain who seemed determined to get Lyon within his power. He solemnly pledged his word that he would have nothing whatever to do with the man, and would bluff him in every advance that he made; and in order to clinch it, I read him choice extracts from Fox's report regarding the Charlotte party of the day before, interspersing it with a few of the still choicer items that had come under my own observation.

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Lyon, as I concluded, "are they _all_ that way?"

"Your experience and mine," I smilingly replied, "would almost point to the fact that a very decided majority of them are."

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Pinkerton again interviews Le Compte.-- And very much desires to wring his Neck.-- A Bargain and Sale.-- Le Compte's Story.-- "Little by Little, Patience by Patience."-- A Toronto Merchant in Mrs. Winslow's Toils.-- Detective Bristol, "the retired Banker," in Clover.-- Tabitha, Amanda, and Hannah individually and collectively woo him.-- Ancient Maidens full of Soul.-- A Signal.

No jury in the land would render a verdict against a man on the unsupported evidence of a woman whose character was so vile as we had already found Mrs. Winslow's to be; and I would have paid no further attention to the little Frenchman, had I not suspected from his expensive style of living, and from Mrs. Winslow's injunctions to him regarding not swindling her in so small a matter as a bottle of wine, that his necessities and cupidity might cause him to make some tangible disclosure regarding her, that would give us a clue to other information against her further than that which Bangs would probably secure in the West, as I never use detective evidence when it can be avoided, and knew that a perfect mountain of criminal transactions could be eventually heaped up against her which could be secured from reliable parties, who could have no other possible interest in her downfall than a desire to promote the personal good of society.

Le Compte did not desire to see me again, and had made strenuous efforts to prevent it and secure a surrept.i.tious interview with Lyon instead.

Failing in this, at the last moment, I had received a very terse note from him to the effect that he did not desire to transmit any statement by mail, but would take it as an honor, etc., if I would call at his place at ten o'clock, Monday morning, which I did, finding the little fellow in a gorgeous dressing-gown, freshly shaved, and in a neat and orderly state generally.

"Well, my young friend," said I, "I suppose you have decided to give me some information this morning."

"Do I get good pay?" he asked in response.

"You will get good pay if you have a good article for sale," I replied.

"Humph!" he responded, with a soft shrug of his delicate shoulders.

"Are you ready to make such a sale?" I asked.

"But where comes my money?" inquired Le Compte, suspiciously.

"It is right here," I answered, slapping my pocket in a hearty way.