Part 51 (1/2)

”ADOLPH LA G----,

”P.S.--I leave here for the East this morning. Please answer on immediate receipt.

A. L.”

This was posted on the eastern-bound train not an hour after my son's arrival from the West; and another note was written upon the back of an envelope which had pa.s.sed through the mail, and had got a very much used appearance, and ran thus:

”FATHER OF LIZZIE:

”Treat Adolph well, you can trust him. Give him one of the 'photos' taken at Atlanta in my full-dress uniform; keep one other of the same for yourselves; but destroy all the rest.

Have been so hurried and worried that I don't remember whether I have said anything about photographs before. But this is a matter of _imperative necessity_. Adolph will explain how he met me.

”Good-by,

”H. ----”

It was impossible to detect any difference between this handwriting and that of Captain Taylor's in his business correspondence to Kuhn Brothers; and, armed with this doc.u.ment, with the a.s.sistance of the epistolary self-introduction which had preceded it, I directed my son to leave for Philadelphia that evening, secure admission to Taylor's residence and the family's confidence, agreeable to the appointment made by mail, and thus not only secure the man's photograph, but other information that would be definite.

On arrival at Philadelphia, he secured the services of an operative from my agency in that city, to follow any member of the Taylor family who might call for the letter, to their residence, in the event of an answer not being received at his hotel in due time from the one a.s.sumed to have been sent from the hotel in Chicago from La Grange, who found Taylor's home, an unpretentious house on Locust street, while my son remained at the hotel, fully expecting the coveted invitation to visit the Captain's beautiful sister, which arrived at his hotel only a half day after he did, and strongly urged him to call at his convenience.

He was satisfied from this that our theory regarding his being in Texas, or Mexico, was correct; that the family had not the slightest suspicion of his ident.i.ty, and that, wherever Captain Taylor might be, communication with his people had been very infrequent, and that, with what he would be able to invent after being received at Taylor's house, he could secure at least sufficient information to put him upon his son's trail. Not desiring to play upon their feelings and friends.h.i.+p as another person any longer than necessary, however, he sent word by a messenger, not daring to trust his own handwriting, that he would call that evening, though necessarily at a late hour; and, accordingly, that evening, about nine o'clock, found him at the door of a pleasant Locust street cottage, ringing for admission.

A tall, handsome young woman greeted him at the door, and accordingly bade him enter, saying pleasantly, as she ushered him into the cozy little parlor, that she was Miss Lizzie Taylor, and presumed he was Mr.

La Grange, with whom she had had so long and so pleasant a correspondence; and of whom ”poor Harry,” as she said with a shade of sadness and tenderness in her voice, had so often written, before he had made his terrible mistake, and become a wanderer.

After hastily satisfying her that he was the genuine La Grange, and profusely apologizing for his not having written for so long a time previous to his arrival at Chicago, from Cheyenne, he took up the thread she had dropped, as quickly as possible, and said that he felt sure that Harry would retrieve himself soon, and return the money, as he had no bad habits, and everything would be all right again.

”But yet, Mr. La Grange,” she continued, ”it makes me shudder whenever I think of all my brothers being away off there on the Rio Grande, among those terrible people!”

”But, you must remember,” he replied, encouragingly, ”they are strong men, and can well defend themselves under any circ.u.mstances.”

”Harry is strong and brave, I know,” answered Miss Taylor, rather admiringly; ”but brother Robert is not fit for such a life. Why, he is but a boy yet.”

”Ah, a younger brother?” he thought, making a mental note of it, in order to a.s.sist in shaping his conversation after which he said aloud: ”I almost forgot to give you this note;” and he took the piece of envelope out of his note-book, as if it had been sacredly guarded, and handed it to her.

Miss Taylor read the hastily written lines with evident emotion; and after studying a moment, as if endeavoring to reconcile matters, while her face was being searchingly read by an experienced detective, she rose, and, apologizing to him for the absence of her father, who was in New York, on business, and of her mother, who was confined to her apartment, a confirmed invalid, she asked to be excused so as to show the note to her mother.

The instant the door closed, my son had seized the alb.u.m, which he had located during the preceding conversation; and rapidly turned its leaves to a.s.sure himself that he was not treading on dangerous ground. He found a half-a-dozen different styles of pictures of the Captain, including three of the copies taken in Philadelphia of the original Atlanta picture, and felt rea.s.sured beyond measure at the lucky turn things had taken. He would have abstracted one of these, but it was impossible, and had barely time to return the alb.u.m to the table, and himself to his seat, when he heard the woman's step along the hall, and in a moment more she entered the room.

III.

Giving the door a little impulsive slam, as she closed it, Miss Taylor at once came to where my son was sitting upon the sofa, and seated herself beside him. She said that her mother was anxious beyond measure to learn how and where he had met Harry, how he was looking, and what he had said.

The imagination and resources of the able detective are fully equal to those of the most brilliant newspaper reporters, and a pleasant and plausible fiction was invented, how he (as La Grange, of course), having taken a run from Louisville down to New Orleans, by boat, was just landing at the levee, when he suddenly came across Harry, who had hastily told him all; how great had been his transgression, how deeply he had regretted it; but that now he was situated in his business matters so that, if let alone, he would be able to return to Kuhn Brothers every dollar which he had taken, and have a fine business left; how it had been necessary for him to come to New Orleans on imperative business, and that he should not come east of the Mississippi again under any circ.u.mstances. He further said, that Harry seemed hopeful; that he had stated that his younger brother Robert was well and enjoying the frontier life; and that, further than that, he had no time or disposition to talk, as he was on the very eve of departure for Texas, only having time to write the little note concerning the photographs.

Miss Taylor excused herself for a moment to convey the truthful intelligence to her anxious mother; and on her return suggested that they go through the alb.u.m together at once, and attend to the photographs, an invitation which was accepted with unusual readiness.

Every gentleman who has had the experience, and there are few who have not, know that looking over an alb.u.m with a beautiful woman who has some interest in her companion, is a wonderfully pleasant diversion. In this instance it was doubly pleasant, for it meant success to my son, whose zeal is as untiring as my own when once on the trail of a criminal.

”I wonder why,” asked Miss Taylor, as if wondering as much about Mr. La Grange as about any other subject; ”I wonder why Harry desires those photographs destroyed?”

He was turning the leaves for her and, as La Grange, of course, had a perfect right to take plenty of time to explain the matter soothingly and sympathetically.