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 assumed name, which he assured me he would do, without a word being spoken or even a look of recognition being passed.
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 circumstances 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 Saturday 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 God!" 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.