On arriving in that city he went to the Michigan Exchange Hotel, and, through the courtesy of the proprietors, was allowed to look up the records of the house.
It was fifteen years previous that the man who said he was "from Bland" met Lilly Nettleton at the depot and had taken her to the Michigan Exchange to meet the reverend circuit-rider; but after he had got at the dusty records he found on the register, evidently in the handwriting of a clerk: "Lilly Mercer, Buffalo, Room 34," under date of August 15, 1856, and also the names of "R. J. Hosford, Terre Haute, Room 98," and "Lilly Nettleton, Kalamazoo, Room 34," in a cramped and almost illegible hand under date of November 28th of the same year; and on the next day's page, in the same hand: "R. J. Hosford and wife, Terre Haute, Room 34."
The next step was to hunt up Mother Blake, which was not a very hard matter, as women of her character generally run in the same noisome rut, until they are swept from the great highway with other pestilences of life, and pass from bitter existence and infamous memory; and after one or two evenings running about among the demi-monde he found the woman—quite an old lady now, but nearly as well-kept and quite as jolly as ever, presiding over a group of soiled divinities at a neat retreat on Griswold Street.
Through the purchase of a vile bottle of wine the old lady's lips were opened, and her tongue began a perfect gallop about Bland and Lilly Mercer.
She gave the latter the reputation of being one of the shrewdest women she had ever met, and laughed until the tears came into her eyes over the way in which she had "played it" on Bland, who had picked her up for a fool, and had himself been terribly sold. Then she launched into vituperations towards the young minister, who had accused her of "standing in" with the girl in the robbery, when she had been as badly fooled as himself. Whatever she had been and was, she said, there wasn't a dishonest hair in her head; which assertion Bangs had reason to believe to be literally true, as he noticed that she wore a wig.
She then in great glee told him how she had "got even" with Bland by "giving him away" to the papers, which had soon taken the feathers out of his cap, she remarked with much satisfaction, broken his mother's heart, who died and willed all her property to the good cause of furnishing the heathen with an occasional fat missionary steak, and finally drove Bland out of Detroit, when he had gone to some Eastern city and, under another name, with his fine manners, airy ways, and good clothes, was playing it fine on some old Spiritualist millionaire out our way.
When the vision of the magnificent Harcout—which was almost a constant one, as he rushed into my office on the slightest pretext whatever, big with his own importance and unusually full of enthusiasm over "our case"—flitted before my eyes, it gave to me additional romance in the work, in the sense that here, after many years, the man whom Mrs. Winslow in her early career had so magnificently duped, had unconsciously become one of her most relentless pursuers.
But it was a matter for speculation whether Harcout knew her to be the person who had so neatly taken him in, or whether he had risen to this condition of fervor in his work merely to impress Lyon with his useful friendship. I inclined to the latter opinion, however, as I was satisfied that if he had known with whom he was dealing he would have given up all expectations of continued favor and patronage from Lyon, and left Rochester as hastily as he had, as Bland, departed from Detroit.
Bangs also asked her if she had ever seen Lilly Mercer since that time.
Of course she had seen her, just at the close of the war. One day as she was crossing the river in the ferry, coming back from Windsor, she had met her face to face. Mother Blake said that she seemed wonderfully glad to meet her, and wanted to borrow some money, which she had refused. She then gave her her card, upon which she was called some Madam or other, a clairvoyant, and she had some shabby rooms on Wisconsin Street, near the theatres. She was still young and pretty, Mother Blake said, and she easily persuaded her to come and live with her, which she did, "and," continued the old woman, with a withering look at the girls, "low down as she was, she made more money in a day than any half-dozen women I ever had." The old lady further said that she had only remained with her long enough to get some fine clothing and money together, when she started for the East.