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 assumed 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 identity, 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 friendship 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 circumstances."
"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 assist 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 album, which he had located during the preceding conversation; and rapidly turned its leaves to assure 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 reassured 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 album 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.