Cupid's Middleman

by Edward B. Lent

Mr. Tescheron did not have in mind a further pursuit of Hosley after he had paid the detective bureau for weeks of service, which brought no results other than rumors. To have the disturber of his peace in hiding where no man could find him would have pleased Mr. Tescheron; but from the reports of Smith it seemed certain that a crisis was about to be reached. Hosley had been located in South Dakota, claiming a residence antedating our fire by several weeks. A man who has had trouble with his wives generally goes there. The officials were about to send men on to arrest him, and then await his extradition. There was enough evidence, Mr. Smith said, in the Browning case alone to warrant the belief that the authorities would readily secure the transfer of their man to New York; but long before that time, all the horrible details would appear in the papers.

"We have staved this thing off for five weeks, Mr. Tescheron," said Mr. Smith, in one of his private interviews with his client at the Stuffer House. They sat that afternoon in a corner of the writing-room adjoining the large living-room.

"Yes, I think you have done well," replied Mr. Tescheron. "But how much have I paid you altogether? About one thousand eight hundred dollars, isn't it?"

"Yes, or a trifle more or less, one way or the other. I can't remember just now. It has involved me in heavy expense, this case has, Mr. Tescheron. If I had it to do over again, I could not possibly quote such favorable terms for our facilities—I could not possibly. No, sir, I could not possibly think of doing so." Mr. Smith's emphasis took the form of dwindling repetition so common to men of business, who have hold of the best end of the bargain, and have decided to keep their hold.

"Well, in the fish business, one thousand eight hundred dollars stands for enough to feed ten thousand people," remarked Mr. Tescheron, glumly. "I feel as if it ought to pay for a lot of detective work. I am sorry you think you are so underpaid."

There was a trace of a sneer that Mr. Smith did not like, and as he held the upper hand in the detective business he did not need to tolerate such conduct in his client.

"Perhaps we'd better call the thing off," said Mr. Smith. "You and your family remain here—or you might go down to Lakewood. In that way you will escape much of the disagreeable notoriety—quite a good deal of it, at any rate. Yes, sir, a considerable amount of it."

Mr. Smith snapped some documentary-looking papers, and as he drew his lips together and nervously twisted his head, he thrust the papers deep in an inside pocket. They contained a memorandum of the estimated price for engineering the return of the Tescheron family to New York under an iron-clad guarantee of protection.

But the sarcasm was more of an irritant than the client could stand.

"See here, Smith, you talk to me in a way I don't like"; and Mr. Tescheron glared as he became more combative than he had ever been in his dealings with this prosperous leech. "I don't care to have you threaten me in this underhanded manner. Perhaps I have been a fool to have placed so much confidence in you from the start. You have kept me scared and away from my home for five weeks, and now you hint that the end is not in sight. We are all sick and tired of this place. Hoboken is no paradise, let me tell you. I am bored to death here. For the money paid to you to date, you have produced nothing but discomfort. I am thinking of packing up and starting back to-morrow, let the consequences be what they may. I think I have been a victim quite long enough, and have paid just about all a fool ought to pay for a vacation of five weeks."