The following evening he wrote from San Francisco:
You will be glad to know that I have put Harry N. Morse's detective agency of Oakland upon the track of Keseberg, and if found, I mean to take steps to obtain his confession.
In less than a week after the foregoing, came a note from him which tells its own story.
SACRAMENTO, Midnight, April 4, 1879
MRS. E.P. HOUGHTON,
DEAR MADAM:—
Late as it is, I feel that I ought to tell you that I have spent the evening with Keseberg. I have just got back, and return early to-morrow to complete my interview. By merest accident, while tracing, as I supposed, the record of his death, I found a clue to his whereabouts. After dark I drove six miles and found him. At first he declined to tell me anything, but somehow I melted the mood with which he seemed enwrapped, and he talked freely.
He swears to me that he did not murder your mother. He declares it so earnestly that I cannot doubt his veracity. To-morrow I intend plying him closely with questions, and by a rigid system of cross examination will detect the false-hood, if there is one, in his statement. He gives chapter after chapter that others never knew. I cannot say more to-night, but desire that you write me (at the Cosmopolitan) any questions you might wish me to ask Keseberg, and if I have not already asked them, I will do so on my return from San Francisco.
C.F. MCGLASHAN.
After his second interview with Keseberg and in response to my urgent appeal for full details of everything relating to my parents, Mr. McGlashan wrote: