Two days afterwards we found the following answer in the newspaper named:—
“To Estelle: For fifty dollars, I will give you the papers you desire.
C. R.”
Long and anxiously we meditated on this reply. I dreaded a trap. Was it not most likely that Ratcliff, in naming so low a figure, hoped to secure some clew to the whereabouts of Estelle?
While I was puzzling myself with the question, Estelle suggested an expedient. The answer to the advertisement undoubtedly came from Ratcliff, and we had a right to regard it as valid. Why not address a letter, with fifty dollars, to Ratcliff, and have it legally registered at the post-office?
“Admirable!” exclaimed I, delighted at her quickness.
“No, it is not admirable,” she replied. “An objection suggests itself. Some one will have to go to the post-office to register the letter, and he may be known or tracked.”
I reflected a moment, and then said: “I think I can guard against such a danger. Having been an actor, I am expert at disguises. I will go as an old man.”
The plan was approved and put into effect. The two watches were disposed of at a jeweller’s for a hundred and ten dollars. In an altered hand I wrote Ratcliff a letter, enclosed in it a fifty-dollar bill, and bade him direct his answer simply to Estelle Grandeau, Cincinnati, Ohio. I added one dollar for the purpose of covering any expense he might be at for postage. Then, at the shop of a theatrical costumer, I disguised myself as a man of seventy, and went to the post-office. There I had the letter and its contents of money duly registered.
As I was returning home in my disguise, I saw the old negro I had left in charge at Mrs. Dufour’s. He did not recognize me, and was not surprised at my questions. From him I learned, that before he left the house a gentleman (undoubtedly Ratcliff) had called, and had seemed to be in a terrible fury on finding that Estelle had gone away some hours before; but his rage had redoubled when he further ascertained that a young man was her attendant.