"Ah, Dio," exclaimed the old Italian, "I vish it be so. I am much ammalato (sick). What have you brought?—Tell quick."
"See here!" said my friend; "did you ever see that before?" producing the finger. The old Italian seemed a new man as his eyes dilated at the sight with wonder, and he went into raptures over the matter, the reason for which I could not understand, and in his broken English muttered a thousand exclamations of surprise and joy. Of course he identified the finger as the one he had made for the "villain-scoundrel Legate." Legate, I found, had never paid the Italian for his skillful handiwork, and he had been promised a portion of the reward, if my friend should succeed in earning it—hence his joy.
We left the old Italian soon, and proceeded to the boat, where we confronted Jacobs, and made him acknowledge his identity with Legate. My business was made known to him. He lay on the boat for two days, until her return trip, when we had him carefully taken to a private hospital, where he could, beyond possibility of escape, be confined, and awaited his slow recovery under the best medical and other attendance we could procure. I telegraphed to my parties in New York, one of whom came on directly, reaching New Orleans within ten days from that time; and before two weeks had passed from the time of his arrival, we had settled matters with the now penitent, because caged, Legate; and the New Orleans parties who had offered the reward were now called in by my detective friend, and settled their affairs with him by accepting a mortgage he held for twenty-five thousand dollars on a sugar plantation in the Opelousas country, paying the reward to my friend, and losing nothing in the result.
Only for the advertisement in the New Orleans paper, probably Legate would never have thought to procure a false finger; but for which I should never have been able to satisfy myself that Jacobs, in his bruised and battered state, was the identical Legate, and might have left him without further investigation on the boat.
The old Italian recovered his health speedily in his joy over Legate's capture, and was not forgotten by my friend, who, by the way, but for this old artist, would of course have never known of Legate's attempt at disguising the only peculiar mark about him, and would not, therefore, have been so sure of his identity when I told him my story. "Straws show which way the wind blows," and "fingers," though they be inanimate and waxen, may "point," you see, unmistakably to a villain.
LOTTERY TICKET, No. 1710.
A DIGNIFIED REAL-ESTATE HOLDER, VERY WEALTHY, LOSES SEVEN THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE DOLLARS—OUR FIRST COUNCIL AT THE HOWARD HOUSE—VISIT TO HIS HOUSE TO EXAMINE HIS SAFE AND SERVANTS—A LOTTERY TICKET, NO. 1710, FOUND IN THE SAFE—HOW CAME THIS MYSTERIOUS PAPER THERE?—CONCLUSIONS THEREON—VISIT TO BALTIMORE, AND PLANS LAID IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE LOTTERY AGENT TO CATCH THE THIEF—THE TICKET "DRAWS"—THE NEW YORK AGENCY "MANAGED"—TRAP TO IDENTIFY THE THIEF—THE SECURITY AND "SOLITUDE" OF A GREAT CITY—A NEW YORK BANKER—MR. LATIMER VISITS A GAMBLING-HOUSE IN DISGUISE.—IDENTIFIES THE SUSPECTED YOUNG MAN—THE AGENT AT BALTIMORE WAXES GLEEFUL—HIS PLAN OF OPERATIONS OVERRULED—MEETING OF "INTERESTED PARTIES" AT THE OFFICE IN BALTIMORE—A LITTLE GAME PLAYED UPON THE NEW YORK AGENT—MR. WORDEN, THE THIEF, IDENTIFIES THE TICKET, AND FALLS INTO THE TRAP OF A PRE-ARRANGED "DRAFT"—DISCLOSES SOME OF THE IDENTICAL MONEY STOLEN—WE ARREST HIM—EXCITING SCRAMBLE—THE MONEY RECOVERED—WORDEN'S AFTER LIFE.