[8] January 25th, 1863.
But all this while, for the purposes of this narrative, Tom Leslie and his friend Harding have been standing unnoticed in the presence of the Superintendent. Not very long in reality—scarcely longer than enabled them to note the hair and closely-cut full beard of iron gray, the keen but troubled eyes, that had scarcely yet ceased to moisten at the memory of the loss of a dearly loved brother,[9] the face care-worn and anxious, and the shoulders bent over a little as he sat,—scarcely longer time than this was given them, when the Superintendent laid down his pen and said, sharply and decisively:
"Well, gentlemen?"
[9] Col. William D. Kennedy, of the Tammany Regiment.
There was nothing very cordial in the tone, and no indication that the Superintendent considered it peculiarly his place to listen to all the persons who came to him upon business; but perhaps this comparative brusquerie is necessary, in the carrying on of any important department, to discourage bores and send idle people the sooner about their business. It does not add to popularity, however, and may add materially to the opposite.
Under such circumstances, it did not need a very long period of time for Tom Leslie, with the occasional assistance of Harding, whose memory was much more accurate if not more retentive—to convey to the Superintendent the main facts of their midnight adventure, with the impression that adventure had made, of some disloyal movements going on in the City, and probably with extended ramifications elsewhere. Except to say that one of the women seen on that evening had before fallen under his notice in Europe. Leslie did not allude to the episode of the "red woman," nor did he enter into the particulars of his previous meetings with Dexter Ralston, though he asserted his knowledge of him as a Virginian of peculiar influence and a very ambiguous position. The Superintendent showed few signs of interest in the narration, though his sharp eye occasionally glanced at the face of the principal narrator, and though he two or three times made motions with the pencil lying before him, which might have been merely listless occupation of his fingers and might have been something very different.
"Well, gentlemen," said the Superintendent, when they had concluded. "It is certainly a strange story you have been telling, and of course I do not question the entire veracity of your narration of what you saw or thought you saw. But there is nothing proved, so far, that could justify any arrest, even if we could find the persons to arrest. I do not see that there is anything I could do in the matter."
"I told you so!" said Leslie in a low voice to his friend. He had opposed coming to the Superintendent at all, be it remembered.
"Nothing?—not even to set a watch upon the two houses we have named?" asked Harding, a good deal surprised and not a little out of temper.
"Humph!" answered the Superintendent. "This is not France under the Empire, and I am not Fouché."