“This, then, is the favor I would ask of you: If the lady is as prominently connected as I had reason to believe from Mr. Braswell’s statements, I assume you know her already. If not, I take it that it should not be a very difficult matter to locate one whose character and attainments must have given her a high standing among your good citizens. So I am asking you to see to it that the enclosed letter is put at once into her hands.
“Thanking you in advance for any trouble or inconvenience to which you may be put in carrying out our wishes, I remain,
“Yours most sincerely,
“Randolph Embury.”
And within four days got back the following reply:
“Mayor’s Office, June 2.
“Dear Sir:
“Yours received and contents carefully noted. In reply to same would say that while ready at any time to serve you and your good wife in every way possible, yet in this case I am put in a delicate attitude and fear you also may be put in one should I undertake to fulfill your desire.
“Undoubtedly the person that your late father-in-law had in mind was one Cecelia Lamprey, better known as ‘Sis.’ But not by the widest stretch of imagination could anyone think of her as a ‘lady.’ She is the proprietress of a most notorious assignation house located on North Bonaventure Avenue, this city, and according to my best information and belief, has always been a woman of loose morals and bad repute. I might add that having been elected on a reform ticket and being committed to the task of ridding our city of evil, I am at present setting on foot an effort to close up her establishment, which has until lately enjoyed secret ‘protection,’ and to drive her from our midst.