Then, with wonderful acumen, she let him understand that she knew of the existence of various stamps and seals, finally that their very existence was a menace and she could not feel any security in his promise until she knew they were destroyed.
"I will put them at the bottom of the river to-morrow morning."
"But if you are really in earnest and mean well, you will do that now, this very night—let me see you do it, or bring them to me," she coaxed, wheedled, insinuated.
And then finally with the blood fired by alcohol and that quality that makes men putty in the hands of beauty and sex lure, he ordered a cab and in an incredibly short time returned with quite a large package wrapped carefully in burlap. He left the room for a moment in his preparations for the anticipated night. I opened the door between the rooms, admitted her with the package, about all she could carry, and he never saw her again. The mad, inflamed bull was stalled with a ring in his nose.
This blazed the trail to Kansas City, where I started on the next train, and did not return for more than a week.
CHAPTER XXX
As soon as I saw Hiram I knew he was a different man. It was not necessary for me to tell him. Details were published in every daily paper. He had gone back to Anna Bell Morgan clean, unsullied, unbesmirched—his conception of what a man should be, and prosperous beyond dreams. A solid, forceful man, ambitious without limit, he was much interested in the brief information I gave him of how I had successfully uncovered and apprehended in Kansas City all the others involved in the crime, who evidenced a power of organization which, if directed in legitimate channels, would have made them rich.