'Which ort,' Mrs. Camp had declared, 'to sail out, leastwise, the boat with that white woman settin' up there on top, and come across to serlute that big gold goddiss. For my part,' she added, 'I've seen one thing that was as it ort to be. They took an' set a woman up in the midst of their court, and made her bigger and brighter and handsomer than anything else. But if they was bent on calling her Justice, why,' she opined, 'that there court ought to be called a court of justice.'
The two old people had evidently grown lonely and sated with grandeur, and when she had aired her views concerning the golden goddess, Mrs. Camp began to talk about our adventure with the counterfeiters.
'That friend of yours was right,' she said. 'That Sunday-school chap didn't come to time; and we ain't seen him sence not to speak to.' And then she related how, on coming away from their rooms on Stony Island Avenue that morning, they had seen, just across the street from them, the man Smug in earnest conversation with a tall man whose back was turned toward them, and who after a few words had turned and walked away southward, while Smug had entered a café close at hand, doubtless to breakfast.
Dave had questioned them closely, hoping to learn more; but beyond the facts as first stated little was added.
The men had met at a point 'a few squares' from the Camps' 'boarding-house'—possibly four or five. The man in conversation with Smug was tall, and very straight, 'sort of stiff like,' and well dressed. They were quite sure, also, that he was dark, and that he wore a beard. Incidentally they gave Dave the number of their Stony Island residence.
'We shan't have much trouble to find the Camps,' Dave said in concluding his narration. 'The old lady has taken a great fancy for the Liberal Arts Building, and she generally spends her time sitting upon a chair in the centre of Columbia Avenue and admiring at her leisure. She says she "'d ruther see things in the lump, sort of." And I believe they take a walk every morning around the Plaza, the Court, the Peristyle, and then up the lake shore from Victoria House, which she won't enter—because she "hates old England and all the Englishers"—to the point where Fifty-seventh Street drops into Lake Michigan. And every afternoon, I verily believe, they walk arm-in-arm up and down the length of Midway, without stopping or entering anywhere.'
In our summing up we found we had accomplished very little legitimate business. We had established the fact that Greenback Bob was at the Fair, and the presumption was strong, amounting almost to a certainty, that Delbras was also there. We had connected the man Smug with one, if not both, for Dave was sure that the man's companion on Stony Island Avenue was Delbras, and now this brunette, whom I believed to be a man in woman's attire, seemed to be identifying herself, or himself, with the 'gang.'
'If you can prove that the brunette's a man or boy,' said Dave, 'then I'll say don't look farther for the third party who came with Delbras from France; and if that should prove the case, tell me, what designs have this gang upon Miss—what do you call her?'
I started. It was Dave who was growing imaginative now. And yet——
'I had only thought of the brunette as having seen the bag fall, and hoping for a find,' I said doubtfully.