“All right, fire away!”
“They are on this coach, just three seats down.—Good boy, not to jump out of your skin! Now I am going to show you my sketch of the woman before and after. See, there is no doubt about her! You walk to the smoker and on the way back get a good look at her face and I bet you will be convinced.”
Jeffrey Tucker did as he was bid, giving Madame Misel such a casual look that he aroused no suspicion in her mind.
“Gee! This is great! I’d rather bag some of these spies than do big hunting in the African Jungle. Now, most wise of all female detectives, what do you advise? We must act quickly.”
“I think you should take the conductors, both train and Pullman, into your confidence, and then send telegrams to New York to have the spies met with the proper reception. You can telegraph Bobby, I mean my father, if you think it best, and he can get in cahoots with the Secret Service people in New York. Bobby is the kind of man who doesn’t let things go wrong. When he bores a hole in the mountain it comes out on the opposite side just exactly where he meant it to,—when he swings a bridge across a river it stays swung,—there is no giving way of supports and undermining from washings,—Bobby knows. If you telegraph him, he’ll have detectives there all right and they will have the necessary warrants and handcuffs, too.”
“Well then, Bobby it is!” and Jeffrey Tucker quickly took Mr. Kean’s address. Next the conductors were interviewed, and those good Americans quickly complied with any and every request. A long and explicit telegram was written to the gentleman who did not let mistakes happen, another one sent to the chief of police, in case Mr. Kean should not be at home to receive the telegram, (Jeffrey Tucker being the kind of man who did not let mistakes occur, either,) and then there was nothing to do but sit quietly in the Pullman and wait for the train to steam into New York.
It seemed to Judy to be hours and hours, although the time certainly passed pleasantly with the friends she made on the train. She and Mr. Tucker talked to everybody except the two sporty looking individuals, and they would have had the audacity to talk with them if they had been given the slightest encouragement. But the Misels kept their backs studiously turned to their fellow travelers and did not court sociability.