"I will give you a note in double the amount."
"But, madam, I could not accept your note, no, and now I would not accept your husband's note, for I have information that you and the baron, your son, have so involved him that he will be a ruined man if he saves your honor and credit. I cannot stand to lose, but, madam, I will see you again. You will need time to think and time to confer with the baron. I will call again."
The detective rose; the woman was really overwhelmed.
The Spaniard evidently knew the truth—the whole truth—knew that the baron was really her son. She did not bid the Spaniard to stay; she did need time to think, and she walked the floor in the agony of her thoughts. Then she rang for a messenger boy and sent a hurried note, and in the meantime she had prepared to go forth to the street veiled, and the detective, having worked a change, was at hand, and he fell to her "shadow," and he muttered:
"This drama is approaching its end; the play is most over; the curtain will soon go down."
The woman went to the very same hotel where she had met the baron once before. She did not enter the dining-room, but proceeded to a room. Jack was on hand. He had learned that the baron had secured a room in the hotel and had been living there for some days, and with his usual foresightedness the detective under a "cover" had secured a room in the same hotel, thinking that the time might come when he would desire to watch the baron and his visitors. He waited for the woman to enter the baron's room and then quickly he entered the room he had secured.
Right here we desire to state that this securing of adjacent rooms when detectives are on a "lay" is a very common proceeding. It is done daily, it is being done to-day, and will be done in the future. It is indeed one of the most frequently adopted methods of the profession, and it is a common event also to place a detective as a pretended criminal in the same cell or the adjacent cell to a criminal, with a view to catch his mutterings awake or asleep, or to listen to conversations between the wretched man and his visitors.
Jack was all right; he wanted to learn facts and it was delightful to feel that he had run these schemers down to a point where he could listen to their mutual explanations.
The baron was in his room. This was a chance in the woman's favor, and upon her appearance he exclaimed:
"You here?"