In his search after Helen, and in his endeavor to find her abductor, Mat had been engaged only a short while when he rendered himself suspected by the sugar-house gang, had been arrested and clapped into the Black Hole, where he had been kept a close prisoner ever since.
So it turned out that Mat Morris, whom I had believed the most active character in the drama, was for the greater part of the time kept in a condition of forced inactivity.
Nellie Millbank told me how, after having seen her lover laid away in his resting-place, she had taken an oath to avenge his death.
Knowing how slight a clew she had on which to work—the most vague description of the murderer—she had adopted a male attire, and started out with the plan of insinuating herself into the confidence of such a man as she might suspect, and lead him to convicting himself.
Starting out on this plan, she had just caught sight of an individual whom she thought answered the description of the murderer, and was shaking her finger after him when I saw her shadow.
She heard the remark I dropped at the time, and, when she afterward wrote to me, she adopted the name my remark had suggested.
The five hundred dollars I gave to her she had lost, and Mat Morris had found, which explained the complications arising from finding bills which I recognized in the hands of Mrs. Morris.
I also then learned how it was that Shadow had come to be in the sugar-house at the time of handing me that note, although that is something concerning which the reader needs no explanation, the detective's purpose being made evident at the time.
And this is so as regards many other incidents in connection with Shadow, mysteries to me at the time of their occurrence, but made plain to the reader in various places.
And this is so also as regards Helen Dilt.