“One day Johnson told me that he was going with his sister to a school picnic. He had obtained leave of absence from the store, and I thought it an excellent time to make investigations. So I went to his sister’s boarding-house, inquired for the young lady, and of course was told that she was away. I explained to the landlady that I had received a message, saying that she would be at home several hours earlier than she had expected, and that I was to meet her that afternoon, to go on another excursion. I said it was about time for her to reach home, and, if the landlady had no objection, I would wait in the parlor. As I had been there frequently, and the landlady knew me, she made no objection. Luckily she went out a few minutes after, and gave me more freedom to operate than I had expected.
“I immediately went to the young lady’s room,—of course it was very impolite for me to do so,—and searched it thoroughly. It is of no use telling you all I found there, unless you have never been in a lady’s room, and do not know what it contains. She had a very good wardrobe, better than most young women in her position. It struck me as very odd that she had four dresses of rich black silk, which did not appear to have been made a very great while. Four dresses of black silk are a pretty good supply for a school teacher on a small salary, and I made up my mind that the silk came from the dry goods store where Johnson was engaged.
“There is a great difference between believing a thing and proving it. You may be certain of it from the circumstances, but it may not be very easy for you to go into court and show its reality. Now, here was my predicament. I thought four dresses were too many for one young lady, just as I once thought, when I searched a man’s trunk, and found fourteen coats of different sizes, and no trousers or vests, that it was a remarkable wardrobe for a gentleman to have. But how was I to get at the fact, and show the connection between the wearing apparel of Miss Johnson and the Broadway dry goods store?
A DETECTIVE MAKING LOVE.
“To help matters along, I made love to Miss Johnson in the regular way, referred to my relations with the dry goods house, and obtained an indorsement from the head of the firm, as a relative of his wife. I was getting along very well, only I did not want to propose and get an engagement, because that might make the situation a little awkward. I deferred the day of proposal on the ground that my uncle in the country, from whom I had expectations, was opposed to my marriage, except to a lady of his choosing; and that I should be obliged to wait until he had handed in his checks, which would be before a great while, as he had a lovely cough, and the rheumatism, supplemented with the dyspepsia and gout, so that the situation was perfectly charming.
“Johnson approved of my attentions to his sister, and of course we became warmer friends than ever. All this time I was studying to entrap the two, so as to fasten the robbery of the dry goods house upon them. One day I pretended a great admiration for a certain kind of silk that I had seen at the store. I told Laura that it suited her complexion exactly, and was just the dress she ought to wear. It was a light-colored silk, of a peculiar shade, which had been made expressly to order for the dry goods house, and I knew that they had the monopoly of it. I spoke about it several times, and said I hoped, one of these days, to be able to present her with a dress of this sort, but did not know when it would be, as my income, just at that time, was too small for any lavish expense.
“Love for me made the girl incautious. Four or five days later, twenty or thirty yards of this silk were missing from the store; and in a week or more, when I made a call, Laura surprised me with a dress of the material I had so much admired. I praised it, and I praised her, and she was happy.
A SUPPER AT DELMONICO’S.
“I invited her to accompany me the following evening to a theatre, and told her she must wear that dress; that I wanted her to be the prettiest and best dressed woman there; and, dressed in that, I knew she would be. We went to the theatre, and afterwards to Delmonico’s, where I had arranged to be shown to a private room for supper. I had invited her brother to join us, and, to avoid his suspecting anything, I told him that the day before, I had received a remittance of fifty dollars from my uncle, and was going to have a pleasant evening, without regard to the expense.
“But her brother was not the only person to be there that evening. The head of the firm was waiting where he could see us enter, and with him was a policeman.