"She's tellin' me she have a gran' fella," said the girl questioningly.
"She have," lied Mary promptly, "did she iver tell ye his name?"
No, she hadn't; so Mary said maybe Angela Ann wouldn't want her to tell it either.
Mary's sister, Maggie O'Connor, who was married to a "will-t'-do" blacksmith and lived but a few blocks away, had also heard of a stylish young man who could not be asked to the back cellar on Henry Street, or even allowed to suspect it. In family council Mrs. O'Connor testified that she had offered her own "parlie" for the courting.
"'Bring him here an' l'ave us have a look at him,' I sez to her. 'Ye kin have th' parlie anny toime ye want it,' I sez, 'an' if yer 'shamed o' yer Uncle Tim's brogue, he kin stay in th' shop, an' I'll talk t' him mesilf,' I sez."
But Angela Ann had not accepted this handsome offer, nor had she confided the name of the young man to Mrs. O'Connor, who only knew that Angela Ann had assured her he was a gentleman beyond a doubt, for he had a gold watch and chain.
Fired by this information, which he considered an important clue, Casey was for carrying it at once to the police so that they might investigate all young men wearing gold watches and thereby in due process find the one who knew Angela Ann. But before he could get away to furnish the detectives with this important information, Mrs. O'Connor had made some further suggestions. The chief of these was touching the advisability of consulting a fortune-teller.
"Thim coppers," she opined, "is no good. Tim's after radin' a lot about thim in th' paapers, an' he sez they niver ketch nothin' 't all. He sint ye a dollar wid me and sez he, 'You till thim t' stop foolin' wid coppers an' go t' th' forchune-teller,' sez he."
"I belave it have more t' do wid what th' forchune-teller know than wid what thim coppers kin foind out," reflected Mary Casey. It was the morning after the detective's visit, and Mrs. O'Connor had come over to ask the news. "Theer's somet'ing I didn't till th' ditictive," Mary confessed, "not knowin' how he'd take it—but the day befoore Ang'la Ann wint, a quare, wan-eyed cat kem here. Ivrywheer I wint thot day she traipsed at me heels, an' all Monday noight whin I was up watchin' fer Ang'la, th' cat was on th' windie-sill, howlin' what sounded joost like Aan-gla, Aan-gla, Aan-gla. Now what d'ye make o' thot?"