"Mighty little at this time of the year. The current's good and strong an' the chances are that he won't turn up this side of the Mississippi, if then. It was only by accident that we found his cap. It had lodged under the dock and we fished it out less 'n half an hour ago—" and the chief pointed to a water-soaked piece of cloth which Simmons recognized as the one which Holden had been wearing the evening before.
"Well, I don't suppose there's anything more that we can do," admitted Larry. "I'd like to have the river dragged as much as possible, though I agree with you that the chances for recovering the body are very slim. Will you look after that?"
"Sure I will, and anything else you want done." The chief was nothing if not obliging—a fact which Simmons incorporated in his official report, which he filed a few days later, a report which stated that "David Holden, wanted on a charge of attempting to obtain money under false pretenses, had committed suicide by drowning rather than submit to arrest."
The body has not been recovered [the report admitted], but this is not to be considered unusual at this time of the year when the current is very strong. The note left by the fugitive is attached.
Back from Washington came the wire:
Better luck next time. Anyhow, Holden won't bother us again.
If this were a moving picture [Quinn continued, after a pause], there would be a subtitle here announcing the fact that seven years are supposed to elapse. There also probably would be a highly decorated explanatory title informing the audience that "Uncle Sam Never Forgets Nor Forgives"—a fact that is so perfectly true that it's a marvel that people persist in trying to beat the government. Then the scene of the film would shift to Seattle, Washington.
They would have to cut back a little to make it clear that Larry Simmons had, in the meantime, left the Pension Bureau and entered the employment of the Post-office Department, being desirous of a little more excitement and a few more thrills than his former job afforded. But he was still working for Uncle Sam, and his memory—like that of his employer—was long and tenacious.
One of the minor cases which had been bothering the department for some time past was that of a ring of fortune-tellers who, securing information in devious ways, would pretend that it had come to them from the spirit world and use it for purposes which closely approximated blackmail. Simmons, being in San Francisco at the time, was ordered to proceed to Seattle and look into the matter.
Posing as a gentleman of leisure with plenty of money and but little care as to the way in which he spent it, it wasn't long before he was steered into what appeared to be the very center of the ring—the residence of a Madame Ahara, who professed to be able to read the stars, commune with spirits, and otherwise obtain information of an occult type. There Larry went through all the usual stages—palmistry, spiritualism, and clairvoyance—and chuckled when he found, after his third visit, that his pocket had been picked of a letter purporting to contain the facts about an escapade in which he had been mixed up a few years ago. The letter, of course, was a plant placed there for the sole purpose of providing a lead for madame and her associates to follow. And they weren't long in taking the tip.