this quaint
interior, but stepped immediately up to the good woman I saw leaning
over the counter.

"Do you know a Mrs. Boppert who lives at 803?" I asked.

The woman's look was too quick and suspicious for denial; but she was
about to attempt it, when I cut her short by saying:

"I wish to see Mrs. Boppert very much, but not in her own rooms. I will
pay any one well who will assist me to five minutes' conversation with
her in such a place, say, as that I see behind the glass door at the end
of this very shop."

The woman, startled by so unexpected a proposition, drew back a step,
and was about to shake her head, when I laid on the counter before her
(shall I say how much? Yes, for it was not thrown away) a five-dollar
bill, which she no sooner saw than she gave a gasp of delight.

"Will you give me _that_?" she cried.

For answer I pushed it towards her, but before her fingers could clutch
it, I resolutely said:

"Mrs. Boppert must not know there is anybody waiting here to see her, or
she will not come. I have no ill-will towards her, and mean her only
good, but she's a timid sort of person, and----"

"I know she's timid," broke in the good woman, eagerly. "And she's had
enough to make her so! What with policemen drumming her up at night, and
innocent-looking girls and boys luring her into corners to tell them
what she saw in that grand house where the murder took place, she's
grown that feared of her shadow you can hardly get her out after
sundown. But I think I can get her here; and if you mean her no harm,
why, ma'am----" Her fingers were on the bill, and charmed with the feel
of it, she forgot to finish her sentence.

"Is there any one in the room back there?" I asked, anxious to recall
her to herself.

"No, ma'am, no one at all. I am a poor widder, and not used to such
company as you; but if you will sit down, I will make myself look more
fit and have Mrs. Boppert over here in a minute." And calling to some
one of the name of Susie to look after the shop, she led the way towards
the glass door I have mentioned.

Relieved to find everything working so smoothly and determined to get
the worth of my money out of Mrs. Boppert when I saw her, I followed the
woman into the most crowded room I ever entered. The shop was nothing to
it; there you could move without hitting anything; here you could not.
There were tables against every wall, and chairs where there were no
tables. Opposite me was a window-ledge