ome delay we traced the cab across the bridge to the shop where
you got the boy to go for it. The shopwoman was quite voluble about you,
saying she knew all the time that you were an American by the accent,
and described the bag and ulster which we had ascertained were in your
possession. Of course, we were now satisfied that we were on the right
scent, but could get no further trace or the direction taken by the cab.
We therefore sent dispatches to all the telegraph stations within fifty
miles to put the police on the watch and sent messengers to the outlying
places, but somehow you slipped through our meshes, and nothing turned
up until the car man returned at about 11 p.m., as drunk as a soldier on
furlough. After putting him under a water tap until he was half drowned
we got him sober enough to tell where he had left you; but he swore you
were a priest, and his evident sincerity caused us all to roar with
laughter. This angered him, and he said: "Ye may twist me head an'
dhroun me intirely, but I wull niver spake another wurrud about the
jintelman at all, at all," and sure enough we could get nothing more out
of him.

"'We had a carriage ready, and, jumping in, we were at the wayside inn
by midnight and terrified the old woman half out of her wits in arousing
her out of bed. After a while she gathered them sufficiently to show us
that you had six hours the start of us. The boy who carried your bag
could give us no points, but we concluded you intended taking the branch
line at Fermoy for Dublin. We drove right on, arriving at the Fermoy
station at 1 p.m., but, getting no trace we telegraphed to all the
stations along the line to Dublin, and there as well to be on the
lookout. Who would ever have thought of your taking the opposite
direction, penning yourself in at the end of a branch line, at a small
inland town like Lismore? Why, you were, as we discovered the next
morning, at that moment sleeping quietly at the Lismore Hotel, and only
about ten miles from where we were working so industriously for that
L5,000! Well, you "done" us fine that time!

"'After you so cleverly threw us off the trail, we could get no trace
until Sunday morning, when we received a dispatch from Lismore, stating
that a man had come on the last train, stayed at the hotel and left at
daylight without paying his bill. "Hello!" said I, as soon as I read the
dispatch, "we never suspected Lismore; he has been there all night and
is off again!" W