rcout appeared and kindly
offered me countless suggestions and theories, which were each one
considered by Mr. Harcout to be worthy of immediate adoption; and in
order to get rid of him, I was obliged to appear to acquiesce in an
imaginative theory of Mrs. Winslow's flight to New York, and represent
myself as so interested in his idea of how she could be traced to her
hiding-place, that I desired of him as a personal favor that he would
follow the trail, giving him a man, and the man a wink--and there never
was a finer picture of pomposity and assumption than when Harcout and
his man started for New York. Rid of him, I again turned to my work of
getting upon the right trail.

I was sure the woman had left the city, and further inquiry at the rooms
convinced me that I was correct. The little woman finally acknowledged
flatly that she had gone, but would under no circumstances tell whether
she had left the city or not. She also exhibited a bill of sale of the
goods and a transfer of the lease, and wanted to know if _that_ did not
look as though she had gone? But she persisted in her refusal to give
further information, and that was the end of it.

No one had seen any trunks or packages leave the place, nor could my
detectives get any trace of her having left the city over any of the
different roads. Inquiries made at all the leading livery stables,
express and hack-stands, of the city, failed to discover that Mrs.
Winslow had been conveyed to any near railroad station where she might
have taken a train; nor could it be by any means ascertained that such a
person had purchased a ticket at any of the adjacent towns for any point
to the east, west, or south.

In fact, all trace of Mrs. Winslow was lost, and I was satisfied that
she had for some time been sure of the danger of her surroundings; and,
while not able to fasten any particular suspicious act upon Bristol or
Fox, undoubtedly intuitively felt that they were either directly
responsible for her troubles, or were in some unexplainable way
connected with their cause; and being enough of a professional litigant
to be aware of the necessity of service of notice upon her as to the
taking of evidence before such evidence could be taken, and that it
would be possible by a sudden disappearance and remaining secreted until
the case might be called, to defeat Lyon's attorneys from using this
mountain of evidence which she knew existed against her, whether she
knew we had col