e I endeavored to analyze her the more of
an enigma she became.

Like nearly all women of disreputable character, she was terribly
extravagant, reckless, and improvident; but as an offset to this she was
supreme in the meanness ordinary courtesans are above--that petty but
never-ceasing swindling so terribly annoying to the public.

With all these things in her favor, so far as being an ingenious pest is
concerned, she was also possessed of the power of physical as well as
financial recuperation to a wonderful degree; and to whatever depth of
temperamental dejection or physical exhaustion and degradation she might
descend, she would of a sudden reappear, fresh and blooming, with no
perceptible trail of her vileness upon her, in which condition she would
remain just so long as would conserve her interests.

While Superintendent Bangs was on his way to St. Louis, Grey and Watson
were being led a lively chase about the city by Mrs. Winslow, and the
bland clerk of the Denver House was devoting nearly all his time in
tracking her from place to place to enforce the collection of his
employer's bill.

Her first exploit was to borrow twenty dollars from Mrs. Gayno on her
baggage, who was thus prevented from turning her out of doors when her
true character was learned; and as a further illustration of her
shrewdness, after she had remained at the house as long as she desired,
she left between days, without refunding the borrowed money or paying
her bill, and in some mysterious way also spirited away all her baggage.

This of course caused more trouble in finding her, and she was finally
discovered in furnished rooms. Even here she suddenly made her presence
so unbearable to the landlord that he gladly paid her a bonus to depart,
which she did equally as mysteriously as on the previous occasion, when
she was lost again, and the third time found at a Spiritualistic
gathering at the hall near the corner of Chestnut and Seventh streets,
where she was one of the speakers of the evening and did herself and the
cause justice.

In this way--following her while she was securing abstracts of her many
cases against the people of St. Louis, the number and trivial character
of which had become a matter of public scandal, newspaper comment, and
universal condemnation among members of the bar, keeping track of her in
numberless conditions and localities, and listening to endless tales of
the woman's reckless conduct during her previous r