The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1913-06-06


tasks and disappear again,
knew naught but that We were an or
binary young man and an ordinary
young woman partaking of the re-
freshments of the after the theater
| True 1t was of myself, that ordinary
part-but for the woman who faced
me there was great difference l
leaned across the table
i can't help saying it," l had be-
gun, but you don't look like a de-
tective."
She laughed, intellectually.
perhaps that's the reason I've sue
ceeded,' she answered. Then sud-
denly she bent toward me, her eyes
flashing, the fire of enthusiasm, of the
hunter, In her face. Il know what
you're going to say" was added
that it's no work for a woman who
loves the things that woman
should love; that it is work that will
make me old beyond my time and
make me forget the good things of the
world Well?' she laughed 1--WE
been at it nearly twelve years now.
and if it was going to make me old it
should have accomplished something
by this time. And so, one guess as
to my age"
tried to be truthful.
"TWentyfour," l hazarded.
"You missed it" the eternal wom-
all came forth in it's strength then
"but won't tell you how much. You
see, a person doesn't have to let
crime enter the soul, simply because
the business is that Of crime tracking.
But there was time once
The eyes lost their softness. A
glitter cold, steel-like, supplanted the
happy brilliancy The diamond pen
dant at her throat shook and shed
forth its sparkling radiance against
the brightness of the lights. The
hands, folded on the table, clenched
hard. l noticed that the lips were
drawn in a straight line l waited
and then:
when was that?"
The being of Alice Clement had
seemingly changed. :here was bit of
'OAAAoA
determination. Those flashing eyes
were becoming colder and colder.
1T was the only time in my life"
she began. that ever tracked a man
for revenge. More than one little
angle turned up in that case, for it
not only gave me the vengeance I
sought. but it proved to me that a
woman can be as brave as a man; it
proved to me that had the detective
1nstinct-and it also, later on, made
a municipal detective Of me. 1t hap
pened twelve years ago. and that's a
fairly long time, but when I tell the
story the true names will be changed.
and locations will be renamed, be-
cause-well, just because, that's ALL"
She was still the woman, in reasons,
at least I waited.
"You remember that l laughed
when you guessed at my age" she
began, land one reason for that is that
have out home little daughter. half
as old as you guessed my age to be.
When my entrance into the detective
world began that child was a baby in
arms. And she went with me-
Years before, my husband had
been slugged. He had been held up
at night, on a street on the West Side,
knocked down, beaten and robbed.
had seen the face of the man who had
done the work-and that face burned
itself into my memory with a per-
manency that l knew would never
fade. The time came when l was sure
of that.
my husband had gone away on
trip that week, 1 remember Since"
she added with tone of sadness in
her voice. he has gone on a longer
journey from which he will not re-
turn. We were not the most prosper
GUS persons in the world then, and we
lived in fiat near Chicago avenue.
The neighborhood was squalid; there
were characters around US whose re-
spect for the law was not of the high
est. 1t was street of mystery and
Of darkness and of danger.
"And someway, In daytime as
walked along that street, or in the
evening when I was returning from
the little store with my purchases for
the evening meal, my eyes were al
ways searching, always looking for
the sight Of q face that remained
ever clear to me. Something seemed
always whispering to me that some
day I would find that man whom
hunted; some day, he and would
come face to face, and then it would
be woman against man-with prison
or death as the ending. The police,
in the years that had passed, had done
nothing toward success in catching
him, and for that hated them. De-