Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-07-30
"You Poor castawayl" She Murmured.

the broken packet The counting
co.hpleted, she replaced the rubber
bands and the brown paper wrapping.
Then she repacked the suitcases, ar
ranging the contents as nearly as
might be just as she had found them,
locking the cases and returning the
keys to the waistcoast pocket from
which she had taken them.
When all was done, she tiptoed
across to the bed, with the brown pa
per packet under her arm. The sick
man stirred uneasily and began to
mutter again. She bent to catch the
words, and when she heard, the light
of understanding leaped swiftly into
the dark eyes. For the mumbled
words were the echo Of fierce threat:
"Sign it; sign it now, or, by God, I'll
shoot to kill"
The robbery Of the Bayou State Sc
curity bank was already an old story
when Mr.. Matthew Broffin, chief Of
the New Orleans branch Of a notable
detective agency, took over the case
Of the bank robbery a few days after
his return from Central America.
Since two members Of his own staff
had fired and missed their mark in
st. Louis, there was a blunder to be
retrieved.
After a week of patient groping
Broffin was obliged to confess that the
problem of Identification was too diff
ficult to be solved on conventional
lines. 1t presented no point Of attack.
With neither a name nor pictured
face for reference, inquiry was Grip
pied at the very outset None of the
boarding and rooming no lses he visit
had lost lodger answering the verbal
description of the missing man. Very
reluctantly, for bulldog tenacity was
the detectives ruling characteristic,
he was forced to the conclusion that
the only untried solution lay in Teller
Johnson's unfortified impression that
the chance meeting at his wicket was
not the first meeting between the rob-
ber and the young woman with the
draft to be cashed.
1t was the slenderest of threads, and
Broffin realized sweatingly how diff
cult it might be to follow. Assuming
that there had been a previous meet
ing or meetings, or rather the passing
acquaintance which was all the young
womans later betrayal Of the man
made conceivable, would the writer of
the accusing letter be willing to add to
her burden Of responsibility by giving
the true name and standing Of the
man whose real identity-if she knew
it-she had been careful to conceal in
the unsigned note to Mr.. Galbraith?
Broffin read the note again-"a deck
hand, whose name on the mates book
is John Wesley Gavitt," was the de-
scription she had given. 1t might, or
it might not, be an equivocation; but
the longer Broffin dwelt upon it the
more he leaned toward the conclusion
to which his theory and the few known
facts pointed. The young woman
knew the man in his proper person;
she had been reluctant to betray him
that, he decided, was sufficiently
proved by the lapse of time interven-
ing between the date of her note and
it's postmark date; having finally de-
cided to give him up. she had told only
what was absolutely necessary, leav-
ing him free to conceal his real name
and identity If he woodland could.
Having come thus far on the road
to confinement, Broffin knew what
he had to do and set about doing it
methodically. A telegram to the clerk
of the Belle Julie served to place the
steamer in the lower river; and board
| ing night train he planned to reach
Vicksburg in time to intercept the
witnesses whose evidence would deter
mine roughly how many hundreds of
thousands of miles he could safely cut
out of the ZigZag pourneyings to which
the following up of the hypothetical
clue would lead.
For. cost what it might, he was de-
termined to find the writer of the un-
signed letter.