“I understand, Mr. Butler,” Martinson replied. “Depend on it, you’ll have the best we have, and you can trust them. They’ll be discreet. You can depend on that. The way I’ll do will be to assign just one man to the case at first, someone you can see for yourself whether you like or not. I’ll not tell him anything. You can talk to him. If you like him, tell him, and he’ll do the rest. Then, if he needs any more help, he can get it. What is your address?”
Butler gave it to him.
“And there’ll be no talk about this?”
“None whatever—I assure you.”
“And when’ll he be comin’ along?”
“Tomorrow, if you wish. I have a man I could send tonight. He isn’t here now or I’d have him talk with you. I’ll talk to him, though, and make everything clear. You needn’t worry about anything. Your daughter’s reputation will be safe in his hands.”
“Thank you kindly,” commented Butler, softening the least bit in a gingerly way. “I’m much obliged to you. I’ll take it as a great favor, and pay you well.”
“Never mind about that, Mr. Butler,” replied Martinson. “You’re welcome to anything this concern can do for you at its ordinary rates.”
He showed Butler to the door, and the old man went out. He was feeling very depressed over this—very shabby. To think he should have to put detectives on the track of his Aileen, his daughter!
XXXVI
The very next day there called at Butler’s office a long, preternaturally solemn man of noticeable height and angularity, dark-haired, dark-eyed, sallow, with a face that was long and leathery, and particularly hawk-like, who talked with Butler for over an hour and then departed. That evening he came to the Butler house around dinnertime, and, being shown into Butler’s room, was given a look at Aileen by a ruse. Butler sent for her, standing in the doorway just far enough to one side to yield a good view of her. The detective stood behind one of the heavy curtains which had already been put up for the winter, pretending to look out into the street.
“Did anyone drive Sissy this mornin’?” asked Butler of Aileen, inquiring after a favorite family horse. Butler’s plan, in case the detective was seen, was to give the impression that he was a horseman who had come either to buy or to sell. His name was Jonas Alderson, and be looked sufficiently like a horse-trader to be one.
“I don’t think so, father,” replied Aileen. “I didn’t. I’ll find out.”
“Never mind. What I want to know is did you intend using her tomorrow?”
“No, not if you want her. Jerry suits me just as well.”
“Very well, then. Leave her in the stable.” Butler quietly closed the door. Aileen concluded at once that it was a horse conference. She knew he would not dispose of any horse in which she was interested without first consulting her, and so she thought no more about it.
After she was gone Alderson stepped out and declared that he was satisfied. “That’s all I need to know,” he said. “I’ll let you know in a few days if I find out anything.”
He departed, and within thirty-six hours the house and office of Cowperwood, the house of Butler, the office of Harper Steger, Cowperwood’s lawyer, and Cowperwood and Aileen separately and personally were under complete surveillance. It took six men to do it at first, and eventually a seventh, when the second meeting-place, which was located in South Sixth Street, was discovered. All the detectives were from New York. In a week all was known to Alderson. It bad been agreed between him and Butler that if Aileen and Cowperwood were discovered to have any particular rendezvous Butler was to be notified some time when she was there, so that he might go immediately and confront her in person, if he wished. He did not intend to kill Cowperwood—and Alderson would have seen to it that he did not in his presence at least, but he would give him a good tongue-lashing, fell him to the floor, in all likelihood, and march Aileen away. There would be no more lying on her part as to whether she was or was not going with Cowperwood. She would not be able to say after that what she would or would not do. Butler would lay down the law to her. She would reform, or he would send her to a reformatory. Think of her influence on her sister, or on any good girl—knowing what she knew, or doing what she was doing! She would go to Europe after this, or any place he chose to send her.
In working out his plan of action it was necessary for Butler to take Alderson into his confidence and the detective made plain his determination to safeguard Cowperwood’s person.
“We couldn’t allow you to strike any blows or do any violence,” Alderson told Butler, when they first talked about it. “It’s against the rules. You can go in there on a search-warrant, if we have to have one. I can get that for you without anybody’s knowing anything about your connection with the case. We can say it’s for a girl from New York. But you’ll have to go in in the presence of my men. They won’t permit any trouble. You can get your daughter all right—we’ll bring her away, and him, too, if you say so; but you’ll have to make some charge against him, if we do. Then there’s the danger of the neighbors seeing. You can’t always guarantee you won’t collect a crowd that way.” Butler had many misgivings about the matter. It was fraught with great danger of publicity. Still he wanted to know. He wanted to terrify Aileen if he could—to reform her drastically.
Within a week Alderson learned that Aileen and Cowperwood were visiting an apparently private residence, which was
