In his investigations among the creditors who had paid him the sum stolen, Mr. Latimer had found out a fact on which I was relying for aid in the course of the work, as I have intimated before; and renting on that becoming important in the line of evidence, I repaired to Baltimore, and told the general agent that I thought it time now to draw matters to a close. We arranged our plans. The New York agent was informed that the ticket had been presented at the general office, and the prize demanded; that it would be necessary for the young man and himself to come on to Baltimore to meet the presenter of the ticket, and that he was to call again in three days. The general agent was in great glee over the matter; for I had arranged with him that he should have the whole of the three thousand dollar prize as his own, if he would not demand the five hundred dollars reward of me, in case the matter worked out rightly, and we managed to get back a good share of the money stolen from the young man. He was for attacking the young man at once, as soon as we could get him into the private office, and charging him with the robbery of Mr. Latimer's safe; overwhelming him with the history of his being that day in Jersey City, and showing him the trap we had set to get him to identify the ticket so minutely, etc.; but I feared that the young man might not be so easily taken aback, and we agreed to wait for something else which might, in the negotiation, turn up. I had not informed the agent yet of what Mr. Latimer had discovered in his investigations about the kind of money paid him, but had arranged with the agent that if things came to the proper point he should offer to pay the young man by a draft on New York, and should say to him, that if it would be convenient he would rather make the draft for three thousand and five hundred dollars, and let the young man pay him five hundred dollars, as that amount would draw out all his deposit, and close account with the bank in question, he having determined to do his business with another bank. So much I had asked which he said he would do; and duly the young man and the agent came on. We had a private conference; I being disguised, with spectacles and all, as the legal counsellor of the lottery men. The agent from New York was present. I had asked the young man many questions about the ticket, heard the New York agent's story, and given my advice to the Baltimore man to pay it to him, but to send for the "other man" who held the ticket, and who was said to be waiting the result of things. So the New York agent was politely asked to take a note to a man quite a distance off from the lottery office, and whom the agent had informed that he might receive a note that day, and instructed what to do in such case. The man was a store-keeper; was very polite to the New York agent; bade him be seated in the counting-room, and he would send his boy out to bring in the man indicated in the note.