Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American DetectivesMcWatters, George S.
General
Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives
McWatters, George S.
Detectives
"I'll tell you all about it to-night," said Mr. G. "It is a long story;
but first the girls must be called to see the lost treasures now
restored." And the daughters were called up. To their queries, uttered
amidst the profoundest astonishment, as to how, and when, etc., the
treasures were brought back, and who was the thief, and if it was some
Catholic, who had disgorged the stolen goods through the confessional,
Mr. G. only answered, slyly winking at the spiritualistic daughter, "It
was through the means of a first-rate 'medium' that the things were
restored."
"There, there," said the daughter, too serious to understand her
father's irony, "I could have told you so. What do you think now of
spiritualism, father?"
"O, I don't know," said he in reply. "There _are_ a great many strange
things in the world, that's a fact." But he would not promise to ever
tell them how the things got back, and the ladies went to assorting
them, and commenting on each article. It was a novel sight to see the
eagerness with which they grasped at this or that article as it turned
up,--the long-lost treasures found.
I left the house duly that day, and I understood from Mr. G., who
called on me three or four days after, that when he told his wife that
night what he had seen, and how she looked, and so forth, when moving
about so slyly, that she had a "great crying spell" over it, and did
not wish the daughters to be informed of the secret state of things;
and that for fear the somnambulistic state should come upon her again,
she tied her arm or foot to the bedstead, in order to be awakened if
she should attempt to get out of bed. But she had had no more attacks
of the disease.
"Perhaps her severe crying broke it," said he.
I made many inquiries of Mr. G. about his wife's habits in life, her
general health, her peculiar troubles, if she had any, by way of
resolving this mystery of the kleptomania connected with the
somnambulism; and from all I could learn, I believe that she was one of
the most conscientious and best of mortals in her normal state, and I
was led to believe that the kleptomania, if not the somnambulism, was
caused by diseases, though slight ones, peculiar to the female sex; but
why these came on so late in life, (for Mrs. Garretson was sixty-three
years old,) I cannot conceive, but leave that for the doctors to decide.
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THE SORCERESS' TRICK, AND HOW SHE WAS CAUGHT.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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