I therefore arranged that Ingham should pretend that he had made the acquaintance of a stranger from the East, who had a large sum of money; he was to tell Mrs. Sanford that he would bring the stranger to her rooms to spend the evening; the stranger would be rather drunk when he arrived there, and they would give him more liquor, until he should be quite drunk; if she should then try to rob him, he would get away as well as possible, and Ingham would go after him. In a little while, Ingham would return and show her a package of bonds, stolen from the stranger, and tell her that he had knocked the man down with a brick, before robbing him. The next morning a notice would appear in the papers to the effect that a stranger had been found in the burnt district, lying on the ground in an insensible condition, having been knocked down and robbed. Ingham was instructed as to his part in the affair, and next day he told Mrs. Sanford that there was a young fellow down town whose acquaintance he had made, who had a large amount of money with him. Ingham said that the man's name was Adamson, and that he was a gambler in good luck. He wanted to bring Adamson to the house that evening, and she was very anxious that he should come. I intrusted the stranger's part to my son, Robert A. Pinkerton, who assumed the name of Adamson for the occasion. Accordingly, the two detectives met at my office, and Adamson was given five hundred dollars in fifty dollar bonds. They then went to Mrs. Sanford's house, and, on arriving there, Mr. Adamson was quite unsteady on his legs. Mrs. Sanford was nicely dressed to receive the stranger, and she made herself very agreeable to him, in spite of his apparent drunkenness. They played cards together for a time, and then Adamson proposed to play euchre with Ingham seven points for five dollars a game. While they were playing, Adamson became quite reckless, and he threw down his cards with such a look of drunken gravity as to be quite amusing. He lost almost every game, and, at length, he wanted to go out for a drink. Mrs. Sanford told him to go on with his game, and she would get what he wished. "What do you want to drink?" she asked. "Anything excep' warrer," he replied. "What do you know about water?" asked Ingham; "I don't believe you can tell how it looks." "Tha's a lie. I know how to tell warrer's well's you. I (hic) can allus tell warrer--it looks jus' like gin. Get us some gin." While Mrs. Sanford was gone, Ingham and Adamson arranged that the latter should pretend to have lost all his money to the former, and that he should insist upon playing one game for fifty dollars. This he was to lose, and he was to become angry and go away. Adamson then gave Ingham about fifty dollars to show as his winnings, and presently Mrs. Sanford came in. She had been introduced to Adamson under the assumed name of Mrs. Robertson, and he therefore addressed her by that name.