Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Psychological fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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