Meantime, how fared it with that bruised reed, the lone widow of the late Lieutenant Doyle? Poor old Jim had been laid away with military honors under the flag at Chalmette, and his faithful Bridget was spending the days in the public calaboose. Drunk and disorderly was the charge on which she had been arraigned, and, though she declared herself abundantly able to pay her fine twice over, Mr. Pepper had warned the authorities to keep her under lock and key and out of liquor, as her testimony would be of vital importance, if for nothing better than to send her up for perjury. Now she was alternately wheedling, cursing, coaxing, bribing; all to no purpose. The agent of the Lemaitre property had swooped down on the dove-cot and found a beggarly array of empty bottles and a good deal of discarded feminine gear scattered about on both floors. One room in which certain detectives were vastly interested contained the unsavory relics of a late supper. Three or four empty champagne-bottles, some shattered glasses, and, what seemed most to attract them, various stubs of partially-consumed cigarettes, lay about the tables and floor. Adjoining this was the chamber which had been known as Mrs. Dawson's, and this, too, had been thoroughly explored. 'Louette, who had disappeared after Doyle's tragic death, was found not far away, and the police thought it but fair that Mrs. Doyle should not be deprived of the services of her maid. Then came other additions, though confined in other sections of the city. Mr. Pepper wired that the party known as Monsieur Philippes had been run to earth and would reach town with him by train about the same time that another of the force returned from Mobile by boat, bringing a young man known as Dawson and wanted as a deserter, and a very sprightly young lady who appeared to move in a higher sphere of life, but was unquestionably his wife, for the officer could prove their marriage in South Carolina in the spring of '65. As Mr. Pepper expressed it when he reported to Reynolds, "It's almost a full hand, but, for a fact, it's only a bobtail flush. We need that cabman to fill." "How did you trace Philippes?" asked Reynolds. "Him? Oh, he was too darned musical. It was--what do you call it?--Flure de Tay that did for him. Why, he's the fellow that raised all the money and most of the h--ll for this old man Lascelles. He'd been sharping him for years." "Well, when can we bring this thing to a head?" asked the aide-de-camp. "_Poco tiempo!_ by Saturday, I reckon." But it came sooner.