He took his neat little note-book from his pocket and was about to read

it, when Ruyler interrupted him.

"But surely you know whether these women were French or not?"

"Aw, that's just what you can't always find out. Lots of 'em pretend to

be, and others--if they come from good stock in the old country--want you

to forget it. But the queens generally run to French names, as havin' a

better commercial value than Mary Jane or Ann Maria. One of these was

Marie Garnett, who wasn't much on her own but spun the wheel in Jim's

joint down on Barbary Coast, which was raided just so often for form's

sake. She always made a quick getaway, was never up in court, and died

young. Gabrielle ran an establishment down on Geary Street and was one of

the swellest lookers and swellest togged dames in her profession till the

drink got her. I can't find that she ever hooked up to a James or any one

else. Pauline-Marie was another razzle-dazzle who swooped out here from

nowhere and burrowed into quite a few fortunes and put quite a few of our

society leaders into mourning. She disappeared and I can't trace her, but

she seems to have been the handsomest of the bunch, and was fond of

showing herself at first nights, dressed straight from Paris, until some

of our war-hardened 'leaders' called upon the managers in a body and

threatened never to set foot inside their doors again unless she was kept

out, and the managers succumbed. Then there was the friend of a rich

Englishman, whose first name I haven't been able to get hold of. They

lived first at Santa Barbara, then loafed up and down the coast for a

year or two, spending quite a time in San Francisco. She was 'foreign

looking' and a stunner, all right. All of these dames drifted out about

the same time--"

"What was the Englishman's name?"

"J. Horace Medford. Front name may or may not have been James. I doubt if

his name could be found on any deeds, even in the south, where there was

no fire. He doesn't seem to have bought any property or transacted any

business. Just lived on a good-sized income. Of course, all the hotel

registers here were burnt, but I wired to Santa Barbara and Monterey and

got what I have given you.

"He had a yacht, and he took the woman with him everywhere. There was

always a flutter when they appeared at the theater. Of course she went by

his name, but as he never presented a letter all the time he was here and

it was quite obvious he could have brought all he wanted, and as men are

always 'on' anyhow, there was but one conclusion."




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