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Updated: May 25, 2025
She went almost blind with rage at that beast of a Gilfoyle who had dragged her away and married her while she was not thinking. He must have hypnotized her or drugged her. If only she could quietly murder him! But she didn't even know where he was. The investigations of Messrs. Hodshon & Hindley in the life of Zada and Cheever prospered exceedingly.
A man simply cannot succeed as a teacher, lawyer, doctor, merchant, thief, author, scientist, or anything else if he blurts out everything he knows or believes. No preacher could occupy a pulpit for two Sundays who told just what he actually thought or knew or could find out. The detective is equally compelled to manipulate the truth. Hodshon gave his soul to Charity's cause.
She ought to have consulted a lawyer first, but her soul preferred the risk of disaster to the shame of asking counsel. She consulted the newspapers and found a number of advertisements, some of them a little too mysterious, a little too promiseful. But she took a chance on the Hodshon & Hindley Bureau, especially as it advertised a night telephone, and it was night when she reached her decision.
Is that all right? We get the goods on 'em and you have a friend ready, and we'll bust in on the parties, and " "No, thank you!" said Charity, with undiminished enthusiasm. This stumped Mr. Hodshon. She amazed him further. "I don't intend to bring this case into court. I don't want to satisfy any judge but myself."
Once or twice she blazed with such anger that she rose to tear the wire loose from the wall and end the torment. But her curiosity restrained her. She set the earpiece to her ear again. At length she formed her resolution to act. She called out, "Mr. Hodshon, come here!" He came in and found her a pillar of rage. "I've heard enough. I'll do what I refused before. I'll go with you and break in."
Charity suggested an advance payment as a retainer, and Hodshon permitted her to write a check and hand it to him before he assured her that it wasn't necessary. He went away and left Charity in a state of nerves. Her curiosity was a mania, but she feared that assuaging it might leave her in a worse plight. She hated herself for her enterprise and was tempted to cancel it.
Now, of course, women's scandals are no more of a luxury to a detective than their legs were to the bus-driver of tradition or to any one in knee-skirted 1916. Mr. Hodshon was a good man as good men go, though he was capable of the little dishonesties and compromises with truth that characterize every profession.
She was tortured by fantastic imaginings of what she might hear. She wondered how a man would talk to such a person as Zada, and how she would answer. She imagined the most dreadful things she could. She stepped out, paid her fare, and turned, to find Mr. Hodshon at her elbow. He had been waiting for her. He recognized her by her melodramatic veil.
Only two names came to Charity's searching mind Jim Dyckman's impossible name and one that was so sublimely unfit that she laughed as she uttered it. "There's the Reverend Doctor Mosely." Hodshon tried to laugh. "I was reading head-lines of a sermon of his. He's down on divorce." "That's why he'd be the ideal witness," said Charity. "But would he come?" "Of course not," she laughed.
She had an idea that a detective could be recognized at once by his disguise. He probably could be if he wore one; and he usually can be, anyway, if any one is looking for him. But she could not get Hodshon till she threatened to telephone elsewhere. At that, he said he would postpone his other engagement and come right up. Charity was disappointed in Mr. Hodshon.
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