te; nicee man, nicee lalee. She wantee talk.
Nicee man he pullee she; I no hear if muchee stasch. All washee, see!"
he went on, dragging a basket out of the corner, "him no ilon."

I was in such a quiver; so struck with amazement at my own perspicacity
in surmising that here was a place where a bundle of underclothing could
be lost indefinitely, that I just stared while he turned over the
clothes in the basket. For by means of the quality of the articles he
was preparing to show me, the question which had been agitating me for
hours could be definitely decided. If they proved to be fine and of
foreign manufacture, then Howard's story was true and all my fine-spun
theories must fall to the ground. But if, on the contrary, they were
such as are usually worn by American women, then my own idea as to the
identity of the woman who left them here was established, and I could
safely consider her as the victim and Louise Van Burnam as the
murderess, unless further facts came to prove that he was the guilty
one, after all.

The sight of Lena's eyes staring at me with great anxiety through the
panes of the door distracted my attention for a moment, and when I
looked again, he was holding up two or three garments before me. The
articles thus revealed told their story in a moment. They were far from
fine, and had even less embroidery on them than I expected.

"Are there any marks on them?" I asked.

He showed me two letters stamped in indelible ink on the band of a
skirt. I did not have my glasses with me, but the ink was black, and I
read O. R. "The minx's initials," thought I.

When I left the place my complacency was such that Lena did not know
what to make of me. She has since informed me that I looked as if I
wanted to shout Hurrah! but I cannot believe I so far forgot myself as
that. But pleased as I was, I had only discovered how one bundle had
been disposed of. The dress and outside fixings still had to be
accounted for, and I was the woman to do it.

We had mechanically moved in the direction of the drug-store and were
near the curb-stone when I reached this point in my meditations. It had
rained a little while before, and a small stream was running down the
gutter and emptying itself into the sewer opening. The sight of it
sharpened my wits.

If I wanted to get rid of anything of a damaging character, I would drop
it at the mouth of one of these holes and gently thrust it into the
sewer with my foot, thought I. An