do you fear non-payment?"

"I do."

"Will you explain?"

"Certainly; I have received information that the baron has quite a
number of notes out with your name on them and the name of your
husband."

The detective had struck the fatal blow; the woman wilted.

"You must have mercy on the young man," she exclaimed.

"It is not in my way, madam, to show mercy. What I need is money--my own
money."

"I will give you a note in double the amount."

"But, madam, I could not accept your note, no, and now I would not
accept your husband's note, for I have information that you and the
baron, your son, have so involved him that he will be a ruined man if he
saves your honor and credit. I cannot stand to lose, but, madam, I will
see you again. You will need time to think and time to confer with the
baron. I will call again."

The detective rose; the woman was really overwhelmed.

The Spaniard evidently knew the truth--the whole truth--knew that the
baron was really her son. She did not bid the Spaniard to stay; she did
need time to think, and she walked the floor in the agony of her
thoughts. Then she rang for a messenger boy and sent a hurried note, and
in the meantime she had prepared to go forth to the street veiled, and
the detective, having worked a change, was at hand, and he fell to her
"shadow," and he muttered:

"This drama is approaching its end; the play is most over; the curtain
will soon go down."

The woman went to the very same hotel where she had met the baron once
before. She did not enter the dining-room, but proceeded to a room. Jack
was on hand. He had learned that the baron had secured a room in the
hotel and had been living there for some days, and with his usual
foresightedness the detective under a "cover" had secured a room in the
same hotel, thinking that the time might come when he would desire to
watch the baron and his visitors. He waited for the woman to enter the
baron's room and then quickly he entered the room he had secured.

Right here we desire to state that this securing of adjacent rooms when
detectives are on a "lay" is a very common proceeding. It is done daily,
it is being done to-day, and will be done in the future. It is indeed
one of the most frequently adopted methods of the profession, and it is
a common event also to place a detective as a pretended criminal in the
same cell or the adjacent cell to a criminal, with a view to catch his
mutterings awake or asleep, or to li