You will not find the name of Thomas Keeling in the Houston city
directory. It might have been there by this time, if Mr. Keeling had
not discontinued his business a month or so ago and moved to other
parts. Mr. Keeling came to Houston about that time and opened up a
small detective bureau. He offered his services to the public as a
detective in rather a modest way. He did not aspire to be a rival of
the Pinkerton agency, but preferred to work along less risky lines.
If an employer wanted the habits of a clerk looked into, or a lady
wanted an eye kept upon a somewhat too gay husband, Mr. Keeling was
the man to take the job. He was a quiet, studious man with theories.
He read Gaboriau and Conan Doyle and hoped some day to take a higher
place in his profession. He had held a subordinate place in a large
detective bureau in the East, but as promotion was slow, he decided to
come West, where the field was not so well covered.
Mr. Keeling had saved during several years the sum of $900, which he
deposited in the safe of a business man in Houston to whom he had
letters of introduction from a common friend. He rented a small
upstairs office on an obscure street, hung out a sign stating his
business, and burying himself in one of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes
stories, waited for customers.
Three days after he opened his bureau, which consisted of himself, a
client called to see him.
It was a young lady, apparently about 26 years of age. She was slender
and rather tall and neatly dressed. She wore a thin veil which she
threw back upon her black straw hat after she had taken the chair Mr.
Keeling offered her. She had a delicate, refined face, with rather
quick gray eyes, and a slightly nervous manner.
* * * * *
"I came to see you, sir," she said in a sweet, but somewhat sad,
contralto voice, "because you are comparatively a stranger, and I
could not bear to discuss my private affairs with any of my friends. I
desire to employ you to watch the movements of my husband. Humiliating
as the confession is to me, I fear that his affections are no longer
mine. Before I married him he was infatuated with a young woman
connected with a family with whom he boarded. We have been married
five years, and very happily, but this young woman has recently moved
to Houston, and I have reasons to suspect that he is paying her
attentions. I want you to watch his movements as closely as possible
and report to me. I will call here at your office every other day at a
given time to learn what you have discovered. My name is Mrs. R----,
and my husband is well known. He keeps a small jewelry store on
Street. I will pay you well for your services and here is $20 to begin
with."
The lady handed Mr. Keeling the bill and he took it carelessly as if
such things were very, very common in his business.
He assured her that he would carry out her wishes faithfully, and
asked her to call again the afternoon after the next at four o'clock,
for the first report.
The next day Mr. Keeling made the necessary inquiries toward beginning
operations. He found the jewelry store, and went inside ostensibly to
have the crystal of his watch tightened. The jeweler, Mr. R----, was a
man apparently 35 years of age, of very quiet manners and industrious
ways. His store was small, but contained a nice selection of goods and
quite a large assortment of diamonds, jewelry and watches. Further
inquiry elicited the information that Mr. R was a man of excellent
habits, never drank and was always at work at his jeweler's bench.
Mr. Keeling loafed around near the door of the jewelry store for
several hours that day and was finally rewarded by seeing a flashily
dressed young woman with black hair and eyes enter the store. Mr.
Keeling sauntered nearer the door, where he could see what took place
inside. The young woman walked confidently to the rear of the store,
leaned over the counter and spoke familiarly to Mr. R----. He rose
from his bench and they talked in low tones for a few minutes.
Finally, the jeweler handed her some coins, which Mr. Keeling heard
clinking as they passed into her hands. The woman then came out and
walked rapidly down the street.
Mr. Keeling's client was at his office promptly at the time agreed
upon. She was anxious to know if he had seen anything to corroborate
her suspicions. The detective told her what he had seen.
"That is she," said the lady, when he had described the young woman
who had entered the store. "The brazen, bold thing! And so Charles is
giving her money. To think that things should come to this pass."
The lady pressed her handkerchief to her eyes in an agitated way.
"Mrs. R----," said the detective, "what is your desire in this matter?
To what point do you wish me to prosecute inquiries?"
"I want to see with my own eyes enough to convince me of what I
suspect. I also want witnesses, so I can instigate suit for divorce. I
will not lead the life I am now living any longer."
She then handed the detective a ten-dollar bill.
On the day following the next, when she came to Mr. Keeling's office
to hear his report, he said:
"I dropped into the store this afternoon on some trifling pretext.
This young woman was already there, but she did not remain long.
Before she left, she said: 'Charlie, we will have a jolly little
supper tonight as you suggest; then we will come around to the store
and have a nice chat while you finish that setting for the diamond
broach with no one to interrupt us.' Tonight, Mrs. R----, I think,
will be a good time for you to witness the meeting between your
husband and the object of his infatuation, and satisfy your mind how
matters stand."
"The wretch," cried the lady with flashing eyes. "He told me at dinner
that he would be detained late tonight with some important work. And
this is the way he spends his time away from me!"
"I suggest," said the detective, "that you conceal yourself in the
store, so you can hear what they say, and when you have heard enough
you can summon witnesses and confront your husband before them."
"The very thing," said the lady. "I believe there is a policeman whose
beat is along the street the store is on who is acquainted with our
family. His duties will lead him to be in the vicinity of the store
after dark. Why not see him, explain the whole matter to him and when
I have heard enough, let you and him appear as witnesses?"
"I will speak with him," said the detective, "and persuade him to
assist us, and you will please come to my office a little before dark
tonight, so we can arrange to trap them."
* * * * *
The detective hunted up the policeman and explained the situation.
"That's funny," said the guardian of the peace. "I didn't know R----
was a gay boy at all. But, then, you can never tell about anybody. So
his wife wants to catch him tonight. Let's see, she wants to hide
herself inside the store and hear what they say. There's a little room
in the back of the store where R---- keeps his coal and old boxes. The
door between is locked, of course, but if you can get her through that
into the store she can hide somewhere. I don't like to mix up in these
affairs, but I sympathize with the lady. I've known her ever since we
were children and don't mind helping her to do what she wants."
About dusk that evening the detective's client came hurriedly to his
office. She was dressed plainly in black and wore a dark round hat and
her face was covered with a veil.
"If Charlie should see me he will not recognize me," she said.
Mr. Keeling and the lady strolled down the street opposite the jewelry
store, and about eight o'clock the young woman they were watching for
entered the store. Immediately afterwards she came out with Mr. R----,
took his arm, and they hurried away, presumably to their supper.
The detective felt the arm of the lady tremble.
"The wretch," she said bitterly. "He thinks me at home innocently
waiting for him while he is out carousing with that artful, designing
minx. Oh, the perfidy of man."
Mr. Keeling took the lady through an open hallway that led into the
back yard of the store. The outer door of the back room was unlocked,
and they entered.
"In the store," said Mrs. R----, "near the bench where my husband
works is a large table, the cover of which hangs to the floor. If I
could get under that I could hear every word that was said."
Mr. Keeling took a big bunch of skeleton keys from his pocket and in a
few minutes found one that opened the door into the jewelry store. The
gas was burning from one jet turned very low.
The lady stepped into the store and said: "I will bolt this door from
the inside, and I want you to follow my husband and that woman. See if
they are at supper, and if they are, when they start back, you must
come back to this room and let me know by tapping thrice on the door.
After I listen to their conversation long enough I will unbolt the
door, and we will confront the guilty pair together. I may need you to
protect me, for I do not know what they might attempt to do to me."
* * * * *
The detective made his way softly out and followed the jeweler and the
woman. He soon discovered that they had taken a private room in a
little out of the way restaurant and had ordered supper. He lingered
about until they came out and then hurried back to the store, and
entering the back room, tapped three times on the door.
In a few minutes the jeweler entered with the woman and the detective
saw the light shine more brightly through a crack in the door. He
could hear the man and woman conversing familiarly and constantly, but
could not distinguish their words. He slipped around again to the
street, and looking through the window, could see Mr. R---- working
away at his jeweler's bench, while the black-haired woman sat close to
his side and talked.
"I'll give them a little time," thought Mr. Keeling, and he strolled
down the street.
The policeman was standing on the corner.
The detective told him that Mrs. R---- was concealed in the store, and
that the scheme was working nicely.
"I'll drop back behind now," said Mr. Keeling, "so as to be ready when
the lady springs her trap."
The policeman walked back with him, and took a look through the
window.
"They seem to have made up all right," said he. "Where's the other
woman gotten to?"
"Why, there she is sitting by him," said the detective. "I'm talking
about the girl R---- had out to supper."
"So am I," said the detective.
"You seem to be mixed up," said the policeman. "Do you know that lady
with R----?"
"That's the woman he was out with."
"That's R----'s wife," said the policeman. "I've known her for fifteen
years."
"Then, who--?" gasped the detective, "Lord A'mighty, then who's under
the table?"
Mr. Keeling began to kick at the door of the store. Mr. R---- came
forward and opened it.
The policeman and the detective entered. "Look under that table,
quick," yelled the detective. The policeman raised the cover and
dragged out a blade dress, a black veil and a woman's wig of black
hair.
"Is this lady your w-w-wife?" asked Mr. Keeling excitedly, pointing
out the dark-eyed young woman, who was regarding them in great
surprise.
"Certainly," said the jeweler. "Now what the thunder are you looking
under my tables and kicking down my door for, if you please?"
"Look in your show cases," said the policeman, who began to size up
the situation.
* * * * *
The diamond rings and watches that were missing amounted to $800, and
the next day the detective settled the bill.
Explanations were made to the jeweler that night, and an hour later
Mr. Keeling sat in his office busily engaged in looking over his
albums of crook's photos.
At last he found one, and he stopped turning over the leaves and tore
his hair. Under the picture of a smooth-faced young man, with delicate
features was the following description:
"James H. Miggles, alias Slick Simon, alias The Weeping
Widow, alias Bunco Kate, alias Jimmy the Sneak, General
confidence man and burglar. Works generally in female
disguises. Very plausible and dangerous. Wanted in Kansas
City, Oshkosh, New Orleans and Milwaukee."
This is why Mr. Thomas Keeling did not continue his detective business
in Houston.
(_Houston Daily Post_, Sunday morning, May 17, 1896.)