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."