noon
You ought to see her -- '' `` That is just what I want to do , '' interrupted I. `` Not because you have tempted my fancy by a recital of her charms , '' I hastened to add , `` but because she is , if I do n't mistake , a woman for whose discovery and rescue , a large sum of money has been offered . '' And without further disguise I acquainted the startled woman before me with the fact that I was not , as she had always considered , the clerk out of employment whose daily business it was to sally forth in quest of a situation , but a member of the city police . She was duly impressed and easily persuaded to second all my operations as far as her poor wits would allow , giving me free range of her upper story , and above all , promising that secrecy without which all my finely laid plans for capturing the rogues without raising a scandal , would fall headlong to the ground . Behold me , then , by noon of that same day domiciled in an apartment next to the one whose door bore that scarlet sign which had aroused within me such feverish hopes the night before . Clad in the seedy garments of a broken down French artist whose acquaintance I had once made , with something of his air and general appearance and with a few of his wretched daubs hung about on the whitewashed wall , I commenced with every prospect of success as I thought , that quiet espionage of the hall and its inhabitants which I considered necessary to a proper attainment of the end I had in view . A racking cough was one of the peculiarities of my friend , and determined to assume the character in toto , I allowed myself to startle the silence now and then with a series of gasps and chokings that whether agreeable or not , certainly were of a character to show that I had no desire to conceal my presence from those I had come among . Indeed it was my desire to acquaint them as fully and as soon as possible with the fact of their having a neighbor : a weak-eyed half-alive innocent to be sure , but yet a neighbor who would keep his door open night and day -- for the warmth of the hall of course -- and who with the fretful habit of an old man who had once been a gentleman and a beau , went rambling about through the hall speaking to those he met and expecting a civil word in return .