On finding themselves outside the dive Hamar, Curtis and Kelson first of all divided the spoil.  They then went to a clothes depot and rigged themselves out in fashionably cut garments; after which they took rooms at a presentable hotel in Kearney Street, next door to Knobble’s boot store.  Then, dressed for the first time in their lives like Nob Hill dukes, they paraded the pet resorts of the beau-monde—­of the bonanza and railroad set—­and making eyes at all the pretty wives and daughters they met, cogitated fresh devices for making money.  As they sauntered across Pacific Avenue, in the direction of Californian Street, Kelson suddenly gave vent to a whistle.

“What the deuce is wrong with you?” Hamar exclaimed.  “Seen your grandmother’s ghost?”

“No! but I’ve seen the inner readings of that lady yonder,” Kelson replied, indicating with a jerk of his finger a fashionably dressed woman walking towards them on the other side of the road.  “The deuce knows how it all comes to me, but I know everything about her, just the same as I did with the girl in the dive—­though I’ve never seen her before.  She is the wife of D.D.  Belton, the cotton magnate, who lives in a big, white house at the corner of Powell Street—­and a beauty, I can assure you.  Supposed to be most devoted to her husband, she is now on her way to keep an appointment with the Rev. J.T.  Calthorpe of Sancta Maria’s Church in Appleyard Street, with whom she has been holding clandestine meetings for the past six months.”

“Whew!” Hamar ejaculated.  “You speak as if it was all being pumped into you by some external agency—­automatically.”

“That’s just about what I feel!” Kelson said, “I feel as if it were some one else saying all this—­some one else speaking through me.  Yet I know all about that woman, just as much as if I had been acquainted with her all my life!”

“It’s the first power,” Hamar said excitedly, “the power of divination.  It takes that form with you, and the form of card tricks with Ed—­with me nothing so far.”

“But what shall I do?” Kelson cried.  “How can I benefit by it?”

“How can’t you?” Curtis growled.  “Why, blackmail her!  If it is true, she will pay you anything to keep your mouth shut.  If once you can tell a woman’s secret, your future’s made.  All San Francisco will be at your mercy—­God knows who’ll escape!  After her at once, you idiot!”

“Now?” Kelson gasped.

“Yes!  Now!  Follow her to Calthorpe’s and waylay her as she comes out.  You can refer to us as witnesses.”

“I feel a bit of a blackguard,” Kelson pleaded.

“You look it, anyway,” Curtis grinned.  “But cheer up—­it’s the clothes.  Clothes are responsible for everything!”

After a little persuasion Kelson gave in, but he had to make haste as the lady was nearly out of sight.  She took a taxi from the stand opposite Kitson’s hotel, and Kelson took one, too.  Two hours later, raising his hat, he accosted her as she stood tapping the pavement of Battery Street with a daintily shod foot, waiting to cross.  “Mrs. Belton, I think,” he said.  The lady eyed him coldly.