"Oh, Lyon, Lyon! don't you run;The suit's begun; we'll have our funBefore we're done. I'll tell your sonThat I have won, although you shunYour darling one!""Oh, Lyon, pray, why speed away?To fight a woman is but play.Although you're old, and bald, and gray,Do right by your Amanda J.—You'll soon be clay!"
"Oh, Lyon, Lyon! don't you run;The suit's begun; we'll have our funBefore we're done. I'll tell your sonThat I have won, although you shunYour darling one!"
"Oh, Lyon, pray, why speed away?To fight a woman is but play.Although you're old, and bald, and gray,Do right by your Amanda J.—You'll soon be clay!"
Amanda J. Winslow, for this was the woman's assumed name in full, might have continued in this divine strain for an indefinite period, had not the operatives burst into loud and prolonged laughter at her ludicrous appearance, which so disgusted the woman that, though communicating with celestial spheres, as she assumed to be, and undoubtedly was doing as much as any of her craft ever did,she jumped up with a bound, savagely told the men they were a brace of fools, and with a lively remark or two, which had something very like an oath in it, went to bed, leaving the men to finish the bottle and the poetry as they saw fit.
Mrs. Winslow was a thorough church-goer, and distributed the favor of her attendance among the orthodox churches and the "meetings" of the members of her own faith, quite fairly—perhaps, as was natural, giving the Washington Hall Sunday evening Spiritualistic lectures a slight preference; and soon after the Arcade affair, which had launched her into poetry, she returned to the rooms one Sunday evening, declaring that all her evil spirits had left her, and that her former passionate love for Lyon had also departed, her only desire now being for his money.
To show how thoroughly she had been dispossessed of her evil spirits, she remarked that she now thoroughly hated Lyon, but it would not do to let this appear on trial, or she would lose the sympathy of the jury. Every effort should now be bent towards compelling him to divide his wealth with her, whom he had so deeply wronged. There should be no compromise; she would not even be led to the altar by him now. She would have from him what would most annoy him, and that was his money.
Having resolved on this, the darkness that surrounded her was dispelled and the spirits of light rallied as a sort of standing army; and in this beneficent condition shewished to either go into the country to recuperate for a few weeks, or seek the retirement of Fox's room and there expend her superfluous brain and spirit power upon a play to be entitled "His Breach of Promise." To this end she proposed removing the elegant furnishings of her apartments and storing them in a spare room, giving out to callers that she was absent from the city, and then, after having secured Fox's room, she would be able to burn the midnight oil unmolested so long as her inspiration might continue.
She also favored Fox and Bristol with a sketch of the play, which was to be a sort of spectacular comedy-drama, which, according to the lady's description, would contain certainly seven acts of five scenes each, and would be preceded by a prologue which would play at least an hour; in fact, it seemed that the great play "His Breach of Promise" was to be constructed on the Chinese plan, to be continued indefinitely, and admission only to be secured in the form of course tickets. Outside of these great aids to the popularity of the play, it was to have the additional startling and novel attractions of representations of her first meeting with Lyon, his regret because she was married, his copious tears whenever in her presence, his securing her divorce, the death of Lyon's wife, and every manner of pathetic and ludicrous incident connected with the case; how they each wooed and won the other, including a grand transformation scene typical of Lyon's subsequent treachery, and her reward of virtue in a fifty thousand dollar verdict for damages.
Mr. Pinkerton decides to favor Mrs. Winslow with a Series of Annoyances.—The mysterious Package.—The Detectives labor under well-merited Suspicion.—"My God! what's that?"—The deadly Phial.—This Time a Mysterious Box.—Its suggestive Contents.—"The Thing she was."—Tabitha, Amanda, and Hannah assaulted.—A Punch and Judy Show.
Mr. Pinkerton decides to favor Mrs. Winslow with a Series of Annoyances.—The mysterious Package.—The Detectives labor under well-merited Suspicion.—"My God! what's that?"—The deadly Phial.—This Time a Mysterious Box.—Its suggestive Contents.—"The Thing she was."—Tabitha, Amanda, and Hannah assaulted.—A Punch and Judy Show.
THE reports which I had for some time received daily regarding Mrs. Winslow's behavior satisfied me that the delay in reaching the Winslow-Lyon case—which was at the bottom of the docket of the fall term, and on account of a press of court business had been put over to the winter term—the strict silence I had enjoined upon Mr. Lyon, and the general suspicion which possessed her of everybody and everything, were all having the natural effect of unsettling her completely, and I determined upon a series of surprises and annoyances to the woman, without in any way apprising Bristol and Fox of what was to be done; so that although they might imagine from what source the unwelcome "materializations" came, they would still be sufficiently uninformed to share in the general surprise and escape the charge of complicity.
I accordingly sent three additional men to Rochesterwith thorough instructions and full information as to the madam's residence and habits, with a description of her tenants, including Bristol and Fox, who were unknown to the operatives sent.
My object in doing this was a double one. I desired, first, to test the woman's so-called spirit power; for, should these annoyances prove of the nature of a persecution, she and her friends, the Spiritualists, would be able to call celestial spirits to her aid, or, better still, divine from whence the persecution came, and compel its discontinuance by the means provided by ordinary mortals. In case she could not do this, which was of course rather doubtful, I knew from her superstitiousness and the guilty fear possessed by every criminal, which she largely shared, that she would be quite likely to either make some confessions which would implicate her in further blackmailing operations, or force her into a line of conduct agreeing perfectly with her true character, and which would compel her to show herself thoroughly to the public; and further, I think I must confess to a slight desire to assist a little in punishing her, after I had become so fully aware of her villainous character.
Accordingly, while Mrs. Winslow was still deep in the plot of her great drama, but before the changes suggested—which would have made her a sort of literary nun in Fox's room—had occurred, she was the recipient of a large package of railway time-tables, with the farthest terminus of each road underscored, and further called attention to by a hand and index finger pointing towards itfrom Rochester, intimating that it was either desired or demanded, on the part of somebody, that she should leave Rochester for one of the points indicated.
When Bristol and Fox returned "home," as they had come to call their lodgings, that evening, Mrs. Winslow was at her escritoire, completely immersed in time-tables and manuscript, and had all the air of an important author struggling for fitting expressions with which to clothe some suddenly inspired, though sublime idea.
She looked at them closely a moment, as if she would read their very thoughts. Whether seeing anything suspicious or not, she remarked very pointedly:
"Good deal of railroad rivalry nowadays, isn't there?"
"Yes, considerable," replied Bristol pleasantly, and then asking, "Are you going to introduce some rival railroads in your new play, Mrs. Winslow?"
"Not much!" she answered tersely.
"I wouldn't," replied Bristol, taking a seat near the chandelier and pulling a paper from his pocket; "they're dangerous."
Mrs. Winslow paid no attention to this, but suddenly eyed Fox, and sharply asked:
"They like very much to sell through tickets, don't they?"
"I believe they do—ought to pay better," he promptly rejoined, eyeing her in return.
"Well," said she, after a slight pause, and as if with something of a sigh, "it's all right, perhaps; but if either of you should meet any railroad agent who seemsto be laboring under the delusion that I want to found a colony in some far country, just tell him to expend his energies in some other direction!"
Of course my operatives were surprised, and demanded an explanation; but the recipient of the circulars was quite dignified, and would only clear the matter up by occasional little passionate bursts of confidence, as if finding fault with them for not being able to unravel the mystery to her. They protested they knew nothing about the matter, and she undoubtedly believed them; but she ventured to inform them that if anybody—mind you, anybody—supposed they could scare her away from Rochester by any such hint as that, they were mightily mistaken, that's all there was aboutthat.
My detectives allayed her fears as much as possible, but it was plainly observable that she was really annoyed by the occurrence. There is always a hundred times more terror in the fear of unknown evil than in that which we can boldly meet, and this particularly applies to those who know theydeservepunishment, as in Mrs. Winslow's case.
The next evening they were all sitting discussing general topics and a pint of peach brandy, and had become exceedingly sociable, particularly over the railroad circulars, which Fox and Bristol had by this time induced her to regard in the light of a huge joke, or error, when the party were suddenly startled by some object which caused a peculiar ringing, yet deadened sound, as it struck the partly-opened door and then bounded upon the carpetwhere it glisteningly rolled out of sight under the sofa where the thoroughly-scared Mrs. Winslow sat.
"My God! what's that?" she screamed, rushing to the door and peering down the staircase, as rapidly retreating footsteps were distinctly heard; but not being able to discover anybody, scrambled back into the room, shutting and bolting the door behind her.
The woman was deathly pale, the color brought to her face by the brandy having been driven from it as if by some terrible blow; but it came back with her into the room, where Bristol and Foxappearednearly as frightened as she.
She looked at them a moment in a dazed, stupefied way, and then demanded: "What does this mean?"
"That's what I'd like to know!" returned Bristol, hunting for his quizzers, which he had lost in his jump from his chair. "This is all very fine, but it's pretty plain somebody here's sent for!"
"AndIdon't want to go!" chimed in Fox, climbing down from a safe position upon theescritoire.
The three looked at each other in an extremely suspicious way, and the woman again demanded, this time threateningly, what it all meant.
The three looked at each other in an extremely suspicious way.—
"Something with a glitter, and it rolled under there," was all Bristol could tell her about it.
"Let's get it, whatever it is!" said Fox, with an apparent burst of bravery and spirit.
So Bristol at one end and Fox at the other end of the sofa, rolled it out with a great show of caution, while Mrs.Winslow, though preserving a good position for observation, kept nimbly out of the way.
"What can it be?" she persisted excitedly.
"A vial sealed with red wax, with a string attached, and containing some clear liquid," said Fox, stooping to pick it up.
"Don't—don't, Fox!" shouted Bristol, pushing him back impetuously; "the devilish thing may burst and kill us all—nitro-glycerine, you know!"
Mrs. Winslow shuddered, drew her elegant wrappings about her fair shoulders, as if the thought chilled her like the sudden opening of some cold vault, and looked appealingly at the two men.
"Or might contain some deadly poison," said Fox, in a warning tone.
"And the fiend who threw it in here expected the bottle to break and the poison to murder us!" said Mrs. Winslow indignantly.
"Things have come to a pretty pass when attempts like this are made on people's lives!" said Bristol, adjusting his spectacles and edging towards the mysterious missile.
"I shall move at once," stoutly affirmed Mrs. Winslow.
"Don't do any such thing," said Fox earnestly. "That will only show whoever may be committing these indignities that we are alarmed by them."
"We?—we?" repeated the adventuress, with a peculiar accent upon the word "we." "It isn't you men that is meant. It'sme. This is some of that Lyon's doings. Oh, I could cut his heart out!"
The detectives saw that she was getting greatly excited, and Bristol, with a view of quieting her as much as possible for the night, picked up the vial by a string tied to it and hung it upon a nail, remarking that he was something of a chemist himself and didn't believe it was explosive, and also expressed a conviction that Mrs. Winslow should have it analyzed.
To this she acceded, and expressed a determination to "get even" with the author of these outrages, in which laudable resolve the detectives promised to assist her; but the peach brandy seemed the only relief possible to Mrs. Winslow for the remainder of the evening, which was chiefly passed in wild speculations and theories concerning the new "manifestations," which she began to fear might be the result of jealous clairvoyants and vindictive spiritualists, who had endeavored to blackmail both herself and Mr. Lyon, and, failing in this, were now persecuting her.
The next day Mrs. Winslow went out quietly and secured the services of a chemist under the Osborne House, who pronounced the contents nothing but water, which proved a great relief to the agitated trio, but did not remove from Mrs. Winslow's mind the anxiety and unrest that these undesired and unlooked-for materializations were causing.
About noon, after Fox and Bristol had come in from a little stroll and they were all laughing over the scare of the previous evening, a step was heard on the stairs, and soon after a little man with a big box on his shoulder, anda slouched hat on his head which hid his face pretty thoroughly, came to the head of the stairs, knocked at the door, and without waiting for an invitation to come in, entered, and depositing the box with the remark, "For Mrs. Winslow, from the Misses Grim," spryly sprang back, shut the door, and clattered away down the stairs and into the street before Mrs. Winslow could get a second look at him, though she sprang after him, shouting, "Here! here! come back here or I'll have you arrested!" But he only clattered away the livelier, and she returned to the room raging and vowing that the box contained some infernal machine for the purpose of distributing minute portions of her anatomy all over the city of Rochester.
This became more likely when Mrs. Winslow recollected that the Misses Grim—Tabitha, Amanda, and Hannah—were the three old maids from whom she had thought she had secured a wealthy old banker to pluck; and though he had proven to her a very ordinary man, somewhat infirm from rheumatism, and a trifle quarrelsome, though eminently virtuous and punctilious, she had never, of course, let them know how badly she had been swindled; and as they yet regarded their lost boarder, Bristol, as a priceless treasure, lost to them through her perfidy, it was no more than natural, Mrs. Winslow thought, that in their chagrin and disappointment they should concoct some diabolical plan to injure her.
But still it might not be from them. She had other enemies, many of them, and the Misses Grim's name might have been given to cover up some other person'smisdeeds. But whatever it might be, her curiosity soon overcame her fear, and she requested Fox to open it.
After securing a hammer from his room, the latter proceeded to open the mysterious box; but after the cover had been partially drawn and it was evident that the box had not been delivered for the purpose of exterminating anybody, it occurred to its fair owner that there might be something within it not desirable for her to let the gentlemen see, whereupon she requested them to retire; but after Bristol had grumblingly disappeared, and Fox had got to the door, she recalled the latter and asked him anxiously if he would not open it for her. He gallantly agreed to, and got down on his knees upon the carpet and began taking off the cover.
"I do wonder what it can be!" said Mrs. Winslow anxiously.
"I can't find anything but bran," returned Fox, digging about the box carefully.
"Bran!" she exclaimed incredulously; "that box is too heavy for bran."
Fox dug away for a little while longer and finally shouted, "I've got something!"
"And what is that something?"
The question was answered by the thing itself, which now appeared from the bottom of the box, vigorously lifted by Fox's hand and plumped through the bran upon the carpet.
"Well, what is it?" she demanded.
"Vegetable," said Fox tersely.
"Oh, pshaw! isthatall?" asked the disgusted woman.
"Yes, that's all," he replied, after digging about in the bran for a moment. Mrs. Winslow also satisfied herself that it was all by searching in the bran, and the two then proceeded to investigate the vegetable.
"It's a turnip, and somebody's been digging in it," said Mrs. Winslow.
"I think you are mistaken," mildly interposed Fox. "It's something else entirely."
"What's this!" exclaimed the woman; "sure as I live, a cross-bones and skull on one side, and on the other side, 'D-e-a-d'—dead!"
"It isn't dead turnip!" interrupted Fox.
"Dead beet?" she asked musingly, a sudden crimson flooding into her face.
"Shouldn't wonder," he answered.
Biting her lips she glided to a window. It was a cold autumn day, and the panes rattled drearily as she seemed to shrink and hide between them and the heavy curtains, while the color came and went hotly in her face. It hurt her, wounded her, showed her to be the thing she was in a way that could never have been effected by ten thousand innuendoes or direct charges; and she pressed her face against the cold panes as if to force and drive away the hideous picture that a momentarily honest glimpse of herself had revealed to her, and continued standing thus, buried in the memories which build remorse, until, noticing the thing in her hand which had caused this humiliation, she flung it violently across the room, and rushinginto her sleeping-room, hastily prepared for going out, then dashing through the reception-room, she passed into the hall, and meeting Bristol, said:
"Bristol, I want you to come with me!"
Bristol immediately complied, but was given a lively chase, for Mrs. Winslow was strong of limb, fleet of foot, and, on this occasion, was impelled by a burst of spirit which, if rightly directed, would have led a conquering army.
She started directly for Main Street, and turned up that thoroughfare at a pace which attracted considerable attention. After rapidly walking two blocks she swept across the street, and after having waited for Bristol to come up with her, plunged into the little restaurant under Washington Hall, with my operative close at her heels.
The sudden entrance of the couple caused a great commotion in the quaint little eating-room, and the drowsy customers smiled when they saw the unaccustomed form of the woman whom the Misses Grim—Tabitha, Amanda and Hannah—had taken no trouble to prevent being known as her deadly enemy.
Tabitha, the most ancient, at once bristled up and took a position behind her neat counter, her wrinkled head trembling with so much excitement that her sparse curls created a kind of quivering nimbus about it.
"Well, ma'am and what canIdo foryou?" asked Tabitha with a flaunt of her head and a sarcastic tinge in her voice.
Mrs. Winslow got to the counter in two or three quickjumps or starts, and asked, husky with rage, "I—I just want to know which one of you old straws sent that box to me?"
"Box toyou!" jerked out Amanda, the next less ancient of the Misses Grim, who had just entered and at once stopped stock still to catch Mrs. Winslow's remark; "box to you? Tush!—box to nobody!" and she too sidled in behind the counter to reinforce, and tremble with, her very old sister.
"Oh, you can't play your innocence on me!" retorted Mrs. Winslow very violently. "You wear very white collars, and very black caps and very straight dresses, and look very saintly, but you're just three old witches; that's what you are!"
"Pooh, pooh!" snorted Tabitha and Amanda hysterically.
"Pooh, pooh! if you like; but if I find out which one of you sent that box, I'll—I'll shake every bone in her old body into a match!" shouted Mrs. Winslow, dancing up and down against the counter and working her fingers savagely.
"Match?" responded Hannah, the least ancient and most fiery of the three virgins, and who entered at this critical moment; "match indeed! you're a match for anything villainous!" and then she too trotted behind the counter to throw the weight of her presence into the conflict.
By this time the interested customers had gathered around, and people from the street, noticing the unwontedenthusiasm awakened in the Washington Hall restaurant, were rapidly collecting upon the outside and flattening their curious noses against the intervening panes.
Mrs. Winslow could no more control herself than could the old maids, and quickened by the presence of the increasing crowd, burst into a screaming demand for the person who sent the "dead" beet to her.
"Dead beat!—ha, ha, ha!" laughed the three sisters convulsively, at once realizing the appropriateness of the joke and excitedly enjoying it; "dead beat, eh? we didn't do it!" "But," added Hannah, maliciously, "if you do find the person as did send it, Mrs. Winslow, and will send 'em around, we'll board 'em for a month free!"
There was war, direful war, imminent; and no one could imagine what might have resulted had the conflict of tongues culminated in a conflict of hands. But to have seen the three ancient, prim, and trembling women on the one side, and the ponderous, though handsome Mrs. Winslow on the other—the old maids either with arms akimbo or with hands firmly clenched upon the counter's edge as if to compel restraint, their bodies weaving back and forth, their heads bobbing up and down, and their stray frills and curls wildly dancing as if each particular hair was in a mad ecstasy of its own; and Mrs. Winslow, upon her side of the counter, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, stamping her feet, jumping backward and forward, bringing her clenched hand down upon the counter with terrible force for a woman, and shaking it furiously at the agitated row of old maids, would be tohave witnessed a marvellous improvement upon any form of the Punch and Judy show ever exhibited.
"A marvelous improvement over any form of the Punch and Judy show ever exhibited."—
Bristol saw that unless they were separated he would become implicated in a case of assault and battery, and after great effort pacified the women sufficiently to enable him to pilot his landlady out of the restaurant, through the streets and finally into her own apartments, where she passed the remainder of the dreary day in weeping, storms of baffled rage, or protracted applications to the spirits which can be controlled, whether one is a spiritualist or not, so long as money lasts and total prohibition is not enforced.
Cast down.—"Trifles."—A charitable Offering.—Dreariness.—Going Crazy.—An interrupted Seance.—A new Form of the Devil.—The Red-herring Expedition and its Result.—A mad Dutchman.—Desolation.—An order for a Coffin.—The sympathizing Undertaker, Mr. Boxem.
Cast down.—"Trifles."—A charitable Offering.—Dreariness.—Going Crazy.—An interrupted Seance.—A new Form of the Devil.—The Red-herring Expedition and its Result.—A mad Dutchman.—Desolation.—An order for a Coffin.—The sympathizing Undertaker, Mr. Boxem.
MRS. WINSLOW now began to show great perturbation of spirits. In conversation with my detectives, who endeavored to cheer her up and lead her to regard these surprises as mere jokes not worth any person's notice, she constantly argued the opposite, and thus arguing, conjured up countless possibilities of harm, gradually working herself into that condition of mind where every little unusual noise or movement of any person in the building or upon the street was a signal for some querulous inquiry or complaint.
She was also very much worried concerning her suit, and went about among the Spiritualists seeking their advice and encouragement, and giving and receiving a good deal of scandal concerning the case. From one she would hear that Lyon was employing certain other mediums in his behalf, and that she had better look out for them. Another would inform her that Lyon had several other mistresses, among them a Miss Susie Roberts, anda Madame La Motte, both Spiritualists and mediums, from whom Lyon intended to prove her bad character, and whom she, in turn, vowed she would have subpœnaed in her own behalf, and impeach their testimony through what she could compel them to admit of both themselves and Lyon. At other places she learned that these persecutions were Lyon's work entirely, or rather, the work of his agents, principal among whom were the two ladies mentioned. And, in fact, wherever she went she heard or found something to give her uneasiness or cause her unrest.
"Yes," she said sadly to my operatives, "I can't stand this sort of thing much longer."
"Oh, nonsense!" rejoined Bristol; "you haven't been hurt, have you?"
"No; but I can't tell when I shall be. That's what I can't bear."
"But I thought you were a woman of too great force of character to allow trifles to trouble you," exclaimed Fox tauntingly.
"Trifles!" said she hotly; "trifles! Is expecting every moment to be murdered, or blown up, a trifle? Is fearing that everything you taste will poison you, or everything you touch do you deadly harm, a trifle?"
"People will think you deserve to be annoyed if you show them you are annoyed," argued Fox.
"I have long since ceased to care what people think. Sometimes I am sure I hate every human being; and I do believe the more the world hates me, the more moneyI make. If these things are not stopped soon, I tell you," she continued in a tone of voice that seemed to say they could stay the annoyances if they would, "I'll go to St Louis and attend to my cases there!"
This opened the eyes of my operatives, and they simultaneously conveyed the intimation to each other that careful working might secure some information about any St. Louis cases the woman might have which would be desirable; and in a short time, by gradually leading Mrs. Winslow on, they discovered that the brazen adventuress, according to her own story, had pending no less than seven cases in the Circuit Court at St. Louis, every one of them being suits on some trivial, trumped-up charge.
It seemed fated that Mrs. Winslow should leave Rochester, if her remaining depended upon these mysterious offerings ceasing, for while they were yet in conversation upon the subject, a colored porter called with a great basket-load of provisions, and without a word, after spreading a newspaper upon the carpet, began unloading his store.
"In heaven's name, who sent you here with those?" she entreated of the colored gentleman.
"It's all right; it's all right," he said soothingly, and winking hard at my operatives.
"But it isn't all right; it's all wrong!" she retorted, warming.
"Guess not, missus; lemme see: Quart split peas, quart beans, one punking, jug m'lasses, 'n a mackerel. Done got 'em all, sure!"
"Where did they come from, you black imp?" the woman demanded, advancing threateningly.
He grabbed his basket quickly, and, slowly retreating towards the door, winked again very knowingly at Bristol and Fox, tapped his forehead and shook his head deploringly, and then nodded towards Mrs. Winslow, very plainly saying in pantomime, "Poor thing!—badly demented!" and, as Mrs. Winslow, in the excess of her anger, made a dive at him, he sprang back through the door, ejaculating, "Lo'd,ain'tshe crazy, though!" and made good his escape, laughing with that expression of complete enjoyment which only an Ethiopian can give.
Mrs. Winslow was now thoroughly convinced that the two men who had been her constant companions of late had had something to do with annoying her, and she cunningly followed the negro to the store where he was employed, where she at once sharply questioned the proprietor, who told her just as sharply that only a few minutes before, a ministerial-looking man, claiming to be city missionary for some church up-town, called and purchased the goods, remarking that they were for some crazy woman living in the block next to Meech's opera-house, whom he had just visited, and found to be possessed of the peculiar mania that she would receive no provisions save in full dress in the presence of her physicians, and that it was his desire to so humor her. So he had entrusted the errand to the colored man, who had carried out the instructions given him; and that that was all there was about it.
When she returned crestfallen to the apartments, and Bristol and Fox had heard her story, they so derided it, claiming that the groceryman had fallen in love with her and invented the story upon the spur of the moment, fearing to disclose his languishing affection, she now believed that they were innocent of complicity in the matter and seemed to lapse into a bewildered sort of condition, where she would wander about the rooms, suspiciously pass and repass my operatives and searchingly scrutinize their faces, and for long periods stand at the dreary window peering into the street as if into a dead blank, never noticing the scurrying snow-flakes which were coming as a silent prelude to another winter, and only occasionally breaking the silence by murmuring, "Crazy? crazy? Yes, Ishallbecome so if these terrible things are not stopped!"
But Mrs. Winslow had seen too much of life and was too hard a citizen generally to be terribly borne down by these manifestations for any great length of time, though they completely overpowered her at their occurrence, and she was allowed to become quite cheery before being favored with another materialization, which came in the following manner.
They were having a pleasant little seance in the rooms one evening soon after the colored grocery porter had accused Mrs. Winslow of being crazy, and the several ladies and gentlemen collected there were engaged in communing with the Spiritualistic heaven in the old and very common table-rapping method. They were, asa rule, lank, lean people, the ladies wearing short hair, and the gentlemen wearing long hair. This, with a few other affectations and irregularities, was nothing against them, had it not been equally as true that, according to my operatives' subsequent inquiries, every member of this company was either living in open adultery or practising all manner of lewdness without even the convenient cloak of an assumption or pretension that the marriage relations existed. But, good or bad as they were, they were at the threshold of heaven, and had very appropriately darkened the room to get as near to it as possible without being seen, and only the faintest possible jet flickered in the chandelier. They had all, save Mrs. Winslow, been served with a message, and she was now the inquirer, solemnly asking of another medium some information from the dear departed from over the river.
"Shall I soon receive word from an absent friend?"—(evidently meaning Le Compte, who had disappeared a month or two previous). Three affirmative raps followed.
"Shall I succeed in my case against Lyon?" The spirits were certain that she would.
"Shall I be rewarded for all my trouble?" she asked, waiting tremblingly for an answer.
To this inquiry three thundering raps were heard at the door.
What could it mean?
The members of the little circle were completely unnerved. And it was not strange either. Here werenearly a dozen people closely huddled in the centre of a room so dark that only the dim, indistinct outline of any person, or thing, could be seen in the ghostly gloaming. They believed, pretended they believed, or acquiesced in the belief or pretension, that they were in direct communication with the spirit-land.
In the most ridiculous condition of mind which any person might enter into such a performance, the secrecy and mysteriousness of the seance, the hushed silence, the darkness, and that tension of the mind caused by a constant expectation of some startling manifestation, will compel in the most sceptical mind a strange feeling of solemnity akin to awe; so that when Mrs. Winslow's last inquiry was answered so pat, as well as with such an alarming loudness, the entire company sprang to their feet, and on this occasion there was genuine surprise in the faces of my detectives.
Bang, bang, bang! came the second series of raps, which promised Mrs. Winslow she should be "rewarded for all her trouble."
But the answer, in the way it came, didn't seem to satisfy her. Somebody stepped to the chandelier and turned on the light, which showed all the company to have been considerably startled; but the hostess was white from fear.
"Won'tsomebodysee what new form of the devil has been sent here to annoy me?" she asked passionately.
Fox, as "somebody," stepped briskly to the door and turned the key just as the first "Bang!" of anotherseries of raps was begun, and opening it quickly discovered a dapper young fellow with a big black bottle held by the neck in his hand, which was raised for the purpose of giving the door bang number two.
In response to Fox's loud and sharp inquiry as to what on earth was wanted, he reversed the position of the bottle with the dexterity of a bar-tender, took from the floor a huger basket than that brought by the colored porter, and slipping into the room, nodded familiarly to Mrs. Winslow, and then coolly to the company, after which he quietly proceeded to unload his store.
"Great heavens!" said she despairingly, "Idon'twant those things left here. I have no need for anything of the kind. I take my meals at the Osborne House!"
"Gettin' 'toney' lately!" responded the intruder with a shrug, piling the packages up neatly in one corner and taking no heed of her expressed wish concerning them.
There was no response to this, and he resumed in a light and airy tone: "Times has changed, Mrs. ——; eh? Whatwasit at Memphis and Helena, anyhow?"
This reference to the less aristocratic, though quite as respectable, vocation of a female camp-follower, though it caused the woman to change color rapidly, only brought from her the remark, "I don't know what you mean, sir! I'll get even with whoever is responsible for this outrage"—here she glared around upon the company as if to ascertain whether any one present was guilty—"if it costs me a thousand dollars!"
The new-comer only smiled sarcastically at this andchecked off his packages, concluding the operation by carefully counting two dozen red herrings, whose aroma was sufficient to announce their presence if he had not exhibited them at all; while members of the company looked about them and at each other as if for some explanation of the strange proceeding.
Finally, Mrs. Winslow, with a mighty effort to restrain herself, advanced and asked the young man if he would not please give her the name of the person to whom she was indebted for the articles.
He arose, and smiling blandly, remarked, "You didn't used to be so particular about presents and such things!" Then he added with a meaning leer: "At Helena and St. Louis, ye know, old girl!"
"Old girl!" the ladies all screamed. "Why whatdoesthis mean, Mrs. Winslow?"
"Nothing, nothing!" she replied hastily; and then she hurried the too talkative young fellow away, and came back into the room with a show of gayety. But it broke up the little party, and soon after the ladies, with frigid excuses about not having very much time, and the gentlemen, with peculiar glances out of the corners of their eyes towards the woman who had been so familiarly termed an "old girl," took their departure, leaving Bristol, Fox, Mrs. Winslow and the melancholy pile of packages surmounted by aromatic red herrings in a state of solemn, moody silence.
Bristol was first to break the stillness, which he did by asking rather testily:
"You think Fox and I have had something to do with this, don't you?"
She looked at him a moment as if she would read his innermost thoughts, and replied: "No, I don't! It comes from some of those strumpets of mediums, and I would give a good deal—a good deal, mind you, Bristol!—to know who it was. I'd—I'd——"
"What would you do?" asked Fox, putting her on her mettle for a savage answer.
"I would either burn them out, poison them, push them over the falls, or lie in wait for them and shoot them!"
Mrs. Winslow said this with as much sincerity and coolness as if giving an estimate on any ordinary business transaction, and evidently meant it.
"Oh, you wouldn't kill anybody, Winslow," replied Fox airily.
"Wouldn't I, though, Mr. Fox?" she rejoined with the old glitter in her eyes and paleness upon her upper lip that had at an earlier period worried the Rev. Mr. Bland; "wouldn't I? If you had fifty thousand dollars in your trunk, I would kill you, appropriate the money, cut you up and pack you in the trunk and ship you to the South—or some other hot climate by the next express!"
She was just as earnest about the remark as she would have been in carrying out the act; and after Fox had congratulated himself, both aloud cheerfully and in his own mind very thankfully, that neither his trunk, or for that matter his imagination, contained any such gorgeous sum, he went to his own room for the night, leaving the very excitedMrs. Winslow and the very calm Mr. Bristol to contemplate the groceries and each other.
After a few minutes' brown study she suddenly turned to her companion with: "Bristol, you and I are pretty good friends, aren't we?"
"Certainly," he replied.
"And haven't I always treated you pretty well?"
"Yes; with one exception."
"What is that?"
"The sleep-walking you did in my room."
"Oh, that's nothing, Bristol. Never happened but once, and won't occur again. Otherwise I have treated you pretty well, haven't I?"
Bristol felt compelled to confess that she had.
"Well, then," she continued wheedlingly, "will you do me a favor?"
"What is it?"
"I want you to take a walk with me."
"Pretty late, Winslow, pretty late; nearly ten o'clock," replied the detective, looking at his watch.
"The later the better," she replied earnestly. "I want to use those herrings."
"Use those herrings! Why, there are at least two dozen. How on earth will you use them all?"
"Some of these humbug mediums," replied Mrs. Winslow in a style of expression that showed her to be very familiar with the Spiritualists, "or old Lyon himself, have sent me these things. I'm going to adorn the door knob of every one of their places with a string of herrings.In that way I'll hit the right one sure. Come, won't you go?"
Bristol saw that the woman would go anyhow, and fearing that she might get into some trouble that would cause her arrest and thus expose him and Bristol to public notice, which a capable detective will always avoid, consented to accompany the woman, which so pleased her that she immediately sent out for brandy, and not only imbibed an inordinate amount of it herself, but also pressed it upon Bristol unsparingly.
Her mind seemed filled with the idea that Lyon had become the "affinity" of nearly every female medium of prominence in the city in order to further his designs against her; and to remind them that they were watched, she had Bristol write "Lyon-La Motte," "Lyon-Roberts," "Lyon- ——," etc., upon about a half-dozen couples of herrings, and upon all the rest, save those intended for the Misses Grim, which were labelled "Tabitha, Amanda, and Hannah," she had written the names of the different ladies who, in her imagination, had supplanted her, and tied all the herrings so labelled together with one very dilapidated herring marked "Lyon." It is needless to say that the latter bundle of sarcasm was intended for the ornamentation of Mr. Lyon's residence.
Bristol felt like a very bad thief, and Mrs. Winslow acted like a very foolish one. The moment they gained the street she began a series of absurd performances that well-nigh distracted Bristol and greatly increased the danger of police surveillance. She laughed hysterically,chuckled, and expressed her delight in a noisy effort to repress it, until the tears would roll down her face. Occasionally they would meet or pass parties who knew her, who would say to companions, in the tone and manner with which they would have probably spoken of other sensations, "There's the Winslow!" when she would shrink and shudder up to Bristol's side, begging for the shelter and protection of his capacious cloak. Again, imagining she saw somebody following them, or was sure that loungers lingering in deserted doorways or at the entrance to dark hallways or alleys were detectives on their trail, she would give the patient Bristol such nudges as nearly took his breath away, and, at his lively protest, would whimper and tremble like a querulous child.
Their first work was to be done on State Street, near Main, and when they had arrived at a certain hallway, Mrs. Winslow insisted that Bristol should accompany her to the rooms which she desired to decorate. This he flatly refused to do, when she began moaning something about want of spirit, and then, with a sudden gathering of the admirable quality for her own use, stole quietly up stairs and in a moment after came plunging down, as if the inmates of the entire block had turned out to give her chase. But this was not the case, and the expedition progressed without any developments of note, Mrs. La Motte, Miss Susie Roberts, and the Misses Grim being properly remembered, until they arrived at Mr. Lyon's residence, some little distance from the thickly settled portions of the city.
The house was one of the rambling, moss-covered buildings of ancient style and structure, and was set back from the road some distance among a score of trees quite as grand and ancient as the mansion itself; and the old pile did have a gloomy appearance to the adventurous couple that paused breathlessly before the gates.
"Bristol," said Mrs. Winslow shiveringly, "do you know that sometimes, when I see that great black pile up there, I'm glad he didn't marry me?"
"Why?" her companion impatiently asked. He was getting cold and tired, and was in no condition to appreciate maudlin melancholy.
"Because I'm sure I'd die in the old rack-o'-bones of a place; and besides that, I'm sure there are spooks there!"
"Pooh, pooh!" sneered Bristol angrily; "go along and attend to your business, or I'll go back and leave you!"
Thus admonished, the sentimental lady proceeded with her work.
For some reason the gate was very hard to open, and considerable time was consumed in getting into the grounds. Then it was a long walk to the house. Bristol anxiously watched the woman move slowly along the broad walk until she disappeared in the shadows which surrounded the house and the darkness of the night; and it seemed an age to him, as he stamped his feet as hard as he dare upon the stone pavement and whipped hishands about his shoulders to drive away the chilliness which he found creeping on.
He heard her footsteps first, then saw her emerge from the gloom, and finally saw her stop as if to listen. He also listened very intently, and thought he heard somebody moving about the house; and was immediately satisfied of the correctness of his hearing by noticing that Mrs. Winslow suddenly turned towards the road and made remarkably good time to the gate, which, feeling sure of trouble, he made strenuous efforts to open.
"For heaven's sake, Bristol," she gasped, "whydon'tyou open this gate. I'll be eaten up with the dogs, and we'll both be caught!"
The last clause of Mrs. Winslow's remark roused Bristol to a vigorous exercise of his muscle. He tugged away at the gate, shook it, threw himself against it from one side, and his companion threw herself against it from the other side; but all in vain. Not a moment was to be lost. Lights were seen flashing to and fro in the great mansion, angry voices came to them, with the by nowise cheering short, gruff, savage responses of loosened bulldogs, and in a moment more the front door was passed by two men and as many dogs that came dashing out in full pursuit.
Matters at the gate were approaching a crisis. The gate could not be opened, and Mrs. Winslow must pass it or get captured.
"Climb or die!" urged Bristol, reaching through thepickets of the gate, which was a high one, and lifting on the portly form of the excited woman.
"I will, Bristol!" she returned, with a gasp.
And she did climb!