_ CHAPTER XXII
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 Rochester with 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 it from 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 seems to 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 about
that.
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 they
deserve punishment, 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 carpet where 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 Fox
appeared nearly 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!"
"And
I don't want to go!" chimed in Fox, climbing down from a safe position upon the
escritoire.
The three looked at each other in an extremely suspicious way, and the woman again demanded, this time threateningly, what it all meant.
"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's
me. 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, and a 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's misdeeds. 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! is
that all?" 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 rushing into 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 can
I do for
you?" 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 quick jumps 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 to
you!" 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 unwonted enthusiasm 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 to have witnessed a marvellous improvement upon 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. _