"Undoubtedly," I interrupted, "I'm sure I could do it at this moment!"

Harcout looked at me quickly, but as I was gazing at the ceiling as if in deep thought, he went on quite enthusiastically:

"Exactly. They learn it early. They will swindle at sixteen, rob at eighteen; blackmail at twenty; and kill a man any time after that!"

"Why, Harcout are _you_ a woman-hater?" I laughingly asked, notwithstanding my annoyance.

"Oh, no," he suddenly replied; "but I had a friend who once suffered from very much the same sort of a woman as this Mrs. Winslow, and she was not eighteen years old either. But to resume: Get this point in her life, and the rest--hem!--the rest reads right on like the chapters of a book!"

"And then what?" I ventured to ask.

"Then what?" he asked indignantly; "go for her through the newspapers.

Drive her out of the country. Make it impossible for her to ever return;" and then, as if reflecting, "ruin her altogether. Any reporter will listen to you if you have anybody to ruin! In fact, get up an excitement about it and show her up."

"And try your case in the newspapers instead of in the courts?" I added, "which would have the effect of leaving the matter at the end just where it was at the beginning, with nothing proven, and Mr. Lyon still at the mercy of any future surprise the woman might conceive a fancy of springing upon him."

But there was no means of changing this lofty gentleman's opinions, and these interviews were always necessarily closed by the threat on my part that I would have nothing further to do with the matter if I was not allowed to conduct my operations according to my own judgment in the light of my own large experience upon such matters, and Mr. Harcout would depart in a most dignified and frigid manner, as though it were a "positively last appearance," only to return the next day with more objections and a new batch of suggestions, which were given me for "what they were worth," as he would remark, and we would fight our battles all over again, with the stereotyped result.

I saw Mr. Lyon very seldom, and he always approached me in the timid, reluctant way in which he had come into my office when the case was first begun; but, contrary to what I had antic.i.p.ated through Harcout's injunctions to "push things" and crush the woman out, he approved of my course throughout, and seemed wonderfully pleased that everything had been conducted so quietly and yet so effectively. Of course he shrank from the trial and the miserable sort of publicity all such trials compel; but he was _more_ fearful of the woman's future unexpected and sudden sallies upon him, which both he and myself were satisfied would be made at her convenience or whim, and was only too glad to agree to any course which would compel silence and peace.

At Rochester everything was working smoothly. After Bristol had become located, his first work was to secure the admission to Mrs. Winslow's rooms of Fox, as Lyford, which was done by representing that, the same day he had himself gone there, he had suddenly come upon a sort of relative of his who was a book-keeper in a wholesale house on Mill street, and who was boarding at the Osborn House, and would be glad to make some arrangement whereby he might live comfortably, be near his business, and take his meals when and where he pleased. Thinking he would be more pleasantly situated, and, at the same time, be able to economize somewhat, Bristol said he had recommended Mrs. Winslow's rooms very highly and that Lyford had agreed to call and take a look at the place, which he did, making a good impression, and arranging to have his baggage sent the next day.

The rooms were situated so that the two detectives in a measure had their quarry surrounded, or, at least, completely flanked. The halls of the floor intersected each other at right angles at the top of the stairs, and Mrs. Winslow's reception-room was at the right, as the hall was entered from the stairway, while her sleeping-room could only be reached from this sitting-room, although being situated next the hall running parallel with the front of the building, while Bristol had shrewdly secured another sleeping-room fronting on St. Paul street, similar in size to Mrs. Winslow's, adjoining hers, and also, like hers, opening into the reception-room, which they had agreed to use in common, as it seemed that the fair landlady was all of a sudden, for some reason, becoming close and penurious. Fox's room was across the hall immediately opposite Mrs. Winslow's, as he had expressed a strong desire to be as near his cousin, Mr. Bristol, as possible, so that by chance and a little careful work the parties were located with as much appropriateness as I could possibly have wished for. The operatives each paid a month's rent in advance, taking receipts for the same, and immediately began paying particular attention to all parties who came in and out of the building, circulated freely among the Spiritualists of the city, and got on as good terms as possible with the charming landlady, who seemed at times to be a little suspicious of her surroundings, as it introduced altogether too many strange faces to suit a person who had a no clearer conscience than she had.

From the gay, dashing woman she had been, she became unpleasantly suspicious. She explained this to Bristol and Fox as arising from unfavorable visions and revelations from the spirits through the different mediums she had employed to give her the truth about her case with Lyon. The rooms had filled up rapidly with people whom the operatives had taken pains to ascertain all about, and who, as a rule, were honest folks; but Mrs. Winslow could not get it out of her mind that some of them were spies from Lyon, and were watching her in everything that she did.

There had been nothing whatever done to alarm her on the part of my men; but the fact alone that here were a dozen people all about her, any one of whom might at any time spring some sudden harm upon her, began to affect her as the fear she had all her life inspired in others had affected them; and she began to form a habit of talking pleasantly on ordinary subjects, and then turning abruptly and almost fiercely upon Bristol and Fox, who were now the only persons left whom she would at all trust--even distrusting them--with a series of questions so vital, and given with such wonderful rapidity, that it required the best efforts of the operatives to parry her home-thrusts and quiet her regarding them.

It was a question in my mind whether she had laid by a large sum of money or not. Years before she had several thousand dollars; up to the time she came to Rochester she had had the reputation of never paying a bill, and, however hedged in she might be by justice, jury, constables, or sheriff, she not only escaped incarceration, but beat them all without paying any manner of tribute. She had done a fair business in duping Spiritualists and other weak-minded people while in Rochester; she had evidently levied upon Devereaux often and largely, and to my certain knowledge had taken some thousands of dollars from Lyon, and I was at a loss to know why she was growing so grasping and exacting as the reports showed was true of her; for she soon complained of being poor, levied additional a.s.sessment for care of the rooms, insisted upon her tenants receiving sittings at a good round price from her, and in general dropped the veneer which had formerly made her extremely fascinating, and became, save in exceptional moments of good nature, a masculine, repulsive shrew, who, with a slight touch of hideousness, might have pa.s.sed for a stage witch or a neighborhood plague.

CHAPTER XIX.

Mrs. Winslow becomes confidential.-- Some of her Exploits.-- Her Plans.-- A Sample of Legal Pleading.-- A fishy Story.-- The Adventuress as a Somnambulist.-- Detective Bristol virtuously indignant.-- Failing to win the "Retired Banker," Mrs. Winslow a.s.sails Detective Fox with her Charms.

After a time Bristol and Fox became Mrs. Winslow's only confidants.

Their business was to become so, and they successfully accomplished their object. As Bristol said in one of his reports: "Only set her tongue wagging, and she spouts away as irresistibly as an artesian well."

Had she been possessed of womanly instinct in the slightest degree, this would have been impossible. But being a male in everything save her physical structure, it was quite natural that she should hobn.o.b with those most congenial; and as she had antagonized all her lodgers save my operatives, and they made a particular effort to keep up a good-natured familiarity, the three were certainly on as easy terms as possible, and pa.s.sed the autumn evenings, which were growing long now, in conversation of an exceedingly varied nature, with an occasional sitting or seance, and not infrequently a visitation of spirits of more material character; and the following are a few of the many facts in this way brought out, and by Bristol and Fox transmitted to me at New York in their daily mail reports.

In one of Mrs. Winslow's peregrinations, probably for blackmail purposes, she secured the indictment in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, of one George Hodges, for swindling. He was not at that time arrested, but a year or so after, finding that he was in Cincinnati, and claiming that he was a non-resident, had him arrested as a fugitive from justice.

When the case was called before an obscure justice, no prosecuting witness appeared, whereupon Hodges was discharged and at once secured a warrant against her for perjury, but afterwards withdrew it. Meantime the woman shook the dust of Cincinnati from her feet and repaired to St.

Louis, where she began several suits against parties there, notably one against a leading daily newspaper of that city, from which she afterwards secured one thousand dollars damages for libel. She afterwards swung around the circle to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she obtained from the Governor of that State a requisition on the Governor of Ohio, at Columbus, upon whom she waited and requested him to designate her as the person to whom should be delegated the power under the law to convey the fugitive, Hodges, to the Keystone State; but the private secretary of the Governor of Ohio suspecting that the person who had presented the papers, and for whose benefit they had been issued, would make improper use of them, they were returned to the Governor of Pennsylvania, whereupon she had made Columbus ring with denunciations of gubernatorial corruption, and threatened to cause the impeachment of Pennsylvania's Executive, although those two commonwealths were never completely shattered by her.

Again in conversation regarding her case, which now seemed never out of her mind or off her tongue, she informed Bristol confidentially that she intended keeping Lyon in the dark altogether, giving him and his counsel no inkling as to what course she intended to pursue, which would so worry him that he would be glad to settle for at least twenty-five thousand dollars, rather than have the case come to trial and be exposed as she would expose him; and if he did not settle at the last moment, she would have subpnas issued for Lyon's mother-in-law, all his children, several other women who, the spirits had revealed, had been similarly betrayed, and even Lyon himself, and then she _would_ make a sensation.

At this stage she was positive he would settle, as she knew he was half worried to death about the matter; and besides this, he knew that she knew he had told a certain lawyer of the city that he had once loved her better than any other woman on earth, and the only reason he had discarded her was that he was sure her love had taken hold on his pocket and forsaken himself.

She had signed a release of all claims, but she would stoutly maintain that it was fraudulently secured, which would only further establish the fact that she had had a valid claim upon him. Nor did she fear the opposing counsel. She was lawyer enough to attend to her own case, she said. Her legal knowledge helped her through many a difficulty, and as she had been lawyer enough to file a declaration, she could get a rejoinder in shape whenever the answer should appear upon the court records. Oh, she knew how to handle a jury; she had done it before! In _this_ case she would say: "Gentlemen of the jury:--There are many who believe that I merely seek for money. This is not true. I ask for a verdict that I may gain a husband. For all of the injury that I have received--lost time, lost money, lost reputation, years of suspense and hope deferred--I only ask for a verdict in consonance with what a man in Lyon's position should be compelled to give to one so grossly wronged.

Gentlemen, if you give me a heavy verdict, you give me Mr. Lyon. I say this in all sincerity--yes, as a proof of my sincerity. I want the man, not his money; and a heavy verdict gives me the man, for Mr. Lyon is so penurious that he will marry me rather than pay the amount I claim. With him, he has so won my whole being, even in poverty I would feel richer than to live without him the possessor of millions!"

In delivering this eloquent peroration, Mrs. Winslow in reality rose upon a chair, and, figuratively, upon the giddy alt.i.tude of her dignity, and tossing back her head, elevating her eyebrows, looking peculiarly fierce with her great gray eyes, and flinging the back of her right hand into the palm of her left with quick, ringing strokes, delighted her audience of operatives, and male and female Spiritualists, who on this occasion crowded the reception-room and cheered their hostess as she descended from her improvised rostrum to order something to refill the gla.s.ses which had been enthusiastically emptied to her overwhelming success.

When business was dull with the woman, she would be certain to retain the company of the detectives, as it seemed that she was beginning to avoid being left alone as much as possible, and would, under no circ.u.mstances, allow them both to be absent at the same time. Though ordinarily careful of, and close with, her money, to keep my men at home on these, to her, dreary evenings, she would send for cigars, liquor, and choice fruits, and after considerable urging they would remain, when the conversation would invariably turn upon the Winslow-Lyon case, or some incident in the fair plaintiff's eventful life, which the gentlemen as invariably listened to with the closest interest and attention.

On one occasion Spiritualism was being discussed, when Mrs. Winslow touched on her early history, and the revelation then made to her which in after-life convinced her of the possession of supernatural powers.

Her father had had several boxes of honey stolen from his bee-hives, when she was but a little girl. Search was made for them in every possible direction, but no trace of them could be found, whereupon she conveniently went into a trance, the first she had ever experienced, continuing in that state several hours, and finally awakening from it terribly exhausted. But the trance brought the honey, for a wonderful vision came upon her, wherein spirit-forms appeared clothed in overwhelming radiance, and, after caressing her spiritual form for some time, and making her realize that she was an accepted child of Light, pointed their dazzling celestial fingers towards an old hollow stump standing at the side of the road leading towards town. So powerful and penetrating was the light which radiated from these spirits that it seemed to permeate the stump, leaving its form perfect as ever, but making it wholly translucent, so that she could see the boxes of honey piled up within the stump as clearly as though she had been standing beside it and it had been made of gla.s.s. She gave this information to her father, who ridiculed the revelation, but was both curious and desirous of getting the honey, and went to the old stump, where he found the boxes uninjured and piled in precisely the same manner as described by his precocious child; all of which was related as if thoroughly believed--as it doubtless was--in a voice as hollow and mysterious as the stump itself, while the operatives preserved the utmost gravity and decorum, and impressed her in every way with their belief in her varied and wonderful power.

Her affection for Bristol continued for a few weeks unabated, and her most powerful arts were used in endeavoring to compel him to reciprocate it. These attempts went as far as a naturally lewd and naturally shrewd woman dare go--so far, in fact, that in one and the last instance they became absurdly ridiculous. There was no bolt upon the door of either of their sleeping-rooms, and, besides, it was necessary for Bristol to either retire first or step into Fox's room for a little chat, or a sociable smoke, as Mrs. Winslow had an unpleasant and persistent habit of disrobing for the night in the reception-room.

One evening, after Mrs. Winslow had given a select seance to a few admiring friends, including my detectives, Bristol had hurried off to bed, being tired of the mummery, and after being obliged to listen for some time to her tumblings and tappings about the room, had finally fallen into a peaceful doze of a few minutes' duration, when he was awakened by that undefinable yet irresistibly increasing sense of some sort of a presence, which often takes from one the power of expression, or action, but intensifies the mind's faculties. The gas in the reception-room had been turned low, and his door had been softly opened.

The rooms were quite dark, but the light from the street-lamps were sufficient to show him the plump outlines of a form which he felt sure that if it had had an orthodox amount of clothing upon it he could recognize. It certainly seemed to be the form of a woman, and her long, dishevelled black hair fell all about her shoulders and below her waist, while her _robe de nuit_ trailed behind her with fear-inspiring, tremulous rustlings. On came the robust ghost, and in the weird gloaming which filled the apartment, he saw the mysterious thing moving towards him, and in a sort of frenzy of excitement yelled:

"Who's that?"

No answer; but the slow, firm pace of the apparition came nearer to Bristol's bedside, and he partially rose upon his knees as if to defend himself.

"Say!--you!" shouted Bristol, "get--get out of here!"

But the ghostly figure came on as resistless as fate until it reached his bedside. By this time he had risen to his feet and was edging along the wall to escape, when to his horror he saw the spectre bound into the bed he had so expeditiously vacated and reach for him with a very business-like grasp which he nimbly eluded, and with a series of bounds and scrambles reached the floor. He stood where he had struck for a moment, addressing some very decided and italicized remarks to the lively ghost in his bed, and then, in one grand burst of virtuous indignation, made an impetuous dive at the figure, caught it by one of its very plump arms, brought the ghost from the bed with a mighty effort, and securing its left ear with his right hand, trotted the animated shadow out of his room and into the reception-room right up to the pier-gla.s.s, and then turning on one of the jets at its side, said to the magnificent ghost, in a voice husky from excitement and rage:

"Woman! if you ever do that thing again, I'll--I'll--aren't you ashamed of yourself, Mrs. Winslow?"

At the sound of her name, and after a few moments' apparently bewildered reflection, Mrs. Winslow opened her eyes, which had previously remained closed, and in an affectedly startled way gasped:

"Oh! where am I? what _have_ you been trying to do with me, Mr.

Bristol?"

To have seen the couple thus in the full gaslight before the pier-gla.s.s, which both reflected and intensified the odd situation--the woman, held to the mirror so that she might more startlingly view the result of her gauzy pretence at somnambulism, and the man, in his night-shirt, his limp night-cap dangling from his neck upon his shoulder, the ring of stubby gray hair around his head raised by excitement until it almost hid the glistening baldness above, his legs bare below the knees, but with a face so full of virtuous resentment at the scandalous and shallow scheme of the woman to implicate him in something disgraceful, that his uprightness clothed him as with fine raiment--would have been to have witnessed the apotheosis of sublimely triumphant virtue and the defeat of shame.

"What have _I_ been trying to do with _you_?" shouted the now enraged Bristol; "that's all very fine; but what have _you_ been trying to do with _me_, madam?"

"Why, didn't I ever tell you that I often walk in my sleep?" she asked with apparent innocence; and then, as if noticing for the first time how meagrely both herself and her companion were clad, gave vent to a half-smothered "Oh!--shame on you, Mr. Bristol!" and broke away from him, running into her own room, while Bristol, after walking back and forth in a state of high nervous excitement for some time, muttering, and shaking his fist towards her room, finally smoothed his rebellious locks so as to admit of the readjustment of his night-cap, and trotted fiercely to bed, never more to be disturbed by sleep-walking female Spiritualists.

There was nothing in all this save a quite common and silly attempt on the part of the adventuress to get some of the hard-earned money of which she thought he was possessed, and it disgusted her that he was no more appreciative than to look upon her charms, that had set the heads of so many other men all awhirl, with such a cool and impressionless regard for them.

This latter fact bothered her probably fully as much as in not being able to get at his bank account, and she finally settled into a sort of suspicious dislike of him, and turned her attention to Fox, who, being a quiet sort of a fellow, with less brusqueness than Bristol, was not so well fitted to keep her at arm's length, and was consequently immediately the recipient of her torrent-like attentions, caresses, and confidence.

A book-keeper was the next thing to a retired banker--sometimes even better off, Mrs. Winslow thought; and, believing that Fox was the book-keeper he represented himself to be, she conceived the idea of travelling during the pendency of the suit, and gave Fox glowing accounts of the vast sums of money they could make if she only had so presentable a man as he for a sort of agent, manager, and protector.

One afternoon Fox came in early, and said that as he was suffering severely from headache he had been excused from his duties, and had come home for rest. He pa.s.sed into his own room and laid down upon his bed, where he was immediately followed by the woman, who threw herself pa.s.sionately into his arms, declaring that he was the only man whom she had ever really and truly loved, and terminated her expressions of ardor by a proposition that he should "get hold of a big pile down there to the store," as she expressed it, and fly to some quiet spot where they might revel in love and all that the term implies.

Had he been a book-keeper instead of what he was, and able to secure any large sum of money, she would have probably so bedevilled him that he would have become a criminal for life for the sake of gratifying his pa.s.sion and her demands, and in a week after she would have had nine-tenths of the money, and Fox would have been a penniless fugitive from justice.

He had more trouble than Bristol in dispossessing the mind of the adventuress of the idea that he was not the man to allow her to become his Delilah; but when this was done, and she disgustedly realized that not all men were ready to sell themselves body and soul for her embraces, while she was indignant and suspicious, yet a sort of easy confidence was established between the mysterious three, which brought out a good many strong points in her character, and at the same time led to the securing of a large amount of evidence against her. In fact, it seemed that so soon as she thoroughly understood the, to her, novel situation of being in constant contact with two men who, though probably no better than average men, were still from the nature of their business compelled to be above reproach in all their a.s.sociation with her, her self-a.s.sertion and consciousness of power, which she had been able to a.s.sert over nearly every man with whom she came in contact, in a measure left her, and she became, at least to my operatives, an ordinary woman, whose inherent vileness, low cunning, and splendid physical perfection, were her only distinguishing characteristics. This was all natural enough, for I had compelled these men to be her almost constant companions, and as they had been with her long enough to drive away any superfluous constraint, and she had found both of them una.s.sailable, though sociable and agreeable, her conversation, which chiefly concerned herself, became as utterly devoid of decency as her life had been, so that no incident of rehea.r.s.ed romance of herself lost any of its piquancy by unnecessary a.s.sumption of modesty in its narration.