"I will, Bristol!" she returned, with a gasp.

And she did climb!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"And she did climb!"--_]

It was best that she did so, as a good deal of trouble was coming down that brick walk like a small hurricane, and it would logically strike her in a position and from a direction that would not enable her to respond; and if either or both of those dogs had been able to have grasped the situation, partially impaled as she was upon the pickets, the fascinating Mrs. Winslow would have fallen an easy prey.

She was very clumsy about it, but in her desperation she in some way managed to scale the gate, leaving a good portion of her skirts and dress flying signals of distress upon the pickets, and finally fell into Bristol's arms. It was a moment when silk and fine raiment were as bagatelle in the estimate of chances for escape, and it was but the work of an instant for Bristol to tear her like a ship from her fastenings and make a grand rush towards home.

Those portions of Mrs. Winslow's garments which were left flaunting upon the gate not only set the dogs wild, but served to detain them. The men were also halted a minute by the natural curiosity they awakened, after which they made a furious onslaught upon the gate, that only yielded after sufficient time had elapsed to enable the culprits to get some distance ahead, when the men and dogs started pell-mell down the street after them.

Bristol fortunately remembered that when they were nearing Lyon's house, he had noticed that the door leading to an alley in the rear of a pretentious residence had been blown open and was then swaying back and forth in the wind. With the advantage in the chase given by the dog's criticism upon Mrs. Winslow's wearing apparel and the men's hinderance at the gate, they were able to seek shelter here, which they did with the utmost alacrity, fastening the gate behind them, where they tremblingly listened to the pursuers tearing by.

Mrs. Winslow insisted on immediately rushing out and taking the other direction, but Bristol, feeling sure that the party would go but a short distance, held on to her until the two men returned with the dogs, swearing at their luck, and telling each other wonderful tales of burglaries that never took place, while Bristol thoughtfully put in the time by making Mrs. Winslow's skirts as presentable as possible, by the aid of the pins which every prudent man carries under the right-hand collar of his coat, and hurriedly ascertaining from her that she had unfortunately tied the herrings upon the door-bell instead of the door-k.n.o.b, thus involving pursuit.

After everything had become quiet, and Bristol had made several expeditions of observation to doubly a.s.sure himself of the coast being clear, the couple stole cautiously out of the alley into the deserted street, and after much precaution and many alarms, caused by the creaking of signs, the sudden flaring of gas-lamps, and the fierce gusts of wind dashing after and into them around the sharp corners of buildings, they at last arrived at home past midnight; and, having ordered it as they neared the block, for a half-hour longer they sipped hot toddy by a rousing coal fire, recounting their exploits of the night, and eventually retiring with something of the spirit of conquerors upon them.

Down came the snow and the wind next morning, two things which will usually in early winter call a whole cityful out of bed, and set the human tides in a rapid motion. Fox and Bristol had long before got into the streets and had heartily enjoyed some newspaper items, one recounting racily the outrage of labeled herrings being hung to the door-k.n.o.bs of the houses of many respectable citizens, and another, under glaring head-lines, giving the minutest details of a desperate attempt at burglary of Mr. Lyon's house, and a double-leaded editorial which agonizedly asked in every variety of form, "Where are our police?"

But Mrs. Winslow, from her adventures and toddy of the previous night, slept late and long, and when she did come creeping out into the sleeping-room, half dressed and altogether unlovely in disposition and appearance, she looked out upon the snow-flakes and the crowds of people without any emotion save that of anger at being aroused.

The only thing to be seen of anything like an unusual object was a very large load of hay standing at the entrance of the building; but of course this had no particular interest to a Spiritualist. She had had a half-formed impression that she had heard knocking at the door, and she turned from the window to ascertain whether that impression had been correct. Throwing a shawl about her head and shoulders, she unlocked the door and peered out cautiously. There was n.o.body there, and the wind whistled up the stairs so drearily that she closed the door with a slam, and after starting up the fire, which was slumbering on the hearth, she crept into bed again.

She had no more than got at the drowsy threshold of dreamland than she was startled by a loud knocking, this time proceeding from something besides an impression of the mind, each knock being accompanied by some lively expression of German impatience. The demonstration was intelligible, if the words were not, and Mrs. Winslow bounded out of her bed and into the reception-room in no pleasant frame of mind.

On protecting her form as much as her indelicate disposition required--and that was not much--she flung the door open and savagely asked:

"What's wanted?"

"Ef you keep a man skivering and frozing to died mit der vind und schnow-vlakes, I guess mebby I charge more as ten dollars a don for 'em!"

He was all smiles at first, but he resented her brusque manner as swiftly and severely as he could with his broken brogue. He was an honest, broad-shouldered, big-headed German farmer, and though wrapped and wound from head to foot in woollens, the only thing that seemed warm about him was his glowing pipe and his disturbed temper. He shook his head at the woman, and again began a stammering recital of his wrongs, when she cut him short with:

"You're crazy!"

"Grazy? Of I make a foolishness of a fellar like as you do--well, dot's all right!" and he stood up very straight and puffed great clouds of smoke past her into her elegant room.

She had got a stolid customer on hand, and she saw it. So she asked him civilly what he wanted at _her_ door.

"Yust told me vere ish der parn, und I don't trouble you no more."

"Whose barn?"

"Vere der hay goes."

"Hay? What hay? I don't know anything about any hay," she replied, laughing at his perplexity.

"I shtand here an hour already, und ven I got you up no satisf.a.gtion comes. Py Shupiter, dot goes like a schwindle!"

He was very mad by this time, and walked back and forth in front of her door, shaking his fists and gesticulating wildly; and to prevent a scene, which might cause a collection of the inmates of the building, she quieted him as much as possible, and ascertained that some obliging person, more enthusiastic about the amount than the character of some token of esteem, had taken the trouble to order a load of hay to be delivered at her number, describing the place, room, and woman so minutely that there could be no possibility of mistake, where the owner was to collect all additional charges above two dollars, which had been paid.

It took Mrs. Winslow a long time to persuade the farmer that she owned no barn, kept no animals, had no use for hay, and that there had been some mistake, or that some person had deliberately played a joke upon _him_, but finally, after a shivering argument of fully fifteen minutes, and the expenditure of a dollar bill, with the seductive offer that she would give him ten dollars if he would find and bring to her the man who ordered the load, her obstinate visitor departed, roundly swearing in good German that he would have the _Gottferdamter schwindler_ brought up by der city gourts and hung, to which Mrs. Winslow groaned a hearty approval as she shut the door of the--to her--desolate room.

If there had previously been any doubts in her mind as to there being a preconcerted plan to annoy and exasperate her beyond endurance, they were now entirely removed, and the woman broke down completely, wringing her hands in mute expression of bitter anguish. The storm without was not half so violent as the storm within, and the blinding flakes which swept from the bitter sky raged upon a no more barren, frozen, desolate soil than her own selfish heart.

There may be a kind of pity for such a woman; there should be pity for every form of human suffering, or even depravity; but in my mind there should be none to verge from pity into palliation and excuse for this woman. Great as was her mental suffering, there was in it not a single touch of remorse. Terribly as her mind was racked and tortured with doubt, uncertainty, fear, and despair, there was in it no trace of the womanhood which, however low it may descend, is still capable of regret.

She was not heart-sick for the life she was leading, but dreaded the punishment she knew it deserved. Her nature had never shrunk from the countless miseries she had entailed on others, and her heart never misgave her only in the absence of her kind of happiness or in the superst.i.tious fear of the evils which she felt a.s.sured were constantly her due. She was, as far as I ever knew, or can conceive, a soulless woman whose troubles only produced vindictiveness, whose utter aim in life was social piracy, whose injuries only begat hate, and whose sufferings only concentrated her exhaustless hunger and thirst for revenge.

After the first burst of rage and pa.s.sion, she settled down into a condition of deep study and planning, and about the middle of the afternoon began pa.s.sing in and out and visiting various places, in a way which, though it might not particularly attract attention, yet betokened some business project being resolutely and quietly carried out.

During one of the periods when she was within her apartments, quite a commotion was raised in the lower story, the stores of which were occupied by a tobacconist and milliner, by a call from a prominent undertaker of Main Street, who with a mysterious air exhibited the following note, at the same time asking whispered conundrums about it.

"MR. BOXEM:

"DEAR SIR--Please quietly deliver a full-sized coffin at No.

-- South St. Paul Street, at the first room to the right of the stairway as it reaches the third floor. Enclosed please find five dollars, in part payment. Will make it an object to you to ask no questions below, and deliver the coffin as soon after dark as possible.

(Signed) "MRS. A. J. W----."

Mr. Boxem was by no means a solemn man; but he had a heavy ba.s.s voice, which he used to such great effect in asking questions below stairs, that he succeeded in creating a fine horror there, so that by the time he had proceeded to Mrs. Winslow's rooms, it was settled in the minds of the tobacconist and the milliner, their employees, and any customers of either who had happened in during Mr. Boxem's preliminary investigation, that each and every one's previous solemn prediction as to "_something_ being wrong upstairs" had now come true, as they each and every one reminded the other that "Oh, I told you so!"

Mr. Boxem, finding Mrs. Winslow's door ajar, quietly stepped in and reverently removed his sombre c.r.a.pe hat.

"Evening, ma'am," he said politely, but with a professional shade of sympathy in the greeting.

"And what do _you_ want?" she asked in a kind of desperation, noticing an open letter in his hand.

"Your order, you know," he replied tenderly; "these things are sad and have to be borne. Can't possibly be helped, more 'n one can help coming into the world."

Mrs. Winslow could not reply from rage and anger, and hiding her face in her hands, walked to the window.

"No, it's the _way_ of the world," continued Boxem, with a sigh; "ah--hem!--might I ask if _it_ is in there?" he concluded, producing a tape-line case.

"It?--in G.o.d's name, what _it_!" sobbed the woman.

"Why--the--the"--stammered her visitor somewhat abashed, "the body--the corpse, you know! Have come to measure it. Painful, I know; but business is business, if it's only coffin business; and I can't possibly do a neat job without I get a good measure. Something like the tailoring trade, you see!"

"Body?--corpse?--come to measure it? Oh, I shall go wild, I shall go wild," persisted the woman, half frantic at the intimation which came to her that a corpse was not only in her place, but in the very room where she slept, and that this fiend who was pursuing her--this Nemesis, who struck her pride, her ambition, her desires, her very life, at every move she made, had actually sent an undertaker there to measure the dead body.

It is hard to tell what would have happened if the good sense of the undertaker had not come to the relief of the situation; and, hastily answering her that there had probably been some mistake, that the order was probably meant for the next block, and offering other similar excuses while hastily apologizing for the intrusion, Mr. Boxem very sensibly went back to his business and his coffins, five dollars ahead until more promising inquiries should bring to light the friend of the alleged dead, and the owner of the money, who, fortunately for Mr.

Boxem, has not appeared to this day.

CHAPTER XXIV

Breaking up.-- Doubts and Queries.-- Suspected Developments.-- The Detectives completely outwitted.-- On the Trail again.-- From Rochester to St. Louis.-- A prophetic Hotel Clerk.-- More Detectives and more Need for them.-- Lightning Changes.