CHAPTER X.

Rochester.-- A Profitable Field for Mrs. Winslow.-- Her sumptuous Apartments.-- The Detectives at Work.-- Mrs.

Winslow's Cautiousness.-- Child-Training.-- Mysterious Drives.-- A dapper little Blond Gentleman.-- Two Birds with one Stone.-- A French Divinity.-- Le Compte.

While Superintendent Bangs is on his hunting expedition in the West, we will follow the fortunes of Mrs. Winslow in the beautiful city of Rochester.

There is hardly a city in the country better adapted for either the pursuit of pleasure or wealth than Rochester. Everything combines to make it so. It nestles in one of the most beautiful valleys in the world, like the nest of a busy bird in a luxuriant meadow. There is the sound of pleasant waters, the roar of a mighty cataract, the din of two score busy mills, the music of the spindles, the cogs and the reels, the clash and the clangor of the factories, the thunderings of the forges, and the footfalls of a hundred thousand happy, contented people who have wrung competence and even luxury from the hard hand of necessity and toil.

From the summit of Mount Hope Observatory, an elevation of nearly five hundred feet above the lake, there is a grand picture whereon the eye may rest. At your feet, and to the north, lies the busy city with the n.o.ble Genesee winding rapidly through it, lending its half-million horse-power force to the needs of labor, then plunging a hundred feet downwards, eddying and rushing onward, plunging and eddying again and again, until it sobers into a steady current northward towards Ontario through a deep, dark gorge, looking like an ugly serpent trailing to the lower inland sea where can be seen the city of Charlotte, formerly called Port Genesee, the port of Rochester, beyond which, on a clear day, may be seen countless dreamy sails, and steamers with their trailing plumes of smoke, and still beyond appears the dim outlines of the far-off Canadian sh.o.r.e. To the east, as far as can be discerned, lies a country of the nature of "openings"--beautiful groves of trees, magnificent farms, with the almost palatial homes of the owners, who have become rich from the legacies of their ancestors with the added thrift of scores of fruitful years. Southward for a half hundred miles, stretches the beautiful valley of the Genesee, dimpled by lesser valleys and a hundred sparkling brooks, and dotted by field and forest and numberless groups of half-hidden houses, with outbuildings full to bursting with the fruitage of the fields; while to the west along the lake are low ranges of sand-hills, and south of these extending nearly to Lake Erie is a beautiful prairie country, while with a gla.s.s can be traced the ghostly mist perpetually hovering above Niagara.

If this scene be inspiring to the looker-on, the intrinsic beauty of the city, its unusual life, its fine public buildings, business houses, and splendid private residences; its clean macadamized streets and broad, brick walks, shaded with the trees of half a century's growth as in many of the famous Southern cities; its numberless little parks or "places,"

owned in common by the proprietors of the handsome residences which surround them, and filled with rare shrubs, flowers, beautiful fountains and costly statuary; the vast _parterres_ of flowers in the suburbs, sending in upon every summer wind an Arabian wealth of exquisite fragrance; the large summer gardens, where beer and Gambrinus reign supreme; the enticing promenades, and the splendid drives in every direction from the city--would give any one not completely at war with every pleasant thing in life a genuine inspiration of pleasure and a more than ordinary thrill of enjoyment.

It is little wonder, then, that Mrs. Winslow found Rochester a profitable field for operating in her peculiar double capacity of a dashing adventuress and a trance medium. She found there not only men of vast wealth, but of vast immorality, as is quite common all over the world, and hundreds of firm believers in spiritualism, which was a special peculiarity to Rochester. Among the first number there were many who sought her for her charms of figure and manners, which were certainly powerfully attractive, and which yielded her an elegant income without positive public degradation, as no man of wealth and position feels called upon to make known his own peccadilloes for the sake of exposing the sharer of them, even though she be a dangerous woman; and consequently there was only that universal verdict of evil against her which society quite generally, and also quite correctly, p.r.o.nounces on forcibly circ.u.mstantial evidence.

Her apartments were elegant, and even sumptuous; and though there was a quite general understanding of her character among the epicurean gentlemen of the city, she held them aloof with such freezing dignity that they seldom presumed upon her acquaintance, and were even possessed of a certain respect for her unusually rare shrewdness in preserving her reputation, such as it was; so that her rooms, so far as the public were able to ascertain, were only frequented by those who believed her to be able to allay their sufferings, or open the gates of the undiscovered country to their anxious, yearning eyes.

A large amount of money had been paid her by Lyon to prevent a scandal.

The last sum was known to have been five thousand dollars, and it was quite probable that if there had been an intimacy so ripe as to have warranted the payment of this amount, still larger sums had doubtless been expended in maturing so tender a relation. In any event it was ascertained by Bristol and Fox that Mrs. Winslow had for some time been living in elegance, though at the same time carefully, being given to no particular excesses, and it was a matter for considerable speculation whether she was now in the possession of much money or not.

Fox affected the quiet, well-bred gentleman, expended sufficient money among the boarders to make them talkative, and even confidential, and in this way learned a great deal about the madam's habits and peculiarities that was afterwards useful, though of no particular moment at that time; while Bristol, who was a florid, well-kept Canadian gentleman of about forty-five years of age, of a literary and poetical turn, and with an easy habit of falling into the manner and brogue of an Englishman, Scotchman, or Irishman, made himself immensely popular with the old maids under Washington Hall, who in turn were enamored with his good physical parts and blarneying tongue, and were at any time ready to confide to him all they knew, and, in fact, a great deal more; so that, as he professed to be an ardent Spiritualist, he was enabled to become well informed concerning the leading persons of that persuasion in the city, of whom he forwarded a complete list, with something of a history of each; and while not becoming known to or personally familiar with any one of them--which would have destroyed his usefulness, he was yet able to keep track of nearly all that was said or done within the charmed circle; as after each lecture, or seance, the economically-built and antiquated maidens would retire to a little snuggery behind the restaurant, to which they would invite the sympathetic Bristol, who was old enough to protect them from scandal, and then and there, while easing their by no means ravishing forms of portions of their garments preparatory to the night's virtuous repose, over strong toast and weak tea would rattle on in such a bewildering way about the events of the evening and the good or bad characteristics of the faithful, that Bristol figuratively, if not in fact, sat at the feet of a trinity of oracles.

His reports showed that while Mrs. Winslow was accepted among their number without question, still there was but little known about her previous history. I felt satisfied that this was true, and had only stationed Bristol and Fox at Rochester for the purpose of keeping me informed of her every movement, knowing well enough that after Bangs had got a good start he would follow up her trail in the West as remorselessly as I myself would have done.

Mrs. Winslow seemed to be absolutely without a.s.sociates, either from a confirmed habit of suspicion of everybody which she seemed to possess, or from a resolve to maintain as good a character as possible until the Winslow-Lyon case should be heard in court, so that her evidence, and particularly her reputation, might not be impeached or broken down; and it required the constant attention of both Bristol and Fox to discover in her anything of even a suspicious character, as the nature of her mediumistic business--allowing as it did scores of visitors daily access to her rooms, only one being admitted to the trance-room of her apartments at a time--gave her a vast advantage over them.

It was evident that she had in a measure persuaded herself that she had a genuine cause of action against Lyon; or, that if she had not, she had fully determined to make a big fight under any circ.u.mstances, as both the prestige secured by the presumption of some shadow of a claim which the mere pressing of it in court would give, and the a.s.sistance to her which even a t.i.the of the damages she claimed would be, would not only give her a degree of importance and respectability which would greatly a.s.sist her in future operations, but would also yield her the means for future comfort, without this terrible continued struggle for gold and the happiness it is supposed to command.

How vain such a hope! and how strange that, with the bitter reminder of countless never-realized ambitions before them, the adventurer and the criminal will go on and on, still clinging to the shadow of a hope that by _some_ exceptional freak of fortune in their favor they may gain the peace and quietness they so agonizedly long for, but which is just as irrevocably decreed to be forever beyond their reach as were the luscious fruits to escape the touch and taste of the condemned and tortured Phrygian king.

And right here, were I a preacher--being only a _doer_, however--I would show the criminal neglect of parents, teachers and preachers in forever warring for reformation, and never battling against the numberless packs of little foxes of pride and covetousness of society, which drive weak natures into a constant struggle to excel in power and display, eating away at the vines until the life, like the fields, is left barren and desolate, or is only a vast waste of thorns and noxious weeds. My records are full of lives wrecked upon the glittering rocks built by false pride and vanity and the greed for gold which society, and even the aristocratic systems of modern religion compel. Whatever may be preached, all this cursed a.s.sumption of what is not possessed without years of honest, st.u.r.dy toil, is practised in the pulpit, the pew, the palace, and the poverty-stricken hovel, permeating every stratum of business, society and religion, until honorable action is at discount, dishonesty commands a premium of gain and lachrymose sympathy, and the whole world is being swiftly driven into a surging channel of fraud, crime and debauchery that will require generations of something besides splendid hypocrisy and luxurious cant to restrain and purify.

With this digression, which I cannot well avoid, as it contains the convictions based upon long years of close observation and peculiar experience, I will return to the woman whom my operatives found so difficult to a.n.a.lyze and trace out.

Bangs's visit to Dr. Hubbard showed that she had a habit of driving out.

Bristol and Fox became acquainted with this fact at once and transmitted it in their reports. It appeared that the carriage and driver were secured at a livery stable near the opera house, a short distance from her rooms and Fox's boarding-house. I instructed Fox to ascertain to what points these trips were made, and if any one ever accompanied her.

Careful inquiries at this stable elicited nothing, as Mrs. Winslow's custom was valuable, and even her driver proved close-mouthed upon the subject. Accordingly, after Fox had discovered the general direction taken by Mrs. Winslow and the usual streets frequented at starting, he strolled out State Street and from thence into Lake View Avenue, which is but a continuation of State Street. After he had walked some little distance he was pleased to find that he had company in the person of a dapper little blond gentleman who was somewhat in advance of him, but who, though apparently enjoying the morning air, seemed both apprehensive of being followed, and desirous of the appearance of some one for whom he was waiting. His make-up gave him something of a foreign air, and was the most exquisite imaginable. He was a slender, tender nymph of the male order of fairies, with a face as delicate as a woman's, with large, blue, expressive eyes, long, luxuriant hair, and as neat a little moustache as was ever waxed to keep it from melting away altogether. If his face and figure were neat enough for a millinery window, his clothing was a model even for a Poole. His l.u.s.trous silk hat scarcely outshone in richness his faultless dress-coat, which was b.u.t.toned low, exposing a perfect duck vest, a spotless shirt-front and a low, rolling Byron collar, with a delicate flowing tie; while his pantaloons, which were of a mellow lavender color, seemed only to increase the effect of his shapely legs, and by their graceful swell at the instep only to stop to disclose a foot perfect enough for a model.

His jewelry consisted of a modest solitaire diamond pin, and a large seal ring which he wore upon the little finger of his left hand.

For some reason Fox felt interested in him, and resolved, though looking for a quite different person, to watch him closely. So he pa.s.sed him without giving him an opportunity of seeing his face, and, taking a position in the bar-room of a small beer-garden a little way beyond, where he had a good view of the avenue, waited for developments which were not long in taking place, as the neat little fellow arrived at the garden a few minutes after Fox, and shortly after Mrs. Winslow's carriage was seen coming from the direction of the city. Fox saw that he was bringing two birds down with one stone, and anxiously watched Mrs.

Winslow and the little fop, feeling satisfied that their meeting at the garden was pre-arranged, for as soon as her carriage came in sight, he had noticed a look of satisfaction come over the man's face, and when it was driven up to the door he stepped out nimbly, smiling and bowing like a brisk wax figure at a show.

The driver was at once discharged, and after watering the horse, immediately started towards town on foot, occasionally looking over his shoulder with a sardonic smile on his face, as if pleased at the loving meeting at the garden, as that sort of thing probably brought him many an honest penny; but no sooner had the driver turned his back on the place than Mrs. Winslow said:

"Come, Le Compte, get me a gla.s.s of brandy."

Fox thought that pretty strong for a lady who had been damaged a hundred thousand dollars by breach of promise of marriage, but held his peace, and a paper before his face, while her admirer danced into the bar and procured two gla.s.ses of brandy, which he took to the carriage upon a little tray.

"My dear, you were a little late, eh?" said Le Compte.

"Ah, a French divinity," thought Fox.

"Le Compte," replied Mrs. Winslow, handing him a bill with which to pay for the refreshment, and paying no attention to the little fellow's remark, "tell that d----d Dutchman that if he don't get some better brandy, I'll never pay him another penny!"

Fox also thought this pretty strong for the pure, broken-hearted maiden Mrs. Winslow's bill of complaint against Lyon showed her to be, and he accordingly made a note of the same, as her friend returned to the bar-room and paid for the liquor, while saying to the landlord that the madam desired him to say that the brandy was perfectly exquisite in flavor.

Presently Mrs. Winslow called out, "Come, Le Compte, get in here!" when he ran out with the alacrity of a carriage spaniel, sprang into the carriage, took the reins, and drove away towards the country, looking like a pretty daisy in the shade of a gigantic sunflower.

CHAPTER XI.

The Half-way House.-- A Jolly German Landlord.-- Detective Fox runs down Le Compte.-- A "Positive, Prophetic, Healing and Trance Medium."-- Harcout the Adviser reappears, and is anxious lest Mr. Lyon be drawn into some terrible Confession.-- Mr. Pinkerton decides to know more about Le Compte.-- And with the hara.s.sed Mr. Lyon interviews him.-- Treachery and Blackmail.-- "A much untractable Man."-- Light shines upon Mrs. Winslow.-- Another Man.-- Mr.

Pinkerton mad.

Many other conveyances were pa.s.sing to and fro, and Fox's first impulse was to secure a seat in some one of them and follow the couple in the direction they had taken. But he recollected that it might cause either Mrs. Winslow, or the little fellow at her side to know him again, which would prove disastrous, and he was consequently obliged to apply his pump to the important little Dutchman who owned the half-way house, and who was busying himself around the cool, pleasant bar-room, making the place as attractive as possible, and singing l.u.s.tily in his own mother-tongue.

"Good morning to you!" said Fox cheerily, stepping to the bar in a way that indicated his desire to imbibe.

"Good mornings mit yourself," answered the lively proprietor, getting behind the bar nimbly; "Beer?"

"Yes, thank you," replied Fox, "a schnit, if you please. Won't you drink with me?"

"Oh, ya, ya; I dank you; I dank you;" and there were as many smiles on his honest face as bubbles upon his good beer.

The gla.s.ses touched, Fox said, "Here's luck!" and the landlord met it with "Best resbects, mister!"

In good time two more schnits followed, and as the landlord was each time requested to join with Fox, he was so pleased with his liberality and apparent good feeling that he beamed all over like a sunny day in June.

"You have a beautiful place here," said Fox.

"Oh, so, so!" answered the landlord with a quick, deprecatory shrug which meant that he was very well satisfied with it.

"I was never here before."

"No?--So? I guess mebby I don't ever have seen you. Don't you leef py Rochester?--no?"

"No, I live in Buffalo, and I just came over to Rochester on a little business. Having plenty of time, I thought I would stroll out a bit this morning."

"Ya, I get a good many strollers dot same way. Eferypody goes out by der Bort."

"The Bort?"