The Spiritualists and the Detectives

During this condition of things, and being somewhat anxious about the matter, I went to Rochester myself, and held a consultation with my men, having the block further examined under various guises and pretexts, which proved beyond doubt that the woman was gone, and had probably left the building a very few minutes after the operatives had departed; and, for some reason best known to herself, but probably on account of the mysterious annoyances which had been following each other very rapidly, had either left the city entirely or was hiding very closely within it, with a view to discover whether, with the two men out of her society, and herself in peaceful retiracy, she could not ascertain from what source her troubles came, or avoid them altogether.

To my further annoyance, the magnificent Harcout appeared and kindly offered me countless suggestions and theories, which were each one considered by Mr. Harcout to be worthy of immediate adoption; and in order to get rid of him, I was obliged to appear to acquiesce in an imaginative theory of Mrs. Winslow's flight to New York, and represent myself as so interested in his idea of how she could be traced to her hiding-place, that I desired of him as a personal favor that he would follow the trail, giving him a man, and the man a wink – and there never was a finer picture of pomposity and assumption than when Harcout and his man started for New York. Rid of him, I again turned to my work of getting upon the right trail.

I was sure the woman had left the city, and further inquiry at the rooms convinced me that I was correct. The little woman finally acknowledged flatly that she had gone, but would under no circumstances tell whether she had left the city or not. She also exhibited a bill of sale of the goods and a transfer of the lease, and wanted to know if that did not look as though she had gone? But she persisted in her refusal to give further information, and that was the end of it.

No one had seen any trunks or packages leave the place, nor could my detectives get any trace of her having left the city over any of the different roads. Inquiries made at all the leading livery stables, express and hack-stands, of the city, failed to discover that Mrs. Winslow had been conveyed to any near railroad station where she might have taken a train; nor could it be by any means ascertained that such a person had purchased a ticket at any of the adjacent towns for any point to the east, west, or south.

In fact, all trace of Mrs. Winslow was lost, and I was satisfied that she had for some time been sure of the danger of her surroundings; and, while not able to fasten any particular suspicious act upon Bristol or Fox, undoubtedly intuitively felt that they were either directly responsible for her troubles, or were in some unexplainable way connected with their cause; and being enough of a professional litigant to be aware of the necessity of service of notice upon her as to the taking of evidence before such evidence could be taken, and that it would be possible by a sudden disappearance and remaining secreted until the case might be called, to defeat Lyon's attorneys from using this mountain of evidence which she knew existed against her, whether she knew we had collected it or not, the double motive for her mysterious absence was plainly apparent.

Remembering Bristol and Fox's reports as to her threat to go to St. Louis and "attend to her cases" there unless the annoyances ceased, and knowing from previous evidence already secured that she had figured extensively in various capacities, but principally as Spiritualist, blackmailer and courtesan in that city, I finally concluded that she had gone there, though her mode of leaving Rochester, if she had left the city, had certainly been such as to demonstrate ability worthy of a better cause.

I accordingly directed Bristol and Fox to return to New York, and detailed the two men who had made it lively for Mrs. Winslow, and who, of course, knew her, but whom she had not seen face to face, the "materializations" having all been done for them by other parties, to proceed to St. Louis in search of her, stopping at any point where railroad divergences were made from the trunk lines between the east and the west, and make extremely diligent inquiries for her, while I left another man in Rochester for the purpose of watching for her reappearance there, which would undoubtedly occur as soon as her former tenants were gone, in the event that she was secreted in Rochester, instead of being at the west, and to make this plan more certain, caused Bristol to write a letter to Mrs. Winslow, stating that both he and Fox had made numberless efforts to see her, but, failing to ascertain either where she was, or the cause of her sudden disappearance, and both being out of active business, they had concluded to go on to New York, but would return to Rochester should she resume charge of the rooms and desire them for tenants. I made arrangements also at the post-office to ascertain whether any letters were reforwarded to her at any point, and also at the express office regarding packages, so it could be hardly possible for her to keep up any correspondence or relation of any kind with parties in Rochester without disclosing her place of retreat.

Having completed these arrangements, I returned to New York and anxiously waited for some news from the West.

No trace was found of the woman until Operatives Grey and Watson had arrived at Chicago, where they immediately circulated among the Spiritualists of that city, who are both numerous and of rather doubtful moral standing. They ascertained that a woman answering her description had been there, and advertised largely under another alias than Mrs. Winslow, but nothing definitely could be learned until in their reports I discovered that the little Frenchman, Le Compte, was figuring as the unknown lady's companion and business manager, when I telegraphed to follow Le Compte and his woman, being morally certain that these two were Monsieur the Mineral Locater and the celebrated plaintiff in the Winslow-Lyon breach of promise suit.

It was discovered after some trouble, and with the assistance of my Chicago Agency, that Le Compte had suddenly left that city for some southern or south-western point, possibly St. Louis, but no information could be gained as to what direction Mrs. Winslow had taken, it being evidently her plan to avoid pursuit, should there be any made. My conviction still being strong that her objective point was St. Louis, I ordered the men on there, without positively knowing that either of the parties were there; but was gratified to learn that Le Compte had been in the city, whether he was there or not on the operatives' arrival. The operatives, Grey and Watson, at once searched the newspapers and found no advertisements which would cover the desired couple, or either of them; but, notwithstanding, visited all the mediums, clairvoyants, and prominent Spiritualists of the city, but could find no trace of the fugitives from that generally very prolific source, and began to have the impression that her trip there, if she were in the city at all, was one of pleasure or of blackmail business outside of her regular clairvoyant line.

The next move made by the men was to search about among the hotels and boarding-houses, and really ferret her out. This was a tedious process, and very little success was made in this endeavor for two or three days, when one noon, as Grey was wandering about the city in a seemingly useless endeavor to find the woman, he stepped into the Denver House, formerly the old City Hotel, and began to search over the register. He had not proceeded far when the clerk, eyeing him cautiously, said:

"See here, Mister, ain't you lookin' for somebody?"

"Certainly I am," he replied pleasantly.

Grey looked at him a moment and saw that he would not drop the subject, and immediately endeavored to mislead him by answering, "Of course I am; I came in from the country this morning, and I don't know what hotel she was going to."

"Ah, ha," mused the clerk, as if at loss how to proceed, "I guess you didn't know where to find her, and you haven't found her yet, have you?"

"No," Grey replied quietly.

"Is she big or little?"

"Well, she ain't little," answered Grey.

"Now, see here, my friend, that's all right; but I'm pretty sure you didn't just come in from the country, and further, I think I can show you the woman you've been hunting."

Grey smiled and intimated that he was perfectly willing to be shown the woman.

"Well, you just let me have your hat; I'll put it on the hat-rack inside the dining-room door, then you go to the wash-room and pass into the dining-room as though you had forgotten your hat and had come back for it. Look at the head of the first table over by the windows, and if you don't find your woman with a little Frenchman, I'll treat!"

Grey was surprised at the revelation, as there could be no possible means for him to know of his mission; but the clerk's reference to the "little Frenchman" convinced him that there was something worth following up in the matter, and he followed his new friend's instructions implicitly, passed into the dining-room, took his hat from the rack, turned and got a good view of the fair Mrs. Winslow and the faultless Monsieur Le Compte, who were evidently enjoying life as thoroughly as perfect freedom from restraint, and spiritualistic free love, would enable them.

He expressed no surprise, however, at seeing the woman, and remarked to the clerk as he passed into the hall, "Why, that isn't any friend of mine!"

"Nor anybody else's!" said the clerk with a leer. "But really, now," he anxiously added, "ain't you after her?"

"Certainly not," Grey stoutly replied; but as the clerk took him into the bar-room to treat him according to agreement, which he submitted to unblushingly, he admitted that he had a curiosity to know something about her, as he had either seen her, or heard of her, previously.

Then the clerk told him a good deal about the woman, unnecessary for me to recite to my readers, which only further showed her vile character, and so worked upon my operative's curiosity and interest that he decided to come to the hotel for a few days; but as he was informed that Mrs. Winslow's intentions were to remain there the remainder of the week, and the clerk promised to keep a good lookout for her, he concluded to hunt up his companion, inform him of his good fortune, and transfer their baggage to that hotel.

As it was now about two o'clock, Grey did not find Watson before six, and it was fully eight o'clock before they got settled at the Denver House. But their eyes were not gladdened by a sight of the fugitive on that evening, nor was she at breakfast next morning. The operatives began to be alarmed lest the bland clerk had taken them in, and were particularly so, when, at their request, for the purpose of ascertaining whether she was in her room, he knocked at her door, and after a few minutes returned with a blank, scared face, saying that the Jezebel had left, and more than that, that she owed the hotel over fifty dollars for board and wine furnished on the strength of her elegant and dashing appearance.

On further examination of the room it was evident that the woman had not occupied it at all during the previous night, but had left the hotel immediately after dinner whether from a previous decision to do so, or from one of those sudden impulses, quite contrary to the general rule of human action, which made her an extraordinarily difficult quarry to follow, or still, from some suspicion that she was being followed.

Grey felt quite crestfallen that he had lost Mrs. Winslow by one of her characteristic manœuvres, and at once made inquiries concerning her baggage, ascertaining from the clerk that she only had a portmanteau with her at the hotel, but had had a trunk check which she had exhibited when asking some question about the arrival and departure of trains.

Grey sent Watson to intersections of prominent streets to keep a lookout for parties, while he at once proceeded to the "Chicago Baggage Room," as it is called, under the Planters' House, where he ascertained, after considerable trouble and representing himself as an employee of the Chicago, Alton, and St. Louis road, looking for lost baggage, that Mrs. Winslow had come there personally about two o'clock the day previous and presented the check for her trunk, which had been taken away by an expressman with "a gray horse and a covered wagon."

The next step, of course, was to find the expressman with the gray horse and covered wagon, who had taken the woman's trunk, and this was no easy matter to do. There were plenty answering that description, but Grey labored hard and long to find the right one, and finally found it this way.

Being an Irishman himself, and a pretty jolly sort of a fellow, he was not long in finding a compatriot the owner of a gray horse and a covered wagon, of whom he asked:

"Did you move the big woman with the big trunk at two o'clock yesterday?"

"An' if I did?" said the expressman, on the defensive.

"Nothing if you did; but did you?" replied Grey.

"It's chilly weather," replied the expressman, winking hard at a saloon opposite.

"Yes, and I think a drop of something wouldn't hurt us," added Grey, following the direction of the expressman's wink and thought quickly.

They stepped over to the saloon and were soon calmly looking at each other through the bottom of some glasses where there had been whiskey and sugar. They looked at each other twice this way, and finally they were obliged to take the third telescopic view of each other before they could resume the subject.

Then the expressman looked very wise at Grey, remarking musingly, "A big 'oman with a big trunk, eh?"

"Yes, a pretty fine-looking woman, too."

"Purty cranky?"

"Yes."

"And steps purty high wid a long sthride?"

"Exactly."

"'N has clothes that stand up sthiff wid starch 'n silk 'n the makin'?"

"The very same," said Grey anxiously.

"I didn't move her," said the expressman, shaking his head solemnly.

Grey felt like "giving him one," as he said in his reports, but repressed himself and said pleasantly that he was sorry he had troubled him, and turned to go away, knowing this would unloosen his companion's tongue, if anything would.

"Sthop a bit, sthop a bit; you didn't ax me did I know ef any other party moved her?"

"That's so," said Grey, smiling and waiting patiently for developments.