The Spiritualists and the Detectives

So it was not long before he had her sentiments on Spiritualism, on Spiritualists, and on Mrs. Winslow, whom she denounced with tears of anger in her eyes as a disgrace to womanhood and to their place, and he had not been three hours in the house before the young lady and himself had entered into a conspiracy to give the woman such a scare as she had not recently had, and drive her from the pleasant though quaint old home her presence was contaminating.

The snow and the night came together, and the storm shook the old house until its weak, loose joints creaked, and every cranny and crevice wailed a dismal protest to the wind and the driving snow. It would take more than that though to keep people of one idea at home, and the entire household departed at an early hour for Pence's Hall, from which, whatever occurred there, Mrs. Deck's large family did not return until nearly midnight, by which time Operative Pinkham and Belle Ruggles had concluded their hasty preparations for a little dramatic entertainment of their own, and were properly stationed and accoutred to make it a brilliant success.

"Good-night, my poor dear!" said the kind-hearted old body as she ushered Mrs. Winslow into her best room, a long antiquated chamber, full of panels, wardrobes set in the wall, and ghostly, creaking furniture. "I have to give you this room, we are so full. My first husband died there, but you don't care for anything like that. I never sleep there, the place scares me; but I know you will like it, you are so brave!"

Whether brave or not, Mrs. Winslow seemed all of a shiver when she had entered the room where Mrs. Deck's first husband had died.

She closed the door carefully, and putting her candle upon a grim old bureau, began a thorough and seemingly frightened examination of the room. The storm had not gone down, and as it beat upon the old place with exceptionally wild and powerful gusts, the feeble structure seemed to shrink from them and tremble in every portion.

On these occasions doors to the wardrobes and closets of the strange room would open suddenly as if sprung from their fastenings by unseen hands, while panels would slide back and forth, cracks in the ceilings and walls would open alarmingly, until, in fact, to the woman's vivid imaginations every portion of the lonely old chamber or its weird furnishings seemed possessed of supernatural life or motion. The fact is, Mrs. Winslow was trembling like the house itself; but after a few moments she snuffed the waning candle which the frugal Mrs. Deck had given her, and in its flickering rays hastily began preparing for bed.

Just as she bent over to blow out the candle, some invisible assistant did the work for her, and at the same moment a hissed "Beware!" caused her to start with a scream and plunge for the bed, into which she scrambled after upsetting a chair or two, when she pulled the covering over her head and groaned with fright.

And now the blessed materializations began.

A sudden click and then a sliding sound above her head announced that the "control" had begun operations, and in a moment a few grains of plastering and some strange and weird combinations of musical sounds seemed to simultaneously fall into the room. The plaster, of course, came right down, some of it upon exposed parts of the trembling medium's person; but the music, which seemed to be badly out of harmony, appeared to have the power of circling in the air, which it did for some little time, and as suddenly ceased as it had begun, when from these mysterious upper regions came a long, low, tremulous, unearthly groan, that died away into a ghastly sigh as the storm clutched the decayed old mansion and shook it until it rattled and rattled again.

"My God!" quavered the half-smothered woman, "that's Mrs. Deck's first man's ghost; he'll kill me! Mur – !"

She had begun to shout "Murder!" but a still more awful voice proceeding from the direction of the bureau bade her keep silence.

She was silent for a moment, but the storm wailed about the house so dismally that the "poor dear," who, according to Mrs. Deck, was brave enough to cheerily retire in what had been the bed-chamber of the dead, could bear the horror of her position no longer, and began a vocal lamentation which gave promise of attracting more than a spirit audience, when the materialized spirit of "Mrs. Deck's first man," or whatever owned the voice, laid a heavy hand upon the trembling woman, sepulchrally warned her to desist from her outcries, and then read her such a lecture from the Other World as she had never transmitted in her most effective "seances;" after which she was ordered, on pain of instant death, to leave Mrs. Deck's and Terre Haute as soon as morning should come, and a pledge being secured from her to the effect that she would, and that she would under no circumstances leave the room for the night, the spirit – which had very much the appearance of Detective Pinkham, the commercial traveller from Cincinnati – left the room by the door in a twinkling, very like a mortal, and still very like a mortal, quietly stole upstairs and helped extricate Miss Ruggles from her gloomy position, where she had done "utility" business as a groaning garret ghost.

All that dreary night the wicked woman moaned and wept for day. Her coward heart shrank from the evil she knew she deserved. The storm never ceased, but rose and fell as if keeping pace with her terrors, and the old place furnished her crazed imagination untold horrors.

At last the dawn came, but she had found no moment's sleep, and before the household was astir the wretched woman crept out upon the street, and plodding through the swollen drifts, followed by a very pleasant appearing commercial traveller from Chicago, she staggered to the station, and was rapidly borne away from her sympathizing friends towards the east.

Being apprised by telegraph of Pinkham's rather strange method of giving her an impulse in the direction of Rochester, I at once proceeded to that city with Superintendent Bangs, anticipating her arrival there shortly after our own; but was again disappointed, the adventuress having doubled on the detective, and so successfully avoided him, that the third day after leaving the Hoosier City he arrived in Rochester with a long face and in an extremely befogged condition.

After having directed Mr. Bangs and Pinkham to remain and watch every incoming train, one stormy evening, as I was about returning to New York, by the merest chance I espied the woman cautiously emerging from the Arcade, and following her I soon housed her in the apartments of an old mediumistic hag on State street. Calling a carriage I was rapidly driven to the Osborn House, where I found Mr. Bangs, and with him and the legal papers returned to the place in less than fifteen minutes from the time I had left it.

Cautiously approaching the room, we listened and heard low, earnest voices within. Through the transom we could see that the light inside was turned very low, and rightly judged that somebody was being given a "sitting," for, carefully trying the knob, I found that the place was secured against ordinary intrusion, and throwing my weight against the door it flew from its old and rusty fastenings, and in an instant we were within the medium's room.

"That is the woman!" said I, pointing to Mrs. Winslow, who had sprung from her chair white with fear, while the wretched-looking medium, though previously in the "trance state" stared at us with protruding eyes.

"And who are you?" she gasped, looking from one to the other in dismay.

"Persons whom you will give no more trouble after the service of these papers," gallantly replied Mr. Bangs, passing the legal documents into her hands, which closed upon them mechanically; and after I had politely handed the medium sufficient money to repair the damage I had caused her door, we bade the two spiritualists a cheery good-night and left them to a consideration of the contrast between mortal and immortal "manifestations."

CHAPTER XXVI

Shows how Mrs. Winslow makes a new Move. – Also introduces the famous Evalena Gray, Physical Spiritual Medium, at her sumptuous Apartments on West Twenty-first Street, New York. – Reminds the Reader of the Aristocratic Classes deluded by Spiritualism. – Describes a Seance and explains the "Rope-trick," and other Spiritualistic Sleight-of-hand Performances.

MRS. WINSLOW was quite crushed by her failure to evade service of the notice to take evidence in just those sections of the country where she had been too well known for her present good, and for a few days seemed to be in that peculiar mental condition where one may be easily led, or driven, into committing a desperate act for mere relief from a too great conflict of emotions.

She flitted about the city in a state of great unrest for a little time, not being able to dispossess her mind of the fear or feeling of being pursued; stealing into the houses of those of like belief, and with an air of great secrecy insisting that they should give her refuge and protection from Lyon's minions, who, she claimed – and perhaps had come to believe – would yet in some way do her bodily harm; mysteriously gliding about the Arcade and in the vicinity of his house, as if expecting by some occult power to be able to divine what might be the rich man's plans concerning her; and like the very evil thing that she was, hiding in uncanny places, scared at her own voice or footsteps, until the spell had left her.

About this time New York city dailies, and many of the newspapers of large circulation throughout the interior of the State, were publishing the following advertisement:

"Immense Success! – Miss Evalena Gray, the celebrated Spiritual Physical Medium, lately from the Queen's Drawing-room, Hanover Square, London, also Crystal Palace, Sydenham, and assisted by Mlle. Willie Leveraux, from Paris, will give one of her marvellous seances this evening at her elegant parlors, No. 19 West Twenty-first street, opposite the Fifth Avenue Hotel, at 7:30 P.M."

New York city knew Miss Evalena Gray as a new aspirant to the honors and emoluments derived from her ability to do mysterious things very gracefully. She was as beautiful a woman as had ever come into New York on this kind of business, and those who considered her a true medium were in ecstasies over the magnificent contortions and superb evolutions which her "great spiritual power" enabled her to execute with bewildering rapidity, while disbelievers in the source of these phenomena originating in celestial spheres could not resist her fascinating powers; and the consequence was that her adroitness and beauty had created a great sensation, so much so in fact that respectable people had begun arguing about her, which answered just the purpose sought.

New York also knew her as a woman so full of soul – that latter-day substitute for brains and personal purity – as to have readily confused and silenced great throngs in Europe wherever she had appeared; and she had invariably challenged investigation, and that, too, with as much audacity as success, which had in every instance been wonderfully marked and complete.

Mrs. Winslow knew her as a little sprite she had met three years before at Chardon, Ohio, a pleasant little village of about 3,000 inhabitants, twelve miles south of Painesville, where Mrs. Winslow had been giving seances. Miss Gray was then just starting in her Spiritualistic career, and Mrs. Winslow, seeing her aptitude and general fascinating qualities, endeavored to persuade her to accompany her.

Miss Gray evidently believed in her own powers, at least had considered the proposition unfavorably; but the two had become warm friends, and Mrs. Winslow had cheerfully imparted to the demure novitiate all her supply of manifestations, which she had rapidly acquired, and the two had parted with the promise to meet again at the very first opportunity, each drifting away to fulfil her traitorous course against society and blasphemous satire upon respectability.

So, Mrs. Winslow, being in that condition of mind wherein its possessor must have some person's confidence, saw this advertisement, and feeling sure that Miss Evalena Gray had been in clover, concluded that she could go to her for rest and consolation; accordingly, she threw off the clouds which had seemed to settle upon her, gathered her baggage together from various secret places where it had been deposited, took rooms at the National Hotel for a few days in quite a rational manner, and after a week of perfect rest and physical care, which told wonderfully in her favor, in connection with her great recuperative powers, and having provided a wardrobe of no mean character, left Rochester for New York as handsome and attractive a woman as one would meet in a day's journey.

I was apprised of her departure by telegraph, and had a spry little operative at the Hudson River depot at Thirty-first street, ready to play the lackey to her. She at once proceeded in a carriage to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where she secured fine apartments overlooking the entrance to Miss Evalena Gray's elegant parlors at No. 19 West Twenty-first street; and although I had no previous information as to what called Mrs. Winslow to New York, I was for several reasons satisfied that it was for the purpose of communicating with Miss Gray, and at once took measures for securing the substance of the interview.

As Mrs. Winslow had arrived late in the afternoon, I thought probably she would make no move until the following day, but took the precaution to secure a room adjoining hers for the use of an operative, sending another detective to Miss Gray's seance at half-past seven, to ascertain whether Mrs. Winslow was at any time present, and also, if necessary, to devise some means to remain in the house until the two women had met, should they do so.

The detective sent to Miss Gray's place was barely able to secure admission, on account of having come on foot, that fact alone laying him liable to suspicion. For an hour's time, splendid equipages, at short intervals, rolled up to the mansion, and their occupants were turned over to a negro butler of such gigantic proportions and gorgeous livery as to give the ordinarily aristocratic place an air of oriental splendor, the interior appointments being fully in keeping with the promise of sumptuousness which the reception always gave. Once entered, my operative had an opportunity to study these appointments.

The carpets were of such rich and heavy texture that they gave back no sound to the foot-fall, and by an ingenious arrangement, beneath the lambrequins adorning the windows, two noiseless fan-like blinds opened or closed instantly, lighting or darkening the room as suddenly, and evidently for use during day seances, which were sometimes given; while opposite, two broad parlors led away, en suite, to a raised dais at the rear, upon which Miss Evalena Gray, assisted by Mlle. Leveraux, from Paris, gave her wonderful spiritual manifestations.

At either side of the centre of the first room, and on a level with the floor, was a fountain cut in marble, back into the basin of which the water fell with a dreamy, tinkling sound which suggested poetical luxuriousness. Rare statuary filled every accessible niche. Heroic paintings of the olden times, and the softer, more sensual paintings of the late French schools, blended together until they gave the walls a rosy glow. Flowers loading the air with fragrance, warmed the room with the color and life which flowers only can give. Hidden music-boxes gave forth the rare and blended melodies of sunny, southern climes; while rich divans, arranged with that pleasant kind of taste that bespeaks no arrangement at all, were scattered negligently about the room, now rapidly being filled with the aristocratic people who had arrived and were constantly arriving.

My operative, having gained a good point for observation, now turned his attention to the rapidly-increasing assemblage. Almost without exception, they were men and women of evident wealth and leisure, but with scarcely a face denoting culture and refinement. They were representatives of that numerous class who, after the rapid acquirement of money, have found no good thing with which to occupy their minds, or, what is more probable, have no minds to be thus occupied; and, while not giving Spiritualism any public endorsement, secretly follow its, to them, fascinating superstitions and mysteries, and practice, in an easy way that prevents scandal or infamous notoriety, the sensualities which inevitably result from its teachings or association with those hangers-on of society professing its belief, all the time building a hope that a lazy, sensuous heaven may be reached without effort or struggle by merely cherishing a secret faith in what most satisfies their animal nature, and yearning to live hereafter as they most desire to live here – were it not for the voice of society – in a brutal freedom from restraint, utterly devoid of moral and social purity, and without the slightest semblance of that law, written and unwritten, which, from the creation of man and woman, has built about the domestic relations a protection and defence of sacred oneness and sanctified exclusiveness which no vandal dare attack without eventually receiving some just and certain punishment.

A conscientious detective will allow but little to escape his attention, and my operative, who had already had considerable experience with these illusionists, noticed a few arrangements which the spirits had evidently insisted on being made to insure the success of Miss Gray's seances, which were varied in their character, and "never comprised her entire repertory," as the actors would say, so that she was able to continue an attraction for some time to those persons who came to see her and witness her manifestations out of mere curiosity.

The frescoing of the walls of the back parlor had been done in lines and angles, which admitted of any number of apertures being cut and filled with noiseless pantomime doors, so neatly as to almost defy detection. The semi-circular platform was raised fully three feet, sloping considerably to the front, and – whether it did or not – might have contained a half-dozen "traps" such as are used for stage effects; while, as is contrary to all rules for lighting places for public entertainment, the front parlor was lighted very brilliantly, the back parlor scarcely at all, while but a few glimmering rays fell from the chandeliers over the platform, where the spirits, like certain "star" actors, could not appear unless under certain conditions.

Shortly Mlle. Leveraux conducted Miss Gray through a side door to the platform, and as the latter smiled recognition to the large number present, exclamations of "Isn't she sweet?" "How beautiful!" "Almost an angel as she is!" and other expressions of extreme admiration, filled the room.

A deft little woman was Evalena Gray; a sprite of a thing, light, airy, graceful, and with such a gliding, serpentine motion when walking, glistening with jewels as she always did, that one instinctively thought of some lithe and splendid leopard trailing along the edge of a jungle with an occasional angry flash of sunlight upon it. From her feet, both of which could have rested within your hand, and given room for just such another pair, to her shoulders, which were sloping and narrow though beautifully symmetrical, she was as straight as an arrow. Then her slender, faultless neck carried her head a little forward, with a slight bend to the side, which gave her face a half-daring or wholly appealing expression, as people of different temperaments might look at it, though it always attracted and held an observer, for it was as strange a face as its owner was a strange woman. The chin stood there by itself, though shapely, and at the point was prettily depressed by a little dimple, just needed to save the lower part of the face from a shrewish look. Above this the lower lip curved gradually to the edge of the carmine point, but was stopped there by a sort of drawn look, which with her dazzling white, though slightly irregular teeth, thin upper lip quickly parting from the lower, at either pleasure or anger, rather large, thin nostrils, which noticeably expanded and contracted with the rise and fall of her not over large bosom, and her languid blue eyes, one a trifle more closed than the other, but both looking demurely from under lashes of wonderful depth of sweep and length – all gave the face, which was witchingly attractive notwithstanding these marked features, either a plaintively spiritual appearance, or a wickedly fascinating expression beyond the power of description; while her hair, of that nameless color which might be formed of gold and silver, mingled and fell from her fine head, half hiding her delicate ears – pretty and faultless ears they were – in wonderful richness and profusion.

Never were seen more beautiful hands and fingers than those belonging to Miss Gray, and they had a way of assuming all manner of positions in harmony with the changes of her expressive face and the motions of her supple form, while her little body was a mere bundle of pliable bones and elastic sinews, which could compel all manner of contortions without change of posture, by mere will-power. She was not a beauty; but altogether, with her real or assumed languor, her strange eyes that might mean lasciviousness or might arouse your pity, her parted lips which would seem to protest of weariness or be ready to whisper a naughty secret to you, with her elf-like form that made her appear at once a dainty innocent thing and a pretty witch – she was a woman possessing a terribly fascinating power and capable of any devilish human accomplishment.

When the murmurs of admiration had died away, she arose, and in her languid manner especially prepared for the public, told her audience a long, though interesting fabrication, of how she first discovered she was possessed of this blessed spirit-power; how she had at first doubted it, and endeavored to free herself from its possession; but finally saw that it could not be forced from her. On thorough conviction that she was a medium she had begun a laborious scientific investigation into the subject, and finally resolved to fathom the remotest secret of Spiritualism.

But even to her the blessed gates had been barred when she came with this spirit of unclean scepticism. Still, being assured that it had been given to her to walk with celestials, her future course was only a natural sequence. What had most sorely tried her in this life, she remarked, was to be herself morally sure of these wonderful mediumistic powers, and then realize how cruelly the world scoffed at her as well as at all others who were anchored upon the same beautiful faith. To prevent this and find use for her powers in the highest spheres, she had travelled in Europe from Rome to St. Petersburg, and from Vienna to London.

In every instance the impossibility of any deception being practised in her manifestations was admitted; but until she had arrived in London, she had failed to find anybody of repute honest enough to speak the truth. But there she had met a high-minded man who had broken through the barriers of prejudice, and, in an open, manly way, fearless of the sneers of the common herd, or of his business peers, had thoroughly investigated her exhibitions, found that they had proceeded from supernatural power, and had publicly stated his belief in their genuineness.

With such irrefutable evidence of the possession of this spirit-power, she was now fulfilling her mission of convincing the public of the existence of these heaven-inspired phenomena, explainable upon no other possible theory than that of the inter-communication between this and the other world of ministering angels, self-determining their actual existence by more or less perfect materializations.

With this and much more of the same sort, Evalena Gray began her revelations, all of which had previously been performed and exposed as ordinary tricks of an illusionary character, but which were given by the languid, spirituelle lady with such a show of her being on the threshold of the celestial spheres, that the very atmosphere, already charged with everything to provoke mystification and solemn curiosity, now seemed filled with some weird, supernatural influence and presence.

First the little lady, who was dressed in white muslin, with long flowing sleeves exposing very pretty arms, came down from the platform and seated herself in the centre of the back parlor, inviting the forming around her of a circle of from twelve to fifteen persons, who should sit so closely together that there could be no possibility of her passing out of the circle, and, if the rest of the audience chose, they might form a circle around the inner circle so that no confederates might reach her. This was done, when she requested some gentleman to place his feet upon her tiny feet to assure the audience that she did not leave her chair.

Members of the mystic circle then clasped hands, and the lights were turned off completely. The stillness of death followed, broken only by a low, shuddering sigh announcing the control of the medium by the spirits, and immediately after came raps so loud and distinct as to almost give the impression that an echo followed them. Then the medium began patting her hands together as an absolute proof that none of the succeeding manifestations could by any possible means be produced by her. While this continued without interruption, in the face of some came a whispered "God bless you!" others were patted caressingly upon the face and head; whiskers and mustaches were delicately tweaked; watches were taken from one pocket and put into another; a gent's quizzers would be placed upon a lady's nose, and vice versa; music floated about in the air over the heads of those composing the circle; lights were seen to glitter like fire-flies above the medium's head, and a score of other equally startling phenomena occurred. When silence, with the exception of the soft and delicate, but never-varying hand-patting, again fell upon the assemblage, a few raps announced the departure of the spirits; and when the gas was turned on, the dainty little medium sat in precisely the same position as when the circle was formed, and the gentleman had taken good care to hold her neat little feet between his own. A sceptical lady now held Miss Gray's feet – held them as securely as only a sceptical lady could – when precisely the same manifestations occurred. Again her feet were secured as before, with the additional precaution of their being tied. She was then tied to her chair securely, her hands tied firmly with a large handkerchief, and a delicate wine-glass filled with water placed upon the floor several feet from the chair. The lights were again turned off, the raps were heard as before, and were in turn immediately followed by the hand-patting, and when the room was again lighted the wine-glass of water was found delicately poised upon Miss Evalena Gray's head.

Many startling variations of the same general character were introduced, and when this portion of the seance was concluded, the astounded company gathered about the pale and interesting medium with expressions of unbounded wonder almost amounting to awe, mingled with terms of endearment; for she sweetly conversed with them for a little time, and, with rare insight into character, gave each a pleasant word of recognition especially fitted to every case, in a manner winning beyond expression.