The Spiritualists and the Detectives

"Every time!" tersely observed Mrs. Winslow.

"So at St. Louis we resolved to become Spiritualists."

"The very best thing you could have done!" said Mrs. Winslow approvingly.

"And at Quincy," resumed Evalena, "we blossomed out. Oh, but didn't the papers go for us, though! – called us everything."

"D – n the newspapers, anyhow!" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow in a burst of indignation over her own wrongs.

"Oh, no, no, no! that won't do. Make huge advertising bills. That's better – much better. That's what we did, and we made big money too. By and by we came on here to New York, made a huge show, took in a vast pile, and then went to Europe. Oh, that's the only way to do it!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Winslow with a deep sigh. "I have often felt the want of that peculiar tone which going to Europe gives one."

"Well, we did have a gay time, though," said Miss Gray in a dreamy way, as if ruminating over her conquests; "and at Venice – oh, that delicious, ravishing, dreamful Venice! – I bilked a swarthy nobleman from the mountains out of five thousand dollars. At Rome I did a swell American out of everything he had. At Vienna, a Hungarian wine-grower fell, and I trampled upon him as his brutes of peasants beat out the grapes in vintage-time. At Berlin a German student killed himself for me; and at St. Petersburg I fooled the Czar himself. But when I got back to London I got better game than him."

"Bigger game than the Czar? Oh, my!" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, thinking how she had wasted her sweetness on two detectives like Bristol and Fox.

"Well, bigger game this way," pursued little Miss Gray, reasoning it out slowly. "This Spiritualistic business can only be played on low, ignorant people ordinarily. Get the recognition of so big a man as one of the wealthiest brewers in Great Britain, and then, if Miss Gray has money and can open sumptuous parlors in so fashionable a vicinity as Madison Square, and can own a quarter of a column of the New York papers every day, Miss Evalena Gray's fortune is made. Do you see?"

Mrs. Winslow did see, but wanted to know how she had secured such approval.

Her companion looked at her a moment in blank astonishment; then drawing down the corners of her mouth as if protesting against such verdancy on the part of so old a Spiritualistic soldier as Mrs. Winslow, gave a very expressive series of winks, broke into loud laughter, and then suggested that if she wanted anything like that explained it would be no more than fair to order either Krug or Monopolé to help her through so dreary a recital; whereupon the latter did as requested, and after the two had washed down a ribald toast with wine, the angelic Miss Gray continued:

"Well, you see, we came directly from St. Petersburg to London, and got up a big excitement there right off. The Times denounced us, and we replied savagely through the Telegraph at a half-crown a line. We kept this up until all London was engaged in the controversy, and our rooms were constantly thronged."

"What luck!" sighed Mrs. Winslow, sipping her wine.

"By and by the 'nobbies' got discussing the matter at the clubs. We challenged examination by committees everywhere, of course, and one day a batch of M.P.s, clergymen, merchants, and all that, came down upon us. I picked out one man named Perkins – a brewer from the Surrey side, and one of the wealthiest men in all England, and a man of education and standing, too – for game right off."

"Must be lots of fools over in London," remarked Mrs. Winslow, as if she would like to help pluck them.

"Yes," answered Miss Gray, "and millions in this country. We're going to take a run over to Washington this winter."

"I would if I had your talent," replied her companion.

"Well," resumed the medium, "I saw Perkins was an easy-going fellow, and I wrote him, saying it was something unusual for me to do, but as the 'spirits'" – here Miss Gray winked very hard at Mrs. Winslow, who snickered – "had revealed to me that he was an arrant unbeliever, but at the same time a fair, honorable man, magnanimous enough to be just – I wished him to make a private investigation."

"'Private investigation's' good!" said Mrs. Winslow, laughing heartily.

"Certainly good for me," continued the little medium in a self-satisfied way. "He came, though, and I gave him my tricks in my best possible style. I pretty nearly scared him to death. Then I let him tie me, and the old man's hands trembled as he put the ropes around my waist and over my bosom. 'Miss Gray,' said he tenderly, 'I shall injure you!' 'Mr. Perkins,' I replied, also tenderly, 'the good spirits will protect me. Pull the ropes tighter!'

"He pulled the ropes tighter and tighter, and finally got me tied. Then he darkened the room and in a few minutes I was entirely free of the ropes of course, and I told him to raise the curtain. As soon as he did so I left, telling him I was ill; and as soon as I could change my dress, came back and sat down with him. I got close to him – as close as I am to you now, Mrs. Winslow – and then, putting my right hand on his knee, and my left hand on his shoulder – "

"Splendid!" interrupted Mrs. Winslow, pouring more wine for the ingenuous Miss Gray, and taking some herself.

"Then," continued Miss Gray, laughing in a peculiarly wicked manner, "I got my face pretty close to his and asked: 'Mr. Perkins, I want you to give me an answer that you are willing to have made public. On your honor as a man, do you not now believe in the genuineness of these spiritual manifestations produced through me?' 'I do,' he said passionately, throwing his arms around me, and – and I don't know what he would have done had not Leveraux entered the room at that supreme moment!"

"Oh, I see!" murmured the other blackmailer.

"Think of it, Mrs. Winslow!" added Miss Gray tauntingly; "think of it! In the arms of a man who can draw his check for a million sterling – and poor little me from Chardon, Ohio!"

"My! but you are a little rascal, though!" said Mrs. Winslow admiringly. "I always knew you'd make an impression somewhere."

"'Leveraux!' said I indignantly, and springing from Perkins's embrace after I had kissed him in a way that set him shaking again, 'if you ever breathe a word of this, or annoy Mr. Perkins in any manner under heaven, I'll kill you! Go!'

"Poor Leveraux knew her cue and replied hotly, 'I'd kill myself before I'd do so disgraceful an act!' and then flounced out of the room."

"What a pair!" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow.

"He thought I was just perfectly splendid after that; kept coming and coming, indorsed me publicly, got wild over me; but I held him at arm's length for months, until I thought the man would really go crazy; and finally – well, you know I told you Daddy was an 'accommodation husband,' and if he hadn't been one after I had tripped up one of the richest men in all England, I would have just hired somebody to have dumped him into the Thames, sure!"

The sparkling flow of Miss Gray's experience was here interrupted by Mrs. Winslow's ordering another bottle of wine, and after the couple had partaken of the same, the spicy narrative was continued:

"But now comes the fun, Winslow. I can't tell you how my rope trick is done. I've got a little addition to it that makes it a regular sensation. It don't hurt me a particle, and allows the strongest men to pull away with all their might."

"I'd give a thousand dollars for it, Evalena," said her friend warmly.

"No good; no good for you," replied Miss Gray, critically looking over Mrs. Winslow's splendid physical completeness. "Fact is, Winslow, you aren't built exactly right for that kind of work. There's too much of you to do the rope trick with eminent success. I played Daddy as my brother, and myself for an innocent, so neatly that Perkins honestly thought he had made a wonderful conquest. He believed it all, for he was one of those honest fools – in fact, came near being too honest for me."

"Why, how?"

"Well, he installed me as his mistress in grand style; but, of course, I insisted in giving seances and compelled public recognition through his public recognition of my 'wonderful spirit-power.' The man was so infatuated that he bored me terribly with his visits. Why, I could hardly get time to attend to business. You know we always have a stock of ropes on hand in the seance-rooms, so that when any one objects to the one I ordinarily use, there are always other ropes at hand that I can use. One night some fellow broke my best rope, and the next day I was carelessly practising with another with my door unsecured. Perkins had been down to Brighton for a week or two, and of course had to rush over to see me the minute he got in London – to give me a 'happy surprise,' I suppose. There I sat when he suddenly bolted into the room and saw the thinness of the whole thing in an instant."

"What did he see?" asked Mrs. Winslow abruptly.

"You are shrewd, Winslow, but you can't catch me that way; no, no, no! But he did see the whole trick as dear as a June day. Do you think I fainted?"

"Not much," said her companion tersely.

"No; but he nearly did. He reeled and staggered as though he had been struck by a sledge-hammer, and I saw in his face a determination to rush from the room and denounce me to all London. It was make or break with me then, Winslow, and with a bound I got to the door, turned the key, and sent it crashing through a five-pound pane of glass into the street below. Then I just whipped out this little derringer," she continued, producing a beautifully mounted, though diminutive weapon, "just run it right up under his eyes, and backed him into a seat."

"'Great God!' he whimpered, 'I'm undone! I'm undone! – what a very devil you are!'

"My heart did go thumping to see the man used up so; but I had to be rough, and said: 'Yes, I am a devil, Perkins, and you must pledge me your word – yes, you must take a solemn oath before that God you have called upon, that you will never expose me, or I will blow your brains out!'"

"Splendid! splendid!" ejaculated Mrs. Winslow. "Did he do it?"

"I should say he did do it! He got down on his knees and begged like a baby. And do you know, my blood was up so then, and I so despised him for his want of manliness, that I came within an ace of killing the infernal booby!"

"He deserved it!" said Mrs. Winslow sympathetically.

"After I had him nearly scared to death," resumed the marvellous medium, "I began reasoning with him, and, by being excruciatingly tender, convinced him that by exposing me he would gain nothing, but would lose in everything that a man of spirit prided in – honor, social reputation, and business standing, and drew a lively picture of his disgrace at the clubs and in social circles, and of the cartoons which would certainly appear in Punch and the other comic papers; and the result was that I held on to his affection and his purse-strings by compelling him to feel that my detaining him in the room and threatening to shoot him was the only thing which prevented him from rashly ruining both. Altogether, Winslow, I got over two thousand pounds out of him. He wasn't deprived of a first-class mistress while I remained in London, and – and we are so good friends now that every little while I get a splendid remittance from him; and if I ever should want to go back, I could have the very best in all England!"

"Well, well, well!" murmured Mrs. Winslow for the want of something better with which to express her admiration.

"I do think I played it pretty well," resumed Miss Gray; "and I made him swallow it all, too. He really believed everything from the moment I fell into his arms until he caught me with the ropes. I was his spirit-wife – " another hard wink – "and he my only affinity. Leveraux helped me in the whole thing splendidly.

"Who is Mlle. Willie Leveraux?" inquired Mrs. Winslow.