The Spiritualists and the Detectives

Lyon moved about uneasily, and finally through the clouds of smoke about his head puffed out, "Indeed!"

"Yes," replied Bangs, "and, Mr. Lyon, if we could get at the exact truth about this part of it, I am sure it would not only greatly facilitate our work, but also greatly lessen the expense of the operation."

Lyon sat for a little time twisting his shaggy gray whiskers, and finally said: "Mr. Clement, I insist on not being worried about this business; perhaps Harcout didn't make that point quite clear. Harcout is a little flighty, but a noble fellow though, after all. I don't hardly know what I would do without Harcout, Mr. Clement; he takes the whole thing off my shoulders, as it were."

Bangs saw that Lyon could have given him just what information he needed, and also saw with equal certainty that he had fully decided to throw the matter off his mind entirely, and compel us to gain whatever necessary by hard work. He was also now satisfied of the truth of my conviction, that Lyon had assisted Mrs. Winslow in this divorce matter, and had been very much more intimate with her than he even desired us to know. So he bade him good-day, returned to his hotel, and telegraphed for instructions. I directed him to go ahead and use his own judgment altogether, also suggesting that he should visit the different clairvoyants and mediums, with a view of getting further information which might be secured from their almost ceaseless chatter upon the subject.

As Rochester is as full of mediums as a thistle of thorns, this was a kind of investigation which necessitated the expenditure of considerable time, and three days had elapsed before any information of a satisfactory nature was secured. He had expended quite a little fortune in having his "horoscope cast," his fortune told, and his fate pointed out with such unerring certainty by male and female seers of every name, appearance and nature, that if any two of these predictions had borne the slightest possible resemblance to each other, he would have been horrified enough to have taken a last leap into the surging Genesee like poor Sam Patch. But he persisted in the face of these terrible revelations until he had found a certain Dr. Hubbard, who proved to be one of the jolliest of the profession he had ever met. The Doctor was a pleasant gentleman, and proved more pleasant than ever when Mr. Bangs informed him that he did not desire any fortune-telling, predictions or horoscopes, but was interested in the subject of Spiritualism, and had been directed to him as one likely to give some information that could be relied on, for which he would liberally remunerate him.

As Mr. Bangs had some choice cigars, which he divided with the Doctor, and the Doctor had some choice brandy, which he divided with Mr. Bangs, they at once became easy together, and taking seats at the window overlooking Main street, while watching the crowds below, were soon chatting away quite unlike two people very badly affected with spiritualistic tendencies.

After a little time, however, the Doctor looked pretty sharply at Bangs, and suddenly asked: "Well, who are you, anyhow?"

"Who am I?" returned Bangs smilingly, "well, to be frank, I am Professor Owen, of the Indiana State University." Bangs never blushed at the libel on the kind old man bearing that name and title, and continued, "It is our vacation now, and I am travelling a little in the East investigating this subject. My brother is an enthusiastic believer in it, but I wished other testimony."

The Doctor seemed to think that the Professor took to the brandy and cigars quite too familiarly for an educator, but the explanation satisfied him, and he asked: "Professor, you want the whole truth, don't you?"

"Nothing but the truth," responded Bangs.

Doctor Hubbard blew out a long series of rings and expressively followed it with "Humbug!"

"It can't be possible," persisted Bangs.

"It oughtn't to be possible," urged the Doctor, "for a man of your probable talent and position to be engaged in investigating what one visit to any one of us should show to be the most infernal fraud ever practised upon the public!" said the Doctor heatedly.

Bangs expressed himself as surprised beyond measure.

"Well," continued the Doctor earnestly, "you came to me like a man, didn't you?"

Bangs assured him that he was quite right.

"And you came fair and square, without any ifs and ands, didn't you?"

"All of that," responded Bangs.

"And," continued the Doctor helping himself to the brandy, then excusing himself and pushing it towards Bangs, who partook sparingly, "you didn't want any fortune told, or predictions, or horoscopes, or any other nonsense?"

"Exactly," said Bangs.

"And you said you'd pay me liberally for information, didn't you?"

"Yes, and I'll be as good as my word," replied the assumed professor.

"Well, then," continued the Doctor in a burst of good feeling, brandy and honesty, "you see in me an unsuccessful physician, a disciple of Æsculapius without followers. I graduated with high honors, hung out my sign, sharpened my tools, moulded my pills, drank a toast to disease, but waited in vain for patronage. As this became monotonous," continued the Doctor, taking another pull at the brandy bottle, then wiping the mouth and passing it to Mr. Bangs, who excused himself, "I glided into a 'specialist.' It required too much money to advertise, and the papers slashed me villainously besides. Then I became a Spiritualist – it's the record of every one of us. You can see," and the Doctor waved his hand towards the cosy appointments in a satisfied way, "I am pretty comfortable now."

"Yes, quite comfortable," said Bangs, wondering what the Doctor was driving at.

"So I am an enthusiastic Spiritualist," resumed the happy physician, "for its profession has provided me with necessities, comforts, and even luxuries."

"Do you really effect any of the marvellous cures you advertise?"

"Most assuredly," he replied.

"And may I ask how?" interrogated Mr. Bangs.

"In the good old-fashioned way – salts, senna, calomel, and the blue-pill," said the Doctor, laughing heartily.

"And is not the aid of the spirits essential to your cures?"

"A belief, or faith, that such an agency is used, does the whole thing, Professor."

"And is there no such thing?" persisted Bangs.

"Just as much of it as there is faith in it; no more and no less."

"Then the whole thing's a humbug, as you say?"

"Just as thoroughly as is that woman," said the Doctor stoutly, pointing to Mrs. Winslow, who at that moment was seen in the street below, being driven towards the suburbs in a neat phaeton.

Bangs, becoming suddenly interested, though repressing himself, carelessly asked, "Who is she?"

Here the Doctor executed a grimace which might mean a good deal, or nothing at all, and said tersely: "She's a bouncer; don't you know her?"

"No."

"Why, that's Mrs. Winslow, old Lyons' soothing syrup; and old Lyon's one of the children – 'teething,'" added the Doctor with a hearty laugh. "But she's a tigress!"

Mr. Bangs leaned out of the window, took a good look at the tigress, and then, as if endeavoring to recollect some former occurrence, said: "I believe I have seen her somewhere before."

"Quite so, quite so; undoubtedly you have."

"And I think in the West, too," replied Mr. Bangs, trying hard to remember, and handing the doctor a fresh cigar.

"Exactly – Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville – everywhere, in fact. One might call her a social floater, and not be far out of the way either. She used to live at Terre Haute."

"Terre Haute? Why, of course! I knew I had seen her somewhere."

"Yes, she lived a few miles out, up the Wabash river, for years. Her husband's name was Oxford, or Hosford, or something of the kind."

"Yes?" said Bangs.

"Yes," replied the Doctor; "I didn't know her personally, but I knew of her there. That's where she first went off the hook – and – and became one of us."

"Is she a remarkable character?" asked Mr. Bangs.

"A remarkable character? Why, sir, she's a wonderful woman – a perfect Satan. I wouldn't have her get after me," said the Doctor, shaking his head protestingly "for ten thousand dollars! Why, sir, that woman has ruined more men and broken up more families than you could count."

"And is she, too, a spiritualist?" asked Mr. Bangs.

"A spiritualist? Why, of course she is; and, what is more, I sometimes think she really believes in her own mummeries."

"What has become of her family?" asked Bangs.

"Oh, gone to the devil, I presume, just like everybody she has had anything to do with – just as old Lyon is certain to do, too."

"Then this Oxford or Hosford is not living at Terre Haute now?"

"Couldn't tell you that," replied the Doctor; and then, suddenly returning to the subject and putting the brandy-bottle into a little closet with a slam as footsteps were heard coming up the stairs, "can I be of any further service to you?"

Mr. Bangs thought not, handed the good Doctor a five-dollar bill while remarking that he would call again, both of which evidences of good feeling pleased the latter immensely, and took his departure quite well pleased with the result of his inquiries into the wonderful subject of modern Spiritualism.

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 noble 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 shore. 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 glass 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, pronounces on forcibly circumstantial 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 associates, 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 circumstances, 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 assistance to her which even a tithe of the damages she claimed would be, would not only give her a degree of importance and respectability which would greatly assist 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 assumption of what is not possessed without years of honest, sturdy 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.

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