MISTRESS KITTY FAGAN CALLS ON MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY.
"I 'd like to go down to the store this mornin', Miss Withers, plase.
Sure I've niver a shoe to my fut, only jist these two that I've got on,
an' one other pair, and thim is so full of holes that whin I 'm standin'
in 'em I'm outside of 'em intirely."
"You can go, Kitty," Miss Silence answered, funereally.
Thereupon Kitty Fagan proceeded to array herself in her most tidy
apparel, including a pair of shoes not exactly answering to her
description, and set out straight for the house of the Widow Hopkins.
Arrived at that respectable mansion, she inquired for Mr. Gridley, and
was informed that he was at home. Had a message for him,--could she see
him in his study? She could if she would wait a little while. Mr.
Gridley was busy just at this minute. Sit down, Kitty, and warm yourself
at the cooking-stove.
Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs. Hopkins's hospitable offer, and presently
began orienting herself, and getting ready to make herself agreeable.
The kindhearted Mrs. Hopkins had gathered about her several other
pensioners besides the twins. These two little people, it may be here
mentioned, were just taking a morning airing in charge of Susan Posey,
who strolled along in company with Gifted Hopkins on his way to the
store.
Mistress Kitty soon began the conversational blandishments so natural to
her good-humored race. "It's a little blarney that'll jist suit th' old
lady," she said to herself, as she made her first conciliatory advance.
"An' sure an' it's a beautiful kitten you've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An'
it's a splendid mouser she is, I'll be bound. Does n't she look as if
she'd clans the house out o'them little bastes, bad luck to em."
Mrs. Hopkins looked benignantly upon the more than middle-aged tabby,
slumbering as if she had never known an enemy, and turned smiling to
Mistress Kitty. "Why, bless your heart, Kitty, our old puss would n't
know a mouse by sight, if you showed her one. If I was a mouse, I'd as
lieves have a nest in one of that old cat's ears as anywhere else. You
couldn't find a safer place for one."
"Indade, an' to be sure she's too big an' too handsome a pussy to be
after wastin' her time on them little bastes. It's that little tarrier
dog of yours, Mrs. Hopkins, that will be after worryin' the mice an' the
rats, an' the thaves too, I 'll warrant. Is n't he a fust-rate-lookin'
watch-dog, an' a rig'ler rat-hound?"
Mrs. Hopkins looked at the little short-legged and short-winded animal of
miscellaneous extraction with an expression of contempt and affection,
mingled about half and half. "Worry 'em! If they wanted to sleep, I
rather guess he would worry 'em! If barkin' would do their job for 'em,
nary a mouse nor rat would board free gratis in my house as they do now.
Noisy little good-for-nothing tike,--ain't you, Fret?"
Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal failures. There
was another chance, however, to make her point, which she presently
availed herself of,--feeling pretty sure this time that she should effect
a lodgement. Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with
one eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to make a remark,
but awkward with a stranger. "That 's a beautiful part y 've got there,"
Kitty said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this
time; "and tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor Poll!"
She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which,
instead of responding as expected, "squawked," as our phonetic language
has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of
the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it
back with a jerk.
"An' is that the way your part tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?"
"Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot hasn't said a word this ten
year. He used to say Poor Poll! when we first had him, but he found it
was easier to squawk, and that's all he ever does nowadays,--except bite
once in a while."
"Well, an' to be sure," Kitty answered, radiant as she rose from her
defeats, "if you'll kape a cat that does n't know a mouse when she sees
it, an' a dog that only barks for his livin', and a part that only
squawks an' bites an' niver spakes a word, ye must be the best-hearted
woman that's alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good Catholic, the
Holy Father 'd make a saint of ye in less than no time!"
So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery, in spite of
her three successive discomfitures.
"You may come up now, Kitty," said Mr. Gridley over the stairs. He had
just finished and sealed a letter.
"Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does
our young lady seem to be of late?"
"Whisht! whisht! your honor."
Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive
listener. She opened every door in the room, "by your lave," as she
said. She looked all over the walls to see if there was any old
stovepipe hole or other avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her
excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr.
Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in the
distance. The whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he
leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one of the attitudes
of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the
pose of Mignon aspirant au ciel, as rendered by Carlo Dolce Scheffer.
Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley,
who told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her
apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that
part of her costume at home.--Automatic movements, curious.
Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr.
Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of the arrangements she made for herself as
the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own way,
that part of the conversation which has been already laid before the
reader. There is no need of going over the whole of this again in
Kitty's version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what has
been already told.
"He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as
asy as if they was two rogues, and she knowed it as well as he did. An'
so, says he, I'm goin' away, says he, an' I'm goin' to be gahn siveral
days, or perhaps longer, says he, an' you'd better kape it, says he."
"Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?" said Mr. Gridley,
who no longer doubted that he was on the trail of a plot, and meant to
follow it. He was getting impatient with the "says he's" with which
Kitty double-leaded her discourse.
"An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my
breath will let me? An' so, says he, you'd better kape it, says he,
mixed up with your other paupers, says he," (Mr. Gridley started,) "an'
thin we can find it in the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he.
An' if it all goes right out there, says he, it won't be lahng before we
shall want to find it, says he. And I can dipind on you, says he, for
we're both in the same boat, says he, an' you knows what I knows, says
he, an' I knows what you knows, says be. And thin he taks a stack o'
paupers out of his pocket, an' he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to
her, says he, that's the pauper, says he, an' if you die, says be, niver
lose sight of that day or night, says he, for it's life an' dith to both
of us, says he. An' thin he asks her if she has n't got one o' them
paupers--what is 't they cahls 'em?--divilops, or some sich kind of a
name--that they wraps up their letters in; an' she says no, she has n't
got none that's big enough to hold it. So he says, give me a shate o'
pauper, says he. An' thin he takes the pauper that she give him, an' he
folds it up like one o' them--divilops, if that's the name of 'em; and
thin he pulls a stick o' salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an'
he takes the pauper an' puts it into th' other pauper, along with the
rest of the paupers, an' thin he folds th' other pauper over the paupers,
and thin he lights a candle, an' he milts the salin'-wax, and he sales up
the pauper that was outside th' other paupers, an' he writes on the back
of the pauper, an' thin he hands it to Miss Badlam."
"Did you see the paper that he showed her before he fastened it up with
the others, Kitty?"
"I did see it, indade, Mr. Gridley, and it's the truth I'm tellin' ye."
"Did you happen to notice anything about it, Kitty?"
"I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of a pauper, and
there was some blotches of ink on the back of it,--an' they looked like a
face without any mouth, for, says I, there's two spots for the eyes, says
I, and there's a spot for the nose, says I, and there's niver a spot for
the mouth, says I."
This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty
Fagan. It was enough, yes, it was too much. There was some deep-laid
plot between Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests
of some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that
the paper described by Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man
conceal in the Corpus Juris Civilis, it was impossible to doubt. If it
had been a single spot an the back of it, or two, he might have doubted.
But three large spots "blotches" she had called them, disposed thus
*.* --would not have happened to be on two different papers, in all human
probability.
After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in committee of the
whole, he arrived at the following conclusion,--that Miss Cynthia Badlam
was the depositary of a secret involving interests which he felt it his
business to defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld and
meant to be used for some unfair purpose. And most assuredly, Master
Gridley said to himself, he held a master-key, which, just so certainly
as he could make up his mind to use it, would open any secret in the
keeping of Miss Cynthia Badlam.
He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for a visit to that
lady at The Poplars. He meant to go thoroughly armed, for he was a very
provident old gentleman. His weapons were not exactly of the kind which
a housebreaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat peculiar
nature.
Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and a few words written
upon it. "I think this will fetch the document," he said to himself, "if
it comes to the worst. Not if I can help it,--not if I can help it. But
if I cannot get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must come to
this. Poor woman!--Poor woman!"
Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, sal
volatile, very strong, that would stab through the nostrils, like a
stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain.
Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes
require the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the cutting
of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation
and afflux of clamorous womanhood.
So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence,
grasped his ivory-handled cane and sallied forth on his way to The
Poplars.