MISTRESS KITTY FAGAN CALLS ON MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY.
"I'd like to go down to the store this marnin', 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
kind-hearted 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' its a beautiful kitten you 've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An'
it's a splindid mouser she is, I 'll be bound. Does n't she look as if she
'd clane 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 could n'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'lar 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 par't 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 par't tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?"
"Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot has n'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 now-a-days,--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 par't 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 stove-pipe 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 paaepers, 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 ahl 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 he. And thin he taks a stack o' papers out of his pocket, an'
he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to her, says he, that 's the paper,
says he, an' if you die, says he, niver lose sight of that day or night,
says he, for its life an' dith to both of us, says he. An' then he asks her
if she has n't got one o' them paaepers--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' paaeper says he. An' thin he takes
the paaeper that she give him, an' he folds it up like one o'
them--divilops, if that 's the name of 'em; and then he pulls a stick o'
salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' he takes the paaeper an' puts
it into th' other paaeper, along with the rest of the paaepers, an' thin he
folds th' other paaeper over the paaepers, and thin he lights a candle, an'
he milts the salin'-wax, and he sales up the paaeper that was outside th'
other paaepers, an' he writes on the back of the paaeper, and 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 paaeper, 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 on 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
house-breaker 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.