"No, he was here when I come," Lulu replied.
"Go out and get Spoll." Madam Spoll spoke sharply. "We've got to fix
this thing up right now."
Lulu returned to say: "There's such a crowd coming in he can't leave,
but he says it was a gold watch with a seal fob."
"All right, so far," said the Madam. "Now, Lulu, are you sure of what
you told me?"
Lulu's reply was interrupted by the entrance of Francis Granthope, in
opera hat and Inverness cape, making a vivid contrast to the
disreputable aspect of Professor Vixley. He greeted the three
conspirators with his customary elegance.
"I'm sorry I had nothing about Payson when you rang me up, Madam Spoll,
but just afterward his daughter came in for a reading. Queer, wasn't
it?"
"God, that's a stroke of luck!" said Vixley eagerly. "I say, Frank, you
can work her while we handle the old man, and we'll clean up a fortune.
They say he's a millionaire." Vixley's little eyes gleamed.
"Let's hear what Lulu has to say, first," said Madam Spoll.
"Why, I didn't get much," Lulu confessed. "He said he dropped in by
accident as he was passing by, to see what Egyptian egg astrology was.
I got his name off of some letters he had in his overcoat pocket. I made
him hang it on the hall hat-rack. I did all I could for him----"
"Did he get gay with you?" Professor Vixley interrupted. He had been
overtly enjoying Lulu's plump charms with his rapacious eyes.
Granthope smiled; Lulu Ellis colored slightly.
"No, he didn't! I don't do none of that kind of work!"
"The more fool you!" Madam Spoll retorted. "He's an old man, ain't he?"
"Sixty," said Vixley, "I looked him up."
"Then he ought to be easy as chewing gum," said Madam Spoll.
Granthope lighted a cigarette and listened with a mildly cynical
expression.
"He ain't that kind, though," Lulu insisted. "I ain't altogether a
fool, after all. Why, he don't even go to church!"
Her three auditors laughed aloud, the Professor raucously, Madam Spoll
with a bubbling chuckle, Granthope with scarcely more than an audible
smile.
"That settles it, then. You're coming on, Lulu! What else do you know?"
said Madam Spoll.
"Well, he has a daughter----"
"Yes, Granthope knows all about that," from the Madam.
"Her name is Clytie," said Granthope. "Twenty-seven."
"Is she a looker?" asked Vixley.
Granthope turned to him and gave him a patronizing glance. "_You_
wouldn't think so, Professor. She's hardly your style. But she's good
enough for me!" He languidly flipped the ash from his cigarette and
took his pose again.
Lulu went on: "I think he had a love affair before he was married, but I
couldn't quite get it. I didn't dare to fish very much. And that's
about all I got."
"That's plenty, Lulu. You can go now. Here's a dollar for you and much
obliged for passing him up."
"Oh, thank you," said Lulu. "I'm afraid it ain't worth that much. He
gave me a dollar himself, though I don't charge but four bits, usually."
"Lord, what a fool!" said Vixley, watching her go out. "That girl won't
ever get nowhere, she's too innocent. She knows no more about real life
than a boiled egg."
"She's all right for me, though," Madam Spoll replied. "That's just the
kind I need in my business. She fools 'em every time. They ain't
nothing like a good blusher for a stool-pigeon, you take my word for it.
Lulu's all right in her place." She turned to wash her hands at a bowl
in the corner.
"Well," said Vixley, crossing his legs, "are you coming in with us,
Frank?"
"It looks pretty good to me, so far. But it depends. What have you got
about Payson, anyway?" Granthope's tone was languid.
Madam Spoll winked at Vixley, as she wiped her hands behind the
palmist's back.
"Why," Vixley replied, "Payson's in wool and is director of a bank,
besides. He's a square-head with a high forehead, and them are easy.
Gertie, here, can get him into a private sittin', and when she does, you
leave him to her--she'll find a way all right. She don't do no lumpy
work, Gertie don't, you know that, all right! When she passes him along
to me, I'll manage him like the way we worked Bennett with the real
estate. I'd like another chance as good as him."
"You just wait," said Madam Spoll. "I got a hunch that this Payson is
going to be pretty good pie; and we got a good strong combination,
Frank, if you want to do your share."
"It's a pity Spoll ain't got some of Gertie's gumption," said Vixley,
smiling with approval at his partner.
"Don't you make no mistake about Spoll--he's done some good work on
Payson already." The Madam was adjusting her waist before the glass and
coquetting with her hair. "The trouble with you, Vixley, is that you
ain't got no executive ability--I'm going to organize this game myself.
I can see a way to use Spoll and Ringa, and Flora, too. We want to go
into this thing big. Payson's a keener bird than Bennett was, but
they's more in him."
"So Spoll has begun, has he?" Granthope asked.
"Yes. He located the Paysons over on North Beach."
"I know that much already. The mother's dead. Mr. and Miss Payson have
traveled abroad. What else do you know about her?"
"Why, it seems she's the sole heir. Good news for you, eh? High
society, too--Flower Mission, Kitchen Garden, Friday Cotillions,
Burlingame, everything. She could help you, Frank, if you got on the
right side of her."
Here Mr. Spoll tiptoed in, bowed to Granthope, and said:
"Eight o'clock, Gertie."
Madam Spoll arose cumbrously, took a last peep in the mirror of the
folding bed and turned into the hall, saying, "You take my advice,
Frank. We depend upon you. See what you can do with the girl." She
paused to bend a keen glance upon him. "What did you do with her,
anyway?"
"Why, I did happen on something," he answered. "Do you remember Madam
Grant, who used to live down on Fifth Street, twenty-odd years ago?"
Madam Spoll came back into the room eagerly.
"The crazy woman who lived so queer and yet had lots of money? Yes!
She did clairvoyance, didn't she? I remember. She had a kid with her,
too. Let's see--he ran away with the money, didn't he? And nobody ever
knew what become of him. What about her?"
There was a duel of astute glances between them. Granthope had his own
reasons for not wanting to say too much. He guarded his secret
carefully, as he had guarded it from her for years.
"Miss Payson used to go down to see Madam Grant with her mother, when
she was a little girl."
"No! _did_ she, though? With her mother? That's queer! Hold on,
Vixley. What did Lulu say about a love affair before Payson was
married? Do you get that? Here's his wife visiting Madam Grant; you
remember her, don't you? There's something in that I believe we got a
good starter already."
Spoll appeared again, anxiously beckoning, and she went with him down
the hall.
Vixley took up the scent. "Say, Frank," he asked, "how did you happen
to get on to that, anyway? That was slick work."
Granthope turned to him and replied patronizingly, "Oh, I ought to know
something about women by this time. I got her to talking."
Vixley frowned, intent in thought, stroking his scant, pointed beard and
biting his mustache; then he slapped his knee with his claw-like hand.
"Say, you got a grand chance there," he exclaimed. "See here, you can
get in with the swells and be in a position to help out lots. It's the
chance of a lifetime, and we'll make it worth your while."
"How?" Granthope inquired contemptuously.
"By a fair exchange of information. You put us wise, and we'll put you
wise. I'll trust you to find ways of using what help we give you." He
cackled.
"Yes--you can trust me. I think I might have some fun out of it. I
don't mind helping you out, but all I need myself is a little
imagination, some common-sense and a frock coat."
Vixley looked at him admiringly. "I wish't I had your chance, Frank;
that's what I do. Say, you just light 'em and throw 'em away, don't
you! I s'pose if I had your looks I could do it myself."
Granthope looked him over calmly. "There's no knowing what a bath and a
manicure and a suit of clothes would do for you, Professor."
"You can't make brains out o' soap," retorted the medium.
"And you can't make money out of dirt.
"We'll see who has the money six months from now."
"It's a fair enough bargain. I take the girl, you take the money. I'm
satisfied." Granthope arose and yawned. "Oh," he added, "did you know
Payson had a partner named Riley? He was drowned in seventy-seven."
"That's funny. Queer how things come our way! Mrs. Riley is here in the
front room with a test. She was tried for the murder of one of her
husbands. Gert's goin' to shoot her up with it to-night. You better go
in and see the fun. She'll give it to her good."
"I think I will," said the palmist.
He left Vixley plunged in thought, and walked out.
Turning into the audience-room he sat down on a chair in the rear. The
place was almost filled. His eyes scanned the assembly carefully,
roving from one spectator to another. On a side seat near him, a party
of four, young girls and men, sat giggling and chewing gum. The rest of
the company showed a placid vacancy of expression or lukewarm
expectancy.
Madam Spoll at the organ and her husband with his violin, had,
meanwhile, been playing a dreary piece of music, "to induce the proper
conditions," as she had announced from the platform. They stopped,
retarding a minor chord, and the medium went to the table and began to
handle the tests, rearranging them, putting some aside, bringing others
forward, in an abstracted manner. Then, looking up with a
self-satisfied smile, she spoke:
"I want to say something to the new-comers and skeptics here to-night in
explanation of these tests. Them who have thoroughly investigated the
subject and are familiar with every phase of mediumship, understand, of
course, that these objects are placed here merely to attract magnetism
to the sitter and induce the proper conditions, so that your spirit
friends will be able to communicate with you. This phase of mediumship
is called psychometry, but if I'd stop to explain just what that means,
I wouldn't have time to give any readings. Now, it won't be possible to
get any messages unless you come here in the proper mood to receive
them. You must send out your best thought and do all you can to assist,
or else my guides won't be able to establish communication on the spirit
plane. If you merely come here only to laugh and to make a scoff of the
proceedings, I'll have to ask you to leave before I begin, for they's
many here to-night who are honestly in search of the truth, seeking to
communicate with the dear, loved ones beyond on the other side."
She passed her hand across her eyes, sighed, and fingered her chin
nervously. She poked the articles on the table again.
"As I come on to this platform, I see an old man over there, in that
direction, what you might call a middle-aged man, perhaps, of a medium
height, and whiskers, like. I feel a condition of going on a journey,
you might say, somewhere east of here, though maybe not very far, and I
get the name John. The light goes over in your direction, lady, that one
with the red hat. Yes, you. Would that be your father, possibly?"
The lady, straightening herself upon being thus addressed, said timidly,
"I think perhaps you mean my uncle. His name was John."
"Maybe it is an uncle, though I get the influence of a father very
strong, too. Has your father passed out?"
The lady in the red hat nodded.
"Then it _is_ your father, do you see? Yes, I get an uncle, too, who
wishes to communicate, only his influence ain't strong enough. That
shows it ain't mind reading, as the newspaper folks say, don't it?" She
smiled, as if she had made a point, and the audience appeared to be
impressed.
"About this journey, now: maybe you ain't had no idea of traveling, but
John says you will. I don't think it's liable to be very far, though.
It'll be before the last of September or the first of October and John
says it'll be successful. Do you understand what I mean?"
The lady, frightened at the terrible import of this question, did not
speak.
"Did you send up an article?"
"It's that purse with the chain."
Madam Spoll fingered it and weighed it reflectively.
"I get a condition of what you might call inharmony. Seems to me like in
your home something is worrying you and you ain't satisfied, you
understand, with the way things are going and sometimes you feel as if,
well, you just couldn't stand it!" Her smile, now, bathed her dupe with
sympathy.
The lady nodded vigorously, with tightly shut lips.
"You kind of wonder if it does any good for you to go to all the trouble
you do to sacrifice yourself and try to do your duty, when it ain't what
you might call appreciated. And you're worried about money, too. Ain't
that so?"
She received a ready assent. The woman's eyes were fixed upon her.
Every one in the room watched the stripping naked of a soul.
"Well, John says that your father and him are helping you all they can
on the spirit plane, and he thinks conditions will be more favorable and
will take a turn for the better by the first of the year."
A question fluttered on the woman's lips, but before it had time to
escape, Madam Spoll suddenly turned in the other direction.
"While I was talking to that lady," she said, "I felt an influence
leading me to that corner over there by the clock, and I get the
initials 'S.F.B.' Is there anybody of that name over there?"
A flashily dressed woman, with tinted yellow hair and rhinestone
ear-rings, raised her hand.
"Those are my initials," she announced.