"Well, who's spoiling you now? Miss Payson?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, well enough! Lord, why don't you come out with it! It's all
in the family, ain't it? You've got her on the string, all right, ain't
you?"
"I have not." The frown grew deeper in his forehead.
"H'm!" She drew a long breath. "Well, that means we'll have to begin
at the beginning, then, I expect. I had a sort of an idea that you
_had_ got her going, and wouldn't mind saying so, but if you're going to
go to work and be mysterious, why, I'll have to talk straight business."
She pointed at him with her pudgy finger. "Now, see here, she's been
writing to you, anyways. You can't deny _that_."
"What makes you think so?"
"I don't think anything at all about it; I know. What d'you take me for?
A Portugee cook? It's my business to know all about the Paysons, that's
all. Very good."
Granthope looked more concerned, and eyed her suspiciously.
"There's only one way for you to have found that out," he said. "And
that reminds me. I want to get those notes I gave you about her when
you were up at my place. I didn't keep a copy, and I've forgotten some
of the details that I need."
Madam Spoll raised her eyebrows, also her shoulders, and made an
inarticulate noise in her throat. "Funny you need them so bad all of a
sudden. Not that they done us much good--we've found out a lot for
ourselves; about all we need for the present."
"Well, I haven't interfered with your game, and I don't see why you
should interfere with mine. Only, I'd like those memoranda back,
please." His tone was almost peremptory.
"I'm sorry, but I ain't got 'em."
"Where are they?"
"Why, I give 'em to Vixley."
Granthope saw that it was no use to go further. He had, in spite of his
precautions, already aroused her suspicions, and so he pretended to
consider the matter of no moment. Madam Spoll, however, was now
thoroughly aroused.
"What I want to know, Frank, is whether you're with us or not."
"I thought the understanding was that we were to work separately."
"Separately _and_ together. Mutual exchange _and_ actual profit, for
each and for all. We got a mighty good thing in Payson, me and Vixley
have, and we propose to work it for all it's worth. It'll be for your
interest to come in and help us out. True, you have done something, but
now you're lallagagging, so to speak, when you might be making a big
haul. Payson's easy, and we can steer the girl your way, through him.
He'll believe anything. All we got to do is to say my guides want him
to have you for a son-in-law, and the trick is as good as turned. I
agree to get him started this afternoon. He's a ten-to-one shot. I can
see that with half an eye. It'll only be up to you to make good with
the girl, and Lord knows that'll be easy for you. Now is that straight
enough for you?"
Granthope rose and began to pace the floor nervously. He paused to
straighten some magazines upon the table, he adjusted a photograph upon
the wall, he moved back a chair; then he turned to her and said:
"I don't see how there's anything in this for me. I'm through with all
that sort of thing, and I think, on the whole, I'll stay out. I'm going
in for straight palmistry--and--well, another kind of game altogether.
You wouldn't understand it even if I explained. I've got a good start,
now, and I don't want to queer myself."
Madam Spoll made a theatrical gesture of surprise. "Lord, Frank, who
would have thought of you doing the Sunday-school superintendent act on
me! A body would think you'd never faked in your life! My Lord, I'm
trying to lead you astray, am I?"
"That's all right. I don't pretend to be very virtuous, but some of
this is getting a little raw for me."
Madam Spoll opened her eyes and her mouth. "What's got into you,
anyway?"
"Something's got out, perhaps," he said, frowning. "At any rate, I don't
care to make use of Miss Payson to help you rob her father."
"Rob her father!" Outraged innocence throbbed in Madam Spoll's voice.
"Lord, Frank, you're plumb crazy! Why, he won't spend no money he don't
want to, will he? He can afford it well enough! He'll never miss what
we get out of him. You might think I was going to pick his pockets, the
way you talk." She took him by the arm. "See here! You ain't really
stuck on that Payson girl, are you? Why, if I didn't know you so well,
I'd be almost ready to suspect you of it! But land, you've had women
running after you ever since you went into business! But I notice you
don't often stay away from the office more'n two days running."
"I don't know that my private affairs are any of your business," he said
curtly. He was rather glad, now, of the chance for an outright quarrel.
But she would not let it come to that, and continued in a wheedling
tone: "Well, this happens to be my business, and I speak to you as a
friend, Frank, for your own good as well as mine. You can take it or
leave it, of course; I ain't a-going to try and put coercion on to you,
and there's time enough to decide when we get Payson wired up. Then
I'll talk to you just once more. You just think it over a while, and
don't do nothing rash."
Granthope arose to leave. He was for a more romantic game, himself.
The vulgarity here offended him esthetically rather than ethically, and
yet he winced at the insinuations Madam Spoll had made.
"I think I can go it alone," he said; "as for rashness, I won't
promise."
He had gone but a few minutes when Professor Vixley entered and shook a
long lean claw with Madam Spoll, took off his coat and sat down.
"Well," he said affably, "how're they coming, Gert?"
"Oh, so-so; Frank Granthope's just been here."
"Is that so! Did you get anything out of him?"
"No. And he wants his Payson notes back again. What d'you think of
that!"
Vixley crossed his legs, and whistled a low, astonished note. "We're
goin' to have trouble with Frank, I expect."
Madam Spoll's smooth forehead wrinkled. "Frank's a fool! He's leary of
us, and I believe he'll throw us down if we don't look out."
"Most time to put the screws on, ain't it?"
"I don't know; we'll see. We can go it alone for a while. Wait till we
really need him and I'll guarantee to make him mind. He's got the
society bug so bad I couldn't do anything with him."
"The more he gets into society the more use he is to us," said Vixley.
"He's a pretty smooth article."
"Do you know, I have an idea he's getting stuck on that Payson girl."
Vixley cackled.
"You never can tell," said Madam Spoll. "I believe Frank's got good
blood in him. Sooner or later it's bound to come out."
"Well, if he's after the girl, it'll be easier for us to bring him
around. He won't care to be gave away."
"That's right, and we'll use it. I can see that girl's face when she
hears about him crawling through the panel at Harry Wing's to play spook
for Bennett."
"Not to speak of Fancy," Vixley added, grinning.
To them, Ringa entered. He slunk into a chair beside Vixley, smoothed
down his tow hair, stroked his bristling mustache, and allowed his weak
gray eyes to drift about the room.
"Well?" Madam Spoll queried, giving him a glance over her fat shoulder.
"I found him all right, and I've got something. I guess it's worth a
dollar, Madam Spoll."
"Let's hear it, first," said Vixley.
"I done the insurance agent act, and I jollied him good." Ringa
grinned, showing a hole in his mouth where two front teeth should have
been.
"You jollied him," Vixley showed his yellow teeth. "Lord, you don't look
it!"
"I did though," the pale youth protested. "I conned him for near an
hour."
"You're sure he didn't get on to you?" Madam Spoll asked, regarding her
head sidewise in the glass and patting the blue bow on her throat.
"Sure! I was a dead ringer for the real-thing agent, and I had the
books to show for it. I worked him for an insurance policy."
"Well? What did he say?" Madam Spoll turned on him like a mighty gun.
"He was caught between two trains once on the Oakland Mole, and I guess
he was squeezed pretty bad. He said it was a close call."
"That's all right," said Vixley; "we can trim that up in good shape,
can't we, Gert?"
"It'll do for a starter. Give him a dollar."
"Anything more to-day?" Ringa asked, rising slowly.
"No; I'll let you know if I want you," said the Madam.
Ringa slouched out.
"I'd let that cool off a while till he's forgotten it," Vixley
suggested.
"I'll make him forget it, all right," Madam Spoll returned. "That's my
business. You do your part as well as I do mine and you'll be all
right."
"It's only this first part that makes me nervous."
"Oh, he ain't going to catch _me_ in a trap. I got sense enough to put
a mouse in first to try it."
She stood in front of the mirror in the folding-bed, arranging her hair,
which had been wet and still glistened with moisture, holding her comb,
meanwhile, in her mouth. Professor Vixley tilted back in his plush
chair, his head resting against the grease-spot on the wall-paper which
indicated his habitual pose.
"Now don't you go too fast," he said, pulling out a square of
chewing-tobacco and biting off a corner. "This here is a-goin' to be a
delicate operation. Payson ain't so easy as Bennett was. Bennett would
believe that cows was cucumbers, if we told him so, but this chap is too
much on the skeptic. We got to go slow."
"You leave me alone for _that_," Madam Spoll replied easily. "I guess I
know how to jolly a good thing along. Has he got the money? That's all
I want to know about him."
"He's got money all right. That's a cinch. I'm not in this thing for
my health. What's more, he's got the writin' bug, and I can see a good
graft in that."
"Well, I'll give it a try."
"No, you better keep your hands off that subject, Gertie. I can work
that game better'n you. I got it all framed up how I can string him
good. I'm goin' to make that a truly elegant work of art. All you got
to do is to get him goin', and then steer him up against me."
The door-bell rang noisily up-stairs and Mr. Spoll's footsteps were
heard going to answer the summons.
"I guess that's my cue," said Madam Spoll, smiling affably. "I wish I
had more magnetism to-day." She shook her hands and snapped her
fingers. "I can't stand so much of this as I used to. I can remember
when I could get a name every time without fishing for it. But what
I've lost in one way I have learned in another. I'm going to give him a
run for his money, and don't you forget it."
Vixley smiled and rubbed his hands. "Go in and win, Gert. I guess I'll
take a nap here on the lounge while I'm waitin' for you, and see if the
Doc doesn't come in."
"All right," she replied; then marched up-stairs and went into action.
The upper parlor, where she received her patrons for private sittings,
was a large room separated from the back part of the house by black
walnut double doors. Upon the high-studded walls were draperies of
striped oriental stuffs, caught up with tacks and enlivened by colored
casts of turbaned Turks' heads, most of which were chipped on cheek and
on chin, showing irregular patches of white plaster. Upon the mantel
chaos reigned, embodied in a mass of minor decorations of all sorts,
such as are affected by those who deem that space is only something to
be as closely filled as possible. The furniture was cheaply elaborate
and formally arranged, running chiefly to purple stamped plush and heavy
woolen fringe. The silk curtains in the windows were severely arranged
in multitudinous little pleats, fan shaped, drawn in with a pink ribbon
at the center. There was scarcely a thing in the room, from the
fret-sawed walnut whatnot in the corner to the painted tapestry Romeo
upon the double doors, that an artist would not writhe at and turn
backward. A little ineffective bamboo table in the center was made a
feature of the place, but supported its function with triviality.
Mr. Payson had just entered, cold and blue from the harsh air outside.
He bowed to the seeress.
She began with the weather, referring to it in obvious commonplaces,
eliciting his condemnation of the temperature. She offered to light the
gas-log and succeeded, during the conversational skirmish, in drawing
from him the fact that he suffered from rheumatism, especially when the
wind was north.
Madam Spoll allowed the ghost of a smile to haunt her face for a brief
moment. "Lucky you ain't got my weight, it gets to you something
terrible when you're fat. I ain't quite so slim as I used to be." She
looked up from the grate coquettishly, marking the effect of her words.
"Now let's set down and get ready," she said, going over to the frail
table and pressing her hands to her forehead. "I ain't in proper
condition to-day; I've been working hard and my magnetism's about wore
out. But I'll see what I can do."
He took a seat opposite her and waited. His attitude was benignly
judicial; his eyes were fixed upon her, through his gold-bowed
spectacles.
"Funny thing how different people are," she began. "Now, I get your
condition right off. You ain't at all like the rest of the folks that
come here. I get a condition of study, like. I see what you might call
books around you everywhere--not account-books, but more on the
literary. Books and sheep, you understand. Not live ones! I would say
they was more on the dead sheep. Flat ones, too, with hair,
like--queer, ain't it? Sounds like nonsense I suppose, but that's just
what I get. They must be some mistake somehow." She drew her hand
across her forehead and snapped the electricity off her finger-tips.
Then she rubbed her hands and twisted her mouth. "Do you know what I
mean?"
"Why, it might be wool perhaps; I have something to do with wool," he
offered.
"Now ain't that strange? It _is_ wool, as sure's you're born! I can
see what you might call skins and bales of wool. And I get a condition
of business, too--but not what you might call a retail business. Seems
like it was more on the wholesale."
"Yes, that's right," he assented, nodding.
"What did I tell you!" she exclaimed. "I do believe I may get something
after all, though very often the first time ain't what you might call a
success, and sitters are liable to get discouraged. I can tell you only
just what my guides give me, you know, and sometimes Luella is
pernickerty. She's my chief control. You know how it is yourself, for
you'll be a man that knows women right down to the ground, and you've
always been a favorite with the ladies, too."
"Oh, I never knew many women," he said modestly.
"It ain't the number I'm speaking of. It's the hold you had over 'em,
specially when you was a young man. They was women who would do
anything you asked them and be glad of the chance; now, wasn't they?
Did you ever know of a party, what you might call a young woman, though
not so very young, with the initial C?" She mumbled the letter so that
it was not quite distinguishable.
"G?" he said. "Why, yes!--was that the first name or the last?"
"It seems like it was the first name, the way I get it--would it be
Grace?"
This was, of course, a random "fishing test," and she got a bite.
"My wife's name was Grace."
She hooked the fact, noticing the tense, and let her line play out to
distract his attention temporarily.
"It don't seem quite like your wife. Seems like it was another woman
who you was fond of. Maybe it was meant for the last name. Sometimes
my control does get things awfully mixed. Or, it might be a middle
initial. You wait a minute and maybe I'll get it stronger."
"Oh, if it was the last name, I think I recognize it."
She had another line out and another bite, now, and played to land both,
coaxing the truth gently from him.
"Yes, it's a last name, and she was terrible fond of you. She was in
love with you for some time, you understand? And there was some trouble
between you."
"There was, indeed!" Mr. Payson shook his head solemnly.
The hint now made sure of, she heightened it to make him forget that he
himself had given the clue.
"I get a feeling of worry, and what you might call a misunderstanding.
You didn't quite get along with each other and it made a good deal of
trouble for you. You was what I might call put out, you understand?
She's in the spirit now, ain't she?"
"Yes; she died a good many years ago."
Madam Spoll returned to her first fish and began to reel in. "Your
wife's passed out, too, and Luella tells me she's here now. She says
Grace was worried, too. But she's happy now and wants you to be. You
was a young man then, and yet you have never got over it. You wasn't
rightly understood, was you?"
Mr. Payson shook his head again. He was listening attentively.
"But it wan't your fault, do you understand? It was something that
couldn't be helped. And sometimes when you think of this other lady you
say to yourself, 'If she only knew! If she only knew!'"
"Yes, I wish she did. It really wasn't my fault."
Madam Spoll cast more bait into the pool.
"Now, would her given name be Mary, or something like that?"
"No--it was an uncommon name."
The medium persisted stubbornly.
"That's queer. I get the name of Mary very plain."
"My mother's name was Mary; perhaps you mean her?"
"It might be your mother, and yet it seems like it was a younger woman.
Now, this lady I spoke of had dark hair, didn't she? or you might call
it medium--sort of half-way between light and dark."
"No; she had white hair."
Another fish was on the hook. Madam Spoll had got what she wanted.
This admission of Mr. Payson's, coupled with the fact Granthope had
discovered, that Clytie had visited the crazy woman, identified the old
man's first love, she thought, effectually. She kept this for
subsequent use, however. It would not do, as Vixley had said, to go too
fast.
"Then this Mary must be some one else," she said. "You may not recognize
her now, but you probably will. I can't do your thinking for you, you
know. It may possibly be that you'll meet her some day; at any rate, my
guides tell me you must be careful and don't sign no papers for Mary. I
don't know whether she's in the spirit or not. You may understand it
and you may not. All I can do is to give you what I get."
Madam Spoll now became absorbed in a sort of reverie. When at last she
emerged it was with this:
"I see your mother and your wife now, and I get the words, 'It's a pity
Oliver couldn't marry her.' I don't know what they mean at all."
"I understand. I was intending to marry another woman, the one you
spoke of just now, but something prevented."
"That must be it. My guide tells me that something dreadful happened,
and it was what you might call hushed up and you separated from her."
"It was not my fault."
"I get a little child, too"--Mr. Payson grew still more absorbed. The
medium noticed his instant reaction in eyes, mouth and hands. On the
strength of that evidence, she took the risk of saying:
"The child was the lady's with the white hair."
"What about it?" demanded Mr. Payson.
"I see the child standing by a lady who grew gray very young, you
understand. And now they're both gone. Was you ever interested in
Sacramento or somewhere east of here?"
"Stockton?" he asked. "I lived there for a while."
"That's it. I see a river, and steamboats coming in, and there's the
child again."
"A boy or a girl?"
She hesitated for a moment to dart a glance at him as swift as an arrow.
Then she risked it. "A girl."