"It certainly is a little girl, and she's with the lady with the gray
hair. But wait a minute. Now I get a little boy, and he's crying."
"Where is he?" came eagerly from Payson's lips.
"He's on this side. He's alive. I'll ask my guide." She plunged into
another stupor, then shook herself, rubbed her forehead, wrung her
hands.
"I can't get it quite strong enough to-day, but I'll find out later. He
seems to be mixed up with you, some way, not in what you might call
business, but more personally. You're worried about him."
Mr. Payson, with a shrug of his shoulders, appeared to disclaim this.
"Yes, you are! You may not realize it, but you are. The time will come
when you understand what I mean. Now you're too much interested in
other things. Your mind is way off--toward New York, like, or in that
direction."
He looked puzzled.
"Maybe it ain't as far as New York, but it's somewhere around there, and
I see books and printing presses. Do you have anything to do with
printing?"
This he also disclaimed.
"Funny!" she persisted. "I get you by a printing-press looking at a
book and then I see you at a table writing."
"I have done some writing, but it has never been printed."
"Well, it will be! My guide tells me that you have a great talent for
literary writing, and it could be developed to a great success.
"Now," she added, "you let me hold your hands a while till I get the
magnetism stronger. Just hold them firm--that's right. Lord, you
needn't squeeze them _quite_ so hard!" She beamed upon him with obvious
coquetry. "Now I'm going into a trance. I don't know whether Luella
will come, or maybe little Eva. Eva's the cunningest little tot and as
bright as a dollar. She's awful cute. You mustn't mind anything she
says or does, though. Sometimes, I admit, she mortifies me, when
sitters tell me what she's been up to. I've known her to sit on men's
laps and kiss 'em and hug 'em, like she was their own daughter, but
Lord, she don't know any better. She's innocent as a baby."
His face grew harder as she said this, but she proceeded, nevertheless,
with her experiment, closing her eyes and sitting for a while in
silence. Then her muscles twitched violently; she squirmed and wriggled
her shoulders. Finally she spoke, in a high, squeaky falsetto, a fair
ventriloquistic imitation of a child's voice.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Payson, I'm little Eva! I brought you some
flowers, but you can't see 'em, 'cause they're spirit flowers. You
don't look very well. Ain't you feelin' well to-day? I'm always well
here, and it's lovely on this side."
He made no response. Madam Spoll's soft hand, obviously controlled by
her spirit guide, moved up Mr. Payson's arm and patted his cheek. He
drew back suddenly.
"My!" little Eva exclaimed. "You frightened me! What a funny man you
are! Won't you just let me smoove your hair, once? I'd love to. Oh, I
think you're horrid! I'm just doin' to slap your face--there!" Which
she did quite briskly.
Mr. Payson loosened his hold with some annoyance.
"Well, I ain't doin' to stay if you don't love me," the shrill voice
went on. "I don't _like_ men who don't love me. Good-by, old man, I'm
doin'."
There was another wriggle on the part of the medium, after which a
lower-toned voice said:
"How do you do! I'm Luella."
He watched the medium's blank, expressionless face as she spoke.
"Say, you ain't well, I can see that. Haven't you got a pain in your
leg? Excuse me saying it, but I can feel it right there."
She touched him gently on the thigh.
"Oh, that's only a touch of rheumatism," he replied.
"No, it ain't," she said, "it's more serious than that. It's chronic,
and it's growing worse. Sometimes it's so painful that you almost die
of it, isn't it? I know where you got it; it come of an accident. I
can see you in a big crowded house, like, and there's railroad trains
coming and going, and you're crowded and jammed. You got internal
injuries and a complication. You didn't realize it at the time, but it's
growing worse every day. If you don't look out you'll pass out through
it, but if you went right to work, you could be cured of it, before it
gets too bad."
"What could I do about it?" he asked. "The doctors don't help me much."
"Of course they don't. You haven't been to the right ones. I was an
Indian doctor, and I can see just what's the matter with you. You need
a certain kind of herb I used to use when I was on the flesh-plane in
Idaho."
"Can't you help me, then?"
"Oh, I've got to go now, they're calling to me. So good-by." Another
wriggle and Madam Spoll was herself again.
"Well, what did you get?" she asked when she recovered.
"Why, don't you know?"
"No more'n a babe unborn," she said. "I was in a dead trance, and I
never remember anything that happens. I hope little Eva didn't tease
you any."
"Who is the other one--Luella?"
"Why, she's an Indian princess that passed out about ten years back.
She's got a great gift of diagnosing cases. She's helped my sitters a
good deal."
"She told me something about my trouble."
"You mean about the gray-haired lady or the child?"
"Oh, no, about my leg!"
"Did she, now? Well, what did I tell you! Seems to me you _do_ look
peaked and pale, like you was enjoying poor health. I noticed it when
you first come in. I don't believe your blood's good. Luella don't
prescribe ordinarily, but she can diagnose cases something wonderful.
If I should tell you how many doctors in this town send their patients
to me to be diagnosed before they dare to treat them themselves, you'd
be surprised. Why, only the other day a lady come in here that was give
up by four doctors for cancer, and Luella found it was only a boil in
her kidney. She went to a magnetic healer and was cured in a week. Now
she's doing her own work and taking care of her babies, keeping boarders
and plans to go camping this very month."
"Who was the doctor?" Mr. Payson asked, much impressed.
"Doctor Masterson. He's up on Market Street somewhere. Perhaps I've
got a card of his around. I'll see if I can find it."
She walked over to the mantel and fussed among its dusty ornaments,
saying, with apparent concern, as she rummaged:
"I don't know as I ought to send you to Doctor Masterson, after all.
You see, he ain't a man I like very much, and few do, I find. He don't
stand very well with the Spiritual Society, nor with anybody else that I
know of. He ain't quite on the square, do you understand what I mean?
To be perfectly frank, I think he's a rascal. He has a bad reputation
as a man, but all the same, he's a good medium, nobody denies _that_,
and he does accomplish some marvelous cures! If Luella said your
complaint was serious, she knows, and it looks to me like you must go to
Doctor Masterson or die of it, for if he can't cure you, nobody can.
He's certainly a marvelous healer."
She found the card at last, and brought it over to Mr. Payson.
"Here it is, but you better not tell him I give it to you, for we ain't
on very good terms, and I wouldn't want him to know that I was sending
him business."
As Mr. Payson rose to go, the medium stopped him with a gesture.
"Wait a minute," she said, passing her hand across her forehead. "Grace
is here again and she says: Tell him that we're doing all we can on the
spirit plane to help him and we want him to cheer up, for conditions are
going to be more favorable in a little while, say, by the end of
September.'"
She paused a moment and then added:
"Who's Clytie? Would that be the gray-haired lady?"
"What about Clytie?" He was instantly aroused.
"It don't seem to me like she's in the spirit, exactly. She's on the
material plane. Let's see if I can get it more definite. Oh, Grace
says she's your daughter."
"That's true."
"What do you think of that? I get it very plain now. Grace says she's
watching over Clytie and will help her all she can."
"Can't she tell me anything more?"
The medium became normal. "No, I guess that's about all I can do for
you to-day. I think you got some good tests, specially when you
consider it was the first time. When you come again I expect we can do
better, and I'm sure we can find that little boy you was interested in."
Mr. Payson rose and stood before her, sedate, dignified, and said, in
his impressive platform-manner:
"I don't mind saying that I consider this very remarkable, Madam Spoll,
very remarkable. I shall certainly call again sometime next week. I am
much interested. Now, what is the charge, please?"
"Oh, we'll only call this three dollars. My price is generally five,
but I'm sort of interested in your case and I want you to be perfectly
satisfied. You can just ring me up any time and make an appointment
with me."
She bowed him out with a calm, pleasant smile.
Down-stairs, Professor Vixley was awaiting her. With him was a
shrewd-eyed, bald-headed, old man, with iron spectacles, his forehead
wrinkled in horizontal lines, as if it had been scratched with a sharp
comb. He had a three days' growth of red beard on his chin and cheeks,
and his teeth, showing in a rift between narrow, bloodless lips, were
almost black. He wore a greasy, plaid waistcoat, a celluloid collar
much in need of the laundry and a ready-made butterfly bow.
"Why, how d'you do, Doctor Masterson?" said Madam Spoll. "I was hoping
you would get around to-day, so's we could talk business. I suppose you
put him wise about Payson, Vixley?"
"Certainly," said the Professor. "We're goin' to share and share alike,
and work him together as long as it lasts. How did you get on with him
to-day?"
"Oh, elegant," was the answer, as she took a seat on the couch and put
up her feet. "I don't believe we're going to be able to use Flora,
though."
Professor Vixley's black eyes glistened and he grinned sensuously.
"Why, couldn't you get a rise out of him?"
Madam Spoll shook her huge head decidedly. "No, that sort of game won't
work on him. He ain't that kind. I went as far as I dared and give him
a good chance, but he wouldn't stand for it."
"That's all right, Gert," said Vixley, "I ain't sayin' but what you're a
fine figure of a woman, but he's sixty and he might prefer somebody
younger. You know how they go. Now, Flora, she's a peach. She'd catch
any man, sure! She knows the ropes, too, and she can deliver the goods
all right. Look at the way she worked Bennett. Why, he was dead stuck
on her the first time he seen her. She put it all over Fancy at the
first rattle out of the box."
Again Madam Spoll's crisp, iron-gray curls shook a denial. "See here,
Vixley!" she exclaimed, "I ain't been in this business for eighteen
years without getting to know something about men. Bennett was a very
different breed of dog. I can see a hole in a ladder, and I know what
I'm talking about. Payson ain't up to any sort of fly game. He's
straight, and he's after something different, you take my word for that.
If there was anything in playing him that way, I'd be the first one to
steer him on to Flora Flint, but he'd smell a mice if she got gay with
him and he'd be so leary that we couldn't do nothing more with him."
"Well, what _did_ you get, then?" Vixley asked.
"Did you wire it up for me?" Doctor Masterson added.
"Oh, I fixed you all right, Doc. He'll show up at your place, sure
enough. That accident tip worked all right and I got him going pretty
good about his leg. He's got your card and I give you a recommendation,
I don't think! You want to look out about what you say about me. We
ain't on speaking terms, you understand, and you're a fakir, for fair.
You can get back at me all you want, only don't draw it hard enough to
scare him away."
Doctor Masterson grinned, showing his line of black fangs, and stuck his
thumbs into his waistcoat pockets placidly. "Oh, I'm used to being
knocked, don't mind me. I'll charge him for it. If I'm going to be the
villain of this here drama, I'll do it up brown."
"Let's see now. I s'pose you can probably hold him about two months,
can't you?" said Vixley, stroking his pointed black beard and spitting
into the fireplace.
"Oh, not so long as that," said Madam Spoll. "We want to get to work on
that book proposition. A month's plenty long enough. They ain't much
money in it."
"I don't know." Doctor Masterson shook his head. "I've strung 'em for
six months many's the time."
"Women, perhaps, but not men," said the Madam.
"Well, maybe. Men are liable to be in more of a hurry, of course."
"And women ain't so much, with you, are they?"
The two men laughed cynically.
"Oh, they's more ways to work women than men, that's all," the doctor
replied. "They're more interested in their symptoms, and they like to
talk about 'em. Then, again, they's a more variety of complaints to
choose from. I don't say I ain't had some pretty cases in my day."
"Say!" Madam Spoll interposed. "Who's having a circle
to-night--Mayhew?"
"Let's see--it's Friday, ain't it? Yes, Mayhew and Sadie Crum," Vixley
replied.
"Well, I s'pose we got to put 'em wise about Payson," said the Madam.
"He's got the bug now and he's pretty sure to make the rounds."
"Can't we keep him dark?" said Vixley. "He's our game and they might
possibly ring him in."
"No, that won't do," she answered emphatically. "We got to play fair.
They've always been square with us, and they won't catch him, I'll see
to that. Mayhew's straight enough and if Sadie tries to get gay with us,
we can fix her and she knows it. And the more easy tests he gets, the
better for us. It'll keep him going, and so long as they don't go too
far, it'll help us. The sooner he gets so he don't want to impose test
conditions, the better, and they can help convert him for us. I'll ring
up Mayhew now. I've got a good hunch that Payson will show up there
to-night."
She raised her bulk from the couch and went to the telephone by the
window, calling for Mayhew's number. When she had got it, she said:
"Is this number thirty-one? ... Yes, I'm number fifteen.... Sure! Oh,
pretty good! ... I got a tip for you. I'm playing a six-year-old for
the handicap, named Oliver. Carries sixty pounds, colors blue and gray,
ten hands, jockey is Payson. He's a ten-to-one shot. My wife Grace
lived in Stockton. Do what you can for me, but keep your hands off, do
you understand? Numbers forty and thirteen are with me in this deal and
we'll fix it for you if you stand in ... yes, all right! If he shows up
let me know to-morrow morning, sure."