"What's all that about Stockton?" Vixley asked.
"He lived there once and there's something more about his wife or
something. Mayhew may fish it out of him, and if he does I'll put you
on."
"I ain't seen him yet," said the doctor, "but I guess I'll recognize
him. Sixty years old, Oliver Payson, one hundred and sixty pounds, blue
eyes and gray hair, six feet tall. Are you sure he's a ten-to-one,
though? That cuts more ice than anything."
"Oh, sure!" said Madam Spoll. "Why, he swallowed the whole dose. He
ain't doing no skeptic business. He thinks he's an investigator. Wait
till you hear him talk and you'll understand. Not religious, you know,
but a good old sort. He's caught all right, and if we jolly him along,
we can polish him off good."
"They ought to be some good materializin' graft in that wife
proposition. Grace, was it? We might turn him over to Flora for that."
This from Vixley.
"I've been thinking of that," said Madam Spoll, "but I don't know
whether he'll stand for it or not. It won't be anywheres near the snap
it was with Bennett, in full daylight, and we'll have to have special
players. I believe I can put my hands on one or two that can help us
out, though. Miss French for one; she's got four good voices. Then
there's a young girl I got my eye on that'll do anything I say. She's
slim and she can work an eight-inch panel as slick as soap; and she's
got a memory for names and faces that beats the directory. Besides, I
believe she's really psychic. I've seen her do some wonderful things at
mind-reading."
"No, can she really!" said Vixley.
"Oh, I used to be clairaudient myself when I begun," said Madam Spoll a
little sadly. "I could catch a name right out of the air, half the
time. I've gave some wonderful tests in my day, but you can't never
depend upon it, and when you work all the week, sick or well, drunk or
sober, you have to put water in the milk and then it's bound to go from
you. You have to string 'em sooner or later. This girl's a dandy at
it, though, but that'll all wait. There's enough to do before we get to
that part of the game. I expect I had better go out and see Sadie Crum
myself. I don't trust her telephone. She's got a ten-party line, what
do you think of that?"
"A ten-party line don't do for business," said Vixley, "but it's pretty
good for rubberin'. I've got some pretty good dope off my sister's
wire. She spends pretty near all her time on it and it does come in
handy."
"Oh, pshaw!" Madam Spoll looked disgusted. "I ain't got time to spend
that way. What's the use anyway? They ain't but one rule necessary to
know in this business, and that is: All men is conceited, and all women
is vain."
"That's right!" Vixley assented. "Only I got another that works just as
good; all women want to think they are misunderstood, and all men want
to think they understand. Ain't that right, Doc?"
Masterson grinned. "I guess likely you ought to know, if anybody does.
But I got a little one of my own framed up, too. How's this? All men
want to be heroes and all women want to be martyrs."
The three laughed cynically together. They had learned their practical
psychology in a thorough school. Madam Spoll chuckled for some time
pleasantly.
"You're the one had ought to write a book, Masterson. I'll bet it would
beat out Payson's!"
"Lord!" said Vixley. "If I was to write down the things that have
happened to me, just as they occurred--"
"It wouldn't be fit to print," Madam Spoll added. Vixley looked
flattered.
"How about that pickle-girl?" he asked next.
"What's that?" said Doctor Masterson.
"Oh, a new graft of Gertie's. Did she come, Gert?"
"I should say she did," Madam Spoll replied. "And I got her on the
string staking out dopes, too. Why, she's mixed up with a fellow at the
Risdon Iron Works, and she don't dare to say her soul's her own since
she told me."
"Nothin' like a good scandal to hold on to people by," Masterson
remarked. "Where'd you get her?"
"Oh, she floated in. I give her a reading and found out she worked in a
pickle factory down on Sixth Street where there are fifty or more girls.
Soon as I found out the handle to work her by, I made her a proposition
to tip off what's doing in her shop. She makes her little report,
steers the girls up here, and then she comes round and tells me who they
are and all about 'em."
"That's what I call a good wholesale business," said Vixley enviously.
"I wish I could work it as slick as that. She uses the peek-hole in the
screen, I suppose?"
"Sometimes, and sometimes she sits behind the window curtain up-stairs."
"You have to give yourself away, that's the only trouble," said Doctor
Masterson.
"Oh, no," Madam Spoll remarked easily, "I just tell her that I can't
always get everybody's magnetism, though of course I can always get
hers. That gives her an idea she's important, don't you see? Then I
can always lay anything suspicious to the Diakkas. Evil spirits are a
great comfort."
"And anyways, if she should want to tell anything," Vixley suggested,
"you can everlastingly blacklist her at the factory with what you know."
"Yes," Madam Spoll assented; "she's got a record herself, only she
hasn't got sense enough to realize on it the way I do on mine. Is they
any bigger fool than a girl that's in love?"
"Only a man that is," Vixley offered sagely.
"Oh, _men_!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I believe they ain't more'n
but three real ones alive to-day!"
The Professor's eyes snapped. "Well, they's women enough, thank the
Lord!"
"Well," said Doctor Masterson, "I got to go to work; I'm keeping office
hours in the evening now and I have to hump. So long, Gertie, I'll be
all ready for Payson, but you and Vixley have got to keep jollying him
along. You want me to hold him about a month? I'll see what I can do,
and if I get a lead, I'll let you know." He shook hands and left them.
"I ain't so sure of the Doc as I'd like to be," said Madam Spoll after
he had gone.
"Nor me neither," Vixley replied. "We've got to watch him, I expect,
but he'll do for a starter and we can fix him if he gets funny. There
ain't nothin' like cooeperation, Gertie."
As Madam Spoll sat down again to open a bottle of beer she had taken
from beneath the wash-stand, Professor Vixley began to twirl his fingers
in his lap and snicker to himself.
"What are you laughing at, Vixley?" she asked, pouring out two frothing
glasses.
"I was just a-thinkin' about Pierpont Thayer. Don't you remember that
dope who went nuts on spiritualism and committed suicide?"
"No, I don't just recall it; what about it?"
"Why, he got all wound up in the circles here--Sadie Crum, she had him
on the string for a year, till he didn't know where he was at. He took
it so hard that one day he up and shot hisself and left a note pinned on
to his bed that said: 'I go to test the problem.' Lord! I'd 'a' sold
every one of my tricks and all hers to him for a five-dollar bill! Why
didn't he come to _me_ to test his problem? He'd 'a' found out quick
enough."
"Yes, and after you'd told him all about how it was done, I'll guarantee
that I could have converted him again in twenty minutes."
"I guess that's right," said Vixley. "Them that want to believe are
goin' to, and you can't prevent 'em, no matter what you do. They're
like hop fiends--they've got to have their dope whether or no, and just
so long as they can dream it out they're happy."
*CHAPTER VIII*
*ILLUMINATION*
It is easy to imagine the virtuous pride with which the civil engineer,
Jasper O'Farrell, set about the laying out of the town of San Francisco
in 1846. Here was the ideal site for a city--a peninsula lying like a
great thumb on the hand of the mainland, between the Pacific Ocean and a
deep, land-locked bay, an area romantically configured of hills and
valleys, with picturesque mountain and water views, the setting sun in
the west and Mount Diablo a sentinel in the east; to the northward, the
sea channel of the Golden Gate overhung by the foot-hills of Tamalpais.
There was still chance to amend and improve the old town site of Yerba
Buena, the little Spanish settlement by the cove in the harbor, whose
straight, narrow streets had been artlessly ruled by Francisco de Haro,
alcalde of the Mission Dolores. He had marked out upon the ground,
northerly, La Calle de la Fundacion and the adjacent squares necessary
for the little port of entry in 1835. Four years later, when Governor
Alvarado directed a new survey of the place, Jean Vioget extended the
original lines with mathematical precision to the hills surrounding the
valley; and it would have been possible to correct that artistic blunder
of the simple-minded alcalde. But Jasper O'Farrell had seen military
service with General Sutter; his ways were stern and severe, his
esthetic impulses, if he had any, were heroically subdued. Market
Street, indeed, he permitted to run obliquely, though it went straight
as a bullet towards the Twin Peaks. The rest of the city he made one
great checkerboard, in defiance of its natural topography.
As one might constrict the wayward fancies of a gipsy maiden to the
cold, tight-laced ethics of a puritanical creed, so O'Farrell bound the
city that was to be for ever to a gridiron of right-angled streets and
blocks of parallelograms. He knew no compromise. His streets took their
straight and narrow way, up hill and down dale, without regard to grade
or expense. Unswerving was their rectitude. Their angles were exactly
ninety degrees of his compass, north and south, east and west. Where
might have been entrancingly beautiful terraces, rising avenue above
avenue to the heights, preserving the master-view of the continent, now
the streets, committed to his plan, are hacked out of the earth and
rock, precipitous, inaccessible, grotesque. So sprawls the fey,
leaden-colored town over its dozen hills, its roads mounting to the sky
or diving to the sea.
So the stranger beholds San Francisco, the Improbable. Its pageantry is
unrolled for all to see at first glance. Never was a city so prodigal
of its friendship and its wealth. She salutes one on every crossing,
welcoming the visitor openly and frankly with her western heart. In
every little valley where the slack, rattling cables of her car-lines
slap and splutter over the pulleys, some great area of the town exhibits
a rising colony of blocks stretching up and over a shoulder of the hill
to one side and to the other. Atop every crest one is confronted with
farther districts lying not only beneath but opposite, across lower
levels and hollows, flanking one's point of vantage with rival summits.
San Francisco is agile in displaying her charms. As you are whirled up
and down on the cable-car, she moves stealthily about you, now lagging
behind in steep declivities, now dodging to right or left in stretches
of plain or uplifted hillsides, now hurrying ahead to surprise you with
a terrifying ascent crowned with palaces. Now she is all water-front
and sailors' lodging-houses; in a trice she turns Chinatown, then shocks
you with a Spanish, Italian or negro quarter. Past the next rise, you
find her whimsical, fantastic with garish flats and apartment houses.
She lurks in and about thousands of little wooden houses, and beyond,
she drops a little park into your path, discloses a stretch of
shimmering bay or unveils magnificently the green, gently-sloping
expanse of the Presidio.
No other city has so many points of view, none allures the stranger so
with coquetry of originality and fantasy. Some cities have single
dominant hills; but she is all hills, they are a vital part of herself.
They march down into the town and one can not escape them, they stride
north and west and must be climbed. The important lines of traffic
accept these conditions and plunge boldly up and down upon their ways.
And so, going or returning from his home, the city is always with the
citizen--from Nob Hill he sees ships in the harbor and the lights of the
Mission; from Kearney Street he keeps his view of Telegraph Hill and
Twin Peaks--the San Franciscan is always in San Francisco, the city of
extremes.
Of all this topographical chaos, the most spectacular spot is Telegraph
Hill. To the eastward on the harbor side, it rises a sheer precipice
over a hundred feet high, where a concrete company has quarried stone
for three decades despite protest, appeal, injunction and the force of
arms. To the north and west the hill falls away into a jumble of
streets, cliffed and hollowed like the billows of the sea, crusted with
queer little houses of the Latin quarter.
Francis Granthope, after the Chinese supper, had found himself swayed by
an obsession. The thought of Clytie Payson was insistent in his mind.
She troubled him. He recognized the symptom with a grim sense of its
ridiculousness. It was, according to his theory, the first sign of
love; but the idea of his being in love was absurd. Certainly he
desired her, and that ardently. She stimulated him, she stirred his
fancy. But he was jealous of his freedom; he would not be snared by a
woman's eyes. Marriage, indeed, he had contemplated, but, to his mind,
marriage was but a part of the game, a condition which would insure for
him an attractive companion, a desirable standing; in short, a point of
vantage. What had begun to chafe him, now, was a sort of compulsion
that Clytie had put upon him. Somehow he could not be himself with
her--he was self-conscious, timid--he was sensitive to her vibrations,
he was swayed by her fine moods and impulses. Though the strain was
gentle, still she coerced him. He felt an impulse to shake himself
free.
In this temper, he decided, while he was at dinner, to see her, and, if
he could, regain possession of the situation, master her by the use of
those arts by which he had so often won before. He would, at least, if
he could not cajole her, assert his independence. No doubt he had been
misled by her claims of intuitive power. He would put that to the test,
as well.
It was already after sunset when he started across Union Square.
Kearney Street was alight with electric lamps and humming with life. He
walked north, passing the gayer retail shopping district towards the
cheaper stores, pawnshops and quack doctors' offices to where the old
Plaza, rising in a green slope to Chinatown, displayed the little
Stevenson fountain with its merry gilded ship. Here the waifs and the
strays of the night were already wandering, and he responded to frequent
appeals for charity.
Beyond was the dance-hall district, where women of the town were
promenading, seeking their prey; sailors and soldiers descended into
subterranean halls of light and music. Then came the Italian quarter
with its restaurants and saloons.
He paused where Montgomery Avenue diverged, leading to the North Beach,
consulted his watch, and found that it was too early to call. He
decided to kill time by going up Telegraph Hill, and kept on up Kearney
Street.
Across Broadway, it mounted suddenly in an incline so steep, that
ladder-like frameworks flat upon the ribbed concrete sidewalks were
necessary for ascent. Two blocks the hill rose thus, encompassed by
disconsolate and wretched little houses, with alleys plunging down from
the street into the purlieus of the quarter; then it ran nearly level to
the foot of the hill. The track there was up steps and across hazardous
platforms, clambering up and up to a steep path gullied by the winter
rains, and at last, by a stiff climb, to the summit of the hill.
From here one could see almost the whole peninsula, the town falling
away in waves of hill and valley to the west. The bay lay beneath him,
the docks flat and square, as if drawn on a map, red-funneled steamers
lying alongside. In the fairway, vessels rode at anchor, lighted by the
moon. The top of the hill was commanded by a huge, castellated,
barn-like white structure which had once been used as a pleasure
pavilion, but was now deserted, save by a rascally herd of tramps. At a
near view its ruined, deserted grandeur showed unkempt and dingy. By
its side, a city park, crowning the crest, scantily cultured and
improved, indicated the first rude beginning of formal arrangement.
Moldering, displaced concrete walls and seats showed what had been done
and neglected.
He skirted the eastern slope of the hill, went up and down one-sided
streets, streets that dipped and slid longitudinally, streets tilted
transversely, keeping along a path at the top till he came to the cliff.
Here was the prime scandal of the town, naked in all its horror. The
quarrymen had, with their blasting, robbed the hill inch by inch, foot
by foot and acre by acre. Already a whole city block had disappeared,
caving gradually away to tumble to the talus of gravel at the foot of
the steep slope. For years, the neighborhood had been terrorized by
this irresistible, ever-approaching fate. The edge of the precipice
drew nearer and nearer the houses, bit off a corner of the garden here,
ate away a piece of fence there, till the danger-line approached the
habitations themselves. Nor did it stop there; it crept below the
floors, it sapped the foundations till the house had to be abandoned.
Then with a crash, some afternoon, the whole structure would fall into
the hollow. House after house had disappeared, family after family had
been ruined. The crime was rank and outrageous, but it had not been
stopped.
As Granthope walked, he saw bits of such deserted residences. Here a
flight of stone steps on the verge of the height, there fences running
giddily off into the air or drain-pipes, broken, sticking over the edge.
The hazardous margin was now fenced off--at any moment a huge mass might
slip away and slide thundering below. At the foot of the cliff stood
the lead-colored building housing the stone-crusher, whose insatiate
appetite had caused this sacrifice of property. It was ready to feed
again on the morrow.
He walked to the edge and looked down a sharp incline, a few rods away
from the most dangerous part of the cliff. He was outside the fence,
now, with nothing between him and the slope. As he stood there, a dog
barked suddenly behind him. He turned--his foot slipped upon a stone,
twisted under him, and he fell outward. He clutched at the loose dirt,
but could not save himself and rolled over and over down the slope.
Forty feet down his head struck a boulder and he lost consciousness.
He came to himself with a blinding, splitting pain in his head; his body
was stiff and cold in the night air. He lay half-way down the slope,
his hands and face were scratched and bleeding, his clothes were torn.
He was motionless for some time, endeavoring to collect his senses,
wondering vaguely what to do. Then he stirred feebly, tried his limbs to
see what damage had been done and found he had broken no bones. His
ankle, however, was badly strained, and it ached severely. As he sank
back again, far down the hill towards the crusher building, a voice came
up to him:
"Francis! Francis!"
It penetrated his consciousness slowly. Still a little dazed, he rolled
over and looked down to the deserted street below. He tried to rise and
his ankle crumpled under him. He answered as loud as he could cry, then
lay there watching.
Sansome Street lay bare in the moonlight. On the near side the hill
sloped up to him from the rock crusher. On the other side was a row of
gaunt buildings--a pickle factory, a fruit-canning works, and so on, to
the dock. An electric car flashed by and, as it passed, he saw a woman
moving to and fro at the foot of the talus.
He sat up as well as he could on the slope and again shouted down to
her. She stopped instantly. Then, waving her hand, she started to
scramble up the slippery gravel of the hill.
As she ascended, she had to zigzag this way and that to avoid sliding
back. Part of the time, she was forced to go almost on hands and knees.
The moon was behind her, throwing her face into shadow. She climbed
steadily without calling to him again. When she was a few yards away,
he cried to her:
"Miss Payson! Is that you?"
"Yes! Don't try to move, I'm coming."
She reached him at last and knelt before him anxiously. Her tawny,
silken hair was loosened under her hat and streamed down into her eyes.
She had on a red cloth opera cloak with an ermine collar; this was
partly open, showing, underneath, a white silk evening dress cut low in
the neck. Her hands were covered with white suede gloves to the
elbow--they were grimy and torn into ribbons. Her white skirt, too, was
ripped and soiled. She put her hand to her hair and tossed it back,
then took his hands in hers.
"Are you hurt?" she asked anxiously.
"Not much. I believe I was stunned. I have no idea how long I've been
here. What time is it?"
"It is almost eleven. Oh, I'm so glad I found you! I'm going to help
you down." She stooped lower to assist him.
"But I don't understand," he said in astonishment. "How in the world did
you happen to come? What does it all mean?" His bewilderment was comic
enough to draw forth her flashing smile.
"We'll talk about that afterwards. We must get down this hill first.
Oh, I hope there are no bones broken."
"Oh, no, I'm all right," he insisted, "but it's like a dream! Let me
think--I was up on Telegraph Hill, and I slipped and fell over--then I
must have been unconscious until you came.--How did you happen to come?
I don't understand. It's so mysterious."
"You must get up now. See if you can walk." She gently urged him.
"I'll explain it all when you're safe down there where we can get help."
With her assistance he raised himself slowly, but the pain in his ankle
was too great for him to support his own weight. He dropped limply down
again and smiled up at her.
"I think I might make it if I had a crutch of some kind--any stick would
do."
"Wait, I'll see if I can find one."
She left him, to go down, slipping dangerously at times, using her hands
to save herself. Part-way down she found an old broom--the straw was
worn to a mere stub, and this she brought back.
With its aid and that of her steady arm, he hobbled down foot by foot.
He slid and fell with a suppressed groan more than once, but she was
always ready to lift him and support his weight in the steeper descents.
The lower part of the hill fanned out to a more gradual slope, where it
was easier going. They reached the sidewalk at last and he sat down
upon a large rock almost exhausted.
Just then an electric car came humming down Sansome Street. In an
instant she was out on the track signaling for it to stop.
"If you pass a cab or a policeman, please send them down here!" she
commanded. "This gentleman has met with an accident and we must have
help to take him home."
The conductor nodded, staring at her, as she stood in her disheveled
finery, splendidly bold in the moonlight, like a dismounted Valkyr. The
car plowed on and left them. Calmly she stripped off her slashed gloves
and repaired the disorder of her hair. A long double necklace of pearls
caught the moonlight, and in the front breadth of her gown, a rent
showed a pale blue silken skirt beneath. Granthope, bedraggled and
smeared with blood and dust, was as grotesque a figure. The humor of the
picture struck them at once, and they burst into laughter.
Then, "How did you know?" he said.
She became serious immediately. "It was very strange. I was at a
reception with Mr. Cayley. I happened to be sitting on a couch by
myself, when--I don't know how to describe the sensation--but I saw you,
or felt you, lying somewhere, on your back. I was so frightened I
didn't know what to do. I knew something had happened, yet I didn't
know where to find you. I gave it up and tried to forget about it, but
I couldn't--it was like a steady pain--then I knew I had to come. It
seemed so foolish and vague that I didn't want to ask Mr. Cayley to go
on such a wild-goose chase with me. Father understands me better and if
he'd been there I would have brought him along. So I slipped out alone,
put on my things and took a car down-town. I seemed to know by instinct
where to get off--you should have seen the way the conductors stared at
me!--and I turned right down this way, trusting to my intuitions. I
seemed to be led directly to the foot of the cliff here where I first
called you."
"Yes, you called 'Francis,' didn't you?" he said, looking up at her in
wonder.
"Did I? I don't know what I said--if I did it was as instinctively done
as all the rest. We'll have to go into business together." Her laugh
was nervous and excited.
He frowned. "Miss Payson, I don't know how to thank you--it was a
splendid thing to do."
"Oh, it has been a real adventure--almost my first. But it's not over
yet. I must take you home now. What a sight I am! You, too! Wait--let
me clean you off a little."
She stooped over him and, with a lace handkerchief, lightly brushed his
face free of the dust, wiped the blood away, then, with gentle fingers,
smoothed his black hair. Both trembled slightly at the contact. She
stopped, embarrassed at her own boldness, then stood more constrained
and self-conscious, till the rattling wheels of a carriage were heard.
A hack came clattering up over the cobble-stones and drew up at the
curb. The driver jumped down from his seat.
There were a few words of explanation and direction, then the man and
Clytie, one on either side, helped Granthope into the vehicle. She
followed and the cab drove off up-town. For a few moments the two sat
in silence, side by side. An electric lamp illuminated her face for an
instant as the carriage whirled past a corner. Her eyes were shining,
her lips half open, as she looked at him.
The sight of her, and the excitement of her romantic intervention, made
him forget his pain. He felt her spell again, and now with this
appearance how much more strongly! There was no denying her magic after
such a bewildering manifestation. The event had, also, brought her
humanly more near to him--he had felt the strong touch of her hand, her
breath on his face--the very disorder of her attire seemed to increase
their intimacy. He leaned back to enjoy the full flavor of her charm.
He was suddenly aroused by her placid, even voice:
"Mr. Granthope, there's one thing you didn't tell me the other day, when
you described that scene at Madam Grant's."
He caught the name with surprise, remembering that he had never spoken
it to her. In her mention of it he felt a vague alarm.
"What?" He heard his voice betray him.
"That there was a little boy with her, that day." Clytie turned to him,
and for the first time he felt a sudden fear that she would find him
out.
"Was there a little boy there? How do you know?"
She kept looking at him, and away, as she spoke. In the drifting of her
glances, however, her eyes seemed to seek his continuously, rather than
continually to escape. "Quite by accident--never mind now. But this is
what is most strange of all--I didn't tell you, before--while I was
there, that time, so many years ago--you know what strange fancies
children have--you know how, if one is at all sensitive to psychic
influence, how much stronger and how natural it seems when one is
young--well, all the while, I seemed to feel there was some one else
there--some one I couldn't see!"
She was too much for him, with such intuition. His one hope was, now,
that she would not plumb the whole depth of his deceit. He managed his
expression, drawing back into the shadow.
"Did you know who it was, there?"
"No--only that I was drawn secretly to some one who was there, near me,
out of sight. Of course, I've forgotten much of the impression, but
now, as I remember it, it almost seems to me as if this little
boy--whoever he was--must be related to me in some vague way--as if we
had something in common. I wish I could find out about it. You know
better the rationale of these things--they come to me only in flashes of
intuition, suddenly, when I least expect them."
He sought desperately to divert her from the subject, summoning to his
aid the tricks experience had taught him. First to his hand came the
ruse of personality.
"You called me 'Francis' before--that was strange, for few people call
me that or Frank nowadays--only one or two who have known me a long
time."
"Ah, I didn't know what I was saying. It was strange, wasn't it? But
you won't accuse me of coquetry at such a time, will you? You were in
danger--I thought only of that."
"Oh, I don't mind," he said playfully.
"Nor do I."
"You'll call me Francis?"