THE BEGINNING OF MYSTERY.
An unusual number of patients were gathered around some object of
interest in the men's ward, which ordinarily was well-nigh deserted
in the middle of the day. As John drew near the group, but one voice
was distinguishable and that was speaking as follows:
"There was a man out in Lenawee had a bunch on his neck like that,
only it was on the left side instead of the right. He'd been here,
and he'd been to one of these traveling doctors that tucks his
advertisements and his pictures in the papers. Get help? Of course he
didn't get any help. Then, after he'd tried everything else, I sold
him a bottle of panacea. I told him to put it on three days and then
leave it off three days. The first three days the bunch got soft. The
next three days it commenced to go away. When he put on the medicine,
it softened it up, but it wouldn't start to go away until he quit
putting it on. Just as soon as he quit, it would go down a little,
and after three days it would get hard again. There was something
strange about that. He kept on that way a month, and his neck was
cured, and it never bothered him again. The next time I saw him he
was practicing lifting things with his teeth. He had a leather
fastened to a barrel of cider, and he'd churn the barrel up and down.
He talked of practicing up to go with a show. I didn't hear, though,
whether he did or not."
"I don't give a continental for the strengthening part," said the New
Yorker. "All I care about is to take the bunch off."
"That's what this will do," said Panicky, for it was indeed he.
"Helloa!" he exclaimed, as he espied John moving away on his
crutches. "I'd like to see you a minute. Will you wait till I get
through talking with this man?"
"Yes," responded John, who had intended to slip from the hospital
unobserved.
"I'll be through here directly," said Panicky, "now, if this don't
give perfect satisfaction, you can bring it back."
"You seem to be in very bad shape," observed Panicky, to a man who
was blowing his nose.
"Yes," answered the patient, "I'm in bad shape. I've got the catarrh,
and I guess I always will have it."
"Oh no, you won't," answered Panicky, "not if you doctor it right.
Three weeks is all I ask to cure that in."
"Three weeks," echoed the sufferer, "you're wild. You're just talking
to sell."
"I'll tell you why I think so," said Panicky, "and after I've
explained it, you'll think as I do. The panacea reduces unnatural
growths. That is what it is designed expressly for. Now, I wouldn't
advise that man with the scrofula to use it, for it wouldn't help him
a bit. This is on the same principle as taking off a swelling, you
see, bringing the blood-vessels down to their normal size and
destroying inflammation and clearing the nasal passages."
"Oh, I don't hardly think it would help me," said the man with the
catarrh.
"I've cured eleven cases of catarrh this summer," assured Panicky.
"Now, I'll tell you what I'll do. If you get sick of your bargain,
I'll take the medicine back any time."
"That's fair enough," said the patient after a sneeze. "I'll take a
bottle, but I don't have much hope that it will help me."
"Come along this way," said Panicky, grabbing his satchels and
hurrying to John. "I see a doctor coming," he explained as they left
the hospital. "If he should see me in there and know what I was
doing, he wouldn't like it. These doctors act as though nobody knew
any medicine but themselves. They caught me in there once, and they
made an awful fuss. Now, I come down here on purpose after you, I
thought I might as well sell a little medicine while I was here."
"What do you want of me?" asked John, instantly thinking of his
experience at Break o' Day.
"I can't explain it," said Panicky. "I was sent by a certain person
to bring you if you'd come, and to pay all your expenses."
"Who is the person?" asked John.
"That I can't tell you," said the peddler. "All I can say is, that it
is something of great importance to you, and that, if I was in your
place, I wouldn't miss it for money."
"I will go," said John, as his mind reverted to the elder Wrengell.
"Then get what you've got to get, and let's be out of this," said
Panicky.
John went back into the hospital and packed a few articles of
clothing in a bundle, which he put inside the stand by his bed. The
letter to Manie he placed in his pocket.
"You ain't going away are you. Johnny?" asked Wrengell.
"Yes," answered John, "I think I shall."
"Where are you thinking of going?"
"I do not know," answered John.
"I don't believe I'd go," advised Wrengell with the solemnity of a
prophet.
John, unheeding the remonstrance, hobbled toward the door.
"Johnny," said Wrengell, following after him, "there's something I
want to tell you. There's a fortune in England for the Wrengells.
Now, you've got the education, and you can look it up. You're the
hope of the family. I'll see you again and tell you all I know about
it. You'll look it up, won't you?"
"Perhaps," said John.
"If you get a chance, go and see Dan," said Wrengell as they were
passing through the long hall. "Poor fellow, his freedom was swore
away. As likely a boy as ever lived."
"Don't waste much time," said Panicky, when the twain had slowly
emerged from the hospital. "Time is precious."
"Johnny!" exclaimed Wrengell, as if a valuable idea had suddenly
seized him. "I'll go with you. I've become attached to you, and I'm
certain you have to me. My eyes are about well, any way."
"I do not think it advisable for you to go," said John.
"I can't see any hurt in it," said Wrengell. "It's been years since
I've seen you."
"We don't want you," said Panicky bluntly. "A man of any sense won't
urge his company after it's declined."
"Good-bye, Johnny," said Wrengell, with an evil look at the peddler,
which intensified John's dislike of him. "Don't forget your uncle."
John and Panicky had gone but a short distance when they were stopped
by a call from behind; and turning, they beheld the man from New York
and the victim of catarrh walking hurriedly toward them.
"They won't let us keep these bottles," said the catarrhal sufferer,
who always spoke with a mournful intonation.
"How can they help themselves?" said Panicky. "This is a free
country. Buy what you want and tell other folks it's none of their
business."
"But," explained the patient, "they won't give me any medicine if I
take this."
"You don't want any of their medicine," said Panicky vehemently.
"They can't help you."
"You'll have to take this back as you said you would," firmly
declared the New Yorker. "You can't dodge that."
"I don't want to dodge it," replied Panicky. "I always keep my
agreement about everything."
"And I'll return mine, too," said the man with the catarrh.
"I hope you'll recover speedily, gentlemen," remarked the peddler,
putting the bottles into his pocket and starting off with his
satchels.
"Hold on there, you low-lived smouse," cried the indignant New
Yorker, "where's my money?"
"I don't keep any account of your finances," said Panicky, again
halting. "What money do you mean?"
"Now, this isn't according to the agreement," said the catarrhal
victim in the manner when he might have employed to pronounce a
funeral oration. "You said we could return the medicine when we
wanted to."
"And I kept my agreement," responded the vendor of medicine. "You
returned them, and I took them back like a man."
"It don't seem to me as though that's hardly right," said the man
with the catarrh in an aggrieved tone.
For a moment the New Yorker was speechless. Then the veins stood out
alongside the bunch on his neck and he cried, "Oh, you whelp. If you
wasn't right here in the city, I'd smash you fine."
"We expected you would refund the money," said the catarrhal
sufferer.
"Now, that would be unreasonable," returned Panicky, "unless there
was such an understanding. I said I would take them back, and that's
what I've done. I wouldn't wonder if you'd better keep your medicine.
It may save your lives," he added, placing the bottles on the
side-walk and leaving his dissatisfied customers.
There was a clink of broken glass. The New Yorker had dyed the
paving-stones with Great American Panacea.
"What a waste," remarked Panicky to John. "That might have preserved
a human life that just as like as not will be lost now. How lame that
horse is. I wonder what is the matter with him?"
Panicky joined John immediately after his repulse by the teamster.
His strides were so rapid that his crippled companion was soon left
in the rear. "Can't you let out a notch or two?" he said. "We ought
to be getting around."
"We could get along faster if we took a more even pace," returned
John. "We walk five minutes and stop fifty."
"That can't be helped," said Panicky. "I have got my work to do for
the good of my race, and it must be done. Sun, calm, wind, rain, snow
or hail, I must travel and give help to the afflicted. When we stop
I'll let you have a bottle of the panacea for your foot. I don't like
to see a man limp that way."
"Where are you going to take me?" asked John. "How can you expect me
to follow you around when you will not give me the least satisfaction
as to what you want of me?"
"Do just as you like about coming," said Panicky. "All I've got to
say to you is, if I was in your place, I wouldn't stay away for all
the money there is in Ann Arbor. You'll know when you get there.
Don't ask me any more questions unless it's fun for you, because I
won't answer them."
"It is a very hard thing which you ask," said John, "but I will do as
you say. I have a letter to mail at the post-office."
"Come down to the Central depot," said Panicky, handing John a
dollar. "Here's something to pay for your ride. I'll go down there
now, for I've got business."
After mailing the letter to Manie, John rode to the depot in a hack.
The untiring peddler was talking earnestly to a laboring man, who
wore a woolen shirt traversed horizontally by alternate stripes of
red and squares of red and gray. He sought his customers, John
noticed, among the farming and laboring classes, rather than among
the rich and aristocratic. He lingered a moment after the arrival of
the train, trying to sell a bottle of the panacea to a man who had a
cow which had the garget. When he and John were on their way to the
westward, he seized every chance to prosecute his business. His
attempts to dispose of his wares were made in the absence of the
conductor. There was no disease for which he had not a specific, and
of which he had not seen and cured a counterpart, differing from it
only in location or in being more serious.
John's interest in the route was less intense than when he was going
to Ann Arbor. At Barton Junction Manie's friend, Miss Holmes, entered
the car in which John was seated. She looked curiously at him, but
probably out of consideration for him, did not speak.
Panicky was provokingly reticent to John and voluble to others while
they were waiting at Jackson. He would answer no questions, but
finally ordered that his charge, who he evidently thought was a
necessary encumbrance, should accompany him to the Jackson, Lansing
and Saginaw depot.
From this place to the journey's end John hardly looked out of his
car window.
"Come on, young man," said Panicky, as they stopped at Lansing.
The surroundings of the depot were far from pleasing. Before it was a
willow swamp, which long lumber piles and a manufactory made of
brick, which a high, smoke-blackened chimney, did not hide. The
richest part of the city, whose roofs and steeples alone were
visible, lay to the westward.
Small groups of citizens stood in front of the passenger-house. A
pair of trucks with "Phoenix Mills" labeled on the box was passing
alongside the railroad track through a cut. From a car on a
side-track a good-natured looking man was loading stove-wood into a
wagon with a high box, on which was inscribed the name of the
commodity which it was designed to carry. A wheeze from the old horse
by which the wagon was drawn instantly brought Panicky to the spot.
"How do you do," said the peddler. "Bad cough that horse has."
"Yes," answered the teamster, without stopping his work an instant.
"He's got the heaves."
"I know what will fix that in a hurry," said Panicky. "Cobb's
Concentrated Carbolic Cough Killer will kill any cough that a horse
ever had."
"I don't hardly think I'll buy to-day," said the teamster, as if he
disliked to wound the feelings of the patent medicine man.
"If you use it once, you'll never be without it," said the peddler.
"Coughs, wheezing, running at the nose, colds, animal influenza,
distemper, heaves, none of them can stand before the cough killer."
"It seems to me my brother got some of that for his boss," said the
teamster, still throwing the wood into the wagon.
"Then you've found out it's a grand thing," said Panicky. "Didn't it
kill the cough?"
"Well, no, not exactly," returned the teamster, straightening up.
"Killed the boss, though."
"Very lamentable, very," remarked Panicky, as he grabbed his satchels
and started southward along the railroad track, followed by John. He
had gone but a few rods when he riveted his gaze on a robust
appearing fellow who was going toward the main part of the city.
"Must we stop again?" asked John. "Take me to my destination and then
sell as much medicine as you like."
"Young man," replied the peddler severely, "you are too
narrow-minded. You think the world was made for you and your petty
concerns. You must broaden out and get sympathy for humanity."
The track ran through a piece of high ground which descended to the
west. The hillside at the east, covered with scraggy brush, stood out
in bold relief; but the view at the right was limited, because of its
swift descent to the hidden river and the low elevation of the track.
Scattered along on the small rises of ground which overlooked the
stream, were diminutive cottages, of which a few were painted. Before
one of these little buildings a smooth-faced old man wearing a Scotch
cap was bent low, cutting stove-wood with a dull buck-saw.
"That's hard business," remarked Panicky.
"There ain't nothin' easy about it," said the wood-sawyer, suspending
his work.
"Don't you sometimes get tired?"
"Yes, real. Sometimes I'm purty near played. I used to be so I could
stand it tol'able well, but late years I ain't so full o' besum."
"I noticed that before I got anywhere near you."
"You talk as if you knowed!" exclaimed the old man in astonishment.
"I do. You can't fool me much about a man. Don't your back ache
some?"
"Yes, yes," said the wood-sawyer, his wonder increasing.
"And when you stoop over, it's a good deal worse; and if you stoop
over long, you can't stand it and have to straighten up, and then
it'll get better for a while. But in the morning, the day after
you've worked hard, it's worse than it is any other time."
"No," answered the peddler, "I know more about it than a doctor."
"Do you think it's anything particular?"
"Yes, it's deficient vigor in the back. Muscles lax, spinal column
imperfectly sustained.' It will keep getting worse and worse until it
finally downs you."
"Danged if I ain't a gittin' worried," said the old man, letting go
of his buck-saw. "Don't you s'pose I'll ever cure it?"
"It ain't at all likely," returned Panicky. "You'll probably be a
cripple and linger along for some years. But you mustn't be
discouraged. You ought to be ready to die when your time comes."
"I know I orto be ready. But the lingerin', I don't like that 'ere.
What 'ud you do for this back bizness if it was on you?"
"I should cure it, if it was on me."
"I thought you said there wa'n't no cure for it."
"Oh, no, I thought you'd be apt to let it run until there wasn't any
hope for you."
"What 'ud you take for it, anyhow?"
"I should take Great American Panacea and cure it in three weeks."
"Where could a feller git a bottle o' that 'ere stuff?"
"I've got a bottle I'll sell you for a dollar if you want it."
"Oh, you're a sellin' of it," exclaimed the old man, a light suddenly
breaking in on his dull understanding, "I don't believe I want none.
Times is hard with me."
"You better take a bottle. Mister," urged Panicky.
"You'll never regret it. I knew a man out in Oakland County----"
"I don't want none," said the old man with decision.
"I've been thinking," said Panicky, "if Professor Domnoroff's Elixir
of Mercy wouldn't be the thing for you."
"What kind o' stuff is that?" inquired the old man.
"Grand." answered Panicky, opening a satchel and drawing out a thin
bottle of colorless liquid. "It's Spanish medicine, got up by the
smartest man there is in all Spain. There you see the directions are
in Spanish and English, too."
"I don't want none on it," said the old man.
"Just as like as not, the trouble is in your kidneys," remarked
Panicky. "Your complexion looks like it. For kidney disorders there
never was anything could hold a candle to Wakefield's Honey of
Mullein and Sage."
"I ain't a-hankerin' to take no mullein nor sage," said the old man.
"My mother she give me sage tea when I was a little chap, till I got
clean degusted with it. I smoked mullein, tryin' to give up tobaccer,
an' I ain't crazy for mullein no more. I won't buy no medicine
to-day."
"I know what will cure you," exclaimed the peddler. "You need a
bottle of Great Wangamyika Discovery."
"Now, I wouldn't wonder an there was suthin' in that," said the old
man, impressed by the peculiar orthography of the name.
"It's a great thing," said Panicky, "and no mistake. There was an
African chief, he was a great fellow to fight, and he'd always fight
with a club. Once, when he was having a battle with another tribe, he
got a lick in the back that about used him up. He couldn't run and he
couldn't swing his war-club. That was what bothered him the worst.
Every morning he'd get up and see if he couldn't fetch the war-club
around, but it wasn't any use. His enemies commenced to press him on
every side, and as he couldn't fight, of course his men got whipped.
This kept up quite a while, and at last he didn't have much of any
territory left. He said if he could only get out himself and fight he
could drive them back in short order. He got all the big medicine men
in his kingdom to prescribe for him, but his back grew worse, instead
of better. By and by he lost his patience entirely, and he said if
they didn't relieve him inside of six months, off would go their
heads.
"That set 'em to thinking. They come together and consulted. The
first thing they done was to take some slaves and lame 'em, as near
as they could like the chief. One of 'em practiced up till he could
hit the right kind of a wallop every time. The slaves they'd squirm
around and yell, but nobody would pay any attention to 'em. The
medicine men they fussed and fussed till they got discouraged. They'd
think a patient was on the gain, when he'd up and die. They'd try
five kinds of medicine, and six, and eight, and twelve. They'd try
half of one kind and a twentieth of the rest, and a tenth of three or
four and different parts of a lot of others.
"About two weeks before the time was up, one of the slaves got well.
They fixed the chief up a few doses of the same stuff, and he was
swinging his war-club as well as he ever did. He got so he could
throw it in a curve around one of his men and hit an enemy. His back
grew so stout that he didn't like a light club any more. He had a
heavy one made that nobody else could fetch around in any kind of
shape. There never was another such a fellow to shake a war-club in
Africa. A week after he was cured he went out against the
Maleovajaws, beat 'em and took their king prisoner. He let the
medicine men practice up on the prisoners, hitting 'em in the back
and curing 'em. He give 'em directions that they should never let
anybody know the secret of the medicine. One of 'em did, though, told
a missionary when he was dying. The missionary thought folks in this
country ought to have it. He went all over Africa to gather the
herbs, and sent 'em here. He named it Great Wangamyika discovery."
"This 'ere Great Wanagam cured the chief purty quick, did it?"
inquired the old man.
"Yes," answered Panicky, "very quick. There seems to be something
about it that's specially good for the back. Affinity they call it
for the spinal cord and the vertebrae."
"I'll have a bottle if it busts me," said the old man. "Hand it
over."
Panicky instructed his customer how to use the medicine. He must rub
it in thoroughly, half of the time stroking downward and half
crosswise.
John and his companion soon came in sight of the river; and after
crossing the railroad bridge, turned to the right and followed the
stream, leaving it, however, when they had reached the next street
which led to the left. The houses were here better, and the view in
general was correspondingly improved.
"How much farther have we to go?" asked John.
"We're about there now," said Panicky, "that house right ahead."
It was a noble-looking structure which had been indicated by the
peddler. Whether the walls were of stone or of brick, John, who knew
little of architecture, could not determine. An upright and a wing,
on a rise of ground too gradual and low to be called a hill, it was,
saving its preponderance of length,
"A tower of strength that stood four square.
To all the winds that blew."
One of the most efficient aids in giving it an aspect of majesty was
its simplicity. The ornaments which decorate most costly buildings
were poorly represented in this edifice. In front of it were
evergreens, small and far apart. A path and a drive ran from the
street through the yard, the drive-winding carelessly up, as if its
course had been fixed by unassisted and unrestrained circumstance. As
they opened the gate before the path, a man came out into the porch,
stood a brief space of time, and answered some questions which were
addressed to him from within. In the twilight, which was fast
settling, John could see nothing of him but the outline of his form.
"I'm going back," said Panicky hurriedly. "You can find your way. Go
up there and knock."
The man in the porch walked swiftly out to meet John. When he left
the shadow of the house, his identity was no longer doubtful; he was
Durgenson.
"Helloa, Wrengell," he said. "So you've come here, have you?"
"Did you not send for me?" asked John.
"Certainly." responded Durgenson. "But I'm awful busy just now. You
go to number one hundred and nine ---- Street. Tell the man you want
to stay all night. I'll be up there in from one to three hours. Don't
go out in the street, because I'm in a hurry and want to find you
there when I come. I mean business. I'll make your fortune."
"Is that all you want of me," asked John in disappointment, "to buy
cattle and horses? I thought you had found something which would give
me respectability."
"So I have," said Durgenson. "So I have. I'll satisfy you on that
point to-night. I can't explain now. I'm in a great hurry."
A woman rushed from the porch and interrupted John in his departure.
"Stop," she cried. "I want to see you." "Maybe you'd better go in,"
said Durgenson.
The woman led John through a hall, through another room and into a
smaller apartment, in which she left him.
"Stay here a moment," she said, locking the door as she went.
On ordinary occasions John would have been quick to rebel against a
curtailment of his liberty, but he was now so anxious to hear the
expected revelation that he submitted with good grace.
"This way," said the woman, again peering into the room.
John, with his expectations aroused to the highest pitch, went up a
flight of stairs and into a small room as his guide indicated.
"Wait here until I call for you," said the woman, turning the key in
the lock.
The house was still, and the room, lighted only by one window, was
comparatively dark. As time passed curiosity gave place to
loneliness, and loneliness to unrest.
John's dissatisfaction with his quarters increased. Mrs. Boyle's
neglected warning to avoid Durgenson, coupled with the suspicious
conduct of the woman who had conducted him to the chamber,
intensified his sense of insecurity.
While he was deliberating whether to cry out and demand release, or
to attempt an escape from the window, there came from below a voice,
which, low but resonant, filled him with a singular awe.
"Has the Suebian come?"