Part 20 (1/2)
”Pooh, pooh!” snorted Tabitha and Amanda hysterically.
”Pooh, pooh! if you like; but if I find out which one of you sent that box, I'll--I'll shake every bone in her old body into a match!” shouted Mrs. Winslow, dancing up and down against the counter and working her fingers savagely.
”Match?” responded Hannah, the least ancient and most fiery of the three virgins, and who entered at this critical moment; ”match indeed! you're a match for anything villainous!” and then she too trotted behind the counter to throw the weight of her presence into the conflict.
By this time the interested customers had gathered around, and people from the street, noticing the unwonted enthusiasm awakened in the Was.h.i.+ngton Hall restaurant, were rapidly collecting upon the outside and flattening their curious noses against the intervening panes.
Mrs. Winslow could no more control herself than could the old maids, and quickened by the presence of the increasing crowd, burst into a screaming demand for the person who sent the ”dead” beet to her.
”Dead beat!--ha, ha, ha!” laughed the three sisters convulsively, at once realizing the appropriateness of the joke and excitedly enjoying it; ”dead beat, eh? we didn't do it!” ”But,” added Hannah, maliciously, ”if you do find the person as did send it, Mrs. Winslow, and will send 'em around, we'll board 'em for a month free!”
There was war, direful war, imminent; and no one could imagine what might have resulted had the conflict of tongues culminated in a conflict of hands. But to have seen the three ancient, prim, and trembling women on the one side, and the ponderous, though handsome Mrs. Winslow on the other--the old maids either with arms akimbo or with hands firmly clenched upon the counter's edge as if to compel restraint, their bodies weaving back and forth, their heads bobbing up and down, and their stray frills and curls wildly dancing as if each particular hair was in a mad ecstasy of its own; and Mrs. Winslow, upon her side of the counter, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, stamping her feet, jumping backward and forward, bringing her clenched hand down upon the counter with terrible force for a woman, and shaking it furiously at the agitated row of old maids, would be to have witnessed a marvellous improvement upon any form of the Punch and Judy show ever exhibited.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _”A marvelous improvement over any form of the Punch and Judy show ever exhibited.”--_]
Bristol saw that unless they were separated he would become implicated in a case of a.s.sault and battery, and after great effort pacified the women sufficiently to enable him to pilot his landlady out of the restaurant, through the streets and finally into her own apartments, where she pa.s.sed the remainder of the dreary day in weeping, storms of baffled rage, or protracted applications to the spirits which can be controlled, whether one is a spiritualist or not, so long as money lasts and total prohibition is not enforced.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Cast down.-- ”Trifles.”-- A charitable Offering.-- Dreariness.-- Going Crazy.-- An interrupted Seance.-- A new Form of the Devil.-- The Red-herring Expedition and its Result.-- A mad Dutchman.-- Desolation.-- An order for a Coffin.-- The sympathizing Undertaker, Mr. Boxem.
Mrs. Winslow now began to show great perturbation of spirits. In conversation with my detectives, who endeavored to cheer her up and lead her to regard these surprises as mere jokes not worth any person's notice, she constantly argued the opposite, and thus arguing, conjured up countless possibilities of harm, gradually working herself into that condition of mind where every little unusual noise or movement of any person in the building or upon the street was a signal for some querulous inquiry or complaint.
She was also very much worried concerning her suit, and went about among the Spiritualists seeking their advice and encouragement, and giving and receiving a good deal of scandal concerning the case. From one she would hear that Lyon was employing certain other mediums in his behalf, and that she had better look out for them. Another would inform her that Lyon had several other mistresses, among them a Miss Susie Roberts, and a Madame La Motte, both Spiritualists and mediums, from whom Lyon intended to prove her bad character, and whom she, in turn, vowed she would have subpnaed in her own behalf, and impeach their testimony through what she could compel them to admit of both themselves and Lyon.
At other places she learned that these persecutions were Lyon's work entirely, or rather, the work of his agents, princ.i.p.al among whom were the two ladies mentioned. And, in fact, wherever she went she heard or found something to give her uneasiness or cause her unrest.
”Yes,” she said sadly to my operatives, ”I can't stand this sort of thing much longer.”
”Oh, nonsense!” rejoined Bristol; ”you haven't been hurt, have you?”
”No; but I can't tell when I shall be. That's what I can't bear.”
”But I thought you were a woman of too great force of character to allow trifles to trouble you,” exclaimed Fox tauntingly.
”Trifles!” said she hotly; ”trifles! Is expecting every moment to be murdered, or blown up, a trifle? Is fearing that everything you taste will poison you, or everything you touch do you deadly harm, a trifle?”
”People will think you deserve to be annoyed if you show them you are annoyed,” argued Fox.
”I have long since ceased to care what people think. Sometimes I am sure I hate every human being; and I do believe the more the world hates me, the more money I make. If these things are not stopped soon, I tell you,” she continued in a tone of voice that seemed to say they could stay the annoyances if they would, ”I'll go to St Louis and attend to my cases there!”
This opened the eyes of my operatives, and they simultaneously conveyed the intimation to each other that careful working might secure some information about any St. Louis cases the woman might have which would be desirable; and in a short time, by gradually leading Mrs. Winslow on, they discovered that the brazen adventuress, according to her own story, had pending no less than seven cases in the Circuit Court at St. Louis, every one of them being suits on some trivial, trumped-up charge.
It seemed fated that Mrs. Winslow should leave Rochester, if her remaining depended upon these mysterious offerings ceasing, for while they were yet in conversation upon the subject, a colored porter called with a great basket-load of provisions, and without a word, after spreading a newspaper upon the carpet, began unloading his store.
”In heaven's name, who sent you here with those?” she entreated of the colored gentleman.
”It's all right; it's all right,” he said soothingly, and winking hard at my operatives.
”But it isn't all right; it's all wrong!” she retorted, warming.
”Guess not, missus; lemme see: Quart split peas, quart beans, one punking, jug m'la.s.ses, 'n a mackerel. Done got 'em all, sure!”