"Gettin" "toney" lately!" responded the intruder with a shrug, piling the packages up neatly in one corner and taking no heed of her expressed wish concerning them.
There was no response to this, and he resumed in a light and airy tone: "Times has changed, Mrs. ----; eh? What _was_ it at Memphis and Helena, anyhow?"
This reference to the less aristocratic, though quite as respectable, vocation of a female camp-follower, though it caused the woman to change color rapidly, only brought from her the remark, "I don"t know what you mean, sir! I"ll get even with whoever is responsible for this outrage"--here she glared around upon the company as if to ascertain whether any one present was guilty--"if it costs me a thousand dollars!"
The new-comer only smiled sarcastically at this and checked off his packages, concluding the operation by carefully counting two dozen red herrings, whose aroma was sufficient to announce their presence if he had not exhibited them at all; while members of the company looked about them and at each other as if for some explanation of the strange proceeding.
Finally, Mrs. Winslow, with a mighty effort to restrain herself, advanced and asked the young man if he would not please give her the name of the person to whom she was indebted for the articles.
He arose, and smiling blandly, remarked, "You didn"t used to be so particular about presents and such things!" Then he added with a meaning leer: "At Helena and St. Louis, ye know, old girl!"
"Old girl!" the ladies all screamed. "Why what _does_ this mean, Mrs.
Winslow?"
"Nothing, nothing!" she replied hastily; and then she hurried the too talkative young fellow away, and came back into the room with a show of gayety. But it broke up the little party, and soon after the ladies, with frigid excuses about not having very much time, and the gentlemen, with peculiar glances out of the corners of their eyes towards the woman who had been so familiarly termed an "old girl," took their departure, leaving Bristol, Fox, Mrs. Winslow and the melancholy pile of packages surmounted by aromatic red herrings in a state of solemn, moody silence.
Bristol was first to break the stillness, which he did by asking rather testily:
"You think Fox and I have had something to do with this, don"t you?"
She looked at him a moment as if she would read his innermost thoughts, and replied: "No, I don"t! It comes from some of those strumpets of mediums, and I would give a good deal--a good deal, mind you, Bristol!--to know who it was. I"d--I"d----"
"What would you do?" asked Fox, putting her on her mettle for a savage answer.
"I would either burn them out, poison them, push them over the falls, or lie in wait for them and shoot them!"
Mrs. Winslow said this with as much sincerity and coolness as if giving an estimate on any ordinary business transaction, and evidently meant it.
"Oh, you wouldn"t kill anybody, Winslow," replied Fox airily.
"Wouldn"t I, though, Mr. Fox?" she rejoined with the old glitter in her eyes and paleness upon her upper lip that had at an earlier period worried the Rev. Mr. Bland; "wouldn"t I? If you had fifty thousand dollars in your trunk, I would kill you, appropriate the money, cut you up and pack you in the trunk and ship you to the South--or some other hot climate by the next express!"
She was just as earnest about the remark as she would have been in carrying out the act; and after Fox had congratulated himself, both aloud cheerfully and in his own mind very thankfully, that neither his trunk, or for that matter his imagination, contained any such gorgeous sum, he went to his own room for the night, leaving the very excited Mrs. Winslow and the very calm Mr. Bristol to contemplate the groceries and each other.
After a few minutes" brown study she suddenly turned to her companion with: "Bristol, you and I are pretty good friends, aren"t we?"
"Certainly," he replied.
"And haven"t I always treated you pretty well?"
"Yes; with one exception."
"What is that?"
"The sleep-walking you did in my room."
"Oh, that"s nothing, Bristol. Never happened but once, and won"t occur again. Otherwise I have treated you pretty well, haven"t I?"
Bristol felt compelled to confess that she had.
"Well, then," she continued wheedlingly, "will you do me a favor?"
"What is it?"
"I want you to take a walk with me."
"Pretty late, Winslow, pretty late; nearly ten o"clock," replied the detective, looking at his watch.
"The later the better," she replied earnestly. "I want to use those herrings."
"Use those herrings! Why, there are at least two dozen. How on earth will you use them all?"
"Some of these humbug mediums," replied Mrs. Winslow in a style of expression that showed her to be very familiar with the Spiritualists, "or old Lyon himself, have sent me these things. I"m going to adorn the door k.n.o.b of every one of their places with a string of herrings. In that way I"ll hit the right one sure. Come, won"t you go?"
Bristol saw that the woman would go anyhow, and fearing that she might get into some trouble that would cause her arrest and thus expose him and Bristol to public notice, which a capable detective will always avoid, consented to accompany the woman, which so pleased her that she immediately sent out for brandy, and not only imbibed an inordinate amount of it herself, but also pressed it upon Bristol unsparingly.
Her mind seemed filled with the idea that Lyon had become the "affinity"
of nearly every female medium of prominence in the city in order to further his designs against her; and to remind them that they were watched, she had Bristol write "Lyon-La Motte," "Lyon-Roberts," "Lyon- ----," etc., upon about a half-dozen couples of herrings, and upon all the rest, save those intended for the Misses Grim, which were labelled "Tabitha, Amanda, and Hannah," she had written the names of the different ladies who, in her imagination, had supplanted her, and tied all the herrings so labelled together with one very dilapidated herring marked "Lyon." It is needless to say that the latter bundle of sarcasm was intended for the ornamentation of Mr. Lyon"s residence.
Bristol felt like a very bad thief, and Mrs. Winslow acted like a very foolish one. The moment they gained the street she began a series of absurd performances that well-nigh distracted Bristol and greatly increased the danger of police surveillance. She laughed hysterically, chuckled, and expressed her delight in a noisy effort to repress it, until the tears would roll down her face. Occasionally they would meet or pa.s.s parties who knew her, who would say to companions, in the tone and manner with which they would have probably spoken of other sensations, "There"s the Winslow!" when she would shrink and shudder up to Bristol"s side, begging for the shelter and protection of his capacious cloak. Again, imagining she saw somebody following them, or was sure that loungers lingering in deserted doorways or at the entrance to dark hallways or alleys were detectives on their trail, she would give the patient Bristol such nudges as nearly took his breath away, and, at his lively protest, would whimper and tremble like a querulous child.
Their first work was to be done on State Street, near Main, and when they had arrived at a certain hallway, Mrs. Winslow insisted that Bristol should accompany her to the rooms which she desired to decorate.
This he flatly refused to do, when she began moaning something about want of spirit, and then, with a sudden gathering of the admirable quality for her own use, stole quietly up stairs and in a moment after came plunging down, as if the inmates of the entire block had turned out to give her chase. But this was not the case, and the expedition progressed without any developments of note, Mrs. La Motte, Miss Susie Roberts, and the Misses Grim being properly remembered, until they arrived at Mr. Lyon"s residence, some little distance from the thickly settled portions of the city.
The house was one of the rambling, moss-covered buildings of ancient style and structure, and was set back from the road some distance among a score of trees quite as grand and ancient as the mansion itself; and the old pile did have a gloomy appearance to the adventurous couple that paused breathlessly before the gates.
"Bristol," said Mrs. Winslow shiveringly, "do you know that sometimes, when I see that great black pile up there, I"m glad he didn"t marry me?"
"Why?" her companion impatiently asked. He was getting cold and tired, and was in no condition to appreciate maudlin melancholy.
"Because I"m sure I"d die in the old rack-o"-bones of a place; and besides that, I"m sure there are spooks there!"
"Pooh, pooh!" sneered Bristol angrily; "go along and attend to your business, or I"ll go back and leave you!"
Thus admonished, the sentimental lady proceeded with her work.
For some reason the gate was very hard to open, and considerable time was consumed in getting into the grounds. Then it was a long walk to the house. Bristol anxiously watched the woman move slowly along the broad walk until she disappeared in the shadows which surrounded the house and the darkness of the night; and it seemed an age to him, as he stamped his feet as hard as he dare upon the stone pavement and whipped his hands about his shoulders to drive away the chilliness which he found creeping on.
He heard her footsteps first, then saw her emerge from the gloom, and finally saw her stop as if to listen. He also listened very intently, and thought he heard somebody moving about the house; and was immediately satisfied of the correctness of his hearing by noticing that Mrs. Winslow suddenly turned towards the road and made remarkably good time to the gate, which, feeling sure of trouble, he made strenuous efforts to open.
"For heaven"s sake, Bristol," she gasped, "why _don"t_ you open this gate. I"ll be eaten up with the dogs, and we"ll both be caught!"
The last clause of Mrs. Winslow"s remark roused Bristol to a vigorous exercise of his muscle. He tugged away at the gate, shook it, threw himself against it from one side, and his companion threw herself against it from the other side; but all in vain. Not a moment was to be lost. Lights were seen flashing to and fro in the great mansion, angry voices came to them, with the by nowise cheering short, gruff, savage responses of loosened bulldogs, and in a moment more the front door was pa.s.sed by two men and as many dogs that came dashing out in full pursuit.
Matters at the gate were approaching a crisis. The gate could not be opened, and Mrs. Winslow must pa.s.s it or get captured.
"Climb or die!" urged Bristol, reaching through the pickets of the gate, which was a high one, and lifting on the portly form of the excited woman.