Still foiled Mr. Pinkerton perplexed over the Character of
the Adventuress Her wonderful recuperative Powers A
lively Chase Another unexpected Move The Detectives
beaten at every Point From Town to Town Mrs.
Winslow’s Shrewdness Among the Spiritualists at Terre
Haute Plotting The beautiful Belle Ruggles A wild
Night in a ramshackle old Boarding-House Blood-curdling
“Manifestations.”
Moaning and weeping for Day
Outwitted again Mr. Pinkerton makes a chance
Discovery Success.
Grey took in the situation at once,
and was equal to the emergency. He knew if the
German saw Mrs. Winslow, and thinking him an officer
who might arrest him for complicity in something wrong,
he would probably shout right out, “There she
is, now!” He was also just as sure that his
new-found Irish acquaintance, in the excess of his
friendliness, would rush right over to Fourth street
and stop the woman. So in an instant he created
a counter-attraction by calling the German a liar,
collaring him, and backing him through the line of
wagons out of sight, and as Mrs. Winslow passed farther
down Fourth street, backed him through the line of
teams in the opposite direction, while the German protested
volubly that he was telling only the truth; and just
the moment Mrs. Winslow’s form was hid by the
Planters’ House, he released the now angry expressman,
flung him a dollar for “treats,” and running
nimbly around the block, fell into a graceful walk
behind Mrs. Winslow, keeping at a judicious distance,
and following her for several hours through the dry-goods
stores, to the Butchers and Drovers’ Bank, where
she drew a portion of the amount which she had secured
from the prominent St. Louis daily as damages, and
which had remained undisturbed in that bank until
this time; into several saloons, where she boldly went,
and, in defence of the theory of women’s rights,
stood up to the counter like a man, ordering and drinking
liquor like one too; to the Four Courts, where she
at least seemed to have considerable business;
to numberless Spiritualist brothers and sisters, including,
of course, the mediums; and finally to a very elegant
private boarding-house kept by a respectable lady
named Gayno, whom the adventuress had so won with her
oily words and dashing manners, accompanied by her
large Saratoga trunk, that not only she, but a little
French gentleman named Le Compte whom Grey
had hard work to avoid, as he had followed Mrs. Winslow
at a respectful distance, and as if with a view of
ascertaining whether any other person besides himself
was following the madam had managed to
secure quarters in an aristocratic home and an aristocratic
neighborhood, for all of which the experienced female
swindler had no more idea of paying, unless compelled
to, than she had of paying her fifty-dollar hotel
bill at the Denver House.
On receipt of this information, I
directed Superintendent Bangs to proceed to Rochester
and hurry up Lyon’s attorneys in securing the
legal papers necessary to avail ourselves of the large
amount of evidence already discovered, and serve notice
upon her while she was still in sight, and before
her suspicions of being watched and followed, which
it was evident was now growing upon her, had forced
her into still more artful dodges to evade us.
It was certainly her determination
to clothe all her acts with as much mysteriousness
as possible, and in this manner work upon Lyon’s
feelings and fears until she would compel him, through
actual disgust of and shame at the long-continued
public surveillance of his affairs, to end the worrying
tension upon his mind by a compromise that would yield
her a large sum of money.
That she was able, and had the means
to make these quick moves and sudden changes, was
equally as certain, though it was a question in my
mind then, and has been to this day, how much money
she might have had at command. I know that at
times she must have had almost fabulous sums in her
possession. I was also often quite as sure that
she was absolutely penniless, when, of a sudden, she
would carry out some bold scheme that required a great
deal of money, which invariably came into requisition
from some mysterious source in the most mysterious
manner possible. Whatever might have been the
woman’s pecuniary resources, I must confess
that in nearly every instance I underrated her, and
in fact that, in every respect, the more I endeavored
to analyze her the more of an enigma she became.
Like nearly all women of disreputable
character, she was terribly extravagant, reckless,
and improvident; but as an offset to this she was
supreme in the meanness ordinary courtesans are above that
petty but never-ceasing swindling so terribly annoying
to the public.
With all these things in her favor,
so far as being an ingenious pest is concerned, she
was also possessed of the power of physical as well
as financial recuperation to a wonderful degree; and
to whatever depth of temperamental dejection or physical
exhaustion and degradation she might descend, she
would of a sudden reappear, fresh and blooming, with
no perceptible trail of her vileness upon her, in
which condition she would remain just so long as would
conserve her interests.
While Superintendent Bangs was on
his way to St. Louis, Grey and Watson were being led
a lively chase about the city by Mrs. Winslow, and
the bland clerk of the Denver House was devoting nearly
all his time in tracking her from place to place to
enforce the collection of his employer’s bill.
Her first exploit was to borrow twenty
dollars from Mrs. Gayno on her baggage, who was thus
prevented from turning her out of doors when her true
character was learned; and as a further illustration
of her shrewdness, after she had remained at the house
as long as she desired, she left between days, without
refunding the borrowed money or paying her bill, and
in some mysterious way also spirited away all her baggage.
This of course caused more trouble
in finding her, and she was finally discovered in
furnished rooms. Even here she suddenly made her
presence so unbearable to the landlord that he gladly
paid her a bonus to depart, which she did equally
as mysteriously as on the previous occasion, when
she was lost again, and the third time found at a Spiritualistic
gathering at the hall near the corner of Chestnut and
Seventh streets, where she was one of the speakers
of the evening and did herself and the cause justice.
In this way following her
while she was securing abstracts of her many cases
against the people of St. Louis, the number and trivial
character of which had become a matter of public scandal,
newspaper comment, and universal condemnation among
members of the bar, keeping track of her in numberless
conditions and localities, and listening to endless
tales of the woman’s reckless conduct during
her previous residence in the city Mrs.
Winslow gave the two men all they could possibly attend
to.
One Wednesday morning about eleven
o’clock, when Grey had just stepped out upon
the street from a late breakfast at the Planters’ having
been out until nearly morning the night previous on
a fruitless attempt to keep the woman under surveillance
for a few hours, that detective was looking up and
down the street quite undecided as to what course to
pursue he saw Mrs. Winslow just leaving
an expressman at the court-house square, who immediately
jumped into his wagon and drove off.
Grey ran quickly down Fourth street,
and after a few minutes’ chase succeeded in
overtaking the vehicle. Halting it he asked the
driver:
“Are you going to move that woman?”
He checked his horse with an air that
plainly said that kind of interruption was neither
profitable nor desirable; but driving on at a brisk
pace, there was jolted out of him the remark:
“My friend, I’m working for the public.
Sometimes it pays better to keep one’s mouth
shut than to open it, especially to strangers.”
Grey hurrying on at the side of the
wagon, and holding to it with his left hand, with
his right he found a greenback. Handing this to
the driver, he sprang into the seat beside him, saying,
“Sometimes it pays better to open one’s
mouth!”
“That’s so,” replied
the driver stuffing the bill into his pocket and elevating
his eyebrows as if inquiring what Grey wanted him to
open his mouth for.
“I want you to drive slowly
enough for me to keep up with you. Mind, you
needn’t tell me anything unless you have
a mind to.”
“Oh, I’d just as leave
tell you as not,” he replied. “She’s
going over to East St. Louis to try and get the ‘Alton
Accommodation,’ if it hasn’t gone yet.
The Chicago train’s way behind, and the ‘Alton’
don’t go until the ‘Chicago’ comes;
ye see?”
Grey knew this was partially true,
for he had but a few moments before received a telegram
from Mr. Bangs, stating that he was aboard the down
train which had been belated; so that the best thing
to do was to take the expressman’s number, so
that he could find him again in case of a mistake,
or any deception being practised, which he did.
He then returned to the Planters’, paid his
bill, wrote notes to both Watson and Superintendent
Bangs stating how matters stood, went to the levee,
and in a few minutes had the pleasure of seeing the
trunk put on board the ferry, where its owner shortly
followed.
Grey went on board, taking a position
near the engines, where he could have an unobstructed
view of the stairs, so that if this should prove to
be another ruse of the madam’s to get him started
across the river and then glide off the boat to take
up still more retired quarters, he could beat her
at her own game. But Mrs. Winslow remained on
the boat, and just as it was pushing off for the Illinois
shore the landlord of the Denver House, accompanied
by a constable, came rushing on board.
Seeing Grey, he immediately applied
to him for information as to whether the woman was
on board. He replied by pointing her out where
she was leaning over the guards immediately above
them. The landlord and his man at once proceeded
to interview the woman, threatening all sorts of things
if that bill was not paid, to all of which she gave
evasive answers until the Illinois shore was reached,
when she reminded them that she was outside the jurisdiction
of the State of Missouri, and that if either of them
laid their hands upon herself or her property, she
would feel compelled to cause a St. Louis funeral,
as she was a good shot, and when in the right did
not hesitate to shoot; which so frightened the hotel
man and “the little minion of Missouri law,”
as Mrs. Winslow called the constable, that they retreated
empty-handed and with a confirmed disgust at the active
exponents of modern Spiritualism.
Grey was now in a quandary as to what
to do. The Chicago train was reported as over
two hours late, and he was informed by the conductor
of the Alton Accommodation that though his train could
not leave St. Louis until the Chicago train had arrived,
yet that he dare not hold the train a moment after
that time. This precluded Grey’s informing
Mr. Bangs of his whereabouts, as the train was now
too near the place to admit of his being reached by
a telegram; and should he risk losing the woman to
apprise Mr. Bangs, it might be impossible to find her
again at all. Fortunately he learned that the
passenger train stopped at the Baltimore and Ohio
railroad crossing, and, interesting a brakeman in his
behalf, he arranged with him to go up to the crossing,
board the train, rush through it and call out for
Mr. Bangs as he went, directing the latter to pay
the brakeman two dollars for his trouble, then jump
off the train, walk rapidly back to the crossing and
there board the Alton train as it was going out, if
possible; which latter plan would have succeeded,
no doubt, had not Mr. Bangs been chatting upon the
rear platform of the rear car, and failed altogether
to hear the extremely loud inquiries made for him.
Mrs. Winslow recognized Grey as a
person in somebody’s employ who was following
her, and the moment he seated himself in the single
passenger-car attached to the train, the woman began
such a terrible tirade of abuse against him that he
was made to feel that the detective’s life is
not altogether one of roseate hue, and so annoyed
the other passengers that a large-sized brakeman was
selected as a delegation of one to quiet her.
It was evident she had been drinking heavily, and
she kept this brakeman pretty well employed for some
time in not only endeavoring to quiet her termagant
tongue, but to keep her in her seat, as she would
often rise in the ecstasy of her wrath and denounce
poor Grey, who meekly bore it all with a patient smile,
until the conductor again appeared, when Grey showed
him his thousand-mile employee’s ticket and
claimed that he was an employee of that road looking
up lost baggage; that it was suspected that Mrs. Winslow
had stolen the trunk she had with her, and that he
had been ordered to follow her for a day or two until
he got further instructions from headquarters.
This put him all right with the trainmen, and caused
the conductor to compel the woman into some sort of
civility and silence.
At about two o’clock the train
arrived in Monticello, where Mrs. Winslow left the
train, and the detective followed. The agent informed
Grey that it was at least a mile to a telegraph office
uptown, but that no train save a “wild-train”
would pass either way until after he would have time
to send a dispatch and return. He immediately
went uptown and sent a telegram to the agent at East
St. Louis to please inquire for a Mr. Bangs about
the depot, and if there, to have him answer; also one
to Mr. Bangs himself at the Planters’.
Returning to the depot, the agent
informed Grey that Mrs. Winslow had also been uptown,
which was quite evident, as she had donned an entirely
different suit of clothing, evidently with some inebriated
sort of an idea that this might change her appearance
enough to enable her to escape him. She finally
bought a ticket to Brighton, and got her trunk checked
to that point.
On their arrival at Brighton, Grey
saw several ladies get off the rear platform of the
ladies’ car, among whom was his unwilling travelling
companion, and watched until they had passed into the
depot. In order to make sure that she was to
stop here, he ran rapidly to where the baggage was
being unloaded, where he found that her trunk had been
put off. He waited there until he saw the trunk
wheeled into the little baggage-house, when he leisurely
walked back to the depot and stepped into the ladies’
waiting-room, to keep the company of the adventuress.
What was his surprise to see it almost
deserted, no Mrs. Winslow there, and no surety of
anything at all. He rushed into the gentlemen’s
room, galloped around the depot, looked in every direction,
only to turn towards the train with the startling
suspicion that he had again been outwitted by the
shrewd Spiritualist who made her livelihood by villainy
and shrewdness, which was quickly confirmed as he made
an ineffectual attempt to overtake the departing train,
only to see the face of Mrs. Winslow pressed hard
against the rear window of the ladies’ car, and
almost white with a look of fiendish enjoyment and
hate at the useless attempts of her relentless pursuer
whom she had so neatly foiled.
Mrs. Winslow had slipped a detective and
a good detective, too again, was gone,
and all Grey could do was to wait at Brighton until
Superintendent Bangs could overtake and counsel with
him.
By telegrams to and from conductors
it was speedily ascertained by Superintendent Bangs,
who had come on to Brighton and directed Watson to
report at the Chicago Agency, that the woman had gone
to Springfield, Ills., and, after arranging with the
station-agent at Brighton to send information to Chicago
regarding any call that might be made for her trunk,
or as to any orders that might be received to have
it forwarded, Mr. Bangs and Grey went at once to Springfield,
where a trace of the woman was found at the St. Nicholas
Hotel.
It was ascertained that she had remained
at the hotel over night, and the clerks thought it
probable that she was then at the house, her bill
not having been paid; but a thorough search for her
only developed the fact that she was at least absent
from the hotel, whether with an intention of returning
or not.
Mr. Bangs directed Mr. Grey to remain
at the St. Nicholas, keeping on the alert for her,
while he visited the more elegant houses of ill-repute
with which that capital abounds during legislative
sessions and which were just at this time getting
in readiness to receive lawmakers and lobbyists; and
also the other and less respectable establishments
for piracy, managed by professed mediums, astrologists,
fortune-tellers, and all the other grades of female
swindlers; and after a considerable time spent in
investigation, found a certain Madam La Vant, astrologist who
professed to cast the horoscope of people’s lives
with all the certainty of the famous Dr. Roback who
was descended from the vikings and jarls of the
Scandinavian coast, but in reality kept a house of
assignation, that most dangerous threshold to prostitution.
Madam La Vant at once acknowledged
that Mrs. Winslow had been there; even showed
Superintendent Bangs a bundle she had left with her.
She stated that she had called there early in the
morning and left the package, with the promise to
return about three o’clock in the afternoon,
when she was to occupy a room she had engaged there,
and had already paid in advance for its use.
Mr. Bangs did not feel exactly at rest about the matter,
but could not do otherwise than return to the hotel
for his dinner, promising to call in the afternoon,
and alleging that he had information to give the woman
regarding certain persons who had been, and then were,
following her; for if she were then in the house she
would remain there, and he had no legal authority to
molest her or search the place without Madam La Vant’s
consent, which he could not of course get if she was
shielding her, which she undoubtedly was; and if Mrs.
Winslow was really away from the house, the madam would
take some means of preventing her return.
He went to the hotel as quickly as
possible, found Grey, whom he immediately sent to
watch for the ingress or egress of the adventuress,
took a hasty dinner, and then relieved my operative
so that he might dine, after which the two watched
the house until dark.
But their closest vigils over the
place failed to cause the discovery of Mrs. Winslow,
who was doubtless by this time many miles away from
Springfield, enjoying peace and quiet in some other
city. Superintendent Bangs called on Madam La
Vant as soon as the evening had come, and that lady
expressed great surprise that he had not seen his “friend,
Mrs. Winslow,” as she expressed it; following
this remark by the explanation that she had returned
to her house not over a half-hour after he had left
it, and had stated that she had decided to go on to
Chicago immediately, whereupon Madam La Vant had refunded
her the money advanced for the room, and the woman
had taken her bundle and departure simultaneously.
The detectives were satisfied that
the astrologist was squarely lying to them, and that
she had in some way aided the fugitive to escape, or
had effectually secreted her the former
opinion being the most reasonable; and when I had
been apprised of the turn things had taken, I was
satisfied that Mrs. Winslow was in Madam La Vant’s
house at the very time that Mr. Bangs was first there;
that her friend, the madam, way merely carrying out
her instructions in stating that she had been there,
was then out, but would return, and that at the very
moment Mr. Bangs had started for the St. Nicholas
she had left La Vant’s, and, as soon as possible
thereafter, the city.
I immediately concluded that as I
had no authority to arrest or in any way detain the
woman which put my men at a great disadvantage,
preventing their telegraphing in advance for her detention,
or securing and using official assistance of any kind
for the same purpose that I had better
recall Mr. Bangs at once, which I did, and trust to
Grey’s doggedness in following her, instructing
him particularly to if possible prevent being seen
by her, or in any way alarming her, hoping either for
her speedy return to Rochester, on the principle that
the guilty mind constantly reverts and is drawn towards
its chief topic of thought, and that strive to keep
away from it as much as she might, she would be irresistibly
drawn to it; or that through the former plan I might
get her into some little village or secluded spot,
or quiet town, where, upon Grey’s announcement,
Mr. Bangs or some other deputized person might cautiously
reach her before she was aware of her danger, and serve
the notice that would make the legal fight not only
possible, but a stormy one on account of the vast
amount of crushing evidence I had secured for Mr.
Lyon against her.
It was more and more apparent that
the woman’s plan was to beat us in this way,
and thus by long and unbearable suspense, mysteriousness
of action, and constant annoyance in the shape of
threatening letters, which now continually poured
in upon Mr. Lyon, not only from Rochester, but from
other portions of the country, compel him to settlement;
and I saw that the whole supreme and devilish ingenuity
of the Spiritualistic adventuress was being aimed
at avoiding legal process, and to the accomplishment
of this result.
So much time had now elapsed that
it was necessary for Lyon’s attorneys to go
into court to explain the difficulties attendant upon
reaching the woman, and secure an extension of time
in serving the papers; and by the time this was accomplished,
Grey had tracked her from town to town and city to
city, all through Central Illinois, riding on the same
train with her times without number, doubling routes
and meeting her at unexpected points, travelling at
all hours and in all manner of conveyances, never
sleeping for days, eating from packages and parcels,
with scarcely time for personal cleanliness or care,
which often debarred him from admission to places
where a woman, by that courtesy which is due to her
for what she ought to be, was admitted and very properly
protected from such hard-looking citizens as Grey had
become; so that finally the two came into Terre Haute
together, the adventuress as fresh as a daisy, and
perfectly capable of another grand expedition of the
same extent, and the detective completely worn out
and entirely unfit for further duty.
Anticipating something of this kind
and knowing that the woman might quite naturally gravitate
to that point, I had ordered Operative Pinkham to
proceed from Chicago to Terre Haute, and there assist
Grey, or relieve him altogether, as occasion required,
and continue the trail east towards Rochester, to
which point the woman seemed gradually drifting, though
evidently determined to prolong her journey so as to
arrive in Rochester not more than a day or two before
the time set for trial of the Winslow-Lyon breach
of promise case.
Arriving at Terre Haute, Mrs. Winslow
immediately went to Mrs. Deck’s boarding-house,
and upon telling that sympathetic old lady a harrowing
tale about her persécutions, was received with
open arms, and it was not long before her pitiful
story had drawn a crowd of attenuated automatons to
sympathize, suggest, and harangue against the entire
orthodox world.
So impressed were these people with
the woman’s pitiable condition, that word was
immediately passed among them that the persecuted lady
should lecture to them at Pence’s Hall, after
which a sort of a general love-feast should be held,
to be followed by séances and a collection for the
benefit of the now notorious plaintiff.
That winter afternoon a quiet gentleman
dropped into Mrs. Deck’s and secured accommodations
for a few days’ stay, representing himself as
a commercial traveller from Cincinnati. Mrs.
Deck was absent working energetically in the interests
of her spiritualistic guest, and the quiet man was
obliged to transact his business with the handsome
Belle Ruggles. He was a pleasant, winning sort
of a fellow, young, shapely, and adapted to immediately
gaining confidence and esteem.
From a little conversation with her
the quiet man, who was none other than Detective Pinkham
from my Chicago Agency, was sure that he could trust
the girl, whom he at once saw had no sympathy with
these people or their crazy antics. He saw that
she was full of spirit, too, capable of carrying out
any resolve she had made, and altogether the single
oasis of good sense in this great desert of unbalanced
minds.
So it was not long before he had her
sentiments on Spiritualism, on Spiritualists, and
on Mrs. Winslow, whom she denounced with tears of
anger in her eyes as a disgrace to womanhood and to
their place, and he had not been three hours in the
house before the young lady and himself had entered
into a conspiracy to give the woman such a scare as
she had not recently had, and drive her from the pleasant
though quaint old home her presence was contaminating.
The snow and the night came together,
and the storm shook the old house until its weak,
loose joints creaked, and every cranny and crevice
wailed a dismal protest to the wind and the driving
snow. It would take more than that though to
keep people of one idea at home, and the entire household
departed at an early hour for Pence’s Hall, from
which, whatever occurred there, Mrs. Deck’s
large family did not return until nearly midnight,
by which time Operative Pinkham and Belle Ruggles had
concluded their hasty preparations for a little dramatic
entertainment of their own, and were properly stationed
and accoutred to make it a brilliant success.
“Good-night, my poor dear!”
said the kind-hearted old body as she ushered Mrs.
Winslow into her best room, a long antiquated chamber,
full of panels, wardrobes set in the wall, and ghostly,
creaking furniture. “I have to give you
this room, we are so full. My first husband died
there, but you don’t care for anything like that.
I never sleep there, the place scares me; but I know
you will like it, you are so brave!”
Whether brave or not, Mrs. Winslow
seemed all of a shiver when she had entered the room
where Mrs. Deck’s first husband had died.
She closed the door carefully, and
putting her candle upon a grim old bureau, began a
thorough and seemingly frightened examination of the
room. The storm had not gone down, and as it beat
upon the old place with exceptionally wild and powerful
gusts, the feeble structure seemed to shrink from
them and tremble in every portion.
On these occasions doors to the wardrobes
and closets of the strange room would open suddenly
as if sprung from their fastenings by unseen hands,
while panels would slide back and forth, cracks in
the ceilings and walls would open alarmingly, until,
in fact, to the woman’s vivid imaginations every
portion of the lonely old chamber or its weird furnishings
seemed possessed of supernatural life or motion.
The fact is, Mrs. Winslow was trembling like the house
itself; but after a few moments she snuffed the waning
candle which the frugal Mrs. Deck had given her, and
in its flickering rays hastily began preparing for
bed.
Just as she bent over to blow out
the candle, some invisible assistant did the work
for her, and at the same moment a hissed “Beware!”
caused her to start with a scream and plunge for the
bed, into which she scrambled after upsetting a chair
or two, when she pulled the covering over her head
and groaned with fright.
And now the blessed materializations began.
A sudden click and then a sliding
sound above her head announced that the “control”
had begun operations, and in a moment a few grains
of plastering and some strange and weird combinations
of musical sounds seemed to simultaneously fall into
the room. The plaster, of course, came right
down, some of it upon exposed parts of the trembling
medium’s person; but the music, which seemed
to be badly out of harmony, appeared to have the power
of circling in the air, which it did for some little
time, and as suddenly ceased as it had begun, when
from these mysterious upper regions came a long, low,
tremulous, unearthly groan, that died away into a
ghastly sigh as the storm clutched the decayed old
mansion and shook it until it rattled and rattled
again.
“My God!” quavered the
half-smothered woman, “that’s Mrs. Deck’s
first man’s ghost; he’ll kill me!
Mur!”
She had begun to shout “Murder!”
but a still more awful voice proceeding from the direction
of the bureau bade her keep silence.
She was silent for a moment, but the
storm wailed about the house so dismally that the
“poor dear,” who, according to Mrs. Deck,
was brave enough to cheerily retire in what had been
the bed-chamber of the dead, could bear the horror
of her position no longer, and began a vocal lamentation
which gave promise of attracting more than a spirit
audience, when the materialized spirit of “Mrs.
Deck’s first man,” or whatever owned the
voice, laid a heavy hand upon the trembling woman,
sepulchrally warned her to desist from her outcries,
and then read her such a lecture from the Other World
as she had never transmitted in her most effective
“séances;” after which she was ordered,
on pain of instant death, to leave Mrs. Deck’s
and Terre Haute as soon as morning should come, and
a pledge being secured from her to the effect that
she would, and that she would under no circumstances
leave the room for the night, the spirit which
had very much the appearance of Detective Pinkham,
the commercial traveller from Cincinnati left
the room by the door in a twinkling, very like a mortal,
and still very like a mortal, quietly stole upstairs
and helped extricate Miss Ruggles from her gloomy
position, where she had done “utility”
business as a groaning garret ghost.
All that dreary night the wicked woman
moaned and wept for day. Her coward heart shrank
from the evil she knew she deserved. The storm
never ceased, but rose and fell as if keeping pace
with her terrors, and the old place furnished her
crazed imagination untold horrors.
At last the dawn came, but she had
found no moment’s sleep, and before the household
was astir the wretched woman crept out upon the street,
and plodding through the swollen drifts, followed by
a very pleasant appearing commercial traveller from
Chicago, she staggered to the station, and was rapidly
borne away from her sympathizing friends towards the
east.
Being apprised by telegraph of Pinkham’s
rather strange method of giving her an impulse in
the direction of Rochester, I at once proceeded to
that city with Superintendent Bangs, anticipating her
arrival there shortly after our own; but was again
disappointed, the adventuress having doubled on the
detective, and so successfully avoided him, that the
third day after leaving the Hoosier City he arrived
in Rochester with a long face and in an extremely
befogged condition.
After having directed Mr. Bangs and
Pinkham to remain and watch every incoming train,
one stormy evening, as I was about returning to New
York, by the merest chance I espied the woman cautiously
emerging from the Arcade, and following her I soon
housed her in the apartments of an old mediumistic
hag on State street. Calling a carriage I was
rapidly driven to the Osborn House, where I found
Mr. Bangs, and with him and the legal papers returned
to the place in less than fifteen minutes from the
time I had left it.
Cautiously approaching the room, we
listened and heard low, earnest voices within.
Through the transom we could see that the light inside
was turned very low, and rightly judged that somebody
was being given a “sitting,” for, carefully
trying the knob, I found that the place was secured
against ordinary intrusion, and throwing my weight
against the door it flew from its old and rusty fastenings,
and in an instant we were within the medium’s
room.
“That is the woman!” said
I, pointing to Mrs. Winslow, who had sprung from her
chair white with fear, while the wretched-looking medium,
though previously in the “trance state”
stared at us with protruding eyes.
“And who are you?”
she gasped, looking from one to the other in dismay.
“Persons whom you will give
no more trouble after the service of these papers,”
gallantly replied Mr. Bangs, passing the legal documents
into her hands, which closed upon them mechanically;
and after I had politely handed the medium sufficient
money to repair the damage I had caused her door,
we bade the two spiritualists a cheery good-night and
left them to a consideration of the contrast between
mortal and immortal “manifestations.”