The House of Mystery

by Will Irwin

  VI

  ENTER ROSALIE LE GRANGE

  "Cut, dearie," said Rosalie Le Grange, trance and test clairvoyant, toHattie, the landlady's daughter. "Now keep your wish in your mind,remember. That's right; a deep cut for luck. U-um. The nine of heartsis your wish--and right beside it is the ace of hearts. That means yourhome, dearie--the spirits don't lie, even when they're manifestin'themselves just through cards. They guide your hand when you shuffleand cut. Your wish is about the affections, ain't it, dearie?"

  The pretty slattern across the table nodded. She had put down herdust-pan and leaned her broom across her knees when she sat down toreceive the only tip which Rosalie Le Grange, in the existing state ofher finances, could give.

  "I got your wish now, dearie," announced Rosalie Le Grange. "Thespirits sometimes help the cards somethin' wonderful. Here it comes. Ithought so. The three of hearts for gladness an' rejoicin' right nextto the ace, which is your home. Now that might mean a little home ofyour own, but the influence I git with it is so weak I don't think itmeans anythin' as strong an' big as that. Wait a minute--now it comesstraight an' definite--he'll call--rejoicin' at your home because he'llcall. Do you understand that, dearie?"

  "Sure!" Hattie's eyes were big with awe.

  "Hat-tie!" came a raucous voice from outside.

  "Yes-m!" answered Hattie.

  "Are you going to be all day redding up them rooms?" pursued the voice.

  "Nearly through!" responded Hattie. Rosalie Le Grange made pantomime ofsweeping; and--

  "I'll help you red up, my dear," she whispered. Forthwith, they fell tosweeping, dusting, shaking sheets.

  As she moved about the squeezed little furnished rooms and alcove,which formed her residence and professional offices in these reduceddays, Rosalie Le Grange appeared the one thing within its walls whichwas not common and dingy. A pink wrapper, morning costume of her craft,enclosed a figure grown thick with forty-five, but marvelouslywell-shaped and controlled. Her wrapper was as neat as her figure; eventhe lace at the throat was clean. Her long, fair hands, on which thefirst approach of age appeared as dimples, not as wrinkles orcorrugations of the flesh, ran to nails whose polish proved daily care.Her hair, chestnut in the beginning, foamed with white threads. Belowwas a face which hardly needed, as yet, the morning dab of powder, socraftily had middle age faded the skin without deadening it. Except fora pair of large, gray, long-lashed eyes--too crafty in their cornerglances, too far looking in their direct vision--that skin bounded andenclosed nothing which was not attractive and engaging. Her chin waspiquantly pointed. Beside a tender, humorous, mobile mouth played twodimples, which appeared and disappeared as she moved about the roomdelivering monologue to Hattie.

  "I see a dark gentleman that ain't in your life yet. He's behind acounter now, I think. He ain't the one that the ace of hearts shows isgoin' to call. I see you all whirled about between 'em, but I sensenothin' about how it's goin' to turn out--land sakes, child, don't youever dust behind the pictures? You'll have to be neater if you expectto make a good wife to the dark gentleman--"

  "Will it be him?" asked Hattie, stopping with a sheet in her hands.

  "Now the spirits slipped that right out of me, didn't they?" pursuedRosalie. "Land sakes, you can't keep 'em back when they want to talk.Now you just hold that and think over it, dearie. No more for youto-day." Rosalie busied herself with pinning the faded, dusty pinkribbon to a gilded rolling pin, and turned her monologue upon herself:

  "I ain't sayin' nothin' against this house for the price, dearie, butmy, this is a comedown. The last time I done straight clairvoyant work,it was in a family hotel with three rooms and a bath and breakfast inbed. Well, there's ups an' downs in this business. I've been downbefore and up again--"

  Hattie, her mouth relieved of a pillowcase, spoke boldly the questionin her mind.

  "What put you down?"

  Rosalie, her head on one side, considered the arrangement of the pinkribbon, before she answered:

  "Jealousy, dearie; perfessional jealousy. The Vango trumpet seanceswere doin' too well to suit that lyin', fakin', Spirit Truth outfit inBrooklyn--wasn't that the bell?"

  It was. Hattie patted the pillow into place, and sped for the door.

  "If it's for me," whispered Rosalie, "don't say I'm in--say you'llsee." Rosalie bustled about, putting the last touches on the room,pulling shut the bead portieres which curtained alcove and bed.

  Hattie poked her head in the door.

  "It's a gentleman," she said.

  "Well, come inside and shut the door--no use tellin' _him_ all abouthimself," said Rosalie. "I'm--I'm kind of expectin' a gentleman visitorI don't want to see yet. It's a matter of the heart, dearie," sheadded. "What sort of a looking gentleman?"

  Hattie stood a moment trying to make articulate her observations.

  "He's got nice eyes," she said. "And he's dressed quiet but swell. Sortof tall and distinguished."

  "Did you look at his feet?" For the moment, Rosalie had taken it forgranted that all women knew, as she so well knew, the appearance ofpolice feet.

  "No 'm, not specially," said Hattie.

  "Well, you'd 'a' noticed," said Rosalie, covering up quickly. "Thegentleman I don't want to see has a club foot--show him up, dearie."

  As Madame Le Grange sat down by the wicker center table and composedher features to professional calm, she was thinking:

  "If he's a new sitter, I'll have to stall. There's nothing as hard tobite into as a young man dope."

  The expected knock came. Entered the new sitter--him whom we know asDr. Walter Huntington Blake, but a stranger to Rosalie. During theformal preliminaries--in which Dr. Blake stated simply that he wanted asitting and expressed himself as willing to pay two dollars for fulltrance control--Rosalie studied him and mapped her plan of action.There was, indeed, "nothing to bite into." His shapely clothes boreneither fraternity pin nor society button; his face was comparativelyinexpressive; to her attempts at making him chatter, he returned butpolite nothings. Only one thing did she "get" before she assumedcontrol. When she made him hold hands to "unite magnetisms," his fingerrested for a moment on the base of her palm. She put that little detailaside for further reference, and slid gently into "trance," making themost, as she assumed the slumber pose, of her profile, her plump,well-formed arms, her slender hands. This sitter was "refined"; not forhim the groans and contortions of approaching control which soimpressed factory girls and shopkeepers.

  Peeping through her long eyelashes, she noted that his face, whileturned upon her in close attention, was without visible emotion.

  "I must fish," she thought as she began the preliminary gurgles whichheralded the coming of Laughing Eyes, her famous Indian childcontrol--"I wonder if I've got to tell him that the influence won'twork to-day and I can't get anything? Maybe I'd better."

  A long silence, broken here and there by guttural gurglings; thenLaughing Eyes babbled tentatively:

  "John--Will--Will--" she choked here, as though trying to add asyllable which she could not clearly catch. And at this point, Rosalietook another look through her eyelashes. She had touched something! Hewas leaning forward; his mouth had opened. Before she could follow upher advantage, he had thrown himself wide open.

  "Wilfred--is it Wilfred?" he asked.

  Laughing Eyes was far too clever a spirit to take immediately anopening so obvious.

  "You wait a minny!" she said. "Laughing Eyes don't see just right now.Will--Will--he come, he go. Oh--oh--I see a ring--maybe it's on afinger, maybe it ain't--Laughing Eyes kind of a fool thismorning--Laughing Eyes has got lots to do for a 'itty girl--" Rosaliehad essayed another glance as she spoke of the ring. It brought novisible change of expression; and from the success of her shot withWilfred she knew that this, in spite of first impressions, was a sitterwhose expression betrayed him. "Then it's business troubles," shethought, "unless he's a psychic researcher. And if he was, he wouldn'tbe so easy with his face."

  So Laughing Eyes burbled again, and then burst out:


  "I see a atmosphere of trouble!" The young man's countenance dropped,whereupon Laughing Eyes fell to chattering foolishly before she wenton: "Piles of bright 'itty buttons--money--" And then something whichhad been gently titillating Rosalie's sense of smell made a suddenconnection with her memory, Iodoform--the faintest suggestion. Shelinked this perception with his appearance of having been freshlytubbed, his immaculate finger nails, shining as though fresh from themanicure, his perfectly kept teeth and--yes--the pressure of a fingeron her pulse. Upon this perception, Laughing Eyes spoke sharply:

  "Wilfred says your sick folks don't always pay like they ought. He sayswhen they're in danger they can't do too much for the doctor, but whenthey're well, he's--he--he--Wilfred is funny--a old sawbones!"

  "Ask fa--ask him about the patient," faltered Rosalie's sitter.

  "Wilfred says, 'My son, it's comin' out all right if you follow yourown impulses,'" responded Laughing Eyes. "You do the way the influencesguide you. They 're guiding _you_, not them other doctors that you'reaskin' advice from." Laughing Eyes shifted to babbling of the brightspirit plane beyond, and all that the patient was missing by delay intranslation, while Rosalie took another glance of observation, andthought rapidly. Was this patient a medical or surgical case? Twochances out of three, surgical; it would take remorse and apprehensionover a mistake with the scalpel to drive a medical man medium-hunting.Her glance at his hands confirmed her determination to venture. Theywere large and heavy, yet fine, the hands of a craftsman, a forger, asurgeon, anyone who does small and exact work. Rosalie had been in ahospital in her day, and she had studied doctors, as she studied therest of humanity, with an eye always to future uses. Having a pair ofhands like that, a doctor must inevitably choose surgery.

  "Trust your papa!" babbled the Control. "Laughing Eyes trusted herpapa--ugh!--he big Chief. He here now! Your papa knows my papa! Yourpapa says you didn't cut too deep!"

  The young man let out an agitated "didn't I?"

  "You was guided," pursued Laughing Eyes. "What you might'a' thought wasa mistake was all for the best. Those in the spirit controlled yourhands. Wilfred says 'three'--oh--oh I know what Wilfred means--ugh--getout bad spirit--Wilfred means three days--you wait three days--you waitthree days and it will be right."

  "And now," thought Rosalie Le Grange, "he's got his money's worth, andI'll take no more risks for any two dollars!" Forthwith, she let thevoice of Laughing Eyes chuckle lower and lower. "Good-by!" whisperedthe control at length, "I'm goin' away from my medie!" Then, with a fewrefined convulsions, Rosalie awoke, rubbed her eyes, and said in hertinkling natural voice:

  "Was I out long? I hope the sitting was satisfactory."

  No change came over the young man's face as he said:

  "From my standpoint--very!"

  "Thank you," murmured Rosalie. "I was afraid, when you come in, thatthe influences wasn't going to be strong. A medium can sense them."

  "Very satisfactory--with modifications," responded the sitter. "Forinstance, it is absolutely true that I had a father. His name wasn'tWilfred, it was James. And he died before I was born. But don't letthat discourage you. I can prove his existence. The other true thingwas the corker. I've been to fifty-seven varieties of mediums in thecourse of this experiment, and you're the first to jump at the widestopening I gave. I am a physician. I've put iodoform on my handkerchiefevery morning to prove it. I've been listed six times as a commercialtraveler, twice as a con man, eight times as a clerk, three times as apoliceman, with scattering votes for a reporter, a clergyman, an actorand an undertaker. But you're the first to roll the little ball intothe little hole. I am a physician, or was. Better than that, you got itthat I specialized on surgery--and I didn't plant _that_. You draw thecapital prize."

  "Young man," asked Rosalie with an air of shocked and injuredinnocence, "are you accusing me of _fakery_?" But despite her sternlips, in Rosalie's cheeks played the ghost of a pair of dimples. Theywere reflected, so to speak, by twin twinkles in the eyes of hersitter. And he went straight on:

  "In addition, you're the prettiest of them all, and a cross-eyed manwith congenital astigmatism could see that you're a good fellow. Do!_My_ controls tell _me_ that you're about to be offered a good job."

  "My controls tell _me_," responded Rosalie Le Grange, "that if youdon't quit insultin' a lady in her own house and disgracin' her crownof mediumship, out you go. There's those here that will defend me, I'llhave you know!"

  The young man's face sobered. "I beg your pardon, Mme. Le Grange," hesaid, "I have been sudden. Would you mind my coming to the point atonce? I'm here to offer you a job."

  Rosalie looked him sternly over a moment, but in the end her dimplestriumphed. She lifted her right hand as though to arrange her hair, twofingers extended--the sign in the Brotherhood of Professional Mediumsto recognize a fellow craftsman. The young man made no response;Rosalie's eyes flashed back on guard.

  "How much is this business worth to you?" pursued the young man.

  "Mediums ain't measuring their rewards by earthly gains," respondedRosalie; and now she made no secret of her dimples. "If we wanted towater our mediumship, couldn't we get rich out of the tips we givepeople on their business?"

  "But getting down to the earth plane," the young man continued--andperhaps the twinkles in his eyes were never more obstreperous--"howmuch would you ask to take a nice, easy job of using your eyes for me?"

  "Well," said Rosalie, "if there was nothin' unprofessional about it, Ishould say fifty dollars a week." She smiled on him now openly. "You'rea doctor. I don't have to say, as one professional person to another,that there's such a thing as ethics."

  The young man smiled back. "Oh, certainly!" he said. "I understandthat!" Quite suddenly he leaned forward and clapped Rosalie's shoulderwith a motion that had nothing offensive about it--only good fellowshipand human understanding--"I want you to help me expose Mrs. PaulaMarkham."

  The announcement stiffened Rosalie. She sat bolt upright. "There ain'tnothin' to expose!" she said.

  "Now let's get on a business basis," said the young man.

  "Well, you let me tell you one thing first. If you're pumpin' me forevidence, it don't go, because you've got no witnesses."

  "I'm not pumping you for anything. I'm willing to admit that thespirits, not you, smelled the iodoform--"

  "An' noticed that you was scrubbed clean as a whistle and that when weheld hands to unite our magnetism, you was pawing for my pulse,"pursued Rosalie, dropping her defences all at once. Thereupon, Romanharuspex looked into the eyes of Roman haruspex, and they both laughed.But Rosalie was serious enough a moment later.

  "Now when you come to talk about exposing Mrs. Markham, you've got toshow me first why you want her exposed, and you've got to let me tellyou that you're wastin' your money. There's enough that's fake aboutthis profession, but I know two mediums I'd stake my life on; barringof course myself"--here Rosalie smiled a smile which might have meant aconfession or a boast, so balanced was it between irony andsweetness--"Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Anna Fife. They're _real_."

  She peered into the face of her investigator. His expression showedskeptical amusement. She knew that her passion for talking too much washer greatest professional flaw; though had she thought it overmaturely, she would have realized that she had never got into troublethrough her tongue. Her trained instinct for human values led herinevitably to those who would appreciate her confidences and keep them.So the sudden retreat within her defences, which followed, provedirritation rather than suspicion.

  "See here," she pursued, "are you a psychic researcher?"

  "Cross my heart," answered the young man, "I never associated withspooks in my life until this week. I did it then because I wanted afirst-class professional medium to take a good job."

  "Investigating Mrs. Markham? What for? Has she got a cinch on arelative of yours?"

  "Well, I'd like her for a relative," started the young man. Then hehesitated and for the first time faltered. A light blush began at theroots of
his hair and overspread his face.

  "I got that you were a physician," said Rosalie, "but there's one placeI got you plumb wrong. I thought it was business troubles. So thetrouble's your heart and affections! It's that big-eyed blonde niece ofMarkham's, of course. Well, you ain't the first. The best way to bringthe young men like a flock of blackbirds is to shut a girl away from'em."

  Now the young man showed real surprise.

  "How did you know?" he enquired.

  "My controls an' guides, of course," responded Rosalie. "They couldn'tfind anybody else to fall in love with around the Markham house--ain'tas smart as you thought you was, are you?"

  "Beside you," he responded, "I'm Beppo the Missing Link."

  Rosalie acknowledged the compliment, and turned to business.

  "I ain't asking you how I'm going about it," she said; "probably you'veplanted that. I _am_ asking you if you're willing to risk fifty a weekon a pig in a poke? I know about her; we all do. She's just like Mrs.Fife. The Psychic Researchers have written up Mrs. Fife, but they ain'tgot half of her. They miss the big things, just like they get fooled onthe little things. _We_ know. And we know about Mrs. Markham, too,though she's had sense enough to keep shut up from the professors.

  "You're a skeptic," pursued Rosalie, "and I'm blowin' my breath to coola house afire when I talk to you. I guess I just talk to hear myselftalk. We start real. I did; we all do. With some of us it's a bigstreak an' with some it's a little. I was pretty big--pretty big.Things happen; voices and faces. Things that are true right out of theair, and things that ain't true--all mixed up with what you're thinkingyourself. It comes just when it wants to, not when you want it. And thelonger you go on, and the more horse sense you get, the less it comes."

  Rosalie stopped a moment, and veiled her eyes with her lashes, asthough speaking out of trance.

  "Everyone of us says to herself, 'It won't leave me!' An' we start topractice. What are we goin' to do then? You git a sitter. She pays hertwo dollars. And _they_ don't come perhaps. Not for that sitter, or thenext sitter, or the next. But you have to give the value for the twodollars or go out of business. So some day, you guess. That's the funnything about this business, anyway. Lots of times you ain't quite surewhether guessing did it, or spirits. I've glimpsed the ring on a girl'sleft hand, and right then my voices have said, 'Engaged!' Now was it memakin' that voice, or the spirit? I don't know. But when you begin toguess, you find how easy people are--how they swallow fakes and cry formore. As sitters go, fakin' gets 'em a lot harder than the real stuff.An' before long--it's easy--you're slipping the slates or bringingspooks from cabinets--let me tell you no medium ever did that genuine.But it's funny how long the real thing stays. Now you--I called yourfather Wilfred. Maybe I'll wake up to-morrow night, seein' your face,and a voice will come right out of the air and say a name--and it'll beyours. It's happened; it will happen again; but generally when I can'tmake any use of it.

  "I'm goin' a long way round to get home. There's some so big that theydon't have to fake. Sometimes, of course, the controls won't come tothem, but they can afford to tell a sitter they can't sense nothin',because the next sitter will get the real stuff--the stuff you can'tfake. Mrs. Fife is that way. I've seen her work and I know. I know justas well about Mrs. Markham, though I haven't seen her. She keeps tightshut up away from the rest of us. She never mixes. But some of us haveseen her, they've passed it on.

  "Mediums," added Rosalie Le Grange, after a pause, "is a set of pipedreamers as a class, but there's one place where you can take theirword like it was sworn to on the Bible. It's when they say somebody hasthe real thing. Because mediums is knockers, and when they pass out abouquet, you can bet they mean it. No, young man, Mrs. Markham, if she_does_ play a lone hand, is the real thing. But I may help you wasteyour money."

  The young man had lost his air of cynical levity, he was regardingRosalie Le Grange somewhat as a collector regards a new andunclassified species.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "Who's the greatest doctor in the world?" asked Mme. Le Grange.

  "Watkins, I suppose," responded the young man.

  "What'd you give for a chance to stay in his office a month and see himwork? See?"

  He nodded his head.

  "Of course."

  "I was a darned little fool when I was young," pursued Rosalie LeGrange, "an' now that I'm gettin' on in years I'm just as darned an oldone. I like to take chances. See?"

  "Mme. Le Grange," said her sitter, again clapping her rounded shoulder,"you're a fellow after my heart."

  "Just a second before we come to the bouquets," responded Rosalie LeGrange, "there's another reason. Can you guess it?"

  "I've already given up guessing on you."

  On the table beside Mme. Le Grange lay an embroidery frame, the needleset in a puffy red peony. Mme. Le Grange picked it up and took a stitchor two. Her head bent over her work, so that the playful light madegold of the white in her chestnut hair, she pursued:

  "Maybe you specialize on mendin' people's bones and maybe yourspecialty is their insides. I've got a specialty, too. You see, in thisbusiness it's easy to go all to the bad unless you do somethin' forother people. You have to have a kind of religion to tie to. Mine isunitin' and reunitin' lovin' hearts. Of course you're saying that thisis a lot of foolishness. Never mind." She paused a moment, and pliedthe needle. "What's the trouble between you and that slim little nieceof Mrs. Markham's that you want her aunt exposed? An' can't I fix itsome other way?"

  "What do you know about Miss Markham?" asked the sitter.

  "I've opened myself up to you like a school-girl in a cosey cornerchat," said Rosalie Le Grange; "ain't it time _you_ was doin' someconfidin'?"

  "Did you ever hear that Miss Markham had been brought up to be amedium? That she mustn't marry because it would destroy her powers?That she's been taught to believe that she will never develop fullyuntil she's put aside an earthly love?"

  "O-ho!" quoth Rosalie; "so that's the way the wind sets! My! I must saythat's the fakiest thing I ever heard about Mrs. Markham. We all knowthat a medium's born. This dark room developin' seance work is bosh tostall the dopes along. Still, Mrs. Markham has always played a lonehand. She's never mixed with other mediums, which is why I'll be safein goin' into her house--she won't recognize me. Probably she's keptsome fool notions that the rest of us lost long ago. But the poorlittle puss!"--her voice sank to a ripple--"the poor little puss!" Hereyes grew tender, and tenderly they met the softened eyes of the youngman. "Just robbin' her of her girlhood! I wonder"--her voice grewharder as she turned to practical consideration of the subject--"ifMrs. Markham got the idea from them Yogis and adepts and things thatshe mixed with in India. Just like 'em. They've got the real thing, butthey're little, crawling Dagoes with no more blood in 'em than a swarmof horseflies."

  "It is terrible to think of," said the sitter.

  "You poor dear, I should say so!" responded Rosalie. "Of course, I seewhat you want done. If I can prove that Mrs. Markham is a fake, then Iprove to the girl that it's all bosh about her not marrying. I can'tgive you no encouragement as far as exposin' goes, seem' 's I know Mrs.Markham is real, but if I'm on the ground, maybe I can fix it someother way. How are you goin' to git me into the house?"

  "This week," responded her co-conspirator, "Mrs. Markham will advertisefor a housekeeper. I suppose you can play housekeeper well enough tokeep the place a month, can't you?"

  "If there's anythin' I can do," responded Rosalie, "it's keep house. Isit a big house?"

  "Three stories--three or four servants, I suppose."

  "That's good; I'll enjoy it; I never had a chance at _that_!"

  "Remember you must get the place from the other applicants."

  "If my mediumship hasn't taught me enough to git me a plain job, ithasn't taught me nothin'," responded Rosalie.

  "Then it's as good as done," answered the young man. "Shall I pay younow or later? Mrs. Markham's salary will be your tip."

  "It's a good paymaster that p
ays when the job's got," answered Rosalie.Her sitter rose, as though to go.

  "Confidences is like love," said Rosalie, "first sight or not for tenyears. Here I've opened my whole bag of tricks, and yours is lockedtight. Don't you think you might tell me your name?"

  The young man reached for a card.

  "Dr. Blake," he said as he fumbled.

  "Walter Huntington Blake, Curfew Club," corrected Rosalie.

  His hands dropped, and he stared.

  "How--how--"

  "Spirits--my kind." Rosalie extended her hand. In it rested his littlecard case. "Excuse me. I done it just to show you I wasn't _quite_ adarn fool, if I do tell everything I know to a stranger. Now don't getsilly an' think from this marvelous demonstration that I've been givin'you a con talk. It's just a lesson not to take your card case alongwhen you visit a medium. It's a proof that I can expose Mrs. Markham ifthere 's anything to expose. Good-by Dr. Blake, and good luck."

  "THEN IT'S AS GOOD AS DONE"]

  The following Wednesday, at eight o'clock in the morning, a messengerboy woke Mme. Le Grange by prolonged knocking. He passed in this note:

  Answer early the third advertisement, third column, sixth page, in the _Herald_ Help Wanted column. From the address, I know it is Mrs. M.'s.

  W.H. BLAKE.