Book: The House of Mystery

W >> William Henry Irwin >> The House of Mystery




The automobile was running at an even fifteen miles an hour down a
broad, unobstructed parkway. He could turn his eyes from his business
and let his hands guide. So he looked full at her, as he said:

"She may have a hard time keeping you away from this physician!"

That, it seemed, amused her. The strain in her face gave way to a
smile.

"For yourself, she likes you, I think," said Annette.

"She has a most apt and happy way of showing it," he responded, his
slights rising up in him.

"You mustn't judge her by last night," replied Annette. "Aunt Paula has
many manners. I think she assumes that one when she is studying people.
Then think of the double reason she has for receiving you coldly--my
whole future, as she plans it, hangs on it--and she spoke nicely of
you. She likes your eyes and your wit and your manners. But--"

"But I am an undesirable acquaintance for her niece just the same!"

"Have I not said that you are--the obstacle? Haven't her controls told
her that? If not, why did she telegraph to me when she did?" Then, as
they turned from the park corner and made towards Riverside Drive,
something in her changed.

"Must we talk this out whenever we meet? You said once that you would
teach me to play. Ah, teach me now! I need it!"

And though he turned and twisted back toward the subject, she was pure
girl for the next hour. The river breezes blew sparkle into her eyes;
the morning intoxicated her tongue. She chattered of the trees, the
water, the children on the benches, the gossiping old women. She made
him stop to buy chestnuts of an Italian vendor, she led him toward his
tales of the Philippines. He plunged into the Islands like a white
Othello, charming a super-white Desdemona. It was his story of the
burning of Manila which brought him back to the vexation in his mind.

"That yarn seemed to make a very small hit last night," he said,
turning suddenly upon her.

"I didn't like it so much last night," she answered frankly.

"What was the matter?" he asked. "Why were you so far away? Were you
afraid of Mrs. Markham? I felt like the young man of a summer
flirtation calling in the winter. What was it?"

"I don't know," she answered.

"No--tell me."

"There wasn't any reason. I liked you last night as I always like you.
But we were far away. Shall I tell you how it seemed to me? I was like
an actress on the stage, and you like a man in the audience. I was
speaking to you--a part. In no way could you answer me. In no way could
I answer you directly. We moved near to each other, but in different
worlds. It was something like that."

"I suppose"--bitterly--"your Aunt Paula had nothing to do with that?"

"You must like Aunt Paula if you are to like me," she warned. "Yet that
may have something to do with it. I am wonderfully influenced by what
she thinks--as is right."

"Then it's coming to a fight between me and your Aunt Paula? For I'll
do even that."

"Must we go all over it again? Oh like me, like me, and give me a rest
from it! I think of nothing but this all day--why do you make it
harder? I do not know if I can renounce and still have you in my life.
Won't you wait until I know? It will be time enough then!"

"'Renounce,'" he quoted. "Then you know that there is something to
renounce--and that means you love me!" So giddy had he become with the
surge of his passion that his hands trembled on the steering-wheel.
Afraid of losing all muscular control, he brought the automobile to a
full stop at the roadside. Her sapphirine eyes were shining, her hands
lay inert in her lap, her lips quivered softly.

"Have I ever denied it--can I ever deny it to you?"

The pure accident of location gave him opportunity for what he did
next. For they were in one of those country lanes of Upper Manhattan
which, though enclosed by the greatest city, seem still a part of
remote country. Heavy branches of autumn foliage guarded the road to
right and left; from end to end of the passage was neither vehicle nor
foot-passenger. One faculty, standing unmoved in the storm of emotions
which had overwhelmed him, perceived this.

He reached for the trembling hands which gave themselves to his touch.
She swayed against him. Her hands had snatched themselves away
now--only to clasp his neck. And now her lips had touched his again and
again and somehow between kiss and kiss, she was murmuring, "Oh, I love
you--I love you--I love you. I love you so much that life without you
is a perfect misery. I love you so much that my work now seems stale
and dreary. I love you so much that I don't want ever to go away from
you. I want to stay here forever and feel your arms about me, for that
is the only way that I shall ever know happiness--or peace. I wake in
the morning with your name on my lips. I wander through the day with
you. If I try to read, you come between me and the page. If I try to
play you come between me and the notes. You are my books. You are my
music--my--my--everything. I go to bed early at night often so that I
can lie in the dusk and think of you. And oh, the only nights that rest
me are those filled with dreams of the poem we would make out of
life--if--if--"

Her voice faltered and he felt the exquisite caress of her lips
trembling against his cheek. As though she were utterly spent, she
ended where she had begun, "I love you--I love--I love you."

He was aware now that another car whirred behind them. He managed--it
took all the force in his soul--to put her from him. He turned to see
if they had been observed; the passengers in the other car, intent on
their own chatter, did not look; only the chauffeur regarded their
chassis with a professional eye, as though wondering if they were
stalled. When Blake drew a long breath and looked back at Annette, her
face was buried in her hands. And now, when he touched her, she drew
slowly away.

"Oh, drive on--drive on!" she said.

"Oh, Annette--dearest."

"Don't speak. I beg you--drive on or I shall die!"

And though the car wavered dangerously under his unsteady touch, he
obeyed, managed to gain the highroad without a spill, and to turn
north.

She wept silently. When at last she took her hands away and turned her
face on him, his lover's observation saw how beautifully she wept. Her
eyes were not red, her face was calm. He took heart from her glance,
began to babble foolish love words. But she stopped him.

"You are driving away from home," she said. "Drive back, and don't
speak yet."

After he had turned, her tears ceased. She dried her eyes. Now she
smiled a little, and her voice grew natural.

"I must never be weak again," she said. "But it was sweet. Dear, might
I touch your arm? No, you must not stop again. Just my hand on your
arm."

"Dearest, why do you ask?" She drew off her glove, and all the way a
light, steady pressure made uncertain his wheel-hand. They drove a mile
so--two miles--and neither spoke until they came out into inhabited
Upper Broadway. At the appearance of crowds, trucks and the perils of
the highway, that silver thread of silence broke. She drew her hand
away, and took up the last word of ten minutes ago.

"It was sweet--but no more. How long it is since I kissed you! I am
glad. I shall pay for it heavily--but I am glad!"

He smiled on her as on a child who speaks foolishness.

"You cannot renounce now!" he said.

"I shall renounce. I have stolen this morning--would you rob me in
turn?"

"It will be the first kiss of a million," he said.

"It will be the last forever," she answered. "But remember, if you do
not kiss me, no man ever shall."

He busied himself with guiding the automobile; it was no time to hurl
out the intense things which he had to say. But when they had entered
the smooth park driveway, he came out with it:

"Do you think that I respect that obstacle? Can you think that I
believe such moonshine even if you do? And do you suppose that I am
going to let Aunt Paula keep you now?"

She touched his arm again; let her hand rest there as before.

"Dear," she said, "I have never thought that you believed. I have felt
this always in the bottom of your heart. I only ask you not to spoil
this day for me. I have stolen it. Let me enjoy it. I shall not put you
out of my life--at least not yet. Later, when we are both calm, we will
talk that out. But let it rest now, for I am tired--and happy."

So they drove along, her light hand making warm his arm, and said no
word until they came near the Eighty-Sixth Street entrance. He looked
at her with a question in his eyes.

"Leave me where you found me," she answered; "I shall go in alone."

"But will you tell your Aunt Paula that you met me?"

"I shall tell her--yes. Not all, perhaps, but that I rode with you.
What is the use of concealment? She will know--"

"Her spirits?"

"Dear, do not mock me. They tell her everything she wants to know about
me." They had drawn up at the park entrance now; before he could
assist, she had jumped down.

"Good-by--I must go quickly--you must come soon--I will write."

He stood beside his car, watching her back. Once she turned and waved
to him; when she went on, she walked with a spring, an exultation, as
though from new life. He watched until she was only a blue atom among
the foot-passengers, until a park policeman thumped him on the shoulder
and informed him that this was not an automobile stand.

* * * * *

When Dr. Blake woke next morning, it was with a sense of delicious
expectancy. He formulated this as his eyes opened. She had promised to
write; the mail, due for distribution in the Club at a quarter past
eight, might bring a note from her. He timed his dressing carefully,
that he might arrive downstairs neither before nor after the moment of
fulfilment or disappointment. He saw, as he crossed the corridor to his
mail-box, that the clerk was just dropping a square, white envelope. He
peered through the glass before he felt for his keys. It was Annette's
hand.

So, glowing, he tore it open, and read:

DEAR MR. BLAKE:

I think it best never to see you again. Aunt Paula approves of
this; but it is done entirely of my own accord. My decision will
not change. Please do not call at my house, for I shall not see
you. Please do not write, for I shall send your letters back
unopened. Please do not try to see me outside, for I shall not
recognize you. I thank you for your interest in me; and believe me,
I remain,

Your sincere friend,

ANNETTE MARKHAM.

After a dreadful day, he came back to the Club and found a package,
addressed in her hand. Out fell a little bundle of rags, topped by a
comical black face, and a note. The letter of the morning was in a
firm, correct hand. This was a trembling scrawl, blotted with tears.
And it read:

Dear, I have something terrible to write you. I must give you up. I
cannot go into all the reasons now, and after all that would not
help any, for it all comes to this--we must never see each other
again. Please do not send me a letter, for though I should cover it
with my kisses, in the end I would have to send it back unopened. I
send you Black Dinah as I promised. It's all that's left of me now,
and I want you to have it. Dearest, dearest, good-by.




VI

ENTER ROSALIE LE GRANGE


"Cut, dearie," said Rosalie Le Grange, trance and test clairvoyant, to
Hattie, 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 hearts
is your wish--and right beside it is the ace of hearts. That means your
home, dearie--the spirits don't lie, even when they're manifestin'
themselves just through cards. They guide your hand when you shuffle
and cut. Your wish is about the affections, ain't it, dearie?"

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

"I got your wish now, dearie," announced Rosalie Le Grange. "The
spirits sometimes help the cards somethin' wonderful. Here it comes. I
thought so. The three of hearts for gladness an' rejoicin' right next
to the ace, which is your home. Now that might mean a little home of
your own, but the influence I git with it is so weak I don't think it
means anythin' as strong an' big as that. Wait a minute--now it comes
straight an' definite--he'll call--rejoicin' at your home because he'll
call. 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 of
sweeping; and--

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

As she moved about the squeezed little furnished rooms and alcove,
which formed her residence and professional offices in these reduced
days, Rosalie Le Grange appeared the one thing within its walls which
was not common and dingy. A pink wrapper, morning costume of her craft,
enclosed a figure grown thick with forty-five, but marvelously
well-shaped and controlled. Her wrapper was as neat as her figure; even
the lace at the throat was clean. Her long, fair hands, on which the
first approach of age appeared as dimples, not as wrinkles or
corrugations of the flesh, ran to nails whose polish proved daily care.
Her hair, chestnut in the beginning, foamed with white threads. Below
was a face which hardly needed, as yet, the morning dab of powder, so
craftily had middle age faded the skin without deadening it. Except for
a pair of large, gray, long-lashed eyes--too crafty in their corner
glances, too far looking in their direct vision--that skin bounded and
enclosed nothing which was not attractive and engaging. Her chin was
piquantly pointed. Beside a tender, humorous, mobile mouth played two
dimples, which appeared and disappeared as she moved about the room
delivering monologue to Hattie.

"I see a dark gentleman that ain't in your life yet. He's behind a
counter now, I think. He ain't the one that the ace of hearts shows is
goin' to call. I see you all whirled about between 'em, but I sense
nothin' about how it's goin' to turn out--land sakes, child, don't you
ever dust behind the pictures? You'll have to be neater if you expect
to 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?" pursued
Rosalie. "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 you
to-day." Rosalie busied herself with pinning the faded, dusty pink
ribbon to a gilded rolling pin, and turned her monologue upon herself:

"I ain't sayin' nothin' against this house for the price, dearie, but
my, 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 in
bed. Well, there's ups an' downs in this business. I've been down
before and up again--"

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

"What put you down?"

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

"Jealousy, dearie; perfessional jealousy. The Vango trumpet seances
were doin' too well to suit that lyin', fakin', Spirit Truth outfit in
Brooklyn--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'll
see." 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 about
himself," said Rosalie. "I'm--I'm kind of expectin' a gentleman visitor
I don't want to see yet. It's a matter of the heart, dearie," she
added. "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. Sort
of tall and distinguished."

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

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

"Well, you'd 'a' noticed," said Rosalie, covering up quickly. "The
gentleman 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 composed
her features to professional calm, she was thinking:

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

The expected knock came. Entered the new sitter--him whom we know as
Dr. Walter Huntington Blake, but a stranger to Rosalie. During the
formal preliminaries--in which Dr. Blake stated simply that he wanted a
sitting and expressed himself as willing to pay two dollars for full
trance control--Rosalie studied him and mapped her plan of action.
There was, indeed, "nothing to bite into." His shapely clothes bore
neither fraternity pin nor society button; his face was comparatively
inexpressive; to her attempts at making him chatter, he returned but
polite nothings. Only one thing did she "get" before she assumed
control. When she made him hold hands to "unite magnetisms," his finger
rested for a moment on the base of her palm. She put that little detail
aside for further reference, and slid gently into "trance," making the
most, as she assumed the slumber pose, of her profile, her plump,
well-formed arms, her slender hands. This sitter was "refined"; not for
him the groans and contortions of approaching control which so
impressed factory girls and shopkeepers.

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

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

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

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

"Wilfred--is it Wilfred?" he asked.

Laughing Eyes was far too clever a spirit to take immediately an
opening 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 a
finger, maybe it ain't--Laughing Eyes kind of a fool this
morning--Laughing Eyes has got lots to do for a 'itty girl--" Rosalie
had essayed another glance as she spoke of the ring. It brought no
visible change of expression; and from the success of her shot with
Wilfred she knew that this, in spite of first impressions, was a sitter
whose expression betrayed him. "Then it's business troubles," she
thought, "unless he's a psychic researcher. And if he was, he wouldn't
be 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 went
on: "Piles of bright 'itty buttons--money--" And then something which
had been gently titillating Rosalie's sense of smell made a sudden
connection with her memory, Iodoform--the faintest suggestion. She
linked this perception with his appearance of having been freshly
tubbed, his immaculate finger nails, shining as though fresh from the
manicure, his perfectly kept teeth and--yes--the pressure of a finger
on her pulse. Upon this perception, Laughing Eyes spoke sharply:

"Wilfred says your sick folks don't always pay like they ought. He says
when they're in danger they can't do too much for the doctor, but when
they'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 your
own impulses,'" responded Laughing Eyes. "You do the way the influences
guide you. They 're guiding _you_, not them other doctors that you're
askin' advice from." Laughing Eyes shifted to babbling of the bright
spirit plane beyond, and all that the patient was missing by delay in
translation, while Rosalie took another glance of observation, and
thought rapidly. Was this patient a medical or surgical case? Two
chances out of three, surgical; it would take remorse and apprehension
over a mistake with the scalpel to drive a medical man medium-hunting.
Her glance at his hands confirmed her determination to venture. They
were large and heavy, yet fine, the hands of a craftsman, a forger, a
surgeon, anyone who does small and exact work. Rosalie had been in a
hospital in her day, and she had studied doctors, as she studied the
rest of humanity, with an eye always to future uses. Having a pair of
hands like that, a doctor must inevitably choose surgery.

"Trust your papa!" babbled the Control. "Laughing Eyes trusted her
papa--ugh!--he big Chief. He here now! Your papa knows my papa! Your
papa 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 was
a mistake was all for the best. Those in the spirit controlled your
hands. Wilfred says 'three'--oh--oh I know what Wilfred means--ugh--get
out bad spirit--Wilfred means three days--you wait three days--you wait
three days and it will be right."

"And now," thought Rosalie Le Grange, "he's got his money's worth, and
I'll take no more risks for any two dollars!" Forthwith, she let the
voice of Laughing Eyes chuckle lower and lower. "Good-by!" whispered
the control at length, "I'm goin' away from my medie!" Then, with a few
refined convulsions, Rosalie awoke, rubbed her eyes, and said in her
tinkling 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, that
the influences wasn't going to be strong. A medium can sense them."

"Very satisfactory--with modifications," responded the sitter. "For
instance, it is absolutely true that I had a father. His name wasn't
Wilfred, it was James. And he died before I was born. But don't let
that discourage you. I can prove his existence. The other true thing
was the corker. I've been to fifty-seven varieties of mediums in the
course of this experiment, and you're the first to jump at the widest
opening I gave. I am a physician. I've put iodoform on my handkerchief
every morning to prove it. I've been listed six times as a commercial
traveler, twice as a con man, eight times as a clerk, three times as a
policeman, with scattering votes for a reporter, a clergyman, an actor
and an undertaker. But you're the first to roll the little ball into
the little hole. I am a physician, or was. Better than that, you got it
that I specialized on surgery--and I didn't plant _that_. You draw the
capital prize."

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

"In addition, you're the prettiest of them all, and a cross-eyed man
with 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 you
don't quit insultin' a lady in her own house and disgracin' her crown
of mediumship, out you go. There's those here that will defend me, I'll
have you know!"

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

Rosalie looked him sternly over a moment, but in the end her dimples
triumphed. She lifted her right hand as though to arrange her hair, two
fingers extended--the sign in the Brotherhood of Professional Mediums
to 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," responded
Rosalie; and now she made no secret of her dimples. "If we wanted to
water our mediumship, couldn't we get rich out of the tips we give
people on their business?"

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