There had been nothing whatever done to alarm her on the part of my men; but the fact alone that here were a dozen people all about her, any one of whom might at any time spring some sudden harm upon her, began to affect her as the fear she had all her life inspired in others had affected them; and she began to form a habit of talking pleasantly on ordinary subjects, and then turning abruptly and almost fiercely upon Bristol and Fox, who were now the only persons left whom she would at all trust—even distrusting them—with a series of questions so vital, and given with such wonderful rapidity, that it required the best efforts of the operatives to parry her home-thrusts and quiet her regarding them.
It was a question in my mind whether she had laid by a large sum of money or not. Years before she had several thousand dollars; up to the time she came to Rochester she had had the reputation of never paying a bill, and, however hedged in she might be by justice, jury, constables, or sheriff, she not only escaped incarceration, but beat them all without paying any manner of tribute. She had done a fair business in duping Spiritualists and other weak-minded people while in Rochester; she had evidently levied upon Devereaux often and largely, and to my certain knowledge had taken some thousands of dollars from Lyon, and I was at a loss to know why she was growing so grasping and exacting as the reports showed was true of her; for she soon complained of being poor, levied additional assessment for care of the rooms, insisted upon her tenants receiving sittings at a good round price from her, and in general dropped the veneer which had formerly made her extremely fascinating, and became, save in exceptional moments of good nature, a masculine, repulsive shrew, who, with a slight touch of hideousness, might have passed for a stage witch or a neighborhood plague.
CHAPTER XIX.
Mrs. Winslow becomes confidential.—Some of her Exploits.—Her Plans.—A Sample of Legal Pleading.—A fishy Story.—The Adventuress as a Somnambulist.—Detective Bristol virtuously indignant.—Failing to win the "Retired Banker," Mrs. Winslow assails Detective Fox with her Charms.
AFTER a time Bristol and Fox became Mrs. Winslow's only confidants. Their business was to become so, and they successfully accomplished their object. As Bristol said in one of his reports: "Only set her tongue wagging, and she spouts away as irresistibly as an artesian well."
Had she been possessed of womanly instinct in the slightest degree, this would have been impossible. But being a male in everything save her physical structure, it was quite natural that she should hobnob with those most congenial; and as she had antagonized all her lodgers save my operatives, and they made a particular effort to keep up a good-natured familiarity, the three were certainly on as easy terms as possible, and passed the autumn evenings, which were growing long now, in conversation of an exceedingly varied nature, with an occasional sitting or seance, and not infrequently a visitation of spirits of more material character; and the following are a few of the many facts in this way brought out, and by Bristol and Fox transmitted to me at New York in their daily mail reports.
In one of Mrs. Winslow's peregrinations, probably for blackmail purposes, she secured the indictment in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, of one George Hodges, for swindling. He was not at that time arrested, but a year or so after, finding that he was in Cincinnati, and claiming that he was a non-resident, had him arrested as a fugitive from justice. When the case was called before an obscure justice, no prosecuting witness appeared, whereupon Hodges was discharged and at once secured a warrant against her for perjury, but afterwards withdrew it. Meantime the woman shook the dust of Cincinnati from her feet and repaired to St. Louis, where she began several suits against parties there, notably one against a leading daily newspaper of that city, from which she afterwards secured one thousand dollars damages for libel. She afterwards swung around the circle to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she obtained from the Governor of that State a requisition on the Governor of Ohio, at Columbus, upon whom she waited and requested him to designate her as the person to whom should be delegated the power under the law to convey the fugitive, Hodges, to the Keystone State; but the private secretary of the Governor of Ohio suspecting that the person who had presented the papers, and for whose benefit they had been issued, would make improper use of them, they were returned to the Governor of Pennsylvania, whereupon she had made Columbus ring with denunciations of gubernatorial corruption, and threatened to cause the impeachment of Pennsylvania's Executive, although those two commonwealths were never completely shattered by her.
Again in conversation regarding her case, which now seemed never out of her mind or off her tongue, she informed Bristol confidentially that she intended keeping Lyon in the dark altogether, giving him and his counsel no inkling as to what course she intended to pursue, which would so worry him that he would be glad to settle for at least twenty-five thousand dollars, rather than have the case come to trial and be exposed as she would expose him; and if he did not settle at the last moment, she would have subpœnas issued for Lyon's mother-in-law, all his children, several other women who, the spirits had revealed, had been similarly betrayed, and even Lyon himself, and then she would make a sensation.
At this stage she was positive he would settle, as she knew he was half worried to death about the matter; and besides this, he knew that she knew he had told a certain lawyer of the city that he had once loved her better than any other woman on earth, and the only reason he had discarded her was that he was sure her love had taken hold on his pocket and forsaken himself.