“You don’t know what you’ll get mixed up in in a roomin’-house,” she warned us. “For all you can tell all who goes in that room will be hauled into court as witnesses—maybe put in jail.”
The next morning the little organist came to ask Alice and me to use our influence with Mrs. Brown, the landlady, to prevent her from forcing the milliner to leave the house.
“Mrs. Howard was in a sort of stupor last night when we got in her room,” the organist told us, referring to the milliner. “She seemed to be suffering intensely, and didn’t come round until she had taken a stiff drink of whiskey and I had rubbed her side. She only wants to stay until after Christmas; then she won’t be so rushed with work and can look around for another room, but Mrs. Brown says she was drunk last night, and must get out.”
Later, on my way to work, I stopped at the door of Mrs. Brown’s room for the purpose of speaking to her about the milliner. Answering my knock she came to the door, her face wreathed in smiles. Without giving me time to open my lips, she exclaimed:
“I’ve just received a letter from Mrs. Houghton-Smith,” she told me, mentioning the name of one of the most prominent women in New York. “She wants me to save her an hour this afternoon.” Seeing that I did not understand, she added: “Mrs. Houghton-Smith has me read her vibrations before every one of her visits to Washington.”
“Vibrations?” I questioned stupidly.
“Didn’t you know that I discovered the vibration theory?” she demanded. “Yes, indeed. And when I first came to New York I held my circles in the drawing-rooms of the most exclusive people in the city. I’d be doing it now if my son wasn’t such a fool.”
She then informed me that Mrs. Houghton-Smith was such a firm believer in vibrations that she had tried to induce her, Mrs. Brown, to go to Washington and get President Wilson’s vibrations. This Mrs. Brown refused to do, because, being of American Revolutionary stock, she felt it would not be well for any person to be in a position to control a President of the United States.
It all sounded like pure nonsense to me, but that afternoon on returning from work there was a limousine standing before the door. It was a noticeably handsome car. The chauffeur and footman were in livery. Judging by the brilliant lights in Mrs. Brown’s rooms I was sure she had company.
Three evenings later Alice burst into my room while I was cooking our dinner.