The Heart Line. Gelett Burgess
here, can get him into a private sittin', and when she does, you leave him to her—she'll find a way all right. She don't do no lumpy work, Gertie don't, you know that, all right! When she passes him along to me, I'll manage him like the way we worked Bennett with the real estate. I'd like another chance as good as him."
"You just wait," said Madam Spoll. "I got a hunch that this Payson is going to be pretty good pie; and we got a good strong combination, Frank, if you want to do your share."
"It's a pity Spoll ain't got some of Gertie's gumption," said Vixley, smiling with approval at his partner.
"Don't you make no mistake about Spoll—he's done some good work on Payson already." The Madam was adjusting her waist before the glass and coquetting with her hair. "The trouble with you, Vixley, is that you ain't got no executive ability—I'm going to organize this game myself. I can see a way to use Spoll and Ringa, and Flora, too. We want to go into this thing big. Payson's a keener bird than Bennett was, but they's more in him."
"So Spoll has begun, has he?" Granthope asked.
"Yes. He located the Paysons over on North Beach."
"I know that much already. The mother's dead. Mr. and Miss Payson have traveled abroad. What else do you know about her?"
"Why, it seems she's the sole heir. Good news for you, eh? High society, too—Flower Mission, Kitchen Garden, Friday Cotillions, Burlingame, everything. She could help you, Frank, if you got on the right side of her."
Here Mr. Spoll tiptoed in, bowed to Granthope, and said:
"Eight o'clock, Gertie."
Madam Spoll arose cumbrously, took a last peep in the mirror of the folding bed and turned into the hall, saying, "You take my advice, Frank. We depend upon you. See what you can do with the girl." She paused to bend a keen glance upon him. "What did you do with her, anyway?"
"Why, I did happen on something," he answered. "Do you remember Madam Grant, who used to live down on Fifth Street, twenty-odd years ago?"
Madam Spoll came back into the room eagerly.
"The crazy woman who lived so queer and yet had lots of money? Yes! She did clairvoyance, didn't she? I remember. She had a kid with her, too. Let's see—he ran away with the money, didn't he? And nobody ever knew what become of him. What about her?"
There was a duel of astute glances between them. Granthope had his own reasons for not wanting to say too much. He guarded his secret carefully, as he had guarded it from her for years.
"Miss Payson used to go down to see Madam Grant with her mother, when she was a little girl."
"No! did she, though? With her mother? That's queer! Hold on, Vixley. What did Lulu say about a love affair before Payson was married? Do you get that? Here's his wife visiting Madam Grant; you remember her, don't you? There's something in that I believe we got a good starter already."
Spoll appeared again, anxiously beckoning, and she went with him down the hall.
Vixley took up the scent. "Say, Frank," he asked, "how did you happen to get on to that, anyway? That was slick work."
Granthope turned to him and replied patronizingly, "Oh, I ought to know something about women by this time. I got her to talking."
Vixley frowned, intent in thought, stroking his scant, pointed beard and biting his mustache; then he slapped his knee with his claw-like hand. "Say, you got a grand chance there," he exclaimed. "See here, you can get in with the swells and be in a position to help out lots. It's the chance of a lifetime, and we'll make it worth your while."
"How?" Granthope inquired contemptuously.
"By a fair exchange of information. You put us wise, and we'll put you wise. I'll trust you to find ways of using what help we give you." He cackled.
"Yes—you can trust me. I think I might have some fun out of it. I don't mind helping you out, but all I need myself is a little imagination, some common-sense and a frock coat."
Vixley looked at him admiringly. "I wish't I had your chance, Frank; that's what I do. Say, you just light 'em and throw 'em away, don't you! I s'pose if I had your looks I could do it myself."
Granthope looked him over calmly. "There's no knowing what a bath and a manicure and a suit of clothes would do for you, Professor."
"You can't make brains out o' soap," retorted the medium.
"And you can't make money out of dirt.
"We'll see who has the money six months from now."
"It's a fair enough bargain. I take the girl, you take the money. I'm satisfied." Granthope arose and yawned. "Oh," he added, "did you know Payson had a partner named Riley? He was drowned in seventy-seven."
"That's funny. Queer how things come our way! Mrs. Riley is here in the front room with a test. She was tried for the murder of one of her husbands. Gert's goin' to shoot her up with it to-night. You better go in and see the fun. She'll give it to her good."
"I think I will," said the palmist.
He left Vixley plunged in thought, and walked out.
Turning into the audience-room he sat down on a chair in the rear. The place was almost filled. His eyes scanned the assembly carefully, roving from one spectator to another. On a side seat near him, a party of four, young girls and men, sat giggling and chewing gum. The rest of the company showed a placid vacancy of expression or lukewarm expectancy.
Madam Spoll at the organ and her husband with his violin, had, meanwhile, been playing a dreary piece of music, "to induce the proper conditions," as she had announced from the platform. They stopped, retarding a minor chord, and the medium went to the table and began to handle the tests, rearranging them, putting some aside, bringing others forward, in an abstracted manner. Then, looking up with a self-satisfied smile, she spoke:
"I want to say something to the new-comers and skeptics here to-night in explanation of these tests. Them who have thoroughly investigated the subject and are familiar with every phase of mediumship, understand, of course, that these objects are placed here merely to attract magnetism to the sitter and induce the proper conditions, so that your spirit friends will be able to communicate with you. This phase of mediumship is called psychometry, but if I'd stop to explain just what that means, I wouldn't have time to give any readings. Now, it won't be possible to get any messages unless you come here in the proper mood to receive them. You must send out your best thought and do all you can to assist, or else my guides won't be able to establish communication on the spirit plane. If you merely come here only to laugh and to make a scoff of the proceedings, I'll have to ask you to leave before I begin, for they's many here to-night who are honestly in search of the truth, seeking to communicate with the dear, loved ones beyond on the other side."
She passed her hand across her eyes, sighed, and fingered her chin nervously. She poked the articles on the table again.
"As I come on to this platform, I see an old man over there, in that direction, what you might call a middle-aged man, perhaps, of a medium height, and whiskers, like. I feel a condition of going on a journey, you might say, somewhere east of here, though maybe not very far, and I get the name John. The light goes over in your direction, lady, that one with the red hat. Yes, you. Would that be your father, possibly?"
The lady, straightening herself upon being thus addressed, said timidly, "I think perhaps you mean my uncle. His name was John."
"Maybe it is an uncle, though I get the influence of a father very strong, too. Has your father passed out?"
The lady in the red hat nodded.
"Then it is your father, do you see? Yes, I get an uncle, too, who wishes to communicate, only his influence ain't strong enough. That shows it ain't mind reading, as the newspaper folks say, don't it?" She smiled, as if she had made a point, and the audience appeared to be impressed.
"About this journey, now: maybe you ain't