The Heart Line 36

The Heart Line 36

"You never can tell," said Madam Spoll. "I believe Frank’s got good

blood in him. Sooner or later it’s bound to come out."

 

"Well, if he’s after the girl, it’ll be easier for us to bring him

around. He won’t care to be gave away."

 

"That’s right, and we’ll use it. I can see that girl’s face when she

hears about him crawling through the panel at Harry Wing’s to play spook

for Bennett."

 

"Not to speak of Fancy," Vixley added, grinning.

 

To them, Ringa entered. He slunk into a chair beside Vixley, smoothed

down his tow hair, stroked his bristling mustache, and allowed his weak

gray eyes to drift about the room.

 

"Well?" Madam Spoll queried, giving him a glance over her fat shoulder.

 

"I found him all right, and I’ve got something. I guess it’s worth a

dollar, Madam Spoll."

 

"Let’s hear it, first," said Vixley.

 

"I done the insurance agent act, and I jollied him good." Ringa

grinned, showing a hole in his mouth where two front teeth should have

been.

 

"You jollied him," Vixley showed his yellow teeth. "Lord, you don’t look

it!"

 

"I did though," the pale youth protested. "I conned him for near an

hour."

 

"You’re sure he didn’t get on to you?" Madam Spoll asked, regarding her

head sidewise in the glass and patting the blue bow on her throat.

 

"Sure! I was a dead ringer for the real-thing agent, and I had the

books to show for it. I worked him for an insurance policy."

 

"Well? What did he say?" Madam Spoll turned on him like a mighty gun.

 

"He was caught between two trains once on the Oakland Mole, and I guess

he was squeezed pretty bad. He said it was a close call."

 

"That’s all right," said Vixley; "we can trim that up in good shape,

can’t we, Gert?"

 

"It’ll do for a starter. Give him a dollar."

 

"Anything more to-day?" Ringa asked, rising slowly.

 

"No; I’ll let you know if I want you," said the Madam.

 

Ringa slouched out.

 

"I’d let that cool off a while till he’s forgotten it," Vixley

suggested.

 

"I’ll make him forget it, all right," Madam Spoll returned. "That’s my

business. You do your part as well as I do mine and you’ll be all

right."

 

"It’s only this first part that makes me nervous."

 

"Oh, he ain’t going to catch _me_ in a trap. I got sense enough to put

a mouse in first to try it."

 

She stood in front of the mirror in the folding-bed, arranging her hair,

which had been wet and still glistened with moisture, holding her comb,

meanwhile, in her mouth. Professor Vixley tilted back in his plush

chair, his head resting against the grease-spot on the wall-paper which

indicated his habitual pose.

 

"Now don’t you go too fast," he said, pulling out a square of

chewing-tobacco and biting off a corner. "This here is a-goin’ to be a

delicate operation. Payson ain’t so easy as Bennett was. Bennett would

believe that cows was cucumbers, if we told him so, but this chap is too

much on the skeptic. We got to go slow."

 

"You leave me alone for _that_," Madam Spoll replied easily. "I guess I

know how to jolly a good thing along. Has he got the money? That’s all

I want to know about him."

 

"He’s got money all right. That’s a cinch. I’m not in this thing for

my health. What’s more, he’s got the writin’ bug, and I can see a good

graft in that."

 

"Well, I’ll give it a try."

 

"No, you better keep your hands off that subject, Gertie. I can work

that game better’n you. I got it all framed up how I can string him

good. I’m goin’ to make that a truly elegant work of art. All you got

to do is to get him goin’, and then steer him up against me."

 

The door-bell rang noisily up-stairs and Mr. Spoll’s footsteps were

heard going to answer the summons.

 

"I guess that’s my cue," said Madam Spoll, smiling affably. "I wish I

had more magnetism to-day." She shook her hands and snapped her

fingers. "I can’t stand so much of this as I used to. I can remember

when I could get a name every time without fishing for it. But what

I’ve lost in one way I have learned in another. I’m going to give him a

run for his money, and don’t you forget it."

 

Vixley smiled and rubbed his hands. "Go in and win, Gert. I guess I’ll

take a nap here on the lounge while I’m waitin’ for you, and see if the

Doc doesn’t come in."

 

"All right," she replied; then marched up-stairs and went into action.

 

The upper parlor, where she received her patrons for private sittings,

was a large room separated from the back part of the house by black

walnut double doors. Upon the high-studded walls were draperies of

striped oriental stuffs, caught up with tacks and enlivened by colored

casts of turbaned Turks’ heads, most of which were chipped on cheek and

on chin, showing irregular patches of white plaster. Upon the mantel

chaos reigned, embodied in a mass of minor decorations of all sorts,

such as are affected by those who deem that space is only something to

be as closely filled as possible. The furniture was cheaply elaborate

and formally arranged, running chiefly to purple stamped plush and heavy

woolen fringe. The silk curtains in the windows were severely arranged

in multitudinous little pleats, fan shaped, drawn in with a pink ribbon

at the center. There was scarcely a thing in the room, from the

fret-sawed walnut whatnot in the corner to the painted tapestry Romeo

upon the double doors, that an artist would not writhe at and turn

backward. A little ineffective bamboo table in the center was made a

feature of the place, but supported its function with triviality.

 

Mr. Payson had just entered, cold and blue from the harsh air outside.

He bowed to the seeress.

 

She began with the weather, referring to it in obvious commonplaces,

eliciting his condemnation of the temperature. She offered to light the

gas-log and succeeded, during the conversational skirmish, in drawing

from him the fact that he suffered from rheumatism, especially when the

wind was north.

 

Madam Spoll allowed the ghost of a smile to haunt her face for a brief

moment. "Lucky you ain’t got my weight, it gets to you something

terrible when you’re fat. I ain’t quite so slim as I used to be." She

looked up from the grate coquettishly, marking the effect of her words.

 

"Now let’s set down and get ready," she said, going over to the frail

table and pressing her hands to her forehead. "I ain’t in proper

condition to-day; I’ve been working hard and my magnetism’s about wore

out. But I’ll see what I can do."

 

He took a seat opposite her and waited. His attitude was benignly

judicial; his eyes were fixed upon her, through his gold-bowed

spectacles.

 

"Funny thing how different people are," she began. "Now, I get your

condition right off. You ain’t at all like the rest of the folks that

come here. I get a condition of study, like. I see what you might call

books around you everywhere—not account-books, but more on the literary.

Books and sheep, you understand. Not live ones! I would say they was

more on the dead sheep. Flat ones, too, with hair, like—queer, ain’t

it? Sounds like nonsense I suppose, but that’s just what I get. They

must be some mistake somehow." She drew her hand across her forehead

and snapped the electricity off her finger-tips. Then she rubbed her

hands and twisted her mouth. "Do you know what I mean?"

 

"Why, it might be wool perhaps; I have something to do with wool," he

offered.

 

"Now ain’t that strange? It _is_ wool, as sure’s you’re born! I can

see what you might call skins and bales of wool. And I get a condition

of business, too—but not what you might call a retail business. Seems

like it was more on the wholesale."

 

"Yes, that’s right," he assented, nodding.

 

"What did I tell you!" she exclaimed. "I do believe I may get something

after all, though very often the first time ain’t what you might call a

success, and sitters are liable to get discouraged. I can tell you only

just what my guides give me, you know, and sometimes Luella is

pernickerty. She’s my chief control. You know how it is yourself, for

you’ll be a man that knows women right down to the ground, and you’ve

always been a favorite with the ladies, too."

 

"Oh, I never knew many women," he said modestly.

 

"It ain’t the number I’m speaking of. It’s the hold you had over ’em,

specially when you was a young man. They was women who would do

anything you asked them and be glad of the chance; now, wasn’t they?

Did you ever know of a party, what you might call a young woman, though

not so very young, with the initial C?" She mumbled the letter so that

it was not quite distinguishable."G?" he said. "Why, yes!—was that the first name or the last?""It seems like it was the first name, the way I get it—would it be

Grace?"This was, of course, a random "fishing test," and she got a bite.

"My wife’s name was Grace."