Mrs. Winslow

“ Winslow—a woman who was supreme in the art of providing bijouterie to appeal to the sensuous in men's natures. In her conversation, which apparently was lady-like enough when guarded, there was always more suggested than said. The tone, the smile, the eye, the gesture, the touch—every movement, glance, or sound, betokened an unexpressed something ready at any moment to be brought forward to crush down a weakening resolution, and sweep from existence so much of good or purity as might come into her baleful presence. She had rich game in Bristol, she thought. ”

“ Winslow was one of those pleasant, well-bred ladies, who can look at you until you are obliged to look away, contradict you flatly, and say the most grossly impertinent things in the mildest voice and choicest words. A woman of the world, without nobility enough to appreciate a magnanimous thought or action, and with very narrow, shallow views of everything about her, she had still some agreeable traits of character,—much shrewd knowledge of the world, as she saw it, some taste for Art, and an excellent judgment in relation to all things appertaining to polite society. ”

“ The mistress of the place was most elegantly attired, and greeted the "retired banker" with such grace and marked esteem, that Fox, at his lonely window opposite, almost felt jealous of the attention bestowed upon his comrade by their mutual quarry.
If ever a woman endeavored to make herself irresistibly winning, it was Mrs. Winslow on that night. She threw off all reserve at once, and was all smiles, pleasant words, and pretty ways. The rooms were most beautifully arranged, and where splendid flowers failed to furnish aroma, the delicate odors of art took their place. ”

“ Winslow in a discouraged, desolate tone, "as though everybody's hand is raised against me—as though the dreary days pass so slowly—and that I haven't a true friend in the world!"
"My dear Mrs. Winslow," interrupted Bristol in a calm, fatherly, even affectionate tone, "that melancholy's all very fine; but we are your friends, and we will stand [226] by you through thick and thin to the end of the suit. A few fast friends, you know, are better than a thousand sunny-weather friends." ”

“ Winslow. I was satisfied that not half the truth had been given me, and I was more than ever convinced of this fact when Lyon called me to one side as the lordly Harcout passed out, and said to me hurriedly:
"Don't be too hard upon the woman, Mr. Pinkerton. You know we are all liable to err; and—and, by Jupiter! Mrs. Winslow is certainly a most magnificent woman—a most magnificent woman," and then chewed himself out after his courtly henchman.
[65]
CHAPTER VIII.
The Case begun.—Mr. ”

“ New York also knew her as a woman so full of soul [309] —that latter-day substitute for brains and personal purity—as to have readily confused and silenced great throngs in Europe wherever she had appeared; and she had invariably challenged investigation, and that, too, with as much audacity as success, which had in every instance been wonderfully marked and complete.
Mrs. Winslow knew her as a little sprite she had met three years before at Chardon, Ohio, a pleasant little village of about 3,000 inhabitants, twelve miles south of Painesville, where Mrs. Winslow had been giving seances. ”

“ Winslow, jumping up. “The smoke is getting so thick we’d better go out in the garden.”
“I think we ought to tell somebody about it,” said Weejums.
“Why should we?” asked Mrs. Winslow, lazily. “No one else sleeps in the laundry. Besides you couldn’t get upstairs.”
“Yes, I could, through the hole where they pass the dishes in the butler’s pantry. Hannah left it open last night.”
“If I’d known that,” said Mrs. Winslow, crossly, “we could have slept in the parlor to-night. ”

“ Mrs. Winslow, under the Influence of "Spirits" of an earthly Order, becomes romantic, religious, and poetical.—A Trance.—Detective Bristol also proves a Poet.—A Drama to be written.
WHEN the evening came and Mrs. Winslow came with it, she was observed to be in a high state of nervous and vinous excitement, and at such times she contrived to inaugurate a series of actions which proved not only interesting, but illustrative of her strange character. ”

“ At half-past nine, precisely to the moment, the time that he had been directed, Winslow's valet came in, closed the windows, drew the curtains across the alcove, and after arranging the toilet articles in the ample bathroom, which was also used as a dressing-closet, went out until the bell should say that his master wished his breakfast. For accustomed to luxury as Winslow was in externals, his primitive tastes were direct and simple and he detested the fuss and servility of bodily service. ”

“ Winslow in a burst of indignation over her own wrongs.
"Oh, no, no, no! that won't do. Make huge advertising bills. That's better—much better. That's what we did, and we made big money too. By and by we [331] came on here to New York, made a huge show, took in a vast pile, and then went to Europe. Oh, that's the only way to do it!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Winslow with a deep sigh. "I have often felt the want of that peculiar tone which going to Europe gives one."
"Well, we did have a gay time, though," said Miss Gray in a dreamy way, as if ruminating over her conquests ”

“ 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 ”

“ Everybody recognized Winslow. "Why, there is Burton!" he heard Mrs. Keyton-Wells exclaim, and he knew she was putting up her glasses. Will Evans, who was an especial chum of his, ran down to the water's edge. "Bless me, Win, where did you come from? Come right in. We haven't had tea yet. Bring your friend too," he added, becoming conscious that Winslow's friend was a mighty pretty girl. Winslow's face was crimson. He avoided Nelly's eye.
"Are them people friends of yours?" ”

“ He lived again through the rushing ride home, hearing again her silvery voice as she talked, and feeling again the indefinable charm of her presence. He forgot—that she was doing a man's work; he thought only of her femininity and grace and beauty. Then, realizing afresh the calamity that had befallen the city, he groaned aloud.
"Oh, my God!" he muttered. "If she is lost—"
Then he knew, all suddenly and with a great heartache, that he loved a woman—that she was Gertrude Van Deusen—and that she was lost, and that she might be dead, or in great misery and sorrow. ”

“ But, oh, Barbara, I cannot live another day without seeing him. Ah, to feel he is so near, so near, and I may not see him, feel his hand, hear his voice. Oh! I cannot endure it," and leaning her head once more against the cold stone pillar of the dial, she burst into a passion of sobs.
Barbara regarded her with an expression of helpless bewilderment.
"'Tis passing strange," she murmured. "Come, Cis, I am Rupert's self in face and figure. I will kiss and cozen thee and call thee pretty names to thy heart's content; why may not that suffice thee?" ”

“ Winslow to be a woman of questionable character; as, when she first came to the city, she had stopped at his hotel, and had advertised her [68] mediumistic powers so largely that it had brought a class of men there whom he thought, from his personal knowledge of their habits, to be more interested in inquiries into the mysteries of the present than of the hereafter, until he had become so anxious as to the reputation of his house that he had informed the lady of the preference of her absence to her company ”

“ I think the daughter is a beautiful girl, as good of heart as lovely of face."
"I would like to help the family," said Winslow, "for their history, while strange and fascinating, [Pg 101] is also a sad one; and as you may know, Pierre is the last of his line."
"Yes, I have learned a great deal about the people from Marie and Suzanne. The child may need a protector some day, for her father's health is failing, and he is an old man, though he seems good for many years yet."
"I fear not," said Winslow, in reply; "he has a great grief ever bearing him down. Marie is all he has left in the world. ”

“ Winslow was an exceptionally bad woman, I felt no regret whatever in becoming her Nemesis, and even experienced a peculiar degree of satisfaction in inaugurating a crusade against her as a pitiless, heartless, dangerous woman, utterly devoid of conscience, and without a single redeeming trait of character.
I accordingly detailed two of my operatives, Fox and Bristol, to proceed to Rochester in charge of Superintendent Bangs, whom I gave instructions to locate the men so that they could keep Mrs. ”

“ If they were unwilling to match wits with a woman, why did they not say so? Why condescend to kidnaping a woman and running away with her from the fight? If this was the kind of a man John Allingham was—
They were turning into a cross-road now which led up-hill into another strip of wood. Shadows of tall pines and oak trees made it like a solemn temple, into the arched aisles of which they seemed to be entering. Gertrude did not see, and apparently the motionless automaton before her did not, that other machine gliding on in the shadowy road above and toward them. ”

“ With John Villard it was different. He had begun by looking with a certain degree of scorn upon a woman who held tremendous interests so lightly as she had done in the old days. He had felt for her all the contempt a man who does not know them—a man with serious purposes—may feel for the irresponsible butterflies he imagines society-girls to be. With her deeper interest in the side of life which interested him, and her efforts to raise the standard of the mills, her realization of what to him was a sacred object in life and her devotion to it, his thought of her had changed. ”

“ Winslow, I'm sure Ruth has been better than you think; she has been learning all these fiendishly complicated new dances. You know a poor business man like myself finds them——"
"Yes," said Aunt Emma, "I am sure she will always [348] remember that she is a Winslow, and must carry on the family traditions, but sometimes I am afraid she gets under bad influences, because of her good nature." She said it loudly. She looked Carl in the eye.
The whole table stopped talking. Carl felt like a tramp who has kicked a chained bulldog and discovers that the chain is broken. ”

“ You have not forgotten that, Barbara? The day I took my vow?"
"Alack-a-day," murmured Barbara to herself. "Here now is Ralph gone crazy. Ah, me! what shall I do? And 'tis five years since we met. Can a man indeed remain so faithful?"
She looked at him doubtfully, but the look in his eyes left no room for doubt. Then she grew angry at the folly and the wilfulness of man, who seeks ever for love where it may not be found. Yet her anger was slight, seeing no woman is ever angry at love, however unsought, and she pitied him and liked him the more for his love. ”

“ Ruth Winslow was an attractive young woman, I could see at a glance, although her face was almost completely hidden by the thick veil.
"Perhaps, Ruth, I had better—ah—see these gentlemen alone?" suggested her father gently.
"No, father," she answered in a tone of forced bravery, "I think not. I can stand it. I must stand it. Perhaps I can help you in telling about the—the case."
Mr. Winslow cleared his throat.
"We are from Goodyear, a little mill-town," he proceeded slowly, "and as you doubtless can see we have just arrived after travelling all day." ”

“ Pierre and Winslow were thrown more and more into each other's society as the days passed and as the young man found his strength again. The old Acadian woman was more occupied with the duties of the house. Marie wandered alone much of the time, sometimes on the beach about the island, or watched from the summit the [Pg 65] passing of the ships coming and going with the tide. The change in Marie did not arouse attention. She seldom addressed Winslow, and at those times with a modesty and color of cheek which left on his mind the impression that Marie was extremely shy and without experience. ”

“ Winslow has told you of just now. I asked her what she was going to do, and she said that all she wanted was to go back to her village and be left alone. She went, and I went, too—to the other end of the world! ”

“ Barbara hesitated for a moment. Then she turned away impatiently and walked back into the room.
"Nay, an my word be not enough, I will swear nothing. Yet I assure you the man you seek is not here."
But even as she spoke the words, she stopped with a stifled cry, for in the centre of the floor lay a man's hat, stained and draggled, but serving, with its long plume and jewelled clasp, as an outspoken traitor to its master.
The captain's glance fell on the hat at the same moment, and he turned to Barbara with a questioning smile. But she had recovered herself in an instant. ”

“ But we've got to put up a candidate with all the good qualities she possesses, to beat her. As the refined and beautiful daughter of Senator Van Deusen, we—you and I—have only admiration for this young woman—but—by Jove! when she enters politics she must meet us on our own ground. She must expect to give and take as we do. And we are bound to beat her. You, Jack, can do it. I know of nobody else who is available—this is quite between you and me—who would be sure to do it. Surely you are not afraid of a woman? ”