CHAPTER XVI

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*TIT FOR TAT*

Professor Vixley had prepared his campaign with Mr. Payson with the scientific delight of an engineer. His cunning was not too low to prevent his love of the sport for the sport's sake, and his elaborations and by-plays were undertaken with relish and enthusiasm. The pleasure was vastly heightened for him by the character of his dupe. Mr. Payson was a figure in the community, a man of weight and influence. He had an established position and an assured wealth. Heavy and slow, mentally, he had the dignified respectability that is usually associated with business success.

In the mental manipulation of such a personage Vixley felt a sense of power as enjoyable as the pecuniary reward. The dwarf, socially, led the giant.

He had his charge, by this time, well in hand. The old gentleman's ponderous mentality had been managed like an ocean steamship lying at the dock. One by one the lines of doubt and distrust and prejudice had been released. It was now time to fire his intellectual boilers. By means of their tricks, eavesdropping methods and clever guess-work, and with Cayley's help, they had fed him fuel for the imagination until now he was roused to a dynamic, enthusiastic belief in spiritualism, or that version of it which best suited their ends. Captain and pilot were aboard and in command. It remained but to ring up the engines, turn over the wheel and get under way for the voyage. Many another such argosy had been fitted out and had sailed forth from their brains, to return laden with treasure. There was hazard of collision or shipwreck, but the only obstacle now in view was Granthope, and Vixley felt sure that he could be blown out of the way with the explosion of a few scandals.

Mr. Payson's mind had an inertia which, once successfully overcome, was transformed to momentum. He was as credulous, as responsive, as influenced by the specious logic of the medium as if he had never been a skeptic. Vixley's next move was to realize financially on Payson's vanity and literary aspirations.

The ensuing series of communications from "Felicia," automatically transcribed by Vixley, developed the fact Mr. Payson's book would meet with disastrous competition from an unknown author who was working upon the same subject in Chicago. Such a publication would, in the eyes of any publisher, materially affect the value of a San Francisco book. Something must be done to prevent the rival work from being printed. The first step necessary, Vixley asserted, was to send a man to Chicago and investigate the case and report upon it. This preliminary reconnaissance cost a considerable sum. Payson did not see the emissary, for Vixley had warned him of the possibility of blackmail. "Felicia" now informed the sitter that the aid of the spirit world could be invoked to forestall the competing writer's efforts.

There was a band of spirits on the "third sphere," it seemed, who, though usually maleficent, could be placated. These "Diakkas" could, and possibly would, exert certain magnetic or psychic powers so as to prevent competition. It was difficult, however, to win over spirits so fantastic as these, even when one had established communication with them--itself an intricate and dangerous process. The only safe way, Mr. Payson was assured, was to create an atmosphere pleasing to them, one which absorbed antagonistic vibrations, and facilitated communication by intensifying the sitter's aura and rendering their acceptance of earthly conditions easy. And so forth, through an elaborate exposition.

The thing was accomplished by means of charging the room with the perfume of ambergris. Ambergris, however, was expensive. Mr. Payson had to pay fifty dollars an ounce for his; moreover, a fresh supply was necessary for each seance as the material quickly absorbed the deleterious psycho-physical elements of the atmosphere, and became inert to vibration. Professor Vixley divided this revenue with Madam Spoll, but he could not divide his pleasure in his artful fiction. Madam Spoll was only a woman; the artistic niceties of the harlequinade were lost on her.

This could not, however, go on for ever, nor were the two conspirators content to do business in so small a way. Both were convinced that the only chance for a large and permanent income lay in the production of Payson's and Felicia's child, and they set about the plan by which this should become remunerative.

Ringa was settled upon for the impersonation. He was simple, easily taught and led; he was willing. He would be as easily managed when the time came for a division of the profits of the enterprise. And so, one day, Madam Spoll waddled out to Turk Street to complete the negotiations.

Professor Vixley was bending over a small machine with horizontal arms in the form of a cross, decorated with mirrors, when she rang; before opening the door he covered the instrument with a black cloth and put it on his roll-top desk by the type-writer.

Madam Spoll came in smiling, unruffled as if her face had been freshly ironed out.

"I been walking lately, to reduce my flesh, but, Lord, I get such an appetite I eat more'n enough to balance," she panted, as she lowered herself carefully upon the quilted couch and crushed back into a sofa pillow, whereon was painted a fencing girl with a heart on her plastron. She loosened her beaded cape, and breathed heavily in relief.

"Well, I managed to get here, after all! What d'you think? Mrs. Riley has been to me for a private setting. Do you recall her, Vixley? She's that woman who was tried for murdering her husband some years back and was acquitted; or rather the jury was hung. Anyways, _she_ wasn't. But I believe she done it. She's as nervous as a cat, and can't look you in the face to save her soul. It seems that she knew Madam Grant in the old days, and used to get readings off her. I don't know but we could use her, someway."

"Has she got any money?" said the slate-writer.

"She keeps a boarding-house, I believe. It wouldn't be much, but 'every little helps,' as the old lady said when she spit into the harbor. I might work her for five a week, I s'pose, but now I think of it, Masterson's doctoring her."

"Then they won't be much meat left on her bones!" Vixley grinned. "But I ain't botherin' with landladies till we finish with Payson. Did you see him yesterday?"

"I did, and he said he'd give a thousand dollars if we'd find the boy. I shouldn't wonder if he'd pay more if we work it right, not to speak of what we get from Ringa when he's fixed."

"Lord! A thousand dollars for Ringa! Wouldn't that make you seasick?" Vixley cackled, slapping his claw-like hand on his knee. "I say, Gertie, we ought to get a couple of good crockery teeth put in his jaw first, or the old man will want to return him for shop-worn. Ringa as Mr. Max Payson, Esquire! Gee whizz! I want to be there when the old gent falls on his neck and kills the fatted calf!"

"I've known a heap of worse boys than Max Ringa to have for a son," Madam Spoll said, a little irritated. "You go to work and wash him and dress him up in a Prince Albert and I don't know why he won't do as well as anybody."

"Oh, he'll do--he'll do elegant! He'll do Payson, anyways, and that's all we want."

"Oh, I'm going to teach him to jump through the hoop all right. He'll be doing the papa's darling act so natural you'll think he'd always slep' in a bed!" She chuckled now till she shook like a jelly-fish. "He's just crazy about it. Says he'll come down and take me to ride in his automobile car. Why, Payson will be good for all sorts of money if Ringa works him right. He ought to get an allowance of two or three hundred a month if the old man's got any proper feelings as a father."

"It's more'n likely he'll pay Ringa to stay away," Vixley remarked cynically. "I've seen these here fond parents before. I don't seem to see Ringa doin' society somehow. He'd be tryin' to blow the foam off his champagne and chewin' tobacco in the ball-room the first thing. But he'll do for a starter. If worse comes to worst we can hold the old man up to keep the story dark--and then there's the weeklies, they wouldn't mind gettin' hold of it."

"Say!" Madam Spoll suddenly exclaimed, "what's become of Fancy Gray, now that Frank has thrown her down?"

"Why, ain't you heard? She's took up with this fellow Cayley."

"No!" Madam Spoll's eyes were opened wide at the bit of gossip. "What's he up to with her, anyway?"

"Why, I expect he's trying to use her someway, so's to queer Frank's game with Miss Payson. Fancy knows all about Frank, if she can be induced to tell. If Cayley can show Frank up, he stands a better show to catch Miss Payson himself. At least, that's the way I figure it. I ain't got no idea that Cayley cares a rap for Fancy, but he's smooth, and as long as he can use her he'll keep her jollied along."

The Madam had been thinking hard. "Fancy ought to be pretty sore on Frank," she offered.

"I don't blame her. He's treated her bad."

"And there's no doubt about her being stuck on Cayley?"

"It certainly looks like it; she's with him all the time."

"Well, then, what's the matter with getting Cayley to work her so she can help us out with Payson? I believe we could use her good. She's a saucy chit, and she makes me tired with her fly-up-the-creek impudence; but all the same, she's clever, and if Cayley could only induce her to go into it, I can see lots of ways she could help."

Vixley thought over the matter for a few minutes in silence. "All right, Gertie, I'll speak to him about it. I guess he'll do it; he'll be afraid not to. We got him pretty well tied up, now."

"You can promise him that Felicia will recommend that he marries the girl. That'll be an inducement."

"I'm afraid the Payson girl has got something to say about that herself, from all I hear."

"Well, at any rate, we've queered Frank Granthope, and that's what Cayley wanted most."

"I guess so; at least, that's what I make out from what he says. He's pretty close-mouthed."

"Well, if he ain't close-mouthed about Payson, he can tend to his own affairs alone, for all I care. Has he gave you any more dope?"

"Has he! Why, he's been a-ringin' of me up every day, tippin' me off to everything the old man's up to!"

"You ain't let on anything about this child business to Cayley, have you?"

"D'you think I want to queer the whole game? Of course not. Why, Cayley would be scared that the daughter wouldn't get any of the money if he knew they was another heir. All the same, we got to be careful of Cayley, for he certainly has helped considerable. The old man wouldn't be where we got him now if Cayley hadn't shown up. What d'you think he told me this mornin'? Payson's been round to a lot of printers, gettin' estimates on the book, so's he can publish it hisself! Ain't that a gall? He never asked my advice about it! I'm going to give him a dig about that."

"Oh, well, let's get down to business, I ain't got any too much time," Madam Spoll interrupted. "About the materializing, now. We got to have a private seance, of course?"

Vixley rose, clasped his hands behind his back, and lifted himself up and down on his toes as he gazed at her. "I been a-thinkin' it over, Gert, and I come to the conclusion that it ain't best. Payson ain't prepared for it yet, and we got to go easy. He ain't actually convinced of physical mediumship yet, as it is. I think we better spring it on him at a public. Flora can pack the room with believers and cappers, and then, after Payson's seen a lot of other folks recognizin' spirits and gettin' messages, why, he'll be more inclined to swallow his test. I've made a study of him, and that's my opinion."

"Has Flora got plenty of help?"

"She wants one more girl to play spirit, for she's just lost a dandy she had--she was arrested for shopliftin', I believe. We can fix her up, though. There's your Miss French, for one."

"I don't trust her much, but she'll do on a pinch. But Perry we must have. It's better to use our own people. Who's Flora's cabinet control?"

"Little Starlight. Flora does her with a telescope rod. Oh, Flora's slick! She's a cracker jack of a ventriloquist--she's got at least six good voices!"

"How does she work, now? From the front seats?"

"No, mostly through the foldin' doors. As soon as the room is dark and the singin' has commenced she has the door rolled back the wrong way about a foot, and her players come in that way. They don't show against the black cloth, and they's no danger at all, for if anybody wants to examine the cabinet they ain't no panels nor nothing to be exposed. Flora's just got up a grand disappearance act, she tells me. She wears a white petticoat and her overskirt is lined with white. When she comes out of the cabinet her skirt is lifted up and wrapped round her head inside-out, as natural as life. Then she gradually lowers it and the whole form slowly disappears down to the ground like a snow-man meltin' in the sun. No, sir, you can't beat that girl, not in this town!"

"Vixley, I don't see no end to this graft. Why, after we've materialized we can etherealize, can't we?"

"Yes, and then we'll develop him till he don't know where he's at."

"And spirit-pictures, too. Felicia'll take a grand photograph!"

"You bet. I'm going to try them big cloth ones that you spray with prussiate o' potash. You can get blue, yeller, and brown fine. I been workin' on it already."

A ring at the front door-bell interrupted her colloquy. Vixley tiptoed to the window and peeped out; then he turned with a scowl.

"It's Doc Masterson. What the devil does _he_ want, anyway?"

"No good, I'll bet," she replied.

"I got to let him in, I s'pose. It won't do to send him away, the old snake-in-the-grass. He's too smooth!"

"Oh, I ain't afraid of him. I wan't born yesterday," was her contemptuous reply.

"All the same, you be careful what you say to him, Gert," Vixley cautioned, as he went out into the hall.

He reappeared with the doctor. Madam Spoll smiled sweetly.

Doctor Masterson greeted her with a sour expression, and shook hands limply. He sat down deliberately, and, pulling out a soiled silk handkerchief, wiped his creased forehead and his bald pate. Then he cleaned his iron-bowed spectacles, blinking his red eyes as he breathed on the lenses.

Vixley, from the organ bench, watched him shrewdly, and offered him a cigar.

"No, thanks, I don't smoke," said the doctor peevishly.

"Since when?" Vixley asked in surprise.

"Since you give me that last 'Flor de Chinatown,' or whatever it was. When I want to smoke rag carpets again I'll try another." He showed his black teeth in a vicious grin.

Vixley tittered. "What's wrong, Doc? Looks like you had a grouch. Been takin' too much of Hasandoka's medicine lately? You didn't come round here to look a gift-horse in the mouth, did you?"

The doctor cleared his throat and pulled down his plaid waistcoat. "No, I didn't. But I didn't come round for to give you any hot air, neither! I'm glad I struck Madam Spoll here, for what I got to say may interest her, too."

"Spit it out and get rid of it, then," said Vixley; "don't mind us."

"The fact is," said Masterson, "you ain't neither of you treated me square. I fully expected to be in on this Payson game, from what you led me to believe, and you not only let me out with only a month's work, but you've shut me off from the main graft."

Madam Spoll fired up. "We never told you we was going to whack up with you, at all! Seems to me you got considerable nerve to try and butt in! Who's running this thing, anyway? You got all that's coming to you. We ain't never took him into partnership, Vixley, have we?"

"I ain't seen no contrack to that effect. You ain't got no call to complain, Doc; they ain't enough in it for three. Payson ain't loosened up enough for us to retire on it, yet."

Masterson's thin lips drew back like a hound's, to show his fangs. His Adam's apple rose and fell above his celluloid collar, as he swallowed his irritation. "_Oh_, very well," he said quickly. "Of course, if you want to freeze me out, you can. But I don't call it a square deal. I was the one what got him going, wan't I? Didn't I do my part all right? I understand you're going to materialize him and develop him, and the Lord knows what-all. I don't see why you can't find room for me, somewhere."

"You ought to be thankful for what you got out of it!" Madam Spoll exclaimed. "Lord, we didn't have to take you on at all! They's plenty of others we could have used. You're three hundred ahead of the game as it stands, and that's more than you've ever made in six months, before. Don't be a hog!"

"That's a nice thing for _you_ to say," he sneered. "When I get up to two hundred pounds I'll begin to worry about _that_."

Vixley interfered craftily. "We'll think it over and let you know, Doc; we may be able to use you, perhaps, but we can't tell yet a while--not till we see how this thing turns out."

Madam Spoll broke in again, shaking her fat finger at him. "Don't you believe it, Masterson! Me and Vixley can work this thing alone, and you better keep your nose out of our business! If you come here looking for trouble, you can find it, fast enough!"

Vixley winked at her, but she was too angry to notice it. Masterson rose stiffly and faced her, his thumbs caught in the armholes of his plaid waistcoat. "All right," he said. "I ain't going to get down on to my knees to _you_. But the next time I'm asked for a good clairvoyant, it won't be you. I only ask what's fair, and I didn't come here for to be insulted."

"Oh, get on to yourself!" Vixley said, taking him by the arm. "Nobody ain't insulted you. You can't blame us if we want to do this our own way, can you?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and took a few steps toward the door. "You may think better of it when you talk it over," he hinted darkly. "You may see my side of it. Good afternoon, Madam Spoll, I won't take no more of your valuable time." He walked out.

"You was a fool, Gert," said Vixley, after the door slammed. "It won't do to let him get down on us. He knows too much."

"Pooh!" she flouted, bridling. "I ain't afraid of Masterson, nor anybody like him. He ain't got enough blood in his neck to do anything. He just came round here like a pan-handler to see if we wouldn't give him a poke-out. I'll see him further!"

"I ain't so sure," Vixley replied, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. "My rule is, don't make no enemies if you can help it. But of course we got to cut him out."

Madam Spoll subsided and changed the subject. "Have you got that developing machine yet?" she asked, her eyes, roving about the room.

He walked to the desk and carried the machine to the small table in front of her. Taking off the cloth he disclosed the revolving mirrors actuated by clockwork. It was much like the instrument first used by Braid in his experiments with mesmerism. He wound the spring and set the mirrors in motion. They whirled madly in their circle, casting flashes of light.

"That's the way it works--you just stare at it hard. I guess that will hold Payson a while. He's got the scientific bug enough to like this sort of thing."

Madam Spoll put her elbow on the table and rested her head on her hand, gazing, fascinated, at the flash of the revolving mirrors. As the machine began to whir, the canary in the cage by the window began warbling in an ecstasy of song. Vixley swore at the bird, and then, as it refused to stop, took down the cage and walked to the door with it.

"I guess that'll bring Felicia, all right, won't it?" he said as he went out of the room, leaving Madam Spoll transfixed, lulled and charmed by the flying mirrors.

He was gone longer than he intended; it was seven or eight minutes before he returned, whistling through his teeth. He turned into the front room and stopped in astonishment.

Madam Spoll was standing beside the machine, which had now run down. Her eyes stared blankly at the desk, one hand clutched her breast, the other was raised, as if to put something away from her. Her little low-crowned Derby hat had fallen partly off and hung on one side of her head. She stared, without speaking, her face set with an expression of terror.

"For Heaven's sake, Gert, what's the matter?" he cried.

She turned her eyes slowly toward him, shuddered, sighed, and her hands fell together. Then her face lighted up in a frenzy. "My God, Vixley, I got it! I got it! After all these years!"

"Got what, you crazy fool? The jimjams?"

"I got materializing--I got a spirit! She was right over there by the desk--a woman with white hair, it was, and she give me a message!"

"Rats!" Vixley was contemptuous. He took her hand and gave her a little shake. "Is _that_ all? I guess you was hypnotized, Gert, that's all. That's what I got this jigger for, only I never thought _you'd_ be one to go off half-cock like that!"

"Vixley," she said emphatically, "don't you be a fool! I see a spirit for the first time in my life, and you can't make me believe I didn't. And I know who it was, now. It was Felicia Grant, as I'm a sinner, and she came to warn me about Payson. Oh, you can laugh; I s'pose I would if I was you, but this was the real thing, sure!"

She reseated herself on the sofa and put her hands to her eyes. Vixley sat on the arm of the Morris chair and laughed loudly. "Well, well!" he exclaimed, "if that ain't a good one! Spirit, was it? Well, I guess if it'll work on Gertie Spoll it'll work on Payson, all right. Oh, Lord!"

She shook both hands wildly, almost hysterical with excitement, the tears flowing. "My God! We can't go on with Payson now. I don't dare to. I'm frightened."

"Oh, you just got an attack of nerves, that's all. You'll get over it and laugh at it. You keep still and cool off."

She wagged her head solemnly, unconscious of her hanging hat. "See here, Vixley, you know me! I'm too old a bird to be fooled with fakes--I've done too much of that myself. I've always claimed that I had clairvoyance, but I lied. I never got that nor clairaudience, no matter how I tried for it, and I've had to fake. I've had a gift o' guessing, perhaps, but that's all. But I swear to God, I got materializing just now. I've scoffed at it all my life, but I believe it now. I see her just as soon as you left, standing right over there by the desk, she was, and she turned to me and she says, 'If you persist you will come to harm. Take my advice and don't you do it!' and then she faded away. What d'you s'pose it means?"

"It means you need a drink," he said, and, walking to the desk, he took out a whisky bottle and poured out a stiff dose. "Them's the spirits that'll help you most. You put this down and see how you feel!"

She put it away with an impatient gesture. "Oh, you don't believe it," she cried, "but I see her just as plain as I see you this minute, and I heard her, too. What'll I do, Vixley? I can't give up my business, can I? I got to live."

"What's the matter with you? I don't see as they's anything to worry about, granted it was a spirit, which it wasn't one, o' course."

"She said, 'If you persist you will come to harm!' What else could that mean but Payson? Let's call it all off, before anything happens."

"Bosh! It ain't likely it meant Payson any more than it did anything else. Why, the thing is as simple as a rattle. Spirits be damned! You leave that to the suckers--with money."

Although his incredulity and sneers prevented her from actually withdrawing from the projected seance, she was by no means restored to calmness. She gave but a reluctant, distracted attention to his plans, and talked little herself. She went home oppressed by the sinister suggestions of her vision, muttering her dread for the future.

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