CHAPTER XII
Madame Rosalie was setting her stage for a caller. It was evidently tobe an important client, for cards, crystal, horoscope, ouija-board, andother handmaidens to divination were set forth upon the table in the dimback parlor. The priestess herself, in her garnet-colored robe, movedabout the room with the noiselessness of a shadow. Although it wasbarely dusk she drew the shades and swung the electric bulb over the endof the table. Then she stood surveying her work with the criticalscrutiny of an artist experimenting for the best light upon his picture.Her too-brilliant eyes roved restlessly from one carefully arrangeddetail to another.
Suddenly a footstep sounded outside, and there was a buzz of theelectric bell. Madame Rosalie waited exactly the correct length of timebefore responding to its summons. The interval was expressive neither ofeagerness nor indifference. When she returned to her sanctum it was tousher into it a man who moved hurriedly, drew off a pair of heavydriving-gloves, and tossed them into the Morris-chair. The astrologistremoved them quietly to a settee in a far corner of the apartment andseated herself in the chair.
"They say you're the eighth wonder of the world." Her visitor spoke witha thinly veiled sarcasm as he took his place under the light. "I mightas well tell you at the outset that I don't go in much for this sort ofthing. I'm here upon the suggestion of somebody else. I've known a goodmany of you trance mediums and my experience has been that you're strongon the future and weak on the past. You play safer that way. But ithappens that I want help with the past more than with the future. What'sthe idea now? Are you going to hypnotize me?"
His voice was not antagonistic, only briskly businesslike. He might havebeen suggesting that he try on the suit of clothes which a salesman wasproffering for his favor.
Madame Rosalie answered in the low, slightly indifferent voice that hadsurprised Roger Kenwick. "Hypnotism is a cooeperative measure. I couldn'thypnotize you unless you were willing and would help me."
He laughed. "That's a good deal for you to admit. Most of you peopleclaim to be able to do anything."
"Do you wish me to try to hypnotize you?"
"No, I don't care about it especially. It takes a lot of time, doesn'tit? Get busy on something that comes right down to brass tacks."
She turned the crystal sphere slowly in her hand. "You are obsessed by afear, and you have reason to be. There is a very serious problemconfronting you, and you need help in solving it. I can't help you, butperhaps I can find some one else who can."
She gathered up a bundle of cards. At first glance he had thought theywere playing-cards, but he saw now that the reverse sides were allblanks. "On each of these I am going to write a word," she explained."I'll hold it for an instant before your eyes. Read it, close your eyes,and then look at those maroon-colored curtains over there."
Without comment he followed these instructions. Ten minutes passed whilethe client glanced at the cards and then at the curtains. Sometimes hisgaze strayed back to the bit of pasteboard before the medium had anotherone ready. By the end of the hour she had cast his horoscope, read hispalm, and performed other mystic rites. Then she settled back in thedeep chair and announced herself ready to "project the astral body." Afew moments passed in absolute silence. The medium appeared to fall intoa light slumber, and the man on the other side of the table was preparedto see her face contorted by the writhing pains of the trance victim.But it remained calm, almost deathlike. His shrewd eyes were sizing herup as she slept. He seemed almost to forget that he had come forspiritual counsel, and his gaze was calculating, speculative, as thoughhe were considering her possibilities as an ally. Suddenly a voice camefrom the depths of the chair. It made him jump. It was not the voice ofMadame Rosalie, but one that seemed vaguely familiar.
"Marstan is dead." The words died away in a kind of moan. After aninterval of silence came the message, "He says to tell you that you havefound the criminal, and now is the time to act." She seemed to sinkdeeper into oblivion. The client waited a full minute. Then he leanedover and whispered through the stillness two words--"Rest Hollow."
The medium's head rolled from side to side on the cushions of thechair, like that of a surgical patient who is trying to escape the ethersponge. "Gone!" she muttered. "All gone!"
He swept aside the cards and ouija-board and leaned closer, his handsalmost touching hers. The amused skepticism had died out of his ambereyes, and the question that he asked came in a tense whisper. "Where isRalph Regan?"
A frown drew the woman's heavy black brows together. "Gone!" shemurmured again. "Gone!"
It was not possible for him to determine from her tone whether she wasanswering his last question or merely repeating her response to "RestHollow." He tried again.
And after a moment the reply came slowly through stiff lips. "The wayleads over a curving road. Follow that road to a place with a high stonefence where the gates stand always open. There you will find him."
He settled back in his chair, his eyes resting, fascinated, upon thegraven face.
"Marstan is here." She spoke in her own voice now and there was in it anote of infinite weariness. "He has something to say to you."
The man smiled grimly. "I should think he would. Tell him to go ahead;I'm listening."
"He says you must give up the first plan----" She frowned in the effortof transmission. "And the second plan--and try the third. He says thereis a woman working in the plan too: she has just begun to work in it.You must get her aid or she might----"
He leaned forward eagerly. "Yes? She might what?"
"I don't quite get it. It's a difficult control. But he seems to beafraid of that woman. He wants very much to warn you against----"
She shivered slightly and opened her eyes. The man had left his seat andwas standing close to her side. "I hope you got what you want," she saidwearily. "I don't know when I've had a sitting that has cost so much."
He crossed to the settee and picked up his gloves. "It must get on yournerves. Suppose we go out somewhere and have a little bite of supper. Iknow a place down on Dupont; no style about it, but they give you agreat little meal. What do you say?"
She glanced at the nickel clock upon the mantel. "It's almost seven,"she demurred, "and I expect another client at seven-thirty."
"No more sittings to-night," he decreed. There was an almost insolentauthority in his tone. "Time to call a halt. It's dinner-time inheaven, and spirits must live. You're coming out with me. Get on yourstreet togs, little witch."
Without further protest she obeyed while her escort waited in the shabbyentrance-hall. At the curb he helped her into the roadster, and fiveminutes later they were seated at a small bare table in one of thepopular bohemian restaurants of the downtown district.
"No Martinis any more," he sighed, as he helped her out of her cheapcoat with its imitation-fur collar. "Life isn't what it used to be, isit?" His own hat and expensive-looking overcoat he hung upon the peg ina diamond-shaped mirror bearing the soap-written injunction, "Try OurTamales." "But they serve a placid little near-beer in this place thathelps some. Bring two, waiter."
When the attendant returned with the glasses, he tossed off the contentsof his at a gulp, but the woman sipped hers with the leisurely enjoymentof the epicure. Then she set it down and stabbed with her fork at thedish of green olives in the center of the table.
The soup came, a rich bean chowder, which she ate almost in silence,while her companion commented casually upon the service and furnishingsof the cafe. They had a rear table near the swinging doors that led intothe kitchen. It was not more or less conspicuous than any of the others.The atmosphere of unconventionality which pervaded the place seemed toenvelop all its habitues in a sort of mystic veil that was in itself aguarantee of privacy. At the table nearest them a girl was talkingearnestly to a man who sat with his arm about her. Madame Rosalie,raising her eyes from her soup-plate, encountered the bold, appraisingstare of her escort. She returned it impersonally and with the flickerof a smile, taking in the "freckled" eyes and the large
thin hands. Andwhen she smiled her face re-gained something of a former beauty. The manleaned toward her with a consciously confiding manner. "You callyourself Madame Rosalie," he said. "But isn't it really Mademoiselle?"
Her smile deepened but she gave him no answer. In the delicate, lacywaist and white skirt which she had donned, she looked years younger.There was a ruby pendant at her throat but she wore no other jewel. Thegarish light of the cafe, shining upon her straight black hair, gave ita luster that was like the dull gleam of jet.
"Not Mademoiselle?" he queried again, and his smile was like thepassword between two brother lodge-members.
And then Madame Rosalie lost some of her inscrutable reserve. "Not_Rosalie_," she corrected. "But it's a good name; as good as any otherfor my trade, don't you think?"
He turned one of the clumsy glass salt-shakers between his fingers. "Thename is all right," he admitted. "But--why do you do--that sort ofthing? You admit yourself that it's hard on your nerves. Why do you doit--when you could do other things?"
The waiter reappeared and littered the table with an army of small ovalplatters. Odors of highly seasoned macaroni and ragout steamed fromthem. Madame Rosalie dipped daintily into the nearest dish. But in spiteof her restraint, it would have been apparent to a close observer thather enjoyment of the meal was the keen avidity of one who has been longdenied. When the waiter was out of hearing, she caught up the last wordssharply.
"What do you mean by 'other things'?" For the first time her voice waseager, as though seeking counsel.
He shrugged. "_I_ don't pretend to be a clairvoyant. Yet I know thatthere are other things that you could do--have done."
"How do you know it?"
"Well, in the first place, if you had been a medium for very long, theclever medium that you undoubtedly are, you would have made more moneyat it."
"I have made money at it."
"Not as much as you should have made. You wouldn't live as you do if youhad money."
If she resented this assertion, she gave no sign of it, and he went onwith the cool assurance of a physician who is certain of his diagnosis."You may persuade yourself that you are in that business because you areinterested in it or because you know that you have an unaccountablepower. But you are doing it chiefly for the same reason that most of usply our trades; because you want to make money."
"Well?" She commented, "It does supply me with a living, and you knowthere's a theory that we must live."
He laughed. "You don't have to live the way you do. There are mucheasier ways for you to accomplish that end. Have you got anybodydependent on you?"
"No, but I am horribly in debt." The admission seemed to slip from herwithout her permission, and when the words were out a little frownpuckered her forehead. The eyes of her escort were fixed upon the rubypendant, so obviously a genuine and costly stone. She toyed absentlywith it, putting a cruel strain upon its slender thread-like chain ofgold. "Do you know," she said slowly, "I believe you would make awonderful hypnotist. I believe that you could even hypnotize me."
The bold amber eyes gazed straight into hers. "But you told me, didn'tyou, that hypnotism had to be a cooeperative measure? You said, Iremember, that nobody could hypnotize anybody else unless--unless thevictim were willing."
One of his hands closed over hers as it reached for the sugar-bowl. Shemade no effort to draw it away.
"Perhaps," she answered softly, "perhaps the victim _is_ willing."
He stacked up a little pile of the oval platters and pushed themimpatiently to one side. "I guess we understand each other all right,"he said. "You need me and I need you. We've each come to the place wherewe need help. Now let's not waste any more time about it. Let's get downto brass tacks."
The Rest Hollow Mystery Page 12
