Louisa and the Crystal Gazer Read online

  Forgery was the second word. I remembered Mrs. Percy, Eddie’s stepsister, at her séance table, her bracelets clanking as she forged written messages from the dearly departed.

  The third word that repeated and repeated in my thoughts that evening was revenge.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Showman

  IT IS HARSH to have to think of a new acquaintance, and an acquaintance for whom one is beginning to feel a certain affection at that, as a homicidal maniac.

  But Mr. Emerson’s theory of the universal mind argues against much coincidence, and I knew what he would think if I relayed to him that a man had been cheated of a great fortune by a scoundrel of a cousin who was also related to a forger, and that the forger had then turned up dead.

  Still, I found it difficult to reconcile homicidal tendencies with the playful twinkle in Mr. Barnum’s fine gray eyes. Maniacs are many things, but rarely playful, and murderers, at least the few I have met, have dreadfully blank stares rather than twinkles. I decided to put the letter aside and think about it later. I also knew what Mr. Emerson would say about that: “Procrastination, Louisa, is an enemy of both self-reliance and self-preservation.”

  A quick glance out the window revealed that the bright evergreen leaves of Auntie Bond’s rhododendrons were flat and relaxed rather than curled up at the sides; it would be a mild winter day.

  “Lizzie, would you enjoy another morning off from stitching shirts?” I asked my sister, who was sipping her tea.

  “I could almost dread these hours away from the sewing room,” said she with a little smile. “Such strange things occur. But yes, who would not desire more time at the piano and less time seaming? But where are you off to, Louy?”

  “To pay a condolence visit,” I said, “to Mr. Edward Nichols.”

  “Have I met this gentleman?” asked Auntie Bond, frowning and looking vague.

  “I hope not,” I said, “since he seems to be a ne’er-do-well of the worst order. But his stepsister has passed away.”

  “Well,” said the sweet lady, “even miscreants deserve the occasional word of kindness. But do keep your feet dry, Louy.” Do you see, gentle reader, why the Alcotts loved Miss Bond so well that we included her in our greatly extended family?

  It was still early, so I spent the next hour outside the pantry door, trying to perfect the trick Mr. Barnum had described, of looping wire around a bolt so that the door might be bolted from the outside. I chose this location in case the trick actually worked: If the door locked, I could enter from the porch and undo the bolt. Once, it almost worked. I held my breath as the wire-captured bolt squeaked half an inch behind the door, but the wire stuck and the bolt would move no farther. It would need to be greased. Why hadn’t I checked Mrs. Percy’s door to see if the bolt had recently been greased?

  “Louisa,” said a startled Auntie Bond, who had just come up behind me, “why are you kneeling before the pantry?”

  “I dropped something,” I told her, unwilling to reveal that I was practicing a trick of locking and unlocking doors.

  Sylvia accompanied me on my errand that morning, arriving ten minutes early at our prearranged meeting spot in Boston Common, and dressed very austerely, for Sylvia at least, in a plain brown frock and overcoat, and a hat without a single silk flower on it.

  “Has Miss Snodgrass’s plain style of costume become a fashion?” I asked her after giving her a kiss in greeting.

  “I am engaging in a simpler plan of trimming,” she said. “One more befitting a woman of modest means.”

  “But, Sylvia,” I protested, “you are dizzyingly wealthy.”

  “I may not always be so. I may, in fact, marry a man of modest rather than excessive income. I may need to learn economy, at least until his fortune has been made.”

  “Well,” I admitted, “Father would approve, but I am not certain I do. You looked lovely in silk and cashmere, and you enjoyed it so. That kind of luxury seemed a small vice, and small vices often save us from larger ones.”

  “You worry that I am falling into vice, Louy?”

  I was worried that she was falling in love, but that I chose not to reveal.

  Mr. Nichols, according to the paper, was spending a brief residency in Boston in Mrs. Klegg’s Boardinghouse on Chandler Lane, an alley in a very unfashionable part of town near the harbor, far from the stately old homes of Beacon Hill or the smart new mansions of Commonwealth Avenue. If Nichols had profited from his association with Mr. Barnum, it would appear he had already exhausted those profits. Nor did his relations with his stepsister seem to have been particularly close, if he slept in a boardinghouse instead of her home.

  “Should we be walking here unescorted? I fear that women of modest means must pay much more attention to propriety than those of dizzying wealth,” Sylvia complained when we had progressed from broad avenue to narrow street to cramped lane. Cats and dogs prowled through piles of refuse in the gutters, and a group of thin children clambered around our knees, begging for pennies. I had given them all I had in my reticule, and Sylvia did likewise, yet they followed, pulling at our coats and gloved hands.

  “It seems we are escorted,” I said. Stopping in the midst of them, I gave a handkerchief to one, a bent copper brooch to another, my wool sash to a third, and to a fourth girl with enormous eyes who was as tall as my shoulder I gave my gloves. They were large, but she would soon fit into them. I could keep my hands in my pockets.

  “Louy,” said Sylvia, “you cannot pay a sympathy call without gloves!”

  “What of your simpler plan for trimming and economy of wardrobe?” I said.

  Mrs. Klegg’s Boardinghouse badly needed a coat of paint and curtains at the windows. Nor was there a bell or knocker, so I pounded on the door with my fist. A woman with reddened eyes, colorless thinning hair, and the shapeless figure of one who dines too frequently on potatoes, only potatoes, opened the door after several minutes.

  “What d’ya want?” she asked with great irritation.

  “Is Mr. Nichols at home?” I asked.

  “He’d better be,” she said with great gloom. “He ain’t given me the week’s rent.”

  “We would like to pay him a call,” I said.

  “Suit yourself. Top of the second stairs, last door on the left.”

  “Is there not a parlor where we may sit?” protested Sylvia.

  “Parlor’s rented out to Mr. Legrand. He pays on time, and tips as well,” said the landlady with even greater gloom.

  “We will go up to Mr. Nichols’s room,” I said.

  We did, with Sylvia protesting about propriety and pulling at my hand all the way up the two flights of dark, windowless stairs. Only when I knocked upon the door did she desist and grow quiet.

  The door opened quickly enough, and I realized that Mr. Nichols had been expecting someone. His face fell when he saw us standing before him. It was a handsome face, with a strong jaw, blue eyes, well-trimmed brown beard, and curling brown hair falling over the broad brow. A hero’s face, I thought. But it had been ruined by a puffiness about the mouth, a pinkness in the eye, that suggested dissolution. His shirt was open at the throat; the unattached collar lay forgotten on the floor like a wounded white bird. His hands trembled as he attempted to push studs through his shirt cuffs.

  “You’ll have to come back next week,” said Mr. Nichols, turning in a kind of little circle so that he could avoid looking directly at us. “The draft from my cousin has not arrived.”

  “Mr. Nichols, we have come to offer our condolences for the passing away of your stepsister, Mrs. Percy,” I said gently.

  “Mrs. Percy,” repeated Sylvia, for he now looked confused.

  “Oh, yes!” he exclaimed with a little too much glee. “I thought you were bill collectors! They get deuced tricky, these tradesmen, sending all sorts to collect for them. I thought you were collectors!”

  “May we come in?” I asked, for he stood in the doorway blocking us, a tall and powerfully built man, though of the type that
soon turns to fat, Father would have said of him.

  “I am…I am rather busy at the moment. Could you come back later?”

  I decided to take a large leap and risk a dreadful error. “If you are waiting for Suzie Dear, I’m afraid she is not coming,” I told him. “Now, may we come in?”

  It was not a dreadful error, but rather terribly accurate, judging from his reaction. He turned white, then red. His hands trembled even more and he gave up entirely the effort to close his sleeve cuffs. Sylvia and I entered.

  The air was unpleasantly thick with cigar smoke, and there was little furniture in the room, no more than a bed, roiling with unmade linen and yesterday’s clothing, a single wobbly chair, a dresser badly in need of dusting and polishing, a wardrobe with a cracked glass door, and a small hearth with a wooden mantelpiece. On the mantelpiece were the assorted cuff links, loose change, pipe cleaners, and other paraphernalia that accumulate in men’s rooms. I also spied a small brass locket, half a locket really, the kind that lovers give each other, with halves that fit into a whole.

  Sylvia and I stood side by side, our backs to the unmade bed for modesty’s sake.

  “Where is Suzie, the little traitor? She was supposed to be here an hour ago,” he mumbled. “Never count on a woman.”

  “You yourself cast suspicion on her when you told Constable Cobban that money and jewels were missing from your stepsister’s home, and now Miss Dear is arrested,” I said. “And yet you castigate womanhood? It is not only unfair, but also illogical.”

  “Don’t money and jewels always go missing when someone dies?” muttered Mr. Nichols. “How was I to know they would take Suzie for it?”

  “The jewels were insured, were they not?”

  “Of course they were,” he said. Again he turned in that strange little circle to avoid looking directly at me. He had set in place a scheme, I realized, one of the most common, to insure a relative’s possessions for more than they were worth, and usually against that relative’s knowledge, for just such a day as Mrs. Percy had encountered, when heirs and survivors could step forth and claim their booty. It seemed to me a motive for murder, if the insurance were large enough, and the man destitute enough.

  Yet, Suzie Dear was in jail for wearing too much jewelry. Be truthful, I told myself. She is no innocent.

  “Suzie was your accomplice,” I told Mr. Nichols.

  “Say, I thought you were here to offer condolences.”

  “My sympathy,” said Sylvia. “But I suspect you won’t be getting any from your cousin, Mr. Barnum.” Sylvia had taken a great liking to Mr. Barnum, and when I had explained earlier how this man had cheated him of a great deal of money, she had spluttered with anger.

  “None of those charges has been proven,” said Eddie Nichols. He sat on the bed and eyed the window, looking for escape, but he was three floors from the street. If he made a run for it, he would need to go past us to the door. Taking Sylvia by the arm, I moved to the side to avoid being trampled in that event.

  “Mrs. Percy was also your accomplice,” I said.

  “This visit is over,” he said. “Will you leave, ladies, or must I push you out?”

  We left.

  “Some good has come of this visit,” I said to Sylvia when we were once again in the little lane and taking somewhat large strides to remove ourselves to a more accommodating section of Boston. “I am certain that he is a man of sleepless nights. A guilty man. But how far does his guilt extend? Is he merely a thief and conspirator, or is he also a murderer?”

  “If a murderer, why would he kill his accomplice, Mrs. Percy, if that is what you are suggesting, though I still believe that Mrs. Percy is entirely a victim in all this.” Sylvia was panting, trying to match her pace to my own. “Louy, there was a nuance in your statement that makes me uncomfortable. If only some good has been done, you are suggesting some bad has been done as well, are you not?”

  Sylvia’s perspicacity surprised me sometimes. “I fear we may have frightened Mr. Nichols, and he seems the type to leave town hurriedly,” I replied. “Perhaps till this matter of Mrs. Percy’s death is satisfactorily cleared up, a watch should be put on him.”

  “It would be wise if I informed Constable Cobban of this,” Sylvia announced solemnly. “I will go there immediately.”

  And so we parted ways, I to pay another visit to Mrs. Percy’s house, and she to have a conversation with Constable Cobban. I only hoped that among the many matters she obviously wished to discuss with him she would remember to tell him that Mr. Nichols should be monitored, if there were volunteers or paid watchmen Cobban could set in front of Mrs. Klegg’s Boardinghouse.

  Oh, how I wanted to jam my cold hands in my pockets and whistle! Ever since Lizzie had pointed out that I whistle when worried, I had wanted to do nothing but whistle. I passed a vendor’s stall selling papers and tobacco, and that man was whistling. A little boy running past me with his skates over his shoulder was whistling. Unfair to be denied that solace simply because of one’s gender. So as I walked, I put my hands in my pockets to hide them from the newly falling snow, and I whistled softly. I felt much better.

  The snow was falling heavily in flakes as large as a baby’s fist by the time I reached Mrs. Percy’s house. It was a most beautiful afternoon, all white with gay flashes of color from the scarlet or blue coats of women walkers returning home from shopping or going to pay calls, a snow-globe kind of afternoon where the world feels safe and lovely. Except I was going to a home where a murder had been committed. I was convinced of it now, after that visit to Mr. Nichols.

  According to Mr. Emerson’s theory of the universal mind, all history can be discovered in the hours of an individual life, and each life can be read as fable. If so, then the history and fable most visible in Mrs. Percy’s life was that of Orpheus, who played such lovely music that all who heard him followed, and when his bride, Eurydice, died, Orpheus followed into the underworld and spoke with her.

  Orpheus came to a bad end, dear reader, a violent end. Not content to speak with his beloved, he turned to look at her, and thereupon she disappeared forever and Orpheus wandered the world, playing his mad music, till he enraged a group of women who murdered him. Mrs. Percy had been a vocalist, married and then lost a wandering spouse, had turned to speaking with the spirits, and now was dead. Moreover, one need only consider her close associations to see that a violent end was almost unavoidable: Her maid was a known thief and streetwalker, her stepbrother a schemer and forger, and she had, I suspected, enraged a very powerful man, Mr. Phineas T. Barnum, by forging the documents that had led to his financial downfall.

  But of all the associations that she had made, the one that most confused me was her relationship to Miss Amelia Snodgrass, that woman dressed all in brown like a shadow at midday. What was their connection?

  When I arrived at Mrs. Percy’s house, there were footsteps in the new snow leading up the sidewalk and onto her porch. This was a complication I had not anticipated. How could I practice my recently acquired door-opening skills with an observer present? I confess that in my pocket I had placed a skeleton key for the front door, and a thick, sturdy wire for the interior door.

  For the front door no key was needed. It swung freely open.

  “Shocking,” said a voice from deep inside the dark hall.

  “Mr. Phips?” I asked, and my voice echoed in that darkness in a most disconcerting manner.

  “Yes, dear girl. Isn’t it shocking? The constabulary left the door open for any who might wander in.”

  He stepped closer to the door, into the light, and I could see that I had frightened him as much as he had frightened me. The old man was trembling.

  “I did not expect anyone else to be here,” I said, stepping half out the door again so that I might brush the heavy snow from my coat without dripping on Mrs. Percy’s carpet.

  “Permit me, dear girl,” Mr. Phips said, stepping closer and brushing some snow off the back of my hat, where I could not reach. “This feather will
never be the same, I fear.”

  “Then I will pull it out and use it as a quill,” I jested. “Why are you here, Mr. Phips?”

  “Ah. I was afraid you would ask.” He sighed mightily, then grinned the way boys do when they confess they have a frog in their pocket. As a teacher of small children, I have some experience with those circumstances. “I wanted to see the scene of the crime again. This is the most thrilling event I have encountered in years, and when I describe it at my club I want to get the details correctly. Would you say that is a Queen Anne chair?” He pointed to a much-abused chair standing in the hall. “Is that a Currier print, do you think? The door was open, so I came in. Please do not tell anyone, dear girl, most embarrassing, you see. Breaking and entering? Is that what it is called?”

  “Well, you certainly did not break,” I said, hoping to defer the question I knew was to follow.

  “Why are you here, Miss Alcott?” His boyish glee, always so appealing in an older gentleman, turned to confusion.

  “To test a theory. I have been trying, you see, to open a bolted door using the trick Mr. Barnum showed us.”

  “And have you succeeded?”

  “Not yet. But I have bought a thicker wire to try upon Mrs. Percy’s door.”

  His pale blue eyes opened wide, his white eyebrows quivered. “But then…how were you to enter the front door if it had been locked?”

  My silence caused him to frown, and then he realized.

  “Dear girl!” he exclaimed with delight. “What spirit! If I were thirty years younger…”

  “Shall we go examine the bolt together?” I asked hastily, interrupting him.

  Mrs. Percy’s hall, without even the dim gas lamps she had used to illuminate it, was pitch dark, and we made our way down it slowly, bumping into furniture and occasionally each other, the latter event always causing Mr. Phips to chuckle with embarrassment.

  The crystal gazer had renovated much of the house, including the hall, and I couldn’t help but wonder why she had purposely left the hall in such complete darkness, with no glazing on either side of the front door to admit daylight, and no sliding doors from adjacent rooms to admit light from other areas. Probably the hall was meant to be included in some parts of the performance; perhaps it, like the séance room, had a false ceiling from which descended trumpets and swags of gauze and other accruements of the trade.