Louisa and the Crystal Gazer

by Anna Maclean

  “Meh-ki,” I said again.

  Mrs. O’Connor picked up the thread of her tale. “So I’m going to the butcher to pick up the turkey I ordered for her, a big fat one, will roast up just fine with a marmalade glaze. And there’s another turkey there, scrawnier but still tasty-looking, tasty, and the butcher is complaining that it ain’t been fetched yet, and he’s tired of feeding it corn and having it torment his little dog. Been paid for, and reserved for an Italian big shot, some sort of artist, new in Boston, and guess who paid for it? A Chinese woman, he says. Well, there can’t be that many, can there?” She smiled and folded her arms over her ample bosom.

  “Well-done!” I said but I had insufficient time to ponder the full meaning of this, for I heard a voice behind me calling my name. I turned and saw Mr. Phips smiling and waving, his top hat frosted with snow and his long nose gleaming from the cold. He forced his way through the crowd to my side, muttering, “Beg pardon,” and, “Sorry,” as he pushed toward me.

  “Have you come for the poppy-seed roll?” I asked, less than delighted to see him, for once you have learned a man’s imperfection—that he made his wife unhappy—it is difficult to feel a real warmth for him.

  “Ha. A little joke. Poppy. Opium. Yes, you have humor, I see. No, I’ve come for a seed cake. And you?”

  “Tea. I had an hour of free time.”

  “What a shame. I would have joined you if I’d known. A young woman alone for tea. Doesn’t seem correct. You have ignored my invitation to tea.” He peered down his red nose at me, offended.

  “I have been so very busy,” I said, not feeling at all deprived not to have spent the hour with him, for he had become, in my imagination, the Faithless Husband.

  “I heard you talking about a turkey. Are you having a dinner?” Was there something pleading in his voice, a supplication for friendship despite all? He must be a very lonely man, I thought, relenting somewhat.

  “Not I, but I believe the pianist Signor Massimo is planning one.” I tried to add some warmth to my voice. “To be given by his new cook.”

  “New cook? Before the holidays?” said Mr. Phips. “I don’t envy him. She’ll have the kitchen topsy-turvy and his meals all backward before she knows what goes where.”

  “Worse, she’ll serve him soup made from birds’ nests. I’ve heard they do that,” shouted Mrs. O’Connor. “He’s hired Mrs. Percy’s Chinese woman.”

  “Has he now? Well.” Mr. Phips’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Well, I will pick up my cake and be on my way. Good day, Miss Alcott. Beware of foreigners, Miss Alcott. They can be a treacherous lot.”

  “Many share your opinion.” I did not. “Good day, Mr. Phips.” He tipped his hat. I gave a half smile, and we parted company. Well, I thought. Many a man committed sins in his youth. I must not judge. At the door he turned and gave me a last wave of his hand. He turned left out the door, going in the direction I had come from a moment before.

  The more important thing now was to return to Signor Massimo’s and see if I might speak with his new cook, Meh-ki, for it would be impossible for a Chinese woman working for an Italian artist, newly arrived in Boston, not to be Meh-ki, it seemed. I had remembered by then what Mr. Crowell had said of his supper with Signor Massimo: There had been noodles, and while Italians often eat macaroni, Chinese also cook noodles. Meh-ki was found. But what would she reveal about the murder of Mrs. Percy? Please, I prayed, don’t let her tell me that it was Mr. Barnum who came that night, who quarreled with Mrs. Percy, terrified Meh-ki in the kitchen, and then left, a murderer hiding in shadow.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Deadly Dessert Knife

  THERE WAS ANOTHER half hour before Lizzie’s lesson would be finished, but I decided not to wait the full time. I finished my cup of tea and pushed away the half-full plate of pastries, having lost my appetite. Mrs. O’Connor’s news had given me a fresh sense of urgency; for all I knew Meh-ki might disappear again, and she seemed to be the key to this puzzle. It was time, past time, to know the answer of the fate of Mrs. Percy, so that I might enjoy Christmas, truly celebrate with a lightness of spirit and confidence that there is good in the world, there is a possibility for justice—for until I knew all the truth of Mrs. Percy, too many secrets about our society would also be hidden, and what is kept in darkness can never be healed or corrected.

  Mr. Emerson, I thought, putting on my old, worn cape and my new gloves from Sylvia, you told me about the Over-soul, the light within us all that can guide us to reason and faith and goodness, if we will but let it, if we will obey our own better instincts. Husbands who are unfaithful are disobeying their instinct to love and protect that chosen one; businessmen who seek revenge against betraying affiliations disobey that better instinct to learn and make wiser choices in the future; young women who forge alliances with untrustworthy men disobey their instinct to bestow affection only when and where it is earned. All of Mrs. Percy’s customers and associates somehow disobeyed the Over-soul, and she paid the heaviest price for their collective guilt.

  My steps grew rushed. The more I thought about Lizzie being in that house where Meh-ki had found new employment, the more worried I became.

  Only two blocks away, but yet it seemed a tremendous distance. Had the crowd grown even thicker? I had to force myself past wide groups walking abreast on the sidewalk, through swarms of children with skates slung over their shoulders. It had begun to snow again, making the walks slippery, my footing unsure. My progress took on a dreamlike quality, when one flails and strives and yet the goal keeps receding into the distance, and the feet grow heavier and heavier till they can’t be lifted at all.

  Lizzie, I thought, swimming through the crowd, my arms pushing in a breaststroke through snow and thick humanity, trying to get to my beloved sister. Every instinct I had, every cell of my soul, said she was in danger and I had been foolish to leave her there.

  Finally, after fifteen minutes that seemed to last a full day, I arrived back at Signor Massimo’s front door. I pulled the bell cord; it chimed. The servant did not come. I pulled again, harder, and again. No servant. Something was very wrong, I was even more certain.

  Tentatively I tried the door. It was unlocked and swung easily open, but stopped short of its swing and would not budge past halfway. Sliding through, crushing my hooped skirt and not giving a damn about it, I saw the blockage. Signor Massimo’s servant was sprawled on the floor, unconscious, a wound on his head seeping red blood onto the white-tiled floor. I pushed up his shirt cuff and took his pulse. It was faint, but regular. There was time; he could survive without immediate ministration.

  “Lizzie!” I shouted. There was no sound in the house. No piano, no voices. Nothing. “Lizzie!” I screamed, my heart rising into my throat. I raced up the stairs to the first floor, where Lizzie and I had waited for the appointment. No one was there. I ran down the hall, throwing open door after door, and finding no one. “Lizzie!” I kept shouting. “Where are you?” No one answered.

  I flew back downstairs to the kitchen, to Meh-ki, for I sensed then that where Meh-ki was, my sister would also be. Somehow they had been united in a shared and dangerous destiny, my beautiful, fragile sister and Meh-ki.

  Through the thick wooden door, designed to keep out all noise so that the gentlefolk would not be disturbed by the sounds of the kitchen, through that heavy door I pushed and stopped, frozen.

  They were there in a terrifying tableau, at first incomprehensible to me: Meh-ki was in the wild embrace of Mr. Phips, half dead, it seemed, and Lizzie was at her side, pushing and pulling at Mr. Phips, who kicked and shoved at her with his shoulder.

  Then I realized what was truly happening. Mr. Phips, his pale eyes huge with rage, his lips drawn back like a rabid dog’s, held a knife to Meh-ki’s throat, and Lizzie, little Lizzie, was beating at him with her fists, crying and shouting that he was to let the woman go. On the floor, unconscious, with blood seeping from a large gash in his forehead, was Signor Massimo.

  “Louy!” Lizz
ie screamed. “Help! He’s going to kill her!”

  “She must die!” growled Mr. Phips. “She’s going to ruin everything I’ve worked for. I worked hard; I deserve it. I put up with that family, with Emily’s weeping and sighing all those years for another man, and now her wealth is mine and no one will take it from me! Life requires boldness!” His voice seemed barely human.

  “Put it down,” I told him, standing as still as does a doe who has sighted the hunter.

  “She’s going to ruin everything!” he said again, pressing the knife deeper into Meh-ki’s throat. “Why did she come here? She wants to ruin me!” Little drops of blood ran down onto Meh-ki’s white apron. Her eyes turned in my direction, pleading and at the same time surrendering, ready to die, hopeless. Never will I forget that gaze.

  “Don’t,” I begged. “Don’t add this crime to the others. It is too late, Mr. Phips.” He did not release Meh-ki, but I had enough of his attention that he had stopped lurching and kicking at Lizzie, trying to drive her away.

  “No!” he shouted, and I saw his arm twist slightly, saw the slight movement as he prepared to press the knife even deeper, saw Meh-ki go limp in his deadly embrace. And then Lizzie’s slender arm in its girlish blue dress rose up over his head, holding something in the little fist, and came down again. I heard the thump of solid wood against flesh and bone, heard the strange slithering sound as Mr. Phips slid to the floor, unconscious, with Meh-ki still locked in his embrace.

  “Oh, Louy!” said Lizzie. “I’ve murdered him!” And then Lizzie collapsed to the floor as well in a swoon.

  The rest of the day was quite busy, as you can imagine, gentle reader. There was much cleaning up to do, much chafing of wrists, binding of wounds, explaining.

  “Signor Massimo asked me to play something for him,” said Lizzie, resting upon a divan with a compress to her forehead half an hour later. Constable Cobban, who to his credit had arrived within minutes of my sending for him, had helped me carry her to a sitting room. “I could not play; I was just frozen with fear,” she said softly. “So I asked for a glass of water, and when the servant didn’t come, I decided to get one for myself. But I got lost, you see! So many rooms! Signor Massimo found me and said he would show me the way. Oh, he is so kind. A true gentleman, Louy.”

  “At your service, kind lady,” said Signor Massimo. He lay on a second divan, his head wrapped in white bandages, a glass of brandy in his trembling hands. Sylvia, who had arrived with Cobban, cradled Signor Massimo’s bleeding head in her lap, oblivious to the damage to her new coat and frock. “An angel,” muttered the delirious maestro, looking up at her.

  “So we went to the kitchen together and saw Mr. Phips there, threatening Meh-ki with a knife.” Lizzie shook with fear, and I held her hands more tightly in mine, trying to comfort her. “Signor Massimo shouted that he was to leave.”

  “At your service, kind lady,” repeated the maestro, nodding and gazing about, still very stunned, with half-closed dark eyes.

  “Instead, Mr. Phips hit him on the head and knocked him out.”

  “With this.” Cobban held up an old-fashioned cudgel, small enough to be hidden in the pocket of a man’s greatcoat, but large enough to do great damage to the skull. “Same thing he used on the servant to get in.”

  “And the same instrument I used. You saw the rest, Louy. Oh, how did you know to come? My lesson was nowhere near the end.” Lizzie sat up and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “Dearest,” I said, putting my arms tightly about her, “an instinct made me run to you. I saw Mr. Phips in the tearoom and the world just didn’t seem right after that.”

  “Mr. Phips,” said Cobban, still not quite believing, though he was the one who had bound and cuffed the murderer even as he lay unconscious from the blow Lizzie had given him. Mr. Phips, groaning in pain, had already been led away to the courthouse. “I never suspected the old gent,” said Cobban.

  “Nor did I, till it was almost too late,” I said. “Now that I know, I’m surprised I didn’t see it sooner. Is there a doctor on the way? There are several injuries to see to.” While both the maestro and his servant had had their wounds bathed and bound and Meh-ki’s throat had been bandaged, I knew that they would all three require more care and several days, if not weeks, of bedrest.

  “He’ll be here in a moment, Louy. But how did you see that it was Phips?” asked Sylvia, fanning Signor Massimo’s feverish brow.

  “Because of the connection,” I said. “Phips’s years in China, that glorious history of his that seemed, upon reflection, a little too glorious. Many cowards come home heroes, when the true heroes don’t come home at all.”

  “Oh, I do wish I knew what you were talking about.” Sylvia sighed, dabbing at the maestro’s forehead with her lacy handkerchief.

  “Ask Meh-ki,” I said.

  She sat in a chair, her foot on a stool, small as a child and pale as the moon. She was very calm. Resigned, I thought.

  “Finally, it is over,” she said. “Many years of sorrow. Of fear. My husband can harm me no more.”

  “Husband?” exclaimed Constable Cobban.

  “Yes,” I said, having guessed just minutes before. “Tell us,” I asked Meh-ki.

  She nodded, her eyes glistening. “I was a little girl in Canton. My mother was a servant for the Englishmen there. She cooked. She liked very much a man named August Pincher, who was kind to her, talked to her in nice way, not like the others. Said her food was very good and he talked to her about his fiancée, in America, the woman he loved very much. He had a friend who was not so nice. Phips. He talked cruel to the servants, made fun of them, slapped them whenever he could. But Phips liked me. Told my mother he would take me back to America as his wife, give me a good life there and send for her and my brothers.”

  Mehi-ki closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. “So we were married, Phips and me. I was not happy, but that did not matter. I would be able to send money home when we came to America. He promised. But when Phips left China, he did not take me with him. He left me there in Canton, a wife without a husband, an outcast because I had married a foreigner, a white devil. But better without him, I thought. He was cruel. He always shout same thing, ‘Life requires boldness,’ and then he would hit me.”

  Meh-ki’s eyes grew hard. She stopped talking.

  “The brute!” said Cobban, giving Sylvia a protective glance.

  “What happened to August Pincher, Emily Grayling’s first fiancé?” I asked.

  “Phips kill him. I see it,” Meh-ki said. “When assassins come to murder the traders, I see a struggle in the hall outside where I sleep. It is Mr. Pincher and he is fighting with other man, but man not Chinese. It was Phips. He killed his friend, and then he left Canton.”

  Sylvia looked more perplexed than ever. “Mr. Phips killed Emily Grayling’s fiancé and then came back to marry her himself,” I said. “For her money. A fortune can be more of a curse than a blessing,” I added.

  Cobban blushed to the roots of his hair. “But Phips already had a wife,” he said, beginning to understand. “And if that were known, he would lose everything, for a bigamist does not inherit,” he said.

  Meh-ki was growing sleepy. She sank deeply into the cushions of the chair, looking smaller than ever. Judging from the circles under her eyes and her thinness, she hadn’t slept well for quite some time. I felt partially responsible for that, having confronted her in Mrs. Wilkinson’s kitchen and terrified her so that she fled and spent some time unemployed and probably hungry as well as homeless, before gaining employment with the visiting artist Signor Massimo.

  “Before you sleep, Meh-ki, tell me about Mrs. Percy,” I asked her. “How did you meet her?”

  “I come to America five years ago,” said the Chinese woman. “Mother die, brothers marry, no home for me in Canton. I think I come here, never see Phips, he never find me because it is a big country. I think he has forgotten about me. So I sign paper to work and pay back my ticket price and go on boat to New York.
I work hard and pay half my debt, but my employer die. Mrs. Percy find me, then, give me job.”

  “At your service, kind lady,” said the delirious maestro, trying to rise. “I have another guest coming.”

  “Rest, Signor,” said Sylvia, pressing her hand against his chest so that he fell back onto the divan.

  “How did Mrs. Percy find you, Meh-ki?” I asked.

  “After lose job when employer die I come to Boston. Too many Chinese cooks in New York already. But I find no work, and sleep in house for people with no money, no work. Bad house. Many rats. Mrs. Percy come one day, looking us over. ‘Quaint,’ she say, when see me. ‘Chinese woman look very good in my séance parlor. Add atmosphere.’ I did not understand what she meant, but she promise to pay my debt if I work for her.”

  “And somehow she got you to talk about Canton, and your marriage to the Englishman,” I guessed.

  “Talk, talk, talk,” said Meh-ki with a half smile. “Mrs. Percy talk all the time. Make me talk, too.”

  “The rest is quite obvious,” I said, seeing that Meh-ki was too exhausted to continue.

  “Tell us anyway,” said Sylvia, frowning.

  “Well, when Meh-ki let Mrs. Percy know she had been married to an Englishman, Mrs. Percy did her research,” I said. “She discovered that William Phips, the so-called hero of Canton, had returned to Boston and married an heiress, making him a bigamist, and that the heiress had died a short while ago, making him very, very wealthy. Luckily for her—rather ill-luckily, as it turned out—Mr. Phips lived right here in Boston. So she sent him an invitation to the séance.”

  “And threatened to expose him,” Cobban guessed.

  “A tragedy is made up of so many strange coincidences,” I said, when a sleeping Meh-ki had been carried out. I sipped the rest of the sherry in the glass we had given her. It was warm and sweet and strength returned to me, for I, too, was exhausted now that the danger was over, now that Lizzie was again safe and Meh-ki’s long years of danger and torment were behind her and Mrs. Percy’s murderer had been revealed.