Louisa and the Crystal Gazer

by Anna Maclean

  “What coincidences?” asked Sylvia, now going to Lizzie and pressing her hand to her forehead. “Have you a fever, Elizabeth?”

  “Where has my angel gone?” muttered Signor Massimo, looking wildly about.

  “I’m well, Sylvia. Thanks to Louisa.” Lizzie beamed at me, pale but radiant.

  “It was your sister who put you in such danger,” I said ruefully.

  “No, it was that very strange woman, Mrs. Percy,” said Lizzie. “I never liked her, Louy, even though I never met her.”

  “Yoo-hoo!” A woman’s lilting soprano voice floated up the stairs. “The door is open! Is anyone at home?”

  “Yoo-hoo, darling!” called back the maestro in a weak voice. Light steps climbed the stairs. A pretty face framed with dark curls peeked in at us.

  “I am here for supper,” said the great soprano Maria Venturi. Her great black eyes took in the maestro, lolling on the divan with a bandage pressed to his head. “Am I to think it has been canceled?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A Farewell Dinner

  “WE GRANT THAT human life is mean; but what is the ground of this uneasiness of ours, of this old discontent?” Mr. Emerson had asked me one afternoon years before, when he first spoke of the universal mind and of the connections between all of humanity. “Louisa, dear, what is the universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by which the soul makes its enormous claim? Within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty.”

  On a sunny winter afternoon three days after the events in Signor Massimo’s home, I sat in a circle of friendship and felt the soul of the whole, now that the crimes had been revealed and several culprits brought to justice. We were again at MacIntyre’s Inn on Boylston.

  Lizzie, was there, dear, sweet Lizzie, and Sylvia and Cobban, and Mr. Barnum. We laughed easily among ourselves and goodwill flowed.

  Fellowship, I thought to myself, looking with joy at the friends gathered there. Surrounded by dear ones is when I best understand what Mr. Emerson was trying to teach me about our connectedness.

  “You said, that dreadful day, that a tragedy was made up of so many coincidences,” said Sylvia, peering intently at me. “What did you mean, Louy?” Sylvia was outfitted once again in her expensive silks and laces rather than cotton and wool; the bright green-and-pink outfit suited her fair complexion, and the choice of clothing, I thought, suited her impulse to honesty. She was no drudge, and could never be, not even to please a lover.

  “The first coincidence,” I said, “was that after so many years, Meh-ki would find employment with a woman who would try to earn money off of Meh-ki’s misfortune. It’s clear that Mrs. Percy emotionally forced that strange personal history out of Meh-ki and decided to make Mr. Phips pay for it. Pay in a material, not a moral manner,” I clarified.

  “I am familiar enough with Mrs. Percy’s perfidy, having been a victim of it myself,” said Mr. Barnum. He seemed in a pleasant humor, despite the unhappy occurrences of the past weeks, despite the betrayals and the bankruptcy and the public humiliation that bankruptcy brought. “I count myself fortunate, though. Tomorrow I leave for home, to return to Charity and my daughters. I’ll start all over again and build another fortune. Having done it once, I know how to do it again. Champagne!” he called to a passing waiter.

  “At three in the afternoon?” asked Cobban. That young man, as usual, wore his terribly bright plaid and a very serious face; if Sylvia could make him more lighthearted, he would benefit, I thought.

  “A charming idea, champagne,” said Sylvia with a slight reproof in her tone. “I approve.”

  “So do I!” said Lizzie with delight.

  We had much to celebrate. Mr. Phips was in jail awaiting his time in court to answer for his cruel past as well as the untimely death of his once-friend, Mrs. Percy. Also in jail once again, Cobban had announced just moments before, was wily Edward Nichols, charged with fraud against Mr. Barnum. Mr. Barnum and I were reunited in friendship now that I knew he need not be feared—not as a homicidal maniac, in any case. The universal mind had prevailed and all the connections had been discovered, restoring me to friendship with a man I had previously and wrongly suspected.

  Dishes and cutlery rattled in the background; outside the window a group of carolers had gathered and were beginning “Silent Night,” and the afternoon was a very happy one.

  “I’ll need new attractions,” Mr. Barnum said. “I hear you are an expert seamstress, my dear.” He turned to Lizzie. “Have you ever considered, say, participating in a stitching contest, perhaps one or two or three other seamstresses before an audience, a kind of marathon of sewing? Always on the lookout for anything that might bring in a paying customer. Happily, there is always more wheat than there is chaff, and people always want to be entertained. I could bill you as ‘The Musical Seamstress.’ Is there any chance you could sew with one hand and play piano with the other? Do you speak any foreign languages?”

  Lizzie and I exchanged glances and understanding smiles.

  “Mr. Barnum, you are not aware of the circumstances that brought Lizzie to my rooms in Boston in the first place,” I said gently. “A relative had planned an afternoon party in her honor and Lizzie fled!”

  “I am shy, sir,” explained Lizzie.

  “Ah, yes, most true gentlewomen are,” he said, and looked at her with true affection. Reaching over the plate of raisin bread, he patted her hand. “My own dear Charity cannot bear a crowd. Forgive my impertinence.”

  “There is nothing to forgive, if you’ll just order me a second piece of mince pie,” requested Lizzie.

  “More pie, please,” the showman loudly called. “Hogwash, just bring out the whole thing!” Voices buzzed around us and I heard, “Say, isn’t that…” and “That’s Bar…” The recognition made him beam for a moment; then he lowered his voice and spoke as Mr. Barnum, a man wounded by fate but resilient. “I’ve five dollars in my pocket and a loving family waiting for me. I am a rich man,” he said to us in a private tone.

  When the pie had been delivered and the champagne poured, Cobban seemed to recall something and turned to me. “You said, Miss Louisa, that was the first coincidence. What were the others?” he asked.

  “The other important one, of course, was that Mrs. O’Connor had been hired by Mrs. Wilkinson, who had also just employed Meh-ki. Were it not for that, we might never have found Meh-ki.”

  “Believe me, that is not such a strange coincidence,” spoke up Sylvia, the wealthy heiress. “Households always need extra hands for the holidays, and neither Mrs. O’Connor nor Meh-ki is the type to fade into the Bostonian background. And of course, Mrs. Wilkinson is a competitive soul who hires anyone, just anyone who is available in December, to create that huge Christmas buffet of hers. She pays the highest wages, at least in December.”

  We all fell silent for a moment, enjoying the champagne—such a rare treat for me!—and the company. Outside, the carolers were now singing “The First Noel,” and sun shone on the white snow piled around the streetlamps, imbuing the late afternoon with a fairy-tale quality. I was quite, quite content.

  I had received letters from Walpole that morning, from Father and Marmee and Abby and Uncle Benjamin, and they were all well and enjoying the holidays. My gifts to them had arrived and had been put on the table, in readiness for opening on Christmas morning. I would not be with them, but they were in my heart, would always be, no matter what changes time wrought.

  It is love that binds a family, and that kind of binding can never be undone. All my life when I thought of Father I would remember his long, noble nose nodding over a book and his white hair, once as black and thick as Barnum’s, falling to his shoulders; and of Marmee I would remember her voice, as beautiful as a lark’s, and the gentle patience in her eyes; of Lizzie, I would remember her gentleness, her shyness, and her slender fingers always happily practicing a fingering exercise for the piano. Such memories are immune to time and death, and I knew even then that some
time in the future I would make them immortal, in a story not about jealous femme fatales or faithless lovers but about the joy of family life.

  “Of course, the biggest coincidence was that Meh-ki ended up cooking for Signor Massimo,” said Lizzie.

  “It appears coincidence, but I believe it was not,” I said. “I had unfortunately terrified Meh-ki when I discovered her in Mrs. Wilkinson’s kitchen. She was already afraid for her life. She had seen Mr. Phips in Mrs. Percy’s sitting room and recognized him the day of the first séance, but probably hoped, rightly at the time, that he had not seen her. But before the second séance, that evening, she heard the quarrel between Mrs. Percy and Mr. Phips. Mrs. Percy asked for money, of course, and Mr. Phips responded with violence. Meh-ki fled, fearing for her life. Imagine traveling so many miles, after so many years, only to end up yards away from the man she most dreaded.”

  “But how did she end up with Signor Massimo?” asked Lizzie.

  “He was a stranger,” I said, “a visitor who knew little of us and Boston and had not been reading the papers or following the gossip. She thought she could safely hide there. That’s why that was not a coincidence but an act of reason and choice.” Mr. Barnum poured me a second glass of champagne. I sipped very slowly, knowing it would be a long while before I tasted it again. Mr. Barnum had not touched his own glass. He was a teetotaler, yet he would buy champagne for the pleasure of his friends. He was that kind of person.

  “The coincidence,” said Sylvia, “is that Louy won the lottery, and you ended up in Signor Massimo’s house. I suppose that Signor Massimo will not continue your lessons? Attempted murder can destroy enthusiasm for meeting strangers.”

  “Oh, he has been ever so kind!” said Lizzie, who had just finished her first lesson—it had been decided that the original lesson did not count, because of the many dangerous interruptions—with the maestro that afternoon. “He said it was a good adventure, except for the headache. It will be a good tale to tell of the Wild West when he returns to Rome. Boston has not been the western frontier for some centuries now, but I thought it rude to point that out to him.”

  “Very thoughtful, very thoughtful,” said Mr. Barnum. “Shall we order a bowl of trifle as well?”

  “I think there is enough on the table,” I protested, laughing.

  “My dear,” he said, understanding I did not wish us to use up every penny in his pocket, “I started with nothing. I am once more nearly at the bottom of the ladder, and am about to begin in the world again. The situation is disheartening, but I have energy and hope.”

  “You do not know how disheartening it is to face a pile of sewing,” spoke up Lizzie. “We still have half a dozen spring shirts to sew, Louy. Oh, if only we could afford a sewing machine!”

  “A sewing machine,” mused Mr. Barnum. “I suspect many women will be wanting one of the new contraptions.” He thoughtfully scratched his chin. (And now, dear reader, I must jump forward two months into the future, when I received a note from my friend Mr. Barnum, telling us that he had purchased the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company and moved it into his bankrupt clock factory in Bridgeport. The note was attached to a foot-pedaled sewing machine wrapped in a bright red bow with a card for Lizzie. Uncle Benjamin, who kept up with his club gossip, reported that Mr. Barnum was expected to earn back his fortune, and more, with the new factory. He did. But still in the distant future was the venture that would make him famous for all time: Barnum and Bailey’s Circus, The Greatest Show on Earth!)

  Let us return, dear reader, to MacIntyre’s Inn on Boylston. I remember the crumb of raisin cake that fell onto Mr. Barnum’s cravat and stayed there the length of that long and happy meal and how, when he finally brushed it away, his eyes gleamed as if he were still a boy not to be dismayed by crumbs or bankruptcy.

  “Louy, what was not coincidence in these strange events?” protested Sylvia.

  “Very little, as it turns out,” I said. “Perhaps the one true coincidence occurred years before, when William Phips, son of a stable hand, met August Pincher, who showed him a portrait of the girl he loved. Phips, covetous by nature, as are most criminals, decided to take the girl and the fortune for himself, not for love but for greed and pride.”

  “And to think schoolboys grow up thinking of him as a hero,” Mr. Barnum said sadly.

  “After that original coincidence,” I continued, “the consequences were almost destined, and Mrs. Percy planned the rest. Mrs. Percy was well rehearsed for her séances. I have it here, in my notebook, exactly what she said: ‘Your wife knows your weakness.’ I thought she meant Mrs. Emily Phips. She was referring to Meh-ki. And that statement sealed Agatha Percy’s death warrant.”

  “Oh, Louy, you give me chills,” Lizzie said.

  “Between the first and second séances they must have had a meeting,” Cobban guessed, “for he let several days go by before the murder.”

  “Perhaps he was thinking, meditating,” I said. “Perhaps his soul was trying to find a way out of the situation without resorting to violence, and sadly could not. One may only hope that he at least hesitated before the crime.”

  “The night before the second séance, he acts.” Cobban swung his hand through the air and added a melodramatic flair to his voice. Like me, he had a taste for the theater. “He finds her delirious from opium. Perhaps that was why he waited? For that once or twice a month when Mrs. Percy smoked her pipe. He finds her delirious and easily suffocates her.”

  “But how did he get into that locked room?” asked Sylvia.

  “He came in through the large side window, breaking the pane and unlocking it,” I said. “He made sure the door to the room was locked, and when he left, he relocked the broken window, to try to make it appear that her death had been a self-inflicted accident rather than murder, to make it seem that no one else could have been in the room. The broken glass would have been hidden by the heavy draperies.”

  “But the next day we heard him break the pane of glass,” Sylvia said, frowning with confusion.

  “Two panes had been broken,” I said. “He merely broke a different pane so that we would hear the glass shatter.”

  “I hope I was never a suspect!” said Mr. Barnum, sitting up straighter and putting his thumbs behind his jacket lapels, preening as men sometimes do.

  “Never,” I lied. “Of course, what does disturb me is knowing that Mr. Phips must have been watching me, and I never noticed. I should have suspected him sooner. There was, for instance, the problem of the missing pipe.”

  “Missing pipe?” repeated Sylvia.

  “Mrs. Percy’s opium pipe. It was not in the room where she died. Days later, when I ran into Mr. Phips while buying a new pipe for Uncle Benjamin, Mr. Phips forgetfully confessed that he collected opium pipes. I did not make the connection then. Now it is obvious.”

  “Hindsight.” Mr. Barnum sighed. “In hindsight, I never would have entered into business relations with that young cousin of mine, Eddie Nichols.”

  “Mr. Phips knew I was getting closer,” I said. “It was no coincidence that he was at the Avery Street Bakery the same day and time as was I, no coincidence that he overheard my conversation with Mrs. O’Connor about Meh-ki’s new employment.” I pushed my cup away. “To think, he arrived at Signor Massimo’s before I did and almost murdered again because I was finishing a cup of tea.”

  “The Christmas crowds,” said Sylvia. “They could hide any number of assassins.”

  “Now there is a cheerful thought.” Lizzie laughed. “So it was Mr. Phips who locked you in the cellar?”

  “No,” I said, wondering how much I should say about that matter. A woman’s reputation is such a fragile thing. But these friends had been through much with me. They deserved the entire story. “It was Amelia Snodgrass. She knew that her stolen necklace had been returned to Mrs. Percy, and she was determined to find it. It was she in the house that afternoon, she who barred the door so that I could not interrupt her searching. She did not wish me harm; she wish
ed only the return of her property. Though if she had asked, I would have helped her search for it. When Miss Amelia Snodgrass is wed to Mr. Wilmot Green, I am certain the society column will report that she was wearing a family heirloom, an ancient necklace of pearls and diamonds.”

  “She stole it back!” exclaimed Sylvia with delight. “Now there is justice!”

  “And as you know from that dropped glove, Miss Louisa, I was also in the house that afternoon.” Mr. Barnum blushed with shame, for while he may have stretched the truth a bit for entertainment purposes, he was by nature an honest and law-abiding man. “I had hoped to find examples of Mrs. Percy’s attempts at forging my name. I must have arrived just after Amelia Snodgrass left.”

  “And you did me a good deed by alerting Mr. Cobban to my predicament,” I said. “Miss Snodgrass gave me quite a fright, and unnecessarily so, when she bolted that door to protect her secret. I fear that every time she wears the necklace she will be forced to remember her disastrous affair with Eddie Nichols.” The thought brought me a tiny amount of pleasure, I am sad to admit.

  “Perhaps Mrs. Deeds has learned her lesson and will acquire her future jewels through more approved and legitimate means,” said Constable Cobban. “I can charge her with nothing now, but I have her name, and she knows it.”

  Mrs. Deeds. Her greed had so offended me that I had hoped she would prove guilty of the murder. Well, there was time yet for destiny to deliver a cruel blow to a woman so covetous of the property of others.

  The mince pie was finished, and the bottle of champagne. We all stirred, sensing that it was time to rise, to return to our homes, our lives, to put aside this grisly affair and enjoy all there was to be enjoyed, for life is too short to spend it brooding over crime. The universal mind, Mr. Emerson would have said, delights in delight and should not be left in darkness. Our best instinct is for happiness, and the real fault of crime is that it destroys happiness.