by Anna Maclean
“I’ll go with you,” offered Sylvia. “Men are useless at that kind of thing.”
When Suzie and I were alone, I gave her a look I had learned from Marmee, and Suzie cowered.
“Tell me the truth,” I said sternly. “I will help you only if you tell the truth.”
“I am,” she whined.
“They will search your room,” I said. “Will they find more money and jewelry?”
“A little, yes, ma’am.” The whine had grown higher and shriller, and I could see she was ready to begin bawling. She coughed and sneezed and choked and wiped her nose with her ragged dress sleeve.
“Pay attention,” I said, “and tell me this. Did you kill Mrs. Percy?”
“No! I never!”
“Then who do you think did? For murdered she was.”
“I’d speak with that brother of hers, Mr. Nichols.” Suzie gave me a long glance and hiccuped.
“You appear very guilty, Miss Dear.”
“I didn’t steal all of it. Some of it really was gifts, Miss Alcott, really. Gifts.” Suzie Dear pouted, looking like a child accused of stealing cookies, not gold bracelets.
“You mean bribes. To help with the séances,” I said.
“’Twere my job,” she protested. “And a hard one, it was! I had to learn by heart ever so many signals and such, and then run up and down the stairs, back and forth, knocking on the floor here, switching off gas lamps there. I did what Mrs. Percy told me to do. I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
Cobban and Sylvia returned, a plaster sticking to his forehead and another one to his hand, where Suzie’s grimy nails had left other marks. Sylvia looked very pleased with herself.
“Let’s leave Suzie to think about the situation,” Cobban said, extending a hand to help me from the chair. His choice of moments to practice gentlemanly behavior always left me a little confused. He was a most unpredictable young man. But he was also an officer of the law and I had no official status, so I rose from my chair.
“Do I get my supper?” Suzie called after us when we turned down the dark corridor. Our heels clicked against the bare floor, and somewhere in that cold and sinister building, in yet another locked room, a man yelled and pounded his fists against the wall.
“Theft, yes,” I commented when we had reached the stairwell. In addition to being unpredictable, Constable Cobban jumped too quickly to conclusions. “But coveting baubles does not indicate a violent nature. If so, far too many maids and manservants would be on trial for murder, and in fact it is a rarity.”
“I’ll vouch for that,” said Sylvia, who as an extraordinarily wealthy heiress had known her share of domestic disturbances and searches in the maids’ rooms.
“Moreover,” I continued, “I believe that at least some of the jewelry was given to her freely, by Mrs. Percy.”
“Some, but not all. Is that your opinion?” Cobban asked. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully. We had descended the staircase and he had me by the elbow, as men do when they are herding women, and he was herding me toward the front door of the building.
“Did you not think yet of this, Miss Alcott? Suzie wore the stolen jewelry the same day, when you and the others arrived for the séance. She did not fear being seen in it. That would indicate she knew her mistress was already dead. And how would she have known that if she had not been herself involved in the murder?”
An excellent point. But there had to be a second answer. My woman’s instinct said that Suzie was a silly, greedy child of questionable morality but not a murderer.
“Where does this stepbrother, Mr. Nichols, reside?” I asked.
“Go back to your home and leave this matter to me,” Cobban said, hooking his thumbs in his suspenders with an air of male authority.
“His address will be in tonight’s paper, in Mrs. Percy’s obituary,” I said with, I admit it, a hint of impatience in my voice. “Are you coming, Sylvia?”
“Of course, Louy.” But she gave Cobban such a long glance over her shoulder that my heart sank. She waved good-bye to him with her fingertips, as little girls do.
“Sylvia,” I said gently, hooking my arm through hers, “you have been giving Constable Cobban strange looks. Can you explain why?”
“Is he not a pleasing young man?” said my friend. “His eyes are particularly fine, I think.”
“Your mother would not find him so pleasing,” I pointed out. “He has neither fortune nor family.”
“You know, Louy, I think Father would find him very agreeable. The son he never had, hardworking and intelligent. Ambitious. Father was not born with a fortune, you know. Nor did Mother have one when they married; she was rather in Amelia Snodgrass’s position, with lots of family history and connections but holes in her boots, if you see what I mean. No, Father earned his wealth. And Cobban will, too, I think.” Sylvia grew dreamy eyed.
Outdoors, in the fresh air again, I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my lungs of the foul airs that accumulate in large public buildings where people are housed in less than sanitary conditions. It was midafternoon, and my stomach was hollow with hunger. I wondered how Lizzie had amused herself after returning home from skating.
“Sylvia,” I said, “you need a new diversion to occupy your thoughts. Would you like to study music with Lizzie? Or read the new volume of Dickens? The Boston Ladies’ Lyceum is offering a series of lectures on phrenology that might interest you.”
“But I have a new interest, Louy,” she protested. “Every night I light candles and wait to speak with Father. I am learning spirit writing, so that he might write to me, as well.”
“Did you learn nothing from the events at Mrs. Percy’s?”
“I did. There are frauds out there, Louy. I will be much more careful in my next selection of a spiritualist. I will inquire more deeply into her reputation.”
“That is a lesson, at least,” I said, though I had hoped she had given up séances completely. Sylvia, though, wasn’t quite through with this phase, it seemed. “We might inquire more deeply into Mrs. Percy’s reputation to discover who and what she really was,” I thought aloud. “Woman who are exactly as they appear to be rarely fall into such difficulties as being found murdered in their rooms.”
LIZZIE, WHO HAD returned home from the skating pond earlier in the day, greeted me at the door with a cup of hot tea, my house slippers, and a shawl. Just like Marmee.
“Was it exciting, Louy?” she asked. “Apprehending a murderer? Tell me all about it.”
“I would, dearest, except I don’t think we did apprehend a murderer. Come sit by the fire with me.” Oh, the dear parlor! How pleased I was to be home, to sit in the gentle glow of the hearth. Yet I could not stop thinking about the crystal gazer.
“Oh, Louy.” Lizzie sighed. “You are involved again. I can tell by the face you are making, and how you have jammed your hands into your pockets. Soon you will begin to whistle and worry. You always whistle a little when you are worried.”
“Do I? Then I shall try to break that habit.”
“You have a letter, Louy. It arrived this afternoon.”
The paper was expensive, more costly than the Alcotts could afford, and the writing had a laborious quality to it, often the sign of a person who has lived abroad and must learn to write in a manner to suit foreign eyes not accustomed to the loops and curlicues of script. The letter, when opened, revealed the sender as Mr. William Phips.
My dear young woman, he had written. May I call you friend? My dear friend Miss Alcott, if you have not yet read the evening papers (my dear wife always read her correspondence before the papers; I hope you also have that prudent habit), I implore you to set aside today’s editions, for they contain horrible news, news unworthy of troubling the imagination of a fine young woman. I will tell you in brief: Mrs. Percy’s obituary has been placed in the evening edition. You are too young, my dear friend, to contemplate death and obituaries. May I call on you some afternoon? Mr. Alcott, I understand, is out of state, and I would be pleased to offer my pr
otection.
“It is from Mr. Phips,” I said to Lizzie, who had been rocking quietly in her chair by the fire. “He would like to call upon us, for we are without a father’s protection.”
“How quaint,” said Lizzie.
“I suppose I must invite him over for tea.” I sighed. I disliked those long hours of weak tea and small talk that courtesy required, but a gesture of friendship should not be refused.
Auntie Bond, who had been in the kitchen giving instructions for our supper, came into the parlor and sat with us. How cozy we were, three women on their own, glad for a warm fire and companionship, a busy day behind us and a long winter evening before us. Auntie Bond crocheted lace doilies, Lizzie practiced finger exercises, and I stitched at the reverend’s shirts with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, disliking the work but knowing that each stitch brought me closer to the purchase of Lizzie’s music portfolio and that lottery drawing for the lessons with Signor Massimo.
I stitched and occasionally rested my eyes from the close work by staring into the flames of the hearth, thinking, and resisting the impulse to whistle. The evening paper was on the floor at my feet, folded to the page with the death notices. Mrs. Percy’s obituary occupied a full quarter of the page because she had been a woman “of singular interest,” as the journalist had described. I had read it, of course, despite Mr. Phips’s concerns for my emotional well-being.
The journalist had used far too many words to describe her gifts as a medium and a crystal gazer, and revealed that she was originally born in New York City. She had been a vocalist for some years, touring in the United States and England, but had been forced into early retirement by an inflammation of the throat. She had married Mr. Percy, a Chicago banker, upon her retirement, but Mr. Percy had, for a weakness of the lungs, relocated to Havana.
In other words, I thought, her husband had wearied of her, abandoned her, and resettled in a tropical clime. No doubt he had moved the family finances with him.
There was, the death notice said, some confusion over the manner of death and a suggestion that it might not have been natural. Ah. Hence Mr. Phips’s concern that I not read the article. Young women, in his philosophy, should know nothing of murder and the darker deeds of the world.
Mrs. Percy, the reporter continued, was survived only by a stepbrother, Mr. Edward T. Nichols of Cleveland, who was visiting his sister in Boston. Mr. Nichols was also a cousin of Phineas T. Barnum, and involved with him in several business ventures.
What strange connections were revealing themselves!
Something Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said to me chimed through my thoughts as I sat before the fire that evening. He had been explaining his theory of the universal mind, of which he said, “Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. History, Louisa. Just imagine, you might have the exact same thought that Plato once thought.”
“Or Sappho,” I had added, and Father had harrumphed, for he had no great fondness for lady poets, ancient or otherwise.
And then Mr. Emerson had said, “Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises.”
As you have guessed, reader, I jotted his words in my journal and memorized them, even though at the time I was young enough that I had no fine understanding of them. I knew someday I would.
That evening Mr. Emerson’s words returned to me, and I saw that they were so true that their opposite would also be true: What emotion the killer of Mrs. Percy had experienced, I too might experience, and the facts, however strange, that had led to her death were still there, had in fact now become part of history, and thus were available for discovery. Each fact would flash a light on what base, death-dealing men have done. Moreover, whatever crisis had led to Mrs. Percy’s death was part of a larger crisis, a failure of moral behavior not just at the individual level but at the national level.
I felt exhilarated.
But would I ever have the courage to reveal to Mr. Emerson that I had used his Transcendental philosophy to begin to untangle a murder?
My latest run of thread had come to an end. I bit it with my teeth, carefully placed the needle in its case for the night, and smoothed the sleeve I had been seaming. The fabric seemed different, I realized. Much too light for a winter shirt. Your imagination, I told myself. You are daydreaming too much, finding mystery in everything.
THERE WAS A letter from Uncle Benjamin in the morning mail. Lizzie and I had been sitting in the back parlor working on the reverend’s shirts, and she had just voiced a desire to purchase one of Mr. Singer’s new sewing machines to make the sewing go faster.
“It is such drudgery,” she said, sucking a finger that had just been pinpricked, for though she was a nimble little needlewoman, Lizzie sometimes was bored and careless when faced with hours and hours of seams to sew.
“If we could afford a Singer machine we wouldn’t need to take in sewing,” I pointed out. “But if it will make you feel better, I’ll confess to writing a new story that I may sell, and if Mr. Leslie purchases it, I’ll get you a new packet of needles.”
Lizzie made a face.
“And a new dress,” I added hastily, already sorry for having teased her.
“I’d rather have more sheet music, dear, if you don’t mind,” said my musical younger sister.
Auntie Bond poked her head in through the doorway and held out the little silver tray on which mail was placed.
“All from Walpole,” she said.
“Hurray!” shouted Lizzie, throwing down her sewing. “Marmee and Father and Abby. Do you think she is still painting the mountains of New Hampshire, or has she decided on a different subject for her canvases, Louy?”
“Still the mountains,” I guessed. Whereas Anna, the eldest, had a talent for acting and singing, and Lizzie was musical, Abby was an artist, and in her time second only to the great Turner himself, or at least that was the family’s opinion of her landscapes.
“I have a letter from the darlings, and one from Uncle Benjamin as well. Let us take a break and read them as we walk in the garden,” I suggested. “The air will do us good.”
“It’s snowing, Louy!”
“Even better,” I insisted.
Dressed in coat, hat, gloves, and galoshes, I paced back and forth in front of Auntie Bond’s row of holly bushes, the only patches of green left in the snow-covered garden. Uncle’s letter did not reassure.
Walpole, December 11
Dear Louisa,
Why this interest in Mr. Barnum? He is an upstart, you know, a snake-oil peddler who, for the moment, lives in a mansion in Bridgeport and travels the world at the expense of the poor fools he humbugs with his trickery. By the by, I’ve misplaced my cane again. Things seem to walk away on their own; have you noticed? And Mr. Tupper asks if you would like some jars of his rhubarb preserves sent down to you, since they are difficult to find at this time of year. But you asked about Phineas Barnum. Well, talk at the club is that he and his cousin, Eddie Nichols, have had a very serious falling-out. You will remember that Eddie is the same young scoundrel who speculated in tickets during the Jenny Lind tour. Or perhaps you don’t remember. That is what comes of letting the females in the house read Greek philosophy. Their thoughts go highfalutin and they skip the newspapers.
Eddie so upset Barnum during the Lind tour that the boy moved to Cleveland and set up his own theater and speculated in real estate. I believe he was also involved in several lotteries. All in all, not the kind of boy you bring home to meet the family. The missing cane, by the way, is the one with the bust of Hathor on top, your favorite. I hope I find it soon; I’m lost without it.
Your father is still eating carrots for dinner and supper. I have encouraged him to have a glass of port with me after that mess of vegetables, to strengthen his blood. Well, it seems that Barnum himself loaned much of the money Eddie ne
eded for his new start, and sent drafts through the mail. My solicitor, who is a friend of a solicitor who has rooms next to Mr. Barnum’s solicitor, says that Eddie hoodwinked his cousin Phineas out of many thousands of dollars by also forging his signature to drafts not sent, this act being necessary since the money Phineas had sent had all been used to pay old and new gambling debts. As I say, Eddie is not a man to bring home to Sunday dinner.
I’m certain you’re not understanding a word of this, so I will explain in terms a female can comprehend: Eddie Nichols robbed his cousin, Phineas Barnum, of many thousands of dollars (as much as forty thousand altogether, my solicitor speculates), and now Mr. Barnum is taking the scoundrel to the courts. Not much good that will do. The money is gone and Barnum is ruined. He’ll have to go back to keeping a shop. The most Barnum can hope for is revenge.
Your cousin Eliza sends her warmest regards. The children are down with catarrh and sleep much of the day, so she is putting her feet up and reading. Do you know Mr. Leslie’s magazine, Louisa? There is some fine fiction in it, fantastical stuff with lots of adventure and wayward females. I send my affection. If you can think where the cane might be, let me know.
Yrs. truly
Uncle Benjamin
Three words leaped off the page and into my speculations. The first was magazine, and with a thrill of excitement I wondered if it was some of my own stories, published anonymously, that Uncle and Cousin were reading. The thought gave me goose bumps of delight. There is nothing a writer enjoys more than learning her stories are being read, even if she cannot, at the time, acknowledge them as her own work because of the “fantastical stuff” and “wayward females” in those stories. I must, I thought, get back to my desk and finish “Agatha’s Confession.” First, though, I must ponder the other words in Uncle’s letter that had caught my attention, words having to do with Phineas Barnum.