Free Louisa and the Crystal Gazer by Anna Maclean Page A

so exactly?” He addressed this question to Sylvia.
    “Usually not, if they can afford variety,” said my friend, frowning. “She did seem to wear it more as a kind of livery or uniform, I thought.”
    Mr. Barnum poked the fire again. “Too much costume,” he said. “That’s what I think.”
    “Too much costume?” repeated Cobban, turning his attention to the showman.
    “Yes. Mrs. Percy, for instance. Dressed up like a Gypsy, with veils and sequins and heavy bracelets. Totally unnecessary. If you’re going to humbug a crowd you don’t announce it with a flashy costume. Blend in; that’s the key. And that vanished maid of hers, Suzie Dear. Dressed like an opera dancer. Sets the wrong tone for a sober enterprise.”
    Cobban was writing furiously, his plaid sleeves a throbbing red in the gaslight.
    Mr. Phips cleared his throat. “I did notice something else, I just now recalled,” he said. “The maid was wearing heavy bracelets, and I would swear they were the same ones her mistress wore last week.”
    “Theft,” said Cobban, frowning. “Theft, and then she skedaddled. I’ll have her picked up. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find a newly homeless and unemployed working girl down in the stews near the harbor. That’s where she’ll head.”
    “How do you know Mrs. Percy didn’t give her the bracelets?” I asked. Suzie Dear seemed a young woman in need of guidance, but Mrs. Percy no longer needed the jewelry, and Idisliked the thought of a young woman going to prison for such a frivolous crime. The bracelets were most likely brass, not gold.
    “We’ll ask a few questions and find out,” Cobban said. “That’s it, ladies and gentlemen. Leave me your cards, please, in case there are other questions. And now, go back to your homes and find more sensible pastimes.” This last remark did not endear him to Mr. Phips, whose mouth, under his gray mustachios, grew thin with dislike. Dressed now in our heavy coats, we filed out one by one through the front door, back into the winter night. I gave him one of Auntie Bond’s calling cards with my name written in under hers.
    “Did Walpole suit you?” the constable asked me in a voice low and private, taking the card. “I, for one, am pleased you have returned to Boston. You, as well, Miss Shattuck.” He gave Sylvia a little nod of the head, turned on his heel, and strode off down the sidewalk.
    Lizzie put her arm through mine and sighed.
    “Louy, what a terrible afternoon!” she said.
    “It started out with such promise.” Mr. Barnum stood beside us, swinging his walking cane to and fro, as if batting at snowflakes. “Ah, well. She has gone to meet her Maker. Let us hope she returns to Him with a clear conscience, though her parlor tricks argue against that event.”
    “Any sin was as much ours as hers, for we paid for the entertainment and so encouraged it,” I said.
    “I do feel a fool,” said Sylvia. “How will I ever communicate with Father now? Patiently, through prayer and reflection,” she whispered.
    “What did you say, Sylvia?” I asked.
    “Why, I’m not certain! Something about reflection. Do you think the words I just said might have been guidance from poor Mrs. Percy?”
    “Sylvia, you need to rest,” I told her.
    And so my friend returned to her mansion and her mother, probably for another long evening of conversations about marriage and who was betrothed to whom, which heirs were still “on the market.” Lizzie and I returned to Auntie Bond’s, where my sister practiced her études on the parlor piano and I took a candle up to my attic writing room. Mrs. Percy’s face floated before me, pale and round as a moon, with that strange grimace upon it, as if she had just received bad news. This vision entangled itself into my story, now named “Agatha’s Confession,” and the story became the tale of a woman, once loved, not yet suspecting she has been cast aside in favor of another—her own friend Clara. Character must be