Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 57, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2012

The Best Thing for the Liver by Janice Law

You could have knocked me over with a feather when Madame Selina said, “I think we need a vacation, Nip.”

Back on the farm, you worked till you died, and the Orphan Home had no holiday notions, either. Of course, Madame Selina took Sundays off, and she’d made at least one visit to Newport that I knew of, but that was partly business and partly for her health. But a holiday for me was so wonderfully exotic that the cat not only caught my tongue but swallowed it whole.

“Well?” she asked.

“I’ve never had a vacation,” I said.

“New things enlarge the mind. We leave on the morning boat.”

That was quick. Later when I was polishing up the boots and helping Maddie with the rush of packing, I wondered if our departure had anything to do with a recent adventure involving a Tammany politico and a big street contract. Madame Selina certainly didn’t look flustered, but that meant nothing. Though she could throw a fit that would loosen your hair, as a normal thing she was calm as a clam and any thing she gave away could safely have been written up in the evening newspapers.

Our tickets were booked as Mrs. Hiram Bickerstaff and Nip Tompkins, nephew. I saw them, for I was sent to pick them up. Now, I’m Nip Tompkins for certain, but far as I know, I was never Madame Selina’s nephew, and she was only Mrs. Bickerstaff on certain special occasions. Maybe this really was to be that new thing, a vacation.

Certainly nothing could have been more festive than our departure up the Hudson on a fine, coal-fired side wheeler. We stood at the rail to watch the gulls and admire the wooded Palisades across the river and spy on the busy traffic of fishing boats and coasters. I’d have been happy to ruin any number of ward heelers for a trip like this.

“What are we to do in Saratoga?” I asked, for I still envisioned work of some sort.

“Why we’ll enjoy ourselves. We’ll eat at my old friend George’s restaurant; we’ll watch the races; we’ll sit on the veranda and enjoy the carriage parade. You deserve some fun, Nip, you’ve been an invaluable assistant.”

She smiled. I should say that Madame Selina has a wonderful smile. It is not just her direct connection with Aurelius, that is Marcus Aurelius, late emperor of the Romans, that has made her the foremost medium in New York City. She has charm and good sense, and I was a lucky boy to be her assistant.

But that thought momentarily dampened the thrill of the steamboat. Thanks to three meals a day of Hilda’s good cooking, I’d begun to grow. My efforts in the cabinet, where I produced the “ectoplasm” and other effects that make Madame Selina’s trances so impressive, required me to fit into a very small space.

I was beginning to worry that one day Mrs. Hiram Bickerstaff would pay another visit to the Orphans Home and select another “likely boy” no more than five feet tall. To prevent this calamity, I worked hard at all my errands, and I dare say I could find my way around the city as well as any and quicker than most.

“There’s another steamboat,” said Madame Selina.

“Will we race them?” I asked, my worries instantly forgotten.

“I surely hope not,” she said. “How many of the dear departed have left us via blown boilers and riverboat racing?”

I couldn’t argue with that when, just the previous week, Madame had made contact with a young lady who’d gone down on the Cerebus. It took a full trance and all our effects to get Aurelius to speak. So maybe it was Aurelius who needed a vacation, and our trip had nothing to do with street contracts and Tammany Hall.

We landed at Schenectady and took the train on to the Springs. I was familiar with the omnibuses and the fast carriages of the city, but the train was great beyond anything. We sat on plush seats, refreshments available, and zoomed past fields and villages at thirty-five miles an hour.

At first the speed made me dizzy with everything flowing together. But before long, I got the knack of high speed looking, and though Madame complained of the smoke and cinders, I stuck my head out the window to feel the breeze. This was traveling!

You’d sure be envious, if I described all that happened before we got to the block-long Union Hotel with its three-story porches and its enormous interior garden with lights and flowers and fountains and gazebos. Not to mention the big dining room that could sit a thousand at once and boasted one hundred colored waiters with their noses in the air and big trays on their shoulders to bring on the food.

And such food! I got the hang of a vacation pretty quick when I saw the bill of fare. Madame was as good as her word. We ate, we admired the shops; we visited the track and enjoyed the bands that played afternoons and evenings. We watched the swells and the fancy ladies parade in their carriages.

About the only thing I didn’t care for were the actual springs, though Madame Selina was enthusiastic. “Mineral water is the best thing for the liver,” she said. So every morning started with a promenade around the pavilions. At the springs she favored, dipper boys or girls poured glasses of water Pa would have questioned for a horse, never mind the gentry.

But maybe mineral water is an acquired taste. I saw a girl just about my age drinking the waters. She was thin and so pale that her cheeks had a curious bluish tint, but she was very prettily dressed, and she wrinkled up her nose and made faces at the water just like me. I waved at her one day and after that she tried to say hello, but any time I approached, her guardians drew her away.

“Her aunt and uncle, I believe,” said Madame Selina, for she missed very little and was always encouraging me to “be alert and notice everything.”

“Edith is the heiress of the van Boord fortune. Her guardians have brought her here for her health,” she explained

Nip Tompkins, late of the Orphan Home, was not considered a suitable companion. Pity. But mineral water, even with snobbery, was a small price to pay for the delights of the town. We had carriage rides, too, because although she was Mrs. Hiram Bickerstaff and encumbered with a nephew, Madame was still recognized. She had grateful clients all over Saratoga Springs and nearly every day she had to explain that she was “resting,” that the trip was for her health, that no séances were on tap.

The clients consoled themselves by driving us hither and yon in their carriages. That is how we came to eat at George LaLune’s, where we were greeted as old friends and where we discovered that Aurelius would have to go back to work after all.

Where to start? I’m tempted to begin with the roast oysters and the woodcock in sauce, but Madame Selina always says it’s best to get right to the heart of a matter. In this case, the heart of the matter was that the heiress of the van Boord fortune was at the next table over. She gave me a shy smile, as if she didn’t give a toss about the Orphan House, which would have lightened my heart if she hadn’t looked paler than ever. Even her hair, which had been thick and dark, now looked lank and thin.

I was glad to see that they had switched her treatment from spring water to the tasty dishes emerging from the kitchen. Though on closer inspection, I noticed that her aunt was still plying her with water which she poured, not from one of the restaurant’s pitchers, but from a bottle of her own.

More of the wretched minerals, I reckoned. I stole looks at Edith all through dinner, and I couldn’t help noticing that she seemed to be in pain. When we had reached the dessert stage and were tucking into pineapple and fancy cakes, she gave a little cry and stood up, knocking over her glass and literally falling against my chair.

I jumped up and caught her arm. She’d splashed water all over herself and she started frantically drying her blouse and skirt. I took out my handkerchief and tried to help, but, in an instant, her uncle picked her up bodily and carried her from the restaurant.

I was left holding her handkerchief and my own, both soaked. When I started to follow them to return hers, Madame Selina caught my arm and shook her head. Then she did an odd thing. She emptied her water glass, dropped in both handkerchiefs and put the glass into the vast carpet satchel that she carried everywhere.

The next morning, Madame Selina looked in at the chemist’s before we began our usual round of the springs. Although I checked every pavilion, neither Edith van Boord nor her guardians were in sight. Back at the hotel, when Madame Selina sent up her card with good wishes for Edith’s recovery, there was no response.

Still, I’m not sure anything would have happened if her restaurant friend had not sent a frantic summons. We met George LaLune on the veranda. He was a Mohawk with a long, stern face and wind-burned skin, who had put all his wives to work in the restaurant and found a genius of mixed blood to do the cooking.

Like Madame Selina, Mr. LaLune believed in getting right to the point. “The van Boords have accused the restaurant of poisoning their niece with a bad oyster.”

“The oysters were exquisite,” Madame Selina said.

“Of course. But it will be all around the Springs by this evening.”

“Or before. I do believe I heard something as I came down the corridor.”

“Such a rumor could ruin us.”

“It is nonsense,” Madame Selina said. “Dangerous nonsense.”

“I need your help.”

“What can I do? To prove a negative is impossible and all the delicious oysters were eaten.”

“The world is full of spirits,” LaLune said.

Madame Selina laid her hand on his arm and nodded in agreement.

“You might summon one for me,” he said, “and demand the truth.”

Madame leaned back in her chair and sighed. “A good plan, but I cannot give you an answer until later. We must have the truth, but we will still need evidence, and even the spirits can only do so much.”

LaLune raised his large, bony hands in a gesture of despair.

“I have some thoughts,” said Madame Selina. “I will send you a message later. And if we can have a séance, where should it be? And when?”

“Here, tonight,” said LaLune. “Where all the rumors live.”

Madame Selina nodded. “In the Rose Salon then. We must get the Rose Salon, for there will be a crowd for certain.”

As soon as LaLune left, she clapped her hands and sent me for writing paper, drafted a message, and dispatched me to the telegraph office. All of which told me that once again Aurelius needed help. You’d think a man who had managed the Roman Empire and was immortal to boot would never be needing assistance from such as Nip Tompkins.

Well, you’d be wrong. The Emperor was temperamental, and, worse, he didn’t keep up with things. He was particularly weak on the stocks and bonds that were a big concern of Madame’s clients, and the ins and outs of Tammany Hall would have baffled him without the assistance of various politicos and journalists.

I waited at the busy telegraph office and paid for a long message. Madame was gone when I got back, and she didn’t tap on the door of my room until just before dinner, when she stuck her head in and said, “Look lively, Nip. We have work to do.”

When she opened her big satchel, I saw what looked to be the yellow paper of a telegram, but she said nothing about that and took out her purse. I was to hire a carriage and collect George LaLune and two other men. “George expects a message and I have spoken with the others. We begin at nine o’clock in the Rose Salon.”

Not only was this one of the biggest public rooms of the hotel, but we would be without our cabinet or the smoke machine or any of our props. Although I couldn’t see how I could help her, I asked if I wouldn’t be needed.

“Tonight we must rely on Aurelius,” she said, seemingly unconcerned.

I wasn’t so sure. I blew hot and cold about the emperor. Sometimes I believed him square and honest and a fact of the universe. Other times I thought he was a bunch of phooey.

“He’s our main hope of saving her,” Madame Selina said as if she detected my doubts. “A life’s at stake.”

With that, I ran out to the street and found a carriage. At quarter of nine, I led our three guests along the immense veranda and down the long corridor of the hotel. The Rose Salon was already packed, as news of a séance by the famous Madame Selina had swept through the hotel and several of its neighbors. We pushed into the room. LaLune and I made our way to the front, leaving our other two guests standing inconspicuously at the back.

Madame sat facing the gathering, concentrating impassively as she always did before a séance. She was on a slight platform with nothing but the chair she sat in and a small round table with a single candle burning. When she saw me, she raised her head and I nodded. She motioned for me to come closer and whispered, “Whatever happens, get to her room. With our two guests if possible. If they baulk, go alone.”

She resumed her solitary and concentrated pose. The gas lights were brought down to the faintest golden glimmer and the candle beside her leaped up to seize all the light in the room. It was warm with the press of so many bodies. I could hear the rustle of crinolines and the papery sound of the ladies’ taffetas and the shuffle of the gentlemen’s shoes and boots.

Madame slumped back in her chair. “We have one seeking knowledge,” she said in a faint voice.

No response. There was such a long pause that I began to fear Aurelius had taken his holiday elsewhere.

“We have one seeking knowledge,” she repeated.

Again, no answer and as the minutes stretched out, I felt LaLune stir beside me.

“It is George LaLune, Turtle Band, great nephew of the last Great Sachem of the Mohawks,” he said in a loud voice.

Whether Aurelius had been slumbering or whether he was pals with the Great Sachem in the afterlife, Madame’s eyes rolled back in her head, and Aurelius spoke, a low, harsh, hollow sound octaves below Madame’s normal voice. “What do you seek?” A ripple of sound went through the room, followed by whispers and shushings.

“I have been falsely accused of poisoning a guest. Who has poisoned Edith van Boord?”

Aurelius gave a groan and his voice dropped still further. “Those closest to her seek her death with the waters.”

Gasps of horror. If a restaurant could be ruined by a bad oyster, the whole town could be threatened by poison in the springs.

“Death in the bottle they carry. Death in the green jar on the dressing table. Death to the poor child.”

There was a shriek from the middle of the room and a man’s voice shouted for the lights. My two companions shoved their way to the corridor and I followed. At the door, I glanced back. In the bright yellow flare of the gas, I saw that Madame Selina had collapsed, unconscious, her hair undone, her arms dangling over the sides of her chair. I ran for the stairs with my companions.

Behind us someone was shouting, “Stop, stop, you have no right!” Edith’s uncle, no doubt.

And another, higher voice demanding, “Rupert, stop them! Stop them!”

No chance. I’d found my way to the van Boord’s rooms earlier in the day, and I knew where to go in the vast maze of corridors. The constable forced the door and we surged into the suite. The curtains were all drawn and the light was low. The constable turned up the gas revealing a dressing table with — honestly my heart skipped a beat I was both so relieved and so surprised — a small green porcelain jar.

Our other companion lifted the lid, examined some white powder and nodded. “Arsenic, I am certain,” he said. That counted for a lot, since he was the local chemist.

I shouted for Edith and ran through the other rooms, startling an older woman, nurse or maid, who occupied the small room next to Edith van Boord. We found her lying in bed, sick, weak, and frightened.

“You’re all right now,” I said. “You’re safe now. Do you remember me?”

“The boy at the restaurant,” she said and fainted.

There is no need for me to tell you all the ins and outs of the case. The scandal was written up in all the public prints and retailed by every gossip at the Springs. Madame’s Selina’s prompt action was praised to the skies and even Nip Tompkins, late of the Orphan Home, came in for a paragraph or two and personal thanks from the heiress of the van Boord fortune.

I was pleased as you can imagine and Madame Selina noticed. “This holiday has done you good, Nip. Every man deserves to be a White Knight once. I daresay you’ve grown an inch or two since.”

But this brought back all my worries and almost spoiled my triumph. “I imagine you’ll be visiting the Orphan Home sometime soon.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’m outgrowing the cabinet.”

“The new one should be ready when we return,” she said. “I am not about to lose you over a few feet of carpentry.”

I could have danced a jig, and I may have cut a caper or two, for Hilda’s dinners and interesting errands and the delights of the city were still mine. But there remained one thing and when we were steaming down the Hudson, I asked her about it.

“You had the wet handkerchiefs tested somehow.”

“That’s right. After you mentioned the bluish tint of Edith’s skin, I noticed her pallor. That was very observant of you, Nip, and it made me think. The chemist ran the Marsh Test and detected arsenic. But the chain of evidence was unclear.”

I had to ask about chains of evidence, which are not physical like the chains around a strong box but have to do with how evidence is handled and who could tamper with it. Though there was no chance of that with us, Madame Selina said that any good lawyer would raise a lot of doubts.

“So we needed the séance.”

“We needed Aurelius.”

I could see that in a way, although I never liked to see Aurelius at work without the personal assistance of Nip Tompkins, who was only invaluable as long as the late emperor needed a hand. “But the green jar. How did you know about that?”

She turned to me as if genuinely surprised, for Madame always claims to remember nothing from her trances. “The green jar?”

“The one Aurelius mentioned. The one with the arsenic, hiding amid the cosmetics like a jar of face powder.”

“I’m surprised you need to ask, Nip. Of course Aurelius would notice such a thing. Unlike railroads and steamboats, arsenic is something old Romans know all about.”

Copyright © 2012 Janice Law