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

“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.