Beloved and Unseemly

by K. B. Owen

  “What is it?”

  He shook his head with a smile. “It’s a surprise.”

  The rain stopped just after the midday meal. “The young ladies will have their bonfire tonight after all,” Concordia said, nodding toward the dining hall windows.

  President Langdon brushed crumbs from his chest and tucked the napkin back in his lap, where it all but disappeared under his large belly. “I doubt anything is dry enough to burn.”

  She smiled, recalling the firewood and kindling the girls from Willow Cottage had been squirreling away in the tool shed for the past week. “I am sure they will find a way.” A movement across the room caught her eye, and she saw David push back his chair.

  Concordia did likewise. “If you will excuse me.”

  She hurried to meet him outside the dining hall. “What is your surprise?”

  He merely grinned and patted his jacket pocket. “I am in the mood for a walk. Shall we?”

  Although the path was muddy in places, especially along the old sheep tracks at the bottom of Rook’s Hill, the rain had refreshed the air and brought a colorful carpet of leaves to their feet. A breeze rippled the branches nearby.

  They had walked ten minutes in companionable silence and had nearly crested the hill when Concordia finally spoke. “Where is it we’re going? There’s nothing here but the old Armstrong place.” She gestured toward the farmhouse ahead of them. No one had lived here since George Armstrong’s death the year before. The place was sadly neglected: the barn was missing its door, the paddock and fields were overgrown with nettles, and farm implements had been left out to rust.

  “His relations are selling the house and property.” He helped her navigate a splintered wood step on the porch.

  She stopped short. “You want to live here? Isn’t it rather...large?” Land sakes, how many children did he expect them to have?

  “Who can predict how much room we might need?”

  She swallowed. He did want a large family. Well, she would disabuse him of that notion.

  “Armstrong’s family dropped the price. It is just within our range,” he continued. “And it is so close to campus that I could walk to my classes.”

  He could walk to his classes.

  Concordia drew in a breath, choking back tears. Why would he torment her so, and propose setting up their home within view of the life she was giving up?

  David sighed and enfolded her in his arms. “Oh, my dear. You misunderstand me. This can be beneficial for you, too.”

  “I do not see how,” she sniffed.

  He held her at arm’s length so he could meet her eyes. “Think of the possibilities! We are walking distance from the school.”

  She frowned, at first not seeing his point.

  Then it came to her.

  The property was practically part of the campus. In fact, the trustees of Hartford Women’s College had tried to purchase a portion of the Armstrong land a couple of years ago. If she and David lived here, she could easily host students for teas and poetry readings, attend events at the school, perhaps even volunteer to head the Literature Club or direct the student play. If the college needed a last-minute substitute teacher, which happened upon occasion, she might persuade Miss Pomeroy of the expediency of pressing her into service. Surely, the trustees could not object to that.

  “Ah, you see!” he said triumphantly, watching her expression change. “There is more than one way to skin a cat, you know.”

  She smiled. The tightness in her chest eased. “You, Mr. Bradley, are a devious man. Let us take a look.” She put a hand to the door, praying it was not a mice-infested heap.

  “Just a minute,” he said, digging in his pocket. “We need the key.”

  “It’s open already,” she said, stepping into the gloom.

  He frowned. “Strange. The caretaker said it would be locked.”

  She groped her way through the dark room. “No electricity, I suppose.” Funny how one could become accustomed to such luxuries as electric lights and steam heat. Would it be terribly expensive to convert the old farmhouse to such amenities?

  “Gas lighting, and it has been shut off,” he said. “The caretaker said he left some lanterns on the kitchen table.” He glanced around. “I had hoped for a sunny day to show you the place.”

  “No matter.” She found a lantern and struck a match. “What an enormous kitchen!” Unfortunately, that appeared to be its only positive attribute. The cast-iron cook stove was absolutely ancient, and the deep sink still had a hand pump. She could only imagine the state of the pipes. The place needed a lot of work.

  “All the easier for you to cook elaborate meals for me,” he said with a grin.

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “It could be the size of the Taj Mahal and be equipped with the most modern amenities and it still would not help. You know I cannot prepare anything more complicated than tea and toast. I do not suppose we will have the funds to hire a cook?”

  “Not right away. I can always bring back leftovers from the dining hall.” He ducked before she could find something to throw at him.

  There was no help for it, she supposed. She would have to learn to cook, or burn the house down trying.

  He smiled and drew her close. “I do not care if you char the toast every day of our married lives, my dear.” He bent down and breathed in her ear, sending tingles along her spine. “Kiss me.”

  She slid her hands up behind his neck, pulse quickening. “How improper, sir,” she murmured. “We are not yet married. What would Aunt Drusilla say?”

  He chuckled as his mouth brushed her cheek. “Aunt Drusilla be—” Concordia’s lips stopped the rest of his sentence.

  After a time, he took a lantern and headed toward the parlor. “The house definitely has potential. Come and see the deep stone fireplace!” he called.

  She joined him, holding up her own lamp. “There is plenty of room here to host students for gatherings. Now I understand why you thought a larger home would be advantageous.” Her excitement grew. “David, I do think this may work—” A loud bang stopped her.

  “That sounded like the back door.” He put a hand to her arm. “Probably just the breeze rattling it loose, but best that you stay here.” He headed down the narrow hallway.

  She glanced around at the gloomy shadows of the parlor, and shivered. “Oh, no...I am coming with you.” She hurried up behind him.

  As if by tacit agreement, they moved carefully and noiselessly back through the kitchen to the rear screened-in porch. David’s shone his light toward the screen door. His shoulders relaxed. “Ah, see? It was not latched properly.” He shifted the lantern in his hands to secure the hook.

  Concordia idly cast her light around the dim perimeter, piled with stacked furniture, a long workbench, and other detritus. What a mess. And who would leave a heap of cast-off clothing behind the bench? She moved closer. Her heart leapt in her chest and she let out a gasp.

  More than clothing. A man.

  “D-David....” Her voice quavered.

  He hurried over and sucked in a breath. He crouched beside the body.

  “Is he...dead?”

  “I need more light.”

  She brought her lamp closer as he turned the man over.

  “I do not recognize him,” he said.

  Suppressing a shudder at the sightless eyes, she leaned in. The man’s otherwise fair hair was matted at the back of his head with something dark. Blood. She swallowed. He seemed familiar…that slightly crooked nose, the scar along the eyebrow.

  Then she remembered.

  “I know who he is,” she said in a small voice. “Mr. Oster.”

  Chapter 8

  Week 3, Instructor Calendar October 1898

  There is, no doubt, a great pleasure in the added freedom of life which comes to an elderly girl. ~Mrs. John Sherwood

  Concordia rushed over to the college’s gatehouse for help while David stayed with the body.

  “There has been a death at the old Armstrong pla
ce. We need the police right away,” she told Clyde, the gatekeeper. “Find out if Lieutenant Capshaw can come.” She prayed he could. Although the policeman often rolled his eyes at the peccadilloes of college people, there was no denying he had experience in dealing with campus-related cases. To be sure, this was not quite on campus—a fact she hoped would keep the school out of the newspapers this time—but the fact that teachers at Hartford Women’s College had discovered the body was bound to attract unwelcome publicity. “And fetch Mr. Sanbourne.”

  “That inventor fella? Why?” Clyde asked.

  “He knows the man who has died. An old acquaintance.”

  Clyde grunted. “What happened? The fella have a fit or somethin’?”

  She shook her head. She did not want to provide more fodder for rumor mongering. “The police will figure it out. Once we call them.”

  “Right away, miss.”

  Lieutenant Capshaw arrived a short time later, accompanied by a patrolman. There was no mistaking his tall, gaunt form, or his habit of walking with a slight stoop, as if continually checking for a clue he may have missed.

  He gave Concordia a melancholy look of disapproval beneath bushy red-haired brows. “Another body, miss? I thought once you married, we’d be finished with such things.”

  “I am not married yet, lieutenant,” she retorted. Not that finding bodies was an occupation of hers, though to be fair it had happened with some frequency over the past couple of years.

  Did Capshaw’s lips twitch beneath his capacious mustache, or was it her imagination?

  Sanbourne arrived, flushed and out of breath. “Clyde just told me.”

  “Who are you, sir?” Capshaw asked.

  The man gave Capshaw a disdainful glance, though his usual haughty air was difficult to achieve, as the policeman towered over him by nearly a foot. “Peter Sanbourne, head of the college’s engineering program.”

  “I sent for him, lieutenant,” Concordia said. “He knew Mr. Oster.”

  Sanbourne frowned. “Though not at all well. Frankly, I doubt that I can help.” He turned to Capshaw. “You are in charge of this case? What exactly has happened?”

  “Can’t say, yet.” Capshaw gestured to Concordia to lead the way. “Haven’t seen the victim or the place he was found. But tell me, sir, what you know about him.”

  Sanbourne paused, huffing a little as they climbed the hill. “Oster is—was—John Reeve’s laboratory assistant at Boston Tech.”

  “Reeve? The name sounds familiar,” Capshaw said.

  “Probably because he and I patented a mining pump while we were both working at that institution. It received some attention in the newspapers.”

  Capshaw clung to his hat in the breeze. “I’ll say. I remember reading there was a bidding war over it. And Oster worked on that project?”

  Sanbourne nodded. “In a small capacity, as did Ivan.”

  “Ivan?”

  “My assistant. Ivan Guryev. Brilliant young man.”

  “Are you still collaborating with Reeve?” Capshaw asked.

  Sanbourne shook his head. “We parted ways after that. I had not seen them in years.”

  “Until the reception last week,” Concordia interjected. “Mr. Langdon invited them, knowing they were old associates of Mr. Sanbourne.”

  Sanbourne scowled.

  “Indeed?” Capshaw said. “Had you made arrangements to meet with them again, Mr. Sanbourne? I’m trying to understand what Oster was doing in an abandoned farmhouse near the campus where you work. Can you think of a connection?”

  “At the reception,” Concordia interrupted again, “I noticed Mr. Oster and Mr. Reeve were quite eager to renew their acquaintance with Mr. Guryev.”

  “You notice a great deal, young lady,” Sanbourne said tartly.

  Capshaw’s mustache twitched again.

  Sanbourne shrugged. “Their interaction seemed cordial. I did not attend to it closely.”

  They were within view of the farmhouse. Sanbourne’s lip curled. “I cannot conceive how the poor man wound up in this desolate place.”

  Concordia took in the sight of the crooked shutters, rusting farm implements, and overgrown climbing roses obscuring nearly half of the lower windows beside the front porch. Where most people saw a wreck of a house, she had begun to recognize its potential.

  Disappointment gripped her abdomen. Now that a man had been murdered here, that prospect was gone.

  Capshaw pointed to a bench beside a tumbled-down arbor. “Wait out here. Oh, and Mr. Sanbourne,” he added, pulling out his oft-folded wad of paper and a lead pencil, “I will want to speak with Mr. Guryev. What time is he usually at your campus laboratory?”

  Sanbourne hesitated. “All day long, nearly every day of the week. However, I have not seen him yet today.”

  “Really?” He turned his head as a grim-lipped David Bradley came out of the house. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it later. Miss Wells, wait out here with Mr. Sanbourne.” Capshaw beckoned to the patrolman, and they followed David inside.

  As Concordia sat on the porch bench and watched the day turn to dusk—the students would be building their bonfire soon—she thought back to the last time she had seen Mr. Oster alive. He and Mr. Reeve had spoken briefly with Sanbourne at the reception before seeking out Guryev. She had attributed that to Sanbourne’s rancor—even his wife has been cold to them—but perhaps it was Guryev they wanted to speak with all along. She remembered Reeve checking over his shoulder in Sanbourne’s direction as he slipped something into Guryev’s hand. She must be sure to tell Capshaw about that.

  The creak of rusty hinges brought her back to the present as David emerged from the house. She stood and brushed off her skirt. “Well?”

  He shook his head. “It is definitely murder. Oster was bludgeoned to death.”

  She shivered. The body had been there the entire time, while they were...well, no matter. They would never buy the house now.

  David shrugged off his jacket and put it over her shoulders. “I am sorry. We will get you home as soon as Capshaw is finished.”

  Sanbourne shifted impatiently. “I hope that is soon. I am behind in my work, and I expect Ivan has returned to the laboratory by now.”

  The old hinges groaned again, and Capshaw stepped onto the porch. He passed a weary hand over his head, making his hair, redder than Concordia’s own, stand on end. “No doubt Mr. Bradley has told you that Oster was struck repeatedly in back of the head with a fireplace poker.”

  Concordia swallowed as she glanced at David. “Not that…specifically. When?”

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Long before you two found him, I know that. Last night, most likely. The doc should be here soon. He can tell us.” He pointed a thumb behind him. “The patrolman is waiting with the body until then. Mr. Sanbourne?” Sanbourne looked up but made no move to stand.

  Capshaw dug in his pocket and pulled out a torn strip of paper, blue on one side. “I found this in Oster’s clenched hand. Do you recognize it?”

  Sanbourne paled as he held it closer. “It looks to be a fragment from a blueprint.”

  “That’s what I thought. But a blueprint of what?”

  Sanbourne squinted at it. “This isn’t a big enough piece to be sure. I have several blueprints in my laboratory. Including one of—” he hesitated.

  “Yes?” Capshaw prompted.

  “—of my prototype, for the Navy.”

  “Do you typically store it in a cardboard tube? We found an empty one nearby.”

  “Only when I travel with it.”

  “Do you have additional blueprint copies of this project?” Capshaw asked.

  Sanbourne’s jaw clenched. “Only the one. I did not want to risk another copy falling into the hands of a competitor.”

  Capshaw’s eyes narrowed. “Would you now consider Mr. Reeve a competitor, sir?”

  “Not a competitor per se—the Navy contract is mine alone—but who knows what he could do with a diagram of mine? It is Reeve’s penchant to buil
d upon the work of others and take credit. “

  “Everyone in pursuit of higher knowledge builds upon the work of others,” David interjected. “Sir Isaac Newton once said: If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

  Sanbourne shrugged.

  Capshaw brought them back to the subject at hand. “When did you last see this blueprint, Mr. Sanbourne?”

  “Last night, when I locked it in the safe.”

  “Do you keep the original locked in there as well?”

  Sanbourne sighed. “The Assistant Secretary of the Navy still has my original. I had submitted my latest modifications to Mr. Roosevelt in May. They kept it when Mr. Allen took over so that he could examine it.”

  “I see. So the blueprint is the only copy you have to work from at the moment?”

  “Yes. In fact, I had scribbled new notations on the back.”

  “Would Mr. Oster have been able to open the safe and take it?”

  Sanbourne’s lip curled in derision. “I am not a stupid man, Lieutenant. Give Reeve’s assistant access to my safe? Of course not.”

  “Naturally,” Capshaw said, not giving the slightest hint of having been offended. “However, you say you have seen neither your diagram nor your assistant Guryev since last night, and here we find a ripped piece of what may be the blueprint of your latest invention in a dead man’s hand. Your composure is a wonder, sir. If it were me, I would be quite alarmed.”

  Sanbourne paled. “You mean—dear God.” He abruptly stood. “I must return to my laboratory.”

  Capshaw put out a hand. “We’ll go together to check, after you’ve answered a few more questions.” He pulled out his pencil and pad, doodling on the edge to test its point. “Tell me about your assistant, Guryev. When did you see him last?”

  “It was early last night, around six, when we locked up the laboratory.”

  Capshaw raised an eyebrow. “Six o’clock is early?”

  “We keep long hours in this business, lieutenant.” Sanbourne shifted restlessly. “There is much to do before the prototype is ready for testing. We also have our obligations to the college.” He nodded in Concordia’s direction.