by Owen, K.
Concordia sighed. “Please, let’s not go down that path again.”
“So why did you come, Concordia?”
“Actually, to take advantage of some of that knowledge of yours,” Concordia said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the edge from her voice. It wouldn’t do to antagonize her. Especially when she needed information about her father, already a sensitive subject. Mrs. Wells had always resented the special bond that Concordia and her father had shared.
Mrs. Wells raised an eyebrow, but folded her delicate hands in her lap and waited.
“You know of Colonel Adams’ murder?” Concordia asked.
Her mother inclined her head in agreement.
“Then you also know that Sophia has confessed to it and is in prison even now?”
Mrs. Wells sniffed, and put a delicate handkerchief to her nose. “Yes. It’s incomprehensible. I don’t believe it of her.”
Concordia knew that Mother had a soft spot for Sophia, despite her settlement work and progressive ideas.
“I don’t believe it, either. I want to help her, but I need information.” Concordia recounted what she knew of the murder and Sophia’s inexplicable behavior afterward. She pulled out the bracelet that had been found in Colonel Adams’ safe.
“Papa left this for me. Colonel Adams’ lawyer found it in the safe after his death.” She passed it over to her mother, who took it reluctantly but barely glanced at it. “Do you know why Papa would have done this, and why it was only to be given to me after the colonel’s death?”
For a while, Mrs. Wells didn’t answer. Concordia waited.
Mrs. Wells handed back the bracelet. “This has no connection to the murder. You are wasting your time.”
“Perhaps there is no direct connection,” Concordia countered, “but how can you be so sure that the association between Papa and the colonel was not the reason for the colonel’s death? Colonel Adams’ donation to the school seems to have started a chain of ruinous events. One of the artifacts disappeared right under the nose of the curator, and then, only days later, the colonel was killed and more artifacts are missing. Now Sophia’s sister has been rendered mute from the shock, and Sophia herself has confessed to the crime. We have to get to the bottom of this.”
When Concordia’s mother said nothing, she continued. “The colonel’s cook, Mrs. Lewis, has been in that household for a long time. She remembered that Papa and the colonel went on an expedition together in Egypt more than twenty years ago. She doesn’t remember that the two of them had any dealings with each other after that. Did they have a falling out?”
Mrs. Wells continued to look silently at the fire.
“And why did Papa never mention his Egyptian scholarly work?” Concordia went on. “I read one of his essays that a colleague showed me. He was well-respected in his field at one time. Why did he abandon his success, and pretend it had never happened?”
“Enough!” Mrs. Wells abruptly stood. “Leave the past alone, Concordia. It can have nothing to do with Colonel Adams’ death in the here and now. You will only cause pain. I am sorry for Sophia, but I cannot help you.”
Concordia also stood. “I will find out, Mother. A woman’s life and sanity are at stake.” She walked out of the room and slammed the door.
It was a dismal evening. The rain had worsened, coming down in sheets and saturating the ground to such an extent that several large trees in the neighborhood, their roots unable to keep hold in the crumbling ground, toppled into houses and blocked nearby streets. Concordia would be staying the night.
Concordia felt badly about how the talk with her mother had gone. Not only had she failed to learn anything about her father, but she had yet again antagonized her mother.
And, in the heat of the moment, she had forgotten to ask her about Madame Durand. What was the extent of her involvement? Her mother was usually such a sensible woman. She should be consulting with a minister, not a psychic. Had Mary’s death changed her so utterly?
Perhaps Concordia should have anticipated this when she saw her at Madame Durand’s college demonstration. Had the parlor tricks been enough to convince Mother that the medium was genuine? Had Lydia Adams been instrumental in persuading Mother to turn to her personal spiritualist? Whatever the case, it seemed that Madame was intertwined in Concordia’s life, through both her college and her family, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it at the moment. She would have to wait for another opportunity to speak to Mother and caution her about placing trust in such quackery.
Mrs. Wells remained in her room, taking a supper tray. Concordia, not wanting to sit in the enormous dining room by herself, ate in the kitchen with the housekeeper. As she ate, she fiddled with the bracelet her father had given her, wondering if she could unlock the clue she was sure it contained.
“May I see it, miss?” the housekeeper asked, the bracelet catching her eye. “It looks familiar.”
Concordia passed it over. “Do you recognize it?”
The housekeeper’s brow puckered.
“Ah,” she said, face clearing, “I do. Your father was working on this, using pliers or such-like on it.”
“When was this?”
“Near the end of his life, poor man. I’m not sure how much you remember of that time. He did a lot of journal writing, sketches and drawings, that sort of thing. And tinkering, like this. This was after the doctors diagnosed his heart condition. He knew he didn’t have much time left. News like that can make a man introspective, that’s for sure.”
Concordia certainly remembered that painful time. She was sixteen. Her father, usually so welcoming of her presence in his study, kept his door shut even to her in the last few months of his life. Apparently, he occupied himself with solitary pursuits such as “tinkering.” Reading and writing, too…
See if you can find any relevant family papers, Dean Pierce had said. Concordia put down her fork and leaned forward eagerly. “Do you know where Papa’s effects would be now?”
Concordia hated attics. They were the most dreary places. Except for cellars, which were worse. The rain was drumming steadily against the roof tiles as she set down her lamp and started peering into boxes.
After two hours, her neck ached and she was ready to give up for the night. She’d found all sorts of items from childhood: spinning tops, hoops, baby dolls, old clothes for dress-up. She’d even found a woman’s bright red hooded cloak that gave her an idea for a costume to wear to the masquerade ball. She set it aside to take back to school with her. But she found no papers of any kind from her father; in fact, not many of his possessions were here.
Concordia sighed. His clothes and personal items must have been given away long ago.
Hot and tired from her exertions, Concordia sat down on a trunk to catch her breath. Now what?
She leaned forward and rubbed her throbbing temples. She knew why her father had given the bracelet to Colonel Adams. He couldn’t have trusted Mother to give it to her. If Mother was so adamant about not discussing that period of Randolph Wells’ life, she certainly wouldn’t have passed along the bracelet.
Concordia knew the bracelet was a message. There was something Papa wanted her to find and the bracelet was the clue. But why stipulate that Concordia receive it after the colonel’s death? If the bracelet – or whatever its message was – had anything to do with the murder of Colonel Adams, eleven years after her father had created this puzzle, she couldn’t say, but she was on this road now. There was no going back.
Concordia tried to put herself in her father’s position. How could he be sure that what he’d hidden would stay in place for years after his death? How would he know his wife wouldn’t find and destroy whatever it was?
His study. It was the only room her mother didn’t bother with. Of course, the draperies and rug would have been replaced over time and the desk cleaned out, but the books…
Concordia pulled the bracelet from her pocket and looked at it again. Two of the symbols were definitely familiar to her. She clos
ed her eyes and concentrated.
Then she had it. They were book engravers’ marks. She pulled the lamp closer. It made sense now. The bead with the shield symbol, a “T” and “F” in the middle, was most likely the publisher Ticknor and Fields. Then there was the bead with the “W” against a looped background that Miss Phillips had pointed out earlier. Of course. C. H. Webb! Her heart pounded in excitement.
Dusting off her skirts and clutching the bracelet, she went down to the study. A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she turned up the wall sconces and looked around the room. This was the first time in years that she’d been in here. The dark mahogany desk, the tufted wing chairs, well-worn and mismatched, the hassock she loved to sit upon as a little girl…they all brought back memories. Was it her imagination, or could she catch the faint scent of her father’s pipe tobacco from his favorite reading chair?
Concordia stepped back and looked over the entire wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Where to start?
Finally, after much clambering up and down the ladder provided for the upper shelves, she found the Webb symbol stamped upon a number of matched volumes along the right side of the wall. Soon she found the one for Ticknor and Fields, too, on the left side, again part of a matched set of volumes. But what about the others? Were they printer’s marks at all? She wasn’t sure. She held the bracelet up to the wall sconce. One of the beads looked to have a spray of branches behind a tiny flag. That didn’t belong to any publisher she knew of, but spines were often stamped with marks related to their content. Perhaps she was looking for a United States history book. Not that it narrowed the field; her father’s reading interests were eclectic in the extreme.
Many of the books were faded with age. Concordia’s eyes watered in an attempt to decipher the markings on the spines.
At last, she found the flag symbol, on a book entitled Pen Pictures of the War. It looked to be about the Civil War conflict, more than thirty years ago.
She held the bracelet to the light again. The last bead looked to be a fan, or perhaps a peacock. She stepped back from the shelves, taking note of the position of the three she’d found so far. Where was the fourth?
After staring a long time, she finally found it - a single volume, down nearly at her feet. It too, was crumbling with age. She felt a flush of triumph, much like what she had experienced as a girl, when she’d successfully worked out a cipher her father had crafted for her.
There was nothing unique about any of the books. Perhaps it was a positional clue. It must be at the intersection of these volumes, Concordia reasoned. Pulling out the books a little way from their shelves, she stepped back for a careful look. She ran a hand in an imaginary line with the top and bottom shelves, then on a diagonal with the side shelves, until…
There. A dark blue spine, with faded gilt letters. Milton’s Paradise Lost. Was that how her father had felt in his remaining weeks of life? Or was it a warning, his ghost imparting a secret and a mission to his progeny? She couldn’t get away from ghosts. The presence of Madame Durand in her life was turning her into a mystic.
On the other hand, Papa had always had an ironic sense of humor.
Concordia was in for another surprise when she pulled out the book. Its pages had been glued together, and the interior hollowed out and reinforced with thin balsawood. In the recess, she found tightly-rolled papers and a pouch. She opened the pouch and nearly dropped it in her shock.
It was the heart amulet, stolen from the college’s exhibit.
Chapter 16
O, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance...
I.iv
Week 6, Instructor Calendar
October 1896
Concordia couldn’t be sure until she checked with Miss Phillips tomorrow. She had only a glimpse of the amulet from the back of the crowd during the exhibit opening, but it looked the same. Remembering what Miss Phillips had said about its magnetic properties, she pulled out a letter opener from the desk drawer. Sure enough, it was drawn to the stone with a soft click.
She sat back in her father’s chair and stared at it for a while. How could this be here? If her father hadn’t put it here, then who had? Was it connected to Colonel Adams’ murder?
Then she remembered the papers, and eagerly unrolled them.
January 13, 1884
My Dear Concordia,
If you are reading this, then you are truly the clever woman I knew you would grow up to be. You always loved a good puzzle.
But, alas, this is not a game; it is very real. Your mother would have never given you these pages willingly, for they reveal a painful incident from my past. You know her ways – not discussing something is as good as it having never happened. But it did happen, and you need to know about it. It could affect your future. As I write this, you are the tender age of sixteen: too young to understand. If I were honest, I would acknowledge that I haven’t the courage to tell you to your face.
As things now stand, I won’t be here to tell you when you are old enough: the heart specialist has pronounced his sentence. It is time to get my affairs in order. I regret that I will not see you fulfill your dreams, my dear, but I am confident that you will.
My passions and pursuits have changed since you were a little girl, and for good reason. You have known me as a scholar of the arts and letters. Before you were born, however, and for the early part of your life which you were too young to remember, I was an avid scholar of Ancient Egypt. My expeditions were moderately successful, and I made a few key discoveries that benefitted archeologists greater than myself. Artifacts which I have unearthed are in museums in both Cairo and London. I once had a small collection of my own.
I had two business partners in this enterprise; Colonel Adams, whom you know, and a dealer/art expert who lived in Cairo. Everyone called him Red. It was an apt name, for he was red-haired, red-complected from the pitiless heat of the desert, and had a red-hot temper, too. The association between the three of us lasted nearly a decade before it soured. We shared an excitement for the chase – to be the first men to find the secrets of the ancient dead, long-hidden and long-forgotten, in places where no man had thought to look. Sun-stroke, thirst, contagion, unscrupulous guides – none of that mattered to us. Adams provided the necessary funding, but never joined our expeditions, until our final one. I was the scholar, interpreting the ancient writings; Red was the planner, coordinating our transportation, our supplies, and our strategy. It seemed a beneficial arrangement.
What caused the rift at the end had been there all along, for Red and I had entirely different goals. I was arrogant enough to want fame, yes, but as a scholar I wanted to preserve the ancient places from the grave-robbers and relic-hunters. Unfortunately, I was too blind to see that Red was the worst of the treasure hunters. By the time I realized what he really was, the damage had been done.
The events that transpired afterward are recorded in my journal. I have included those pages for you and destroyed the rest. I cannot bring myself to recount it here, for what I had done was a terrible thing, and nearly cost Red’s life. Despicable as he was, he did not deserve such a fate. After you read the account, you must decide what to do with the information. Use it wisely, my dear, but be warned: I have made an enemy, who may now be your own.
Your loving father,
Randolph Wells
Concordia pulled out her handkerchief, dabbed her eyes, and blew her nose noisily. She still missed Papa.
She looked at the other pages. The writing on these was different; it looked to be a sort of shorthand she didn’t recognize. There was also a sketched map. Perhaps, when Concordia brought Miss Phillips the amulet tomorrow, she could make sense of these pages.
“What have you found there, Concordia?” a voice said.
Concordia gave a yelp and nearly jumped out of her chair, papers sliding to the floor. Her mother, clad in a dressing gown and carrying a lamp, stood in the doorway.
“Mother! You gave me a fright.”
Mrs. Wells ignored
the remark. “What do you have?” she asked again, coming closer.
Concordia scooped up and protectively hugged the pages to her chest. “Papa left these for me. They are papers from his last Egypt expedition.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “He concealed them from me, all this time?”
“I only just found them tonight. The bracelet I showed you was his clue to help me locate them. I supposed he guessed that you wouldn’t give them to me if he had asked you.” Concordia gave her mother a long look. “And he was right, wasn’t he? Who was Red, Mother? What happened?”
“If you have his papers, you don’t need me to tell you,” Mrs. Wells said acidly.
“The journal pages themselves are in some sort of script I cannot read,” Concordia said reluctantly.
“Concordia, please, trust my judgment,” her mother pleaded. “It is all past, long ago. Leave it be.”
“Trust your judgment?” Concordia said harshly. “You are allowing yourself to be duped by a charlatan. How can you go in for all this séance mumbo jumbo with Madame Durand and still claim you have good judgment?”
Concordia knew she had gone too far. She had meant to sit down with her mother in a quiet time, and gently point out the ways in which Madame was taking advantage of her grief. She had planned to suggest that she speak with their minister or a friend. Instead, Concordia had been cruel and mocking.
Mrs. Wells clenched her hands together. “You have never lost a child,” she said through gritted teeth. She turned to leave. “Keep those things, for all of the good they will do you.”
Concordia watched her leave in silence, not knowing what to say.
Chapter 17
My soul is full of discord and dismay.
IV, i.
Week 6, Instructor Calendar
October 1896
