by Owen, K.
She rummaged through her satchel, pulling out the amulet and papers she had found last night, along with the bracelet. “Perhaps these may help, lieutenant.”
Chapter 18
Time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will.
I.ii
Week 6, Instructor Calendar
October 1896
Concordia barely returned in time for Sunday service. As she made her way into the pew, hymnal in hand, she saw Miss Grant give her what the students had dubbed “the Ogre Eye.” She was in for it later, she knew.
She tried not to squirm as she waited for chapel to conclude. She wanted to talk with Miss Phillips right away, to try to make heads-or-tails of her father’s journals. It looked to be in a special kind of shorthand that Miss Phillips, accomplished in all things cryptogram, might be able to decode.
Lieutenant Capshaw had perked up considerably when Concordia showed him her father’s letter mentioning a third man, “Red.” Could this man have broken into the house in search of something valuable in the colonel’s collection? Had the colonel walked in on him, perhaps, and was killed? But why now, after more than two decades?
She had to decipher her father’s journal. She was sure the answer lay there.
Concordia looked for Miss Phillips when chapel was over. She hadn’t seen her at the service.
“Where is Miss Phillips?” she asked Miss Jenkins, the infirmarian, as they filed out the doors and into the chill, late-October sunshine.
“She’s caught a nasty chest cold. I sent her to bed.”
“How unfortunate,” Concordia murmured.
Concordia knew it was tactless of her, but she needed answers, so she walked over to Miss Phillips’ quarters in Hemlock Cottage.
The house matron, balancing a tray of broth and toast, answered her knock. She frowned in disapproval. “She’s not to have visitors, Miss Wells. Miss Jenkins’ instructions.”
“Nonsense, Gertie,” a voice croaked through the open door of the instructor’s quarters. “She can bring me the tray. You go on.”
The housekeeper hesitated. “Well, I do have a lot to do. All right, miss, go ahead in, and take this. But don’t stay long or Miss Jenkins’ll have my hide.”
Concordia carried the tray into Miss Phillips’ room.
The history professor’s quarters was a suite of two rooms on the first floor of the small dormitory building. It was much like Concordia’s own, with a cozy outer room to use as a study. There was space for a writing desk and chair, along with the reading chair and table flanking the hearth. Beyond the study was the bedroom, simply furnished with an armoire, bed, night table, and dry sink. The clutter of books, artifacts, and tools, most still in boxes, made Miss Phillips’ rooms even more cramped than Concordia’s.
“I have yet to finish getting settled in,” Miss Phillips said apologetically, gesturing vaguely at the tallest stack.
“How are you feeling?” Concordia asked.
Miss Phillips coughed, then grimaced. “Rather miserable, actually. I don’t know what’s worse, the coughing, or the ‘remedies’ Miss Jenkins comes up with. Or the boredom,” she added.
“Well, if you’re up to it, I have something that will pique your interest,” Concordia said, passing over what she’d found secreted in her father’s study.
Dorothy Phillips’ mouth formed a small “o” of disbelief when she saw the amulet. “You found it?! But where?” She sat up and turned it over in her hands.
“So that is the missing amulet?” Concordia asked.
Miss Phillips, holding it up to the light, sighed and shook her head. “I thought it was at first; it’s nearly identical. Do you see, here?” She pointed to a series of diagonal scorings on the back of the piece. “The original didn’t have those markings. But this is amazing, nonetheless. So there are two of them. It proves my theory that these type of amulets, the ones with magnetic properties, were made in pairs. They were probably used…in healing…rituals.” She set it down as a fit of coughing overtook her.
Concordia poured her a glass of water. Miss Phillips drank and leaned back against the pillows.
“Where did you find it?”
For the second time that day, Concordia related how she’d pieced together the clues from the bracelet, connecting them to printer’s marks on the spines of books in her father’s study.
“Ah, printers’ marks. I thought they looked familiar.” Miss Phillips nodded in approval. “Very clever, my dear.”
Concordia flushed. “My father and I often composed riddles and codes for each other when I was a child, although I doubt mine were much of a challenge to him.” She smiled at the memory.
“Why did he go to so much trouble to set up such a puzzle, rather than just give it to you?”
“Perhaps he thought I was too young to have it. He died when I was sixteen.”
“He could have left it with your mother to give you later,” Miss Phillips pointed out. She looked at Concordia’s expression. “Ah. I take it that your mother would not have respected his wishes. Do you know why?”
Concordia shook her head. “She refuses to discuss any of my father’s past. She was quite angry when she saw that I had found these.”
Miss Phillips smiled in sympathy. “Mothers can be difficult. Heaven knows mine was. I’m much older than you, and attending college back in my day was even more unusual than it is now. It caused a rift that wasn’t mended for years.”
Miss Phillips stared thoughtfully at the amulet in her hand. “Well, now we know there are two: this one, which had been in your father’s possession, and the other, which was part of Colonel Adams’ collection and donated to us, although we’re fairly certain the donation was accidental. Unfortunately, we still don’t know where it is.”
That question wasn’t as important to Concordia as understanding why her father left her this relic, who the third man was, and what had happened on that expedition.
“I was hoping you could look through these notes of his. I found them with the relic.” She showed Miss Phillips the letter. “This was the only writing I could read. The rest is in some sort of shorthand.”
Miss Phillips read through the letter, calmly at first, then became more animated at the end. “A third man,” she said. “That could explain the exhibit theft, and perhaps it explains the colonel’s murder.”
“It cannot explain both; they cancel each other out,” Concordia said. “If the ‘third man’ stole the amulet at the exhibit, then he wouldn’t have needed to go to Colonel Adams’ house in an attempt to steal it, and kill him in the process. However, if he wasn’t the one who stole the amulet from the exhibit, and thought the colonel had it –which you had thought at first, remember? – that would make sense.”
“That’s assuming the man visited Colonel Adams in order to steal the amulet,” Miss Phillips pointed out. “He may have been after something else.”
“Good point. Two other Egyptian artifacts – a statuette and a necklace – are missing. Capshaw is trying to determine if they were sold by the colonel, or stolen when he was murdered. It isn’t clear.”
Miss Phillips looked troubled.
“What is it?” Concordia asked.
“I just realized. Whoever we’re talking about – this ‘third man’ – must be someone we know. Someone who attended the exhibit opening.”
Concordia shivered. “Someone who knew the amulet was missing – or stole it himself.” She remembered that the newspaper reporter, Ben Rosen, showed an inordinate interest in Colonel Adams’ collection, and had even visited the colonel the day of his death. She would have to find out more about the man.
“But there’s a problem with that line of thought, too,” Concordia said. “You discovered it missing after everyone had left. Only you and I and Miss Pomeroy knew about it before the colonel’s death. You didn’t tell the lady principal until after the murder, remember? We’re missing something here.”
Miss Phillips drank some more water before speaking. �
�We are missing a great deal. It’s all a confused muddle.”
“Can you decipher the other pages?” Concordia asked. “They may give us the answer.”
Miss Phillips wheezed and squinted at them. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize the shorthand system. My faculties aren’t working to their full capacity, to say the least. I can work on it when I’m better.”
Concordia swallowed her disappointment and patted Miss Phillips’ hand. “I understand.”
“You’ll want to be careful with the amulet your father left you,” Miss Phillips said, giving her a troubled look. “The ‘third man’ may be after that one, too. We can assume that, one way or the other, he has the colonel’s by now.”
Concordia left the papers and map with Miss Phillips and returned to Willow Cottage. She looked around her quarters. Where could she hide the amulet? Someone determined enough to kill Colonel Adams would easily tear through her rooms and find whatever hiding place she’d naively decided upon. Her best course, she decided, was to keep it upon her person. She slipped it into her skirt pocket. It felt a bit heavy there, but wasn’t cumbersome. She would have to remember to take it out when she changed skirts. Sometimes remembering that she’d left her spectacles on top of her head was a challenge.
With that settled she wrote a couple of letters and then sent for Eli. He came quickly.
“Yes, miss?” He was looking better these days, Concordia noticed. His face no longer had that pinched look of a child perpetually without enough to eat. His unruly hair was at least somewhat combed, and his neck and ears were clean. His clothes were a trifle large on him, but at least they were tidy and free of tears. Staying with the Durands was having a good effect on the boy. The Cat, however, which Concordia could see twining about the boy’s legs, looked as disreputable as ever, and now had fur missing from the end of its tail.
“How have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while,” Concordia said. “Are they keeping you busy with errands?”
“Oh, yes, indeed,” he said, “I’m ever so busy, with my duties here, and workin’ for Madame Doo-rand, too. And Mr. Clyde has been teachin’ me carpenter stuff in his free time. I do have to go to school in the morning, but that ain’t so bad. I can write my name now, and read a little, too,” he added.
“How wonderful! I’m so proud of you. I have a couple of messages that are very important. Can you deliver them for me? Make sure you hand each one only to the person it’s addressed to.” She passed one over. Let’s see what he can read, she thought.
His eyes perked up when he recognized Sophia’s name. “I can do that. It would be nice to see Miss Sophia again.”
That reminded Concordia of something. “By the way, the parlor maid, Clara, wanted me to ask you to return the Adams’ back door key. They’ve been missing it.”
Eli shook his head. “I don’t have it. Last time I used it was a while ago, miss. And I put it back, I know I did.”
“Hmm. Well, tell Clara so she knows to look elsewhere.” It wouldn’t be good for the household to have a key loose. Concordia gave him the other envelope. “And I also want you to deliver this one. Into his hands only.”
She shooed the cat from the ottoman, where it had taken up residence when her back was turned. With an air of wounded dignity, it jumped off and dodged behind the coffee table. She sighed.
Eli was puzzling out the address on the second envelope in the meanwhile, lips silently forming the letter sounds, before he had it. “P-police, miss? Must I?”
“It’s only Lieutenant Capshaw, Eli. He’s a nice man, remember? He saved us when the railing collapsed. You don’t have anything to worry about from him. I would trust him with my life.”
Eli looked doubtful. Concordia understood his reluctance, since he’d seen the inside of a police station far too often in his short life. “Amelia’s welfare depends upon it,” she added.
That seemed to do the trick. Eli straightened, squared his thin shoulders as if girding for battle, and left to do the deed, the cat trotting at his heels.
Her notes to Lieutenant Capshaw and Sophia were very important, Concordia reflected. They explained the delay in deciphering her father’s journal, and asked Sophia and Capshaw to stall for time before Amelia was brought before an examining panel of doctors – and possibly committed.
“Miss Wells?” came Ruby’s muffled voice through the door. Concordia opened it. The matron was holding a bright red garment.
“I think this will do,” Ruby said, passing it over. “It’s a bit of an antique from my sister’s trunk, but I re-did the laces for you.”
It was a pretty red velvet over-bodice, heavily-boned at the sides and front, with a profusion of black silk lacing.
“Oh, Ruby, it’s perfect! Thank you,” Concordia said. That should complete her Red Riding Hood costume for next week’s Masquerade Ball.
Ruby raised her head, and sniffed. “Do you smell something?”
They both looked toward the staircase that led up to the student rooms and saw a gray haze of smoke.
As if on cue, a voice from upstairs yelled “Fire!”
Ruby rushed to the kitchen for a pan of water while Concordia grabbed the hall mat and ran upstairs.
The sharp smell of burnt sugar was overpowering. Coughing, she pushed past students clustered around a low table, as they ineffectually tried to put out the fire. Sugar and chocolate had spilled onto the burner the students had been using – illegally, of course – and ignited paper wrappers and napkins. Their attempts to blow out the flames had only made it worse. Now the tablecloth had caught, too.
“Run down and fetch more pans of water, quickly,” Concordia ordered. She started beating at the flames with her mat.
Some of the girls were shrieking, which further grated on Concordia’s already frayed nerves. “Stop that caterwauling!” she called out sharply. “Do you want to bring Miss Grant down on our heads?”
That shut them up plenty fast.
Ruby came up with a full pan of water sloshing over the sides, and dumped it on the flames. Several other girls followed with more pots of water, until the fire was completely out. But the smoke, accompanied by the sickening burnt-sugar smell, was still oppressive.
“Open the windows, and we’ll air out the room until tomorrow. Miss Bentham, move your things in with Miss Rochester for the time being. Count yourselves lucky that the lady principal wasn’t here to see this,” Concordia admonished.
“Um, Miss We-ells…” one girl said nervously, tugging on her sleeve and pointing to the hall.
Oh, no.
There stood Miss Grant, hands on hips, her tiny dark eyes snapping in anger. Her gaze took in the blackened tabletop, the burnt fragments of tablecloth, and the sodden, squishy carpet.
“It seems that your luck has just run out, Miss Wells,” she said.
It was a subdued cottage of wretched girls when Miss Grant finally left. Even though only five young ladies were involved in the illicit hot cocoa preparation, the lady principal had seen fit to punish the entire house. No one in Willow Cottage would be attending the Halloween Masquerade Ball. No one, that is, except for Concordia, whom Miss Grant still needed as chaperone.
Concordia sighed. She would have preferred to stay here with the girls on Halloween, and at least make the time a little more agreeable, with stories around the fire and goodies from Ruby’s kitchen. They could be reckless girls, to be sure, but they didn’t deserve such a penalty.
The front door bell rang.
Now who could that be? Since Ruby and the girls were still occupied with cleaning up, Concordia answered it.
It was Eli and the Cat - would he ever leave the beast behind, she wondered - with replies to her messages. She’d forgotten about them in the tumult.
The boy sniffed the air. “Is somethin’ burnin’?”
Concordia grimaced. “It’s a long story. You have messages from Sophia and the lieutenant?”
“Jus’ Miss Sophia. They were both at her house.” He passed it over.
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Concordia sat, pushing the purring animal’s face out of her lap as she read her friend’s note.
My dear Concordia,
I have attempted to persuade Lydia to abandon the commitment proceedings against Amelia, but without success. Not even the lieutenant, with his theory that the perpetrator is an enemy from Father’s past, has been able to convince her that Amelia is innocent. Amelia’s own erratic behavior has not helped, and she becomes hysterical in our step-mother’s presence, although she is calmer when she is with me. Of course, my earlier actions have not helped, either.
I think Lydia wants to get on with the comfortable life of a rich widow, and be done with the irksome encumbrance of a traumatized child. I will refrain from saying more on that front, as I do not wish to be un-Christian.
Lieutenant Capshaw and I have been hatching a plan to delay Amelia’s commitment proceeding, to give you more time to translate your father’s journal. I know you’ll send us word as soon as you know something.
Leave it to us, and do not worry.
Yours,
Sophia
Concordia let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. A burden had been lifted, at least temporarily. And once Miss Phillips had recovered, that lady would be able to unlock the secret in her father’s journal.
Eli had been anxiously watching Concordia. “You look better now, miss.”
Concordia stood and patted him on the shoulder. “I am. You’ve been a big help, too. Are you hungry?”
She looked down at the boy and smiled. Silly question.
Chapter 19
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
I.v
Week 7, Instructor Calendar
October/November 1896
It was the night of the Halloween Masquerade.
Concordia smoothed her skirts. Except for her boots and cloak, she was ready. She checked the mirror to assess the result. Did she look like an early-era village girl setting out for the forest? About to meet a Big Bad Wolf?
