by K. B. Owen
She got to her feet and pushed the wall switch. Harsh electric light flooded the room and dazzled her dark-adjusted eyes. Sanbourne stopped struggling and stared in astonishment. “Miss...Wells! What is the meaning of this?” He twisted to look at the man who kept him in a painful grip. “And…Bradley? How dare you!”
David said nothing, but pushed him toward a chair. “Sit down. And stay there, or I shall have Miss Wells tackle you again.” His lips twitched.
Open-mouthed, Sanbourne sat.
David pointed to the blueprint roll on the workbench. “That proves you killed Oster. And presumably Guryev. What happened that night?”
Sanbourne looked desperately around the room.
“There is no escape,” David said.
Sanbourne brushed the dark hair from his eyes. “I am not telling you a thing.”
David glanced at Concordia. “I’ll hold him here. You go for Capshaw.”
Concordia leaned toward David and whispered, “I don’t want to leave you alone. You saw how difficult it was to subdue—” She stopped at the sound of light footsteps outside.
Charlotte Crandall opened the door. “I sent Maisie, Alison, and the dog along to the farmhouse and thought I would come back here—oh!” Her eyes widened at the sight of Sanbourne. David tightened his grip on Sanbourne’s shoulder as he tried to rise.
“Charlotte, thank goodness,” Concordia said. “Call Capshaw and have him come right away. And stop at the gatehouse on your way. Tell Clyde to come.” She wasn’t taking any chances. The burly gatekeeper would keep Sanbourne in line until Capshaw arrived.
With an uneasy look at the inventor, Charlotte hastily left.
“So now we wait,” David said.
Concordia decided to try one more time. With the knowledge that Capshaw was on his way, perhaps Sanbourne would be more talkative. “How did you come to be at the farmhouse the night Oster died? You were at a social function, were you not?”
Sanbourne folded his arms and glared.
Concordia had had enough. She picked up the blueprint, hands shaking. She could not remember the last time she had felt this furious, at anyone or anything. And she was tired. Tired of searching for answers and finding resistance at every turn. Tired of seeing those she cared about suffer. Tired of anxious, sleepless nights trying to untangle the puzzle. Tired of uncertainty.
Starting at one corner, she slowly began to rip.
David gaped in disbelief but he did not intervene, keeping a firm hand on the squirming inventor.
“All right, all right, stop!” Sanbourne shouted. “I’ll tell you.”
She set it aside and took a deep, calming breath. “How did you come to be at the farmhouse the night Oster died?”
He shifted in his seat. “It was at my wife’s urging. She came separately to the Dunwick party—a painting lesson had delayed her. On her way out of the college gate, she saw Ivan holding a cylinder, hurrying along the path to the old abandoned farmhouse. She was suspicious.”
“How could she know Guryev was up to no good?” David asked. He released his grip and sat across from Sanbourne.
“Rachel, rest her soul, had been suspicious of Ivan for quite some time.” He brushed at his dusty trousers. “She believed that the destruction of our Baltimore laboratory was the work of debt collectors who were after Ivan. I knew about his gambling, and yet I did not believe her.”
David raised a skeptical brow. “So you left the Dunwick party? Did you not worry that you would be missed?”
“It was a crush of people. Rachel said she would make a suitable excuse should anyone inquire.”
“What happened when you arrived at the farmhouse?” Concordia asked.
“There was no sign of him at first. I thought she was mistaken.” He hesitated. “I wish she had been.”
“Then you found him.” David said. “The back porch?”
Sanbourne’s hooded eyes took on a faraway look. “I saw the glow of a lantern. Ivan and Oster were leaning over a worktable.” His jaw clenched. “My blueprint was spread out upon it.”
“Did you kill them both then?” David asked.
Sanbourne shook his head. “I knew I could not overpower them together. I waited. Oster passed an envelope to Ivan, who left quickly. Oster turned back to the drawing. I realized if I did not act then, Reeve would be in possession of my secrets, my years of hard work. I grabbed something, I don’t remember what—”
“A poker,” Concordia interjected. David gave her a sharp look.
“I suppose.” Sanbourne shrugged. “All sorts of debris lay about. In my anger, I struck him harder than I thought. I was horrified to find that he...was dead.” He looked up at Concordia with pleading eyes. “I only wanted to knock him out, to take back my blueprint. I did not mean to kill him.”
She said nothing. Mr. Oster was no less dead because of Sanbourne’s intentions.
“So you took the blueprint and fled,” David said.
“Yes. I yanked it out of his hand and ran out the back door,” Sanbourne went on. “I did not even stop to find the tube to put it in.”
“What happened then?” David asked.
“I returned to the lab to conceal it until I could figure out what to do. It was fortunate that I did not turn on a light. A student came by and knocked on the door.” He shook his head. “The young ladies here are certainly...persistent.”
Concordia glanced at David. “Miss Lovelace.” The girl had been correct about someone being inside the laboratory that evening.
Sanbourne nodded. “I heard her call to Ivan.”
“Then what?” Concordia asked.
“I waited until she had gone. Then I secreted the paper and returned to the Dunwick party.”
“Did you know that a piece had torn away and remained in Oster’s hand, or that blood had stained the paper?” David asked.
Sanbourne shook his head. “My first chance to get a good look was the next morning. Fortunately, I had time to hide it in a better place before you discovered Oster’s body. The police conducted a surprisingly thorough search of my laboratory, twice. I had no idea your Hartford Police were so diligent.”
“Did you tell your wife what happened?” Concordia asked.
Sanbourne looked surprised. “Of course.”
The man’s casual tone sent a chill along her spine, along with a ripple of disappointment that Sanbourne had no motive for murdering his wife. “How did she respond?”
“Rachel was exceedingly distressed. She feared that suspicion would quickly point to me, once Oster’s body was found. Something needed to be done about Ivan before the police located him.”
“I see,” David said. “With Oster dead, the police would double their efforts to find Guryev. Once they questioned him, he would admit to stealing your blueprint to sell to Oster but deny killing the man. After all, what motive would he have? He had the money. The blueprint was no longer in his possession. The authorities would then revisit your account of your whereabouts that night.”
Sanbourne nodded. “The police had questioned Lady Dunwick as a matter of course, but did not inquire extensively among the guests, one of whom had wondered about my absence just before I returned to the party. Rachel made an excuse, but it was bound to look suspicious upon closer scrutiny. We had to be sure that Ivan was out of reach of the police, one way or another.”
One way or another. Concordia and David exchanged a look.
“So you just went along with your wife’s proposal to kill your assistant?” David said sarcastically.
“As Rachel pointed out, Ivan had been deceiving me for a long time. I would not have been in my present predicament if I had heeded her before.”
Talk of deception reminded Concordia of what had brought them here in the first place. “What of your wife’s deception? It must have been a blow to find out about her marriage to Maynard. Is that why you poisoned her?” It was a wild shot in the dark.
Sanbourne’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course not! I would ne
ver harm her.”
“But to learn she had been married to Maynard, and put in an asylum for smothering her own child. To me, that is a worse deceit than Ivan Guryev’s.”
Sanbourne shook his head vehemently. He had grown pale, or was that Concordia’s imagination? “Before our marriage, she told me of her past. She did not name the man, and I did not ask. Learning it was Maynard was indeed awkward, but it changed nothing of my feelings for her. I only wanted to be assured that our marriage was a legal one.” He looked at Concordia and David with narrowed eyes. “It is obvious your dean is guilty of the deliberate, premeditated murder of my poor Rachel. Whatever happens to me, he will not escape the consequences of that.”
“I am sure the police will explore the matter further,” David said grimly, with a glance at Concordia, who discreetly checked her watch—Where was Capshaw? “You already have a number of things to answer for. How did you kill Guryev?”
Sanbourne shifted restlessly. “Must we do this? You said yourself—I will be in police custody soon. It is so tedious to have to repeat oneself.”
“I am sure it will be of equal fascination the second time around,” Concordia said dryly.
He blew out a breath. “I left early the next morning to intercept Ivan. I was correct in my assumption that he would book passage for himself and his mother as soon as possible, and that he would use the same agent as he had in the past. The ticket office is at the foot of State Street. I took care that Ivan did not see me, but I could hear his conversation through the window.” He hesitated.
Concordia checked her watch again. She could understand Capshaw being delayed, but what of Clyde? He should be here by now.
“What then?” David prompted.
“You must understand, even then I felt conflicted about killing Ivan, despite what Rachel wanted.” Sanbourne gripped the sides of the chair until his knuckles were white. “I hoped he could secure passage and be gone before the police found him.”
David folded his arms and sat back. “You really expect us to believe you would simply let him escape?”
Sanbourne sighed. “What happened in the ticket office decided Ivan’s fate.”
“Go on,” David said.
“He had a heated discussion with the ticket agent. He wanted passage aboard the Edam, sailing for Amsterdam from New York the next morning, but it was already overbooked. The best he could do was the Teutonic, sailing for Liverpool the following Wednesday. I knew I could not risk the police finding him in the meanwhile.”
“What did you do?” Concordia asked quietly.
“I intercepted Ivan after he left the ticket office. The panicked look on his face made clear he wanted to run, but I pointed out that I could have his mother arrested as a co-conspirator. It was to my advantage that he knew nothing about Oster yet. I allowed him to assume that I had simply discovered the blueprints were missing and had realized he was responsible. With a bottle of chloroform in my pocket, we walked along the docks and talked for a while. I tried to put him at his ease, proposing ways we could get the blueprints back from Oster and offering to lend him money to leave afterwards. Once he had relaxed his guard, and I had found a secluded spot….” His jaw tightened.
Concordia shuddered. The riverfront docks adjoining that end of State Street were seamed with warehouses and loading areas, with endless rows of shipping crates stacked high above one’s head. Even with dockhands about, there were undoubtedly places to overpower a man and hide his body until it was dark enough to push him into the river. As she had learned from the Inner Circle killings last spring, chloroform could kill as well as incapacitate. Weight the body in the river to delay discovery—yes, it was possible.
Sanbourne looked at her closely and gave a nod. “I see you have put it together.”
She felt peculiarly light-headed. Was it all this talk of murder? She was made of sterner stuff than this.
“It was all for nothing, Sanbourne,” David said brusquely.
Sanbourne had grown pale. Sweat beaded his forehead. “All I wanted was my blueprint. I had no wish to kill anyone.”
“Your blueprint will do you little good now,” David said. “The Navy will no doubt pull out of the project.”
Sanbourne shrugged. “I have other offers. Rival countries, willing to pay even more for my device.”
“There will be no laboratory in prison to finish your work, or to entertain foreign dignitaries,” Concordia said tartly. The arrogance of the man was astonishing. The flickering light from the single lantern made his eyes appear hooded, inscrutable. She frowned at the sputtering lamp. The fuel was running low.
David had noticed it, too. “We cannot wait any longer.” He stood. “All right, Sanbourne. You’re coming with us to Sycamore House. No point in fighting it, now that the truth is out.”
Sanbourne wearily started to rise, David gripping his elbow. Abruptly, he sagged. David lost his balance, gashing his temple upon the corner of the chair.
“David!” Concordia gasped.
Sanbourne pushed the limp body out of his way and snatched the blueprint from the table. She clutched at his arm in an effort to restrain him. He backhanded her in the face with a force that made her ears ring and lights spark behind her eyes.
By the time she had caught a shuddering breath, he had fled the building.
She let him go, scrambling toward David’s unconscious form. Was he breathing?
“David, David.” She laid him flat on the floor and put her head to his chest, her breath quickening in gratitude when she heard the steady beating of his heart and felt his chest rise. Thank heaven. She used her skirt hem to dab at the blood trickling down the side of his pale face.
She must get help. It would mean leaving him here alone. She pulled herself up to stand on wobbling legs. Her head ached, and she felt nauseous. Surely, Sanbourne had not hit her that hard.
Then, in the silence, she heard it. The hissing. It had been going on all along, since they had first struggled to subdue Sanbourne.
Gas.
Chapter 42
Week 13, Instructor Calendar December 1898
Concordia groped toward the nozzle and finally located the metal wheel that controlled the cut-off valve.
Drat, it was bent. She couldn’t turn it.
She crawled back over to David.
Carrying him was out of the question. She clutched his collar and tried dragging him along the floor. Her limbs felt so heavy. Dizziness came in waves.
She collapsed against him, chafing his wrists, shaking his shoulders. “David!” she shouted in his ear.
His eyes fluttered, then closed. He sighed.
“Oh, David,” she sobbed against his cheek, making it wet with her tears. “Please, please....” She kissed him.
He stirred, and put his arms around her languidly. “M’dear....” He opened his eyes.
She gulped down relieved sobs and helped him sit up. “I can’t...turn off...the gas. We must...get out.”
He gave a weak nod. She helped him stand, trying to keep herself steady as the floor tipped beneath her feet. She pulled his arm over her shoulder and gripped his waist. They lurched through the room, clutching tables, racks, stools...anything sturdy enough to keep them upright and moving toward the promise of fresh air.
After what seemed an eternity, they made it through the door and collapsed into the snow. Concordia rolled onto her back. The cold wetness seeped through her jacket, but she was happy to breathe deep lungfuls of air.
David leaned over, eyes wide. He clasped her hand. “Was I dreaming, or did you kiss me?”
Concordia blushed.
David grinned. “You see? I was right. Anywhere I am stuck with you is heaven.”
They heard running footsteps crunching in the snow, the sounds growing closer. Concordia propped herself up on her elbows as Lieutenant Capshaw came into view. Clyde, huffing for breath, followed close behind with a lantern. He stopped short at the sight of Mr. Bradley and Miss Wells sprawled in the snow. “Lo
rdy!”
Capshaw’s shaggy mustache twitched as he helped Concordia to her feet. “I inevitably find you in the most curious of positions, Miss Wells.”
Chapter 43
Christmas Recess, 1898
The voice is a treacherous servant; it deserts us, trembles, often when we need its help. ~Mrs. John Sherwood
Ruby tapped on Concordia’s open door. “Sorry to interrupt your packing, miss, but that policeman’s here, and he’s brought a visitor.”
“Oh? Who is it?” Concordia secured the strap of her valise. Since the fire, packing did not take her long. Besides, she would only be at her mother’s house for winter recess.
Ruby’s lips quirked in a mischievous smile. “It’s a surprise.”
“I will be right down.” She hoped Capshaw came with news of Sanbourne’s arrest. The police departments in Hartford, New Haven, New York, and Boston had watches set in all of the major train stations and ports in the area, but after a week, there was no sign of him.
She resettled the pins in her hair with a sigh. With Sanbourne at liberty, Maynard still in prison, and the newspapers airing the woes of Hartford Women’s College across the nation, it was difficult to know what would happen next. Certainly the engineering program had been a disaster for the school and would close. Concordia’s heart ached for Maisie Lovelace and her fellows. She hoped that Langdon’s recent meeting with the presidents of Yale and Trinity Colleges about setting up independent study for the young ladies had been productive.
She shook her head. Would there even be a school when all was said and done?