Dangerous and Unseemly

by K. B. Owen

  David patted her arm, but Concordia was not to be comforted.

  “Concordia. You don’t know this,” he said earnestly. “Think about it. When all of you were leaning out the window, trying to summon help, did you see anyone? You’ve told me that there was not a soul out on the grounds that day. They were all at the game by then. Surely, if Richter had been outside, able to see you, would you not have been able to see him as well?”

  He pulled out his pocket kerchief and gently dried her eyes. She smiled through the last of her tears.

  They heard the abrupt scrape of a wood chair from the other side of the window. Startled, they looked toward the source, and glimpsed a tall, lean gentleman as he left his table inside the shop and rushed out the side door to the street.

  “That fellow seemed in a hurry,” David commented.

  Concordia, from her position under the window awning, craned her neck for a better look. It was too late. The man was gone.

  Chapter 48

  Week 17, Instructor Calendar, May 1896

  Now does he feel his title

  Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

  Upon a dwarfish thief.

  V.ii

  There was an air of gaiety in the auditorium the next evening, as students, faculty, and townspeople wandered up and down rows, some searching for seats, others circulating among family and acquaintances. Within a short time, there was barely room to move. The custodian set up more chairs along the back and sides to accommodate the crowd.

  The playgoers were attired in their best finery, bright silks and jewels shimmering in the glow of the footlights on stage and the lamps bracketing the walls. Behind the curtain, Concordia cautiously peeked out at the crowd, at least what she could see of it from her position.

  So many people! The front rows, reserved for the administrators, senior faculty, and trustees, were nearly filled. Judge Armstrong and Dr. Westfield were already seated, along with Nathaniel Young, and others whom she knew only by sight. President Richter, Dean Langdon, and Miss Hamilton were conspicuously absent. David and Julian had each promised to attend, but there was no sign of either gentleman.

  “Psst! Miss Wells!” a voice whispered from the wing.

  Concordia turned around and saw Miss Hamilton, wearing an elegant dress of deep lavender for the occasion. It made Concordia’s own serviceable china-blue cotton, one of her favorite light-weight skirts, look rather ordinary.

  “Miss Hamilton? What are you doing back here? Why are you so late?”

  She beckoned Concordia farther away from the curtain before she spoke.

  “We cannot find President Richter anywhere. Dean Langdon and I have been searching for the past hour.” Miss Hamilton wore a worried frown.

  Concordia was confused. “Is he ill? Perhaps he had some emergency that called him away?”

  Miss Hamilton was skeptical. “Without notice of any kind, to any of his staff?” She sighed. “I wish I could slip into his rooms and see if he has packed, but he recently put a new lock on his door that I cannot open.”

  “You suspect that he has fled?” Concordia asked incredulously.

  “He may be aware of the ledger’s discovery. Miss Banning was none too discreet about waving it around, as you may recall.” Miss Hamilton glanced over her shoulder to where Margaret Banning, perched on a stool along the opposite wing, was giving enthusiastic instructions to the girls.

  “Perhaps, too, he fears that we suspect him of killing Miss Lyman,” Miss Hamilton added.

  Concordia looked startled. “We suspect what?!” she exclaimed. Several heads backstage turned her way. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you really think he killed the bursar? How do you know?”

  “I know it’s an unpleasant thing to contemplate, Miss Wells, but we must face facts. The ledger ties him to her too closely. They had been working together on this scheme. The circumstances of her suicide could have been easily contrived. The shoe you found by the pond, a gentleman’s dress shoe, had no business being there. It was so sodden and deeply stained, it could have easily been there since the winter, trapped under the ice, and eventually caught in the underbrush after the spring thaw.”

  “That does not mean it’s Arthur Richter’s shoe,” Concordia persisted. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It couldn’t be true.

  But then she remembered she had seen that shoe before—or, more properly, the mate to it. In the tower storage room, among the donated props.

  “I make it my business to notice such unique features as clothing, hair, faces, voices,” Miss Hamilton answered. “Arthur Richter has a tweed suit that he seemed to favor pairing with brown dress shoes. Over the past few months, however, I have seen him wearing the suit with black shoes.”

  “There could be another explanation for that, surely? That doesn’t mean that’s his shoe,” Concordia said.

  “I grant you, it is a relatively nondescript style. But there is more. Do you remember the day after Miss Lyman was found? Richter’s severe laryngitis, as one gets when out in the cold and damp for too long? And consider the scratch we all saw on his forehead that day.” Miss Hamilton gently touched the wound that Concordia had incurred two days ago, at the pond. “It was just like yours. I believe it was caused by the same low-hanging branch, near where Miss Lyman was found. Richter, in carrying Miss Lyman’s body, couldn’t duck low enough to avoid the branch hitting his face.”

  Concordia reluctantly conceded that Miss Hamilton’s evidence, while individually minor, collectively provided something damning. Things were looking very bleak for President Richter, and the college. “What will you do?”

  “I strongly suspect that at least one other person is involved in the embezzlement scheme, if not in Miss Lyman’s murder, so I am not yet prepared to act. There is more that we must learn. I’ve also been making inquiries into Miss Lyman’s past, but we are running out of time.” The lady principal sighed. “I may have to go to Lieutenant Capshaw with an incomplete set of facts.”

  Concordia could tell that Miss Hamilton’s professional pride was warring with the need to foil President Richter’s escape.

  “We are ready, Miss Wells!” Miss Pomeroy called out. She and Miss Banning were looking at her expectantly, as the players took their places.

  “The prudent course, for now, is to continue with the play,” Miss Hamilton said. She squeezed Concordia’s arm and smiled. “I regret that I cannot stay to watch the performance. I have much to do. But I believe they say in the theater, ‘break a leg.’”

  “Good luck to you as well, Miss Hamilton,” Concordia murmured, watching her leave the auditorium. She gave a signal to the stagehands and retreated backstage. For the time being, her responsibility was here. The lights were dimmed, the curtains parted, and the play began.

  “O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge.”

  The dying Banquo’s words to his son in Act III were Concordia’s cue. With a final tap on Miss Banning’s shoulder to signal her intent, Concordia slipped quietly out of the dressing area backstage, exiting through a side door of the building.

  The usher, absorbed in the play, paid Concordia little attention when she re-entered the auditorium through the vestibule doors. She stood against the back wall, watching both play and audience. How would events unfold in the next few minutes? It was out of her hands now.

  “Which of you have done this?” Macbeth looked suitably startled as the ghost of Banquo, who had just appeared onstage, stared back at him silently. The other players pretended oblivion to the specter.

  The audience was reacting as expected, leaning forward intently as Macbeth struggled to keep his composure.

  “Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me!” Macbeth chided the ghost, while trembling in anger and fear.

  As well Macbeth should; the stage makeup looked fittingly ghoulish on the young lady playing Banquo’s ghost, her face unnaturally white, dark makeup around her eyes, red streaks dripping
along her neck. She wore a wig of straggling locks and her clothes were bloody, torn rags. Concordia had arranged for a specially-fitted electric light to illuminate the ghost from the balcony above. Charlotte Crandall, one of the stagehands, kept it trained on the specter as it moved.

  Concordia continued to wait, her heart pounding and her mouth dry. She watched the audience, now, more than the action on the stage.

  There! A stirring at the end of the second row.

  “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold.” Macbeth was shouting now.

  Two forms separated themselves from the gloom, making their way toward Concordia and the back of the auditorium. She could not see who they were yet. But they were coming closer, one with a familiar waddling gait, the other walking unsteadily, even with a walking stick and the other man’s arm to lean upon.

  “Dr. Westfield,” Concordia whispered, as they approached. “Let me help you. This way.” She hurried ahead to open the vestibule door, casting a final glance at the stage, where the ghostly Sophia Adams was making her exit.

  Well done, my friend, Concordia thought, looking over at the ashen-faced Judge Armstrong, still leaning heavily on the doctor’s arm. Thou mayst revenge.

  The lights in the vestibule were blinding to their dark-adjusted eyes as Concordia helped Dr. Westfield guide the judge into the reception room. They eased him into a chair. Judge Armstrong struggled for breath through bluish lips.

  “That woman…how is she…” the judge gasped.

  “Shh, Matthew. You mustn’t agitate yourself so,” the doctor admonished nervously. Gone were his wide smile and cheery, booming voice.

  Concordia looked on as he broke some sort of ampule under the judge’s nostrils.

  “What’s that?”

  “Amyl nitrite,” the doctor, answered, without looking up, “we have started to use it recently for angina patients.” Dr. Westfield felt Judge Armstrong’s wrist.

  Guilt twisted in her stomach. She had not known about a heart condition. Although on the day of the rally the judge had looked a bit ill, he seemed fine on other occasions.

  It was true that she had hoped for—even counted upon—a violent reaction from Judge Armstrong when he saw the woman he had nearly killed and believed to be at death’s door, alive and conscious, on the stage. Concordia remembered the judge’s face, a few weeks before, when he had glimpsed Miss Hamilton in the half-shadows of the dance floor: the look of shock, then fear, and lastly, relief. The judge had briefly mistaken Miss Hamilton for Miss Adams.

  Soon the judge’s color returned, and he was breathing more easily.

  Closing the door for privacy, Concordia braced herself to follow through with the plan. She, too, had a part to play.

  “What woman were you speaking of, Judge Armstrong?” she inquired solicitously.

  With his strength sapped, the judge’s glare lacked its usual ferocity.

  “It is nothing,” Dr. Westfield said quickly. “In cases like these, the patient’s mind can wander during an attack.”

  “I thought perhaps the judge was referring to the presence of Sophia Adams on the stage. She has made a miraculous recovery, has she not?” Concordia asked, turning back to Judge Armstrong.

  “To whom, pray, are you referring?” the judge demanded, his breathing easier, and some of his former bravado returning.

  Concordia would not be intimidated. “Do you mean, sir, that you did not recognize Sophia Adams, the activist who spoke at the Women’s Suffrage Rally last month? The young woman who visited your daughter-in-law during the worst of her illness, nearly every day? My goodness,” Concordia said, “Miss Pomeroy must have outdone herself with the stage make-up this year. Congratulations are in order.”

  “Of course, of course,” Judge Armstrong harrumphed, sitting up straighter, “I remember now.”

  Concordia pressed the point. “Most certainly you should, seeing that you sent the good doctor here to check on Miss Adams’ condition shortly after she was taken to the infirmary.”

  Westfield cleared his throat. “We were already on the grounds that day for the trustees’ breakfast. It seemed only natural that I should look in and see if I could be of assistance. The assault upon the young lady was most tragic.”

  “But you tried to visit again just a few days ago, did you not, doctor? You were no doubt told that Miss Adams’ condition was so grave that only her attending physician could see her.”

  Dr. Westfield looked confused. “How—?”

  Concordia gripped her hands tightly together in an effort to keep her voice calm. “I must confess that you were deliberately misled. Miss Adams has been conscious, and talking,” she emphasized, noting the look of alarm on Judge Armstrong’s face, “for the last couple of weeks. Miss Hamilton, Miss Jenkins, and I realized that whoever was responsible for the attack upon her might try again if it were known that she had awakened. Miss Adams was safe as long as the perpetrator believed her to be unconscious. And you wanted to make very sure that she was in fact unconscious, is that not so?”

  The doctor sputtered in indignation. “I have never laid a hand on the young lady!”

  “True,” Concordia conceded, “but you have protected the guilty party.”

  She snatched up the judge’s walking stick before he could react. It was the one she remembered him carrying at the rally, with the lion’s head gold knob.

  “Give that back,” the judge snapped, but he lacked the strength to stand up and pluck it from her hand.

  “In a moment,” Concordia answered, holding it up to the light. It was clean and newly polished. Her stomach lurched when she saw the misshapen side of the knob, flattened where it should have been curved.

  She pointed the stick at Dr. Westfield. “You are just as guilty as if you had wielded this yourself, doctor. You protected this man—after he committed violence upon a defenseless woman. And you protected him before, when he stood by and did nothing”—Concordia’s voice broke—“to help another woman, one even more vulnerable. My sister.” She gave Judge Armstrong a withering look, still addressing the doctor. “Is it not time to stop protecting him?”

  The judge, ignoring Concordia, looked warningly at Westfield. “Say…nothing…or…I will….destroy you,” he gasped, chest heaving in his agitation.

  Dr. Westfield gave a bitter laugh. “When this is known, anything you have to say against me will hold little weight. I am tired of this charade.”

  They were interrupted by a tentative knock on the door. Concordia opened it to find Nathaniel Young outside. She waved him in, closing the door behind him. She could hear the sound of wild applause. She hadn’t much time.

  “Is everything all right?” Young asked the doctor, with a glance at Judge Armstrong. “When you two didn’t return, I grew worried.”

  Concordia pulled him over to a chair beside her. “Do sit down. You need to hear this, Nathaniel. You were close to Mary, and deserve to know the truth.”

  She gave the judge an icy stare. “I’m giving you one more chance to tell us what happened.”

  Armstrong’s dark brows drew together in anger. “This is absolutely absurd. I want my carriage brought around immediately. I have nothing more to say to any of you.” He pressed his lips together in a mutinous line.

  “I will not keep you much longer tonight,” Concordia said, and turned away from him.

  “Doctor? You must tell us what caused Mary’s illness and death.”

  Dr. Westfield sighed and looked at Concordia with weary eyes. “I am so sorry, Miss Wells. I tried to help her, and still protect the Armstrong family.” He passed a trembling hand over his forehead before continuing.

  “Your sister was suffering from a gonococcal infection. That is a venereal disease,” he explained, looking over at Young.

  “Dear God,” Nathaniel said, “my poor Mary.”

  “Who gave it to her, doctor?” Concordia asked fiercely, although she knew the answer.

  Dr. Westf
ield hesitated. “You must understand, Miss Wells, that men and women have different needs, different expectations, when it comes to marital relations…”

  “Who, doctor!”

  The judge spoke at last. “It was Henry, damn him!” He sat back, drained and white. “His friends decided, before his wedding, that my son needed to go to his marriage bed with experience. They took him, reluctant though he was, to a brothel. Young fools!”

  The doctor nodded somberly. “I have been treating Henry for the same malady, with an equal lack of success, I’m afraid. He has little time left. In each case, I have tried all of the antiseptic irrigation treatments I know, but we in the medical community simply have no cure for this.”

  These evils eventually come home to roost, Sophia had said to Concordia, during their trolley ride to Mary’s house. It certainly had come home to her sister, Concordia thought. She felt dizzy, and took several deep breaths.

  “If Henry had it first, why did Mary get sick so quickly?” Nathaniel asked, voice shaky.

  Dr. Westfield grimaced. “That is what makes the spread of the disease so difficult to contain. It can take longer for the symptoms to be apparent in a man who has been infected. He unwittingly passes it on to his wife. Henry did not know until it was too late.”

  Nathaniel put his head in his hands.

  There was something Concordia didn’t understand. “If there is no cure, why did you consult the specialist?”

  The doctor looked uncomfortable. He cast an angry glance at Judge Armstrong before he spoke.

  “Dr. Samuels is the best in his field. He said that there was one last chance. He could perform surgery to remove Mary’s reproductive organs, and possibly prevent the infection from spreading to the blood. God help me, I let Matthew dismiss the man and send him back to Boston. The Armstrong family reputation was paramount,” he said bitterly. “The judge feared discovery.”