Unseemly Pursuits

by Owen, K.

  Concordia wanted to believe him, but knew she dare not. A man capable of fooling her father was a very cunning one indeed. She pulled her skirts back and inched away on the sofa. “Why did you pretend, then, that you didn’t know my father? Those times when I confided in you, you feigned ignorance. Why?”

  “I apologize for the subterfuge, dear. I have forgiven your father – truly I have – but those incidents are a painful memory.”

  The dean pressed on with his case. “You accuse me of horrible deeds based upon my past association with your father, recounted by him in an old journal, but think about how little sense it makes. How would I know that Miss Grant had the amulet? Why would I want the colonel’s artifacts or the amulet? They are of little value. I have a large enough collection.”

  This wasn’t going well. The man sounded so reasonable. She was missing something here.

  “So you wanted nothing from that tomb?” Concordia asked skeptically. “My father believed otherwise.”

  Pierce laughed. “At one time, of course. Your father was correct in his suspicions of me. Back then, I dealt in, shall we say, irregularly acquired antiquities? But your father actually had more to fear from Adams than from me. The good colonel double-crossed us both. But that doesn’t matter now.”

  He was silent for a moment, before continuing. “After my injury” – here his face flushed with emotion – “there were no more digs for me. Even the tomb that had collapsed upon me was reburied later in a massive sandstorm. The markers were obliterated. Mariette did not even believe that it was the tomb of Meyra. Without corroboration from your father – which was never given – he could not be bothered to go look for it. So it was all for nothing. Even my family abandoned me. My loving wife didn’t want to be saddled with a husband in a wheelchair. She left, taking our only child with her – my daughter, who had been the light of my life.”

  Concordia felt a pang of pity for the man, but still didn’t believe he was innocent. “How did you come to be here, at this school?”

  “When I was well enough to earn my living again, I acted as curator to local exhibits in Cairo and then in London. I also taught university courses. After a while, I moved back to the States, to Boston, and taught there, in addition to serving on several college boards. Then I saw mention in the newspaper of Adams donating his collection. Hartford Women’s College needed someone to fill the dean position. It seemed serendipitous.” He smiled paternally at Concordia. “It is nice to see you all grown up. Your father talked about you all the time.”

  Concordia wasn’t about to be distracted. “That doesn’t answer my question. Why would you uproot and relocate here, from idle curiosity?”

  He shrugged.

  Concordia took the amulet and papers out of her pocket. She passed him the smooth stone. “As I mentioned before, my father left this for me. Now I want you to have it.”

  Pierce gave it barely a glance before setting it aside. “I don’t care about the bauble. It’s not at all valuable.”

  He picked up some of the sheets. “Ah, Randolph Wells’ shorthand. I’d recognize it anywhere. And what’s this? A map?” His eyes gleamed as he reached for the page that had drifted to Concordia’s feet.

  In that moment, Concordia realized what she had been missing all along. She snatched the map before he could grasp it.

  “You never wanted the amulets, did you? Somehow, they were a means to an end. You wanted the map. It shows the location of the tomb that Mariette never believed you had found, that is still buried under the sand. That’s why you encouraged me to ask my mother about those days and to search through my father’s papers. You wanted the fame of discovery, even though you cannot go back there yourself. Or perhaps, you simply want to have it opened and quietly plundered. A man as resourceful as you no doubt has powerful allies back in Egypt.”

  “Give me the map!” Pierce roared. With a quick push from his chair, he threw himself upon her, pinning her down against the cushions. His large hands closed around her neck. All Concordia could get out was a terrorized squeak before she had no breath to make a noise. Flashes of light appeared around her eyes as she dropped the map and scratched at his hands and arms.

  To her immense relief, the pressure on her airway was suddenly gone. Pierce’s weight was lifted from her as President Langdon pulled the man away and tossed him to the floor, the wheelchair tipping over as he fell.

  The resounding crash brought the housekeeper, maid, and Lieutenant Capshaw rushing in.

  “Thank you, Mr. Langdon,” Concordia said, in a hoarse whisper. “You heard everything, I hope?”

  Langdon nodded, a grim look on his face. “As did the lieutenant, listening at the window. I regret that I got a bit tangled up in the curtain trying to reach you, Concordia, or I would have got him off you sooner. Are you all right?”

  She rubbed her neck tenderly. There were sure to be bruises. “I will be,” she croaked.

  “Still, we should send for Miss Jenkins,” Langdon said, looking to the maid, who scurried off.

  In the meantime, Capshaw and two of his men had righted Pierce’s chair and put him back in it. The man was breathing heavily, and glowered at Concordia.

  “This isn’t over,” he growled.

  “Quiet, you,” Capshaw said. He turned to his men. “Take him to the station.”

  Miss Jenkins came in with her medical kit as Pierce was being wheeled out. She gave him a penetrating look before going over to Concordia. After a careful examination, she set to work, probing tenderly and applying rubbing alcohol to a few scratches. Concordia knew she must look a sight.

  Capshaw come over to her. “Miss Wells,” he sighed. “Are all of you college ladies so single-minded? Did I not tell you he was a dangerous man?”

  “Save your voice, it has already been strained. The larynx is swelling a bit,” Miss Jenkins said to Concordia. The infirmarian turned to Capshaw. “To answer your first question, lieutenant, yes – we are all this stubborn. Get used to it. And as far as dangerous…you’ll want to get those scratches on Pierce’s arms tended to. Some of them look quite deep.” With that, she smiled and turned back to her patient.

  After one last look, Capshaw shook his head and left.

  Chapter 30

  And then it started like a guilty thing

  Upon a fearful summons.

  I. i

  Week 13, Instructor Calendar

  December 1896

  With Concordia’s injury, teaching classes and directing the play were out of the question for the next few days. Miss Jenkins summarily ordered her to rest and not use her voice. At all.

  It became clear to Concordia that she wasn’t suited to having time on her hands. She had soon finished her backlog of papers and caught up on her reading. She even re-read Hamlet, writing notes in the margins about what tips to pass along to students. When she was allowed to talk again.

  Capshaw had sent word about their progress since Pierce’s arrest. The biggest break in the case had come when Miss Grant finally recovered consciousness. For a woman with a damaged larynx, she had screamed bloody murder and made abundantly clear that Pierce was her attacker. When pressed, she had also reluctantly admitted to stealing the amulet and that Pierce had found it when she surprised him in her rooms.

  With such damning witness testimony, Pierce was arraigned in police court for the assaults upon Concordia and Miss Grant and held in custody until the next Superior Court session. There was no clue as yet about what happened to the amulet. “Unfortunately, he had plenty of time to pass the artifact on to someone else,” Capshaw had noted. Whether Pierce, because of his past association with Colonel Adams, had anything to do with his murder was still being investigated.

  Concordia was also preoccupied thinking about Eli. The boy had been gone for several days now, with no word. No one had seen him at the settlement house, either.

  That night, she had a particularly difficult time getting to sleep, tossing and turning so much in her bed that her night dress an
d sheets were a rumpled mess. She had to get up and straighten everything out before getting back into bed again.

  Finally, she did fall asleep but her dreams were strange. She dreamt of herself as Hamlet, listening to her dead father, trying to understand what he wanted. But instead of being dressed in kingly garb, Papa wore his ordinary clothes and an amulet around his neck. Then the dream changed, and Concordia was in the audience watching the play, and Sophia was Hamlet, and the King was a blood-covered Colonel Adams. Instead of the amulet around his neck, he wore a key.

  The dream changed again, and Concordia was walking down a long, narrow corridor, lined with mirrors. The strange thing was, she couldn’t see herself in them, but every once in a while she’d glimpse a little girl skipping ahead, holding the hand of an unknown person. Concordia followed the girl and craned her neck to see whose hand she was holding, without success. The corridor got colder as they traveled farther. She heard a light tap of metal against glass, and the rustle of someone moving around.

  This wasn’t part of the dream.

  The other images faded and Concordia opened her eyes. She saw a shadow of movement. Her heart raced but she remained absolutely still.

  There was an intruder in her room.

  Whoever was here was being very quiet, navigating carefully around furniture. She couldn’t see exactly what he was doing without turning her head and alerting him, so she willed her breathing to stay regular, even when all she wanted to do was gasp in panic. She felt chilled.

  She waited. If he crossed the window – which was partly open now, letting in the cold air and probably the reason she woke up – she would be able to see him in the moonlight.

  Finally, he stepped into the light, shrinking the distorted shadow to his actual size.

  “Eli!” Concordia said, her voice still raspy. She untangled herself from the bedcovers.

  “M-Miss Concordia!” He froze.

  She turned on the light and lowered her voice, so as not to wake the household. “What are you doing here? And where have you been? We’ve been so worried about you.”

  “I been real busy…helpin’ at the Durand house. I guess I should have told you.” He trembled, and looked down penitently.

  “I know you are accustomed to coming and going as you please, but you have people who care about you now. All right?”

  He nodded.

  “So, glad as I am to see you, why were you sneaking around in my room and scaring me half to death?” Concordia asked.

  “I’m right sorry ‘bout that. I was trying not to wake you up. I thought…I saw Cat go in here.”

  “Really? He’s still missing?” Concordia turned on more lights and explored various nooks, including under the bed. No sign of the creature. “Well…he’s not here now,” she said. “But no matter what the reason, young man, you shouldn’t be letting yourself into people’s private residences.”

  Eli hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  Poor boy. To be missing his pet for so long did not bode well for the Cat’s future. She smoothed his hair in a gesture of sympathy.

  “I should let you get back to sleep,” he said.

  “I don’t want you walking around at this time of night,” Concordia said. She went to the wardrobe and pulled out an extra pillow and blanket. “Come with me.”

  She put together a makeshift bed for him on the parlor sofa for the night. “We’ll talk more in the morning,” she said, after tucking him in – a strange feeling, really, tucking in a child all cozy for the night. Oddly comforting to the adult, too. Eli settled down contentedly.

  Concordia went back to bed, turned off the lamp, and thankfully fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 31

  O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

  I.v

  Week 13, Instructor Calendar

  December 1896

  Concordia slept heavily and woke late the next morning.

  Mercy – nearly eleven. Was Eli still here? She didn’t hear anything but the usual chatter of girls upstairs and Ruby’s humming as she went about her work.

  She dressed quickly and checked the parlor. No Eli, although the blanket and pillow were neatly stacked against a corner.

  “Have you seen Eli this morning?” Concordia asked, as Ruby came into the room. “He came into my room last night so I made up a bed for him here.”

  “He – what? That boy’s got a wild side, still.” She shook her head. “Haven’t seen ‘im, but I’m glad he turned up, finally. I was gettin’ a little worried.”

  “I guess he woke early and didn’t want to be caught in a house full of girls,” Concordia mused. They would have to go over some basic etiquette with the boy.

  “How are you feelin’ today, miss? Can I make you somethin’ to eat?” Ruby asked.

  “No, no, I’m fine, really. You’re busy enough. I’ll go over to the dining hall and see what they have left,” Concordia said.

  She went back into her room for her boots and jacket and noticed a key lying on her glass-topped vanity table. She’d never seen it before.

  Upon closer inspection, it looked to be no more remarkable than an ordinary house key. But it hadn’t been here when she went to bed last night, of that she was sure. So where had it come from?

  Then she remembered the sound she’d heard, which had seemed part of her dream: the faint sound of metal against glass. Eli. But why would he leave a key? She stuck it in her pocket for the time being.

  She reached for the amulet and papers, as she always did.

  The amulet was gone.

  Her first reaction was anger; she’d already been through so much with that artifact. It was the last thing her father had given her. But then she felt a growing sense of unease. Eli had never stolen anything but food before, and that out of dire necessity. He had barely given the amulet a passing glance in the past. Why steal it now?

  With Pierce’s arrest, Concordia had thought that their troubles were over. Now it looked as if someone else was involved, somehow coercing Eli to steal. A former accomplice of Pierce’s, perhaps?

  Possibly. As Sophia had pointed out, Pierce would have needed help to gain entry into the Adams house unnoticed. But Pierce hadn’t wanted the amulet. He’d wanted the map all along. Concordia now understood it to be Pierce’s way of reclaiming some of the glory of the old days and enjoy a final triumph over Randolph Wells.

  But suppose someone else wanted the amulets. He would have allied with Pierce, for their mutual benefit. The accomplice would get the amulet, and Pierce would exact his revenge upon Colonel Adams after all these years. And possibly get the map, too.

  Revenge was a powerful emotion. Pierce had said that he’d been “double-crossed” by Adams. With Randolph Wells long dead and out of reach, Adams was the only target left.

  Except the plan had not gone well. Yes, Adams had been killed, but he did not have the amulet. Lady Principal Grant had already stolen it. The safe could not be opened to search for the map. And Pierce and his associate had to flee when they heard Amelia coming, although now Concordia wondered about the blow to the poor child’s head.

  Whoever Pierce’s accomplice had been, he must be feeling very nervous about Pierce’s capture, Concordia thought. At any moment, his identity could be revealed.

  The rumble in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten. She should grab something leftover from breakfast first before figuring out her next step.

  In the dining hall, Concordia found she wasn’t the only person absurdly late to breakfast. Miss Phillips sat by herself, lackadaisically spooning a lumpy, watery substance in her bowl. She looked up. “I cannot recommend the oatmeal this morning. That’s what I get for coming so late.”

  “Are you feeling unwell?” Concordia asked anxiously.

  The lady shook her head. “I was up early, in fact, and went over to the gallery to continue with the cataloging. I was so absorbed in the work I lost track of the time.”

  Concordia looked around to m
ake sure they couldn’t be overheard. But they were alone. “The amulet has been stolen,” she said. Miss Phillips sucked in a breath.

  Concordia told her about Eli’s visit the night before and her suspicions. “Pierce is in jail now. He couldn’t possibly have had contact with Eli since then. Someone else is involved and pressured the boy to do this. And now Eli has disappeared again.”

  “But how is he being coerced?”

  “I don’t know,” Concordia said. “I’m trying to figure this out from the other direction. Whoever it is has both amulets now and has achieved his aim. What would he do next? Sell them? Are they valuable as a pair, when they had not been singly?”

  Dorothy Phillips tapped a finger against her lips thoughtfully. Concordia could almost see the history professor going through an inventory in her head: No, those are made of clay…no, they are never made in pairs….

  Miss Phillips looked up. “Something about these is nudging at my memory. I have to look into it further.”

  “We don’t have time. I need to find Eli.”

  “You could talk to that policeman. Maybe he could start a search for the boy and also keep a watch out for those amulets being sold, although I strongly suspect that’s not what the intent is,” Miss Phillips said.

  With a quick murmur of thanks, Concordia got up from the table, grabbing a roll from the bread basket on her way out.

  Concordia took the trolley to the Pratt Street stop, practically in front of the police station.

  “Yes, miss, can I help you?” the sergeant at the desk inquired politely, as she entered the lobby.

  “Is Lieutenant Capshaw here?” she asked. “It is quite urgent that I speak to him.”

  “I’m sorry. He’s out on a case right now,” the man said. “Would you care to leave him a note?”

  That would have to do for the moment. Concordia accepted pencil and paper with thanks, and sat on a dusty bench to compose her note. She tried to make it as succinct as possible, recounting the loss of the amulet, emphasizing how the boy could not be held culpable, but that he was in danger from an unknown accomplice of Pierce’s.