Unseemly Pursuits

by Owen, K.

  “Okay,” Concordia said. “Let’s go.”

  They heard heavy footsteps in the hall above, and the creak of the basement door. Eli quickly lay back down as Concordia loosely wrapped the rope around his wrists and draped the gag over his mouth. He curled up facing the wall, pretending to sleep.

  Concordia grabbed the cat – who was surprisingly cooperative – and retreated to the farthest shadows. She hoped to heaven they were making just a quick check and wouldn’t look too closely at the boy. She glanced over to where Eli lay and saw a small lump in the shadows.

  Her heart sank. Her reticule. She’d set it down to untie him and had forgotten all about it.

  Two sets of feet clattered down the steps.

  “Let’s make this quick, Jacques. I still have to dress before the party.”

  She noticed that Madame no longer spoke with an exotic European accent, but in the slightly clipped tone of a foreign-born British transplant. Concordia could see Jacques Durand’s face, as he carried a light over to the boy. “He’s sleeping. Why won’t you let me just kill him?”

  Madame Durand set a tray of food on a stack of boxes nearby. She looked at Eli. “He’s just a child. All we have to do is get him out of the way temporarily. Then we’ll be long gone.”

  “But we have been doing so well here, Isabelle. There are some very wealthy believers in this town.”

  “We discussed this already. It has been decided. We sail for England tomorrow. My healer in London will know what to do with the stones. Then I will make even more money. You’ll see. There are many rich people in London. Far more than here.”

  Durand gave a resigned sigh and set down the lamp.

  “I’ve drugged the food and the tea,” Madame said. “That will keep him sleeping for several more hours; enough time for you to move him to a more secure place. Is it all arranged?”

  Durand nodded.

  “What’s this!” Madame exclaimed, reaching down to wake the boy, and picking up Concordia’s reticule. “And look, he’s been untied!”

  Eli scrambled and made a bolt for the door. Jacques reached out to grab him. Concordia stepped out of the shadows and, making a mental note to apologize to the beast later, threw the cat at the man’s face. With a howling screech from cat or man or both, Durand grabbed at the hissing, clawing ball of fur, as Eli ran.

  “Get Capshaw!” she yelled to Eli, as he sped up the stairs and out the door. Concordia was not so lucky. Madame flung herself at her and knocked her to the floor.

  The world went black.

  Chapter 32

  God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

  III, i.

  Eli ran two solid blocks, zig-zagging in and out of alleys, before his trembling legs finally gave out and he had to sit and rest. He slipped behind the grocer’s and sat against the brick wall on an overturned crate. His chest hurt. It took a few minutes for his breathing to slow and his head to clear.

  Get Capshaw, Miss Concordia had said.

  Out of all the policemen he had met in his short life, Capshaw seemed the most agreeable. Or at least as agreeable as a policeman could be. He didn’t scowl like the other coppers, or shake him by the back of his collar. He actually smiled sometimes. And, as Miss Concordia had pointed out, he had saved them on the balcony that day. I would trust him with my life, she had said. Maybe she was right.

  But the last place Eli wanted to go was the police station. He knew there’d be too many uniforms to get through before anyone would believe him enough to let him talk to Capshaw. Most grown-ups didn’t pay heed to boys and what they had to say. Except Miss Concordia. And Miss Sophia.

  That gave him a better idea. Feeling a fresh spurt of energy, he walked to the corner, turned left, and broke into a run again.

  ***

  Concordia was aware of light seeping through cracks. She fluttered her eyelids, and her vision came into focus. Her head was pounding. She felt something stiff and dried – blood? – along the side of her face. She was also covered in dust from head to foot, as if she had rolled around an exceedingly dusty floor. She sneezed.

  “She’s awake,” said a voice.

  She tried to get up, but couldn’t. Orienting herself, she saw that she was tied to a hard-backed chair in the middle of what looked to be the inside of an old, rusty railway car. She could see her breath in the cold air.

  She looked around. The hated faces of the Durands had turned her way. Concordia was heathenishly gratified to see a number of deep red scratches on Jacques Durand’s pale face.

  “We’re running out of time,” Durand whined to his wife.

  “Miss Wells and I need to have a little conversation first, my love,” Madame said. She walked over to Concordia and shook her head in exasperation. “Miss Wells, you are a major inconvenience to me. First, you make me late for a very important dinner party given by the mayor and his wife, and now I will have to miss it altogether because you helped that wretched boy escape.”

  “What a pity,” Concordia said, and got a stinging slap in return.

  “You shall not address me in that way, if you want to live,” Madame Durand said.

  “Why pretend you have scruples?” Concordia said, licking at her cut lip. “You are already a fake. Your very profession, if I may use the term loosely, is full of tricks and flim-flammery. You have brutalized the sensibilities of a little boy, and then, once he had served your purpose, proceeded to bind him, hand and foot, in a dank cellar. Am I supposed to give you a medal because you hadn’t worked up the nerve to kill him yet? You conspired to kill Colonel Adams by stealing the Adams’ key and letting in your father. Oh, yes, I know that Red is your father,” she added, seeing the look of astonishment on the medium’s face.

  Concordia had finally made the connection during the séance. When Madame, in addressing her “spirit guide,” had said: the tomb is lost to us, covered perhaps for all time, Concordia had realized the extent of Madame’s knowledge. The origin of the amulets had never been generally known. Except for Pierce, the one man still alive from the original expedition, only Concordia, Miss Phillips, Sophia, and the lieutenant had known the story of the tomb’s collapse and its consequent obscurity.

  Pierce must have related the story of the expedition to his daughter, no doubt greatly amended in his favor. Then he promised her the amulets in exchange for her help in exacting his revenge on Adams and getting the map from Concordia. He’d probably told her some hokum about the mysterious power of the amulets and she’d believed it. The healer knows what to do with the stones, Madame had told her husband. It was a fair assumption that the spirit medium expected the amulets to work some sort of magic.

  Madame Durand was also the right age to be Pierce’s daughter, something that Pierce himself had pointed out at Madame’s first Spirit Club demonstration. Madame Durand seems to be a charming young lady – not much older than yourself, Miss Wells.

  Randolph Wells’ journal had made reference to Pierce’s “pretty little daughter.” Now that she looked for it, Concordia could see some resemblance. Something about the mouth and set of the jaw. Even the timbre of her voice, when stripped of the fake accent, was akin to Pierce’s.

  Madame seemed to have recovered from the shock of Concordia surmising so much. She smiled sweetly.

  “Well, aren’t you clever, my dear. Yes, I am his daughter. I’m proud of it. He is a great man. I would do anything for him. He certainly didn’t deserve what happened to him. Your father” - she pointed an angry finger in Concordia’s face - “is to blame. He was jealous of him, of his success, and did not want to share the fame. I know what really happened, how your father and the colonel conspired against him, sabotaged him, and finally left him, crippled and alone, to die.”

  Concordia could see that Madame had been told a significant variation of what was recounted in Randolph Wells’ journal. Concordia wasn’t confident that she had the entire story, either. They would never know.

  “My mother left him after that,�
�� Madame continued. “She took me away with her. I never saw him again – not until a few months ago. We found each other quite by accident. The colonel’s donation to your college drew my father here, to get the map to the tomb. I came in search of the amulets.”

  Yes, that made sense, Concordia thought. Madame Durand had become a fixture at Hartford Women’s College shortly after Pierce had become dean. And the spirit medium had been such a frequent visitor at Sycamore House that President Langdon had mistaken Concordia for her when he saw a lady in the parlor.

  Concordia should have realized the connection long ago. There was the time when Madame had reacted to Concordia’s question: Who is Red, and is he here? at the planchette demonstration on Halloween, sending the board sailing off the table. Concordia could kick herself for not seeing it sooner.

  “You wanted the amulets so badly because you believe they have some special power,” Concordia said. “Are they worth a woman’s life? Your father nearly killed Lady Principal Grant to get one of them.”

  “Pah! Miss Grant…that foolish old woman? The amulets are worth twenty of her kind. In the hands of a true healer, they will give me psychic abilities that you cannot imagine. They were already powerful enough to draw me to Hartford, and my father as well. The spirits brought us together.”

  “Does that ‘togetherness’ extend to murdering Colonel Adams?” Concordia asked, not attempting to keep the sarcasm from her tone.

  “I was glad to help my father get his revenge,” Madame said, unruffled. “It was easy enough. I had been there many times, consulting with Lydia Adams. I knew about the spare key. I had established the colonel’s night-time routine. My father gave Adams a chance to live, but he refused to open the safe for us. He even tried to ring for help. My father had no choice but to shoot him. Unfortunately, that meant we had to search on our own for the amulet and the map.”

  “What made you think that Adams had the amulet once more?” Concordia asked.

  “Jacques overheard you and Miss Phillips discussing the possibility after our first Spirit Club demonstration,” Madame said.

  Concordia remembered the flutter of curtains near the stage, which she’d assumed was a draft.

  “The only problem was that after you killed the colonel,” Concordia prompted, “you didn’t have a chance to break into the safe. Someone interrupted you. The colonel’s young daughter.”

  Madame shrugged. “Yes. Little Amelia came in. Jacques struck her before she had a chance to see anything, fortunately.”

  Concordia struggled to suppress another wave of anger that made her stomach churn. She must keep Madame Durand talking, hoping that Eli would get Capshaw and find her in time. If they could find her. She shivered. The cold was seeping through with full force now, inching up her feet and ankles. She couldn’t feel her hands.

  “Before making your escape, you did take two Egyptian antiquities that belonged to the colonel – the collar, and the fertility statuette, correct?” Concordia asked.

  “My father recognized them as valuable, yes,” Madame said. “He still has contacts abroad where they would fetch a good price.”

  “And the séance in the Adams house the night after the colonel was killed, where you staged my father’s ‘presence’ – you were trying to goad me into looking for the map, weren’t you?”

  Madame smiled. “That, too, was my father’s idea, after the colonel’s study turned up nothing. Since Randolph Wells had done all of the research, he would have kept possession of the map. Father was sure that your father, being the scholar he was, would never have destroyed it, no matter how stubbornly he stayed away from Egyptology the rest of his life. When I saw the bracelet that he had left for you I made it my task to learn all about you and your relationship with your father. It was no great matter to find that out. Your mother, in our séance sessions, told me everything I needed to know. It was logical that your father’s papers, including the map, had been hidden for only you to find.”

  Concordia shuddered at how closely she had been monitored all this time. “And Pierce had the audacity to encourage me to solve the colonel’s murder” – which the man himself had committed, he must have enjoyed the irony of that – “and clear Sophia by searching for my father’s papers. And I did find his papers. Very clever.”

  Madame scowled. “Although it ultimately got me the amulets, you have the map and my father is in jail. It does him no good. Once again, he is suffering at the hands of the Wells family.” She took out a kerchief and stuffed it roughly in Concordia’s mouth. Concordia coughed and struggled, trying to twist her head away, but it was no use. Jacques Durand clamped his hands upon her head as Madame secured the gag in place with another scarf, tying it tightly against the back of Concordia’s neck.

  “But I will have my revenge, now. You are correct. I don’t have any scruples about killing you. And it won’t be quick. No one will find you in this old rail yard. We’ll be putting a stout lock on the outside when we leave, just in case.” She crouched closer, looking into Concordia’s widened eyes, watching her struggle against the ropes. “You will experience some of what my father went through, Miss Wells, after yours left him in the tomb to die. Immobilization, helplessness, fear, thirst. Instead of pitiless heat, you will feel numbing cold. An equitable exchange.”

  Jacques touched his wife on the arm. “We shouldn’t stay any longer.”

  With one last contemptuous look from Madame, they left, taking the lamp with them. In the gloom, Concordia heard the door slide shut and, just as Madame had promised, the sound of a padlock being snapped into place.

  Concordia fought her panic by listening for the Durands’ carriage wheels crunching on the gravel. She waited until they were very faint. The last thing she wanted was the Durands lingering outside to thwart her escape. It was just a precaution, of course; Jacques Durand looked particularly eager to leave.

  A flash of animal eyes, through one of the rusted-out gaps of the car, made her jump. She hoped it was too big to come through, whatever it was.

  Concordia’s mother had always complained about her “obstinate streak.” Well, she was going to need it now, for she had no intention of sitting and waiting for the end to come. She was going to fight her Eternal Reward with everything she had.

  Chapter 33

  How, now, a rat?

  III, iv.

  Capshaw returned to the station. “Any messages?” he asked the desk clerk.

  The man shook his head. “Not since I been here – oh, wait a minute – a young lady left you a note.” The man rummaged around, finally producing a scrap of paper, marked Urgent.

  Capshaw frowned over the note. He sighed when he recognized the handwriting. Miss Wells. A most trying young lady – he would never understand college people, especially when they were the female of the species. But she had good instincts, he had to give her that.

  He read it through quickly. Hmm. The boy’s absence was worrisome. Perhaps he should send a man out to the college and fetch Miss Wells.

  “Who’s here that can go to the ladies’ college right quick?” he asked.

  The desk clerk checked the roster. “Merrimack’s kickin’ around here somewhere, Lieutenant.”

  “Good. Send him over to the school to bring Miss Wells back to the station.”

  “Very good, sir.” The man hesitated. “Oh, and one more thing about the young lady. Rodgers said she asked permission to see our crippled man.”

  Capshaw glared at the man. “And…did…she?” he said, his voice carefully even.

  The clerk shifted from one foot to another, clearing his throat. “Um, yes, sir. He saw no harm in it, what with the prisoner bein’ in a chair, and all. Besides, the orderly was right there and she weren’t allowed to stay but a couple o’ minutes.”

  Without another word, Capshaw turned on his heel and headed for the cell block wing.

  Chapter 34

  Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.

  I, i.

  Concordia wasn�
�t making any progress in getting out of her bonds. In fact, she was in a worse position now. In her attempt to test the strength of the chair, which seemed to give a little along the upright part, she’d instead succeeded in tipping herself sideways to the floor, sending a sharp pain along one of her already-aching shoulders. Please heaven she hadn’t broken anything. Her hair had come down loose over her eyes, but she had no hands free to push it back. Only a combination of shaking her head and blowing at it got it to move. Not that it mattered much in terms of sight – the closed-up car was as black as pitch – but it tickled her nose and annoyed her. She’d had enough annoyances for one day, to say the least.

  Long fingers of numbing air plucked at her ankles, neck and hands, slipping under clothing wherever they could. Her teeth chattered. She was so tired.

  This was hopeless. Even if she got herself untied, how would she get out? She was locked in from outside, in an abandoned train yard. No one would hear her cries for help.

  She lay still for a minute or two, willing herself to continue the struggle.

  Then she heard scuttling noises, and a squeak.

  Rats.

  If ever Concordia wished for Eli’s Cat, now was the time.

  ***

  Eli pounded on the back door, then crouched with his hands to his knees, fighting to catch his breath. The cook opened the door, grumbling.

  “Eli!” she exclaimed. “Why, what’s happened to you!” She looked at him closely, noticing the dirty, disheveled hair, the pinched hollows of his cheeks, his raw wrists.

  “I need to see Miss Sophia right away. Miss Concordia’s in turrible trouble.”

  ***

  There was something stimulating to one’s motivation, Concordia thought, now that rats were involved. If she were to die here, she was not going to be a trussed-up meal for the rats to feast upon.

  Her right side was still pinned to the floor, so she tested the strength of the chair and the ropes on her left, sliding this way and that with her torso, feeling around with cold-stiffened fingers. If she was lucky, perhaps a section of the wood had splintered.