Unseemly Ambition (29 page)

“
But
who
ordered the jewelry? Barton
Isley?” That didn’t seem consistent with the man’s frugal
nature.

Miss Hamilton shook her head. “Not
Isley. Randolph Maynard.”

“
Our dean
placed the order?” Concordia exclaimed,
inadvertently raising her voice.

Miss Hamilton made a
shushing
gesture. “The
same.”

Concordia felt a chill settle in her
spine. With both Isley and Maynard as Inner Circle members, the
school was sure to face yet another scandal. “Have you learned
anything of the Circle’s current plans?” she asked.

“
Not yet, but it usually
comes down to power and money. And now that they have explosives?”
Miss Hamilton shuddered. “They are all the more
dangerous.”

“
But how much did Florence
know? How did she come by the dynamite wrapper?” Concordia asked.
“One doesn’t leave that sort of thing lying around. It
is
dynamite, as you
surmised?”

“
Yes indeed,” Miss Hamilton
said. She pulled out a small notepad. “It’s the ‘Hercules’ brand of
powder explosive, from the California Powder Company. As to how she
got the wrapper, I’ve learned she was on intimate terms with
someone in the Black Scroll, no doubt an Inner Circle member. She
probably stumbled upon it by accident.”

“‘
Intimate terms’?”
Concordia asked.

“
To put it bluntly, she had
a lover. I haven’t learned his identity, but I know he’s a family
friend of the Willoughbys. I wonder, though, if Rosen had learned
who he was. Such a discovery might be what killed him. My source
tells me Rosen was asking a lot of questions of the Willoughbys,
with some trumped-up story about a feature article in the business
pages of the
Courant.
I wish he’d been able to talk with you before he
died.”

Concordia couldn’t count how many
times she’d wished that herself, but she stayed on topic. “Why did
Florence take the wrapper? Was she going to the police with
it?”

Miss Hamilton shook her head. “She had
ample opportunity to go to the authorities, but did not. Based on
that and her letter to you, I suspect she was engaged in a
dangerous little blackmail scheme.”

Concordia remembered that
part of Florence’s letter:
I’ve secured
enough money to leave the area and live comfortably abroad.
She leaned forward. “But how would she know the
significance of the explosives wrapper? Have
you
discovered what they plan to do
with such a device?”

Miss Hamilton’s eyes
brightened in excitement. “I’ve researched recent cases involving
the use of dynamite. One looks particularly promising. There was an
explosion in Boston harbor several months ago, aboard the
Gascogne,
arrived from Le
Havre. It was carrying high-priced Valenciennes lace and other
valuable commodities. The case was never solved—even though the
insurance company investigated. The company considered the policy
owners possible suspects. They were eventually cleared, however.
The cargo turned out to be much more valuable than the insured
price for it. The incident was eventually attributed to anarchists,
and quietly dropped.”

Concordia raised an eyebrow.
“Anarchists? Here?” She’d heard of isolated anarchist incidents,
the most famous being the Haymarket riots in Chicago more than a
decade ago, but it seemed more of a European phenomenon.

Miss Hamilton shrugged. “I suppose
it’s possible, but I don’t believe it either. They make a
convenient scapegoat group. Anyone can write a dithering note and
shift the blame upon anarchists.”

“
What do you think really
happened?” Concordia asked.

“
The owners sustaining the
loss are in the dry goods business, just like the Willoughbys. They
are, in fact, the family’s biggest competition. The financial loss
wasn’t substantial, especially since it was insured, but can you
imagine the time involved to replace the goods? Who, then, would
have the advantage of inventory?”

“
The Willoughbys,”
Concordia answered.

“
Exactly. And there’s
something else,” Miss Hamilton added quietly. “The harbor watchman
who died in the blast? The explosion didn’t kill him. He’d been
garroted.”

Concordia shivered. “The same as
Florence.”

Miss Hamilton gave a slight nod. “It’s
no coincidence. We’re looking for the same killer.”

“
But didn’t Lieutenant
Capshaw investigate garroting murders in the area over the past
several years and find nothing?”

“
True, but that’s not
Capshaw’s fault,” Miss Hamilton said. “Initial reports merely said
the guard died in the fire. The coroner’s corrected notation as to
the manner of death was easy to miss. I’ve been looking
specifically for incidents involving explosives—something we didn’t
know about before now.”

“
So you think Florence
connected the ship-board explosion and the wrapper she later
found—among her paramour’s possessions, perhaps?—and on that
evidence alone, she decided to blackmail her lover and his group?”
Concordia couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice.

“
A paper scrap is hardly
damning evidence, I grant you,” Miss Hamilton acknowledged.
“However, the Inner Circle member she blackmailed may not have been
sure what proof she actually had. Or perhaps that scrap was all she
managed to conceal before her death, and other physical evidence
she’d possessed was taken away by her killer.”

“
So the Inner Circle paid
her, at least for a while, until they could figure out if she had
told anyone else, what evidence she had, and where she’d hidden
it.” Concordia shivered.

Miss Hamilton nodded in agreement.
“And no doubt planning to silence her, at a place and time that
wouldn’t disrupt their own operations.”

“
But Florence must have
suspected them,” Concordia said. “So she went into
hiding.”

“
Stopping only to visit
Eli,” Miss Hamilton added. “That delay to see the boy gave them the
chance to find her.”

To hide the tears that blurred her
vision, Concordia took a sip of her tea, now gone cold. Her stomach
clenched at the dangerous game the woman had gambled at, and
lost—one that had nearly cost Eli his life, too.

Miss Hamilton checked her watch. “I
have to go. I’m interviewing the conductor at the train station
again. I want to show him the cufflink design.”

Concordia checked her own
timepiece. “Oh! I have to be back in time to help with final
preparations for tomorrow’s performance of
Othello
. We’re going in opposite
directions, but at least we can keep each other company at the same
corner.” She looked up at the sky, where gray clouds had swept in,
blotting out the spring sunshine. “I hope the sky doesn’t open up
in the meantime.”

Waiting at the crowded stop, Concordia
asked Miss Hamilton, “After interviewing the conductor, what’s your
next step?”

Since people hovered quite close to
them—Miss Hamilton would have quite a time getting a seat on the
downtown car with this crush—the lady leaned in to whisper in her
ear. “I have an appointment tomorrow to speak to the chief of
police, to inquire as to why he took Capshaw off the
case.”

Concordia’s eyes widened. “He won’t
tell you anything,” she murmured back. “If he’s a Brother, he
can’t.”

“
I know.” Miss Hamilton’s
gray eyes took on a determined look. “But I have to
try.”

“
Won’t that get the
lieutenant in trouble?” Concordia protested.

“
He’s given me his
blessing,” Miss Hamilton said. “He wants to get to the bottom of it
as badly as the rest of us. But it’s most certainly a
risk.”

Concordia nodded, feeling miserable.
Here was Capshaw, newly married and adopting Eli, and he could very
well be dismissed—or worse—if the Inner Circle was
alerted.

“
The chief’s the only link
we have,” Miss Hamilton said, her jaw set in
determination.

The trolley for the downtown line was
approaching, and people began to jostle one another for a front
position. Concordia and Miss Hamilton hung back.

“
Hey! Outta my way, you,”
growled one rough-and-tumble man to another, and swung a hairy
elbow. Concordia caught a glimpse of a seaman’s anchor tattoo as
the man caught another tough full in the face and bloodied his
nose.

Pandemonium erupted. Before they could
move out of the way, Concordia and Penelope Hamilton were caught in
a sea of knuckles and elbows. They held up their hands to protect
their heads from the cross-blows as they tried to retreat to a safe
distance. A woman screamed. People stumbled in their panic to get
away. Concordia found herself separated from Miss Hamilton, who was
swept into the thick of the chaos.

The trolley continued to glide
smoothly toward the corner, its driver ignorant of what was
happening.

“
Stop it! Stop!” Concordia
yelled, fending off stray blows as she struggled to close the gap
and reach her friend.

To her horror, just as the trolley was
bearing down upon the corner, a shove—she couldn’t tell from whom,
there were so many bodies—sent Miss Hamilton flying. The lady
landed in the street, directly in the path of the trolley car, its
driver now frantically applying the brake.

Miss Hamilton lay
motionless.

“
No!” Concordia screamed.
Several women put their gloved hands to their mouths in terror. The
men seemed oblivious to everyone except whomever they were
pummeling.

Concordia made a final push
toward Miss Hamilton’s still figure in the street. She launched
herself in one leaping tumble, snatching at the woman’s waist as
her momentum rolled them into the middle of the dusty street.
Concordia felt a painful
snap
of her shoulder as she landed on her
side.

The last thing Concordia remembered
seeing before she blacked out was the grimy underside of the
streetcar bumper, stopped at last, inches from her ear.

This accident is not unlike my
dream:
Belief of it oppresses me already.

Othello
,
I.i

Week 11, Instructor
Calendar

May 1898

Concordia awoke to the sound of rain
pattering against unfamiliar windows. Why wasn’t she in her bed at
Willow Cottage?

Then she remembered. Miss Hamilton
lying motionless in the street. The oncoming streetcar.

“
Miss Hamilton?” she called
out, struggling to push herself into a sitting position,
wincing.
Drat.
Her
left arm and shoulder were immobilized in a sling and throbbed like
the devil.

She surveyed her surroundings, taking
in the sight of two rows of iron-rail beds containing women in
various stages of wakefulness. At the foot of each bed, clean,
shiny pails were positioned on the linoleum flooring.

Mercy.
She was in a…hospital. She craned her neck to get a look at
the other women in nearby beds. None of them was Miss
Hamilton.

“
Concordia! Oh, thank
heaven.” Mrs. Wells hurried over to her bedside. She was followed
by a short, rotund man whom Concordia took to be the
doctor.

“
Mother,” Concordia said,
taking her hand and blinking back tears, “Where’s Penelope
Hamilton?”

“
Who?” Mrs. Wells
asked.

The gentleman interrupted. “Do you
mean your companion, the other lady who was injured?”

Concordia nodded, wincing as her head
ached.

“
I’m not in charge of her
case,” the doctor said, “but I understand that her condition is
considerably more serious. She’s on a different ward.”

“
More serious? Will she be
all right?” Concordia asked anxiously.

The doctor hesitated. “I’m sorry,
miss, but I don’t have the particulars to be able to
say.”

“
Can I see her?” Concordia
persisted, struggling to swing her legs to the floor.

Mrs. Wells made a gesture of protest,
and the doctor put out a gentle restraining hand. “The lady is
being well cared-for, and there’s nothing you can do at the moment.
I must insist that you stay in bed. You have significant injuries
yourself: a blow to the head, a dislocated shoulder that has been
set into place, and a good many scrapes and bruises.”

Concordia’s mother paled and she gave
him an anxious glance. “Will she be all right? When can I take her
home?”

The man shook his head. “I need to
conduct my examination now. Mrs. Wells, why don’t you have a seat
over there?”

The doctor motioned to the nurse
nearby. With the nurse’s help, the doctor poked, prodded, and
listened. Finally, he straightened up as the nurse smoothed the
covers and settled Concordia, pale and trembling, more
comfortably.

“
I expect you’ll recover
completely, miss,” the doctor said, putting his stethoscope back in
his bag, “but you need to be off your feet for at least a week. You
should be able to go home in a few days.”