Chapter 5 #2
“Petechiae,” the doctor explained. “Mm. Yes.” She reached to turn down the collar of the sodden velvet jacket and hissed in her breath.
But whatever explanation she had been about to make was interrupted by the return of the rest of the senior crew.
“We found a blanket, Dr. Barker.” Ethyl was back, holding forth her prize. “Two of them actually—one to carry and one to cover her,” she added solemnly.
“Very good thinking.” The doctor’s smile was kind if not warm. “And here are Mr. Griffin and Mr. Duckett to assist us,” she observed as the men clambered down the wooden staircase to the dock level. “Thank you for coming so quickly, gentlemen.”
What a solemn procession they made, bearing their makeshift blanket stretcher up to the rotunda, then trudging silently behind the cart as it wound its way back up the hill to College Hall.
Whatever indignation or determination had made Marigold want to stay with the girl until she had at least been identified began to leach away with each cold, squishing step.
But when the wagon turned for the covered porch at the front of the building, Marigold felt her purpose return.
“Ma’am?” She called to Dr. Barker, who was seated in the well of the wagon with the draped body. “Do you think perhaps the west entrance—nearest to the stairwell leading up to your Hospital Wing—would be better? It would certainly be far more discreet?”
She could only imagine what might happen were they to bring the body in the main entrance—frankly, some onlookers had already begun to take notice, their mouths gaping open in astonishment, and not a little horror.
“Yes, certainly,” the doctor agreed, directing Mr. Duckett to steer the cart toward the far side of the building.
Her part effectively done, Marigold briefly debated leaving the small cortege to go directly into the sheltering warmth of the Hall, but something about the way the other girls seemed to naturally close ranks—Ethyl looped her arm through Marigold’s in unspoken support—kept her going with their discreet party.
But there was no keeping the situation a secret—especially not in such a tight-knit community of academically minded young women, who were trained and encouraged to be intellectually curious.
Their peace—the peace of this beautiful sanctuary of female learning—was about to be shattered.
Malice and wickedness had found their devious ways in.
At the far west end of the building, President Irvine awaited them like a vigilant sentry against such evils.
“Thank you all for your assistance, girls,” she said to the assemblage.
“I hope I don’t need to mention that discretion is very much required of all of you.
Please, let us not set tongues to wagging with rumors and suppositions before we have been able to ascertain the facts. ”
“Yes, ma’am” was the answering murmur, though Marigold had little hope of the direction being fully followed—human nature could not be suppressed.
The girls would need to talk about such an experience amongst themselves at the very least, and roommates and best friends not present at the boathouse were bound to be included in the discussions.
She herself had a number of thoughts and suppositions careering about her brain.
“Thank you, that is all. Again,” President Irvine raised her voice as the girls turned to go. “Discretion is our watchword. Thank you. You are dismissed with my thanks.”
Marigold would have gone with the rest, but President Irvine’s voice stopped her. “Not you, Marigold. I suspect we’ll have need of you.”
Dr. Barker looked askance but kept her peace, so Marigold obligingly waited while the two older women conferred.
“I’d planned to take the deceased up to my Hospital Wing,” the doctor was saying, “where I can conduct a more detailed examination. It seems the most appropriate place while you send for the authorities.”
“Agreed. And I’d like to suggest Marigold—whom I have in the past found to be especially accurate in her observations—assist you for discretion’s sake, as I understand she was the one who found her. If that is all right, Marigold?”
What else could she say, though she was still dripping, chilled, and uncomfortable? “Naturally, ma’am.”
“Perhaps if she can take down notes for me while I dictate, I think we’ll have a very comprehensive report done relatively quickly, for she did have some very astute observations in the heat of the moment,” Dr. Barker conceded.
“As I expected.” President Irvine agreed before she turned to Marigold. “If you could assist Dr. Barker while Mr. Duckett and the porters take the body upstairs, I would be much obliged.”
“Naturally, ma’am,” Marigold agreed immediately. “But wouldn’t one of my classmates studying medicine be a better choice? Ethyl, for example—” She looked for her hallmate with her pertinent knowledge of rigor mortis, but Ethyl had dutifully disappeared with the others.
“The fewer people involved, the better,” the president answered. “And I have faith in your powers of observation.”
Marigold was in it now, whether she liked it or not. Death had followed her home.
Or had it? Maybe it was here all along and she had just been unlucky enough to chance upon it. But Marigold didn’t believe in coincidences.
On Great Misery, it had been her arrival on the island that had set the murderous chain of events into motion. That could hardly have happened here—no one, aside from the president, had known she was coming. And she didn’t know this poor dead young woman in the least.
But someone else had to. Even in a large community like the college, with over seven hundred young women living together, the victim could hardly be unknown. It had to be one of them.
But naming the victim was only half of the problem—they also had to find the person who had pushed this girl under the dock. And if there were over seven hundred young women who might be the potential victim—there were also over seven hundred potential suspects.
Looked at with less partial, more objective eyes than hers, the cloistered community of the college that Marigold found so close and comforting might be seen as—to use the clinical word of the Viennese physicians—claustrophobic and oppressive.
A hothouse where disparagement might bloom into insult, and small slights might fester for years.
While that psychology might work if it were an older academic who had been strangled, it was not unheard of for a student to form their own academic rivalry that could spill over into something more sinister—witness Sarah Appleton’s disgusting prank with the rat and her continued unwillingness to put down the gauntlet of competition.
Yes, malice had followed her home to college.
And Marigold would have to expel it.