Chapter 12
“It takes two flints to make a fire.”
Louisa May Alcott
“I am sorry, Imogen. It is a trial, to be sure,” Julia Irvine agreed. “And a very great blow to the movement of woman’s suffrage, but at the very least you have the comfort of knowing that however lost, she is at least not dead like this poor unfortunate soul who remains unidentified.”
“Indeed, Julia.” The professor took her consolation like bitter medicine. “I will, of course, call the Forensics and Debate Society together this afternoon and inform them of the news. And have them take the notices down.”
“Yes. That seems a sensible first step.” Julia Irvine nodded her agreement. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Of course. Well, then. What must be done was best done soonest.” Imogen Currier rose and briefly clasped President Irvine’s hand in thanks.
Marigold stood as well, but her attention was momentarily riveted by the sight of a diploma or award of some kind on the wall behind Professor Currier’s desk—from the Société des Belles Lettres.
S.d.B.L. The letters on the pin recovered with the hat.
Marigold hurried after President Irvine, too convinced by what she had just seen and heard to wait for privacy or discretion.
“I just don’t like it, ma’am. If I’ve said it once, I’ve thought it a hundred times—there are no coincidences.
I think we ought to have Professor Currier take a look at the body just to make absolutely sure before they take it away. ”
President Irvine frowned. “Do you really think that’s necessary? I feel she ought to be spared any further distress—she looked so ill.”
Marigold worked to contain her impatience. “Yes, of course, as much as possible, but the letters on the girl’s hat—”
“I understand your frustration, Marigold,” the president said. “And your particular passion for justice. I commend you for it. But Professor Currier’s health is of greater concern to me at the moment.”
“But I have another—”
“No buts.” Julia Irvine shook her head. “Not in public. Come with me, where we might talk more privately and freely. Because I can see you really are not going to take no for your answer.” The president led the way into her office, where she sat behind her desk and knit her fingers together across her lap before she spoke again.
“Now. I understand from Dr. Barker that you were privy to certain disturbing information resulting from her preliminary examination of this unfortunate soul?”
“If you mean the signs that the girl was strangled? Yes.” Marigold gave way to her frustration—and disgust. “They didn’t put that in their tabloid, did they?
” she said, looking at the copy on the desk.
“All this revolting ‘threw herself into the lake’ business—why must they always say things like that, when it isn’t in the least bit true? ”
“Because fiction sells papers, Marigold. You of all people should understand that. But believe me, if the newspapers get hold of the chance of a mad strangler running wild about the college, they will splash that across their front pages without a second thought or a second’s remorse.
And if that happens, every parent from here to Maine and back down to Washington, D.C.
, will come steaming up the train tracks in an unthinking panic, hellbent on taking their daughters away from such a threat.
” She took a sip of the clearly cold tea in her cup before she set it back with distaste.
“So, we must tread a very fine line indeed.”
A line which Marigold could not see for the wide path of evidence before her. “But—”
“I know you see things others don’t, Marigold. And you think of things before you are asked. You are already investigating, aren’t you? Your observations of Professor Currier’s response to the announcement and your finding the girl’s name are proof enough of that.”
“There is more,” Marigold confided. “The pin on the girl’s hat—the one we pulled from the water—was engraved with the letters S.d.B.L. And just now in Professor Currier’s office, I saw a certificate or a citation from the Société des Belles Lettres on her wall. That cannot be a mere coincidence.”
“The Society of Belles Lettres is one of the oldest literary societies in the country and a well-known student organization—we have a chapter at the college,” the president said. “Professor Currier is the faculty sponsor.”
“Another reason the girl in the lake must be someone Professor Currier knows,” Marigold insisted. “Even if it is not Olivia Thayer—for her to have such a pin shows she is clearly someone educated and … one of us!”
“I see your point.” President Irvine’s response was characteristically measured.
“I will speak to Professor Currier again, but at the moment, I should like to take her word that it is not Olivia Thayer. And what reason could she have for lying, especially about something that will be another hard blow to the reputation of the college—in a different way—when it is known that Olivia Thayer has abandoned her principles to run off with this young man?” She took a weary but fortifying breath.
“Men are not the enemy, my own dear Mr. Irvine used to tell me frequently. But they do seem to make it difficult for the rest of us.”
“Indeed,” Marigold agreed.
“But our involvement with this unfortunate business is near its end—the coroner’s office have to make their official findings independent of Dr. Barker’s report.
Only if they come to the same conclusion about the cause of death will the case be passed on to a higher authority, whoever that will be—neither the coroner’s men nor the town watchmen were sure.
” She shook her head. “They don’t even have a telephone exchange!
They were completely flummoxed when I offered our telephone so they might communicate with the police in Boston to see if any young women who might answer to the description of our unfortunate soul might have gone missing from there. ”
Marigold’s frustration found a new avenue of approach. “There are people in Boston to whom I might communicate that question.” And if Marigold was also alarmed by the alacrity with which a certain man’s face had leapt into her mind’s eye at the thought of Boston, she kept it to herself.
“You were always my keenest student, Marigold.” President Irvine’s compliment was offset by her tone of warning.
“Your intellectual curiosity is an asset I have come to rely upon, now more than ever. As I said, you see things others don’t—it is what will make you a dynamic force as an archaeologist.”
Marigold was humbled by her mentor’s faith in her. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“But I fear your attention to this affair will be a hinderance to your studies. You have taken on an exceptionally full academic burden this semester—at my encouragement—and your studies need to come first. Do I make myself clear?”
Marigold felt all the weight of the woman’s gaze—and her expectations.
There was no one on this earth she was less prepared to let down that this formidable woman she admired so.
Julia Irvine was said to be prickly by many who were intimidated by her straightforward personality.
Marigold, for her part, had always rejoiced in Professor Irvine’s forthright, clear, and lucid instruction.
And she did so now. “I’m sure I can manage some small inquiries on the college’s behalf without interfering with my studies. You can rely upon my discretion, ma’am, just as surely as you can rely upon my curiosity.”
“Marigold, I will be frank, for we have not the luxury of being evasive.” The president stood and adjusted her spectacles upon her nose in a rare gesture of frustration.
“This death could not have come at a worse time. Suffice it to say that the changes we have made to the curriculum and the resulting necessary changes amongst the faculty have placed a necessary but undue strain on the budget. We need this cleared up—and by that, I mean investigated in a thorough and unbiased, professional manner and the truth found by the requisite authorities. I expressly mean that you should not do anything to sacrifice your academic standing—and the future that awaits you as a scholar, by imposing yourself into this tragedy. Am I being clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” As much as Marigold disliked being told off—and stymied—she knew the president was right. Still, her suspicions of Professor Currier were not going to go away. “I hope I may offer my testimony as well as Dr. Barker’s to see that justice is served.”
“Yes, that will do.” Julia Irvine was unflinching in her gaze. “Only the truth will serve the college in the end.”
“You have my word.”
“Thank you.” President Irvine nodded and sat, already returning her attention to the tasks upon her desk. “Then I will trust you to it.”
Marigold had her marching orders.
It remained to be seen if anyone else might try to set the tune.
After her dressing down from the president, Marigold wanted the exercise of her bicycle.
She always seemed to think better when she was cycling, and she needed some time to reconcile the opposing evidence and opposing choices before her.
Despite her promise, she knew she would never be able to concentrate upon her studies with her mind at loose ends about the murder.
It was still light enough that she did not feel in any danger at going alone, and she would take a satchel with an appropriate evening dress and accoutrements—sportswomen’s attire would never do when Isabella had made sure to outfit her with dinner gowns—but for the moment, action was the thing.
She packed and pedaled toward East Lodge via the longer, lesser-used path closer to the water so she could pass by the boathouse and take stock of what she knew as fact and what she only supposed might be true.