Chapter 23 #2
“I wonder if she was still conscious at all?” Marigold asked.
“If she could swim or somehow try to get away?” Physical education, including swimming, was a required element of every Wellesley woman’s plan of study, but Olivia wasn’t an official member of the college yet.
“But if she were still conscious and could swim, perhaps she might have tried to get away from him, under the dock. I’m fairly certain one could even stand under there—the water isn’t above four feet deep. ”
“Let’s have a look.” Cab shone the lantern down into the dark but clear water.
The beam of light illuminated a rippling sandy bottom that gave way, closer in toward the shore to flatter, to a muddier, silty lakebed strewn with algae-covered rocks.
“Let us project the light back and across in a logical, thorough, archaeological grid pattern so we don’t miss anything,” Marigold directed, before she amended. “If you please. Slowly now.”
“Aye, aye,” Cab said without rancor and did as she bade, going down on one knee at the edge of the dock to sweep the bottom with the beam of light from the lantern, working from one side of the bay to the other. “Wait.” He swung the lantern back. “Did you see that—”
“Gleam? Like a little flash of metal?”
Detective Pratt came to the edge opposite Marigold. “Just so,” he confirmed. “Yes. There.” He pointed.
She saw it—the flash of momentary brilliance catching her eye, much like the glass beaded button she had found on the path above.
Marigold knelt down upon the edge of the dock to get a closer look. “Hold the light steady now,” she instructed, as she fixed her eyes on the shining little dot. “Do you see it?” She put her archaeologist’s eye to work. “It doesn’t look like metal …”
“No,” the detective agreed. “More like a block or a stone.”
“But there was a gleam—” She sat and began pull off her suit jacket and her shoes. She would have to make her apologies to Isabella for the ruin of the ensemble, but a potential clue against Wilkie Valentine was more important than any outfit.
“Marigold?” Cab’s voice rose in alarm. “Don’t—”
She had already slipped into the cold, cold water. And immediately gasped for breath.
“By God,” Detective Pratt muttered again.
She sucked in a breath through her teeth.
“Just, just hold the light steady,” she instructed grimly, before she put her face into the water and opened her eyes.
As soon as she spotted that singular gleam coming from the otherwise unreflective object, she immediately stroked down toward the pool of illuminated light, moving as economically as possible so she didn’t stir up the silty soil to cloud the water and obscure the dark shape nestled into the sand on the bottom.
Marigold dug her hands into the silt and was surprised to find the thing, whatever it was, was smaller than it looked, soft and light, not heavy.
She pushed off the bottom and broke to the surface, gasping against the cold. “Here.” She half swam her frigid way back to the edge of the dock to grapple the sandy little thing onto the planks, where Cab quickly knelt down to retrieve it.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “Let me help you out—”
“No. Over there.” She fought to speak without her teeth chattering. “Turn the light. Over there.”
“Beneath the dock?”
“I saw something in the light over there.”
“It’s probably outside, in the sunlight. We’ll take the skiff and I’ll—” Cab reached down for her. “Just come out of there.”
“Get in the skiff, then, and come around.” Marigold knew if she got out now, she would never be able to convince herself to get back in.
Cab bit down a curse, but did as she asked, handing the artifact she had recovered to Detective Pratt before the two of them clambered into the skiff and pushed off.
Cab rowed close, so Marigold could cling to the side of the gunwale as he piloted them through the low open end of the bay and into the sun.
“Here,” she judged.
They were just a little further out into the lake from where Marigold had found the body, which had been on the pier closest to the shore.
She put her face back into the water and fought for a moment against the driving shaft of cold though her skull.
She refocused her eyes on the sandy bottom, waiting as long as she could for the dark ribbonlike shape she had seen to come back into view.
The moment it did, she kicked down to the bottom, digging her hands into the gritty soil at the bottom, immediately obscuring whatever object she might hold clutched in her hand.
She broke the surface with a gasp, and immediately Cab was there, taking the thing from her clutch before he clasped her forearm and hauled her straight up out of the water and into his lap, puritan reserve be damned.
“I’ll get you w-wet!” Marigold protested.
But Cab was already wrapping her up in his tweed jacket as well as his overcoat. “Of all the tomfool things to do in October—”
“Yes, yes. Don’t f-fuss,” she chattered, until she realized that her wet clothes might be plastered quite revealingly along her body.
She gathered the edges of his coat around her as best she could with nearly numb fingers.
“What was— is—” She tried to turn their attention to the evidence, but she was panting with the cold.
“It looks like a pocketbook.” Cab kept his arms around her. “Black—”
“Suede,” she finished for him. “Like her gloves. M-matching.” She reached her hand out of the cocoon of clothing to touch the soft leather. It was not as new as the rest of Olivia’s ensemble had been—the strap was worn in the middle, and the clasp was broken.
She pushed the purse frame open to find a waterlogged piece of thick paper, folded in half. But her fingers were too cold and unresponsive to do anything other than poke clumsily, ripping a piece off. “Damnation. What is that?”
“Looks like a … liner ticket, perhaps?” Cab observed. “That’s a star—”
“May I?” the detective asked, and Marigold reluctantly handed him the waterlogged pocketbook.
“From the White Star Line?” Detective Pratt mused. “But your information was that Wilkie Valentine and his wife embarked on the Cunard Line?”
“It was,” Cab confirmed.
“It makes no sense,” Marigold complained over her aching jaw. “And it’s too wet and fragile to look at here,” she mused over her shivers. “Let’s get it back up to College Hall where we can try to dry it a little so we can read it without ripping it any further.”
“That is the best idea I’ve heard all day.” Cab set her away only so he could row them directly to the beach, which would put them closer to the hall. And which would give her two or three more minutes of Cab’s marvelous forearms flexing on the oars, distracting her from the chill.
But not too distracted—practical considerations came first. “We need to go back to the boathouse for my shoes and coat, if you please. I can’t very well trudge back up to the hall in stocking feet in this weather. Or at least I would prefer not to.” She was cold enough already.
“I could carry you,” Cab offered, even as he swung the skiff around to return through the first bay of the boathouse. He rowed them in and neatly debarked to tie off the painter before he extended his hand to help Marigold out of the boat. “Your hands are like ice.”
For once, she was grateful for the assistance. “I know it seems a stupid thing to have done,” she began to explain, but when Cab pulled her into his arms again to warm her, practical considerations went the way of the dodo bird.
All she could see before her was Cab.
All she wanted to see was Cab.
“Marigold,” he said in a voice that was full of warmth and regret all at the same time.
She waited for the return of his puritan reserve—for him to set her away.
But she hung on to him and willed him to kiss her anyway.
And for no reason that she could fathom, he finally did.