Chapter 24
“The respect that is only bought by gold is not worth much.”
Frances Harper
There was something about being kissed by Cab that made her lose her mind and find it all at once. That made her happy and hungry and scandalous and safe simultaneously. That made her want the kiss to never end.
But those pesky practical considerations, like breathing and dripping water down one’s legs and not freezing to death, and the presence of a professional police detective could not help but take precedence.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said before he handed her her shoes.
“I’ve got the evidence,” Detective Pratt had already headed for the stairs.
Marigold was glad of the policeman’s discretion—not that she was embarrassed by their display of affection. It was both natural and right. But there was still a murder to be solved. “You have the other thing?” she asked him. “What was it?”
“Not sure,” he said. “A box of some sort, maybe.”
“Let’s discuss this someplace warmer, shall we?” Cab suggested. “Come on.” He put his hand around her waist to bundle her up the stairs and out onto the path the way they had come.
“Oh, no,” she said again when he would have steered her toward the closest doors at the east end of the building. “This way, if you please. It will make far less of a scene if we go in the far door.”
Discretion and prudence might not have been expedient in the cause of identifying Olivia Thayer, but Marigold would enlist them to her own cause—she did not want to try Miss Burke’s patience and loyalty by dripping across College Hall.
“You need to get warm and dry as soon as possible,” Cab was instructing.
“Which I can do best if we go in the west door,” she insisted, “which is closest to my rooms. I’m not made of spun sugar, Cab—you of all people should know that.
And besides,” she added fuel to her fire.
“If I have to sign you both in and out officially, it will take forever, and you’ll be gawked at, not to mention ogled, and I’ll have to explain why I’m wet, and we will be unnecessarily delayed in finding out just what’s in the pocketbook. ”
“Have it your way.”
She did not say that she always did—or at least frequently did have things her way. One ought not make too much of one’s self. And at the moment, one’s self was in desperate need of dry, warm clothes and a very stiff drink. And another deliciously warm kiss.
She must have shivered again, because Cab’s hand came more snugly about her waist. “I do wish you’d let me carry you.”
“Suit yourself,” she said as they entered through the side door Detective Pratt held open. “It’s four flights up. I’ll advise you to pace yourself.”
Cab settled for a very solicitous arm at her waist. “Just in case.”
Detective Pratt doffed his blue uniform hat, tucked it beneath his arm and said in the same clear, calm voice Mr. Duckett and the porters employed, “Man on the hall.”
As if he had extensive experience navigating female-only places. For such a young man, Officer Pratt had untapped depths.
“Thank you, Detective. Well done. You might as well come in,” she said when they reached her floor. “It’s the safest place for you both.” She let the two gentlemen into her parlor.
Detective Pratt stood stiffly by the open door, while Cab took an expansive look around. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a young lady’s dormitory room before. It feels quite scandalous.”
“It is extremely scandalous.” For the second time that afternoon, Marigold wished that she was not in the middle of a murder investigation, with clues in need of their attention. And that she really was as scandalous as she said and had no care or caution where Cab was concerned.
But even if she didn’t, she knew Cab did—he had caution and respect enough for both of them. And that was why she admired him so.
Still, he had warmed her once with a kiss—what else might he be persuaded to attempt?
Marigold shivered so violently she nearly fell into the nearby chair.
“You’re still soaking wet and chilled to the bone,” Cab observed with some small degree of rancor. “You ought to get changed.”
Practical considerations before the theoretical. And definitely before the romantical.
“Pour me a drink, will you?” Marigold waggled a finger at the left side of her steamer trunk bureau. “Sherry’s hidden up there. Water glasses on the table. I’ll be right back,” she promised before she dashed across the hall. “Ethyl?”
Ethyl looked up from her study table. “Well, don’t you look like you were dragged backwards through a briar patch. Or maybe a beaver dam. Been in the lake again?”
“Naturally. Come play chaperone with Mr. Cox.”
“Oh, goody.” Ethyl jumped up with alacrity. “I’d like to get a gander at what you fancy.”
“Ethyl,” Marigold announced as she came through the door. “Cab. Cab, Ethyl. Miss Rautencranz, Detective Pratt. Detective Pratt, Miss—”
“Ethyl will do,” her hallmate finished cheerfully. “And drinks! How nice.”
“Oh, thank you.” Marigold took the proffered sherry gratefully. “Ethyl, chaperone our guests while I change into something less pneumonic.”
“I don’t think that’s a real word, Marigold,” Ethyl said.
“It is now.” Marigold shut the door to her bedchamber and took a deep breath before she laboriously peeled each layer of wet clothing, from her saturated satin skirts down to her elasticized sporting corset, and chafed herself thoroughly dry with a Turkish towel.
She could hear Cab and Ethyl in easy conversation in the next room, and so took her time getting dressed, rearranging her hair and hanging out her wet clothing to dry—again, she respected Isabella and her seamstresses too much to treat such skillfully made clothing with anything but the utmost care.
“… so you think the manchineel plant, or is it a tree?” Cab asked.
“Tree in my part of the world.”
“And what part is that?” Detective Pratt asked.
“Florida, just outside St. Augustine.”
“Long way to come for school,” Cab observed.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ethyl laughed. “Say, do you have a cigarette? Or better yet, a cigar?”
“Are you allowed to smoke in the dormitory?”
“Nope.” Ethyl said. “But that hasn’t stopped me yet.”
“Ethyl, you will get us in deep trouble if we’re caught smoking and drinking at the same time,” Marigold said as she returned to the sitting room. “One or the other might pass, but not both.”
“Spoilsport! Well, now you look like yourself,” Ethyl commented. “Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted.” She rose and made a valedictory sort of bow to Marigold’s guests. “Pleased to meet you, Cab Cox. Detective.”
“Don’t go.” Marigold waved her back. “We have a scientific conservation quandary to solve. Detective, do you have the pocketbook?”
Detective Pratt gestured to the wet suede artifact on Marigold’s worktable.
“Thank you. Inside,” Marigold opened the clasp as she spoke, “there is a sodden piece of paper—a ticket, we think—which is terribly fragile. Is there some solution that might help dry it so it doesn’t rip?”
“Let me see.” Ethyl adjusted her spectacles. “Maybe ethyl alcohol, but I’d reckon the most expedient thing would just be to manually dry the paper. Blot it with a towel on one side, then flip it over and add another, like a clean washrag or—”
“Handkerchief?” Cab produced an immaculate square of Irish linen.
“Perfect.” Marigold took the proffered piece of fabric. “And I’ve got some Turkish hand towels in my trunk.”
Together they swaddled the suede exterior in the towel and slid the linen handkerchief on top of the paper ticket.
“Maybe if we turn it over and prop it open.” Marigold flipped the purse over, so the paper now rested on the handkerchief. “And we can pull it out?”
“I’ll hold the clasp open, and you slide,” advised Ethyl.
Marigold did so. “Let me get a tweezer—”
“Wait,” Ethyl instructed. “I’ve got a set of surgical forceps. Be right back.”
“Naturally.” Marigold was all admiration for Ethyl’s preparedness.
And so was Detective Pratt. “If you ladies aren’t the most resourceful young women I’ve ever met, I’ll eat my hat.”
“It won’t make much of a meal,” Marigold tried for wit.
“No, it won’t,” he agreed. But for the first time that Marigold noticed, the young detective smiled. It wasn’t one of Cab’s ready smiles, full of charm and fellow-feeling, but it was companionable enough to make Marigold sure that the women were being treated as equals.
“Glad to see you’re no worse for wear from your dip in the lake,” Cab said quietly.
“Thank you for your concern, but you’ll find I have the constitution of a moose.”
“An otter, perhaps,” Cab countered. “Far more elegance.”
That compliment she let slide as Ethyl came back with the promised instruments in a small case. “We’ll want these long-nose forceps, I think.”
Marigold blotted the folded paper one more time before she slid the nose of the instrument between the layers and gingerly pried the paper apart.
The four of them crowded closer, craning their heads to see.
“White Star Line.” Marigold read the printing across the top, and below that, “Second Class? Cheapskate—what kind of man tries to take a young lady of Olivia Thayer’s caliber on a transatlantic honeymoon in second class?”
Her question was rhetorical—obviously Wilkie Valentine was a rotter—but Cab answered with another consideration.
“The Cunard Line tickets for Mr. and Mrs. Valentine were third class—which I’m assuming was the best he could afford after already having purchased this one and, I’m also assuming, his own.
But what day—which sailing—was this one for? ”
Various parts of the ticket were printed or stamped, like the port of Boston and the name of the steamship, RMS Utopia, but the rest of the pertinent information was filled out faintly in ink.
“Purchased … September sixth for … sailing October … eighth?” Marigold read.
“So that was the original plan, made well in advance—over a month earlier? That they elope to Boston on the Sunday evening and sail the next day?”