Page 9 of Foresyth Conservatory
I arranged for the care of my mother with Lady Florance’s daughter, Angelise. She was a stout woman, twice my age, diligent, kind, and the only person I could trust to take care of my mother and the shop while I was away. I gave her a generous rate of ten dollars a week, and she was to send word if anything became amiss.
The Meister arrived just past five, two weeks after our first meeting, just as he had promised. He wore a black bowler hat and the same grey overcoat with the fine lining. We spared no time at the entryway as the driver took my suitcase and tied it to the back of the motorcar.
I tugged my coat tighter against the wind as the Meister helped me into the motorcar. As the door slammed shut, I stared back at the little bookshop I was leaving, with its crooked sign that read “Blackburne Bookstore and Gifts.” Despite the new boards and windowpanes, the shop looked minuscule from this far down the main road, crowded in a sea of other little shops and passersby. I sent a silent goodbye to the flower shop and shoe cobbler sandwiching my store. I was grateful for the home it had been to me all these years, but deep in my bones, I was ready to leave.
I spared one last glance upward to the second floor and saw the curtains drawn. I couldn’t see my mother, but from the angle of her bed, I knew she had drawn them to watch me.I’ll be back.I sent the promise across space, hoping it would be true.
The motorcar rumbled to life and I tore my gaze from the bookstore. The Meister was seated next to me.
“Ms. Blackburne, I would like to congratulate you on taking this next step in your future.” His green eyes twinkled as he handed me a beige folio. “I do wish the circumstances of our partnership were less unfortunate. But regardless, I hope your time at Foresyth will be illuminating. For both of us.”
I took the folder from his gloved hands and pressed it into my lap to steady it against the bounce of the motorcar.
“There won’t be time to meet the other students today, as we’ll be arriving late. You’ll pardon my tardiness, as I had a client of my own to attend to earlier in the day. Inside the folio, you’ll find the police report with all the evidence collected during their inspection. The victim’s name was Julian Earhardt, a six-and-twenty-year-old male.His concentration was in enigmatology. His dissertation focused on Eastern esoterism, specifically Gnosticism, an early form of mythological Christianity. He died last Spring Equinox, in March.”
“I see. So, less than a year ago,” I said without looking up as I scanned the police report. “Why didn’t you advise the police to simply arrest the other students?”
“There was no evidence to indicate anything besides suicide,” he said, lowering his spectacles. “And arresting all the students would effectively shut down my entire institution.”
“And despite your suspicions of foul play, you didn’t press the police to collect more evidence?”
The Meister narrowed his eyes. “Ms. Blackburne, you need to understand something very important. I wanted this case closed, publicly, as soon as possible. The reputation of my school is critical. We cannot let a scandal like this blacken our reputation, lest our donors cease their funding. The house is . . . demanding and takes funding to maintain. If I couldn’t afford to keep it open, the school would not survive. That is precisely why I have hired you . . . Eliminating the threat under discretion is the only way forward.”
A familiar tension coiled in my gut, tight and unyielding. My father had always placed his faith in process—trusted that truth, when scrutinized under the weight of enough evidence, would rise clean to the surface, like oil atop of water. But here, with no official sanction and cloaked under pretense, I was charting a path without precedent or protection.
Was I capable of this? Alone, and in defiance of the very system meant to safeguard it?
I exhaled slowly, pressing the doubt into the recesses of my mind like a footnote. The only course now was forward. Truth was not an elusive spectator—it was a pattern, hidden in plain sight, waiting for the right mind to reconstruct its symmetry. I only had to hold the fragments to the light and let them speak. How difficult could that be?
Look for the inconvenient truth. My father’s words echoed through me.
“It says here that he died from a coagulation of blood in the brain. But the coroner’s report also states that there was a lethal dose of valerian root mixed with nightshade in his system.” I flipped to the next page. It was an image of the victim—a sturdy-built man, tawny-skinned, with neatly trimmed, curly, dark auburn hair, wearing an oxford suit and suspenders. His face was swollen, his eyes nearly bursting from his skull. The way his body was arranged was the worst of all.
He was hung inverted from a wooden tress, his legs forming the shape of a four. The Hanged Man. The realization nearly stole the air from my lungs.
“Yes, Ms. Blackburne. Your reading predicted the manner in which the victim died.”
“It has to be a coincidence,” I said, looking up. But that familiar knot of fear was tugging at my stomach again. I squeezed my eyes shut—I just had to think.
“It could be,” he replied, but his tone seemed unconvinced.
My head raced for an explanation. “There are seventy-eight cards in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. There’s an almost thirteen percent chance that the Hanged Man would appear in one of the ten placements in my spread. Slim, but not improbable. And that’s not even considering other cardswith complementary associations . . . Death, the Devil, the Eight of Swords, and so on.” The facts steadied me as I said them aloud.
“Very well. Coincidence. A hell of a coincidence, but let’s accept it for the time being. Now, what can you deduce from the evidence presented thus far?”
I took a breath, flipping through the pages again before answering. “The victim died when his central nervous system shut down from the poison. The deadly effects of nightshade, if I recall correctly, take two to three hours to set in. That means he was hung, or hung himself, after taking the poison. But why? Wouldn’t the poison alone be enough to kill him? Why go through the trouble of hanging the body in such a fashion?”
“Precisely the question, Detective Blackburne.” The Meister nodded approvingly. “That’s what I was hoping you could figure out.”
*
I had combed through the case file until the words blurred and sleep overtook me. When the car finally lurched to a halt, the sky outside was ink black. A tap on my shoulder—light, but insistent—pulled me back to consciousness. The Meister’s hand. I blinked awake, heart stuttering in my chest.
“Easy, I was just trying to wake you. We’re getting close. There are a couple more details I need to share with you regarding your status and employment at the Conservatory.”
I wiped the daze from my eyes and collected the papers strewn across my side of the motorcar.
“You, Dahlia Blackburne, were educated at Wesley College and obtained a degree in classics,” the Meister handedme another folio, this one black. Inside, I found a Wesley College transcript and several other documents affirming my degree credentials.
