“Thank you, Mrs. McGrath. She would be glad of it, I know.”
The remainder of the visit passed without incident as Cleo attempted to steer the conversation away from the elopement and toward safer ground such as the coming dance. By the time that the girls had left, Cleo was more than ready to step out of the house for a breath of fresh air. Her mind whirled with concern for her absent friend, and she prayed that Gwendolyn had found true happiness and not fallen victim to folly. Only time would be able to say which it would turn out to be.
Cleo gathered her cloak and bonnet, then met Mrs. McGrath by the front door. Leaving the house, they made their way along the streets of the town until they came to their favorite shop. They entered and spent the next hour looking at fabrics and patterns for new dresses. When they were finished, they left the shop and strolled leisurely to the grocers to pick up a few more things for supper, then stopped for tea at a hotel dining room. By the time that they arrived back home, it was time to begin preparations for the evening meal.
When Cleo offered to aid in the preparations, Mrs. McGrath declined and chased her out of the kitchen. Smiling in anticipation of the evening’s festivities, Cleo retired to the drawing room, taking up a copy of one of her father’s favorite books,Le Morte d’Arthurby Sir Thomas Malory. She quickly became absorbed in the story of knights and adventure, losing herself in the epic.
The clock merrily chimed the hour, startling Cleo out of the fantastical world of chivalry. It was time to dress for supper, but her father had not yet returned home. Mrs. McGrath made an appearance, her brows raised in inquisition. “Himself has nae arrived home yet?”
“Nay, he has not. It is most unusual of him.”
“Aye, I dinnae think that he has been late for supper since he was a wee lad.” Mrs. McGrath’s brow furrowed in a frown.
“Perhaps a student kept him,” Cleo offered to assuage her own concern, “So little ever happens in the safe environs of the university, it seems pointless to worry so over it.”
“As ye say, lass,” Mrs. McGrath murmured, but she had an odd expression on her face that did not sit well with Cleo.
“I am certain that all is well,” Cleo insisted but did not rise to go and dress for supper, instead remaining in the window seat to watch for her father.
Mrs. McGrath returned to the kitchen, wringing her hands in her apron. “Call out if ye need me.”
Cleo did not respond but kept her eyes looking out toward the direction of her father’s office. Hours passed as darkness descended until she could no longer see but for the few scattered lanterns along the way. Mrs. McGrath continued to keep the supper warm but brought Cleo a tea tray. When the knock finally came, Cleo rushed to the door, swinging it open and came to a horrifying halt to see the dean of the university standing on her doorstep with a constable, both holding their hats in hand.
The sorrowed looks on their faces filled Cleo’s heart with terror. “Miss Cleo Wallace?” the constable asked.
“Yes,” Cleo stammered out.
“I regret to inform you that your father, Professor Henry Wallace, has passed.”
“What? How?” she asked in a state of shock, tears instantly springing to her eyes.
Both men exchanged a look of dread before the constable answered her. “It saddens me to say it, but it seems the Professor Wallace has committed suicide.”
“What?” Cleo could not believe what she was hearing.
“Your father has killed himself, my dear,” the dean answered, stepping forward to offer her his handkerchief.
Cleo ignored it. “I know what suicide means,” she snapped, the shock she felt dispelling with any sense of decorum. “I simply refuse to believe it.”
“It is true, Miss Wallace. There is no doubt,” the constable insisted. It was clear that he considered her to be in a state of denial, and perhaps she was, but with everything she knew about her father, she knew that he was incapable of performing such an act.
Unable to bear the looks upon their faces a moment longer, and not believing a word that they were saying, Cleo dashed past them out of the door. She ran out into the darkness without thought to anything else, but with an iron determination to get to her father’s office so that she might prove the dreadful men wrong.
“Wait, Miss Wallace! You really should not…” His words faded into the distance as Cleo ran for all that she was worth toward what she hoped would be a much better truth than the one that they had claimed.
When she reached her father’s office, she found a large crowd of men standing in the doorway. Unwilling to deal with any of them, she charged through the mass without pardoning herself. When a constable tried to stop her, she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through the last of the legged jungle. When she emerged through the door into the room, she found a body covered in a sheet, blood staining the floor.
“Nay, it cannot be!” Cleo rushed forward and fell to her knees beside the body. She lifted the sheet and gasped in distress at the sight of her father’s pale lifeless face beneath. “Father,” she sobbed, tears pouring down her face in uncontrolled desolation. She took him into her arms, exposing the other side of his head. There, she saw the wound that had ended his life, a gunshot to the temple.
Somewhere in the room, Cleo heard screaming, a heart-rending, stomach curdling sound. It was not until her vision faded to black, just before she lost consciousness, that she realized the screams were coming from her own mouth.
Chapter 2
When Cleo awoke, she found herself being lifted into the arms of one of the constables. Not wishing to leave her father’s body behind, Cleo commanded the man to put her down immediately. He did and she knelt back down beside her father. “Who did this?” she asked him, unwilling to believe the suicide theory that the other constable had insisted upon.
“It was a suicide, Miss,” the constable repeated his colleague’s assessment.
“Nay, it is most certainly not a suicide. My father would not have killed himself, not ever,” she insisted, getting angry. Attempting to get her tears under control, she surveyed the room for any signs of foul play. The office was exactly how she had last seen it with the exception of a few books and papers scattered here and there, as per usual in a professor’s sanctuary. She did not see a gun but knew that it was likely that the constables had already retrieved it.
