“A year or two passed, an’ next thing we knew word come that the inn where they worked had burned to the ground with ever’one in it. It were a sad day. It were made even sadder, for my wife took to her bed, turned her face to the wall an’ died. The Almighty only knows why I kept on livin’. ‘Cept perhaps cause takin’ yer own life is a mortal sin.”
The old fellow blew his nose again on the much-abused handkerchief, and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “Ah, pshaw, ‘tain’t nothin’ so pitiful as an old fool. I’ll carry their deaths on my soul to my grave.”
The room was still as the listeners allowed the old man a few minutes to collect himself.
“What of the baby?” Constable Brooks asked.
“For that, I am most especially damned,” the old man confessed. “With my wife so sick, I didn’t think to ask. By the time I did, she was long gone from that run-down boarding house. No one knew what had become of her. The landlady said twarn’t no baby left there the night of the fire.”
The room was so still Tiffany could hear Michaels’ harsh breathing as he sat beside her.
Then Constable Brooks said, “I have something to show you, Mr. Ironholder. Tiffany, do you have your clasp knife with you?”
Tiffany felt as if a bolt of lightning had just shot through her. The knife had been used as a weapon against Lord Northbury. Should she admit to having it?
“Come, come, my dear,” the constable encouraged her. “Nothing untoward will come of your presenting it. Do you have it?”
Tiffany stood up, and slowly walked to the front of the room. “I do have it, Constable Brooks.”
“May I see it?” he asked.
Reluctantly, Tiffany drew it out of her pocket and handed it to Constable Brooks.
“Mr. Ironholder, I have something I would like to show you.” The constable handed the knife to the old man.
Mr. Ironholder took the knife from the Constable and turned it over and over in his gnarled old hands. He opened it and closed it, and then he began to laugh. It was a crazed cackle of a laugh. “Hit never did hold right,” he said, his voice breaking. “Never did, an’ my daughter twitted me on it afore the weddin’. But it was what I had to give as a gift to my son-in-law. An’ he said it were a fine treasure, that no one had ever made a knife for him before. All polite, like the fine lad he was. Damn my pride.”
Mr. Ironholder bowed his head to hide the tears that ran down among the wrinkles on his face.
Tiffany stood stock still, scarcely knowing what to do. “Grandfather?” she asked tentatively.
Chapter 59
Lord Ronald broke the silence. “I fail to see what this has to do with me and my nephew,” he objected. “This is all very well and good, but my coach has been waiting this last quarter hour, no doubt at great discomfort to my horses. My nephew has ayoung woman waiting to marry, a room prepared in Bedlam, and doctors ready to help him recover his wits. I cannot think that all this peroration can possibly be germane to his future.”
“Be patient with me yet a while, Lord Ronald,” Constable Brooks said. “This interesting tale has many parts, rather like a well-made rope or a design made of sailor’s knots. That last certainly being of interest since Michaels comes into it as well.”
“Michaels?” Lord Ronald’s eyebrows drew together, accentuating a ferocious frown. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Just be a little patient, and you shall see,” Constable Brooks said. “This is the point at which all becomes exceedingly interesting, indeed. A few days ago, I had occasion to look into the ownership of the rundown manor house where Old Elizabet and her associates have been squatting. Let me fill you in on a portion of my investigation.”
Lord Ronald looked ready to explode into a fresh spate of words, but Lord Nevard went to him and murmured something in his ear. At this, Lord Ronald subsided, but continued to look as if he were furious.
“Not long after Tiffany Bentley accepted the position as cook, Lord Northbury asked me not only to look into her antecedents, but to also inquire into the proper ownership of the old manor house since he had it in mind to perhaps take it over and pay for renovations if it was truly abandoned. Subsequently, I learned that the inn where Miss Bentley’s mother and father perished had once been a hunting lodge associated with the old manor.”
“This pertains to me and to my nephew, how?” Lord Ronald glowered at Constable.
“Now that is a curious point,” Constable Brooks commented. “I believe it goes to show that all things are connected, and sometimes in unusual ways. To ascertain the answer to your question, we need to go back a few years, eighteen years to be precise, to the night the old inn burned.”
Tiffany turned to him, bewildered. “But how can you do that? If everyone from the inn burned in the fire, then who could possibly know anything about it?”
“Here’s the thing,” Constable Brooks said. “Not everyone burned in that fire. But when lords and other peers are involved, the little people fear to come forward. There were two people, who are in this very room, who were not caught in the blaze. Elizabet, Michaels, I think the time has come to tell your tale.”
Old Elizabet lifted one eyebrow at Constable Brooks. “What is it that you would have me tell?” she asked, all hint of subservience and lower-class accent falling away from her voice.
“Only what you told me while we sat watch with Mrs. Bentley as she suffered her way through the travail her indulgences had brought her.”
“It is no small thing you ask of me,” she remarked. “I will, in this utterance, cast my people adrift, and without a home.”
