by Mr. King

Installment III,
in which our Hero finds himself in a most uncomfortable Situation!

Wellington rushed in the direction of Tillie’s terrified scream. The room was dim but not dark to the point of blackness. Thank the heavens he could see her. He ran directly to her, putting his arms around her and tucking her behind him. His eyes scanned the room, searching for the threat.

“It was over there.” Her voice shook.

“What was?” The room was empty—not even a stick of furniture.

“A flame. A bl—blue flame.”

“The room was on fire?”

She clutched his arm, trembling. “No. It was floating in the air. Away from the walls. Away from the floor. No candle. No torch. Just a flame.”

His gaze turned from the room to her. “Floating?”

“Don’t look at me like I’m mad.” She pointed near the window. “A floating flame. It was there, and then, poof, it blew out. But there was no one who’d been holdin’ it. There was just . . . nothing.”

She still held his arm, like it was a lifeline in a raging sea. Wellington didn’t know what she’d seen, perhaps something outside that, when glimpsed through the high, dingy window, had seemed to be inside.

He stepped toward the window, meaning to see if he couldn’t solve the mystery. She didn’t release her white-knuckle grip on his arm. “You are well and truly frightened.”

“You’d be as well if you’d seen what I did.”

“A flame? The flicker of a candle?”

“It was too large for a candle.” Her voice still shook. “It moved about all on its own. Nothin’ to explain how it could possibly be there.”

He unwrapped her fingers from his forearm and took her hand in his instead. He saw no singe marks on the walls, no indication that anything had been aflame. He spied nothing outside the high window that might have been mistaken for a flame. Would the mysteries never cease?

“I cannot explain it, Tillie.” He looked to her. “Are you certain you didn’t—”

“It weren’t my imagination.” Her eyes filled with growing panic.

Wellington tugged her toward the door. “Let us go back to the cottage. We can save our search efforts for another day.”

She nodded, still shaken. “I think that’d be best.”

Hardly another word was spoken as they crossed the estate grounds. She was pale, bless her, and very quiet, a rarity for Tillie Combs.

Her father took note of her condition immediately. “What’s happened?”

Tillie dropped onto a spindle-back chair, apparently not able or ready to answer. Wellington did so instead.

“During our search for the missing things, she saw something she cannot explain.”

“What?” Mr. Combs looked from one of them to the other.

“A blue flame,” Wellington said. “It floated with no explanation.”

“A blue flame?” He repeated the description in a tone of awe, his wide eyes falling fully on his daughter. “Moved about, did it?”

Tillie took a shaking breath. “It was unnerving, Papa. Cold and . . .” She shook her head. “I didn’t like it.”

Mr. Combs rubbed at his unshaven chin as he paced away. “Odd, bein’ where we are. Odd, indeed.”

“You know what it was?” Wellington asked. What a boon it would be if he could, indeed, explain it.

“I’ve a notion.” Mr. Combs motioned him out of the house. “I’ll give it some thought, sir. If m’ Tillie saw what I think she saw, you’ve a bigger mystery on your hands than you realize.”

He was offered no further explanation than that. In a moment’s time, Wellington was outside the cottage, alone, confused, and already longing for the return of Tillie’s smiles and spirit-lifting company.

Two days after the blue-flame encounter, Mrs. Smith rushed into Wellington’s library, a mixture of excitement and panic on her face. “You’ve visitors, sir!”

“Visitors?” He very seldom had anyone call on him at Summerworth. It was an isolated estate, and his period of mourning for his parents had necessitated the estate be quiet and lifeless. Even with that period passed, nothing much had changed.

“Two carriages, sir,” she said. “And the young people spilling out look fine indeed.”

He rose from his desk and crossed to the window. Two carriages sat in the drive, but both appeared to be empty.

“The visitors are in the drawing room, Mr. Quincey,” Mrs. Smith said.

The house was so out of practice with visitors, Mrs. Smith had managed the thing in quite the wrong order. “I will be there directly,” he said.

She nodded and rushed from the room.

Visitors. He didn’t know whether to feel pleased or concerned. What if his as-yet-unidentified thief had made off with the tea set or the chairs in the drawing room? What if these new arrivals were hoping for a place to stop their journey for the night and they, too, found themselves victims of this thief?

Wellington made himself presentable and joined his guests in the drawing room. One mystery solved itself immediately. Two of the gentlemen—Alsop and Henson—were known to him, they having been acquaintances at school. Perhaps not truly close friends, but near enough to make a call, even an unexpected one, completely acceptable.

Bows and curtsies preceded formal introductions. His one-time chums had brought with them a Mr. Fairbanks, his sister, Miss Fairbanks, and Miss Porter, an acquaintance of the Fairbanks family. Their manner of speaking and dress marked them all as residing firmly in the upper class. There would be no footraces among this lot.

“You’ve not been to London in ages, Quincey,” Alsop said.

“I have been in mourning,” he reminded them.

“Not for the last six months.”

The truth of that could not be argued. “The estate has occupied much of my time of late. Leaving it unattended has not been an option.”

Henson was walking the length of the drawing room. “The place seems nearly abandoned. Has some tragedy befallen the area?”

“Many of the servants left after my parents’ passing.” That was all the more detail he meant to furnish them with on that score. “As for tragedies, would a string of thefts suffice?”

The ladies pressed shocked hands to their hearts—not the theatrical jest Tillie had employed, but a gesture made in earnest. The gentlemen looked to him with alarm.

“Thefts?” Mr. Fairbanks clicked his tongue and shook his head. “What is this world coming to?”

“I believe I will catch out the culprit soon enough,” Wellington said. “But at the moment I am baffled.”

Mrs. Smith appeared quite suddenly in the doorway, a frantic expression on her aging face. “Another visitor, sir. Miss Combs.”

Tillie slipped inside with her usual adventurous spirit firmly in place. “I’ve a notion to search again if you’re—” Her gaze fell on the others. “Oh. You’ve callers.”

Wellington waved her closer. “Miss Combs, this is Miss Fairbanks and Miss Porter. Mr. Alsop, Mr. Henson, and Mr. Fairbanks.”

They offered half-hearted bows and curtsies. Tillie’s effort was a touch less refined than was generally seen in more exalted circles, but there was no malice in it, no disrespect. She was a good soul.

“How do you two know one another?” Miss Fairbanks asked.

“Miss Combs”—it felt odd referring to Tillie so formally; they’d been friends so long, he struggled to think of her as anything but his one-time playmate—“grew up on the estate. Her father is the Summerworth steward.”

“Ah.” More than one of the visitors made the exact same noise of dawning understanding.

“Do you still live on the estate?” Miss Fairbanks asked Tillie. “Few people do, as I understand it.”

“The butler and housekeeper and m’father and I are the only ones left,” Tillie said. “We see to it the grand ol’ place keeps standing.”

“Mr. Quincey is fortunate to have all of you,” Miss Porter’s words were kind, but something in her tone was not.

Tillie seemed to notice it as well. Her brow drew down, and she watched the gathering with more wariness than before.

Alsop returned his attention to Wellington. “We’re bound for a house party at George Berkley’s estate. You remember him from Cambridge. He said he’d be most pleased to have you there.”

An invitation to a house party. This was the first he’d had since leaving behind his mourning period. When first he’d finished school and entered Society, he would have jumped at the opportunity, but now he found himself hesitant.

“Do come, Mr. Quincy,” Miss Fairbanks said. “It promises to be a very enjoyable week in the country.”

“While I am grateful for the invitation, I do need to sort out the matter of these thefts. Else, I might return home to find the house entirely empty.”

Tillie still hadn’t moved from her spot. Her eyes darted from one person to the next, her concern and confusion clearly growing. What had her so frozen? Tillie was not usually one to be rendered so withdrawn.

Mrs. Smith arrived with a heavily laden tray. She set it on a nearby table, then tossed him a look of apology. “I’ll be back with the actual tea, sir. I’m a bit at loose ends, being out of practice and such.”

Before he could reassure her, Tillie spoke. “I’ll help you.”

“Oh, bless you, Tillie.”

The two women slipped out, but Tillie looked back, meeting his eye before dropping her gaze and hurrying from the room. Where had her unflagging spirit gone?

“Does Miss Combs often make herself so at home here?” Henson asked. “Seems a bit forward for a servant.”

“She’s not a servant,” Wellington insisted. “She’s the daughter of the estate steward.”

“A minor difference,” Miss Fairbanks said. “She is most decidedly bold.”

“She is helping me search for the thief.”

“Helping you find the thief?” Alsop shook his head. “Has it occurred to you, my friend, that she might be the thief?”

“Tillie?” He guffawed. “She would not steal so much as a dandelion from a meadow much less items belonging to another person.”

Alsop shrugged. Henson gave Wellington a look of pity.

“I do hope we are wrong, Mr. Quincey,” Miss Fairbanks said, “but you would be well-advised to keep a close eye on her.”

“I will take your advice into consideration,” he said through tight teeth.

“I see we have offended you.” Miss Fairbanks fluttered over to him, all solicitousness. “That was not our intention. Do come to the house party with us. Allow us to show you we hold no ill will.”

“Again, I thank you.” He addressed them all. “But I will have to decline. Estate matters require my attention.”

Conversation grew more general, ranging from topics of Society to the weather. The visitors were not unpleasant, neither had they been outright rude, yet Wellington felt dissatisfied with their company. He missed Tillie. He had missed her the past two days. Heavens, he had missed her the past two years. If only she hadn’t run off to the kitchens. If only this group hadn’t sent her fleeing there. If only, if only, if only!

Tea was brought up, but by Mrs. Smith alone. Tillie, it seemed, did not mean to make another appearance.

The callers prepared to depart, insisting they needed to be on their way if they were to reach their stop for the night, the last before arriving at their final destination. Farewells were exchanged as were hopes that they would meet again, perhaps in Town.

“Do think on what we said,” Alsop offered, one step from the front portico. “You may be chasing a thief who knows where you are looking. When one hands an arsonist matches, one is playing with fire.”

Wellington motioned him on. “I will bear that in mind.”

A moment later, they were gone, yet Wellington did not rest easy. He hadn’t even a moment in which to do so before Tillie spoke from behind him.

“They think I am your thief, don’t they?”

He spun about. There she stood, looking somehow both hurt and defiant. “They don’t know you.”

“But you do, and you gave some thought to their warning.”

“Tillie—”

She pushed past him. “You didn’t believe me ’bout that flame, and you don’t full believe me that I’m not thieving from you.” She pointed a finger at him. “We’re friends, Wellington Quincy. Perhaps it’s time you treated me like we were.”