The Oldest Flame by Elisabeth Grace Foley Read Free Book Online

’em. He probably thought the bag was
evidence.”
    “I would hardly credit him with the feelings
of a faithful family retainer, seeing that he has only been with
the Lansburys for a year,” said Mrs. Meade, drawing herself up
deliberately into something like her former composure, “and before
that he was headwaiter in the hotel at Coronet.”
    She frowned, hesitated and then spoke again.
“But—if it were true—that Mr. Lansbury had arranged the
fire—Chalmers could have been his accomplice. Mr. Lansbury was away
from home when the fire occurred, and Mr. Grey was with him to
provide an alibi. Someone had to perform the actual details of
setting the fire—Chalmers seems most likely.”
    “And what about the kid?” said Andrew Royal
with unaccustomed shrewdness. “I’m not forgetting what the maid
said he said. Suppose it was his father and him had the
whole thing planned before he talked to you. He could have got to
thinking the fire might do him some extra good in getting the
girl’s attention, too.”
    Mrs. Meade shook her head. “That doesn’t seem
quite right. I hardly think—”
    “But the butler ,” said Royal,
reverting to his pet theory without seeming to have heard her. He
gestured slowly with a big forefinger, as if enumerating points of
argument. “Suppose Lansbury was going to burn his own house—but wanted to save something—and he hid it outside before he left—” He stalled for a moment, still gesturing, but
looking as if he had forgotten he was doing it. Mrs. Meade, perhaps
for reasons of her own, forbore to interrupt his thoughts.
    “—and the butler was in on it, and was
supposed to fetch the stuff—and came around in the morning and
found me lugging your bag out of the bush!” He sat back,
looking rather exhausted, but pleased with himself.
    She was not at all sure what she thought of
this theory, but she did not altogether object to having the
unfortunate butler absorb Royal’s attention. So many things seemed
to have gotten disquietingly complicated, and she wanted time to
think them through.
    Sheriff Royal’s thoughts were moving along
very different lines, but at this point they evidently intersected
with hers.
    He launched himself out of his chair with a
quickness belied by his rusty appearance. “Why, blast it!” he
sputtered, “if that’s so, then I’ve let that blame butler go right
back to get what he was looking for! Blast,” he repeated in
disgust. “I knew I should have arrested him this morning.”
     
    * * *
     
    Lansbury and Grey arrived home from Denver
the next morning. They found their families established at the
hotel in the nearby town of Coronet, where they had moved from
their temporary quarters in the neighbors’ homes. Mrs. Meade and
Steven Emery were with them, but Sheriff Andrew Royal was not
currently in evidence. He had begun the day by serving a search
warrant on the indignant Chalmers, who had taken up residence in
the staff quarters of the hotel, their hospitality having been
extended to him by his friend and successor as headwaiter. Having
accomplished nothing here beyond creating a disturbance that
eventually made itself felt as far as the manager’s office, Royal
collected his young deputy, whom he had summoned from Sour Springs
to help, and began digging around the ruins of the Lansbury house,
where he was still engaged in searching. With the possible
exception of Mrs. Meade, however, no one knew exactly what he was
looking for.
    Descending the hotel staircase that
afternoon, Mrs. Meade met Mark Lansbury on his way up. He looked a
little soberer than he had two days before, yet he did not appear
as strongly affected by the events of those days as some of the
others in the party.
    “What’s going on, Mrs. Meade?” he asked her.
“Do you know? Mother and Dad don’t seem to be saying what
they’re thinking, but I don’t think they like the sheriff’s being
here. And Chalmers has asked for his time. He says he’d rather be