The Oldest Flame by Elisabeth Grace Foley

moment
before speaking, she knew he had something to say which he
suspected his listener would not like.
    “No luck,” he said at last. “I’ve dug round
that heap of ashes and crawled through that garden all day. I’ve
questioned that confounded butler until we’re both black in the
face, and I’ve even wired to Denver to check up on Lansbury’s
business. No leads. Now that Grey fellow, there’s holes in his bank-book you could drop a caboose through, but that’s
no help.”
    He paused. “It all points to the kid, Lettie.
I know how you feel about it. But where there’s smoke, there’s
fire, and he’s the only one with any smoke around him.”
    “I knew you would come to that conclusion,”
said Mrs. Meade, “and I understand why. But I’ve thought it all
over very carefully myself, Andrew, and there are three things that
do not fit.”
    “Such’s what?”
    “The books, first of all,” said Mrs.
Meade.
    Royal looked blank. “What books?”
    “You said the fires in the library were
started with piles of books and sofa-cushions. Now, Mark has been
fond of books his whole life. No one who is really a devoted reader
would start a fire with books, if they could find something else
handy.
    “And then there was his shirt. I loosened his
collar when he was unconscious, after Steven Emery brought him out
of the house, and I saw that the whole thing was buttoned
wrongly—all the buttons were in the wrong buttonholes. That looks
like he had dressed hurriedly, at the alarm, rather than having
been up before everyone else to start the fire.”
    “It wouldn’t go in court,” said Royal,
shaking his head.
    Mrs. Meade’s voice suddenly grew firmer. “But
that’s not all, Andrew. There’s one question I have been asking
myself over and over: Why doesn’t Mark show remorse over the
death of Miss Parrish? We have been so concerned with the
details, I think we’ve been in danger of forgetting at times that a
woman died in that fire. And that isn’t like Mark . If he
really started that fire, and because of him a woman was killed, he
ought to be absolutely sick with guilt. Why isn’t he? He knows how
she died. He was outside her door trying to save her when—”
    Mrs. Meade suddenly stopped, leaving the
sentence unfinished, her eyes fixed on some indefinable point in
mid-air. There was a strange expression on her face. Her mouth
opened slowly.
    “Eh?” said Andrew Royal after a moment, when
it was clear she was not going to speak again immediately.
    “Yes—I see it all now,” said Mrs. Meade in a
hushed voice, without looking at him. “That was why it happened so
quickly, when he was there in the hall. And that must mean…” Her
voice trailed off. “Now I understand. And it’s worse—even worse
than what we imagined, Andrew.”
    Royal stared at her. Every sign of
belligerence and impatience had left his weathered face, so
impressed was he by the strange, serious way in which she
spoke.
    Mrs. Meade took a step toward him and spoke
in a low, hurried voice. “Andrew—will you do just one thing for me?
Don’t do anything more until tomorrow. Don’t arrest or question
anyone. It will only be a few hours’ difference. There is just one
thing I want to find out. But first—” She thought for a minute, and
then finished with decision, “First I must speak to Rose.”
     
    * * *
     
    She found Rose sitting alone in the
window-seat of her hotel room in the near-twilight, her cheek
resting on her hand, gazing pensively out into the softly gathering
gloom. Rose turned slowly to look at Mrs. Meade as the older woman
sat down opposite her, and Mrs. Meade saw that her gray eyes were
dark and almost sad with thought, but in the shadowed corner of the
window-seat her face seemed again very young and childish.
    “My dear,” Mrs. Meade began quietly, “there
is something I would like to tell you. You may not understand it
now, or understand why I am saying it, but I do not ask you to
understand—only to