“Are they the ones responsible for the letter?” That question opened up a world of hurt for Tilly, whose emotions were already raw from her recent ordeal, but she had to know.
“There isn’t anybody else who has access to my desk, or study, I am afraid. What we don’t know is why they did it; whether they did it for themselves, or someone paid them to do it.” He gave Tilly a frank look. “We do know that neither of them looks like the Mrs Bolsworthy who recommended the fictitious job to you, so I suspect that someone else is involved.”
“Do you think it is them who brought me here?” Suzanna asked tearfully. Her worry increased as she glanced almost fearfully down the road at Dandridge. “Why?”
“We don’t know. While I cannot condone you remaining in that poor house a day longer than you absolutely had to, I will not ignore the fact that both of you, Tilly and Suzanna, have both been brought here under the pretence of starting new jobs that really don’t exist. Those letters were sent from someone in this town.”
“But my job wasn’t in Tooting Mallow. The new job I was supposed to go to was in Malvern.”
“What happened to you?” Tilly asked with a frown. She watched Zack slide closer to Suzanna, and hold her hand comfortingly while Suzanna recounted the details.
“I caught a post chaise from home. We stopped off in Leicester. I took a room for the night but didn’t feel at all well. I went to sleep but, when I woke up, I was here.”
“Where?” Harry frowned and stared at her.
“In the tavern in the coaching inn.” She nodded down the main street behind them.
“You went to sleep in Malvern, and woke up in the coaching inn in Tooting Mallow?” Tilly asked, and exchanged a cautious look with Harry. “Are you sure?”
“Did you have all of your things on you?” Harry growled.
Her answer came as no surprise. “Yes, but I only brought with me the money I would need for food on my journey. I didn’t have enough to pay for my room here, or buy a ticket to Malvern.”
“So you were destitute?” Tilly knew how that felt.
“Do you have any recollection of how you got here?” Harry frowned.
Suzanna shook her head. “I felt groggy for a good day or so afterwards. I had no way of getting home, or anywhere else. I snuck out of the tavern without paying for the room, but had nowhere else to go.”
Harry and Tilly looked at each other. “The Poor House,” they said in unison.
“Good Lord,” Tilly whispered. “Do you think the third person is linked to the poor house?”
Harry did, but had no idea why the Dandridges’ would want their victims to reside there.
“How long have you been there Suzanna?”
“A little over a year now, I think,” Suzanna answered with a frown. “Why?”
Harry sighed and looked at each of them sternly. “Because I just wonder how many other people like you two are still in there.” He nodded across the valley toward the huge mausoleum.
Silence settled over everyone for a moment while they all sat with their thoughts and memories.
Harry glanced at Zack and sensed that his story was a little different. However, without raking everything to the surface, he had no idea if the boy’s mother had actually been buried, or was still alive somewhere. That being the case, why had they kept Zack at the poor house?
When everyone stared blankly at him, Harry sighed. “My colleagues and I will keep you under constant guard. Suzanna, once we have this case solved, one of my colleagues will escort you back to your family. Meantime, it is safest if you remain with us, along with you, Zack.”
“I don’t have any family to go to,” Zack said bluntly.
“Don’t worry about it right now. All will be well, I can assure you.” Harry didn’t say as much but he would adopt the boy himself if he had to. Anything but allow him to be moved to another institution.
He turned his attention to Tilly. “You need to stay with me.”
He quite deliberately didn’t tell her how long for, but rather suspected that their time together would go far beyond the end of his investigation in Tooting Mallow.
“I need your help,” he said to Tilly, then turned to look at Zack and Suzanna. “Yours too, if you are willing?”
“What do you want us to do?” Zack gasped and nodded pointedly toward Dandridge, who was nearly at the top of the hill. “He is here.”
Harry left the conversation mid-flow, and clicked the horse into a walk.
“Don’t discuss anything while the Dandridges’ are in the house. They have no idea who we are, or what we are up to.” He shot them all a dark look. “If we have any chance of unravelling this particular mystery, we have to keep quiet about everything. Agreed?”
They all nodded and remained silent for the rest of the journey back to the Rectory. Once they had pulled up outside the Rectory, Harry helped everyone down and escorted them into the house.
Tilly stared at the building and quickly blanked out the memory of that fateful day when her life had changed so drastically. Instead, she bravely smiled her thanks at Harry, and walked into the warmth of the main hallway.
Harry briefly considered whether to leave the carriage out front for Dandridge to see to, but had far too much respect for his horse to do that. Instead, he stalked into the sitting room and yanked hard on the bell pull, then waited impatiently for his lazy housekeeper to slouch her way into the hallway.
“Get yourself together woman, if you want to keep your job,” Harry snapped when she finally appeared.
He watched an affronted scowl appear on the woman’s face for a moment, but didn’t give a damn if she walked out. It would be something of a relief if she did, and took her worthless husband with her, not least because neither of them could then be a threat to Tilly. There was something within him that warned him it wasn’t a good idea for Tilly, Suzanna, or Zack to remain under the same roof of the Dandridges’, even with the Star Elite on guard.
“We have guests. Sort out rooms for everyone. Clean sheets, fresh water. Make sure the rooms are polished and swept. Then set about making tea for everyone, and I mean a proper tea, not that fetid muck you usually throw in a saucer. Make sandwiches and cake.”
“Don’t have no cake,” the housekeeper grunted.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Harry snorted. “Tell me something Dandridge? What do you do with your day here? As I see it, you are supposed to be the housekeeper, yet you do no cleaning. You are supposed to provide meals, yet cannot cook. You are supposed to run the house; but it is slowly sinking into decline. It is clear that you have never done a proper day’s work in your life. So why do I pay you? What do you do all day besides sit around, and eat my food out of my kitchen, and snoop around my things?”
As he spoke, he watched worry start to cloud the woman’s bilious eyes. He made a point of locking gazes with her, and conveyed in that one, stark look, all of the threats that he didn’t want to issue in front of his already traumatised guests.
Harry leaned toward her menacingly. “If you want to remain in my house, sort yourself out woman or I will have you out on your ear. Right now, get the food organised, then see to the rooms, and get that worthless husband of yours to help you.”
When Dandridge remained where she was for a moment, Harry lifted his brows querulously.
“Now, woman!” he bellowed.
To his utter disgust, the housekeeper slouched back to the kitchen as slowly as she had arrived, undoubtedly to grumble at her husband.
He turned to Tilly and shook his head. “Sorry about that. Come and sit in here. At least it is warm. We will see what she can come up with by way of food. Although, don’t hold out much hope that it will be reasonable fayre,” Harry warned darkly. “The last time she made me cake, we had a good door stop for several weeks.”
Zack sniggered and perched precariously on the plush seat within the sitting room alongside Tilly and Suzanna.
Although he could have done without the pious stares o
f the people in the paintings staring down at him from the walls, the thick rugs that covered the dusty floors looked wonderfully posh, and were something that Zack had never seen before. He tried to ignore the sudden urge to take his boots off and wriggle his toes in the one beneath his feet, to see if it was as soft as it felt. After several moments of thoughtful silence, he reached down with his fingers instead only to sneeze when a fine plume of dust immediately rose to tickle his nostrils.
“God, has she ever cleaned?” Tilly asked, then gasped when she realised how ungracious she has just sounded.
Harry shook his head. “I doubt it,” he grunted. “Neither of them do anything as far as I can tell.”
The clatter of pots in the kitchen was the only sound that broke the silence that had settled over everyone. However, it was too loud to be normal. Tilly wondered if the housekeeper was banging them to make a point to the master of the house, or whether she was just really bad at cooking, or really clumsy.
Suddenly, the house fell silent. Moments later, the slam of the back door made them all jump. Nobody moved. Tilly turned to look out of the window, and gasped at the sight of Mr and Mrs Dandridge stalking angrily down the driveway with carpet bags in their hands.
“Isn’t that your staff?” she asked Harry with a frown as she nodded toward the window.
“Seems like they have decided to leave,” Zack pointed out as he craned his neck to get a better look.
“Aren’t they going to wait for their wages?” Suzanna asked, and turned to look at Harry.
“I have no doubt that they have already helped themselves to more than their wages. I bet the housekeeping money has just gone with them,” Harry replied, seemingly unconcerned.
“Have we just interfered with your investigation?” Tilly asked, wondering if they should all find somewhere else to stay.
Harry grinned at her. “Right now, I want them both out of this house,” he replied frankly. “I have done for a while, if I am honest. I have enough proof that they have been altering the accounts to hide the fact that they had planned to steal money from the safe. When I arrived here, I took an inventory of the house contents. I have no doubt that the inventory I do tomorrow will not match. The items that will be missing will undoubtedly be found if we visit the pawn brokers around these parts. Even more importantly, the descriptions of the people who have traded the stolen items will match the descriptions of that useless pair. It will be enough to enable us to arrest them for fraud and theft.”
“Why? I don’t know them. Why would they go to the time and trouble to steal the Rectory seal, and forge a letter to get me here?” Tilly demanded with a frown.
“I don’t know yet,” Harry replied confidently. “But we are damned sure going to find out.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to keep them here so you can keep an eye on them?” Tilly asked. “I am not trying to tell you what to do, or anything,” she hastily added.
“I think that we have to push them a little. We can follow them now, and see who they meet up with. You will be under permanent guard while you are here, and will be safe from any threat those two might otherwise have posed.” Harry sighed and ran a weary hand down his face. “Right now, we think that the letters you both received, the Dandridges’, and the missing governor at the poor house, are all linked in some way. We just don’t know how yet.”
“There is something I don’t understand,” Suzanna sighed and waited for Harry’s nod. “If they wanted us here, why leave us to rot in that poor house?”
“I have no idea, but we will find out,” Harry assured her.
Once the Dandridges’ had disappeared from sight, he pushed out of his chair and motioned them all to stay right where they were.
“I am going to go into town and get some pies off someone. Make yourselves at home. Lock the door behind me, and don’t let anyone in until I get back. I won’t be long,” he said as he hurried out of the door.
Before anyone could speak, the door slammed closed behind him and left them all in slightly stunned silence.
“What do we do now?” Zack asked blankly when Harry turned out of the end of the driveway. “Why is he on foot?” he asked nobody in particular.
Tilly took the opportunity to study Harry as he made his way down the road after the Dandridges’. She didn’t tell Zack as much, but she rather suspected that Harry was following them.
“I think that we need to take a look at that kitchen, and see what state the housekeeper has left it in,” Tilly sighed.
If there was a morsel of food to be found in there, she would find it. She was so hungry that she was going to start to eat her own shoe if she didn’t get even a stale chunk of bread to gnaw on.
“Wait!” Zack burst out, and looked first at Tilly, then Suzanna. “Shouldn’t we lock the house like he told us to? I mean, we don’t know if the Dandridges’ will come back. Harry said that he doesn’t want them in the house at the minute.”
“He has a point,” Suzanna sighed and hurried to the door to slide the top bolt across the front door.
They all made their way into the kitchen. Although it was dirty, smelly, and had clearly no organisation to it whatsoever, there was at least a semi-fresh loaf of bread in the centre of the kitchen table, and half a pound of butter beside it. It was enough for now.
Tilly tore off several chunks, and slathered them liberally with butter before she divided them up, and sat down with Zack and Suzanna to eat. They all devoured their repast hungrily, and washed it all down with some of the fresh water Suzanna collected from the well outside.
“God, this place needs cleaning,” Suzanna sniffed in disgust as she picked a dirty dish rag off the back of a chair and tossed it toward a bucket of slops on the floor beside the door.
“I cannot remember it being this bad before,” Tilly murmured with a frown.
“You have been here before?” Zack asked incredulously.
Tilly explained what had happened to her to bring her to Tooting Mallow. It felt wonderful to be able to talk freely without being subjected to the malodorous stare of the warden, and they all enjoyed the opportunity to exchange small talk while they ate.
When they eventually lapsed into a comfortable silence, Tilly turned her attention to Zack.
“What about you? What’s your story, Zack?”
“My mam ran up some debts trying to feed me and keep a roof over our heads. When we got thrown out of our lodgings, we had no choice but to go to the poor house. She got sick last year and passed away.”
“But they didn’t send you to an orphanage,” Tilly sighed. It seemed that nothing the staff in the poor house did was usual, or normal.
“I have heard some nasty rumours about the orphanage, and didn’t want to go. So I lied and pretended I had family,” he looked frankly at Suzanna, then Tilly. “When my mam and me went to the poor house, they didn’t fill out the Register for us either. I remember just walking in through the front door and the warden taking us straight to our room, just like they did with you, Tilly. They didn’t ask us for our names or nothing.”
“They didn’t fill out the register for me either,” Suzanna announced quietly.
“Did your mam ask for you both to leave?”
Zack shook his head. “We had nowhere to go, see? She owed people money and couldn’t pay them back. If we stayed in the poor house, it meant that they couldn’t come after her for the money.”
Tilly had no doubt that his story was something that had happened to many people up and down the country. She still couldn’t understand why someone would willingly go to a poor house though, especially when one had a small child. They were effectively being imprisoned for their parent’s problems, and that didn’t seem fair, or right, at all.
“What do we do now, Tilly?” Suzanna asked and studied the bucket on the floor that appeared to be full of rotting food. “We are going to get poorly eating out of somewhere like this.”
“Let’s get to work then,” Tilly announced. She felt stron
ger now that she had food inside her belly. If they could scrub the walls and floors from dawn to dusk in the poor house, the least they could do was earn their keep while they lived under Harry’s roof.
Suzanna nodded and looked at Zack. “There isn’t much any of us can do to help with their investigation, but we can do our bit to keep this place working properly.”
“I’ll get some water,” Zack declared, and swept an empty bucket off the floor to do just that.
Suzanna began to gather the dirty pots into a pile. “I will wash these. Then we can clean this place and see what state the rooms upstairs are in.”
Fortified by food and, with a renewed sense of purpose, Tilly rolled up her sleeves and set to work.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Here! Lady! Let me buy those two baskets off you,” Harry called, and slammed to a stop in front of an old woman. When she stopped to look at him, he named a sum of money that made her stare at him as though he had lost his mind. Unsurprisingly though, when he held the money out, she snatched it off him and handed the baskets over with a smirk of thanks seconds before she scurried away.
Harry knew that he had just been robbed, but didn’t give a damn in light of his desperate need to purchase enough food for everyone. When he had left the Rectory earlier, his thoughts had been focused on following the Dandridges’ to their new home before he had turned his attention to the need to purchase food.
Thankfully, they had taken rooms at a lodging house right in the centre of town. While he was relieved that they hadn’t caught the first post chaise out of town, he couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t left. There was the matter of their thefts to take into account after all. They were either extremely confident that their thefts wouldn’t be noticed, or were up to something else that had yet to be discovered. He rather suspected it was the latter.
Aware that the Dandridges’ may not stay in one place for long, Harry quickly sent a young boy to take a note to Barnaby at the poor house, and then turned his attention to the shopping. He stopped off at a bakery and purchased several loaves of bread, some cakes, buns and an entire tray of pies, and ordered the baker to deliver them to the Rectory as a matter of urgency. He then hurried over to the butchers, and purchased several prime cuts of meat along with sausages, bacon and cheese, and then moved on to one of the market stalls where he selected enough vegetables to feed a small army.
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