Thrown Out on Christmas Eve, She Took Shelter in an Empty House — Unaware the Duke Was Coming Home
Chapter 15
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"Mr. Pike says these candlesticks were taken from the dining room at Ashmere House on Boxing Day morning. Were they used at Ashmere House for lighting?""Of course they were," said Mr. Pike sharply. "They're the dining room candlesticks. They've stood on that table for 40 years.""Then they'll have burned Ashmere's candles," said Hannah. "Sir Henry, would you look in the sockets?"Sir Henry raised his eyebrows, but he leaned forward and peered into the top of one candlestick. "There's old wax in it," he said. "A good deal of it dripped down inside.""What color is it, sir?"Sir Henry looked closer. "Yellowish. A dirty sort of yellow. Greasy.""Would you smell it?"The room was so quiet now that Hannah could hear the fire crackling in the grate. Sir Henry, looking as though he thought this was all rather undignified, lifted the candlestick and sniffed at the socket. His nose wrinkled at once."Good Lord," he said. "It smells like a mutton chop. That's tallow.""Tallow, sir," said Hannah. "Mutton fat. The cheapest candle there is. The old Duchess never burned a tallow candle in her life; she bought beeswax from my father until she died, as everyone in this valley over 20 knows. And since she died, no candles have gone into that house at all." She took a breath. "So I would ask, sir, where these candlesticks have been burning tallow candles? Because it wasn't at Ashmere House, and it wasn't at my father's shop. We never made tallow; Father wouldn't have it in the place."Nobody spoke.Then, from the third row, Mrs. Tibbs said loudly, "I'll tell you where! I've been in Silas Pike's parlor to deliver his bread every Saturday for eight years, and that parlor stinks of tallow like a butcher's yard! He's too mean to burn anything else!"The room erupted.Sir Henry banged on his table for quiet and did not get it for some time. When at last the noise had died down, Hannah spoke again, her voice quieter now."There's one more thing, sir. Mrs. Tibbs told His Grace that I needed to borrow something from Ashmere House. I asked for the dining room table runner—the long linen cloth that lies under the candlesticks." She looked at the side of the room for the first time. "Did you bring it?"Edmund came forward. He was carrying a long roll of linen, gray with dust. He laid it on the magistrate's table and unrolled it without a word, and then stepped back to his place against the wall.Down the middle of the linen, where the candlesticks would have stood, there were two round shapes: two clean circles of white cloth the size of the candlesticks' feet. All around them the linen was gray with nine years of dust, but the white circles were not white: they were gray, too, only a little less gray. A thin, even film of dust lay over them as fine as flour.