The Western Gate by Gaskell Denvil Barbara

Author:Gaskell Denvil, Barbara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gaskell Publishing
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

LANDRY

The Earl of Thamesdon gazed at him like a rabbit faced by the flames from a torch. “I feel a terrifying burden of blame. Your enemies come from the work you do for me, we both know that.”

I was the proof of my enemies. Clothes, face and hands covered in soot. Drifting black ash and doused embers flew as the white drifted as thickly outside. “It has not been a day of reassurance,” I told him. “More searching, yet still no answers.”

Morgan had collapsed into one of his elaborately comfortable chairs. “You have never agreed with my ideas. But this wretched family was desperately poverty-stricken and afforded nothing beyond your friend’s eel pies. That would be close to starvation. Therefore, they possibly killed themselves.”

I shook my head again, sending the last black and white specks of embarrassment flying. “Hands tied and necks noosed. An unusual method of suicide. I also believe they were church goers who respected the laws of their religion.”

“Anyone desperate with hunger might overlook that which is regarded as sin.” Morgan had convinced himself.

“And is it so easy to tie the noose around your neck, and then tie your own wrists? Indeed, the father might have sedated his obedient family and then, sobbing, have managed the rest. But himself?”

“He had the noose fixed already, climbed on a stool, popped his head into the noose and tightened it, then kicked the stool away, and while hanging, waiting to die, slipped his wrists into a ready prepared loop. It’s far-fetched I know, but it seems to me that anyone else would also be unbelievable.”

“Is it acceptable,” I smiled down at him, “to inform a kind and titled gentleman of the elite royal court, that he is an absolute idiot?”

“For you, yes. You frequently do.” Morgan had a pretty grin, when it was genuine. “No one else would dare. Except Tim naturally.”

Although I doubted that Tim had ever insulted Morgan that way, I was too tired to prolong the discussion. “They were definitely murdered, and I intend discovering and naming their killers. I believe at least three killers, but I have as yet, no conceivable notion of motive. A declaration of some kind. The ‘why’ remains.” Then I’d thought of something else, although less important. “In your various visits to the palace,” I asked him, “have you known a cold, unfriendly and unresponsive baron?”

Morgan paused, stared, and promptly laughed. “No, my friend. Lord Hastings perhaps? But I avoid the unresponsive and mostly, I avoid the court.”

It was an answer I had expected. Exhaustion carried its own trickle of irritation, and I had rarely been so inept. Past investigations had been – if not perhaps, exactly easy, – easier than this. A life dedicated to only one aim, needed that solitary aim realised.

My childhood had passed in a miserable manner and family poverty was taken for granted. Until I turned twelve years, I remember the ugly twists and topples, with the painful side accepted as normal, by a child who knew nothing else.

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