Free Till the End of Tom by Gillian Roberts Page A

business. We were much further back in history than that. I purposely avoided glancing at Mackenzie to see if he was as entranced and surprised by the arrival at our humble office of a woman out of Jane Austen.
    “I am here, therefore, of my own accord, but on behalf of Mrs. Severin, who doted on her son. However, if Mrs. Severin were to know of this mission of mine, I’m afraid I would be summarily dismissed. This is why I cannot involve the police. If they were to come question us, or in any way make it known that I’d gone to them, it would cost me my position.”
    Judging by her attire and accessories, her position was sufficiently lucrative. Things had improved for the help since Jane Austen’s time.
    “I believe you said you had information related to Tomas Severin’s death,” I prompted.
    She tilted her head. “You didn’t use the word ‘murder.’ Don’t you think he was murdered?”
    “I honestly don’t know. I didn’t know him, and we never had a chance to speak.”
    She held her head high and angled so that she was looking down the tidy slope of her nose at me. “He was drugged, was he not? That can’t have been an accident. Tomas Severin was not a man to risk humiliation with a pitiable street drug. Midday! In the city! Something so low in a man so dignified and respectable. No. Absolutely not. Somebody wanted to humiliate him, to remove his ability to think clearly, make wise decisions.” She shook her head. I coveted her haircut now, shaped so precisely that it swung, all strands synchronized, as she moved. “I believe that there was malicious mischief,” she said, “as I believe anyone would surmise. And further, I believe I know who is responsible.”
    Before I repeated the fact that she was obliged to take this information to the police, I couldn’t resist asking, “And that person is . . . ?”
    “Cornelius Westerly. Or so he calls himself. He’s the type to re-create himself at whim, and I’m sure his actual name is something rather less grand. Less traditional.” She sniffed, regally, and looked from Mackenzie to me.
    This had to be somebody’s idea of a practical joke. Instead of the tough PI talk, give the English teacher an escapee from
Sense and Sensibility.
Cornelius Westerly indeed!
    “And he is?” C.K. asked.
    “Ingrid Severin’s . . .” She paused and made sure she had our attention. “. . . betrothed. Her fiancé.” She paused for dramatic purposes. “It is worth noting that he is thirty-two years old.”
    My age, and a decade or two younger than Ingrid’s son.
    “Ingrid Severin is seventy-eight,” Penelope Koepple said crisply.
    I could barely squelch an immediate response, a question as to how wealthy—or not—Cornelius Weatherly was. I was sure Ms. Koepple would inform us in time.
    “Are we to take it that the age difference troubles you?” Mackenzie asked mildly.
    Penelope Koepple appeared to be a well-maintained fifty-something, though it was hard to tell, and now she raised her fifty-something well-plucked eyebrows and considered that sufficient reply to Mackenzie’s question.
    “Age disparity is not a crime,” he said in response. “And as they say, love makes for strange bedfellows.”
    She winced when he said “bed.” I was sure he’d chosen his words carefully especially since the saying referred to politics, not lovers, and he knew that. I could feel his growing impatience, his eagerness to get back to actual paying work or to studying. In either case, to stop having his time wasted, and I had to salute his Southern politeness and savvy that hid his emotions from the prospective client.
    “You perhaps don’t comprehend the gravity of the situation,” Penelope Koepple said. “Ingrid Severin fades in and out of lucidity, and she is often rather muddled. Further, as you may know, she is in possession of significant assets, so whatever papers she signs, new wills she makes, deeds she transfers—especially when emotionally diverted, one