Free A Pattern of Lies by Charles Todd Page B

racing after me, and then I heard Clara’s voice asking what was wrong.
    â€œThe sitting room,” I called over my shoulder, not stopping to explain.
    Mark had caught up with me as I headed down the passage, but I stopped him from flinging open the door. “Wait.” I reached out and put my hand on the wood. It was cool. “Open it gently.”
    He did as I asked, and we could see as the door edged wider that the chair that Mrs. Ashton usually sat in, right by the window, was aflame. Not just smoldering; there were licking tongues of orange flame rising higher and higher as we watched. The draft from the door, drawing air in the broken window, gave the flames something to feed on.
    I pushed past Mark and shut the door quickly.
    In old houses, fire was the dreaded enemy. I ran closer to the chair, saw the tall vase of flowers on one of the tables, pulled out the stems, and threw the water into the seat of the chair, getting as close as I dared to the flames.
    I coughed as the smoke billowed up at me, and then Mark was beside me with the bucket of sand that most houses kept at hand. His nightclothes were dangerously close to the blaze as he threw the sand in a careful pattern across the seat of the chair, smothering the flames.
    Now we were both coughing.
    I turned, realizing that someone had opened the door and was standing there on the threshold. It was Clara, her face as white as the nightgown she was wearing, her robe clutched in her hands. Beyond her, I heard Mrs. Ashton on the stairs, calling to Mark, asking what was wrong.
    He was bending over the chair, looking at something. I went to see what it was.
    A half-­melted candle lay close to the back of the seat.
    â€œThank God, it wasn’t the carpet,” he said, and turned to look up at the smashed window. The old glass had shattered, leaving a gaping hole.
    I moved forward for a better look at the candle and stubbed my bare toe on a large stone. “Someone broke the window with this,” I said, reaching down to pick it up. “Then threw in the candle, hoping it would start a fire.”
    â€œDon’t come any closer,” Mark ordered, and I realized that he was pointing to shards of broken glass littering the floor. And I was barefoot.
    Mrs. Ashton had reached the doorway, and I heard the sharp intake of breath as she saw the still smoking chair. “Dear God,” she exclaimed.
    Mark went to her, saying, “It’s all right, Mother, just an accident.”
    â€œAccident, my eye,” she said furiously. “That window’s broken. Someone did this, it didn’t just happen .”
    He was trying to calm her down, trying to keep her from hurrying forward to look at the chair for herself. Clara was still by the door, a pale statue with a shocked face.
    Mrs. Ashton was saying, “Who discovered it?”
    â€œI heard the window break, Mrs. Ashton,” I said quietly. “And then I smelled smoke.”
    Even in the dimness of the room I could see that she too was pale with horror, and disturbed by what this represented. She turned to Mark. “Bess has the only room on this side of the house,” she told him. “The rest of us face the gardens. This would have been a conflagration before anyone knew.”
    â€œI’d thought of that,” Mark said grimly. He left the room, and in a matter of minutes he was back with a large bucket of water and poured it over the still smoldering seat of the chair. Then he picked the chair up, and trailing the last remnants of smoke, he carried it past Clara, into the passage, and toward the front door. I went after him, got there first, and swung the heavy door wide. He took the chair down the steps and dropped it on the drive, at a safe distance from the house.
    Even if the fire wasn’t completely out somewhere deep inside the upholstery, it could do no harm now.
    He stood there for a moment, staring down at the charred ruin of his mother’s