Frank Tuttle - The Broken Bell

“How was it, sir?”

“Best coffee in the Kingdom, Mr. Fields, and that’s not idle praise. Same for the buns, Mrs. Fields. Works of art, both of them.”

They beamed. Mrs. Fields took her husband’s hand and squeezed it.

“First customer is on the house,” said Mr. Fields.

I shook my head. “I’d feel like a thief if I took advantage of your hospitality.”

He started to protest but his wife elbowed him gently in the ribs and laughed. “Take his money, Gordon, we can’t make a living giving lunch away.”

He made a what-can-you-do face and quoted me a price. I counted out the coins, plopped a couple of extra ones down too.

“Now, sir, I was only joking,” said Mrs. Fields. “That’s far too much, even with a tip.”

“I’m hoping that will make what I’m about to say easier to swallow,” I said. They exchanged perplexed glances.

“My name is Markhat. I’m a finder by trade. I had no idea who you were when I walked in here, but if you have a daughter named Tamar I’m in the neighborhood hoping to speak with her.”

They both kept their composures. No reddening of faces, no sputtering. If Mr. Fields hadn’t started twisting his dishrag savagely, neither would have displayed a hint of consternation.

“And why would you be speaking with our Tamar, Mr. Markhat?”

“It’s about her fiance, Mr. Fields. Carris Lethway. I’m sure you know he’s gone missing.”

“Wherever that scheming little bastard has gone, Mr. Markhat, he hasn’t gone nearly far enough.” Mr. Fields might be a bald, red-faced, round-bellied little baker, but a hint of genuine murder crept into his voice. “He’s broken her heart. Not that I’m surprised. Those Lethways are-”

“Hist!”

The cheerful brass doorbell rang, the door opened and a smiling blonde woman rushed in, her arms laden with bags and parcels and a tiny yapping dog in a knitted basket.

“Mum, Dad, I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t get a cab and then the warehouse was out of the good confectioner’s sugar and Mr. Tibbles got out of his basket and nearly got run over and I gave an ogre some bread,” she said, showing no signs of breathlessness. “And Lars at the second bakery says he needs more split oak tomorrow and then I remembered the turning forks, and I went back to get them but Mum had already left. Who are you? I’m Tamar. This is Mr. Tibbles.”

She thrust various parcels at her parents and let Mr. Tibbles loose on the pristine counter-top and stuck out her hand for me to shake.

She was pretty. Ten years my junior, as tall as my shoulders, with pale yellow hair and soft brown eyes that I’d have described as impish had they not been shadowed with worry. She was dressed in what Darla calls City Smart-slim knee-length brown skirt, narrow black belt tight at the waist, white blouse with pearl buttons set off with a short tan jacket.

See, I do listen when Darla talks.

My smile was suddenly far less difficult to force.

“The gentleman was just leaving, Tamar,” said Mr. Fields. “Get Mr. Tibbles off my counter and help your mother in the back, won’t you?”

“This is Mr. Markhat, dear,” said Mrs. Fields. “He’s come about the wedding.”

Defeated, Mr. Fields scooped Mr. Tibbles up and darted for the back. Tamar grabbed my hand with both of hers and held on as if she were falling down.

“You’re Darla’s Markhat. The finder. Oh, you’re just as dashing as she said, even with crumbs on your chin. Did you have the cinnamon bun, or the cheese? I think we’re putting too much cinnamon in the glaze, but Mum wants more. Darla’s Markhat himself.”

She finally let go of my hand.

“That’s me. Darla’s Markhat, in the flesh.”

She smiled.

“Is Darla here too?”

“No. She’s not. But she asked me to come and see you.” I paused, waiting for the implications of a finder showing up on your doorstep when you’ve just lost a fiance to surface. In my experience, people want to discuss such things in private, well away from Mum and Dad and even the excitable Mr. Tibbles.

“Is she coming, then?”

Mrs. Fields sighed.

“It’s all right, dear. He knows. It’s what he does.”

Tamar deflated, just a bit.

“Darla told you?”

“She’s hired me on your behalf,” I spoke as quietly as I could. “That’s why you and I need to talk. Privately.”

Mum squeezed her daughter’s hand and glided away. Tamar didn’t look up at me at once but when she did she was smiling again.

“Carris loves me,” she said. “Whatever else people say, Mr. Markhat, you can believe that. He loves me, and I love him, and we’re going to be married, and there’s nothing anyone anywhere can do to change that. Mr. Tibbles. Come here.”

She spoke the last just loud enough to reach her father in the kitchen. There was a crash of pans, and a skittering of little clawed dog feet, and Mr. Tibbles darted through the swinging doors and leaped into Tamar’s arms.

“Shall we go, Mr. Markhat?”

Mrs. Fields was gone, and I could hear voices, not happy ones, in the kitchen.

I dropped another coin on the counter. It was the least I could do, after spreading such joy.

“Let’s,” I said. “I saw a nice little park with benches not too far off. Does that meet with Mr. Tibbles’s approval?”

The little beast looked up and me and snarled, its beady eyes mad with barely controlled rage.

Tamar laughed and closed the basket. “Don’t mind him, Mr. Markhat. The park will be fine.”

I opened the door to the merry tinkling of the bell and out we went.

Mr. Tibbles peeked out of his basket and growled at me the whole way there.

The park was tiny. It was really just a square patch of grass worn sparse and brown by people’s feet that had refused to stay on the cobblestone sidewalks despite the clearly lettered sign admonishing them to spare the grass. Four freshly painted white wooden benches had been provided, one at each corner of the square. There were so many smokestick butts on the ground Tamar refused to let Mr. Tibbles out of his basket, claiming he ate the wretched things.

This didn’t suit Mr. Tibbles at all, so we conducted our entire conversation over his indignant yips and attempts to escape from his basket.

“So, Darla has hired you to work for me?”

Mr. Tibbles poked his head out. Tamar pushed it back in.

“I’m to find your fiance, Miss Fields. Working with you seems to be the best way to accomplish that.”

She nodded, still wrestling with her diminutive canine terror. “Well. The first thing you need to know is that my father hates Carris. Why I don’t know. Carris has been nothing but courteous since we met. Mother adores him, of course. Carris, that is, not Father, although she loves him too, naturally.”

I was glad I wasn’t trying to write this down.

“How long have you two been walking out?”

“Two years last Yule.” Mr. Tibbles launched a furious assault on the basket lid, causing Tamar to hold it down tight with both hands. A pair of kids passing by stopped and pointed and laughed. “We met at a bakery, of all places. Not one of ours. Isn’t that odd? It makes Father furious, but sometimes I just need to taste something new. And it’s good for business, otherwise, how would we know what the other bakers were doing? We’d never have known about the apple fritters, for instance, had I not wandered into Gorman’s that day.”

“How indeed? Tell me about Carris. About his family. You say your father doesn’t like him. Well, how do his folks feel about you?”

“I’m not sure they’d know me if I walked into their parlor. Which isn’t to say they have any objections to me, Mr. Markhat. They just never seemed to care much either way what Carris did, or who he planned to marry. Have you met them yet? They’re…haughty. Yes. Haughty. Old money haughty. Carris’s father was a Colonel during the War. They still act as if people ought to be throwing them parades every afternoon just for being who they are. Mr. Tibbles, stop that!”