by Anne Perry
“But the workers don’t come back until Tuesday. Quinlan said it was closed because of the gas lines,” she said with mounting realization of what it meant. The room was small, windowless, effectively sealed but for the air vent. Tuesday was at least thirty hours away. She went over to the vent and stretched up her hand to it. There was no breath of air, no chill. It had been blocked—of course. There was no need to add the rest.
“I know,” he said quietly. “It looks as if the Farralines win in the end. I’m sorry.”
She looked around with sudden fury. “Well, can’t we at least destroy this machine that prints the money? Can’t we smash the plates or something?”
He smiled, then he started to laugh, quietly and with genuine amusement.
“Bravo! Yes, by all means, let’s ruin them. That’ll be something accomplished.”
“It’ll make them very angry,” she said thoughtfully. “They might be enraged and kill us.”
“My dear girl, if we are not already suffocated to death, they’ll kill us anyway. We know enough to hang them … we just don’t know which ones.”
She took a deep breath to steady herself. Although she had already realized it, it was different to hear him say so.
“Yes—yes, of course they will. Well, let us at least min their plates. They could still be evidence, in the event the police find them. Anyway, as you say, forgery is very evil; it is a pollution, a corruption of our means of exchange with one another. We ought to end this much of it.” And without waiting for him to follow, she went over and lifted up one of the plates, then froze.
“What is it?” he said immediately.
“Don’t let’s break them,” she said with a tingle of quite genuine pleasure. “Let’s just mar them, so little they don’t realize it, but enough that when they have printed all the money, unless they look at it very carefully, they will still pass it. But the first person who does look at it will know it is wrong. That would be more effective, wouldn’t it? And a better revenge …”
“Excellent! Let’s find the engraving tools and the acid. Be careful you don’t get any of it on your skin. And not on your dress, in case they notice it.”
They set about it with determination, working side by side, erasing here and there, making little blotching marks, but always discreetly, until they had in some way marred every single plate. It took them until after two in the morning, and the lamp was burning low. And now that there was nothing more to do, they were also growing increasingly aware of the cold. Without thinking, they automatically sat close together on some boxes of paper, huddled in the corner, and above the colder floor level. There were no drafts; the room was effectively sealed. And after their concentration on the plates had gone, they were also aware that the air was getting stale. A great deal of the space was already taken up with boxes and machinery.
“I can’t believe Mary knew about this,” Hester said again, her mind still hurt by the thought, teased by memories of the woman she had known, or thought she had known, on the London train. “I really don’t think she would have lived off forgery all those years.”
“Perhaps she viewed it as you did,” Monk replied, staring into the little pool of light the lantern made. “A victimless crime, just a little greed.”
She did not reply for several minutes. He had not met Mary, and she did not know how to convey the sense of honesty she had felt in her.
“Do you suppose they all did?” she said at length.
“No,” he said immediately, then apparently realized the logical position in which he had placed himself. “All right, perhaps she didn’t. If she did, then all this”—he inclined his head towards the presses—“was no reason to kill her. If she didn’t, how do you suppose she found out? She wouldn’t have come down here looking for this room. If she knew, why did she not call the police? Why go off to London? It was urgent, but hardly an emergency. There was certainly time to attend to this first.” He shook his head. “But would Mary have exposed her own family to scandal, ruin and imprisonment? Wouldn’t she just have demanded they stop? That would be reason to kill her?”
“If I were a forger,” she replied, “I’d have said, ‘Yes, Mother,’ and moved it somewhere else. It would be infinitely safer than killing her.”
He did not reply, but lapsed into thought.
It was getting even colder. They moved closer yet, the warmth of each other comforting, even the steady rhythm of breathing a kind of safety in the threat of enclosing darkness and the knowledge that time was short and every second that passed meant one fewer left.
“What did she say—on the train?” Monk asked presently.
“She talked about the past, for the most part.” She thought back yet again to that evening. “She traveled then. She danced at the ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, you know?” She stared into the darkness, speaking softly. It seemed appropriate to the mood and it saved energy. They were sitting so close together whispering would serve. “She described it to me, the colors and the music, the soldiers in their uniforms, all the scarlets and the blues and golds, the cavalrymen, the artillery, the hussars and dragoons, the Scots Greys.” She smiled as she pictured Mary’s face and the light in it as she relived that night. “She spoke of Hamish, how elegant he was, how dashing, how all the ladies loved him.”
“Was Hector sober then?” he asked.
“Oh yes. She spoke of Hector too, he was always quieter, tenderer—that isn’t the word she used, but that is what she meant. And she said he was actually a better soldier.” She smiled. “She described the band and the gaiety, the laughter at any joke at all, the hectic dancing, whirling ’round and ’round, the lights and color, the brilliance of jewels and the candle flames and the flash of reds.” She drew in a deep breath. “And the knowledge in everyone that tomorrow perhaps one in ten of them would die, and two or three be injured, maybe marred for life, limbs lost, blinded, God knows what. Whatever they thought or felt, no one spoke of it, and the musicians never missed a beat. Wellington himself was there. It was the high tide of history. All Europe hung in the balance.”
She swallowed and tried to keep her voice from shaking. She must have Mary’s courage. She had faced death before, and worse death. She would be with Monk, and in spite of all the enmity they had shared, the quarrels and the anger and the contempt, she would not have had anyone else there, except for his sake. “She said how terrified she was for Hector, but she never allowed him to know,” she finished.
“You mean Hamish,” he corrected.
“Do I? Yes, of course I do. The air is getting thin, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“She spoke about her children as well, mostly Oonagh and Alastair, how close they had always been, even when they were young.” She recounted what she could remember of Mary’s story of the night of the storm, and finding the two together, comforting each other.
“A very remarkable woman, Oonagh,” he said softly. “A little frightening, so much strength.”
“Alastair must have strength too, or he would not be Procurator Fiscal. It must have taken courage to refuse to prosecute Galbraith. Apparently it was a very big case, very political, and everyone expected him to face trial and be found guilty. I think Mary did too.”
“From what the woman in front of us in the church said, he has refused to prosecute quite a few. Are you cold?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Do you want my coat?”
“No—then you’ll be cold.”
He took it off. “Don’t argue,” he said grimly, and began to put it around her.
“Put it ’round both of us.” She moved so that was possible.
“It isn’t big enough,” he complained.
“It’ll do.”
“Mary expected Galbraith to be prosecuted? How do you know that?”
“She said something about seeing an Archie Frazer in the house, very late one night, rather furtively. I think it worried her.”
“Why?
Who is he?”
“A witness in the Galbraith case.”
He stiffened. “A witness?” He turned around a little to look at her in the lamplight. “What would a witness be doing coming to Alastair’s house at night? And Mary was worried?”
“Yes, it seemed to disturb her.”
“Because she knew he had no business there. Alastair had no business seeing a witness privately. And then the case was thrown out, never prosecuted?”
She stared at him. Even in the failing light, the yellow glare and shadow, she could see from his eyes that the same thought had come to him as now filled her mind.
“Bribery?” she whispered. “The Fiscal took money, or something else, not to prosecute Mr. Galbraith—and Mary feared it!”
“Once?” Monk said slowly. “Or often? The woman in the church said there had been a few cases dropped unexpectedly. Is our Fiscal a just man brave enough to defy expectations and throw out a poor case, regardless of public opinion; or is he a corrupt man taking some reward, monetary or otherwise, in order not to prosecute those who can and will pay his price?”
“And even if we can answer that,” she went on, almost under her breath, “there arises the other question—did Mary know it or fear it? And was he aware of that?”
He sat silently for several minutes, half turned in their cramped corner, his body sideways, legs out in front of him, covered by her skirts, which were keeping them both warm. The lamp was growing lower, the corners of the room completely lost in darkness. The air was getting very thin and stale.
“Maybe not Kenneth or Baird at all,” she whispered at last. “Or even Quinlan for the forgery. I’d rather think she didn’t know.”
“Damn,” he said between his teeth. “Damn Alastair Farraline!”
The same anger and frustration stirred within her, but far overriding it was a desire to share the intensity of feeling with all its subtleties and shades of disappointment, fear, memories, understanding and half-glimpsed thoughts, hunger for truth, and sense of self-blame.
He reached his hand over to take hold of hers where it lay on her skirt. For a moment she did not move, then without thinking, she leaned forward, her brow against his cheek, sliding her head down until it rested in the hollow of his neck, her face half turned on his shoulder. The whole gesture seemed oddly familiar and right. A sense of peace filled her and the anger drained away. It was all still true, still unjust and unresolved, but it no longer had the same importance.
The air was painfully thin. She had not the remotest idea what time it was. Daylight would make no difference here.
Gently he pushed her away until there was a space between them. She looked at him in the last of the lamplight, at the strong planes of his face, the wide gray eyes. In that moment there was no pretense between them, no lingering vestige of reserve or attempt to escape, no denial. It was final and complete.
Very slowly he leaned forward, infinitely slowly, and kissed her mouth with exquisite tenderness, almost a reverence, as if this one gesture with the last of his strength were almost a holy thing, a surrender of the final bastion.
She never thought not to answer him, not to give her inner self with as much generosity as he, in an embrace she had so long ached for, and to admit it in the passionate tenderness of her lips and her arms.
It was not long after when the lamp had finally guttered and gone out and they lay together, cold and almost senseless in the last of the air, when without warning there was a sound, a thump and a scraping. A shaft of light fell across the room, yellow and dim. And most blessedly of all, there was a draft, clean and sweet, smelling of paper.
“Are you there? Mr. Monk?” It was a tentative voice, a little blurred, and with the lift and music of the north.
Monk sat up slowly, his head hurting, eyes difficult to focus. Hester was still beside him; he could barely feel her breathing.
“Mr. Monk?” came the voice again.
“Hector!” Monk said with dry lips. “Hector … is that … are you …” He ended in a spasm of coughing.
Hester sat up awkwardly, holding on to him. “Major Farraline?” she whispered.
Stumbling over a ream of paper left in his path, knocking himself on the corner of the press and letting out a gasp of pain, Hector made his way over to them, setting his lamp on the floor. He looked dreadful in its yellow light, his thinning hair standing out in spikes, his eyes bloodshot and dark-rimmed. His concentration was intense, and obviously costing him effort, but the relief in his face redeemed it all.
“Mr. Monk! Are you all right?” Then he saw Hester. “Good God! Miss Latterly! I—I’m sorry—I didn’t even think of you being here, ma’am!” He extended his arm to assist her up. “Are you able to stand, ma’am? Would you like … I mean …” He hesitated, uncertain if he was physically capable of lifting her, any more than in his present state Monk would be.
“Yes, I am sure I am all right, thank you.” She attempted to smile. “Or at least I will be, when I have a little air.”
“Of course, of course!” He stood up again, then realized he still had not given her any aid. However, Monk was there before him, climbing to his feet awkwardly and bending down to pull Hester up.
“Please hasten,” Hector urged, retrieving the lamp. “I don’t know who locked you in, but it is not inconceivable they may have missed me and will come looking. I really think it would be much better not to be found here.”
Monk gave a sharp laugh, more like a bark, and without further comment they left the secret room, closing the door behind them. They followed Hector carefully through the printing works, now barely lit by daylight pouring through the windows at the front and even in the farthest reaches giving a strained light.
“What made you come after us?” Hester asked when they were outside and she had begun to get some strength back from breathing the fresh air.
Hector looked embarrassed. “I—I think I was a little tipsy last night. I don’t remember a great deal of what passed at the dinner table. I should have stopped about three glasses before I did. But I woke in the night, I’ve no idea what time. My head was as thick as a Chinaman’s coat, but I knew something was wrong. I could remember that—very wrong.” He blinked apologetically and looked profoundly ashamed. “But I could not for the life of me think what it was.”
“Never mind,” Monk said generously. “You came in time.” He pulled a face. “Not a lot to spare, mind you!” He took the older man by the elbow and they started to walk, three abreast, along the unevenly cobbled street.
“But that doesn’t explain why you are here,” Hester protested.
“Oh …” Hector looked unhappy. “Well, when I woke up this morning I remembered. I knew I said something about the secret room….”
“You said you knew there was one,” Monk put in. “In the printing works. But you didn’t seem very certain. I gathered it was by deduction rather than observation—at least as to what was in there.”
“Deduction?” Hector still sounded confused. “I don’t know. What is in there?”
“Well, why did you come?” Monk said, repeating Hester’s question. “What made you think we would be in there, or that anyone would lock us in?”
Hector’s face cleared. “Ah—that’s obvious. You fastened onto the idea, that was plain in your expression. I knew you’d go and look for it. After all, you can’t let Miss Latterly live the rest of her life under the shadow, can you?” He shook his head. “Though I never thought she’d be there too.” He frowned at Hester, walking a little sideways and having to be steered back into a straight course by Monk’s pushing his arm. “You are a very original young woman.” A flood of sadness filled him, altering his features starkly. “I know why Mary liked you. She liked anyone with the courage to be themselves, to drink life to the lees and drain the cup without fear. She used to say that.” He searched her eyes earnestly. And again Monk had to keep him from veering off into the gutter, even though they were walking comparatively slowly.
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nbsp; “And once I realized you’d go looking for it,” Hector went on, “I knew, of course, that if it was in use for anything, whoever was using it would go after you and most likely shut you in.” He blinked. “To tell you the truth, I was very afraid they would already have killed you. I’m so glad they haven’t.”
“We are obliged to you,” Monk said sincerely.
“Very much,” Hester added, holding Hector’s arm a little more tightly.
“You’re welcome, my dear,” he replied. Then a look of puzzlement crossed his face again. “What is in there, anyway?”
“You don’t know?” Monk said it almost casually, but there was an edge to his voice.
“No I don’t. Is it something of Hamish’s?”
“I think so. Hamish’s in the past. Quinlan’s now.”
“That’s odd. Hamish never knew Quinlan all that well. He was ill by the time Eilish met him. In fact, he was going blind, and definitely had times of mental confusion and paralysis of his limbs. Why would he leave anything to Quinlan, rather than Alastair, or even Kenneth?”
“Because Quinlan is an artist,” Monk answered, guiding Hester across the uneven road and onto the farther pavement.
“Is he?” Hector looked surprised. “I didn’t know that. Never seen anything he’s done. Knew Hamish was, of course. Didn’t like his work much, too much draftsmanship and not enough imagination. Still, matter of taste, I suppose.”
“Don’t want imagination in bank notes,” Monk said dryly.
“Bank notes?” Hector stopped in the middle of the path.
“Forgery,” Monk explained. “That’s what is in there. Plates and presses for printing money.”
Hector let out a long, slow sigh, as if the thought and the fear had been inside him, pent up for years.
“Is it indeed,” was all he said.
“Did Mary know?” Hester asked, searching his face.
He looked at her slowly, frowning, his fair brows drawn down, the early sunlight catching the freckles across his cheeks.
“Mary? Of course not. She’d never have stood for it. Mary was a good woman … she had her … her …” He colored painfully. “Her weaknesses—she told lies, she had to….” There was a moment of fierce defensive anger in him. Then as quickly as it had flared up, it died again. “But she was not dishonest. Not in that way. She would never have allowed that! It’s—it’s not stealing from one person, it’s stealing from everyone. It’s … corrupt.”