The William Monk Mysteries

by Anne Perry

  She ignored her horse, leaving the rein loosely over her arm as if that were sufficient.

  “In a large number of ways, ma’am.” He tried to be courteous and at the same time not play to her mood of levity. “Before I speak to the servants I would like to gain a clearer impression from the family, so that when I do ask questions they are the right ones.”

  “So you’ve come to interrogate me.” She shivered melodramatically. “Well, Inspector, ask me anything. I shall give you what answers I consider wisest.” She was a small woman, and she looked up at him through half-closed lashes.

  Surely she could not be drunk this early in the day? She must be amusing herself at his expense. He affected not to notice her flippancy and kept a perfectly sober face, as if they were engaged in a serious conversation which might yield important information.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Sandeman. I am informed you have lived in Queen Anne Street since shortly after the death of your husband some eleven or twelve years ago—”

  “You have been delving into my past!” Her voice was husky, and far from being annoyed, she sounded flattered by the thought.

  “Into everyone’s, ma’am,” he said coldly. “If you have been there such a time, you will have had frequent opportunity to observe both the family and the staff. You must know them all quite well.”

  She swung the riding crop, startling the horse and narrowly missing its head. She seemed quite oblivious of the animal, and fortunately it was sufficiently well schooled. It remained close to her, measuring its pace obediently to hers as she moved very slowly along the path.

  “Of course,” she agreed jauntily. “Who do you wish to know about?” She shrugged her beautifully clothed shoulders. “Myles is fun, but quite worthless—but then some of the most attractive men are, don’t you think?” She turned sideways to look at him. Her eyes must have been marvelous once, very large and dark. Now the rest of her face had so altered they were grotesque.

  He smiled very slightly. “I think my interest in them is probably very different from yours, Mrs. Sandeman.”

  She laughed uproariously for several moments, causing half a dozen people within earshot to turn curiously to find the cause of such mirth. When she had regained her composure she was still openly amused.

  Monk was discomfited. He disliked being stared at as a matter of ribaldry.

  “Don’t you find pious women very tedious, Mr. Monk?” She opened her eyes very wide. “Be honest with me.”

  “Are there pious women in your family, Mrs. Sandeman?” His voice was cooler than he intended, but if she was aware she gave no sign.

  “It’s full of them.” She sighed. “Absolutely prickling like fleas on a hedgehog. My mother was one, may heaven rest her soul. My sister-in-law is another, may heaven preserve me—I live in her house. You have no idea how hard it is to have any privacy! Pious women are so good at minding other people’s business—I suppose it is so much more interesting than their own.” She laughed again with a rich, gurgling sound.

  He was becoming increasingly aware that she found him attractive, and it made him intensely uncomfortable.

  “And Araminta is worse, poor creature,” she continued, walking with grace and swinging her stick. The horse plodded obediently at her heels, its rein trailing loosely over her arm. “I suppose she has to be, with Myles. I told you he was worthless, didn’t I? Of course Tavie was all right.” She looked straight ahead of her along the Row towards a fashionable group riding slowly in their direction. “She drank, you know?” She glanced at him, then away again. “All that tornmyrot about ill health and headaches! She was drunk—or suffering the aftereffects. She took it from the kitchen.” She shrugged. “I daresay one of the servants gave it to her. They all liked her because she was generous. Took advantage, if you ask me. Treat servants above their station, and they forget who they are and take liberties.”

  Then she swung around and stared at him, her eyes exaggeratedly wide. “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my dear, how perfectly awful. Do you suppose that was what happened to her?” Her very small, elegantly gloved hand flew to her mouth. “She was overfamiliar with one of the servants? He ran away with the wrong idea—or, heaven help us, the right one,” she said breathlessly. “And then she fought him off—and he killed her in the heat of his passion? Oh, how perfectly frightful. What a scandal!” She gulped. “Ha-ha-ha. Basil will never get over it. Just imagine what his friends will say.”

  Monk was unaccountably revolted, not by the thought, which was pedestrian enough, but by her excitement at it. He controlled his disgust with difficulty, unconsciously taking a step backwards.

  “Do you think that is what happened, ma’am?”

  She heard nothing in his tone to dampen her titillation.

  “Oh, it is quite possible,” she went on, painting the picture for herself, turning away and beginning to walk again. “I know just the man to have done it. Percival—one of the footmen. Fine-looking man—but then all footmen are, don’t you think?” She glanced sideways, then away again. “No, perhaps you don’t. I daresay you’ve never had much occasion. Not many footmen in your line of work.” She laughed again and hunched her shoulders without looking at him. “Percival has that kind of face—far too intelligent to be a good servant. Ambitious. And such a marvelously cruel mouth. A man with a mouth like that could do anything.” She shuddered, wriggling her body as if shedding some encumbrance—or feeling something delicious against her skin. It occurred to Monk to wonder if perhaps she herself had encouraged the young footman into a relationship above and outside his station. But looking at her immaculate, artificial face the thought was peculiarly repellent. As close as he was to her now, in the hard daylight, it was clear that she must be nearer sixty than fifty, and Percival not more than thirty at the very outside.

  “Have you any grounds for that idea, Mrs. Sandeman, other than what you observe in his face?” he asked her.

  “Oh—you are angry.” She turned her limpid gaze up at him. “I have offended your sense of propriety. You are a trifle pious yourself, aren’t you, Inspector?”

  Was he? He had no idea. He knew his instinctive reaction now: the gentle, vulnerable faces like Imogen Latterly’s that stirred his emotions; the passionate, intelligent ones like Hester’s which both pleased and irritated him; the calculating, predatorily female ones like Fenella Sandeman’s which he found alien and distasteful. But he had no memory of any actual relationship. Was he a prig, a cold man, selfish and incapable of commitment, even short-lived?

  “No, Mrs. Sandeman, but I am offended by the idea of a footman who takes liberties with his mistress’s daughter and then knifes her to death,” he said ruthlessly. “Are you not?”

  Still she was not angry. Her boredom cut him more deeply than any subtle insult or mere aloofness.

  “Oh, how sordid. Yes of course I am. You do have a crass way with words, Inspector. One could not have you in the withdrawing room. Such a shame. You have a—” She regarded him with a frank appreciation which he found very unnerving. “An air of danger about you.” Her eyes were very bright and she stared at him invitingly.

  He knew what the euphemism stood for, and found himself backing away.

  “Most people find police intrusive, ma’am; I am used to it. Thank you for your time, you have been most helpful.” And he bowed very slightly and turned on his heel, leaving her standing beside her horse with her crop in one hand and the rein still over her arm. Before he had reached the edge of the grass she was speaking to a middle-aged gentleman who had just dismounted from a large gray and was flattering her shamelessly.

  He found the idea of an amorous footman both unpleasant and unlikely, but it could not be dismissed. He had put off interviewing the servants himself for too long. He hailed a hansom along the Knightsbridge Road and directed it to take him to Queen Anne Street, where he paid the driver and went down the areaway steps to the back door.

  Inside the kitchen was warm and busy and full of the odors of roasting meat, baki
ng pastry and fresh apples. Coils of peel lay on the table, and Mrs. Boden, the cook, was up to her elbows in flour. Her face was red with exertion and heat, but she had an agreeable expression and was still a handsome woman, even though the veins were beginning to break on her skin and when she smiled her teeth were discolored and would not last much longer.

  “If you’re wanting your Mr. Evan, he’s in the housekeeper’s sitting room,” she greeted Monk. “And if you’re looking for a cup o’ tea you’re too soon. Come back in half an hour. And don’t get under my feet. I’ve dinner to think of; even in mourning they’ve still got to eat—and so have all of us.”

  “Us” were the servants, and he noted the distinction immediately.

  “Yes ma’am. Thank you, I’d like to speak to your footmen, if you please, privately.”

  “Would you now.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Sal. Put those potatoes down and go and get Harold—then when ’e’s done, tell Percival to come. Well don’t stand there, you great pudding. Go an’ do as you’re told!” She sighed and began to mix the pastry with water to the right consistency. “Girls these days! Eats enough for a working navvy, she does, and look at her. Moves like treacle in winter. Shoo. Get on with you, girl.”

  With a flash of temper the red-haired kitchen maid swung out of the room and along the corridor, her heels clicking on the uncarpeted floor.

  “And don’t you sonse out of here like that!” the cook called after her. “Cheeky piece. Eyes on the footman next door, that’s ’er trouble. Lazy baggage.” She turned back to Monk. “Now if you ’aven’t anything more to ask me, you get out of my way too. You can talk to the footmen in Mr. Phillips’s pantry. He’s busy down in the cellar and won’t be disturbing you.”

  Monk obeyed and was shown by Willie the bootboy into the pantry, the room where the butler kept all his keys, his accounts, and the silver that was used regularly, and also spent much of his time when not on duty. It was warm and extremely comfortably, if serviceably, furnished.

  Harold, the junior footman, was a thickset, fair-haired young man, in no way a pair to Percival, except in height. He must possess some other virtue, less visible to the first glance, or Monk guessed his days here would be numbered. He questioned him, probably just as Evan had already done, and Harold produced his now well-practiced replies. Monk could not imagine him the philanderer Fenella Sandeman had thought up.

  Percival was a different matter, more assured, more belligerent, and quite ready to defend himself. When Monk pressed him he sensed a personal danger, and he answered with bold eyes and a ready tongue.

  “Yes sir, I know it was someone in the house who killed Mrs. Haslett. That doesn’t mean it was one of us servants. Why should we? Nothing to gain, and everything to lose. Anyway, she was a very pleasant lady, no occasion to wish her anything but good.”

  “You liked her?”

  Percival smiled. He had read Monk’s implication long before he replied, but whether from uneasy conscience or astute sense it was impossible to say.

  “I said she was pleasant enough, sir. I wasn’t familiar, if that’s what you mean!”

  “You jumped to that very quickly,” Monk retorted. “What made you think that was what I meant?”

  “Because you are trying to accuse one of us below stairs so you don’t have the embarrassment of accusing someone above,” Percival said baldly. “Just because I wear livery and say ‘yes sir, no ma’am’ doesn’t mean I’m stupid. You’re a policeman, no better than I am—”

  Monk winced.

  “And you know what it’ll cost you if you charge one of the family,” Percival finished.

  “I’ll charge one of the family if I find any evidence against them,” Monk replied tartly. “So for I haven’t.”

  “Then maybe you’re too careful where you look.” Percival’s contempt was plain. “You won’t find it if you don’t want to—and it surely wouldn’t suit you, would it?”

  “I’ll look anywhere I think there’s something to find,” Monk said. “You’re in the house all day and all night. You tell me where to look.”

  “Well, Mr. Thirsk steals from the cellar—taken half the best port wine over the last few years. Don’t know how he isn’t drunk half the time.”

  “Is that a reason to kill Mrs. Haslett?”

  “Might be—if she knew and ratted on him to Sir Basil. Sir Basil would take it very hard. Might throw the old boy out into the street.”

  “Then why does he take it?”

  Percival shrugged very slightly. It was not a servant’s gesture.

  “I don’t know—but he does. Seen him sneaking down the steps many a time—and back up with a bottle under his coat.”

  “I’m not very impressed.”

  “Then look at Mrs. Sandeman.” Percival’s face tightened, a shadow of viciousness about his mouth. “Look at some of the company she keeps. I’ve been out in the carriage sometimes and taken her to some very odd places. Parading up and down that Rotten Row like a sixpenny whore, and reads stuff Sir Basil would burn if he saw it—scandal sheets, sensational press. Mr. Phillips would dismiss any of the maids if he caught them with that kind of thing.”

  “It’s hardly relevant. Mr. Phillips cannot dismiss Mrs. Sandeman, no matter what she reads,” Monk pointed out.

  “Sir Basil could.”

  “But would he? She is his sister, not a servant.”

  Percival smiled. “She might just as well be. She has to come and go when he says, wear what he approves of, speak to whoever he likes and entertain his friends. Can’t have her own here, unless he approves them—or she doesn’t get her allowance. None of them do.”

  He was a young man with a malicious tongue and a great deal of personal knowledge of the family, Monk thought, very possibly a frightened young man. Perhaps his fear was justified. The Moidores would not easily allow one of their own to be charged if suspicion could be diverted to a servant. Percival knew that; maybe he was only the first person downstairs to see just how sharp the danger was. In time no doubt others would also; the tales would get uglier as the fear closed in.

  “Thank you, Percival,” Monk said wearily. “You can go—fer now.”

  Percival opened his mouth to add something, then changed his mind and went out. He moved gracefully—well trained.

  Monk returned to the kitchen and had the cup of tea Mrs. Boden had previously offered, but even listening carefully he learned nothing of further use, and he left by the same way he had arrived and took a hansom from Harley Street down to the City. This time he was more fortunate in finding Myles Kellard in his office at the bank.

  “I can’t think what to tell you.” Myles looked at Monk curiously, his long face lit with a faint humor as if he found the whole meeting a trifle ridiculous. He sat elegantly on one of the Chippendale armchairs in his exquisitely carpeted room, crossing his legs with ease. “There are all sorts of family tensions, of course. There are in any family. But none of them seems a motive for murder to anyone, except a lunatic.”

  Monk waited.

  “I would find it a lot easier to understand if Basil had been the victim,” Myles went on, an edge of sharpness in his voice. “Cyprian could follow his own political interests instead of his father’s, and pay all his debts, which would make life a great deal easier for him—and for the fair Romola. She finds living in someone else’s house very hard to take. Ideas of being mistress of Queen Anne Street shine in her eyes rather often. But she’ll be a dutiful daughter-in-law until that day comes. It’s worth waiting for.”

  “And then you will also presumably move elsewhere?” Monk said quickly.

  “Ah.” Myles pulled a face. “How uncivil of you, Inspector. Yes, no doubt we shall. But old Basil looks healthy enough for another twenty years. Anyway, it was poor Tavie who was killed, so that line of thought leads you nowhere.”

  “Did Mrs. Haslett know of her brother’s debts?”

  Myles’s eyebrows shot up, giving his face a quizzical look. “I shouldn’t th
ink so—but it’s a possibility. She certainly knew he was interested in the philosophies of the appalling Mr. Owen and his notions of dismantling the family.” He smiled with a raw, twisted humor. “I don’t suppose you’ve read Owen, Inspector? No—very radical—believes the patriarchal system is responsible for all sorts of greed, oppression and abuse—an opinion which Basil is hardly likely to share.”

  “Hardly,” Monk agreed. “Are these debts of Mr. Cyprian’s generally known?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “But he confided in you?”

  Myles lifted his shoulders a fraction.

  “No—not exactly. I am a banker, Inspector. I learn various bits of information that are not public property.” He colored faintly. “I told you that because you are investigating a murder in my family. It is not to be generally discussed. I hope you understand that.”

  He had breached a confidence. Monk perceived that readily enough. Fenella’s words about him came back, and her arch look as she said them.

  Myles hurried on. “I should think it was probably some stupid wrangle with a servant who got above himself.” He was looking very directly at Monk. “Octavia was a widow, and young. She wouldn’t get her excitement from scandal sheets like Aunt Fenella. I daresay one of the footmen admired her and she didn’t put him in his place swiftly enough.”

  “Is that really what you think happened, Mr. Kellard?” Monk searched his face, the hazel eyes under their fair brows, the long, fluted nose and the mouth which could so easily be imaginative or slack, depending on his mood.

  “It seems far more likely than Cyprian, whom she cared for, killing her because she might have told their father, of whom she was not fond, about his debts—or Fenella, in case Octavia told Basil about the company she keeps, which is pretty ragged.”

  “I gathered Mrs. Haslett was still missing her husband,” Monk said slowly, hoping Myles would read the less delicate implication behind his words.

  Myles laughed outright. “Good God, no. What a prude you are.” He leaned back in his chair. “She mourned Haslett—but she’s a woman. She’d have gone on making a parade of sorrow, of course. It’s expected. But she’s a woman like any other. I daresay Percival, at any rate, knows that. He’d take a little protestation of reluctance, a few smiles through the eyelashes and modest glances for what they were worth.”