by Anne Perry
“Mr. Monk, my mother’s life is in jeopardy,” she replied with a very direct gaze. “I do not think a little distress is beyond my bearing.”
He smiled at her for the first time, a quick, generous gesture that came quite spontaneously.
“Thank you. Did you ever hear your parents quarreling, say, in the last two or three years?”
She smiled back at him, only a ghost, and then was gone.
“I have tried to think of that myself,” she said seriously. “And I am afraid I have not. Papa was not the sort of man to quarrel. He was a general, you know. Generals don’t quarrel.” She pulled a little face. “I suppose that is because the only person who would dare to quarrel with a general would be another general, and you so seldom get two in any one place. There is presumably a whole army between one general and the next.”
She was watching his face. “Except in the Crimea, so I hear. And then of course they did quarrel—and the results were catastrophic. At least that is what Maxim Furnival says, although everybody else denies it and says our men were fearfully brave and the generals were all very clever. But I believe Maxim …”
“So do I,” he agreed. “I believe some were clever, most were brave enough, but far too many were disastrously ignorant and inexcusably stupid!”
“Oh do you think so?” The fleeting smile crossed her face again. “Not many people will dare to say that generals are stupid, especially so close to a war. But my father was a general, and so I know how they can be. They know some things, but others they have no idea of at all, the most ordinary things about people. Half the people in the world are women, you know?” She said it as if the fact surprised even herself.
He found himself liking her. “Was your father like that?” he asked, not only because it mattered, but because he was interested.
“Very much.” She lifted her head and pushed back a stray strand of hair. The gesture was stardingly familiar to him, bringing back not a sight or a sound, but an emotion of tenderness rare and startling to him, and a longing to protect her as if she were a vulnerable child; and yet he knew beyond question that the urgency he felt was not that which he might have towards any child, but only towards a woman.
But which woman? What had happened between them, and why did he not know her now? Was she dead? Had he failed to protect her, as he had failed with the Walbrooks? Or had they quarreled over something; had he been too precipitate with his feelings? Did she love someone else?
If only he knew more of himself, he might know the answer to that. All he had learned up until now showed him that he was not a gentle man, not used to bridling his tongue to protect other people’s feelings, or to stifling his own wants, needs, or opinions. He could be cruel with words. Too many cautious and bruised inferiors had borne witness to that. He recalled with increasing discomfort the wariness with which they had greeted him when he returned from the hospital after the accident. They admired him, certainly, respected his professional ability and judgment, his honesty, skill, dedication and courage. But they were also afraid of him—and not only if they were lax in duty or less than honest, but even if they were in the right. Which meant that a number of times he must have been unjust, his sarcastic wit directed against the weak as well as the strong. It was not a pleasant knowledge to live with.
“Tell me about him.” He looked at Sabella. “Tell me about his nature, his interests, what you liked best about him, and what you disliked.”
“Liked best about him?” She concentrated hard. “I think I liked …”
He was not listening to her. The woman he had loved—yes, loved was the word—why had he not married her? Had she refused him? But if he had cared so much, why could he not now even recall her face, her name, anything about her beyond these sharp and confusing flashes?
Or had she been guilty of the crime after all? Was that why he had tried to expunge her from his mind? And she returned now only because he had forgotten the circumstances, the guilt, the dreadful end of the affair? Could he have been so mistaken in his judgment? Surely not. It was his profession to detect truth from lies—he could not have been such a fool!
“… and I liked the way he always spoke gently,” Sabella was saying. “I can’t recall that I ever heard him shout, or use language unbecoming for us to hear. He had a lovely voice.” She was looking up at the ceiling, her face softer, the anger gone from it, which he had only dimly registered when she must have been speaking of some of the things she disliked in her father. “He used to read to us from the Bible—the Book of Isaiah especially,” she went on. “I don’t remember what he said, but I loved listening to him because his voice wrapped all ’round us and made it all seem important and good.”
“And your greatest dislike?” he prompted, hoping she had not already specified it when he was not listening.
“I think the way he would withdraw into himself and not even seem to notice that I was there—sometimes for days,” she replied without hesitation. Then a look of sorrow came into her eyes, and a self-conscious pain. “And he never laughed with me, as if—as if he were not altogether comfortable in my company.” Her fair brows puckered as she concentrated on Monk. “Do you know what I mean?”
Then as quickly she looked away. “I’m sorry, that is a foolish question, and embarrassing. I fear I am being no help at all—and I wish I could.” This last was said with such intense feeling that Monk ached to be able to reach across the bright space between them and touch her slender wrist, to assure her with some more immediate warmth than words, that he did understand. But to do so would be intrusive, and open to all manner of misconstruction. All he could think of was to continue with questions that might lead to some fragment of useful knowledge. He did not often feel so awkward.
“I believe he had been friends with Mr. and Mrs. Furnival for a long time?”
She looked up, recalling herself to the matter in hand and putting away memory and thought of her own wounds.
“Yes—about sixteen or seventeen years, I think, something like that. They had been much closer over the last seven or eight years. I believe he used to visit them once or twice a week when he was at home.” She looked at him with a slight frown. “But he was friends with both of them, you know. It would be easy to believe he was having an affair with Louisa—I mean easy as far as his death is concerned, but I really do not think he was. Maxim was very fond of Mama, you know? Sometimes I used to think—but that is another thing, and of no use to us now.
“Maxim is in the business of dealing in foodstuffs, you know, and Papa put a very great deal of army contracts his way. A cavalry regiment can use a marvelous amount of corn, hay, oats and so on. I think he also was an agent for saddlery and other things of that sort. I don’t know the details, but I know Maxim profited greatly because of it, and has become a very respected power in the trade, among his fellows. I think he must be very good at it.”
“Indeed.” Monk turned it over in his mind; it was an interesting piece of information, but he could not see how it was of any use to Alexandra Carlyon. It did not sound in any way corrupt; presumably a general might suggest to his quartermaster that he obtain his stores from one merchant rather than another, if the price were fair. But even had it not been, why should that cause Alexandra any anger or distress—still less drive her to murder?
But it was another thread leading back to the Furnivals.
“Do you remember the incident where your father was stabbed with the ornamental knife? It happened at the Furnivals’ house. It was quite a deep injury.”
“He wasn’t stabbed,” she said with a tiny smile. “He slipped and did it himself. He was cleaning the knife, or something. I can’t imagine why. It wasn’t even used.”
“But you remember it?”
“Yes of course. Poor Valentine was terribly upset. I think he saw it happen. He was only about eleven or twelve, poor child.”
“Was your mother there?”
“At the Furnivals’? Yes, I think so. I really don’t r
emember. Louisa was there. She sent for Dr. Hargrave to come immediately because it was bleeding pretty badly. They had to put a lot of bandages on it, and he could barely get his trousers back on, even with Maxim’s valet to help him. When he came down the stairs, assisted by the valet and the footman, I could see the great bulges under the cloth of his trousers. He looked awfully pale and he went straight home in the carriage.”
Monk tried to visualize it. A clumsy accident. But was it relevant? Could it conceivably have been an earlier attempt to kill him? Surely not—not in the Furnivals’ house and so long ago. But why not in the Furnivals’ house? She had finally killed him there. But why no attempt between then and now?
Sabella had said she saw the swell of the bandages under his trousers. Not the bloodstained tear where the knife had gone through! Was it possible Alexandra had found him in bed with Louisa and taken the knife to him in a fit of jealous rage? And they had conspired to conceal it—and the scandal? There was no point in asking Sabella. She would naturally deny it, to protect her mother.
He stayed a further half hour, drawing from her memories of her parents, some quite varied, but not showing him anything he had not already learned from his talk with the servants in Alexandra’s own home. She and the general had been reasonably content in their relationship. It was cool but not intolerable. He had not abused her in any way, he had been generous, even-tempered, and had no apparent vices; he was simply an unemotional man who preferred his own interests and his own company. Surely that was the position of many married women, and nothing to warrant serious complaint, let alone violence.
He thanked her, promised her again that he would not cease to do all he could for her mother, right to the last possible moment, then took his leave with a deep regret that he could offer her no real comfort.
He was outside on the warm pavement in the sun when the sudden fragrance of lilac in bloom made him stop so abruptly a messenger boy moving along the curb nearly fell over him. The smell, the brightness of the light and the warmth of the paving stones woke in him a feeling of such intense loneliness, as if he had just this moment lost something, or realized it was beyond his reach when he had thought it his, that he found his heart pounding and his breath caught in his throat.
But why? Who? Whose closeness, whose friendship or love had he lost? How? Had they betrayed him—or he them? He had a terrible fear that it was he who had betrayed them!
One answer he knew already, as soon as the question formed in his mind—it was the woman whom he had tried to defend from a charge of killing her husband. The woman with the fair hair and dark amber eyes. That was certain: but only that—no more.
He must find out! If he had investigated the case then there would be police records of it: names, dates, places-conclusions. He would find out who the woman was and what had happened to her, if possible what they had felt for each other, and why it had ended.
He moved forward with a fresh, determined stride. Now he had purpose. At the end of Albany Street he turned into the Euston Road and within a few minutes had hailed a cab. There was only one course open. He would find Evan and get him to search through the records for the case.
But it was not so easy. He was not able to contact Evan until early in the evening, when he came back tired and dispirited from a fruitless chase after a man who had embezzled a fortune and fled with it across the Channel. Now began the burdensome business of contacting the French police to apprehend him.
When Monk caught up with Evan leaving the police station on his way home, Evan was sufficiently generous of spirit to be pleased to see him, but he was obviously tired and discouraged. For once Monk put his own concern out of his immediate mind, and simply walked in step with Evan for some distance, listening to his affairs, until Evan, knowing him well, eventually asked why he had come.
Monk pulled a face.
“For help,” he acknowledged, skirting his way around an old woman haggling with a coster.
“The Carlyon case?” Evan asked, stepping back onto the pavement.
“No—quite different. Have you eaten?”
“No. Given up on the Carlyon case? It must be coming to trial soon.”
“Care to have dinner with me? There’s a good chophouse ’round the corner.”
Evan smiled, suddenly illuminating his face. “I’d love to. What is it you want, if it’s not the Carlyons?”
“I haven’t given up on it, I’m still looking. But this is a case in the past, something I worked on before the accident.”
Evan was startled, his eyes widened. “You remember!”
“No—oh, I remember more, certainly. Bits and pieces keep coming back. But I can remember a woman charged with murdering her husband, and I was trying to solve the case, or to be more precise, I was trying to clear her.”
They turned the corner into Goodge Street and halfway along came to the chophouse. Inside was warm and busy, crowded with clerks and businessmen, traders and men of the minor professions, all talking together and eating, a clatter of knives, forks, chink of plates and the pleasant steam of hot food.
Monk and Evans were conducted to a table and took their seats, giving their orders without reference to a menu. For a moment an old comfort settled over Monk. It was like the best of the past, and for all the pleasure of being rid of Runcorn, he realized how lonely he was without the comradeship of Evan, and how anxious he was lurching from one private case to another, with never the certainty of anything farther, and only a week or two’s money in hand.
“What is it?” Evan asked, his young face full of interest and concern. “Do you need to find the case because of Mrs. Carlyon?”
“No.” Monk did not even think of being dishonest with him, and yet he was self-conscious about exposing his vulnerability. “I keep getting moments of memory so sharp, I know I cared about it profoundly. It is simply for myself; I need to know who she was, and what happened to her.” He watched Evan’s face for pity, dreading it.
“Her?” Evan said casually.
“The woman.” Monk looked down at the white tablecloth. “She keeps coming back into my mind, obscuring what I am thinking of at the time. It is my past, part of my life I need to reclaim. I must find the case.”
“Of course.” If Evan felt any curiosity or compassion he hid it, and Monk was profoundly grateful.
Their meals arrived and they began to eat, Monk with indifference, Evan hungrily.
“All right,” Evan said after a few moments, when the edge of his appetite had been blunted. “What do you want me to do?”
Monk had already thought of this carefully. He did not want to ask more of Evan than he had to, or to place him in an intolerable position.
“Look through the files of my past cases and see which ones fit the possibilities. Then give me what information you can, and I’ll retrace my steps. Find whatever witnesses there still are available, and I’ll find her.”
Evan put some meat in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. He did not point out that he was not permitted to do this, or what Runcom would say if he found out, or even that it would be necessary to practice a certain amount of deception to his colleagues in order to obtain such files. They both knew it. Monk was asking a very considerable favor. It would be indelicate to make it obvious, and Evan was not an unkind man, but a small smile did curl the corners of his sensitive mouth, and Monk saw it and understood. His resentment died even as it was born. It was grossly unfair.
Evan swallowed.
“What do you know about her?” he asked, reaching for his glass of cider.
“She was young,” Monk began, saw the flash of humor in Evan’s face, and went on as if he had not. “Fair hair, brown eyes. She was accused of murdering her husband, and I was investigating the case. That’s all. Except I must have spent some time on it, because I knew her quite well—and I cared about her.”
Evan’s laughter died completely, replaced by a complexity of expression which Monk knew was an attempt to hide his sympathy. It was ridi
culous, and sensitive, and admirable. And from anyone else Monk would have loathed it.
“I’ll find all the cases that answer these criteria,” Evan promised. “I can’t bring the files, but I’ll write down the details that matter and tell you the outline.”
“When?”
“Monday evening. That will be my first chance. Can’t tell you what time. This chop is very good.” He grinned. “You can give me dinner here again, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“I’m obliged,” Monk said with a very faint trace of sarcasm, but he meant it more than it was easy for him to say.
“There’s the first,” Evan said the following Monday evening, passing a folded piece of paper across the table to Monk. They were sitting in the cheerful hubbub of the chophouse with waiters, diners and steaming food all around them. “Margery Worth, accused of murdering her husband by poison in order to run off with a younger man.” Evan pulled a face. “I’m afraid I don’t know what the result of the trial was. Our records only show that the evidence you collected was pretty good, but not conclusive. I’m sorry.”
“You said the first.” Monk took the paper. “There are others?”
“Two more. I only had the time to copy one of them, and that is only the bare outline, you know. Phyllis Dexter. She was accused of killing her husband with a carving knife.” He shrugged expressively. “She claimed it was self-defense. From what you have in your notes there is no way of telling whether it was or not, nor what you thought of it. Your feelings are plain enough; you sympathized with her and thought he deserved all he got. But that doesn’t mean that she told the truth.”
“Any notes on the verdict?” Monk tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. This sounded as if it could be the case about which he cared so much, if only by reading his notes from the file Evan could sense the emotion through it. “What happened to her? How long ago was it?”