A sudden, fearful death (2 page)

"Your address?" he said
quickly.

"Number fourteen, Hastings
Street," she replied.

"One more question. Since you
are making these arrangements yourself, am I to assume that your husband is
unaware of them?"

She bit her lip and the color in
her cheeks heightened. "You are. I should be obliged if you would be as
discreet as possible."

"How shall I account for my
presence, if he should ask?"

"Oh." For a moment she
was disconcerted. "Will it not be possible to call when he is out? He attends
his business every weekday from nine in the morning until, at the earliest,
half past four. He is an architect. Sometimes he is out considerably
later."

"It will be, I expect, but I
would prefer to have a story ready in case we are caught out. We must at least
agree on our explanations."

She closed her eyes for a moment.
"You make it sound so ... deceitful, Mr. Monk. I have no wish to lie to
Mr. Penrose. It is simply that the matter is so distressing, it would be so
much pleasanter for Marianne if he did not know. She has to continue living in
his house, you see?" She stared up at him suddenly with fierce intensity.
"She has already suffered the attack. Her only chance of recovering her
emotions, her peace of mind, and any happiness at all, will lie in putting it
all behind her. How can she do that if every time she sits down at the table
she knows that the man opposite her is fully aware of her shame? It would be
intolerable for her!"

"But you know, Mrs.
Penrose," he pointed out, although even as he said it he knew that was
entirely different.

A smile flickered across her mouth.
"I am a woman, Mr. Monk. Need I explain to you that that brings us closer
in a way you cannot know. Marianne will not mind me. With Audley it would be
quite different, for all his gentleness. He is a man, and nothing can alter
that."

There was no possible comment to
make on such a statement.

"What would you like to tell
him to explain my presence?" he asked.

"I—I am not sure." She
was momentarily confused, but she gathered her wits rapidly. She looked him up
and down: his lean, smooth-boned face with its penetrating eyes and wide mouth,
his elegant and expensively dressed figure. He still had the fine clothes he
had bought when he was a senior inspector in the Metropolitan Police with no
one to support but himself, before his last and most dreadful quarrel with
Runcorn.

He waited with a dry amusement.

Evidently she approved what she
saw. "You may say we have a mutual friend and you are calling to pay your
respects to us," she replied decisively.

"And the friend?" He
raised his eyebrows. "We should be agreed upon that."

"My cousin Albert Finnister.
He is short and fat and lives in Halifax where he owns a woolen mill. My
husband has never met him, nor is ever likely to. That you may not know
Yorkshire is beside the point. You may have met him anywhere you choose, except
London. Audley would wonder why he had not visited us."

"I have some knowledge of
Yorkshire," Monk replied, hiding his smile. "Halifax will do. I shall
see you this afternoon, Mrs. Penrose."

"Thank you. Good day, Mr.
Monk." And with a slight inflection of her head she waited while he
opened the door for her, then took her leave, walking straight-backed, head
high, out into Fitzroy Street and north toward the square, and in a hundred
yards or so, the Euston Road.

Monk closed the door and went back
to his office room. He had lately moved here from his old lodgings around the
corner in Grafton Street. He had resented Hester's interference in suggesting
the move in her usual high-handed manner, but when she had explained her
reasons, he was obliged to agree. In Grafton Street his rooms were up a flight
of stairs and to the back. His landlady had been a motherly soul, but not used
to the idea of his being in private practice and unwilling to show prospective
clients up. Also they were obliged to pass the doors of other residents, and
occasionally to meet them on the stairs or the hall or landing. This
arrangement was much better. Here a maid answered the door without making her
own inquiries as to people's business and simply showed them in to Monk's very
agreeable ground-floor sitting room. Grudgingly at first, he conceded it was a
marked improvement.

Now to prepare to investigate the
rape of Miss Marianne Gillespie, a delicate and challenging matter, far more
worthy of his mettle than petty theft or the reputation of an employee or
suitor.

* * * * *

It was a beautiful day when he set
out: a hot, high summer sun beating on the pavements, making the leafier
squares pleasant refuges from the shimmering light hazy with the rising smoke
of distant factory chimneys. Carriages clattered along the street past him,
harnesses jingling, as people rode out to take the air or to pay early
afternoon calls, drivers and footmen in livery, brasses gleaming. The smell of
fresh horse droppings was pungent in the warmth and a twelve-year-old crossing
sweeper mopped his brow under a floppy cap.

Monk walked to Hastings Street. It
was little over a mile and the additional time would give him further
opportunity to think. He welcomed the challenge of a more difficult case, one
which would test his skills. Since the trial of Alexandra Carlyon he had had
nothing but trivial matters, things that as a policeman he would have delegated
to the most junior constable.

Of course the Carlyon case had been
different. That had tested him to the utmost. He remembered it with a complexity
of feelings, at once triumphant and painful. And with thought of it came memory
of Hermione, and unconsciously he lengthened his pace on the hot pavement, his
body tightened and his mouth clenched shut in a hard line. He had been afraid
when her face first came fleetingly into his mind; a shred of the past
returned, uncertain, haunting him with echoes of love, tenderness, and terrible
anxiety. He knew he had cared for her, but not when or how, if she had loved
him, what had happened between them that he had nothing left, no letters, no
pictures, no reference to her in his possessions.

But regardless of memory, his skill
was always there, dedicated and ruthless. He had found her again. Fragment by
fragment he had pieced it together until he stood on the doorstep and at last
he knew her, the whole gentle almost childlike face, the brown eyes, the halo
of hair. The entire memory flooded back.

He swallowed hard. Why was he
deliberately hurting himself? The disillusion burned over him in anger as if it
had been only moments ago, the searing knowledge that she preferred the
comfortable existence of half love; emotions that did not challenge;
commitment of the mind and body, but not of the heart; always a reservation to
avoid the possibility of real pain.

Her gentleness was accommodation,
not compassion. She had not the courage to do more than sip at life; she would
never drain the cup.

He was walking so blindly he bumped
into an elderly man in a frock coat and apologized perfunctorily. The man
stared after him with irritation, his whiskers bristling. An open landau passed
with a group of young women huddled together and giggling as one of them waved
to some acquaintance. The ribbons on their bonnets danced in the breeze and
their huge skirts made them seem to be sitting on mounds of flowered cushions.

Monk had already resolved to look
no further into the emotions of his past. He knew more than he wanted to about
Hermione; and he had detected or deduced enough about the man who had been his
benefactor and mentor, and who would have introduced him into successful
commerce had he not been cheated into ruin himself—a fate from which Monk had
tried so hard to rescue him, and failed. It was then, in outrage at the
injustice, that he had abandoned commerce and joined the police, to fight
against such crime; although as far as he could remember, he had never caught
that particular fraud. Please God at least he had tried. He could remember
nothing, and he felt sick at the thought of trying, in case his discovery shed
even further ugly light on the man he had been.

But he had been brilliant. Nothing
cast shadow or doubt on that. Even since the accident he had solved the Grey
case, the Moidore case, and then the Carlyon case. Not even his worst enemy—and
so far that seemed to be Runcorn, although one never knew who else he might
discover—but not even Runcorn had said he lacked courage, honesty, or the will
to dedicate himself totally to the pursuit of truth, and labor till he dropped,
without counting the cost. Although it seemed he did not count the cost to
others either.

At least John Evan liked him,
although of course he had known him only since the accident, but he had liked
him whatever the circumstances. And he had chosen to continue something of a
relationship even after Monk had left the force. It was one of the best things
to have happened, and Monk hugged it to himself, a warm and acutely valuable
thing, a friendship to be nurtured and guarded from his own hasty temper and
biting tongue.

Hester Latterly was a different
matter. She had been a nurse in the Crimea and was now home in an England that
had no use for highly intelligent, and even more highly opinionated, young
women—although she was not so young. She was probably at least thirty, too old
to be considered favorably for marriage, and thus destined to either continue
working to support herself or be permanently dependent upon the charity of
some male relative. Hester would loathe that.

To begin with she had found a
position in a hospital here in London, but in a very short time her outspoken
counsel to doctors, and finally her total insubordination in treating a patient
herself, had earned her dismissal. The fact that she had almost certainly saved
the patient's life only added to the offense. Nurses were for cleaning the ward,
emptying slops, winding bandages, and generally doing as they were told. The
practice of medicine was for doctors alone.

After that she had taken up private
nursing. Goodness only knew where she was at this moment. Monk did not.

He was in Hastings Street. Number
fourteen was only a few yards away, on the far side. He crossed over, climbed
the steps, and rang the doorbell. It was a gracious house, neo-Georgian, and
spoke of quiet respectability.

After a moment or two the door was
opened by a maid in a blue stuff dress and white cap and apron.

"Yes sir?" she said
inquiringly.

"Good afternoon." He held
his hat in his hand courteously, but as if fully expecting to be admitted.
"My name is William Monk." He produced a card which gave his name and
address but not his occupation. "I am an acquaintance of Mr. Albert
Finnister of Halifax, whom I believe to be a cousin of Mrs. Penrose and Miss
Gillespie. Since I was in the area, I wondered if I might pay my respects?"

"Mr. Finnister, you said,
sir?"

"That is correct, of Halifax
in Yorkshire."

"If you'd like to wait in the
morning room, Mr. Monk, I will see if Mrs. Penrose is at home."

The morning room where he waited
was comfortably furnished but with a care which spoke of a well-managed
economy. There was no unnecessary expense. Decoration was a home-stitched
sampler modestly framed, a print of a romantic landscape, and a rather splendid
mirror. The chair backs were protected by well-laundered antimacassars, and the
armrests were worn where countless hands had rubbed them. Certainly there was
something of a track across the carpet from door to fireplace. A nicely
arranged vase of white daisies sat on the low central table, a pleasingly feminine
touch. The bookcase had one brass doorknob which was not quite the same as the
others. Altogether it was an agreeable, unexceptional room, designed for
comfort rather than to impress.

The door opened and the maid
informed him that Mrs. Penrose and Miss Gillespie would be delighted to receive
him, if he would come to the withdrawing room.

He followed her obediently back
across the hall again to another, larger room, but this time there was no
opportunity to look about him. Julia Penrose was standing by the window in a
rose-colored afternoon dress, and a young woman about eighteen or nineteen,
whom he assumed to be Marianne, was sitting on the small sofa. She looked very
pale in spite of her darker natural coloring, hair almost black and springing
from her brow in a remarkable widow's peak. She also had a small mole high on
her left cheekbone in what Monk thought the Regency dandies would have called
the "gallant" position. Her eyes were very blue.

Julia came forward, smiling.
"How do you do, Mr. Monk. How charming of you to call upon us," she
said for the maid's benefit. "May we offer you some refreshment? Janet,
please bring us some tea and cakes. You will have cakes, Mr. Monk?"

He accepted politely, but as soon
as the maid was gone the charade fell away. Julia introduced him to Marianne
and invited him to begin his task. She stood behind her sister's chair with her
hand on the younger woman's shoulder as if she would give her of her own
strength and resolve.

Monk had dealt with a case of
assault upon a woman only once before. Rape was very seldom reported because of
the shame and the scandal attached. He had given a great deal of thought how to
begin, but still he was uncertain.