A sudden, fearful death (3 page)

"Please tell me what you
remember, Miss Gillespie," he said quietly. He was not sure whether to
smile or not. She might take it as a lightness on his part, as if he had no sympathy
with her. And yet if he did not, he knew his features were of a naturally grim
cast.

She swallowed and cleared her
throat, then cleared it again. Julia's hand tightened on her shoulder.

"I really don't remember very
much, Mr. Monk," she apologized. "It was very—unpleasant. At first I
tried to forget it. Maybe you cannot understand that, and I daresay I am to
blame—
but
I did not realize ..." She stopped.

"It is quite natural," he
assured her with more sincerity than she could know. "We all try to forget
what hurts us. It is sometimes the only way we can continue."

Her eyes widened in sudden surprise
and a faint flush touched her cheeks.

"How sensitive of you." There
was profound gratitude in her face, but no easing of the tension which gripped
her.

"What can you tell me about
it, Miss Gillespie?" he asked again.

Julia made as if to speak, then
with an effort changed her mind. Monk realized she was some ten or twelve years
older than her sister and felt a fierce sense of protection toward her.

Marianne looked down at her small
square hands clenched in the lap of her enormous skirt.

"I don't know who it
was," she said very quietly.

"We know that, dear,"
Julia said quickly, leaning forward a little. "That is what Mr. Monk is
here to find out. Just tell him what you know—what you told me."

"He won't be able to find
out," Marianne protested. "How could he, when I don't know myself?
Anyway, you cannot undo it, even if you did know. What good will it do?"
Her face was set in utter determination. "I'm not going to accuse
anyone."

"Of course not!" Julia
agreed. "That would be terrible for you. Quite unthinkable. But there are
other ways. I shall see that he never comes near you again, or any other decent
young woman. Please just answer Mr. Monk's questions, dear. It is an offense
which cannot be allowed to happen. It would be quite wrong of us to continue as
if it did not matter."

"Where were you when it
happened, Miss Gillespie?" Monk interrupted. He did not want to be drawn
into the argument as to what action could be taken if they discovered the man.
That was for them. They knew the consequences far better than he.

"In the summerhouse,"
Marianne replied.

Instinctively Monk glanced toward
the windows, but he could see only sunlight through the cascading leaves of a
weeping elm and the lush pink of a rose beyond.

"Here?" he asked.
"In your own garden?"

"Yes. I go there quite often—to
paint."

"Often? So anyone familiar
with your day might have expected to find you there?"

She colored painfully.
"I—suppose so. But I am sure that can having nothing to do with it."

He did not reply to that.
"What time of day was it?" he asked instead.

"I am not certain. About half
past three, I think. Or perhaps a little later. Maybe four." She shrugged
very slightly. "Or even half past. I was not thinking of time."

"Before or after tea?"

"Oh—yes—I see. After tea. I
suppose it must have been half past four then."

"Do you have a gardener?"

"It wasn't he!" she said,
jerking forward in some alarm.

"Of course not," he
soothed. "Or you would have known him. I was wondering if he had seen
anyone. If he had been in the garden it might help to determine where the man
came from, which direction, and perhaps how he left, even the precise
time."

"Oh yes—I see."

"We do have a gardener,"
Julia said with keenness quickening in her face and some admiration for Monk
lighting her eyes. "His name is Rodwell. He is here three days a week, in
the afternoons. That was one of his days. Tomorrow he will be back again. You
could ask him then."

"I shall do," Monk
promised, turning back to Marianne. "Miss Gillespie, is there anything at
all about the man you can recall? For example," he continued quickly,
seeing her about to deny it, "how was he dressed?"

"I—I don't know what you
mean." Her hands knotted more tightly in her lap, and she stared at him
with mounting nervousness.

"Was he dressed in a dark
jacket such as a man of business might wear?" he explained. "Or a
working smock, like a gardener? Or a white shirt, like a man of leisure?"

"Oh." She seemed
relieved. "Yes. I see. I think I recall something—something pale." She
nodded, becoming more assured. "Yes, a pale jacket, such as gentlemen
sometimes wear in the summer."

"Was he bearded, or clean
shaven?"

She hesitated only a moment.
"Clean shaven."

"Can you remember anything
else about his appearance? Was he dark or fair, large or small?"

"I—I don't know. I—" She
took a sharp breath. "I suppose I must have had my eyes closed. It was
..."

"Hush, dear," Julia said
quickly, tightening her hand on Marianne's shoulder again. "Really, Mr.
Monk, she cannot tell you anything more of him. It is a most terrible experience.
I am only glad it has not turned her mind. Such things have been known
to."

Monk retreated, uncertain just how
far he ought to press. It was a terror and revulsion he could only imagine.
Nothing could show to him her experience.

"Are you sure you wish to
pursue it?" he asked as gently as he could, looking not at Julia but at
Marianne.

However, as before, it was Julia
who answered.

"We must." There was
resolute decision in her voice. "Quite apart from justice, she must be
protected from ever encountering this man again. You must persevere, Mr. Monk.
What else is there that we can tell you that may be of use?"

"Perhaps you would show me the
summerhouse?" he asked, rising to his feet.

"Of course," Julia agreed
immediately. "You must see it, or how else can you judge for
yourself?" She looked at Marianne. "Do you wish to come, dear, or
would you rather not?" She turned back to Monk. "She has not been
there since it happened."

Monk was about to say that he would
be present to protect her from any danger, then realized just in time that being
alone with a man she had newly met might in itself be enough to alarm her. He
felt he was foundering. It was going to be even harder than he had
anticipated.

But Marianne surprised him.

"No—that is quite all right,
Julia," she said firmly. "I will take Mr. Monk and show him. Perhaps
tea will come while we are out, and we shall be able to return to it." And
without waiting for Julia's reply, she led the way out into the hall and to the
side door into the garden.

After a glance at Julia, Monk
followed her and found himself outside in a small but extremely pleasant paved
yard under the shade of a laburnum tree and a birch of some sort. Ahead of them
stretched a long, narrow lawn and he could see a wooden summerhouse about
fifteen yards away.

He, walked behind Marianne over the
grass under the trees and into the sun. The summerhouse was a small building
with glassed windows and a seat inside. There was no easel there now, but
plenty of room where one might have stood.

Marianne turned around on the step.

"It was here," she said
simply.

He regarded his surroundings with
care, absorbing the details. There was at least a twenty-foot distance of grass
in every direction, to the herbaceous border and the garden walls on three
sides, to the arbor and the house on the fourth. She must have been
concentrating very profoundly on her painting not to have noticed the man
approach, and the gardener must have been at the front of the house or in the
small kitchen herb garden at the side.

"Did you cry out?" he
asked, turning to her.

Her face tightened. "I—I don't
think so. I don't remember." She shuddered violently and stared at him in
silence. "I—I might have. It is all ..." She stared at him in silence
again.

"Never mind," he
dismissed it. There was no use in making her so distressed that she could recall
nothing clearly. "Where did you first see him?"

"I don't understand."

"Did you see him coming toward
you across the grass?" he asked.

She looked at him in total
confusion.

"Have you forgotten?" He
made an effort to be gentle with her.

"Yes." She seized on it.
"Yes—I'm sorry ..."

He waved his hand, closing the
matter. Then he left the summerhouse and walked over the grass toward the
border and the old stone wall which marked the boundary between this and the
next garden. It was about four feet high and covered in places by dark green
moss. He could see no mark on it, no scuff or scratch where anyone had climbed
over. Nor were there any broken plants in the border, although there were
places where one might have trodden on the earth and avoided them. There was no
point in looking for footprints now; the crime had been ten days ago, and it
had rained several times since then, apart from whatever repairs the gardener
might have made with a rake.

He heard the faint brush of her
skirts over the grass and turned to find her standing just behind him.

"What are you doing?" she
asked, her face puckered with anxiety.

"Looking to see if there are
any traces of someone having climbed in over the wall," he replied.

"Oh." She drew in her
breath as if about to continue speaking, then changed her mind.

He wondered what she had been about
to say, and what thought had prevented her. It was an ugly feeling, and yet he
could not help wondering if she had, after all, known her attacker—or even
whether it had truly been an attack and not a seduction. He could well
understand how a young woman who had lost her most precious commodity, her virtue
in the eyes of others, and who thus was ruined for the marriage market, might
well claim an attack rather than a yielding on her own part, whatever the
temptation. Not that being the victim of rape would be any more acceptable.
Perhaps it was only to her own family that it might make any difference. They
would do all they could to see that the rest of the world never knew.

He walked over to the wall at the
end of the garden where it abutted the opposite property. Here the stones were
crumbling in one or two places, and an agile man might have climbed over
without leaving a noticeable trace. She was still with him and she read his
thoughts, her eyes wide and dark, but she said nothing. Silently he looked at
the third wall separating them from the garden to the west.

"He must have come over the end
wall," she said very quietly, looking down at the grass. "No one
could have come through the herb garden to the side because Rodwell must have
been there. And the door from the yard on the other side is locked." She
was referring to the paved area to the east side where the rubbish was kept and
where the coal chute to the cellar and the servants' entrance to the scullery
and kitchen were located.

"Did he hurt you, Miss
Gillespie?" He asked it as respectfully as he could, but even so it
sounded intrusive and disbelieving.

She avoided his eyes, a dark rush
of blood staining her cheeks.

"It was most painful,"
she said very quietly. "Most painful indeed." There was undisguised
surprise in her voice, as if the fact amazed her.

He swallowed. "I mean did he injure
you, your arms or your upper body? Did he restrain you violently?"

"Oh—yes. I have bruises on my
wrists and arms, but they are growing paler now." Carefully she pushed up
her long sleeves to show him ugly yellow-gray bruising on the fair skin of her wrists
and forearms. This time she looked up at him.

"I'm sorry." It was an
expression of sympathy for her hurt, not an apology.

She flashed him a sudden smile; he
saw a glimpse of the person she had been before this event had robbed her of
her confidence, pleasure, and peace of mind. Suddenly he felt a furious anger
toward whoever had done this to her, whether it had been seduction to begin
with, or always a violation.

"Thank you," she said,
then straightened her shoulders. "Is there anything else you would care to
see out here?"

"No, thank you."

"What will you do next?"
she asked curiously.

"About this? Speak to your
gardener, and then your neighbors' servants, to see if they saw anything
unusual, anyone in the area not known to them."

"Oh. I see." She turned
away again. The scent of flowers was heavy around them, and somewhere close he
could hear bees.

"But first I shall take my
leave of your sister," he said.

She took a step toward him.

"About Julia—Mr. Monk
..."

"Yes?"

"You must forgive her being a
little ... overprotective of me." She smiled fleetingly. "You see,
our mother died a few days after I was born, when Julia was eleven." She
shook her head a little. "She might have hated me for it: it was my birth
which caused Mama's death. Instead she looked after me right from that moment.
She has always been there to give me all the tenderness and the patience when I
was small, and later to play with me when I was a child. Then as I grew older
she taught me and shared in all my experiences. No one could have been sweeter
or more generous." She looked at him very candidly, an urgency in her face
that he should do more than believe, that he should understand.