A sudden, fearful death (41 page)

Monk frowned. "Might that have
angered him enough to lash out at her for it?"

Kristian laughed. "Hardly. He
was chief surgeon here. She was only a nurse. He had it eminently in his power
to crush her without resort to anything so out of character, so dangerous to
himself."

"Even if he had been wrong and
she was right?" Monk pressed. "It would have become known to
others."

Kristian's face suddenly became
serious.

"Well, that would put a
different complexion upon it, of course. He would not take that well at all. No
man would."

"Might her medical knowledge
have been sufficient for that to happen?" Monk asked.

Kristian shook his head slightly.

"I don't know. I suppose it is
conceivable. She certainly knew a great deal, far more than any other nurse I
have ever met, although the nurse who replaced her is extraordinarily
good."

Monk felt a quick surge of
satisfaction and was instantly discomfited by it.

"Enough?" he said a
little more sharply than he had intended.

"Possibly," Kristian
conceded. "But have you anything whatever to indicate that that is what
happened? I thought he was arrested because of the letters?" He shook his
head slightly. "And a woman in love does not show up a man's mistakes to
the world. Just the opposite. Every woman I ever met defended a man to the end
if she loved him, even if perhaps she should not have. No, Mr. Monk, that is
not a viable theory. Anyway, from your initial remarks I gathered you were
hired by Sir Herbert's barrister in order to help find evidence to acquit him.
Did I misunderstand you?"

It was a polite way of asking if
Monk had lied.

"No, Dr. Beck, you are
perfectly correct," Monk answered, knowing he would understand the
meaning behind (he words as well. "I am testing the strength of the prosecution's
case in order to be able to defend against it."

"How can I help you do
that?" Kristian asked gravely. "I have naturally thought over the
matter again and again, as I imagine we all have. But I can think of nothing
which will help or hurt him. Of course I shall testify to his excellent
personal reputation and his high professional standing, if you wish it."

"I expect we shall," Monk
accepted. "If I ask you here in private, Dr. Beck, will you tell me
candidly if you believe him guilty?"

Kristian looked vaguely surprised.

"I will answer you equally
candidly, sir. I believe it extremely unlikely. Nothing I have ever seen or
heard of the man gives me to believe he would behave in such a violent,
unself-disciplined, and overemotional manner."

"How long have you known
him?"

"I have worked with him just a
little less than eleven years."

"And you will swear to
that?"

"I will."

Monk had to think about what the
prosecution could draw out by skillful and devious questions. Now was the time
to discover, not on the stand when it was too late. He pursued every idea he
could think of, but all Kristian's answers were measured and uncritical. He
rose half an hour later, thanked Kristian for his time and frankness, and took
his leave.

It had been a curiously
unsatisfactory interview. He should have been pleased. Kristian Beck had
confirmed every aspect of Sir Herbert's character he had wished, and he was
more than willing to testify. Why should Monk not be pleased?

If it were not Sir Herbert, then
surely the other most obvious suspects were Geoffrey Taunton and Beck himself.
Was he the charming, intelligent, only very faintly foreign man he seemed? Or
was there something closed about him, something infinitely darker behind the
exterior which even Monk found so pleasing?

He had no idea. His usual sense of
judgment had left him.

* * * * *

Monk spoke to as many of Prudence's
friends and colleagues as he could, but they were reluctant to see him and
full of resentment. Young nurses glared at him defensively and answered with
monosyllables when he asked if Prudence were romantic.

"No." It was as blunt as
that.

"Did she ever speak of
marriage?"

"No. I never heard her."

"Of leaving nursing and
settling into a domestic life?" he pressed.

"Oh no—never. Not ever. She
loved her job."

"Did you ever see her excited,
flushed, extremely happy or sad for no reason you knew of?"

"No. She was always in
control. She wasn't like you say at all." The answer was given with a flat
stare, defiant and resentful.

"Did she ever
exaggerate?" he said desperately. "Paint her achievements as more
than they were, or glamorize the war in the Crimea?"

At last he provoked emotion, but it
was not what he wanted.

"No she did not." The
young woman's face flushed hot with anger. "It's downright wicked of you
to say that! She always told the truth. And she never spoke about the Crimea at
all, except to tell us about Miss Nightingale's ideas. She never praised
herself at all. And I'll not listen to you say different! Not to defend that
man who killed her, or anything else, I'll swear to that."

It was no help to him at all, and
yet perversely he was pleased. He had had a long fruitless week, and had heard
very little that was of use, and only precisely what he had foreseen. But no
one had destroyed his picture of Prudence. He had found nothing that drew her
as the emotional, blackmailing woman her letters suggested.

But what was the truth?

The last person he saw was Lady
Stanhope. It was an emotionally charged meeting, as it was bound to be. Sir
Herbert's arrest had devastated her. She required all the courage she could
draw on to maintain a modicum of composure for her children's sake, but the
marks of shock, sleeplessness, and much weeping were only too evident in her
face. When he was shown in, Arthur, her eldest son, was at her elbow, his face
white, his chin high and defiant.

"Good afternoon, Mr.
Monk," Lady Stanhope said very quietly. She seemed at a loss to understand
precisely who he was and why he had come. She blinked at him expectantly. She
was seated on a carved, hard-backed chair, Arthur immediately behind her, and
she did not rise when Monk came in.

"Good afternoon, Lady
Stanhope," he replied. He must force himself to be gentle with her.
Impatience would serve no one; it was a weakness, and he must look at it so.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Stanhope," he added, acknowledging Arthur.

Arthur nodded. "Please be
seated, Mr. Monk," he invited, rectifying his mother's omission.
"What can we do for you, sir? As you may imagine, my mother is not seeing
people unless it is absolutely necessary. This time is very difficult for
us."

"Of course," Monk
conceded, sitting in the offered chair. "I am assisting Mr. Rathbone in
preparing a defense for your father, as I believe I wrote you."

"His defense is that he is
innocent," Arthur interrupted. "The poor woman was obviously deluded.
It happens to unmarried ladies of a certain age, I believe. They construct
fantasies, daydreams about eminent people, men of position, dignity. It is
usually simply sad and a little embarrassing. On this occasion it has proved
tragic also."

With difficulty Monk suppressed the
question that rose to his lips. Did this smooth-faced, rather complacent young
man think of the death of Prudence Barrymore, or only of the charge against his
father?

"That is one thing that is
undeniable," he agreed aloud. "Nurse Barrymore is dead, and your
father is in prison awaiting trial for murder."

Lady Stanhope gasped and the last
vestige of color drained from her cheeks. She clutched at Arthur's hand resting
on her shoulder.

"Really, sir!" Arthur
said furiously. "That was unnecessary! I would think you might have more
sensitivity toward my mother's feelings. If you have some business with us,
please conduct it as briefly and circumspectly as you can. Then leave us, for
pity's sake."

Monk controlled himself with an
effort. He could remember doing this before, sitting opposite stunned and
frightened people who did not know what to say and could only sit mesmerized by
their grief. He could see a quiet woman, an ordinary face devastated by
tormenting loss, white hands clenched in her lap. She too had been unable to
speak to him. He had been filled with a rage so vast the taste of it was still
familiar in his mouth. But it had not been against her, for her he felt only a
searing pity. But why? Why now, after all these years, did he remember that
woman instead of all the others?

Nothing came, nothing at all, just
the emotion filling his mind and making his body tense.

"What can we do?" Lady
Stanhope asked again. "What can we say to help Herbert?"

Gradually, with uncharacteristic
patience, he drew from them a picture of Sir Herbert as a quiet, very proper
man with an ordinary domestic life, devoted to his family, predictable in all
his personal tastes. His only appetite seemed to be for a glass of excellent
whiskey every evening, and a fondness for good roast beef. He was a dutiful
husband, an affectionate father.

The conversation was slow and
tense. He explored every avenue he could think of to draw from either of them
anything that would be of use to Rathbone, better than the predictable
loyalty which he believed was quite literally the truth but not necessarily
likely to influence a jury. What else could a wife say? And she was not a
promising witness. She was too frightened to be coherent or convincing.

In spite of himself he was sorry
for her.

He was about to leave when there
was a knock at the door. Without waiting for a reply, a young woman opened it
and came in. She was slender—in fact, thin—and her face was so marked with
illness and disappointment it was hard to tell her age, but he thought probably
not more than twenty.

"Excuse my interruption,"
she began, but even before she spoke Monk was overcome by a wave of memory so
vivid and so agonizing his present surroundings became invisible to him, Lady
Stanhope and Arthur merely blurs on the edge of his vision. He knew what the
old case was, violently and with sickening immediacy. A girl had been molested
and murdered. He could still see her thin broken body and feel the rage inside
himself, the confusion and the pain, the aching helplessness. That was why he
had driven his constables so hard, worried and harassed his witnesses, why his
contempt had scalded Runcorn without mercy or patience.

The horror was back inside him with
all the freshness it had had when he was twenty. It did not excuse the way he
had treated people, it did not undo anything, but it explained it. At least he
had had a reason, a passion which was not centered upon himself. He was not
merely cruel, arrogant, and ambitious. He had cared—furiously, tirelessly,
single-mindedly.

He found himself smiling with
relief, and yet there was a sickness in his stomach.

"Mr. Monk?" Lady Stanhope
said nervously.

"Yes—yes, ma'am?"

"Are you going to be able to
help my husband, Mr. Monk?"

"I believe so," he said
firmly. "And I shall do everything within my power, I promise you."

"Thank you. I—we—are most
grateful." She held Arthur's hand a little more tightly. "All of
us."

Chapter 9

The trial of Sir Herbert Stanhope
opened at the Old Bailey on the first Monday in August. It was a gray, sultry
day with a hot wind out of the south and the smell of rain. Outside the crowds
pressed forward, climbing up the steps, eager to claim the few public seats
available. There was an air of excitement, whispering and pushing, an urgency.
Newsboys shouted promises about exclusive revelations, prophesies of what was
to come. The first few heavy drops of rain fell with a warm splatter on
oblivious heads.

Inside the wood-paneled courtroom
the jury sat in two rows, their backs to the high windows, faces toward the
lawyers' tables, behind whom were the few public benches. To the jurors' right,
twenty feet above the floor, was the dock, like a closed-in balcony, its hidden
steps leading down to the cells. Opposite the dock was the witness box, like a
pulpit. To reach it one crossed the open space of the floor and climbed the
curving steps up, then stood isolated, facing the barristers and the public.
Higher still, and behind the witness box, surrounded by magnificently carved
panels and seated on plush, was the judge. He was robed in scarlet velvet and
wigged in curled white horsehair.

The court had already been called
to order. The jury was empaneled and the charge had been read and answered.
With immense dignity, head high and voice steady, Sir Herbert denied his guilt
absolutely. Immediately there was a rustle of sympathy around the body of the
court.

The judge, a man in his late
forties with brilliant light gray eyes and a clean-boned, lean-cheeked face,
flashed his glance around but refrained from speech. He was a hard man, young
for such high office, but he owed no one favors and had no ambitions but the
law. He was saved from ruth-lessness by a sharp sense of humor, and redeemed by
a love of classical literature and its soaring imagination, which he barely
understood but knew he held to be of immense worth.