Baird stood by the fireplace, as far as possible from Quinlan. He looked pale, as if he had not eaten or slept, and there was a haunted air about him, as though he were preparing to fight but had no hope of winning.
Kenneth sat on the arm of one of the easy chairs, regarding Hester with undisguised interest.
They had been indulging in polite conversation about nothing that mattered, but the room seemed to crackle with the underlying silence, the waiting for someone to broach the only subject that mattered. Finally it was Alastair who did it.
“Oonagh says you went to find out about the other brooch which no one has seen. I can’t imagine why.” A curious look came into his eyes, doubt, incredulity, hope. “Surely you don’t think one of the servants took it … do you? Isn’t it merely lost? Mother does seem to have been somewhat careless …” He left the remark hanging in unfinished silence. No one had yet explained the gray pearl brooch, and somehow it seemed crass to mention the subject at all now, in front of Hester.
“No I don’t,” Monk said grimly. “I am sorry, Mr. Farraline, but the explanation for that is quite simple. Your mother never had it. It was commissioned in the first place by your brother, Kenneth, I assume in order to give to his lady friend, who is so determined never to be poor again. A very understandable resolve, not perhaps to you, but certainly to anyone who has lain awake all night because he or she was too hungry or too cold to sleep.”
Alastair pulled a face of distaste, then turned slowly to look at Kenneth.
Kenneth flushed a dull red, and his face tightened defiantly.
Monk glanced at Eilish. Her expression was a painful mixture of anguish and hope, as though she had not expected to be hurt by Kenneth’s guilt, and now that it was on the brink of reality, it caught her unaware, both wounded and abashed. She looked across at Baird, but he was sunk in gloom of his own.
Oonagh turned a questioning gaze at her younger brother.
“Well?” Alastair demanded. “Don’t just stand there glowering, Kenneth. This requires very considerable explanation. Do you admit buying this piece of jewelry and charging it to Mother? Not that there seems any point in denying it; the proof is there.”
“I admit it,” Kenneth said in a strangled voice, although there seemed as much anger in it as fear. “If you paid us decently I wouldn’t have to—”
“You are paid what you are worth!” Alastair said, the color mounting in his cheeks. “But if you were paid nothing at all beyond your keep, that would not excuse you from buying presents for your mistress on Mother’s account. Dear God, what else have you done? Is Uncle Hector right? Have you embezzled from the company accounts?”
The blood fled from Kenneth’s cheeks, but he seemed defiant as much as frightened, and there was still no remorse in him that the eye could see.
Oddly, it was Quinlan who stepped forward to speak, not Kenneth himself.
“Yes he did, months ago, over a year now, and Mother-in-law knew about it at the time. She paid it all back.”
Alastair exploded with disbelief. “Oh really, Quin! Don’t expect me to believe all that. I know how you feel about Baird, but this is absurd. Why on earth would Mother cover up Kenneth’s embezzlement and simply repay it all? I presume we are not speaking about a few pennies. That would
hardly fund the life he enjoys and keep his poverty-stricken mistress in the diamonds she apparently likes so much.”
“Of course not,” Quinlan agreed with a twist of his mouth. “If you look at Mother-in-law’s will, you will find that Kenneth gets nothing at all. She took his share in settlement of his debt—both for the embezzlement and, I imagine, the brooch. She knew about that too.” His eyes stared levelly at Alastair, so absolutely without wavering, Monk wondered if this last was a lie.
Alastair said nothing.
Quinlan smiled. “Come on, Alastair. That is what Mother-in-law would have done, and you know it. She would never have precipitated a scandal by prosecuting her own son. We all knew her better than that—even Kenneth. Not when the remedy lay so easily to hand.” He shrugged very slightly. “Certainly she punished him, and redeemed the debt at the same time. If he’d done it again she’d have taken it out of his skin—she would have had him work all day and all night till it was earned again. I daresay she’d received one or two nice presents in her day….”
“How dare you—” Alastair began furiously, but Oonagh cut him off.
“I presume the solicitors will know this much?” she said quietly.
“Of course,” Quinlan agreed. “There is no reason given in the will, except that Kenneth himself will understand why he has no inheritance, and have no complaints.”
“How do you know this, when the rest of the family doesn’t?” Monk asked him.
Quinlan’s eyebrows rose. “Me? Because as I said before, I conducted a great deal of her affairs for her. I am extremely good at business, especially investments, and Mother-in-law knew it. Besides, Alastair is too busy, Baird has no head for it, and obviously she would be a complete fool to trust Kenneth.”
“If you know so much about the business,” Eilish challenged him in a choking voice, “how is it you knew nothing
about the land in Easter Ross and that she was getting no rent from it?”
Kenneth seemed to be forgotten, at least temporarily. All eyes turned to Eilish, and then to Baird. No one took the slightest notice of Monk or Hester.
Baird looked up at them, his face wretched.
“Mary knew everything that I did, and it was done with her permission,” he said quietly. “That is all I will tell you.”
“Well, it is not enough.” Alastair swung around at him desperately. “Good God, man! Mother is dead—poisoned by someone. The police aren’t going to accept an answer like that. If Miss Latterly didn’t do it, then one of us did!”
“I didn’t.” Baird’s voice was barely a whisper between his lips. “I loved Mary, more than anyone else … except …” He stopped. Few in the room doubted he was going to say “Eilish,” not “Oonagh.”
Oonagh was very pale, but perfectly composed. Whatever emotions tore her at such a reality, they were too well concealed by time, familiarity, or sheer courage to show now.
“Of course,” Alastair said bitterly. “We would hardly expect you to say anything less. But words are immaterial now; it is only facts that matter.”
“Nobody knows the facts,” Quinlan pointed out. “We only know what Mary’s papers say, what the bankers say, and Baird’s excuses. I don’t know what other facts you think there are.”
“I imagine the police may think that sufficient,” Monk responded. “At least for trial. What else they find, or need, is their affair.”
“Is that what you are going to do?” Eilish was desperate; it stared out of her anguished face and rang in the rising pitch of her voice. “Just accuse, and leave it to the police? Baird is one of the family. We’ve lived with him in this house, known him every day for years, shared our dreams and our hopes with him. You can’t just—just say he’s
guilty—and abandon him.” She looked wildly from one to another of them, all except Quinlan, ending with Oonagh, perhaps to whom she had always turned in times of need.
“We are not abandoning him, my dear,” Oonagh said quietly. “But we have no alternative to facing the truth, however terrible it is for us. One of us killed Mother.”
Unintentionally Eilish looked again at Hester, then blushed scarlet.
“That won’t work, my sweet,” Quinlan said sourly. “Of course it is still possible. ‘Not proven’ is a vicious verdict, but they cannot try her again, whatever they think. And let us face facts, her reason hardly matches Baird’s. He could have slipped the brooch into her bag … she could hardly have embezzled Mother-in-law’s rents.”
“For God’s sake, Baird, why don’t you say something?” Deirdra burst out after her long silence. She went to Eilish and put her arm around her. “Can’t you see what this is doing to all of us?”
“Deirdra, please control your language,” Alastair reproved almost automatically.
Monk was amused. If Alastair had the faintest idea of his wife’s midnight activities, he would be grateful it was so relatively mild. Monk would swear she knew a great deal that was more colorful than that from her mechanic friend.
“There seems only one way.” Hester spoke for the first time since the charge had been made against Baird. Everyone looked at her with some surprise.
“I don’t know what it can be.” Alastair frowned. “Do you know something that we don’t?”
“Don’t be absurd,” Quinlan said. “Mother-in-law would hardly confide her business to Miss Latterly on one day’s acquaintance, and not tell at least Oonagh, if not all of us.”
“Miss Latterly?” Alastair turned to her.
“One of us must go to the croft in Ross-shire and learn what has happened to the rents,” she replied. “I have no idea how far it is, but it hardly matters. It must be done.”
“And which of us will you trust?” Deirdra asked dryly. “I can think of no one.”
“Monk, of course,” Hester replied. “He has no interest whatever in the answer one way or the other.”
“As long as it is not you,” Quinlan added. “I think his interest in the case is now quite obvious to all. He came here originally talking what, at the kindest, was much less than the truth, what less kindly but more accurately was a complete lie.”
“Would you have helped him for the truth?” she asked.
Quinlan smiled. “Of course not. I am not accusing, merely pointing out that Mr. Monk is not the paragon of honesty you seem to imagine.”
“I don’t imagine it,” she said crossly. “I simply said he has no interest in which of you is lying or what happened to the rents.”
“What a charming turn of phrase you have.”
Hester blushed hotly.
“Please!” Deirdra interrupted them, turning to Monk. “All this is beside the point now. Mr. Monk, would you learn the particulars from Quinlan and travel north to Easter Ross, find the person who leases the croft and what they have done with the rents, to whom they were paid. I imagine it will be necessary to bring with you some burden of proof, documents, or whatever it may be. Probably a sworn testimony …”
“An affidavit,” Alastair supplied. “I presume there will be notaries public, or justices of the peace, even up there.”
“Yes,” Monk said immediately, although he was irritated he had not suggested it himself, before Hester had. Then as quickly he wondered how he was going to find the fare. He lived precariously as it was. Callandra provided for him in lean times, when his clients were few, or poor, in return for his sharing the interesting cases with her. It was her form of both friendship and philanthropy, and her occasional excitement and touch of danger. But she had gone home, and he could not ask her for a contribution towards this. She
had already paid him for his part in Hester’s defense, sufficient to take him to Scotland and to secure his lodgings, both here and in London during his absence. She had not known such a prolonged trip would be necessary.
“How far is it?” he said aloud. It galled him intensely to have to ask.
Alastair’s eyes widened. “I have no idea. Two hundred miles? Three hundred?”
“It isn’t so far,” Deirdra contradicted him. “Two hundred at most. But we will provide your fare, Mr. Monk. After all, it is our business which takes you there, not your own.” She disregarded Alastair’s frown and Oonagh’s look of faint surprise and a flicker of black humor. She at least understood that it was to remove the final question from Hester’s innocence, not because Monk wished to assist Baird McIvor or any of the Farralines. “I expect there is a train as far as Inverness,” Deirdra continued. “After that you may have to ride, I don’t know.”
“Then as soon as I have the information, and a note of authority from you,” Monk said, for the first time looking at Quinlan, not Oonagh, for agreement, “I shall collect my belongings and take the first train north.”
“Will you travel also?” Eilish said, addressing Hester.
“No,” Monk said instantly.
Hester had opened her mouth to speak, but no one knew what she was going to say. She took one look at Monk’s face, then at the faces of the assembled company, and changed her mind. “I shall remain in Edinburgh,” she said obediently. Had Monk been less consumed by his own forthcoming task, he might have been suspicious of the sudden collapse of her argument, but his thoughts were occupied elsewhere.
They remained for dinner: a good meal, punctiliously served. But there was a gloom over the whole house, not only of recent death, but now of newborn fear, and conversation was stilted and meaningless. Hester and Monk took
their leave early, without the necessity or artificiality of excuses.
The journey north was long and extremely tedious for Monk, because he was chafing to be there. No one in Edinburgh had been able to tell him how to proceed into Easter Ross after he should reach Inverness. As far as the ticket clerk was concerned, it was an unknown land, cold, dangerous, uncivilized, and no sensible person would wish to go there. Stirling, Deeside and Balmoral were all excellent places for a holiday. Aberdeen, the granite city of the north, had its qualities, but beyond Inverness was no-man’s-land, and you went there at your own risk.
The long journey took nearly all the daylight hours, as it was now deepest autumn. Monk sat morosely and turned over and over in his mind all he knew of the death of Mary Farraline and the passions and characters of her family, He came to no conclusion whatever, only that it was one of them who had killed her; almost certainly Baird McIvor, because he had embezzled the rents from the croft. But it seemed such a futile reason, so incredibly petty for a man who seemed moved by so much stronger emotions. And if he loved Eilish, as he seemed to so apparently, how would he have brought himself to kill her mother, whatever the temptation?
When he disembarked at Inverness it was already too late to think of proceeding farther north that night. Resentfully he found lodgings, and immediately inquired of the landlord about travel to the Port of Saint Colmac on the next day.
“Oh,” the landlord said thoughtfully. He was a small man by the name of MacKay. “Oh aye, Portmahomack, ye mean? That’ll be the ferry ye’ll be wanting.”
“The ferry?” Monk said dubiously.