They reached the offices and book warehouse still without having spoken any further. Now they stopped, hesilated only a moment, then Monk knocked sharply on the door and, as soon as a clerk opened it, strode in, closely followed by the two others.
The clerk backed away, sputtering expostulations, and was ignored. Monk led the way through the outer area into the large open space, off which led the iron stairway up to Baird’s office and the other one which Alastair used on the rare occasions when he came. As always the cavern below was filled with presses, bales of paper, bolts of cloth, reels of twine and, stretching to the distance, rack after rack of books ready to be shipped. There seemed to be no one else about. Even the clerk had disappeared again. If there was anyone else, they were at the far end of the building, packing or loading books.
Hector looked puzzled, his emotions veering between disappointment and relief. He wanted the last battle, but he was too tired to relish it and too unsure of its outcome.
Monk had no such misgivings. His face was set like a steel mask, through which his eyes glittered hard and bright, and he strode up the iron steps.
“Come on,” he ordered, without waiting to see if they obeyed. At the top he took the passage in three strides and flung open the door to Baird’s office.
Three people were present—Alastair, Oonagh, and Quinlan Fyffe. Alastair looked surprised and angry at the intrusion, Quinlan merely startled, and Oonagh’s usual calm was intensified into an icy chill. She stared at Monk, not even seeing Hester behind him, or Hector not yet in the doorway.
“What in God’s name do you want now?” Alastair demanded. He looked harassed and weary, but not noticeably alarmed, and certainly not guilty to see Monk still alive.
Monk looked at Quinlan, who looked back with a half
smile of ironical humor, and Oonagh, as so often, was unreadable.
“I’ve come to make my last report,” Monk replied with something approaching irony himself.
“You already did, Mr. Monk,” Oonagh said coldly. “And we have thanked you for your efforts. We shall tell the police what we choose in the affair of Mother’s croft. It is no longer your concern. If the matter troubles your conscience, you will have to act as you think best. There is nothing we can do about it.”
“Not, for example, lock me in the secret room in your warehouse and leave me to suffocate to death?” he said with raised eyebrows, glancing quickly at Quinlan and seeing the blood drain from his cheeks, his eyes turned to Oonagh.
So she at least knew!
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Oonagh said levelly. She still had not even noticed Hester and Hector. “But if you were locked in the warehouse, you have only yourself to blame, Mr. Monk. You were trespassing to be there, and I cannot think of any honest purpose you could have had in the middle of a Sunday night. Still, you obviously managed to effect an exit, and you seem none the worse for it.”
“I did not effect an exit. I was released by Major Farraline.”
“Bloody Hector!” Quinlan said between his teeth. “Trust the drunken old sot to interfere!”
“Hold your tongue,” Oonagh said without looking at him. She spoke to Monk. “What were you doing in our warehouse, Mr. Monk? How do you explain yourself?”
“I went to look for the secret room that Major Farraline mentioned at dinner,” he replied, watching her as closely as she watched him. For each of them, there might have been no one else present. “I found it.”
Her fair brows rose. “Did you? I was not aware of such a place.”
He knew she was lying; he had seen it in Quinlan’s face.
“It was full of equipment with which to forge bank notes,” he replied. “All denominations, and for several banks.”
There was still nothing in her face to betray her.
“Good heavens! Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
“I wonder how long it has been there. Since my father’s time, I imagine, if Uncle Hector says it was his secret room.”
Alastair shifted his weight with an almost imperceptible sound.
Monk glanced at him for an instant, and then back at Oonagh.
“Almost certainly,” he agreed. “But it is also in present use. Some of the plates are as recent as last year.”
“How can you tell?” A flash of amusement lit Oonagh’s eyes. “Was the ink still wet?”
“Bank notes change, Mrs. McIvor. There are new designs brought in.”
“I see. You are saying someone is still using the room to forge money?”
“Yes. You should be pleased.” There was a black laughter underlying his voice now. “It will remove some of the burden from your husband. It makes another excellent motive for murder.”
“Does it, Mr. Monk? I fail to see how.”
“If your mother discovered it—”
This time it was she who laughed.
“Don’t be absurd, Mr. Monk! Do you imagine Mother didn’t know?”
Hector made a strangled noise, but he did not move.
“You affected not to,” Monk pointed out.
“Certainly, but only before I realized that you are aware it is still in use.” Her face was cold and implacable now. She no longer concealed her enmity.
Alastair stood rooted to the spot. Quinlan’s hand had
closed around a bright paper knife on the desk and he was balanced so as to move with violence.
“Not, of course, that this is the only motive for murder,” Monk went on, his voice cutting harsh with anger and stinging, bottomless contempt. “There is also the Galbraith case, and God knows how many others.”
“The Galbraith case? What in hell are you talking about?” Quinlan demanded.
But Monk was watching Alastair, and had he ever doubted the charge, he could no longer. The blood fled from Alastair’s face, leaving him ashen, his eyes terrified, his mouth slack. Instinctively, almost blindly, he looked at Oonagh.
“She knew,” Monk said with a depth of emotion that startled him. “Your mother knew, and you murdered her to keep it silent. You were trusted by your fellow men, honored, held above the ordinary citizens, and you sold justice. Your mother could not forgive that, so you killed her and tried to get her nurse hanged for it in your place.”
“No!”
It was not Alastair who spoke, he was beyond speech. The voice came from behind him. Monk half turned to see Hector push his way forward, staring at Alastair. “No,” he said again. “It wasn’t Alastair who made the list of Mary’s clothes for Griselda. It was you! You put that brooch in Hester’s bag. Alastair wouldn’t have known even where to find it. Alastair, God help him, killed her, but it was you who would have hanged Hester in his place.”
“Rubbish,” Oonagh said sharply. “Hold your tongue, you old fool!”
A spasm of pain crossed Hector’s features so sharp it was beyond all proportion to the insult, which he must have heard a hundred times before, even if only in his mind.
Surprisingly it was Hester who spoke, from just behind Monk’s elbow.
“It couldn’t have been Alastair who put the pin in my case,” she said slowly. “Because Mary wore it with only
one dress, and he knew she hadn’t packed that dress to take with her. He was the one who damaged it so it had to be cleaned.”
“Couldn’t it have been mended before she took it?” Monk asked.
“Don’t be absurd. It takes days to unpick and clean a silk gown and then stitch it back together again.”
As one they turned to Oonagh.
She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t know she’d marked the dress. I wanted to protect him,” she said very quietly.
Alastair looked at her with a ghastly smile filled with despair.
“But she didn’t know,” Monk said very softly, almost under his breath. The words fell in the room like stones. “She was afraid, because she saw Archie Frazer in the house, but you could have explained that. You killed her for nothing.”
Very slowly, as if in a nightmare, Alastair turned to Oonagh, his face like a dead man’s, aged and yet with the helplessness of a lost child. “You said she knew. You told me she knew. I didn’t have to kill her! Oonagh—what have you done to me?”
“Nothing, Alastair! Nothing!” she said quickly, putting out both her hands and gripping his arms. “She would have ruined us, believe me.” Her voice was desperate, urgent that he should understand.
“But she didn’t know!” His voice was rising, shrill with betrayal and despair.
“All right! She didn’t know that, or the forgery.” The gentleness vanished and her features were suddenly ugly. “But she knew about Uncle Hector and Father, and she’d have told Griselda. That is what she was on the way south to do. Griselda and her stupid obsession with health and her child. She’d have told Connal, and then it would have been all over the place.”
“Told him what? What are you talking about?” He was utterly lost. He seemed to have forgotten everyone in the
room except Oonagh. “Father’s been dead for years. What did it have to do with her child? It doesn’t make any sense….”
Oonagh’s face was as white as his, but with fury and contempt. There was still no fear in it, and no weakness.
“Father died of syphilis, you fool! He was riddled with it! What did you think his blindness was, and his paralysis? We kept him in the house and said it was a stroke … what else were we to do?”
“B-but … syphilis takes years to get to …” He stopped. There was a funny little choking sound in his throat, as if he could not breathe. He was horrified beyond movement, except for his dry lips. It almost seemed as if she were holding him up. “That means … that means we are all … Griselda … her child, all our children … Oh sweet Jesus!”
“No it doesn’t,” she said between clenched jaws. “Mother knew it from the beginning. That is what she was going to tell Griselda. What she had just told me…. Hamish was not our father … not any of us.”
He looked at her as if she had spoken to him in an incomprehensible language.
She swallowed. Now the words seemed to choke her as much as him. Her face was white with pain.
“Hector is our father … every one of us … right from you to Griselda. You are a bastard, Alastair. We are all bastards … our mother was an adulteress, and that drunken sot is our father! Do you want the world to know that? Can you live with it … Procurator Fiscal!”
But Alastair was beyond speech. He was stricken as if dead.
The only sound in the whole place was Quinlan’s laugh, a wild, hysterical, bitter sound.
“I loved her,” Hector said, staring at Oonagh. “I loved her all my life. She loved Hamish to begin with, but after we met, it was me … it was always me. She knew what Hamish was … and she never let him touch her.”
Oonagh looked back at him with utter, indescribable loathing.
Tears were running down Hector’s face. “I always loved her,” he said again. “And you killed her, more surely than if you’d done it yourself.” His voice was rising, getting stronger. “You sold my beautiful Eilish to that creature … to get his services for forgery.” He did not even look at Quinlan. “You sold her like a horse or a dog. You used flattery and deceit on all of us … using our weaknesses against us … even me. I wanted to stay here, to be part of you. You are all the family I have, and you knew that, and I let you use it.” He gulped. “Dear God, but what you’ve done to Alastair …”
It was Quinlan who reacted at last. He picked up the heavy paper knife and lunged—not at Hector, but at Monk.
Monk reacted only just in time. The blade grazed his arm and he went backwards, knocking Hester off balance and lurching against the iron railing of the spiral stairs. He only just avoided going over them as they caught him in the small of his back and his foot slipped and went from under him, leaving him sprawled at Hester’s feet.
Alastair still stood mesmerized.
Oonagh waited only an instant, then realized he was going to be useless. For a terrible moment she stared at Hector, then she ran at him, bending to catch him in the solar plexus and knock him over the railing to fall the twenty feet to the floor below.
He understood from her eyes, but he moved too slowly. She caught him in the chest, to the left, not quite under the heart. He fell sideways against the railing and backed into Hester, sending her flying. She caught Quinlan just as he reached Monk to strike again. There was a shriek, a flailing of limbs, a moment’s blind panic, and then a sickening thud from the floor below.
Then total silence closed in, except for Alastair’s weeping.
Hester peered over the edge.
Quinlan lay on the floor below them, his blond hair like a silver halo. There was no blood, but his right arm, in which he had held the knife, was bent underneath him, and no one needed to be told he would not move again.
At last Alastair seemed to regain some semblance of control. He looked around for another weapon, his eyes glistening with almost manic hatred.
Oonagh could see there was no more room for words, no excuses anymore. She plunged past the choking Hector and still-sprawling Monk, ignoring Hester, and clattered down the iron stairs, making towards the back of the vast building until she disappeared between the bales of paper.
Alastair stared wildly around him, then after only a split second’s hesitation, followed after her.
Monk scrambled to his feet and bent over Hector.
“Are you all right? Did she injure you?”
“No …” Hector coughed and gasped to regain his breath. “No …” He looked at Monk with wild eyes. “She didn’t. How did I beget that? And Mary … Mary was …”
But Monk had no time for such speculation. He checked to see that Hester was unhurt, that it was no more than a few bruises and a possible abrasion. Then he set off down the stairs after Oonagh and Alastair.
Hester followed after him, tucking her skirts up in an undignified but very effective manner, and Hector lumbered close behind at a surprisingly good speed.
Out in the street Oonagh and Alastair were at least fifty yards ahead and increasing the distance between them. Monk was sprinting with an excellent tum of speed.
They reached the thoroughfare, and Alastair, waving his arms and shouting, leaped directly in the path of an oncoming carriage. The horse shied and the driver, foolishly standing to ward off what he imagined was an attack, overbalanced and crashed to the ground, still grasping the reins. Alastair leaped into the box, turning only for a second to haul Oonagh up with him, and then shouted wildly to urge the horses into flight again.