by Anne Perry
An elderly nurse with a bald patch on one side of her head was standing a few feet away, staring at her.
“That there rozzer wants yer,” she said flatly. “The one wi’ the eyes like a ferret. You’d better look sharp. ’E ain’t one to cross.” And having delivered her message she took herself off without glancing backwards to see whether Hester obeyed or not.
Blinking, her eyes sore, her head heavy, Hester climbed out of the cot (she did not think of it as hers), pulled on her dress, and straightened her hair. Then she set off to find Jeavis; from the woman’s description it could only be Jeavis who wanted her, not Evan.
She saw him standing outside Sir Herbert Stanhope’s room, looking along the corridor toward her. Presumably he knew where the dormitory was, and thus expected her the way she came.
“Morning, miss,” he said when she was within a few feet of him. He looked her up and down with curiosity. “You’d be Miss Latterly?”
“Yes, Inspector. What may I do for you?” She said it more coolly than she had intended, but something in his manner irritated her.
“Oh yes. You were not here when Miss Barrymore met her death,” he began unnecessarily. “But I understand you served in the Crimea? Perhaps you were acquainted with her there?”
“Yes, slightly.” She was about to add that she knew nothing of relevance, or she would have told him without his asking, then she realized that it was just possible she might learn something from him if she prolonged the conversation. “We served side by side on at least one occasion.” She looked into his dark, almost browless eyes, and unwittingly thought of the bald nurse’s mention of a ferret. It was cruel, but not entirely inappropriate—a dark brown, highly intelligent ferret. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to try misleading him after all.
“Difficult to tell what a woman looked like,” he said thoughtfully, “when you haven’t seen her alive. They tell me she was quite handsome. Would you agree with that, Miss Latterly?”
“Yes.” She was surprised. It seemed so irrelevant. “Yes, she had a very—very individual face, most appealing. But she was rather tall.”
Jeavis unconsciously squared his shoulders. “Indeed. I assume she must have had admirers?”
Hester avoided his eyes deliberately. “Oh yes. Are you thinking such a person killed her?”
“Never mind what we’re thinking,” he replied smugly. “You just answer my questions the best you can.”
Hester seethed with annoyance, and hid it with difficulty. Pompous little man!
“I never knew her to encourage anyone,” she said between stiff lips. “She didn’t flirt. I don’t think she knew how to.”
“Hmm …” He bit his lip. “Be that as it may, did she ever mention a Mr. Geoffrey Taunton to you? Think carefully now. I need an exact, honest answer.”
Hester controlled herself with an intense effort. She wanted to slap him. But this conversation would be worth it if she learned something, however small. She gazed back at him with wide eyes.
“What does he look like, Inspector?”
“It doesn’t matter what he looks like, miss,” he said irritably. “What I want to know is, did she mention him?”
“She had a photograph,” Hester lied without compunction. At least it was a lie in essence. Prudence had had a photograph, certainly, but it was one of her father, and Hester knew that.
Jeavis’s interest was quickened. “Did she, now. What was he like, the man in this photograph?”
This was no use. “Well—er …” She screwed up her face as if in a concentrated effort to find the right words.
“Come on, miss. You must have some idea!” Jeavis said urgently. “Was he coarse or refined? Handsome or homely? Was he clean-shaven, a mustache, whiskers, a beard? What was he like?”
“Oh he was fine-looking,” she prevaricated, hoping he would forget his caution. “Sort of—well—it’s hard to say….”
“Oh yes.”
She was afraid if she did not give him a satisfactory answer soon he would lose interest. “She had it with her all the time.”
Jeavis abandoned patience. “Was he tall, straight hair, regular features, smallish sort of mouth, light eyes, very level?”
“Yes! Yes, that’s who he was, exactly,” she said, affecting relief. “Is that him?”
“Never you mind. So she carried that with her, did she? Sounds like she knew him pretty close. I suppose she got letters?”
“Oh yes, whenever the post came from England. But I didn’t think Mr. Taunton lived in London.”
“He didn’t,” he agreed. “But there are trains, and it’s easy enough to come and go. Trip to Ealing only takes an hour or less. Easy enough to get in and out of the hospital. I’ll have to have a good deal closer talk with Mr. Taunton.” He shook his head darkly. “Nice-looking gentleman like that might have other ladies to set their caps at. Funny he chose to go on with her, even when she worked in a place like this and seemed set to continue with it.”
“Love is funny, Inspector,” Hester said tartly. “And while a great many people marry for other reasons, there are a few who insist on marrying for love. Perhaps Mr. Taunton was one of them?”
“You’ve got a very sharp tongue in your head, Miss Latterly,” Jeavis said with a perceptive look at her. “Was Miss Barrymore like that too? Independent, and a bit waspish, was she?”
Hester was staring. It was not a pleasing description.
“Those would not have been my choice of words, Inspector, but essentially my meaning, yes. But I don’t see how she could have been killed by a jealous woman. The sort of person who would have been in love with Mr. Taunton surely would not have the strength to strangle her. Prudence was tall, and not weak by any means. Wouldn’t there have been a fight? And such a person would be marked as well, scratched or bruised at least?”
“Oh no,” Jeavis denied quickly. “There wasn’t a struggle. It must have been very quick. Just powerful hands on her throat.” He made a quick, harsh gesture, like closing a double fist, and his lips tightened with revulsion. “And it was all over. She might have scratched a hand or so, Of even once at the neck or face. But there was no blood in any of her fingernails, nor anything else, no other scratches or bruises on her. There was no fight. Whoever it was, she was not expecting it.”
“Of course you are right, Inspector.” Hester concealed her triumph beneath humility and downcast eyes. Did Monk know there was no fight? It would be something to tell him that he might not have learned for himself. She refused to think of the human meaning of it.
“If it was a woman,” Jeavis went on, brows drawn down. “It was a strong woman, one with powerful hands, like a good horse rider perhaps. It certainly wasn’t any fancy lady who never held anything bigger than a cake fork in her fingers. Mind, surprise counts for a lot. Brave, was she, Miss Barrymore?”
Suddenly it was real again, Prudence’s death.
“Yes—yes she was brave,” Hester said with a catch in her voice. She forced memories out of her mind: Prudence’s face in the lamplight, the surgeon’s saw in her hand. Prudence sitting up in bed in Scutari, studying medical papers by candlelight.
“Hmm,” Jeavis said thoughtfully, unaware of her emotion. “Wonder why she never screamed. You’d think she would, wouldn’t you? Would you scream, Miss Latterly?”
Hester blinked away sudden tears.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I should feel so inadequate.”
Jeavis’s eyes widened.
“Bit foolish, that, isn’t it, miss? After all, if someone attacks you, you would be inadequate to defend yourself, wouldn’t you? Miss Barrymore was, right enough. Doesn’t seem there’s so much noise going on here that a good scream wouldn’t be heard.”
“Then whoever attacked her was very quick,” Hester said sharply, angry with him for his words and for the dismissive tone of them. Her emotions were too raw, too close to the surface. “Which suggests someone strong,” she added unnecessarily.
“Quit
e so,” he agreed. “Thank you for your cooperation, miss. She had an admirer when she was in the Crimea. That was really all I wished to know from you. You may continue in your duties.”
“I wasn’t at my duties,” she said angrily. “I was asleep. I had been up with a patient all night.”
“Oh, is that so.” A flicker of oblique humor lit his eyes for an instant. “I’m so glad I wasn’t taking you away from anything important.”
Furious as she was, she liked him rather better for that than if he had become obsequious again.
When she saw Monk the following day in Mecklenburg Square, with all its hideous memories of murder, guilt, and the unknown, there was a tense, oppressive heat, and she was glad of the shade of the trees. They were walking side by side, quite casually, he carrying a stick as if it were a stroll after luncheon, she in a plain blue muslin dress, its wide skirts trailing on the grass at the edge of the path. She had already told him of her encounter with Jeavis.
“I knew Geoffrey Taunton was there,” he said when she had finished. “He admitted that himself. I suppose he knew he was seen—by nurses, if no one else.”
“Oh.” She felt unreasonably crushed.
“But it is most interesting that there were no marks on her except the bruises on her throat,” he went on. “I did not know that. Jeavis will give me nothing at all, which I suppose is natural. I wouldn’t, in his place. But apparently he didn’t tell Evan that either.” Unconsciously he quickened his pace, even though they were merely walking in circles around the edge of the square. “That means whoever did it was powerful. A weak person could not kill her without a struggle. And probably also someone she knew, and wasn’t expecting it from. Most interesting. It raises one most important question.”
She refused to ask. Then quite suddenly she perceived it, and spoke even as the thought formed in her mind. “Was it premeditated? Did he, or she, go with the intention of killing her—or did it arise from something that Prudence said, without realizing what it meant, and thus precipitated a sudden attack with no warning?”
He looked at her with surprise and sudden bright, grudging appreciation.
“Precisely.” He swiped at a loose stone on the path with his stick, and missed. He swore, and caught it the second time, sending it twenty yards through the air.
“Geoffrey Taunton?” she asked.
“Less likely.” He caught another stone, more successfully this time. “She was no threat to him that we know of. And I cannot imagine what such a threat could be. No, I think if he killed her, it would be in hot blood, as a result of a quarrel and his temper finally snapping. They quarreled that morning but she was still alive at the end of it. He might have gone back later, but it seems unlikely.” He looked at her curiously. “What do you make of Kristian Beck?”
They passed a nursemaid with a small child in a sailor’s suit. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of an organ-grinder and the music was familiar.
“I have seen very little of him,” she answered. “But I like what I have seen.”
“I don’t care whether you like him or not,” he said acidly. “I want to know if you think he could have killed Prudence.”
“You think there was something unnatural about his patient’s death that night? I doubt it. Lots of people die unexpectedly. You think they’re recovering, and suddenly they don’t. Anyway, how would Prudence know anything was wrong? If he had made a mistake in front of her, she would have told him and corrected it. He wasn’t operated on that night.”
“Nothing to do with that night.” He took her elbow to guide her across the path out of the way of a man walking briskly about some business.
If it had been a protective gesture she would have welcomed it, but it was officious, impatient instead, as if she were unable to take care of herself. She pulled away sharply.
“She knew something which he begged her not to take to the authorities, and she refused him,” he went on regardless.
“That doesn’t sound like Prudence as I knew her,” she said instantly. “It must have been something very serious. She loathed authorities and had the utmost contempt for them. Anyone has who’s been with the army! Are you sure you have that correctly?”
“The quarrel was overheard,” he replied. “She said she would go to the authorities, and Beck pleaded with her not to. She was adamant.”
“But you don’t know what about?” she pressed.
“No of course I don’t.” He glared at her. “If I knew, I’d tackle Beck over it. Probably be able to tell Jeavis and have him arrested, which would hardly please Callandra. I think her main purpose in employing me is to prove it was not Beck. She holds him in great regard.”
She was spoiling for a quarrel, but this was not the time; there was too much else more important than new emotions.
“Are you afraid it is he?” she said quietly.
He did not look at her. “I don’t know. The field does not seem very wide. Did she quarrel with any of the nurses? I don’t imagine she was popular, if her ideas of reform are anything like yours. I expect she infuriated several of the doctors. You certainly did, in your short stay in office.”
Her good resolution died instantly.
“If you infuriate a doctor, he dismisses you!” she replied sharply. “It doesn’t make sense to kill someone when there is such an easy way, without any risk to yourself, to get rid of her and at the same time make her suffer!”
He grunted. “You have a concise and logical mind. Which is useful—but unattractive. I wonder if she was the same? What about the nurses? Would they have disliked her equally?”
She felt hurt, which was ridiculous. She already knew he liked women to be feminine, vulnerable, and mysterious. She remembered how he had been charmed by Imogen, her sister-in-law. Although as she knew very well, under Imogen’s gentle manner there was no foolish or yielding woman, just one who knew how to comport herself with grace and allure. That was an art she was devoid of, and at this moment its absence was stupidly painful.
“Well?” he demanded. “You’ve seen them at work, you must have an idea.”
“Some of them worshiped her,” she said swiftly, her chin held high, her step more determined. “Others, fairly naturally, were jealous. You cannot succeed without running into risk of jealousy. You should know that!”
“Jealous enough to call it hatred?” He was being logical, unaware of any feelings.
“Possibly,” she said, equally reasonably. “There is a very strong large woman called Dora Parsons who certainly loathed her. Whether it was enough to have killed her, I have no idea. Seems extreme—unless there was some specific issue.”
“Had Prudence the power to have this woman dismissed if she were incompetent, or drunk—or if she stole?” He looked at her hopefully.
“I imagine so.” She picked up her skirts delicately as they passed a patch of long grass by the path. “Prudence worked closely with Sir Herbert. He spoke very highly of her to me. I imagine he would take her word for such a thing.” She let her skirts fall again. “Certainly Dora Parsons is the sort of woman who could be very easily replaced. There are thousands like her in London.”
“And very few indeed like Prudence Barrymore,” he finished the thought. “And presumably several more like Dora Parsons even within the Royal Free Hospital. So that thought is hardly conclusive.”
They walked in silence for a while, absorbed in their own thoughts. They passed a man with a dog, and two small boys, one with a hoop, the other with a spinning top on a string, looking for a level place in the path to pull it. A young woman looked Monk up and down admiringly; her escort sulked. At length it was Hester who spoke.
“Have you learned anything?”
“What?”
“Have you learned anything?” she repeated. “You must have been doing something over the last week. What is the result?”
Suddenly he grinned broadly, as if the interrogation amused him.
“I suppose you have as much right t
o know as I,” he conceded. “I have been looking into Mr. Geoffrey Taunton and Miss Nanette Cuthbertson. She is a more determined young woman than I first supposed. And she seems to have had the most powerful motive of all for wishing to be rid of Prudence. Prudence stood between her and love, respectability, and the family status she wishes for more than anything else. Time is growing short for her—very short.” They had momentarily stopped under the trees and he put his hands in his pockets. “She is twenty-eight, even though she is still remarkably pretty. I imagine panic may be rising inside her—enough to do violence. If only I could work out how she achieved it,” he said thoughtfully. “She is not as tall as Prudence by some two inches, and of slight build. And even with her head in the academic clouds, Prudence cannot surely have been so insensitive as to have been unaware of Nanette’s emotions.”
Hester wanted to snap back that twenty-eight was hardly ancient—and of course she was still pretty. And might well remain so for another twenty years—or more. But she felt a ridiculous tightening in her throat, and found the words remained unspoken. It hardly mattered if twenty-eight were old or not—if it seemed old to him. You cannot argue someone out of such a view.
“Hester?” He frowned at her.
Hester stared straight ahead and began walking again.
“She might have been,” she replied briskly. “Perhaps she valued people for their worth—their humor, or courage, integrity, their intelligence, compassion, good companionship, imagination, honor, any of a dozen things that don’t suddenly cease the day you turn thirty.”
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t be so idiotic,” he said in amazement, striding along beside her. “We’re not talking about worth. We’re talking about Nanette Cuthbertson being in love and wanting to marry Geoffrey Taunton and have a family. That’s got nothing to do with intelligence or courage or humor. What’s the matter with you? Stop walking so fast or you’ll fall over something! She wants children—not a halo. She’s a perfectly ordinary woman. I would have thought Prudence would have had sufficient wit to see that. But talking to you—perhaps she wouldn’t. You don’t seem to have.”
