A Sudden, Fearful Death

by Anne Perry

  Berenice Ross Gilbert was entirely different. She received him in the room where the Board of Governors normally met, a wide gracious chamber with a long mahogany table set around with chairs, sporting prints on the walls and brocade curtains at the windows. She was dressed in deepest teal green trimmed with turquoise. It was expensive, and remarkably flattering to her auburn coloring. Its huge skirts swept around her, but she moved them elegantly without effort.

  She regarded Monk with amusement, looking over his features, his strong nose, high cheekbones, and level unflinching eyes. He saw the spark of interest light in her face and the smile curve her lips. It was a look he had seen many times before, and he understood its meaning with satisfaction.

  “Poor Sir Herbert.” She raised her arched brows. “A perfectly fearful thing. I wish I knew what to say to help, but what can I do?” She shrugged graceful shoulders. “I have no idea what the man’s personal weaknesses may have been. I always found him courteous, highly professional, and correct at all times. But then”—she smiled at Monk, meeting his eyes—“if he were seeking an illicit romance, he would not have chosen me with whom to have it.” The smile widened. He knew she was telling both the truth and a lie. She expected him to decipher its double meanings. She was no trivial pastime to be picked up and put down; but on the other hand, she was a sophisticated and elegant woman, almost beautiful in her own way, perhaps better than beautiful—full of character. She had thought Prudence prim, naive, and immeasurably inferior to herself in all aspects of charm and allure.

  Monk had no specific memories, and yet he knew he had stood in this position many times before, facing a wealthy, well-read woman who had found him exciting and was happy to forget his office and his purpose.

  He smiled back at her very slightly, enough to be civil, not enough to betray any interest himself.

  “I am sure it was part of your duties as a governor of the hospital, Lady Ross Gilbert, to be aware of the morals and failings of members of the staff. And I imagine you are an acute judge of human nature, particularly in that area.” He saw her eyes glisten with amusement. “What is Sir Herbert’s reputation? Please be honest—euphemisms will serve neither his interest nor the hospital’s.”

  “I seldom deal in euphemisms, Mr. Monk,” she said, still with the curl of a smile on her lips. She stood very elegantly, leaning a little against one of the chairs. “I wish I could tell you something more interesting, but I have never heard a word of scandal about Sir Herbert.” She pulled a sad, mocking little face. “Rather to the contrary, he appears to be a brilliant surgeon but personally a boringly correct man, rather pompous, self-opinionated, socially, politically, and religiously orthodox.”

  She was watching Monk all the time. “I doubt if he ever had an original idea except in medicine, in which he is both innovative and courageous. It seems as if that has drained all his creative energies and attentions, and what is left is tedious to a degree.” The laughter in her eyes was sharp and the interest in them more and more open, betraying that she did not believe for an instant that he fell into that category.

  “Do you know him personally, Lady Ross Gilbert?” he asked, watching her face.

  Again she shrugged, one shoulder a fraction higher than the other. “Only as business required, which is very little. I have met Lady Stanhope socially, but not often.” Her voice altered subtly, a very delicately implied contempt. “She is a very retiring person. She prefers to spend her time at home with her children—seven, I believe. But she always seemed most agreeable—not fashionable, you understand, but quite comely, very feminine, not in the least a strident or awkward creature.” Her heavy eyelids lowered almost imperceptibly. “I daresay she is in every way an excellent wife. I have no reason to doubt it.”

  “And what of Nurse Barrymore?” he asked, again watching her face, but he saw no flicker in her expression, nothing to betray any emotion or knowledge that troubled her.

  “I knew of her only the little I observed myself or what was reported to me by others. I have to confess, I never heard anything to her discredit.” Her eyes searched his face. “I think, frankly, that she was just as tedious as he is. They were well matched.”

  “An interesting use of words, ma’am.”

  She laughed quite openly. “Unintentional, Mr. Monk. I had no deeper meaning in my mind.”

  “Do you believe she nourished daydreams about him?” he asked.

  She looked up at the ceiling. “Heaven knows. I would have thought she would place them more interestingly—Dr. Beck, for a start. He is a man of feeling and humor, a little vain, and I would have thought of a more natural appetite.” She gave a little laugh. “But then perhaps that was not what she wanted.” She looked back at him again. “No, to be candid, Mr. Monk, I think she admired Sir Herbert intensely, as do we all, but on an impersonal level. To hear that it was a romantic vision surprises me. But then life is constantly surprising, don’t you find?” Again the light was in her eyes and the lift, the sparkle that was almost an invitation, although whether to do more than admire her was not certain.

  And that was all that he could learn from her. Not much use to Oliver Rathbone, but he reported it just the same.

  * * *

  With Kristian Beck he fared not much better, although the interview was completely different. He met him in his own home, by choice. Mrs. Beck was little in evidence, but her cold, precise nature was stamped on the unimaginative furnishings of her house, the rigidly correct placement of everything, the sterile bookshelves where nothing was out of place, either in the rows of books themselves or in their orthodox contents. Even the flowers in the vases were carefully arranged in formal proportions and stood stiffly to attention. The whole impression was clean, orderly, and forbidding. Monk never met the woman (apparently she was out performing some good work or other), but he could imagine her as keenly as if he had. She would have hair drawn back from an exactly central parting, eyebrows without flight or imagination, flat cheekbones, and careful passionless lips.

  Whatever had made Beck choose such a woman? He was exactly the opposite; his face was full of humor and emotion and as sensuous a mouth as Monk had ever seen, and yet there was nothing coarse about it, nothing self-indulgent, rather the opposite. What mischance had brought these two together? That was almost certainly something he would never know. He thought with bitter self-mockery that perhaps Beck was as poor a judge of women as he himself. Maybe he had mistaken her passionless face for one of purity and refinement, her humorlessness for intelligence, even piety.

  Kristian led him to his study, a room entirely different, where his own character held sway. Books were piled on shelves, books of all sorts, novels and poetry along with biography, history, philosophy, and medicine. The colors were rich, the curtains velvet, the fireplace faced with copper and the mantel displaying an idiosyncratic collection of ornaments. The icy Mrs. Beck had no place here. In fact, the room reminded Monk rather more of Callandra in its haphazard order, its richness and worth. He could picture her here, her sensitive, humorous face, her long nose, untidy hair, her unerring knowledge of what really mattered.

  “What can I do to assist you, Mr. Monk?” Kristian was regarding him with puzzlement. “I really have no idea what happened, and the little I have learned as to why the police suspect Sir Herbert I find very hard to believe. At least if the newspaper reports are correct?”

  “Largely,” Monk replied, dragging his attention back to the case. “There is a collection of letters from Prudence Barrymore to her sister which suggests that she was deeply in love with Sir Herbert and that he had led her to suppose that he returned her feelings and would take steps to make marriage between them possible.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Kristian said with concern, silently indicating a chair for Monk to be seated. “What could he possibly do? He has an excellent wife and a large family—seven, I think. Of course he could have walked out on them, in theory, but in practice it would ruin him, a fact of which he cannot p
ossibly have been unaware.”

  Monk accepted the invitation and sat down. The chair was extremely comfortable.

  “Even if he did, it would not free him to marry Miss Barrymore,” he pointed out. “No, I am aware of that, Dr. Beck. But I am interested to learn your opinion of both Sir Herbert and Miss Barrymore. You say you find all this hard to believe—do you believe it?”

  Kristian sat opposite him, thinking for a moment before replying, his dark eyes on Monk’s face.

  “No—no, I don’t think I do. Sir Herbert is essentially a very careful man, very ambitious, jealous for his reputation and his status in the medical community, both in Britain and abroad.” He put the tips of his fingers together. He had beautiful hands, strong, broad palmed, smaller than Sir Herbert’s. “To become involved in such a way with a nurse, however interesting or attractive,” he went on, “would be foolish in the extreme. Sir Herbert is not an impulsive man, nor a man of physical or emotional appetite.” He said it without expression, as if he neither admired nor despised such an absence. Looking at his face, Monk knew Dr. Beck was as different from Sir Herbert as it was possible for another clever and dedicated man to be, but he had no indication of Kristian’s feelings.

  “You used the words intelligent and attractive about Nurse Barrymore,” he said curiously. “Did you find her so? I gathered from Lady Ross Gilbert that she was a trifle priggish, naive as to matters of love, and altogether not the sort of woman a man might find appealing.”

  Kristian laughed. “Yes—Berenice would see her in that light. Two such different women it would be hard to imagine. I doubt they could ever have understood each other.”

  “That is not an answer, Dr. Beck.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He seemed quite unoffended. “Yes, I thought Nurse Barrymore was most attractive, both as a person and, were I free to think so, as a woman. But then my taste is not usual, I confess. I like courage and humor, and I find intelligence stimulating.” He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair, regarding Monk with a smile. “It is, for me, extremely unprofitable to spend my time with a woman who has nothing to talk about but trivia. I dislike simpering and flirting, and I find agreement and obedience essentially very lonely things. If a woman says she agreed with you, whatever her own thoughts, in what sense do you have her true companionship at all? You may as well have a charming picture, because all you are receiving from her are your own ideas back again.”

  Monk thought of Hermione—charming, docile, pliable—and of Hester—opinionated, obstructive, passionate in her beliefs, full of courage, uncomfortable to be with (at times he disliked her more that anyone else he knew)—but real.

  “Yes,” he said reluctantly. “I take your point. Do you think it is likely that Sir Herbert also found her attractive?”

  “Prudence Barrymore?” Kristian bit his lip thoughtfully. “I doubt it. I know he respected her professional abilities. We all did. But she occasionally challenged his opinions, and that incensed him. He did not accept that from his peers, let alone from a nurse—and a woman.”

  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 the 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. S
he 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.”