The William Monk Mysteries

by Anne Perry

  “What time did you retire, Mr. Moidore?”

  Cyprian frowned. “About eleven, or a few minutes after. I didn’t hear anything, if that is what you are going to ask.”

  “And were you in your room all night, sir?” Monk tried to phrase it without being offensive, but it was impossible.

  Cyprian smiled very faintly.

  “I was last night. My wife’s room is next to mine, the first as you leave the stair head.” He put his hands into his pockets. “My son has the room opposite, and my daughters the one next to that. But I thought we had established that whoever it was broke into Octavia’s room through the window.”

  “It looks most likely, sir,” Monk agreed. “But it may not be the only room they tried. And of course it is possible they came in elsewhere and went out through her window. We know only that the creeper was broken. Was Mrs. Haslett a light sleeper?”

  “No—”At first he was absolutely certain, then doubt flickered in his face. He took his hands out of his pockets. “At least I think not. But what difference does it make now? Isn’t this really rather a waste of time?” He moved a step closer to the fire. “It is indisputable someone broke in and she discovered him, and instead of simply running, the wretch stabbed her.” His face darkened. “You should be out there looking for him, not in here asking irrelevant questions! Perhaps she was awake anyway. People do sometimes waken in the night.”

  Monk bit back the reply that rose instinctively.

  “I was hoping to establish the time,” he continued levelly. “It would help when we come to question the closest constable on the beat, and any other people who might have been around at that hour. And of course it would help when we catch anyone, if he could prove he was elsewhere.”

  “If he was elsewhere, then you wouldn’t have the right person, would you!” Cyprian said acidly.

  “If we didn’t know the relevant time, sir, we might think we had!” Monk replied immediately. “I’m sure you don’t want the wrong man hanged!”

  Cyprian did not bother to answer.

  The three women of the immediate family were waiting together in the withdrawing room, all close to the fire: Lady Moidore stiff-backed, white-faced on the sofa; her surviving daughter, Araminta, in one of the large chairs to her right, hollow-eyed as if she had not slept in days; and her daughter-in-law, Romola, standing behind her, her face reflecting horror and confusion.

  “Good morning, ma’am.” Monk inclined his head to Lady Moidore, then acknowledged the others.

  None of them replied. Perhaps they did not consider it necessary to observe such niceties in the circumstances.

  “I am deeply sorry to have to disturb you at such a tragic time,” he said with difficulty. He hated having to express condolences to someone whose grief was so new and devastating. He was a stranger intruding into their home, and all he could offer were words, stilted and predictable. But to have said nothing would be grossly uncaring.

  “I offer you my deepest sympathy, ma’am.”

  Lady Moidore moved her head very slightly in indication that she had heard him, but she did not speak.

  He knew who the two younger women were because one of them shared the remarkable hair of her mother, a vivid shade of golden red which in the dark room seemed almost as alive as the flames of the fire. Cyprian’s wife, on the other hand, was much darker, her eyes brown and her hair almost black. He turned to address her.

  “Mrs. Moidore?”

  “Yes?” She stared at him in alarm.

  “Your bedroom window is between Mrs. Haslett’s and the main drainpipe, which it seems the intruder climbed. Did you hear any unaccustomed sounds during the night, any disturbances at all?”

  She looked very pale. Obviously the thought of the murderer passing her window had not occurred to her before. Her hands gripped the back of Araminta’s chair.

  “No—nothing. I do not customarily sleep well, but last night I did.” She closed her eyes. “How fearful!”

  Araminta was of a harder mettle. She sat rigid and slender, almost bony under the light fabric of her morning gown—no one had thought of changing into black yet. Her face was thin, wide-eyed, her mouth curiously asymmetrical. She would have been beautiful but for a certain sharpness, something brittle beneath the surface.

  “We cannot help you, Inspector.” She addressed him with candor, neither avoiding his eyes nor making any apology. “We saw Octavia before she retired last night, at about eleven o’clock, or a few minutes before. I saw her on the landing, then she went to my mother’s room to wish her good-night, and then to her own room. We went to ours. My husband will tell you the same. We were awoken this morning by the maid, Annie, crying and calling out that something terrible had happened. I was the first to open the door after Annie. I saw straight away that Octavia was dead and we could not help her. I took Annie out and sent her to Mrs. Willis; she is the housekeeper. The poor child was looking very sick. Then I found my father, who was about to assemble the servants for morning prayers, and told him what had happened. He sent one of the footmen for the police. There really isn’t anything more to say.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Monk looked at Lady Moidore. She had the broad brow and short, strong nose her son had inherited, but a far more delicate face, and a sensitive, almost ascetic mouth. When she spoke, even drained by grief as she was, there was a beauty of vitality and imagination in her.

  “I can add nothing, Inspector,” she said very quietly. “My room is in the other wing of the house, and I was unaware of any tragedy or intrusion until my maid, Mary, woke me and then my son told me what had … happened.”

  “Thank you, my lady. I hope it will not be necessary to disturb you again.” He had not expected to learn anything; it was really only a formality that he asked, but to overlook it would have been careless. He excused himself and went to find Evan back in the servants’ quarters.

  However Evan had discovered nothing of moment either, except a list of the missing jewelry compiled by the ladies’ maid: two rings, a necklace and a bracelet, and, oddly, a small silver vase.

  A little before noon they left the Moidore house, now with its blinds drawn and black crepe on the door. Already, out of respect for the dead, the grooms were spreading straw on the roadway to deaden the sharp sound of horses’ hooves.

  “What now?” Evan asked as they stepped out into the footpath. “The bootboy said there was a party at the east end, on the corner of Chandos Street. One of the coachmen or footmen may have seen something.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

  “And there’ll be a duty constable somewhere around,” Monk added. “I’ll find him, you take the party. Corner house, you said?”

  “Yes sir—people called Bentley.”

  “Report back to the station when you’ve finished.”

  “Yes sir.” And Evan turned on his heel and walked rapidly away, more gracefully than his lean, rather bony body would have led one to expect.

  Monk took a hansom back to the station to find the home address of the constable who would have been patrolling the area during the night.

  An hour later he was sitting in the small, chilly front parlor in a house off Euston Road, sipping a mug of tea opposite a sleepy, unshaven constable who was very ill at ease. It was some five minutes into the conversation before Monk began to realize that the man had known him before and that his anxiety was not based on any omission or failure of duty last night but on something that had occurred in their previous meeting, of which Monk had no memory at all.

  He found himself searching the man’s face, trying without success to bring any feature of it back to recollection, and twice he missed what was said.

  “I’m sorry, Miller; what was that?” he apologized the second time.

  Miller looked embarrassed, uncertain whether this was an acknowledgment of inattention or some implied criticism that his statement was unbelievable.

  “I said I passed by Queen Anne Street on the west side, down Wimpole Street an’ up aga
in along ’Arley Street, every twenty minutes last night, sir. I never missed, ’cause there wasn’t no disturbances and I didn’t ’ave ter stop fer anythin’.”

  Monk frowned. “You didn’t see anybody about? No one at all?”

  “Oh I saw plenty o’ people—but no one as there shouldn’t ’a bin,” Miller replied. “There was a big party up the other corner o’ Chandos Street where it turns inter Cavendish Square. Coachmen and footmen an’ all sorts ’angin’ around till past three in the mornin’, but they wasn’t making no nuisance an’ they certainly wasn’t climbing up no drainpipes to get in no winders.” He screwed up his face as if he were about to add something, then changed his mind.

  “Yes?” Monk pressed.

  But Miller would not be drawn. Again Monk wondered if it was because of their past association, and if Miller would have spoken for someone else. There was so much he did not know! Ignorance about police procedures, underworld connections, the vast store of knowledge a good detective kept. Not knowing was hampering him at every turn, making it necessary for him to work twice as hard in order to hide his vulnerability; but it did not end the deep fear caused by ignorance about himself. What manner of man was the self that stretched for years behind him, to that boy who had left Northumberland full of an ambition so consuming he had not written regularly to his only relative, his younger sister who had loved him so loyally in spite of his silence? He had found her letters in his rooms—sweet, gentle letters full of references to what should have been familiar.

  Now he sat here in this small, neat house and tried to get answers from a man who was obviously frightened of him. Why? It was impossible to ask.

  “Anyone else?” he said hopefully.

  “Yes sir,” Miller said straightaway, eager to please and beginning to master his nervousness. “There was a doctor paid a call near the corner of ’Arley Street and Queen Anne Street. I saw ’im leave, but I din’t see ’im get there.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “No sir.” Miller bristled, his body tightening again as if to defend himself. “But I saw ’im leave an’ the front door was open an’ the master o’ the ’ouse was seein’ ’im out. ’Alf the lights was on, and ’e weren’t there uninvited!”

  Monk considered apologizing for the unintended slight, then changed his mind. It would be more productive for Miller to be kept up to the mark.

  “Do you remember which house?”

  “About the third or fourth one along, on the south side of ’Arley Street, sir.”

  “Thank you. I’ll ask them; they may have seen something.” Then he wondered why he had offered an explanation; it was not necessary. He stood up and thanked Miller and left, walking back towards the main street where there would be cabs. He should have left this to Evan, who knew his underworld contacts, but it was too late now. He behaved from instinct and intelligence, forgetting how much of his memory was trapped in that shadowy world before the night his carriage had turned over, breaking his ribs and arm, and blotting out his identity and everything that bonded him to the past.

  Who else might have been out in the night around Queen Anne Street? A year ago he would have known where to find the footpads, the cracksmen, the lookouts, but now he had nothing but guesswork and plodding deduction, which would betray him to Runcorn, who was so obviously waiting for every chance to trap him. Enough mistakes, and Runcorn would work out the incredible, delicious truth, and find the excuses he had sought for years to fire Monk and feel safe at last; no more hard, ambitious lieutenant dangerously close on his heels.

  Finding the doctor was not difficult, merely a matter of returning to Harley Street and calling at the houses along the south side until he came to the right one, and then asking.

  “Indeed,” he was told in some surprise when he was received somewhat coolly by the master of the house, looking tired and harassed. “Although what interest it can be to the police I cannot imagine.”

  “A young woman was murdered in Queen Anne Street last night,” Monk replied. The evening paper would carry it and it would be common knowledge in an hour or two. “The doctor may have seen someone loitering.”

  “He would hardly know by sight the sort of person who murders young women in the street!”

  “Not in the street, sir, in Sir Basil Moidore’s house,” Monk corrected, although the difference was immaterial. “It is a matter of learning the time, and perhaps which direction he was going, although you’re right, that is of little help.”

  “I suppose you know your business,” the man said doubtfully, too weary and engaged in his own concerns to care. “But servants keep some funny company these days. I’d look to someone she let in herself, some disreputable follower.”

  “The victim was Sir Basil’s daughter, Mrs. Haslett,” Monk said with bitter satisfaction.

  “Good God! How appalling!” The man’s expression changed instantly. In a single sentence the danger had moved from affecting someone distant, not part of his world, to being a close and alarming threat. The chill hand of violence had touched his own class and in so doing had become real. “This is dreadful!” The blood fled from his tired face and his voice cracked for an instant. “What are you doing about it? We need more police in the streets, more patrols! Where did the man come from? What is he doing here?”

  Monk smiled sourly to see the alteration in him. If the victim was a servant, she had brought it upon herself by keeping loose company; but now it was a lady, then police patrols must be doubled and the criminal caught forthwith.

  “Well?” the man demanded, seeing what to him was a sneer on Monk’s face.

  “As soon as we find him, we will discover what he was doing,” Monk replied smoothly. “In the meantime, if you will give me your physician’s name, I will question him to see if he observed anything as he came or went.”

  The man wrote the name on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

  “Thank you, sir. Good day.”

  But the doctor had seen nothing, being intent upon his own art, and could offer no help. He had not even noticed Miller on his beat. All he could do was confirm his own time of arrival and departure with an exactitude.

  By mid-afternoon Monk was back in the police station, where Evan was waiting for him with the news that it would have been quite impossible for anyone at all to have passed by the west end of Queen Anne Street and not have been seen by several of the servants waiting for their masters outside the house where the party was being held. There had been a sufficient number of guests, including late arrivals and early departures, to fill the mews at the back with carriages and overflow into the street at the front.

  “With that many footmen and coachmen around, would an extra person be noticed?” Monk queried.

  “Yes.” Evan had no doubts at all. “Apart from the fact that a lot of them know each other, they were all in livery. Anyone dressed differently would have been as obvious as a horse in a field of cows.”

  Monk smiled at Evan’s rural imagery. Evan was the son of a country parson, and every now and again some memory or mannerism showed through. It was one of the many things Monk found pleasing in him.

  “None of them?” he said doubtfully. He sat down behind his desk.

  Evan shook his head. “Too much conversation going on, and a lot of horseplay, chatting to the maids, flirting, carriage lamps all over the place. If anyone had shinned up a drainpipe to go over the roofs he’d have been seen in a trice. And no one walked off up the road alone, they’re sure of that.”

  Monk did not press it any further. He did not believe it was a chance burglary by some footman which had gone wrong. Footmen were chosen for their height and elegance, and were superbly dressed. They were not equipped to climb drainpipes and cling to the sides of buildings two and three floors up, balancing along ledges in the dark. That was a practiced art which one came dressed to indulge.

  “Must have come the other way,” he concluded. “From the Wimpole Street end, in between Miller’s going down th
at way and coming back up Harley Street. What about the back, from Harley Mews?”

  “No way over the roof, sir,” Evan replied. “I had a good look there. And a pretty good chance of waking the Moidores’ coachman and grooms who sleep over the stables. Not a good burglar who disturbs horses, either. No sir, much better chance coming in the front, the way the drainpipe is and the broken creeper, which seems to be the way he did come. He must have nipped between Miller’s rounds, as you say. Easy enough to watch for him.”

  Monk hesitated. He loathed betraying his vulnerability, even though he knew Evan was perfectly aware of it, and if he had been tempted to let it slip to Runcorn, he would have done it weeks ago during the Grey case, when he was confused, frightened and at his wit’s end, terrified of the apparitions his intelligence conjured out of the scraps of recollection which recurred like nightmare forms. Evan and Hester Latterly were the two people in the world he could trust absolutely. And Hester he would prefer not to think about. She was not an appealing woman. Again Imogen Latterly’s face came sweet to his mind, eyes soft and frightened as she had been when she asked him for help, her voice low, her skirts rustling like leaves as she walked past him. But she was Hester’s brother’s wife, and might as well have been a princess for anything she could be to Monk.

  “Shall I ask a few questions at the Grinning Rat?” Evan interrupted his thoughts. “If anyone tries to get rid of the necklace and earrings they’ll turn up with a fence, but word of a murder gets out pretty quickly, especially one the police won’t let rest. The regular cracksmen will want to be well out of this.”

  “Yes—” Monk grasped at it quickly. “I’ll try the fences and pawnbrokers, you go to the Grinning Rat and see what you can pick up.” He fished in his pocket and brought out his very handsome gold watch. He must have saved a long time for this particular vanity, but he could not remember either the going without or the exultancy of the purchase. Now his fingers played over its smooth surface, and he felt an emptiness that all its flavor and memory were gone for him. He opened it with a flick.