by Anne Perry
Monk stared at her, and was about to make an equally acid reply when the door opened again and Major Tiplady returned, immediately followed by the maid with a tray of tea, announcing that supper would be ready in a little over half an hour. It was the perfect opportunity to change his tone altogether, and be suddenly charming, to enquire after Major Tiplady’s recovery, appreciate the tea, and even to speak courteously to Hester. They talked of other things: the news from India, the ugly rumors of opium war in China, the Persian War, and unrest in the government at home. All the subjects were distressing, but they were far away, and he found the brief half hour most agreeable, a relief from responsibility and the urgent present.
* * *
The following day Lovat-Smith called further witnesses as to the unblemished character of the general, his fine nature and heroic military record. Once again Hester went to court to watch and listen on Major Tiplady’s behalf, and Monk went first to the house of Callandra Daviot, where he learned from her, to his chagrin, that she had been unable to find anything beyond the merest whisper to indicate that General Carlyon had ever formed any relationships that were anything but the most proper and correct. However, she did have extensive lists of names of all youths who had served with his regiment, both in England and in India, and she produced it with an apology.
“Don’t worry,” he said with sudden gentleness. “This may be all we need.”
She looked at him with something close to a squint, disbelief plain in her face.
He scanned down the list rapidly to see if the name of the Furnivals’ bootboy was there. It was on the second page, Robert Andrews, honorable discharge, owing to wounds received in action. He looked up, smiling at her.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Maybe,” he answered. “I’m going to find out.”
“Monk!”
“Yes.” He looked at her with a sudden awareness of how much she had done for him. “I think this may be the Furnivals’ bootboy,” he explained with a lift of hope in his voice. “The one who dropped all the laundry when he came face-to-face with the general on the night of the murder. I’m going to the Furnivals’ house now to find out. Thank you.”
“Ah,” she said with a touch of satisfaction creeping into her expression at last. “Ah—well … good.”
He thanked her again and bade her good-bye with a graceful kiss to the air, then hurried out to find a hansom to take him back to the Furnivals’ house.
He reached it at a quarter to ten, in time to see Maxim leave, presumably to go into the City. He waited almost an hour and a half, and was rewarded by seeing Louisa, glamorous and quite unmistakable in a richly flowered bonnet and skirts so wide it took very great skill for her to negotiate the carriage doors.
As soon as she was well out of sight, Monk went to the back door and knocked. It was opened by the bootboy, looking expectant. His expression changed utterly when he saw Monk; apparently he had been anticipating someone else.
“Yes?” he said with a not unfriendly frown. He was a smart lad and stood very straight, but there was a watchfulness in his eyes, a knowledge of hurt.
“I was here before, speaking to Mrs. Furnival,” Monk began carefully, but already he felt a kind of excitement. “And she was kind enough to help me in enquiring into the tragedy of General Carlyon’s death.”
The boy’s expression darkened, an almost imperceptible tightening of the skin around his eyes and mouth, a narrowing of the lips.
“If you want Mrs. Furnival, you should ’ave gone to the front door,” he said warily.
“I don’t, this time.” Monk smiled at him. “There are just a few details about other people who have called at the house in the past, and perhaps Master Valentine could help me. But I need to speak with one of your footmen, perhaps John.”
“Well you’d better come in,” the bootboy said cautiously. “An’ I’ll ask Mr. Diggins, ’e’s the butler. I can’t let you do that meself.”
“Of course not.” Monk followed him in graciously.
“Wot’s your name, then?” the boy asked.
“Monk—William Monk. What is yours?”
“Who, me?” The boy was startled.
“Yes—what is your name?” Monk made it casual.
“Robert Andrews, sir. You wait ’ere, an’ I’ll see Mr. Diggins for yer.” And the boy straightened his shoulders again and walked out very uprightly, as if he were a soldier on parade. Monk was left in the scullery, pulse racing, thoughts teeming in his mind, longing to question the boy and knowing how infinitely delicate it was, and that a word or a look that was clumsy might make him keep silence forever.
“What is it this time, Mr. Monk?” the butler asked when he returned a few minutes later. “I’m sure we’ve all told you all we know about that night. Now we’d just like to forget it and get on with our work. I’ll not ’ave you upsetting all our maids again!”
“I don’t need to see the maids,” Monk said placatingly. “Just a footman would be quite sufficient, and possibly the bootboy. It is only about who called here frequently.”
“Robert said something about Master Valentine.” The butler looked at Monk closely. “I can’t let you see him, not without the master’s or the mistress’s permission, and they’re both out at the present.”
“I understand.” Monk chose not to fight when he knew he could not win. That would have to wait for another time. “I daresay you know everything that goes on in the house anyway. If you can spare the time?”
The butler considered for a moment. He was not immune to flattery, if it were disguised well enough, and he certainly liked what was his due.
“What is it you wish to know, in particular, Mr. Monk?” He turned and led the way towards his own sitting room, where they could be private, in case the matter should be in any way delicate. And regardless of that, it created the right impression in front of the other staff. It did not do to stand around discussing presumably private business in full view of everyone.
“How often did General Carlyon come here to visit, either Mrs. Furnival or Master Valentine?”
“Well, Mr. Monk, he used to come more often in the past, before he had his accident, sir. After that he came a lot less.”
“Accident?”
“Yes sir—when he injured his leg, sir.”
“That would be when he was hurt with the knife. Cleaning the knife, and it slipped and gashed him in the thigh,” Monk said as levelly as he could.
“Yes sir.”
“Where did that happen? In what room?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. Somewhere upstairs, I believe. Possibly in the schoolroom. There is an ornamental knife up there. At least there was. I haven’t seen it since then. May I ask why you need to know, sir?”
“No reason in particular—just that it was a nasty thing to happen. Did anyone else visit Master Valentine regularly? Mr. Pole, for example?”
“No sir, never that I know of.” The first question remained in the butler’s face.
“Or Mr. Erskine?”
“No sir, not as far as I know of. What would that have to do with the general’s death, Mr. Monk?”
“I’m not sure,” Monk said candidly. “I think it’s possible that someone may have … exerted certain … pressures on Master Valentine.”
“Pressures, sir?”
“I don’t want to say anything more until I know for certain. It could malign someone quite without foundation.”
“I understand, sir.” The butler nodded sagely.
“Did Master Valentine visit the Carlyon house, to your knowledge?”
“Not so far as I am aware, sir. I do not believe that either Mr. or Mrs. Furnival is acquainted with Colonel and Mrs. Carlyon, and their acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Erskine is not close.”
“I see. Thank you.” Monk was not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed. He did not want it to be Peverell Erskine. But he needed to find out who it was, and time was getting desperately short. Perhaps it was
Maxim after all—the most obvious, when one thought about it. He was here all the time. Another father abusing his son. He found his stomach clenching and his teeth ached with the tightness of his jaw. It was the first time he had felt even the briefest moment of pity for Louisa.
“Is there anything else, sir?” the butler said helpfully.
“I don’t think so.” What was there to ask that could be addressed to this man and yield an answer leading to the identity of whoever had so used Valentine? But however slender the chance of hearing any admission of a secret so desperately painful, and he loathed the idea of forcing the boy or tricking him, still he must at least attempt to learn something. “Have you any idea what made your bootboy behave so badly the night the general was killed?” he asked, watching the man’s face. “He looked like a smart and responsible sort of lad, not given to indiscipline.”
“No sir, I don’t, and that’s a fact.” Diggins shook his head. Monk could see no evasion or embarrassment in him. “He’s been a very good boy, has young Robert,” he went on. “Always on time, diligent, respectful, quick to learn. Nothing to explain except that one episode. You had it right there, sir, he’s a fine lad. Used to be in the army, you know—a drummer boy. Got wounded somewhere out in India. Honorable discharge from the service. Come ’ere very highly recommended. Can’t think what got into him. Not like him at all. Training to be a footman, ’e is, and very likely make a good one. Although ’e’s been a bit odd since that night. But then so ’ave we all—can’t ’old that against ’im.”
“You don’t think he saw something to do with the murder, do you?” Monk asked as casually as he could.
Diggins shook his head. “I can’t think what that might be, sir, that he wouldn’t have repeated it, like it would be his duty to. Anyway, it was long before the murder. It was early in the evening, before they even went in to dinner. Nothing untoward had happened then.”
“Was it before Mrs. Erskine went upstairs?”
“Now that I wouldn’t know, sir. I only know young Robert came out of the kitchen and was on his way up the back stairs on an errand for Mrs. Braithwaite, she’s the housekeeper, when he crossed the passage and near bumped into General Carlyon, and stood there like a creature paralyzed and let all the linens he’d fetched fall in a heap on the floor, and turned on his heel and went back into the kitchen like the devil was after him. All the linens had to be sorted out and some o’ them ironed again. The laundress wasn’t best pleased, I can tell you.” He shrugged. “And he wouldn’t say a word to anyone, just went white and very quiet. Perhaps he was took ill, or something. Young people can be very odd.”
“A drummer boy, you said?” Monk confirmed. “He’d be used to seeing some terrible things, no doubt …”
“I daresay. I never bin in the army myself, sir, but I should imagine so. But good training. Given him his obedience, and the respect for his elders. He’s a good lad. He won’t never do that again, I’m sure.”
“No. No, ’course not.” Thoughts raced through his mind as to how he could approach the boy—what he could say—the denials, the desperate embarrassment and the boy’s shame. With sickening doubt as to the wisdom of it, where his duty or his honor lay, he made up his mind. “Thank you very much, Mr. Diggins. You have been most helpful, I appreciate it.”
“No more than my duty, Mr. Monk.”
Monk found himself outside in the street a few moments later, still torn with indecision. A drummer boy who had served with Carlyon, and then come face-to-face with him in the Furnivals’ house on the night of the murder, and fled in—what? Terror, panic, shame? Or just clumsiness?
No—he had been a soldier, although then little more than a child. He would not have dropped his laundry and fled simply because he bumped into a guest.
Should Monk have pursued it? To what end? So Rathbone could get him on the stand and strip his shame bare before the court? What would it prove? Only that Carlyon was indeed an abuser of children. Could they not do that anyway, without destroying this child and making him relive the abuse in words—and in public? It was something Alexandra knew nothing of anyway, and could not have affected her actions.
It was the other abuser they needed to find, and to prove. Was it Maxim Furnival? Or Peverell Erskine? Both thoughts were repulsive to him.
He increased his pace, walking along Albany Street, and within moments was at Carlyon House. He had no excitement in the chase, only an empty, sick feeling in his stomach.
All the family were at the trial, either waiting to give evidence or in the gallery watching the proceedings. He went to the back door and asked if he might speak to Miss Buchan. It stuck in his throat to say it, but he sent a message that he was a friend of Miss Hester Latterly’s and had come on an errand for her.
After only ten minutes kicking his heels in the laundry room he was finally admitted to the main house and conducted up three flights of stairs to Miss Buchan’s small sitting room with its dormer windows over the roofs.
“Yes, Mr. Monk?” she said dubiously.
He looked at her with interest. She was nearer seventy than sixty, very thin, with a sharp, intelligent face, long nose, quick faded eyes, and the fine fresh complexion that goes with auburn hair, although it was now gray, almost white. She was a hot-tempered woman of great courage, and it showed in her face. He found it easy to believe she had acted as Hester had told him.
“I am a friend of Miss Latterly’s,” he said again, establishing himself before he launched into his difficult mission.
“So you told Agnes,” she said skeptically, looking him up and down, from his polished leather boots and his long straight legs to his beautifully cut jacket and his smooth, hard-boned face with its gray eyes and sarcastic mouth. She did not try to impress him. She knew from his look, something in his bearing, that he had not had a governess himself. There was no nursery respect in him, no memories of another woman like her who had ruled his childhood.
He found himself coloring, knowing his ordinary roots were as visible to her as if he had never lost his provincial accent and his working-class manners. Ironically, his very lack of fear had betrayed him. His invulnerability had made him vulnerable. All his careful self-improvement hid nothing.
“Well?” she said impatiently. “What do you want? You haven’t come this far just to stand here staring at me!”
“No.” He collected himself rapidly. “No, Miss Buchan. I’m a detective. I’m trying to help Mrs. Alexandra Carlyon.” He watched her face to see how she reacted.
“You’re wasting your time,” she said bleakly, sudden pain obliterating both her curiosity and her humor. “There’s nothing anyone can do for her, poor soul.”
“Or for Cassian?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed; she looked at him in silence for several seconds. He did not turn away but met her gaze squarely.
“What would you be trying to do for him?” she said at last.
“See it doesn’t happen to him anymore.” She stood still, her shoulders stiff, her eyes on his. “You can’t,” she said at last. “He’ll remain in this house, with his grandfather. He has no one else now.”
“He has his sisters.”
She pursed her lips slowly, a new thought turning over in her mind.
“He could go to Sabella,” he suggested tentatively.
“You’d never prove it,” she said almost under her breath, her eyes wide. They both knew what she was referring to; there was no need to speak the words. The old colonel was in their vision as powerfully as if some aura of him were there, like a pungent smoke after a man and his cigar or pipe have passed by.
“I might,” he said slowly. “Can I speak to Cassian?”
“I don’t know. Depends what you want to say. I’ll not let you upset him—God knows the poor child has enough to bear, and worse to come.”
“I won’t do more than I have to,” Monk pressed. “And you will be there all the time.”
“I most certainly will,” she said darkly. “Well, c
ome on then, don’t stand there wasting time. What has to be done had best be done quickly.”
Cassian was alone in his own room. There were no school-books visible, nor any other improving kind of occupation, and Monk judged Miss Buchan had weighed the relative merits of forced effort to occupy his mind and those of allowing him to think as he wished and permit the thoughts which had to lie below the surface to come through and claim the attention they would sooner or later have to have. Monk approved her decision.
Cassian looked around from the window where he was gazing. His face was pale but he looked perfectly composed. One could only guess what emotions were tearing at him beneath. Clutched in his fingers was a small gold watch fob. Monk could just see the yellow glint as he turned his hand.
“Mr. Monk would like to talk to you for a while,” Miss Buchan said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I don’t know what he has to say, but it might be important for your mother, so pay him attention and tell him all the truth you know.”
“Yes, Miss Buchan,” the boy said obediently, his eyes on Monk, solemn but not yet frightened. Perhaps all his fear was centered in the courtroom at the Old Bailey and the secrets and the pain which would be torn apart and exposed there, and the decisions that would be made. His voice was flat and he looked at Monk warily.
Monk was not used to children, except the occasional urchin or working child his normal routine brought him into contact with. He did not know how to treat Cassian, who had so much of childhood in his protected, privileged daily life, and nothing at all in his innermost person.
“Do you know Mr. Furnival?” he asked bluntly, and felt clumsy in asking, but small conversation was not his milieu or his skill, even with adults.
“No sir,” Cassian answered straightaway.
“You have never met him?” Monk was surprised.
“No sir.” Cassian swallowed. “I know Mrs. Furnival.”
It seemed irrelevant. “Do you.” Monk acknowledged it only as a courtesy. He looked at Miss Buchan. “Do you know Mr. Furnival?”
