The William Monk Mysteries

by Anne Perry

  “Hercules,” he said very quietly, and shot her a look of total pleading not to laugh.

  “How very fine,” she said gently. “My Adventures in Mashonaland, by Major Hercules Tiplady. May we begin as soon as this terrible business is over? It is the nicest thing that has happened to me in years.”

  “And to me,” Major Tiplady said happily, his face still very pink.

  Hester rose to her feet and went to the door to ask the maid to prepare luncheon for them, and so that she could give rein to her giggles where she could hurt no one—but it was laughter of relief and a sudden bright hope, at least for Edith and the major, whom she had grown to like remarkably. It was the only good thing at the moment, but it was totally good.

  11

  MONK BEGAN THE WEEKEND with an equal feeling of gloom, not because he had no hope of finding the third man but because the discovery was so painful. He had liked Peverell Erskine, and now it looked inevitable it was he. Why else would he have given a child such highly personal and useless gins? Cassian had no use for a quill knife, except that it was pretty and belonged to Peverell—as for a silk handkerchief, children did not use or wear such things. It was a keepsake. The watch fob also was too precious for an eight-year-old to wear, and it was personal to Peverell’s profession, nothing like the Carlyons’, which would have been something military, a regimental crest, perhaps.

  He had told Rathbone, and seen the same acceptance and unhappiness in him. He had mentioned the bootboy also, but told Rathbone that there was no proof Carlyon had abused him, and that that was the reason the boy had turned and fled in the Furnival house the night of the murder. He did not know if Rathbone had understood his own action, what were the reasons he accepted without demur, or if he felt his strategy did not require the boy.

  Monk stood at the window and stared out at the pavement of Grafton Street, the sharp wind sending a loose sheet of newspaper bowling along the stones. On the corner a peddler was selling bootlaces. A couple crossed the street, arm in arm, the man walking elegantly, leaning over a little towards the woman, she laughing. They looked comfortable together, and it shot a pang of loneliness through him that took him by surprise, a feeling of exclusion, as if he saw the whole of life that mattered, the sweeter parts, through glass, and from a distance.

  Evan’s last case file lay on the desk unopened. In it might lie the answer to the mystery that teased him. Who was the woman that plucked at his thoughts with such insistence and such powerful emotion, stirring feelings of guilt, urgency, fear of loss, and over all, confusion? He was afraid to discover, and yet not to was worse. Part of him held back, simply because once he had uncovered it there would be nothing left to offer hope of finding something sweet, a better side of himself, a gentleness or a generosity he had failed in so far. It was foolish, and he knew it, even cowardly—and that was the one criticism strong enough to move him. He walked over to the table and opened the cover.

  He read the first page still standing. The case was not especially complex. Hermione Ward had been married to a wealthy and neglectful husband, some years older than herself. She was his second wife and it seemed he had treated her with coolness, keeping her short of funds, giving her very little social life and expecting her to manage his house and care for the two children of his first wife.

  The house had been broken into during the night, and Albert Ward had apparently heard the burglar and gone downstairs to confront him. There had been a struggle and he had been struck on the head and died of the wound.

  Monk pulled around a chair and sat down. He continued with the second page.

  The local police in Guildford had investigated, and found several circumstances which roused their suspicions. The glass from the broken window was outside, not in, where one might have expected it to fall. The widow could name nothing which had been stolen, nor did she ever amend her opinion in the cooler light of the following week. Nothing was found in pawnshops or sold to any of the usual dealers known to the police. The resident servants, of whom there were six, heard nothing in the night, no sound, no disturbance. No footprints or any other marks of intruders were seen.

  The police arrested Hermione Ward and charged her with having murdered her husband. Scotland Yard was sent for. Runcorn dispatched Monk to Guildford. The rest of the record presumably lay with the Guildford police.

  The only way he could find out would be to go there. It was a short journey and easily made by train. But this was Saturday. It might be awkward. Perhaps the officer he needed would not be there. And the Carlyon trial would be resumed on Monday, and he must be present. What could he do in two days? Maybe not enough.

  They were excuses because he was afraid to find out.

  He despised cowardice; it was the root of all the weaknesses he hated most. Anger he could understand, thoughtlessness, impatience, greed, even though they were ugly enough—but without courage what was there to fire or to preserve any virtue, honor or integrity? Without the courage to sustain it, not even love was safe.

  He moved over to the window again and stared at the buildings opposite and the roofs shining in the sun. There was not even any point in evading it. It would hurt him until he found out what had happened, who she was and why he had felt so passionately, and yet walked away from it, and from her. Why were there no mementos in his room that reminded him of her, no pictures, no letters, nothing at all? Presumably the idea of her was one thing too painful to wish to remember. The reality was quite different. This would go on hurting. He would wake in the night with scalding disillusion—and terrible loneliness. For once he could easily, terribly easily, understand those who ran away.

  And yet it was also too important to forget, because his mind would not let him bury it. Echoes kept tugging at him, half glimpses of her face, a gesture, a color she wore, the way she walked, the softness of her hair, her perfume, the rustle of silk. For heaven’s sake, why not her name? Why not all her face?

  There was nothing he could do here over the weekend. The trial was adjourned and he had nowhere else to search for the third man. It was up to Rathbone now.

  He turned from the window and strode over to the coat stand, snatching a jacket and his hat and going out of the door, only just saving it from slamming behind him.

  “I’m going to Guildford,” he informed his landlady, Mrs. Worley. “I may not be back until tomorrow.”

  “But you’ll be back then?” she said firmly, wiping her hands on her apron. She was an ample woman, friendly and businesslike, “You’ll be at the trial of that woman again?”

  He was surprised. He had not thought she knew.

  “Yes—I will.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you want to be on cases like that for, I’m sure. You’ve come a long way down, Mr. Monk, since you was in the police. Then you’d ’a bin chasin’ after people like that, not tryin’ to ’elp them.”

  “You’d have killed him too, in her place, if you’d had the courage, Mrs. Worley,” he said bitingly. “So would any woman who gave a damn.”

  “I would not,” she retorted fiercely. “Love o’ no man’s ever goin’ to make me into a murderess!”

  “You know nothing about it. It wasn’t love of a man.”

  “You watch your tongue, Mr. Monk,” she said briskly. “I know what I read in the newspapers as comes ’round the vegetables, and they’re plain enough.”

  “They know nothing, either,” he replied. “And fancy you reading the newspapers, Mrs. Worley. What would Mr. Worley say to that? And sensational stories, too.” He grinned at her, baring his teeth.

  She straightened her skirts with a tweak and glared at him.

  “That isn’t your affair, Mr. Monk. What I read is between me and Mr. Worley.”

  “It’s between you and your conscience, Mrs. Worley—it’s no one else’s concern at all. But they still know nothing. Wait till the end of the trial—then tell me what you think.”

  “Ha!” she said sharply, and turned on her heel to go back
to the kitchen.

  He caught the train and alighted at Guildford in the middle of the morning. It was a matter of another quarter of an hour before a hansom deposited him outside the police station and he went up the steps to the duty sergeant at the desk.

  “Yes sir?” The man’s face registered dawning recognition. “Mr. Monk? ’Ow are you, sir?” There was respect in his voice, even awe, but Monk did not catch any fear. Please God at least here he had not been unjust.

  “I’m very well, thank you, Sergeant,” he replied courteously. “And yourself?”

  The sergeant was not used to being asked how he was, and his face showed his surprise, but he answered levelly enough.

  “I’m well, thank you sir. What can I do for you? Mr. Markham’s in, if it was ’im you was wanting to see? I ain’t ’eard about another case as we’re needin’ you for; it must be very new.” He was puzzled. It seemed impossible there could be a crime so complicated they needed to call in Scotland Yard and yet it had not crossed his desk. Only something highly sensitive and dangerous could be so classed, a political assassination, or a murder involving a member of the aristocracy.

  “I’m not with the police anymore,” Monk explained. There was little to be gained and everything to be risked by lying. “I’ve gone private.” He saw the man’s incredulity and smiled. “A difference of opinion over a case—a wrongful arrest, I thought.”

  The man’s face lightened with intelligence. “That’d be the Moidore case,” he said with triumph.

  “That’s right!” It was Monk’s turn to be surprised. “How did you know about that?”

  “Read it, sir. Know as you was right.” He nodded with satisfaction, even if it was a trifle after the event. “What can we do for you now, Mr. Monk?”

  Again honesty was the wisest. So far the man was a friend, for whatever reason, but that could easily slip away if he lied to him and were caught.

  “I’ve forgotten some of the details of the case I came here for, and I’d like to remind myself. I wondered if it would be possible to speak with someone. I realize it’s Saturday, and those who worked with me might be off duty, but today was the only day I could leave the City. I’m on a big case.”

  “No difficulty, sir. Mr. Markham’s right ’ere in the station, an’ I expect as ’e’d be ’appy to tell you anything you wanted. It was ’is biggest case, an’ ’e’s always ’appy to talk about it again.” He moved his head in the direction of the door leading off to the right. “If you go through there, sir, you’ll find ’im at the back, like always. Tell ’im I sent you.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Monk accepted, and before it became obvious that he did not remember the man’s name, he went through the door and through the passageway. Fortunately the direction was obvious, because he remembered none of it.

  Sergeant Markham was standing with his back to Monk, and as soon as Monk saw him there was something in the angle of his shoulders and the shape of his head, the set of his arms, that woke a memory and suddenly he was back investigating the case, full of anxiety and hard, urgent fear.

  Then Markham turned and looked at him, and the moment vanished. He was in the present again, standing in a strange police duty room facing a man who knew him, and yet about whom he knew nothing except that they had worked together in the past. His features were only vaguely familiar; his eyes were blue like a million Englishmen, his skin fair and pale so early in the season, his hair still thick, bleached by sun a little at the front.

  “Yes sir?” he enquired, seeing first of all Monk’s civilian clothes. Then he looked more closely at his face, and recognition came flooding back. “Why, it’s Mr. Monk.” The eagerness was tempered. There was admiration in his eyes, but caution as well. “’Ow are you, sir? Got another case?” The interest was well modified with other emotions less sanguine.

  “No, the same as before.” Monk wondered whether to smile, or if it would be so uncharacteristic as to be ridiculous. The decision was quickly made; it was false and it would freeze on his face. “I’ve forgotten some of the details and for reasons I can’t explain, I need to remind myself, or to be exact, I need your help to remind me. You still have the records?”

  “Yes sir.” Markham was obviously surprised, and there was acceptance in his expression as habit. He was used to obeying Monk and it was instinctive, but there was no comprehension.

  “I’m not on the force anymore.” He dared not deceive Markham.

  Now Markham was totally incredulous.

  “Not on the force.” His whole being registered his amazement. “Not—not—on the force?” He looked as if he did not understand the words themselves.

  “Gone private,” Monk explained, meeting his eyes. “I’ve got to be back in the Old Bailey on Monday, for the Carlyon case, but I want to get these details today, if I can.”

  “What for, sir?” Markham had a great respect for Monk, but he had also learned from him, and knew enough to accept no one’s word without substantiation, or to take an order from a man with no authority. Monk would have criticized him unmercifully for it in the past.

  “My own private satisfaction,” Monk replied as calmly as he could. “I want to be sure I did all I could, and that I was right. And I want to find the woman again, if I can.” Too late he realized how he had betrayed himself. Markham would think him witless, or making an obscure joke. He felt hot all over, sweat breaking out on his body and then turning cold.

  “Mrs. Ward?” Markham asked with surprise.

  “Yes, Mrs. Ward!” Monk gulped hard. She must be alive, or Markham would not have phrased it that way. He could still find her!

  “You didn’t keep in touch, sir?” Markham frowned.

  Monk was so overwhelmed with relief his voice caught in his throat. “No.” He swallowed and coughed. “No—did you expect me to?”

  “Well, sir.” Markham colored faintly. “I know you worked on the case so hard as a matter of justice, of course, but I couldn’t help but see as you were very fond of the lady too—and she of you, it looked like. I ’alf thought, we all thought …” His color deepened. “Well, no matter. Beggin’ your pardon, sir. It don’t do to get ideas about people and what they feel or don’t feel. Like as not you’ll be wrong. I can’t show you the files, sir; seein’ as you’re not on the force any longer. But I ain’t forgot much. I can tell you just about all of it. I’m on duty right now. But I get an hour for luncheon, leastways I can take an hour, and I’m sure the duty sergeant’ll come for me. An’ if you like to meet me at the Three Feathers I’ll tell you all I can remember.”

  “Thank you, Markham, that’s very obliging of you. I hope you’ll let me stand you to a meal?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s handsome of you.”

  And so midday saw Monk and Sergeant Markham sitting at a small round table in the clink and chatter of the Three Feathers, each with a plate piled full of hot boiled mutton and horseradish sauce, potatoes, spring cabbage, mashed turnips and butter; a glass of cider at the elbow; and steamed treacle pudding to follow.

  Markham was as good as his word, meticulously so. He had brought no papers with him, but his memory was excellent. Perhaps he had refreshed it discreetly for the occasion, or maybe it was sufficiently sharp he had no need. He began as soon as he had taken the edge off his appetite with half a dozen mouthfuls.

  “The first thing you did, after reading the evidence, was go back over the ground as we’d already done ourselves.” He left out the “sir” he would have used last time and Monk noted it with harsh amusement.

  “That was, go to the scene o’ the crime and see the broken window,” Markham went on. “O’ course the glass was all cleaned up, like, but we showed you where it ’ad lain. Then we questioned the servants again, and Mrs. Ward ’erself. Do you want to know what I can remember o’ that?”

  “Only roughly,” Monk replied. “If there was anything of note? Not otherwise.”

  Markham continued, outlining a very routine and thorough investigation, at the end of whi
ch any competent policeman would have been obliged to arrest Hermione Ward. The evidence was very heavy against her. The great difference between her and Alexandra Carlyon was that she had everything to gain from the crime: freedom from a domineering husband and the daughters of a previous wife, and the inheritance of at least half of his very considerable wealth. Whereas, on the surface at least, Alexandra had everything to lose: social position, a devoted father for her son, and all but a small interest in his money. And yet Alexandra had confessed very early on, and Hermione had never wavered in protesting her total innocence.

  “Go on!” Monk urged.

  Markham continued, after only a few more mouthfuls. Monk knew he was being unfair to the man in not allowing him to eat, and he did not stop himself.

  “You wouldn’t let it rest at that,” Markham said with admiration still in his voice at the memory of it. “I don’t know why, but you believed ’er. I suppose that’s the difference between a good policeman and a really great one. The great ones ’ave an instinct for innocence and guilt that goes beyond what the eye can see. Anyway, you worked night and day; I never saw anyone work so ’ard. I don’t know when you ever slept, an’ that’s the truth. An’ you drove us till we didn’t know whether we was comin’ or goin’.”

  “Was I unreasonable?” Monk asked, then instantly wished he had not. It was an idiotic question. What could this man answer? And yet he heard his own voice going on. “Was I … offensive?”

  Markham hesitated, looking first at his plate, then up at Monk, trying to judge from his eyes whether he wanted a candid answer or flattery. Monk knew what the decision would have to be; he liked flattery, but he had never in his life sought it. His pride would not have permitted him. And Markham was a man of some courage. He liked him now. He hoped he had had the honesty and the good judgment to like him before, and to show it.