by Anne Perry
“A fine trait,” Monk agreed. “One many a son might envy. I assume from what you say that these times did not include Mrs. Carlyon’s presence?”
“No, sir, I can’t recall as they ever did. I suppose they spoke of man’s affairs, not suitable for ladies—the army, acts o’ heroism and fighting, adventures, exploration and the like.” Hagger shifted in his seat a trifle. “The boy used to come downstairs with stars in his eyes, poor child—and a smile on his lips.” He shook his head. “I can’t think what he must be feeling, fair stunned and lost, I shouldn’t wonder.”
For the first time since seeing Alexandra Carlyon in prison Monk felt an overwhelming anger against her, crowding out pity and divorcing him utterly from the other woman who haunted the periphery of his mind, and whose innocence he had struggled so intensely to prove. She had had no child—of that he was quite certain. And younger—yes, she had been younger. He did not know why he was so sure of that, but it was a certainty inside him like the knowledge one has in dreams, without knowing where it came from.
He forced himself back to the present. Hagger was staring at him, a flicker of anxiety returning to his face.
“Where is he?” Monk asked aloud.
“With his grandparents, sir, Colonel and Mrs. Carlyon. They sent for him as soon as ’is mother was took.”
“Did you know Mrs. Furnival?”
“I have seen her, sir. She and Mr. Furnival dined here on occasion, but that’s all I could say—not exactly ‘know.’ She didn’t come ’ere very often.”
“I thought the general was a good friend of the Furnivals’?”
“Yes sir, so ’e was. But far more often ’e went there.”
“How often?”
Hagger looked harassed and tired, but there was no guilt in his expression and no evasion. “Well, as I understand it from Holmes, that’s ’is valet, about once or twice a week. But if you’re thinking it was anything improper, sir, all I can say is I most sincerely think as you’re mistaken. The general ’ad business with Mr. Furnival, and ’e went there to ’elp the gentleman. And most obliged Mr. Furnival was too, from what I hear.”
Monk asked the question he had been leading towards, the one that mattered most, and whose answer now he curiously dreaded.
“Who were Mrs. Carlyon’s friends, if not Mrs. Furnival? I imagine she had friends, people she called upon and who came here, people with whom she attended parties, dances, the theater and so on?”
“Oh yes, sir, naturally.”
“Who are they?”
Hagger listed a dozen or so names, most of them married couples.
“Mr. Oundel?” Monk asked. “Was there no Mrs. Oundel?” He felt surprisingly miserable as he asked it. He did not want the answer.
“No sir, she died some time ago. Very lonely, he was, poor gentleman. Used to come ’ere often.”
“I see. Mrs. Carlyon was fond of him?”
“Yes sir, I think she was. Sorry for ’im, I should say. ’E used to call in the afternoons sometimes, and they’d sit in the garden and talk for ages. Went ’ome fairly lifted in spirits.” He smiled as he said it, and looked at Monk with a sudden sadness in his eyes. “Very good to ’im, she was.”
Monk felt a little sick.
“What is Mr. Oundel’s occupation? Or is he a gentleman of leisure?”
“Bless you, sir, ’e’s retired. Must be eighty if ’e’s a day, poor old gentleman.”
“Oh.” Monk felt such an overwhelming relief it was absurd. He wanted to smile, to say something wild and happy. Hagger would think he had taken leave of his wits—or at the very least his manners. “Yes—yes, I see. Thank you very much. You have been most helpful. Perhaps I should speak to her ladies’ maid? She is still in the house?”
“Oh yes sir, we wouldn’t presume to let any of the staff go until—I mean …” Hagger stopped awkardly.
“Of course,” Monk agreed. “I understand. Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.” He rose to his feet.
Hagger also rose to his feet, his face tightened, and he fumbled awkwardly. “Is there any hope, sir, that …”
“I don’t know,” Monk said candidly. “What I need to know, Mr. Hagger, is what reason Mrs. Carlyon could possibly have for wishing her husband dead.”
“Oh—I’m sure I can’t think of any! Can’t you—I mean, I wish …”
“No,” Monk cut off hope instantly. “I am afraid she is definitely responsible; there can be no doubt.”
Hagger’s face fell. “I see. I had hoped—I mean … someone else … and she was protecting them.”
“Is that the sort of person she was?”
“Yes sir, I believe so—a great deal of courage, stood up to anyone to protect ’er own …”
“Miss Sabella?”
“Yes sir—but …” Hagger was caught in a dilemma, his face pink, his body stiff.
“It’s all right,” Monk assured him. “Miss Sabella was not responsible. That is beyond question.”
Hagger relaxed a little. “I don’t know ’ow to ’elp,” he said miserably. “There isn’t any reason why a decent woman kills her husband—unless he threatened her life.”
“Was the general ever violent towards her?”
Hagger looked shocked. “Oh no sir! Most certainly not.”
“Would you know, if he had been?”
“I believe so, sir. But you can ask Ginny, what’s Mrs. Carlyon’s maid. She’d know beyond question.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Hagger, if you will be so good as to allow me to go upstairs and find her?”
“I’ll ’ave ’er sent for.”
“No—I should prefer to speak to her in her normal place of work, if you please. Make her less nervous, you understand?” Actually that was not the reason. Monk wished to see Alexandra’s bedroom and if possible her dressing room and something of her wardrobe. It would furnish him a better picture of the woman. All he had seen her wearing was a dark skirt and plain blouse; far from her usual dress, he imagined.
“By all means,” Hagger concurred. “If you’ll follow me, sir.” And he led the way through a surprisingly busy kitchen, where the cook was presiding over the first preparation for a large dinner. The scullery maid had apparently already prepared the vegetables, the kitchen maid was carrying dirty pots and pans to the sink for the scullery maid to wash, and the cook herself was chopping large quantities of meat ready to put into a pie dish, lined with pastry, and the crust ready rolled to go on when she had finished.
A packet of Purcel’s portable jelly mixture, newly available since the Great Exhibition of 1851, was lying ready to make for a later course, along with cold apple pie, cream and fresh cheese. It looked as if the meal would feed a dozen.
Then of course Monk remembered that even when all the family were at home, they only added three more to the household, which was predominantly staff, and with upstairs and downstairs, indoor and outdoor, must have numbered at least twelve, and they continued regardless of the death of the general or the imprisonment of Mrs. Carlyon, at least for the moment.
Along the corridor they passed the pantry, where a footman was cleaning the knives with India rubber, a buff leather knife board and a green-and-red tin of Wellington knife polish. Then past the housekeeper’s sitting room with door closed, the butler’s sitting room similarly, and through the green baize door to the main house. Of course most of the cleaning work would normally be done before the family rose for breakfast, but at present there was hardly any need, so the maids had an extra hour in bed, and were now occupied in sweeping, beating carpets, polishing floors with melted candle ends and turpentine, cleaning brass with boiling vinegar.
Up the stairs and along the landing Monk followed Hagger until they came to the master bedroom, apparently the general’s, past his dressing room next door, and on to a very fine sunny and spacious room which he announced as being Mrs. Carlyon’s. Opening off it to the left was a dressing room where cupboard doors stood open and a ladies’ maid was busy brushing down a
blue-gray outdoor cape which must have suited Alexandra’s fair coloring excellently.
The girl looked up in surprise as she saw Hagger, and Monk behind him. Monk judged her to be in her midtwenties, thin and dark, but with a remarkably pleasant countenance.
Hagger wasted no time. “Ginny, this is Mr. Monk. He is working for the mistress’s lawyers, trying to find out something that will help her. He wants to ask you some questions, and you will answer him as much as you can—anything ’e wants to know. Understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Hagger.” She looked very puzzled, but not unwilling.
“Right.” Hagger turned to Monk. “You come down when you’re ready, an’ if there’s ought else as can ’elp, let me know.”
“I will, thank you, Mr. Hagger. You have been most obliging,” Monk accepted. Then as soon as Hagger had departed and closed the door, he turned to the maid.
“Go on with what you are doing,” he requested. “I shall be some time.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what I can tell you,” Ginny said, obediently continuing to brush the cape. “She was always a very good mistress to me.”
“In what way good?”
She looked surprised. “Well … considerate, like. She apologized if she got anything extra dirty, or if she kept me up extra late. She gave me things as she didn’t want no more, and always asked after me family, and the like.”
“You were fond of her?”
“Very fond of’er, Mr.—”
“Monk.”
“Mr. Monk, can you ’elp ’er now? I mean, after she said as she done it?” Her face was puckered with anxiety.
“I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “If there were some reason why, that people could understand, it might help.”
“What would anybody understand, as why a lady should kill ’er ’usband?” Ginny put away the cape and brought out a gown of a most unusual deep mulberry shade. She shook it and a perfume came from its folds that caught Monk with a jolt of memory so violent he saw a whole scene of a woman in pink, standing with her back to him, weeping softly. He had no idea what her face was like, except he found it beautiful, and he recalled none of her words. But the feeling was intense, an emotion that shook him and filled his being, an urgency amounting to passion that he must find the truth, and free her from a terrible danger, one that would destroy her life and her reputation.
But who was she? Surely she had nothing to do with Walbrook? No—one thing seemed to resolve in his mind. When Walbrook was ruined, and Monk’s own career in commerce came to an end, he had not at that point even thought of becoming a policeman. That was what had decided him—his total inability to either help Walbrook and his wife, or even to avenge them and put his enemy out of business.
The woman in pink had turned to him because he was a policeman. It was his job to find the truth.
But he could not bring her face to mind, nor anything to do with the case, except that she was suspected of murder—murdering her husband—like Alexandra Carlyon.
Had he succeeded? He did not even know that. Or for that matter, if she was innocent or guilty. And why had he cared with such personal anguish? What had been their relationship? Had she cared for him as deeply, or was she simply turning to him because she was desperate and terrified?
“Sir?” Ginny was staring at him. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Oh—oh yes, thank you. What did you say?”
“What would folks reckon was a reason why it might be all right for a lady to kill ’er ’usband? I don’t know of none.”
“Why do you think she did it?” Monk asked baldly, his wits still too scattered to be subtle. “Was she jealous of Mrs. Furnival?”
“Oh no sir.” Ginny dismissed it out of hand. “I don’t like to speak ill of me betters, but Mrs. Furnival weren’t the kind o’ person to—well, sir, I don’t rightly know ’ow to put it—”
“Simply.” Monk’s attention was entirely on her now, the memory dismissed for the time being. “Just in your own words. Don’t worry if it sounds ill—you can always take it back, if you want.”
“Thank you, sir, I’m sure.”
“Mrs. Furnival.”
“Well, sir, she’s what my granny used to call a flighty piece, sir, beggin’ yer pardon, all smiles and nods and eyes all over the place. Likes the taste o’ power, but not one to fall what you’d call in love, not to care for anyone.”
“But the general might have cared for her? Was he a good judge of women?”
“Lord, sir, he didn’t hardly know one kind o’ woman from another, if you take my meaning. He wasn’t no ladies’ man.”
“Isn’t that just the sort that gets taken in by the likes of anyone such as Mrs. Furnival?”
“No sir, because ’e weren’t susceptible like. I seen ’er when she was ’ere to dinner, and he weren’t interested ’ceptin’ business and casual talking like to a friend. And Mrs. Carlyon, she knew that, sir. There weren’t no cause for ’er to be jealous, and she never imagined there were. Besides …” She stopped, the pink color up her cheeks.
“Besides what, Ginny?”
Still she hesitated.
“Ginny, Mrs. Carlyon’s life is at stake. As it is, if we don’t find some good reason, she’ll hang! Surely you don’t think she did it without a good reason, do you?”
“Oh no sir! Never!”
“Well then …”
“Well, sir, Mrs. Carlyon weren’t that fond o’ the general anyway, as to mind all that terrible if occasionally ’e took ’is pleasures elsewhere, if you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I know what you mean. Quite a common enough arrangement, when a couple have been married a long time, no doubt. And did Mrs. Carlyon—have other interests?”
She colored very faintly, but did not evade the subject.
“Some time ago, sir, I did rather think as she favored a Mr. Ives, but it was only a little flattery, and enjoying his company, like. And there was Mr. McLaren, who was obviously very taken with ’er, but I don’t think she more than passing liked him. And of course she was always fond of Mr. Furnival, and at one time …” She lowered her eyes. “But that was four years ago now. And if you ask if she ever did anything improper, I can tell you as she didn’t. And bein’ ’er maid, like, an’ seein’ all ’er most private things, I would know, I’ll be bound.”
“Yes, I imagine you would,” Monk said. He was inclined to believe her, in spite of the fact that she could only be biased. “Well, if the general was not overly fond of Mrs. Furnival, is it possible he was fond of someone else, another lady, perhaps?”
“Well, if he was, sir, ’e hid it powerful well,” she said vehemently. “Holmes, that’s his valet, didn’t know about it—an’ I reckon he’d have at least an idea. No sir, I’m sorry, I can’t ’elp you at all. I truly believe as the general was an exemplary man in that respect. Everything in loyalty an’ honor a woman would want.”
“And in other respects?” Monk persisted. He glanced along the row of cupboards. “It doesn’t look as if he kept her short of money?”
“Oh no, sir. I don’t think ’e was very interested in what the mistress wore, but ’e weren’t never mean about it one bit. Always ’ad all she wanted, an’ more.”
“Sounds like a model husband,” Monk said dispiritedly.
“Well, yes, I suppose so—for a lady, that is,” she conceded, watching his face.
“But not what you would like?” he asked.
“Me? Well—well sir, I think as I’d want someone who—maybe this sounds silly, you bein’ a gentieman an’ all—but I’d want someone as I could ’ave fun with—talk to, like. A man who’d …” She colored fiercely now. “Who’d give me a bit of affection—if you see what I mean, sir.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Monk smiled at her without knowing quite why. Some old memory of warmth came back to him, the kitchen in his mother’s house in Northumberland, her standing there at the table with her sleeves rolled up, and cuffing him gently around the ear for being chee
ky, but it was more a caress than a discipline. She had been proud of him. He knew that beyond doubt in that moment. He had written regularly from London, letting her know how he was doing, of his career and what he hoped to achieve. And she had written back, short, oddly spelled letters in a round hand, but full of pride. He had sent money when he could, which was quite often. It pleased him to help her, after all the lean, sacrificing years, and it was a mark of his success.
Then after Walbrook’s ruin, there had been no more money. And in embarrassment he had ceased to write. What utter stupidity! As if that would have mattered to her. What a pride he had. What an ugly, selfish pride.
“Of course I know what you mean,” he said again to the maid. “Perhaps Mrs. Carlyon felt the same way, do you suppose?”
“Oh I wouldn’t know, sir. Ladies is different. They don’t—well …”
“They didn’t share a room?”
“Oh no, sir—not since I been here. And I ’eard from Lucy, as I took over from, not before that neither. But then gentry don’t, do they? They got bigger ’ouses than the likes of my ma and pa.”
“Or mine,” Monk agreed. “Was she happy?”
Ginny frowned, looking at him guardedly. “No sir, I don’t think as she were.”
“Did she change lately in any way?”
“She’s been awful worried over something lately. An’ she and the general ’ad a terrible row six months ago—but there’s no use askin’ me what about, because I don’t know. She shut the doors and sent me away. I just know because o’ the way she was all white-faced and spoke to no one, and the way she looked like she seen death face-to-face. But that was six months ago, an’ I thought it was all settled again.”
“Did he ever hurt her physically, Ginny?”
“Great ’eaven’s, no!” She shook her head, looking at him with deep distress. “I can’t ’elp you, sir, nor ’er. I really don’t know of anything at all as why she should ’ave killed ’im. He were cold, and terrible tedious, but ’e were generous with ’is money, faithful to ’er, well-spoken, didn’t drink too much nor gamble nor keep fast company. And although ’e were terrible ’ard to Miss Sabella over that going into a nunnery business, he were the best father to young master Cassian as a boy could ask. And terrible fond of ’im Master Cassian were, poor little thing. If it weren’t that I know as she wasn’t a wicked woman, I’d think—well, I’d think as she were.”
