Defend and Betray

by Anne Perry

  He thanked her, promised her again that he would not cease to do all he could for her mother, right to the last possible moment, then took his leave with a deep regret that he could offer her no real comfort.

  He was outside on the warm pavement in the sun when the sudden fragrance of lilac in bloom made him stop so abruptly a messenger boy moving along the curb nearly fell over him. The smell, the brightness of the light and the warmth of the paving stones woke in him a feeling of such intense loneliness, as if he had just this moment lost something, or realized it was beyond his reach when he had thought it his, that he found his heart pounding and his breath caught in his throat.

  But why? Who? Whose closeness, whose friendship or love had he lost? How? Had they betrayed him—or he them? He had a terrible fear that it was he who had betrayed them!

  One answer he knew already, as soon as the question formed in his mind—it was the woman whom he had tried to defend from a charge of killing her husband. The woman with the fair hair and dark amber eyes. That was certain: but only that—no more.

  He must find out! If he had investigated the case then there would be police records of it: names, dates, places—conclusions. He would find out who the woman was and what had happened to her, if possible what they had felt for each other, and why it had ended.

  He moved forward with a fresh, determined stride. Now he had purpose. At the end of Albany Street he turned into the Euston Road and within a few minutes had hailed a cab. There was only one course open. He would find Evan and get him to search through the records for the case.

  But it was not so easy. He was not able to contact Evan until early in the evening, when he came back tired and dispirited from a fruitless chase after a man who had embezzled a fortune and fled with it across the Channel. Now began the burdensome business of contacting the French police to apprehend him.

  When Monk caught up with Evan leaving the police station on his way home, Evan was sufficiently generous of spirit to be pleased to see him, but he was obviously tired and discouraged. For once Monk put his own concern out of his immediate mind, and simply walked in step with Evan for some distance, listening to his affairs, until Evan, knowing him well, eventually asked why he had come.

  Monk pulled a face.

  “For help,” he acknowledged, skirting his way around an old woman haggling with a coster.

  “The Carlyon case?” Evan asked, stepping back onto the pavement.

  “No—quite different. Have you eaten?”

  “No. Given up on the Carlyon case? It must be coming to trial soon.”

  “Care to have dinner with me? There’s a good chophouse ’round the corner.”

  Evan smiled, suddenly illuminating his face. “I’d love to. What is it you want, if it’s not the Carlyons?”

  “I haven’t given up on it, I’m still looking. But this is a case in the past, something I worked on before the accident.”

  Evan was startled, his eyes widened. “You remember!”

  “No—oh, I remember more, certainly. Bits and pieces keep coming back. But I can remember a woman charged with murdering her husband, and I was trying to solve the case, or to be more precise, I was trying to clear her.”

  They turned the corner into Goodge Street and halfway along came to the chophouse. Inside was warm and busy, crowded with clerks and businessmen, traders and men of the minor professions, all talking together and eating, a clatter of knives, forks, chink of plates and the pleasant steam of hot food.

  Monk and Evans were conducted to a table and took their seats, giving their orders without reference to a menu. For a moment an old comfort settled over Monk. It was like the best of the past, and for all the pleasure of being rid of Runcorn, he realized how lonely he was without the comradeship of Evan, and how anxious he was lurching from one private case to another, with never the certainty of anything further, and only a week or two’s money in hand.

  “What is it?” Evan asked, his young face full of interest and concern. “Do you need to find the case because of Mrs. Carlyon?”

  “No.” Monk did not even think of being dishonest with him, and yet he was self-conscious about exposing his vulnerability. “I keep getting moments of memory so sharp, I know I cared about it profoundly. It is simply for myself; I need to know who she was, and what happened to her.” He watched Evan’s face for pity, dreading it.

  “Her?” Evan said casually.

  “The woman.” Monk looked down at the white tablecloth. “She keeps coming back into my mind, obscuring what I am thinking of at the time. It is my past, part of my life I need to reclaim. I must find the case.”

  “Of course.” If Evan felt any curiosity or compassion he hid it, and Monk was profoundly grateful.

  Their meals arrived and they began to eat, Monk with indifference, Evan hungrily.

  “All right,” Evan said after a few moments, when the edge of his appetite had been blunted. “What do you want me to do?”

  Monk had already thought of this carefully. He did not want to ask more of Evan than he had to, or to place him in an intolerable position.

  “Look through the files of my past cases and see which ones fit the possibilities. Then give me what information you can, and I’ll retrace my steps. Find whatever witnesses there still are available, and I’ll find her.”

  Evan put some meat in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. He did not point out that he was not permitted to do this, or what Runcorn would say if he found out, or even that it would be necessary to practice a certain amount of deception to his colleagues in order to obtain such files. They both knew it. Monk was asking a very considerable favor. It would be indelicate to make it obvious, and Evan was not an unkind man, but a small smile did curl the corners of his sensitive mouth, and Monk saw it and understood. His resentment died even as it was born. It was grossly unfair.

  Evan swallowed.

  “What do you know about her?” he asked, reaching for his glass of cider.

  “She was young,” Monk began, saw the flash of humor in Evan’s face, and went on as if he had not. “Fair hair, brown eyes. She was accused of murdering her husband, and I was investigating the case. That’s all. Except I must have spent some time on it, because I knew her quite well—and I cared about her.”

  Evan’s laughter died completely, replaced by a complexity of expression which Monk knew was an attempt to hide his sympathy. It was ridiculous, and sensitive, and admirable. And from anyone else Monk would have loathed it.

  “I’ll find all the cases that answer these criteria,” Evan promised. “I can’t bring the files, but I’ll write down the details that matter and tell you the outline.”

  “When?”

  “Monday evening. That will be my first chance. Can’t tell you what time. This chop is very good.” He grinned. “You can give me dinner here again, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “I’m obliged,” Monk said with a very faint trace of sarcasm, but he meant it more than it was easy for him to say.

  “There’s the first,” Evan said the following Monday evening, passing a folded piece of paper across the table to Monk. They were sitting in the cheerful hubbub of the chop-house with waiters, diners and steaming food all around them. “Margery Worth, accused of murdering her husband by poison in order to run off with a younger man.” Evan pulled a face. “I’m afraid I don’t know what the result of the trial was. Our records only show that the evidence you collected was pretty good, but not conclusive. I’m sorry.”

  “You said the first.” Monk took the paper. “There are others?”

  “Two more. I only had the time to copy one of them, and that is only the bare outline, you know. Phyllis Dexter. She was accused of killing her husband with a carving knife.” He shrugged expressively. “She claimed it was self-defense. From what you have in your notes there is no way of telling whether it was or not, nor what you thought of it. Your feelings are plain enough; you sympathized with her and thought he deserved all he got. But that doesn’t
mean that she told the truth.”

  “Any notes on the verdict?” Monk tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. This sounded as if it could be the case about which he cared so much, if only by reading his notes from the file Evan could sense the emotion through it. “What happened to her? How long ago was it?”

  “No idea what happened to her,” Evan replied with a rueful smile. “Your notes didn’t say, and I didn’t dare ask anyone in case they realized what I was doing. I had no reason to know.”

  “Of course. But when did it happen? It must have been dated.”

  “1853.”

  “And the other one, Margery Worth?”

  “1854.” Evan passed over the second piece of paper. “There is everything in there I could copy in the time. All the places and principal people you interviewed.”

  “Thank you.” Monk meant it and did not know how to say it without being clumsy, and embarrassing Evan. “I …”

  “Good,” Evan said quickly with a grin. “So you should. What about getting me another mug of cider?”

  The next morning, with an unusual mixture of excitement and fear, Monk set off on the train for Suffolk and the village of Yoxford. It was a brilliant day, sky with white towers of cloud in the sunlight, fields rolling in green waves from the carriage windows, hedges burgeoning with drifts of hawthorn blossoms. He wished he could be out to walk among it and smell the wild, sweet odor of it, instead of in this steaming, belching, clanking monster roaring through the countryside on a late spring morning.

  But he was driven by a compulsion, and the only thatched village nestling against the folded downs or half hidden by its trees which held any interest for him was the one which might yield up his past, and the woman who haunted him.

  He had read Evan’s notes as soon as he got to his rooms the previous evening. He tried this one first simply because it was the closer of the two. The second lay in Shrewsbury, and would be a full day’s journey away, and since Shrewsbury was a far larger town, might be harder to trace now it was three years old.

  The notes on Margery Worth told a simple story. She was a handsome young woman, married some eight years to a man nearly twice her age. One October morning she had reported to the local doctor that her husband had died in the night, she knew not how. He had made no disturbance and she was a heavy sleeper and had been in the next room since she had taken a chill and did not wish to waken him with her sneezing.

  The doctor duly called around with expressions of sympathy, and pronounced that Jack Worth was indeed dead, but he was unsatisfied as to the cause. The body was removed and a second opinion called for. The second opinion, from a doctor in Saxmundham, some four and a half miles away, was of the view that Jack Worth had not died naturally but of some poison. However he could not be certain, he could not name the poison, nor could he state positively when it had been administered, and still less by whom.

  The local police had been called in, and confessed themselves confused. Margery was Jack Worth’s second wife, and he had two grown sons by the first who stood to inherit the farm, which was of considerable size, and extremely fertile. Margery was to have the house for the duration of her life, or until she remarried, and a small income, barely sufficient to survive.

  Scotland Yard was sent for. Monk had arrived on November 1, 1854. He had immediately seen the local police, then had interviewed Margery herself, the first doctor, the second doctor, both the surviving sons, and several other neighbors and shopkeepers. Evan had not been able to make copies of any of his questions, or their answers, only the names, but it would be sufficient to retrace his steps, and the villagers would doubtless remember a great deal about a celebrated murder only three years old.

  The journey took him rather more than two hours, and he alighted at the small station and walked the road some three quarters of a mile back to the village. There was one main street stretching westward, with shops and a public house, and as far as he could see only one side street off it. It was a little early for luncheon, but not at all inappropriate to go to the public house and have a glass of cider.

  He was greeted with silent curiosity and it was ten minutes before the landlord finally spoke to him.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Monk. What be you doin’ back ’ere, then? We in’t ’ad no more murders you know.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Monk said conversationally. “I’m sure one is enough.”

  “More’n so,” the landlord agreed.

  Another few minutes passed in silence. Two more men came in, hot and thirsty, bare arms brown from the wind and sun, eyes blinking in the interior darkness after the brilliance outside. No one left.

  “So what you ’ere for then?” the landlord said at last.

  “Tidying up a few things,” Monk replied casually.

  The landlord eyed him suspiciously. “Like wot, then? Poor Margery ’anged. Wot else is there to do?”

  That was the last question answered first, and brutally. Monk felt a sick chill, as if something had slipped out of his grasp already. And yet the name meant nothing to him. He could vaguely recall this street, but what use was that? There was no question that he had been here; the question was, was Margery Worth the woman he had cared about so intensely? How could he find out? Only her form, her face would tell him, and they were destroyed with her life on the gallows rope.

  “A few questions must be asked,” he said as noncom-mittally as he could, but his throat was tight and his heart raced, and yet he felt cold. Was that why he could not remember—bitter dreadful failure? Was it pride that had blocked it out, and the woman who had died with it?

  “I want to retrace some of my steps and be sure I recall it rightly.” His voice was husky and the excuse sounded lame even as he said it.

  “ ’Oo’s asking?” The landlord was wary.

  Monk compromised the truth. “Their lordships in London. That’s all I can say. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and see if the doctor’s still about.”

  “ ’E’s still about.” The landlord shook his head. “But ol’ Doc Sillitoe from Saxmundham’s dead now. Fell off ’is ’orse and cracked ’is ’ead wide open.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.” Monk went out and turned left along the road, trusting memory and good luck would find the right house for him. Everyone knew where the doctor lived.

  He spent that day and the following one in Yoxford. He spoke to the doctor and to both Jack Worth’s sons, now in possession of his farm; the police constable, who greeted him with fear and embarrassment, eager to please him even now; and to his landlord for the night. He learned much about his first investigation which was not recorded in his notes, but none of it struck any chord in memory except a vague familiarity with a house or a view along a street, a great tree against the sky or the wave of the land. There was nothing sharp, no emotion except a sort of peace at the beauty of the place, the calm skies filled with great clouds sailing across the width of heaven in towers like splashed and ruffled snow, the green of the land, deep huddled oaks and elms, the hedges wide, tangled with wild roses and dappled with cow parsley that some of the locals called ladies’ lace. The may blossom was heavy and its rich scent reached out and clung around him. The flowering chestnuts raised myriad candles to the sun, and already the corn was springing green and strong.

  But it was utterly impersonal. He felt no lurch of emotion, no tearing inside that loss or drowning loneliness was ahead.

  His retraced footsteps taught him that he had been hard on the local constable, critical of the inability to collect evidence and deduce facts from it. He rued his harsh words but it was too late to undo them now. He did not know exactly what he had said; only the man’s nervousness and his repeated apologies, his eagerness to please made the past obvious. Why had he been so harsh? He might have been accurate, but it was unnecessary, and had not made the man a better detective, only hurt him. What did he need to be a detective for, here in a tiny village where the worst he would deal with would be a few drunken quarrels, a
little poaching, the occasional petty theft? But to apologize now would be absurd, and do no good. The harm was done. He could not ease his conscience with belated patronage.

  It was from the local doctor, unprepared to see him back, and full of respect, that he learned how unremitting had been his pursuit of the case and how his attention to detail, his observation of mannerisms and subtle, intuitive guesses had finally learned the poison used, the unsuspected lover who had driven Margery to rid herself of her husband, and sent her to her own early death.

  “Brilliant,” the doctor had said again, shaking his head. “Brilliant, you were, and no mistake. Never used to ’ave time for Lunnon folk myself, before that. But you surely showed us a thing or two.” He eyed Monk with interest untouched by liking. “And bought that picture from Squire Leadbetter for a pretty penny. Spent your money like you ’ad no end of it, you did. Folks still talk about it.”

  “Bought the picture …?” Monk frowned, trying to recall. There was no picture of any great beauty among his things. Had he given it to the woman?

  “Lord bless me, don’t you remember?” The doctor looked amazed, his sandy eyebrows raised in incredulity. “Cost more’n I make in a month, it did, an’ no mistake. I suppose you were that pleased with yourself in your case. An’ it was a clever piece o’ work, I’ll give you that. We all knew no one else could ’ave done it, an’ p’raps the poor creature got all she deserved, God forgive ’er.”

  And that was the final seal on his disappointment. If he had gone out and committed some extravagance, of which he now had no trace, to celebrate his success in the case, he could hardly have anguished over Margery Worth’s death. This was another ruthlessly brilliant case for Inspector Monk, but it was no clue to the woman who trespassed again and again into his mind these days, who intruded when he thought of Alexandra Carlyon, and who stirred in him such memories of loneliness, of hope, and of having struggled so hard to help her, and not knowing now whether he had failed or succeeded, or how—or even why.