The Sins of the Wolf (53 page)

More and more people arrived, several glancing at Monk and Hester with surprise and irritation. It was some time before either of them realized that apparently they had taken a place which by custom and tacit rule belonged to someone else. They did not move.

Monk watched, noticing how many people nodded or otherwise paid deference to Alastair. Those who spoke addressed him in a whisper, and by his office rather than his name.

“Such a clever man,” one woman murmured to her neighbor immediately in front of Monk. “I’m glad he didn’t prosecute Mr. Galbraith. I always thought he was innocent anyway. I don’t believe a gentleman like that would ever do such a thing.”

“And Mrs. Forbes’s son as well,” her neighbor replied. “I’m sure that was more of a tragedy than a crime.”

“Quite. Girl was no better than she should be, if you ask me. I know that sort.”

“Don’t we all, my dear. Had a maid like that once myself. Had to get rid of her, of course.”

“His father was a fine man too.” Her eyes returned to Alastair. “Such a pity.”

The organ was playing meditatively. Over to the left someone dropped a hymnbook with a crash. No one looked.

“I didn’t know you knew them.” There was a lift of interest in the woman’s voice in front of Hester, as she half turned her head to hear the better, should her neighbor choose to elaborate.

“Oh yes, quite well.” The neighbor nodded, the feathers in her hat waving. “So handsome, you know. Not like his miserable brother, who drinks like a fish, they say. Never had the talent either. The colonel was such an artist, you know.”

An old gentleman to the right glared at them and was ignored.

“An artist? I never knew that. I thought he owned a printing company.”

“Oh he did! But he was a fine artist too. Drew beautifully, and a great hand with his pen. Caricatures, you know? The poor major is a wretched creature beside him. No talent for anything, except sponging from the family, since the colonel died.”

Hester leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned around, startled, expecting to be told yet again not to speak in the kirk.

“Would you like a stone?” Hester offered.

“I beg your pardon!”

“A stone,” Hester repeated clearly.

“Whatever for?”

“To throw,” Hester replied. And then, in case she had missed the point, “At Hector Farraline.”

The woman blushed scarlet. “Well really!”

“Hold your tongue, you fool!” Monk whispered, poking Hester with his elbow. “For God’s sake, woman, do you want to be recognized?”

She looked puzzled.

“ ‘Not proven’ !” he said sharply, but so quietly she barely heard him. “Not innocent!”

The color burned up her face, and she turned away.

The service began. It was extremely sober and pious, with a long sermon on the sins of undue levity and light-mindedness.

Sabbath luncheon at Ainslie Place was not the rich fare it would have been in a family of such means in London. The servants had also attended the kirk, and although the food was plentiful, it was also cold. No comment was made. The day itself was considered sufficient explanation. Alastair, as head of the family, said a brief prayer before anyone presumed to eat, and then the vegetables were served to complement cold meats. For some time everyone avoided the subject of Mary’s croft, the rents, Arkwright, or any question of Baird’s culpability in that or any other matter.

Baird himself seemed to have closed his mind and his emotions, like a man who has already accepted his own death.

Eilish looked desolate. She was still beautiful. No grief could take that from her, but the fire that had lit her countenance before had vanished as if it had never been.

Deirdra had dark rings of sleeplessness under her eyes, and she constantly looked from one to another of her family as if seeking anything she might do to ease their pain, and found nothing at all.

Oonagh sat white-faced. Alastair was profoundly unhappy. Hector reached for the wine as often as usual, but seemed to remain stubbornly sober. Only Quinlan appeared to find even a glimmer of satisfaction in anything.

“You cannot put it off forever,” he said at last. “Some decision has to be made.” He glanced at Monk. “I assume you are going to return to London? If not tomorrow, then some time soon. You don’t intend to remain in Edinburgh, do you? We have no more crofts, to pay for your silence.”

“Quinlan!” Alastair said furiously, banging his clenched fist on the table. “For heaven’s sake, man, have a little decency!”

Quinlan’s eyebrows rose. “Is this matter decent? Your ideas differ from mine, Fiscal. I think it’s thoroughly indecent. What are you proposing? That we conspire together to keep silence over it and let the shadow hang forever over Miss Latterly?” He swiveled in his chair. “Will you allow that, Miss Latterly? It will make it uncommonly difficult for you to obtain another nursing post. Unless of course it is with someone who wishes the patient’s decease?”

“Of course I should like it resolved,” Hester answered him, while the rest of the company looked on in horrified silence. “But I do not wish anyone to stand in the dock in my place simply to accomplish that, if they are no more guilty than I am. There is a certain case against Mr. McIvor, but I do not find it compelling.” She turned to Alastair. “Is it compelling, Procurator Fiscal? Would you prosecute with the evidence you have so far?”

Alastair blushed, and then paled. He swallowed hard. “They would not expect me to handle the case, Miss Latterly. I am too close to it.”

“That was not what she meant,” Quinlan said contemptuously. “But Alastair is famous for not prosecuting. Aren’t you, Fiscal?”

Alastair ignored him, turning instead to Baird.

“I presume you will be going in to the printing shop as usual tomorrow?”

“It’s closed tomorrow,” Baird replied, blinking at him as if he had barely understood what he had said.

Hector reached for more wine. “Why?” he asked, frowning. “What’s wrong with it? Tomorrow is Monday, isn’t it? Why aren’t you working on a Monday?” He hiccupped gently.

“There are building alterations being done outside. There will be no gas. We cannot work in the dark.”

“Should have built more windows,” Hector said irritably.
“It’s that damn secret room of Hamish’s. Always said it was a stupid idea.”

Deirdra looked confused. “What are you talking about, Uncle Hector? You can’t have windows, except at the front. The other three sides are the back with the doors and the yard, and where it joins to the other warehouses at both sides.”

“I don’t know what he wanted a secret room for.” Hector was not listening to her. “Quite unnecessary. Told Mary that.”

“Secret room?” Deirdra smiled wryly.

Oonagh offered Hector the decanter, and when he had fumbled for it ineffectually, filled his glass for him.

“There is no secret room in the printworks, Uncle Hector. You must be remembering something from the old house, when you were boys.”

“Don’t …” he started angrily, then looked into her steady blue eyes, clear and level as his own must have been thirty years earlier, and his words died away.

Oonagh smiled at him, then turned to Monk.

“I apologize, Mr. Monk. We have placed you in an invidious position, and probably embarrassed you as well, with our family quarrels. Of course we cannot expect you to keep silent over your discoveries regarding the very objectionable Mr. Arkwright and his occupancy of Mother’s croft. He claims that he has paid rent for it, and my husband claims that he has not, but that my mother allowed him to live there freely in return for his silence. Whether these arrangements were made with my mother’s knowledge and consent we shall never know beyond question. Quinlan, for his own reasons, believes they were not. I choose to believe they were. You must do whatever you feel to be right.”

She turned to Hester. “And you also, Miss Latterly.
I
can only apologize to you for involving you in our family’s tragedy. I hope that word of it has not reached London in the detail it has been reported here, and it will not affect
your life or your livelihood, as Quinlan supposes. If I could undo it for you, I would, but it is beyond my power. I am sorry.”

“We all regret it,” Hester said quietly. “You should feel no need to apologize, but I thank you for your graciousness. I knew Mrs. Farraline for only a very brief time, but from her conversation that evening on the train, I choose to believe as you do, and do not find it in the least difficult.”

Oonagh smiled, but there was no answer in her eyes, no relief from the tension there.

As soon as the meal was over Monk seemed in some haste to depart.

“I shall leave the matter in your hands,” he said to Alastair. “You are aware of your mother’s property, and of the disposition of it, and of Arkwright’s tenancy. You must inform the police of whatever you think appropriate. As Procurator Fiscal, you are far better placed than I to judge what is evidence and what is not.”

“Thank you,” Alastair accepted gravely, but also apparently without relief. “Good-bye, Mr. Monk, Miss Latterly. I hope your journey back to London is agreeable.”

As soon as they were out of the door and on the pavement, Monk pulling his collar higher and Hester wrapping her blue coat tighter around her against the wind, Monk spoke.

“I’m damned if I’m finished yet! One of them killed her. If it wasn’t McIvor, it was one of the others.”

“I would dearly like it to be Quinlan,” Hester said with feeling as they crossed the road and stepped onto the grass. “What a perfectly odious man. Why on earth did Eilish marry him? Any fool can see she loathes him now—and little wonder. Do you think Hector was drunk?”

“Of course he was drunk. He’s always drunk, poor old devil.”

“I wonder why,” she said thoughtfully, increasing her speed to keep up with him. “What happened to him? From
what Mary said, he used to be every bit as dashing as Hamish, and a better soldier.”

“Envy, I suppose,” he replied without interest. “Younger brother, lesser commission, Hamish got the inheritance, and appears to have had the brains as well, and the talent.”

They reached the far side of the Place and turned down Glenfinlas Street.

“I meant do you think he was so drunk he was talking nonsense?” she resumed.

“About what?”

“A secret room, of course,” she replied impatiently, having to run again to keep at his side, and brushing past a woman with a basket. “Why would Hamish build a secret room in a printing works?”

“I don’t know. To hide illegal books?”

“What sort of books would be illegal?” she asked breathlessly. “You mean stolen ones? But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, of course not stolen ones. Seditious—blasphemous—most probably pornographic.”

“Oh—oh I see.”

“No you don’t. But possibly you understand.”

She did not quibble. “Is that worth killing over?”

“If it was graphic enough, and there was enough of it,” he replied. “It could be worth a lot of money.”

Two gentlemen crossed the street ahead of them, one swinging a cane.

“You mean they could sell it for a lot.” She could be equally pedantic. “It’s worth nothing.”

He pulled a face. “Didn’t think you’d know what it was.”

“I’ve been an army nurse,” she said tardy.

“Oh.” For a moment he was confused, off balance. He did not wish to think of her as being aware of such things, much less to have seen them. It offended him. Women, especially decent women, should never have to see the obscenities of the darkest human imagination. Unconsciously
he increased his speed, almost knocking into a man and woman. The man glared at him and muttered something.

Hester was obliged to break into a trot to keep up.

“Are we going to look for it?” she asked, gasping. “Please slow a little. I cannot speak or listen at this rate.”

He obeyed abruptly and she shot a couple of paces past him.

“I am,” he answered. “You’re not.”

“Yes I am.” It was a single, contradictory, pigheaded statement. There was no question or pleading in it.

“No you are not. It may be dangerous….”

“Why should it? They said there would be no one there tomorrow, and there certainly won’t be today. They’d never break the Sabbath.”

“I’m going tonight, while it’s dark.”

“Of course we are. It would be absurd to go in the daylight; anyone might see us.”

“You’re not coming!”

Now they were stopped and causing an obstruction on the footpath.

“Yes I am. You’ll need help. If it really is a secret room, it won’t be all that easy to find. We may have to knock for hollow places, or move—”

“All right!” he said. “But you must do as you’re told.”

“Naturally.”

He snorted, and once again set off at a rapid pace.

It was a little before eleven, and pitch-dark except for the lantern which Hester held, when she and Monk finally stood in the huge print room and began their task. To avoid unnecessary noise they had had to break in. It had taken some time, but Monk possessed skills in that field which startled Hester, though he offered no account of how he had come by them. Possibly he did not recall himself.

For over an hour they searched, slowly and methodically, but the building was very solidly and plainly built. It was simply a barnlike structure, similar to the warehouses on either
side of it, for the purpose of printing books. There was no ornament or carving, no alcoves, mantels, sets of shelves or anything else which could mask an opening.

“He was drunk,” Monk said in disgust. “He just loathed Hamish so much he was trying to make trouble, anything he could think of, no matter how absurd.”

“We haven’t been searching very long yet,” she argued.

He gave her a withering look, which was exaggerated by the yellow glare of the lantern and the black cavern above them.

“Well, do you have a better idea?” she demanded. “Do you just want to go back to London and never know who killed Mary?”

Wordlessly he turned back to reexamine the wall.

“It’s straight along the line of the abutting wall onto the next warehouse,” he said half an hour later. “There isn’t any space for a secret compartment, let alone an entire room.”