A sudden, fearful death (15 page)

"No, I had not thought of
that," she confessed. "She would have to be most careful, and look
without asking. Still, even so, she would be of invaluable assistance to
you."

"You speak as though I were
going to take the case."

"Am I mistaken?" This
time it was her victory, and she also knew it.

Again the smile lit his face,
showing an unaccustomed gentleness. "No, no you are not. I shall do what I
can."

"Thank you." She felt a
rush of relief which surprised her. "Did I mention it, John Evan is the
sergeant assisting Jeavis?"

"No, you did not mention it,
but I happened to know that he was working with Jeavis."

"I thought you might. I am
glad you are still keeping your friendship with him. He is an excellent young
man."

Monk smiled.

Callandra rose to her feet and he
rose automatically also.

"Then you had' better go and
see Hester," she instructed. "There is no time to be lost. I would do
it myself, but you can tell her what you wish her to do for you better man I.
You may tell her I shall use my influence to see that she obtains a position.
They will be looking for someone to take poor Prudence Barrymore's place."

"I shall ask her," he
agreed, pulling a slight face. "I promise," he added.

"Thank you. I shall arrange it
all tomorrow." And she went out of the door as he held it for her, and
then through the front door into the warm evening street. Now that there was
nothing more that she could do, she felt tired and extraordinarily sad. Her
coach was waiting for her and she rode home in somber mood.

* * * * *

Hester received Monk with a
surprise which she did not bother to conceal. She led him into the tiny front
room and invited him to sit She looked far less tired today; there was a vigor
about her, a good color to her skin. Not for the first time he was aware of how
intensely alive she was—not so much physically, but in the mind and in the
will.

"This cannot be a social
call," she said with a slight smile of amusement. "Something has
happened." It was a statement, not a question.

He did not bother with
prevarication.

"Callandra came to see me
earlier this evening," he began. "This morning there was a nurse murdered
in the hospital where she is on the Board of Governors. A nurse from the
Crimea, not just a woman to fetch and carry." He stopped, seeing the shock
in her face and quite suddenly realizing that in all probability it was
someone she knew, maybe well, someone she might even have cared for. Neither
he nor Callandra had thought of that.

"I'm sorry." He meant it.
"It was Prudence Barrymore. Did you know her?"

"Yes." She took a deep,
shaky breath, her face pale. "Not well, but I liked her. She had great courage—and
great heart. How did if happen?"

"I don't know. That is what
Callandra wants us to find out."

"Us?" She looked
startled. "What about the police? Surely they have called the
police?"

"Yes of course they
have," he said tartly. Suddenly all his old contempt for Runcorn boiled up
again, and his own resentment that he was no longer on the force with his rank
and power and the respect he had worked so long and hard to earn, even had it
been laced with fear. "But she doesn't have any confidence that they will
solve it."

Hester frowned and looked at him
carefully.

"Is that all?"

"All? Isn't it enough?"
His voice rose incredulously. "We have no power, no authority, and there
are no obvious answers so far." He stabbed his finger viciously on the
chair arm. "We have no right to ask questions, no access to the police
information, medical reports, or anything else. What more do you want to
provide a challenge?"

"An arrogant and disagreeable
colleague," she said. "Just to make it really difficult!" She
stood up and walked over to the window. "Really, there are times when I
wonder how you succeeded for so long in the police." She looked at him.
"Why is Callandra so concerned, and why does she doubt that the police
will be able to solve it? Isn't it a little early to be so skeptical?"

He could feel his body tighten with
anger, and yet there was also a strange kind of comfort in being with someone
so quick to grasp the essential facts—and the nuances that might in the end
matter even more. There were times when he loathed Hester, but she never bored
him, nor had he ever found her trivial or artificial. Indeed, sometimes to
quarrel with her gave him more satisfaction than to be agreeable with someone
else.

"No," he said candidly.
"I think she is afraid they may blame a Dr. Beck because he is a
foreigner, and it may well be easier than questioning an eminent surgeon or
dignitary.

With luck it may turn out to have
been another nurse"—his voice was hard-edged with contempt—"or
someone equally socially dispensable, but it may not. And there are no men in
the hospital who are not eminent in some way, either as doctors, treasurers,
chaplains, or even governors."

"What does she think I can
offer?" Hester frowned, leaning a little against the windowsill. "I
know less of the people of the hospital than she does. London is nothing like
Scutari! And I was hardly in any hospital here long enough to learn much."
She pulled a rueful face, but he knew the memory of her dismissal still hurt.

"She wishes you to take a position
at the Royal Free." He saw her expression harden and hurried on.
"Which she will obtain for you, possibly even as soon as tomorrow. They
will require someone to take Nurse Barry more's place. From that position of
advantage, you might be able to observe much that would be of use, but you are
not to indulge in questioning people."

"Why not?' Her eyebrows shot
up. "I can hardly learn a great deal if I don't."

"Because you may well end up
dead yourself, you fool," he snapped back. "For Heaven's sake, use
your wits! One outspoken, self-opinionated young woman has already been
murdered there. We don't need a second to prove the point."

"Thank you for your
concern." She swung around and stared out of the window, her back to him.
"I shall be discreet. I did not say so because I had assumed that you
would take it for granted, but apparently you did not. I have no desire to be
murdered, or even to be dismissed for in-quisitiveness. I am perfectly capable
of asking questions in such a way that no one realizes my interest is more than
casual and quite natural."

"Are you," he said with
heavy disbelief. "Well, I shall not permit you to go unless you give me
your word that you will simply observe. Just watch and listen, no more. Do you
understand me?"

"Of course I understand you.
You are practically speaking in words of one syllable," she said
scathingly. "I simply do not agree, that is all. And what makes you
imagine you can give me orders, I have no idea. I shall do as I think fit. If
it pleases you that is good. If it does not, as far as I am concerned that is
just as good."

"Then don't come screaming to
me for help if you're attacked," he said. "And if you are murdered I
shall be very sorry, but not very surprised!"

"You will have the
satisfaction, at my funeral, of being able to say that you told me so,"
she replied, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Very little
satisfaction," he retorted, "if you are not there to hear me."

She swung away from the window and
walked across the room.

"Oh do stop being so
ill-tempered and pessimistic about it. It is I who have to go back and work in
the hospital, and obey all the rules and endure their suffocating incompetence
and their old-fashioned ideas. All you have to do is listen to what I report
and work out who killed Prudence, and of course why."

"And prove it," he added.

"Oh yes." She flashed him
a sudden brilliant smile. "That at least will be good, won't it?"

"It would, it would be very
good indeed," he admitted frankly. It was another of those rare moments of
perfect understanding between them, and he savored it with a unique
satisfaction.

Chapter 4

Monk began his investigation not in the hospital— where
he knew they would still be highly suspicious and defensive, and he might even
jeopardize Hester's opportunities—but by taking the train on the Great Western
line to Hanwell, where Prudence Barrymore's family lived. It was a bright day
with a gentle breeze, and it would have been a delightful walk from the station
through the fields into the village and along Green Lane toward the point where
the river Brent met the Grand Junction Canal, had he not been going to see
people whose daughter had just been strangled to death.

The Barrymore house was the last on
the right, with the water rushing around the very end of the garden. At first,
in the sunlight, with the windowpanes reflecting the image of the climbing
roses and the air full of birdsong and the sound of the river, it was easy to
overlook the drawn blinds and the unnatural stillness of the house. It was only
when he was actually at the door, seeing the black crepe on the knocker, that
the presence of death was intrusive.

"Yes sir?" a red-eyed
maid said somberly.

Monk had had several hours to think
of what he would say, how to introduce himself so they would not find him
prying and meddlesome in a tragedy that was none of his business. He had no
official standing now, which still stung him. It would be foolish to resent
Jeavis, but his dislike of Runcorn was seated deep in the past, and even though
he still remembered only patches of it, their mutual antagonism was one thing
of which he had no doubt. It was in everything Runcorn said, in his gestures,
in the very bearing of his body, and Monk felt it in himself as instinctive as
flinching when something passed too close to his face.

"Good morning," he said
respectfully, offering her his card. "My name is William Monk. Lady
Callandra Daviot, a governor of the Royal Free Hospital -and a friend of Miss
Barrymore's, asked me if I would call on Mr. and Mrs. Barrymore, to see if I
could be of assistance. Would you ask them if they would be kind enough to
spare me a little time? I realize the moment is inopportune, but mere are
matters which unfortunately will not wait."

"Oh—well." She looked
doubtful. 'Til ask, sir, but I can't say as I think they will. We just had a
bereavement in the family, as I suppose you know, from what you say."

"If you would?" Monk
smiled slightly.

The maid looked a trifle confused,
but she acceded to his request, leaving him in the hallway while she went to inform
her mistress of his presence. Presumably the house did not boast a morning room
or other unoccupied reception room where unexpected callers might wait.

He looked around curiously as he
always did. One could learn much from the observation of people's homes, not
merely their financial situations but their tastes, a guess at their
educations, whether they had traveled or not, sometimes even their beliefs and
prejudices and what they wished others to think of them. In the case of family
homes of more than one generation, one could also learn something of parents,
and thus of upbringing.

The Barrymores' hallway did not
offer a great deal. The house was quite large, but of a cottage style,
low-windowed, low-ceilinged, with oak beams across. It had apparently been
designed for the comfort of a large family, rather than to entertain guests or
to impress. The hall was wooden-floored, pleasant; two or three chintz-covered
chairs sat against the walls, but there were no bookcases, no portraits or samplers
from which to judge the taste of the occupants, and the single hat stand was
not of particular character and boasted no walking stick, and only one rather
well worn umbrella.

The maid returned, still looking
very subdued.

"If you will come this way,
sir, Mr. Barrymore will see you in the study."

Obediently he followed her across
the hall and down a narrow passage toward the rear of the house, where a surprisingly
pleasant room opened onto the back garden. Through French doors he saw a
closely clipped lawn shaded at the end by willows leaning over the water. There
were few flowers, but instead delicate shrubs with a wonderful variety of
foliage.

Mr. Barrymore was a tall, lean man
with a mobile face full of imagination. Monk could see that the man in front of
him had lost not only a child, but some part of himself. Monk felt guilty for
intruding. What did law, or even justice, matter in the face of this grief? No
solution, no due process or punishment, would bring her back or alter what had
happened. What on earth use was revenge?

"Good morning, sir,"
Barrymore said soberly. The marks of distress were plain in his face, and he
did not apologize for them or make useless attempts at disguise. He looked at
Monk uncertainly. "My maid said you had called with regard to our
daughter's death. She did not mention the police, but do I assume that that is
who you are? She mentioned a Lady Daviot, but that must have been a misunderstanding.
We know no one of that name."