A sudden, fearful death (29 page)

"Yes, slightly." She was
about to add that she knew nothing of relevance, or she would have told him
without his asking, then she realized that it was just possible she might learn
something from him if she prolonged the conversation. "We served side by
side on at least one occasion." She looked into his dark, almost browless
eyes, and unwittingly thought of the bald nurse's mention of a ferret. It was
cruel, but not entirely inappropriate—a dark brown, highly intelligent ferret.
Perhaps it was not such a good idea to try misleading him after all.

"Difficult to tell what a
woman looked like," he said thoughtfully, "when you haven't seen her
alive. They tell me she was quite handsome. Would you agree with that, Miss
Latterly?"

"Yes." She was surprised.
It seemed so irrelevant. "Yes, she had a very—very individual face, most
appealing. But she was rather tall."

Jeavis unconsciously squared his
shoulders. "Indeed. I assume she must have had admirers?"

Hester avoided his eyes
deliberately. "Oh yes. Are you thinking such a person killed her?"

"Never mind what we're thinking,"
he replied smugly. "You just answer my questions the best you can."

Hester seethed with annoyance, and
hid it with difficulty. Pompous little man!

"I never knew her to encourage
anyone," she said between stiff lips. "She didn't flirt. I don't
think she knew how to."

"Hmm ..." He bit his lip.
"Be that as it may, did she ever mention a Mr. Geoffrey Taunton to you?
Think carefully now. I need an exact, honest answer."

Hester controlled herself with an
intense effort. She wanted to slap him. But this conversation would be worth it
if she learned something, however small. She gazed back at him with wide eyes.

"What does he look like,
Inspector?"

"It doesn't matter what he
looks like, miss," he said irritably. "What I want to know is, did
she mention him?"

"She had a photograph,"
Hester lied without compunction. At least it was a lie in essence. Prudence
had had a photograph, certainly, but it was one of her father, and Hester knew
that.

Jeavis's interest was quickened.
"Did she, now. What was he like, the man in this photograph?"

This was no use. "Well—er
..." She screwed up her face as if in a concentrated effort to find the
right words.

"Come on, miss. You must have
some idea!" Jeavis said urgently. "Was he coarse or refined? Handsome
or homely? Was he clean-shaven, a mustache, whiskers, a beard? What was he
like?"

"Oh he was fine-looking,"
she prevaricated, hoping he would forget his caution. "Sort of—well—it's
hard to say...."

"Oh yes."

She was afraid if she did not give
him a satisfactory answer soon he would lose interest. "She had it with
her all the time."

Jeavis abandoned patience.
"Was he tall, straight hair, regular features, smallish sort of mouth,
light eyes, very level?"

"Yes! Yes, that's who he was,
exactly," she said, affecting relief. "Is that him?"

"Never you mind. So she
carried that with her, did she?

Sounds like she knew him pretty
close. I suppose she got letters?"

"Oh yes, whenever the post
came from England. But I didn't think Mr. Taunton lived in London."

"He didn't," he agreed.
"But there are trains, and it's easy enough to come and go. Trip to Ealing
only takes an hour or less. Easy enough to get in and out of the hospital. I'll
have to have a good deal closer talk with Mr. Taunton." He shook his head
darkly. "Nice-looking gentleman like that might have other ladies to set
their caps at. Funny he chose to go on with her, even when she worked in a
place like this and seemed set to continue with it."

"Love is funny, Inspector,"
Hester said tartly. "And while a great many people marry for other
reasons, there are a few who insist on marrying for love. Perhaps Mr. Taunton
was one of them?"

"You've got a very sharp
tongue in your head, Miss Latterly," Jeavis said with a perceptive look
at her. "Was Miss Barrymore like that too? Independent, and a bit waspish,
was she?'

Hester was staring. It was not a
pleasing description.

"Those would not have been my
choice of words, Inspector, but essentially my meaning, yes. But I don't see
how she could have been killed by a jealous woman. The sort of person who would
have been in love with Mr. Taunton surely would not have the strength to
strangle her. Prudence was tall, and not weak by any means. Wouldn't there
have been a fight? And such a person would be marked as well, scratched or
bruised at least?"

"Oh no," Jeavis denied
quickly. "There wasn't a struggle. It must have been very quick. Just
powerful hands on her throat." He made a quick, harsh gesture, like
closing a double fist, and his lips tightened with revulsion. "And it was
all over. She might have scratched a hand or so, or even once at the neck or
face. But there was no blood in any of her fingernails, nor anything else, no
other scratches or bruises on her. There was no fight. Whoever it was, she was
not expecting it."

"Of course you are right,
Inspector." Hester concealed her triumph beneath humility and downcast
eyes. Did Monk know there was no fight? It would be something to tell him that
he might not have learned for himself. She refused to think of the human
meaning of it.

"If it was a woman,"
Jeavis went on, brows drawn down. "It was a strong woman, one with
powerful hands, like a good horse rider perhaps. It certainly wasn't any fancy
lady who never held anything bigger than a cake fork in her fingers. Mind,
surprise counts for a lot. Brave, was she, Miss Barrymore?"

Suddenly it was real again,
Prudence's death.

"Yes—yes she was brave,"
Hester said with a catch in her voice. She forced memories out of her mind: Prudence's
face in the lamplight, the surgeon's saw in her hand. Prudence sitting up in
bed in Scutari, studying medical papers by candlelight.

"Hmm," Jeavis said
thoughtfully, unaware of her emotion. "Wonder why she never screamed.
You'd think she would, wouldn't you? Would you scream, Miss Latterly?"

Hester blinked away sudden tears.

"I don't know," she said
honestly. "I should feel so inadequate."

Jeavis's eyes widened.

"Bit foolish, that, isn't it,
miss? After all, if someone attacks you, you would be inadequate to defend
yourself, wouldn't you? Miss Barrymore was, right enough. Doesn't seem there's
so much noise going on here that a good scream wouldn't be heard."

"Then whoever attacked her was
very quick," Hester said sharply, angry with him for his words and for the
dismissive tone of them. Her emotions were too raw, too close to the surface.
"Which suggests someone strong," she added unnecessarily.

"Quite so," he agreed.
"Thank you for your cooperation, miss. She had an admirer when she was in
the Crimea. That was really all I wished to know from you. You may continue in
your duties."

"I wasn't at my duties,"
she said angrily. "I was asleep. I had been up with a patient all
night."

"Oh, is that so." A
flicker of oblique humor lit his eyes for an instant. "I'm so glad I
wasn't taking you away from anything important."

Furious as she was, she liked him
rather better for that than if he had become obsequious again.

* * * * *

When she saw Monk the following day
in Mecklenburg Square, with all its hideous memories of murder, guilt, and the
unknown, there was a tense, oppressive heat, and she was glad of the shade of
the trees. They were walking side by side, quite casually, he carrying a stick
as if it were a stroll after luncheon, she in a plain blue muslin dress, its
wide skirts trailing on the grass at the edge of the path. She had already told
him of her encounter with Jeavis.

"I knew Geoffrey Taunton was
there," he said when she had finished. "He admitted that himself. I
suppose he knew he was seen—by nurses, if no one else."

"Oh." She felt
unreasonably crushed.

"But it is most interesting
that there were no marks on her except the bruises on her throat," he went
on. "I did not know that Jeavis will give me nothing at all, which I suppose
is natural. I wouldn't, in his place. But apparently he didn't tell Evan that
either." Unconsciously he quickened his pace, even though they were merely
walking in circles around the edge of the square. "That means whoever did
it was powerful. A weak person could not kill her without a struggle. And
probably also someone she knew, and wasn't expecting it from. Most interesting.
It raises one most important question."

She refused to ask. Then quite
suddenly she perceived it, and spoke even as the thought formed in her mind.
"Was it premeditated? Did he, or she, go with the intention of killing
her—or did it arise from something that Prudence said, without realizing what it
meant, and thus precipitated a sudden attack with no warning?"

He looked at her with surprise and
sudden bright, grudging appreciation.

"Precisely." He swiped at
a loose stone on the path with his stick, and missed. He swore, and caught it
the second time, sending it twenty yards through the air.

"Geoffrey Taunton?" she
asked.

"Less likely." He caught
another stone, more successfully this time. "She was no threat to him that
we know of. And I cannot imagine what such a threat could be. No, I think if he
killed her, it would be in hot blood, as a result of a quarrel and his temper
finally snapping. They quarreled that morning but she was still alive at the
end of it. He might have gone back later, but it seems unlikely." He
looked at her curiously. "What do you make of Kristian Beck?"

They passed a nursemaid with a
small child in a sailor's suit. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound
of an organ-grinder and the music was familiar.

"I have seen very little of
him," she answered. "But I like what I have seen."

"I don't care whether you like
him or not," he said acidly. "I want to know if you think he could
have killed Prudence."

"You think there was something
unnatural about his patient's death that night? I doubt it. Lots of people die
unexpectedly. You think they're recovering, and suddenly they don't Anyway,
how would Prudence know anything was wrong? If he had made a mistake in front
of her, she would have told him and corrected it. He wasn't operated on that
night."

"Nothing to do with that night."
He took her elbow to guide her across the path out of the way of a man walking
briskly about some business.

If it had been a protective gesture
she would have welcomed it, but it was officious, impatient instead, as if she
were unable to take care of herself. She pulled away sharply.

"She knew something which he
begged her not to take to the authorities, and she refused him," he went
on regardless.

"That doesn't sound like
Prudence as I knew her," she said instantly. "It must have been
something very serious. She loathed authorities and had the utmost contempt for
them. Anyone has who's been with the army! Are you sure you have that
correctly?"

"The quarrel was
overheard," he replied. "She said she would go to the authorities,
and Beck pleaded with her not to. She was adamant."

"But you don't know what
about?" she pressed.

"No of course I don't."
He glared at her. "If I knew, I'd tackle Beck over it. Probably be able to
tell Jeavis and have him arrested, which would hardly please Callandra. I think
her main purpose in employing me is to prove it was not Beck. She holds him in
great regard."

She was spoiling for a quarrel, but
this was not the time; there was too much else more important than new emotions.

"Are you afraid it is
he?" she said quietly.

He did not look at her. "I
don't know. The field does not seem very wide. Did she quarrel with any of the
nurses? I don't imagine she was popular, if her ideas of reform are anything
like yours. I expect she infuriated several of the doctors. You certainly did,
in your short stay in office."

Her good resolution died instantly.

"If you infuriate a doctor, he
dismisses you!" she replied sharply. "It doesn't make sense to kill
someone when there is such an easy way, without any risk to yourself, to get
rid of her and at the same time make her suffer!"

He grunted. "You have a
concise and logical mind. Which is useful—but unattractive. I wonder if she was
the same? What about the nurses? Would they have disliked her equally?"

She felt hurt, which was
ridiculous. She already knew he liked women to be feminine, vulnerable, and
mysterious. She remembered how he had been charmed by Imogen, her
sister-in-law. Although as she knew very well, under Imogen's gentle manner
mere was no foolish or yielding woman, just one who knew how to comport herself
with grace and allure. That was an art she was devoid of, and at this moment
its absence was stupidly painful.

"Well?" he demanded.
"You've seen them at work, you must have an idea."