A sudden, fearful death (7 page)

"And honor will be
satisfied?" he said dryly.

"If you like." She was
still furious.

"Do you love him?" he
asked her softly.

The anger vanished from her face,
leaving it totally shocked.

"What?"

"Do you love him?" he
repeated.

"Who? What are you talking
about? Love whom?"

"Audley."

She stared at him as if mesmerized,
her eyes dark with pain and some other profound emotion he thought was horror.

"Did he force you?" he
went on.

"No!" she gasped.
"You are quite wrong! It wasn't Audley! That's a dreadful thing to say—how
dare you? He is my sister's husband!" But there was no conviction in her
voice and it shook even as she tried to uphold her outrage.

"It is exactly because he is your
sister's husband that I cannot believe you were willing," he persisted,
but he felt a profound pity for her distress, and his own emotion was thick in
his voice.

Her eyes filled with tears.
"It wasn't Audley," she said again, but this time it was a whisper,
and there was no anger in it, and no conviction. It was a protest for Julia's
sake, and even she did not expect him to believe it.

"Yes it was," he said
simply.

"I shall deny it." Again
it was a statement of fact.

He had no doubt she would, but she seemed
not to be certain he was convinced. "Please, Mr. Monk! Say nothing,"
she implored. "He would deny it, and I should look as if I were a wicked
woman as well as immoral. Audley has given me a home and looked after me ever
since he married Julia. No one would believe me, and they would think me
totally without gratitude or duty." Now there was real fear in her voice,
far sharper than the physical fear or revulsion of the assault. If she were
branded with such a charge she would find herself not only homeless in the immediate
future, but without prospects of marriage in the distance. No respectable man
would marry a woman who first took a lover, whether reluctantly or not, and
then made such a terrible charge against her sister's husband, a man who had
been so generous to her.

"What do you want me to say to
your sister?" he asked her.

"Nothing! Say you cannot find
out. Say he was a stranger who came in somehow and has long ago escaped."
She put out her hand and clasped his arm impulsively. "Please, Mr.
Monk!" It was a cry of real anguish now. "Think what it would do to
Julia! That would be the worst of all. I couldn't bear it. I had rather Audley
said I was an immoral woman and put me out to fend for myself."

She had no idea what fending for
herself would mean: the sleeping in brothels or doss houses, the hunger, the
abuse, the disease and fear. She had no craft with which to earn her living
honestly in a sweatshop working eighteen hours a day, even if her health and
her nerve would stand it. But he easily believed she would accept it rather
than allow Julia to know what had really happened.

"I shall not tell her it was
Audley," he promised. "You need not fear."

The tears spilled over and ran down
her cheeks. She gulped and sniffed.

"Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Monk." She fished for a handkerchief a few niches square and mostly lace.
It was useless.

He passed her his and she took it
silently and wiped her eyes, hesitated, then blew her nose as well. Then she
was confused, uncertain whether to offer it back to him or not.

He smiled in spite of himself.
"Keep it," he offered.

"Thank you."

"Now I had better go and give
your sister my final report."

She nodded and sniffed again.
"She will be disappointed, but don't let her prevail upon you. However put
out she is by not knowing, knowing would be infinitely worse."

"You had better stay
here."

"I shall." She gulped.
"And—thank you, Mr. Monk."

He found Julia in the morning room
writing letters. She looked up as soon as he came in, her face quick with anticipation.
He loathed the need to lie, and it cut his pride to have to admit defeat at
all, and when he had actually solved the case it was acutely bitter.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Penrose, but
I feel that I have pursued this case as far as I can, and to follow it any further
would be a waste of your resources—"

"That is my concern, Mr.
Monk," she interrupted quickly, laying her pen aside. "And I do not
consider it a waste."

"What I am trying to say is
that I shall learn nothing further." He said it with difficulty. Never previously
that he could recall had he flinched from telling someone a truth, regardless
of its ugliness. Perhaps he should have. It was another side of his character
it would probably be painful to look into.

"You cannot know that,"
she argued, her face already beginning to set in lines of stubbornness.
"Or are you saying that you do not believe that Marianne was assaulted at
all?"

"No, I was not saying
that," he said sharply. "I believe without question that she was, but
whoever did it was a stranger to her, and we have no way of finding him now,
since none of your neighbors saw him or any evidence that might lead to his
identity."

"Someone may have seen
him," she insisted. "He did not materialize from nowhere. Maybe he
was not a tramp of any sort, but a guest of someone in the neighborhood. Have
you thought of that?" Now there was challenge in her voice and in her
eyes.

"Who climbed over the wall in
the chance of finding mischief?" he asked with as little sarcasm as was
possible to the words.

"Don't be ridiculous,"
she said tartly. "He must have come in through the herb garden when
Rodwell was not there. Maybe he mistook the house and thought it was that of
someone he knew."

"And found Miss Gillespie in
the summerhouse and assaulted her?"

"It would seem so. Yes,"
she agreed. "I daresay he indulged in some sort of conversation first,
and she cannot remember it because the whole episode was so appalling she has
cut it all from her mind. Such things happen."

He thought of his own snatches of
memory and the cold sweat of horror, the fear, the rage, the smell of blood,
confusion, and blindness again.

"I know that," he said
bitterly.

"Then please continue to
pursue it, Mr. Monk." She looked at him with challenge, too consumed in
her own emotion to hear his. "Or if you are unable or unwilling to, then
perhaps you can recommend me the name of another person of inquiry who
will."

"I believe you have no chance
of success, Mrs. Penrose," he said a little stiffly. "Not to tell you
so would be less than honest."

"I commend your
integrity," she said dryly. "Now you have told me, and I have heard
what you say, and requested you to continue anyway."

He tried one more time. "You
will learn nothing!"

She stood up from her desk and came
toward him. "Mr. Monk, have you any idea how appalling a crime it is for a
man to force himself upon a woman? Perhaps you imagine it is merely a matter of
modesty and a little reluctance, and that really when a woman says no she does
not truly mean it?"

He opened his mouth to argue, but
she rushed on. "That is a piece of meretricious simplicity men use to
justify to themselves an act of brutality that can never be excused. My sister
is very young, and unmarried. It was a violation of the very worst nature. It
has introduced her to—to bestiality—instead of to a—a
..
." She
blushed but did not avoid his eyes. "A sacred relationship which she—oh—
really." She lost patience with herself. "No one has a right to
behave toward anyone else in such a way, and if your nature is too insensitive
to appreciate that, then there is no way for me to tell you."

Monk chose his words carefully.
"I agree with you that it is a base offense, Mrs. Penrose. My reluctance
to continue has no relation to the seriousness of the crime, only to the
impossibility of finding the offender now."

"I suppose I should have come
to you sooner," she conceded. "Is that what you are saying? Marianne
did not tell me the true nature of the event until several days after it had
happened, and then it took me some little while to make up my mind what was
best to do. After that it took me another three days to locate you and inquire
something of your reputation—which is excellent. I am surprised that you have
given in so quickly. That is not what people say of you."

The anger hardened inside him and
only Marianne's anguish stopped him retaliating.

"I shall return tomorrow and
we shall discuss it further,"

he said grimly. "I will not
continue to take your money for something I believe cannot be done."

"I will be obliged if you will
come in the morning," she replied. "As you have observed, my husband
is not aware of the situation, and explanations are becoming increasingly
difficult"

. "Perhaps you should give me
a letter to your cousin Mr. Finnister," he suggested. "In case
anything is said, I shall post it, so there will be no unfortunate
repercussions in the future."

"Thank you. That is most
thoughtful of you. I will do so."

And still angry, and feeling
disturbed and confused, he took his leave, walking briskly back toward Fitzroy
Street and his rooms.

* * * * *

He could come to no satisfactory
conclusion himself. He did not understand the events and the emotions
profoundly enough to be confident in a decision. His anger toward Audley
Penrose was monumental. He could have seen him punished with intense
satisfaction; indeed, he longed to see it. And yet he could understand
Marianne's need to protect not only herself but also Julia.

For once his own reputation as a
detective was of secondary importance. Whatever the outcome of his entering
the case, he could not even consider improving his professional standing at
the expense of ruining either of the women.

Miserable, and in a very short
temper, he went to see Callandra Daviot, and his ill humor was exacerbated immediately
on finding Hester Latterly present. It was several weeks since he had last seen
her, and their parting had been far from friendly. As so often happened, they
had quarreled about something more of manner than of substance. In fact, he
could not remember what it was now, only that she had been abrasive as usual
and unwilling to listen or consider his view. Now she was sitting in
Callandra's best chair, the one he most preferred, looking tired and far from
the gently feminine creature Julia Penrose was. Hester's hair was thick and
nearly straight and she had taken little trouble to dress it with curls or
braids. Pulled as it was it showed the fine, strong bones of her face and the
passionate features, the intelligence far too dominant to be attractive. Her
gown was pale blue and the skirt, without hoops, a trifle crushed.

He ignored her and smiled at
Callandra. "Good evening, Lady Callandra." He intended it to be warm,
but his general unhappiness flavored it more than he wished.

"Good evening, William,"
Callandra replied, the tiniest smile touching the corners of her wide mouth.

Monk turned to Hester. "Good
evening, Miss Latterly," he continued coolly, his disappointment
undisguised.

"Good evening, Mr. Monk,"
Hester answered, turning around but not rising. "You look out of temper.
Have you a disagreeable case?"

"Most criminal cases are
disagreeable," he responded. "Like most illnesses."

"They both happen,"
Hester observed. "Very often to people we like and can help. That is
immeasurably pleasing—at least it is to me. If it is not to you, then you
should look for another form of employment."

Monk sat down. He was unexpectedly
tired, which was ridiculous because he had done very little. "I have been
dealing with tragedy all day, Hester. I am in no mind for trivial
sophistry."

"It is not sophistry,"
she snapped. "You were being self-pitying about your work. I pointed out
what is good about it."

"I am not self-pitying."
His voice rose in spite of his resolution that it would not. "Good God! I
pity everyone in the affair, except myself. I wish you would not make these
slipshod judgments when you know nothing about the situation or the
people."

She stared at him in fury for a
moment, then her face lit up with appreciation and amusement. "You don't
know what to do. You are confounded for the moment."

The only answer that came to his
lips was in words he would not use in front of Callandra.

It was Callandra who replied,
putting her hand on Hester's arm to restrain her.

"You should not feel badly
about it, my dear," she said to Monk gently. "There was never much of
a chance of learning who it was—if it was anyone. I mean, if it was really an
assault."

Hester looked to Callandra, then to
Monk, but she did not interrupt.

"It was an assault," Monk
said more calmly. "And I know who it was, I just don't know what to do
about it." He ignored Hester, but he was very aware of the change in her;
the laughter was gone and suddenly her attention was total and serious.