Death of a Stranger (23 page)

She saw Margaret stiffen and the color rise to her cheeks, although she masked her discomfort as well as possible.

The usual formalities of refreshment were offered and accepted. Marielle invited them to remain for dinner also, and Margaret declined without even referring to Hester, stating a previous engagement which did not exist.

“It is very good of you to come in order to furnish us with assistance and information, Mr. Boyd,” she said a little stiffly. “I hope it has not spoiled your evening.”

“Not at all, Miss Ballinger,” he replied, smiling very slightly, the humor going all the way to his eyes, as if he saw some joke that might be shared, but not spoken of. “Please tell me what it is you wish to know, and if I can answer you, then I will do so.”

“I understand the restrictions,” she said hastily. “I am sure you are aware that Mr. Baltimore died tragically just over two weeks ago… in Leather Lane?”

“I am.” If he felt any distaste he was too well schooled to show it.

Hester’s regard for him increased. She glanced at Marielle and saw her intense interest. She was watching Boyd, and then Margaret, and then Boyd again, as if the outcome was of the greatest importance to her. Hester was filled with a fierce understanding of why Margaret longed to escape from her home and the pressure to marry suitably… as Marielle had done, and possibly whatever other sisters she had. She recalled some mention of a younger one, who was no doubt impatient for her turn.

Was Boyd aware of this also? Did he know he was being gently but very firmly engineered into the desired place? He looked like a man supremely able to make his own decisions. No ambitious mother, or sister, would maneuver him, of that Hester was certain. But it was Margaret’s feelings that concerned her.

“I work in a charity in that area,” Margaret went on with a candor that made Marielle wince and her husband look startled, and then unhappy.

“Really, Margaret…” he said with disapproval. “Gaining a little money for those who are unfortunate is one thing, but you should not become involved in any personal way, my dear…”

Margaret ignored him, keeping her attention on Boyd. “Mrs. Monk was a nurse in the Crimea,” she went on relentlessly. “She offers medical assistance to women who cannot afford to pay a doctor. I am privileged to give what additional help I can, as well as to raise money for the rent of the rooms and for medicines.”

“Admirable,” Boyd said, seemingly with sincerity. “I don’t see what I can contribute, beyond an offering of money, which I am happy to do. What has Nolan Baltimore’s business to do with this? He did well, but not extraordinarily so. And anyway, as you observed, he is dead now.”

Hester searched his face but saw no personal grief in it, and no trace of surprise or alarm. Neither did she see the outrage she had at least half expected.

“He was murdered,” Margaret added. “As you may imagine, it has caused some upheaval in the area, an intense police presence-”

“Of course it has!” Marielle said sharply, moving forward a step as if to come between Margaret and Hester, who represented this regrettable involvement of her sister’s. “It is completely shocking that a respectable man should be attacked in the street and done to death by the immoral and predatory creatures who inhabit such places.” She turned her shoulder toward Hester. “I don’t know why you wish even to discuss such subjects, Margaret. You never used to be so bold in your conversation.” She looked at Boyd. “I am afraid Margaret’s soft heart at times leads her into some strange, not to say misguided, avenues…”

“Marielle…” Courtney began.

“I do not need you to apologize for me!” Margaret snapped. Then she looked candidly at Boyd before her sister could respond. “Mr. Boyd, Mrs. Monk and I have reason to believe that Mr. Baltimore may have been murdered by a business rival rather than a prostitute.” She ignored Marielle’s sharp intake of breath at the word. “And we would both be most obliged if you could tell us more of his business interests and his character as you may have heard it. Is it possible he went to meet someone he was dealing with in such a place as Leather Lane, or its environs, rather than in his customary offices?”

Hester felt obliged to interject. “We know what his family says of his business interests and conduct. I am acquainted with his daughter. But their view cannot help but be biased. What was his reputation in the City?”

“You speak very plainly, Mrs. Monk.” Boyd turned his gaze to her, and she knew instantly that he remarked it in respect, not disapproval, although the faint ghost of humor was still there in his eyes. She found herself liking him. Had she been in Margaret’s place, and had she not already met Oliver Rathbone, she might have been acutely uncomfortable at being so foisted upon this man, rather than having him choose her for himself. She believed closer acquaintance with him might prove a great pleasure.

“I do,” she agreed. “The matter does not allow for misunderstandings. I apologize if it offends you.” She knew it did not. “I am afraid nursing has blunted the edges of my good manners.” Suddenly she smiled at him fully. “That is a euphemism. I never had any.”

“Then I shall follow your example, Mrs. Monk,” he replied with a very slight bending of his head, almost like a bow, his eyes dancing. “Nolan Baltimore was a man with great ambitions who took extraordinary chances in order to achieve them. He had courage and imagination, both of which were admired.” He was watching her as he spoke, weighing what she made of his remarks.

“And…” she prompted him.

He acknowledged her understanding. “And some of his risks paid fairly well; others did not. He managed to survive rather better than some of his friends. He was not noted for his loyalty.”

“In general?” Hester asked. “Or in particular?”

“I had no dealings with him myself.”

She knew his tact was for Courtney, not for her. He expected her to understand his omissions as much as his words.

“From choice?” she said quickly.

“Yes.” He smiled at her.

“Could any of his… chances… have taken him to Leather Lane?” she asked.

“Dubious finance?” His eyes widened. “It is not impossible. If one needs money and the usual services are not available, one goes elsewhere. A short-term loan that was to be paid off when an investment produced a high profit could be found in such a place. There is plenty of money in vice of one sort or another. People who come by it that way are often keen to invest it in a legitimate business.”

“Really… Boyd!” Courtney growled. “I don’t think this is the sort of thing to discuss in front of ladies!”

“If Mrs. Monk has been an army nurse, and now works in the Coldbath area, James, I doubt I can tell her anything that she does not already know better than I,” Boyd pointed out with more humor than annoyance.

“I was thinking of my sister-in-law!” Courtney said a trifle waspishly, his eye flickering to Marielle and back again, as if in actuality responding to her rather than his own thoughts. “And my wife,” he added, perhaps unaware of the implied insult to Hester.

Boyd looked at him coldly for a moment, and noticed him color, then he turned to Margaret. “I apologize if I have distressed you, Miss Ballinger,” he said with a slight smile, but a question in his eye.

“I shall require an apology, Mr. Boyd, if you think me less able to face the truth than Mrs. Monk!” Margaret replied with heat. “You have answered us very frankly, and for that I am grateful. Please do not spoil your respect for our sincerity by equivocating now.”

Boyd ignored both Courtney and Marielle as if they had not been present.

“Then I must tell you, Miss Ballinger,” he replied, “that I think Nolan Baltimore was as likely to have gone to Leather Lane for the reasons generally supposed as for any business purpose, honorable or otherwise. The quality of his living, the cost of his clothes, his carriages, his food and wine, did not suggest a company with any need to seek finance.” He waved Courtney’s proposed interruption away impatiently, and without taking his eyes from Margaret’s, he continued. “Since I have seen him in the City he has never restricted himself. Rumor has it that his company is on the verge of a great achievement. Perhaps he has borrowed against his expectations, or else he had a backer with very deep pockets. But before you ask me who it might be, I have no idea whatever. Not even an educated guess. I am sorry.”

An extraordinary thought occurred to Hester, only a flutter of darkness to begin with, but less and less absurd as the seconds ticked by. “Please don’t apologize, Mr. Boyd,” she said with sincerity. “You have been most helpful.” She ignored Margaret’s look of surprise, and Marielle’s clear disapproval.

Boyd smiled at her, curiosity and satisfaction in his face.

“How fortunate,” Marielle said coolly, indicating that the subject was closed. “Have you seen the new exhibition at the British Museum yet, Margaret? Mr. Boyd was just telling us how fascinating it is. Egypt is a country I have always wished to visit. The past must seem so immediate there. It would give one quite a different perspective upon time, don’t you think?”

“Unfortunately, it would not give me any more of it,” Margaret said, trying to sound casual and less embarrassed than she was at such an obvious ploy. She looked at Boyd. “Thank you for your candor, Mr. Boyd. I hope you will excuse us leaving so abruptly, but there is no one to take our places should any injured be brought into the house in Coldbath Square.” She looked at her sister. “Thank you for being so generous, Marielle. I am extremely grateful to you.”

“You really must stay longer next time,” Marielle said resentfully. “You must come to dinner, or to the theater. There are many excellent plays on at the moment. You are allowing your interests to become too narrow, Margaret. It cannot be good for you!”

Margaret ignored her, bade everyone good-bye, and a few moments later she and Hester were outside in the cool air of the street, walking toward the corner where they might find a hansom easily.

“What did he say that was helpful?” Margaret demanded. “I don’t see what any of it means that is really any use.”

“Mr. Boyd hinted that Baltimore had other income, apart from the railway company,” Hester said a little tentatively.

“He went to Leather Lane on business?” Margaret was uncertain. “Does that help? We have no idea what business, or with whom. And actually didn’t you say his death wasn’t in Leather Lane anyway?”

“Yes, I did. I said it might very well have been in Portpool Lane.”

Margaret stopped walking abruptly and swung around to face Hester. “You mean… in the brothel that is run by the usurer?”

“Yes-I do mean that.”

“His tastes were… to humiliate young women who used to be respectable?” Disgust and anger were very clear in Margaret’s face.

“Possibly,” Hester agreed. “But what if that was his other source of income? His family would not know of it, nor would any gatherer of taxes or anything else. It would explain very nicely why he had more funds to spend on his pleasures than Baltimore and Sons could supply. And his death coincides just about exactly with Squeaky Robinson’s panic. Maybe the question has nothing to do with railways. Maybe the question is-was he killed as a client who went too far, or as a usurer who got too greedy?”

Margaret was tense, but her eyes did not waver even though her voice did. “So what must we do? How can we find out?”

“I don’t have any plan yet,” Hester replied. “But I will certainly make one.”

She saw a hansom and stepped off the curb, raising her hand in the air.

Margaret followed after her with equal determination.

Monk arrived at the station in London exhausted. His head ached so fiercely all he wanted to do was go home, take as hot a bath as he was able to, then have several cups of tea and go to bed to sleep properly, lying flat and between clean sheets. It would be best of all if Hester were beside him, understanding everything and holding no criticism or blame, and that would be impossible. To do that she would have to be without moral judgment. And what use would she be then, what real person at all? Or that she would be unaware of any of the fears that tangled in his mind, simply there, a gentle presence in the darkness.

Except that, of course, she would know what he was feeling: the fear of truth, of finding in himself a greed and a cowardice he would despise, a betrayal for which there was no excuse. Greater than his wrong to Dundas was his wrong to himself, to all that he had made and built out of his life since the accident. If she did not know that, then in what sense was she actually there at all? None that mattered. She might as well be in another place. They would speak, touch, even make love with each other, and the heart would remain utterly alone. It would be a worse loneliness than to have stayed apart, because it was a negation of what had been real, and mattered infinitely.

So he would go to a public bath, and simply buy a new shirt. He would visit a barber to make himself look fit to go this afternoon and meet Katrina Harcus, and tell her that there was no reason whatever to suspect Michael Dalgarno of anything that was not usual practice among businessmen. There was no record of his having bought or sold any land in his own name, or of having made any profit other than for the company for which he acted.

Monk would also report that he had investigated the crash in which Baltimore and Sons had been peripherally involved sixteen years ago, and the land fraud proved against one of its bankers had no connection whatever with it. The cause of that tragedy was not known, but the track had been repaired and was still in use. It had been examined minutely, and no flaws or inadequacies had been found in it.

He was so tired he longed for sleep, even on a park bench in the bright April sun, but he was afraid of what horror might return to him the moment he lost control of his thoughts. He did not know how he could be guilty of anything, but the guilt remained, the helplessness, the blood, the screams, the awful squeal of metal on metal, and the glare and smell of fire, and always the certain knowledge that he could have prevented it.

He drank coffee bought from a corner peddler, then made his way back to the gingerbread seller to see what he had learned from his notorious acquaintances. He found him dispersing slices of hot, spiced loaf to a group of children, and waited a few yards off until he had finished.

“Well?” he asked. There was no need to question if the man remembered him; his crooked face was alive with anticipation.

“ ’E went out, all right,” he said triumphantly. “ ’Bout midnight. Face like thunder. Come back ’alf an hour later, no more.”

Half an hour. Not time enough to get to Leather Lane, find Nolan Baltimore, kill him, and return. Monk was overswept with relief, so sharp it was physical. He could tell Katrina that Dalgarno was innocent.

“And he didn’t go out again?”

“Not ’less it were close on daylight,” the gingerbread seller said firmly. “Crows ’as got eyes like ’awks. Don’t miss nothin’. Can’t afford to!”

He was right. The lookout men for burglars survived on their ability to see, remember and report.

“Thank you,” Monk said sincerely. He was so relieved he gave the man a sovereign, and added another half crown on top, then bought a piece of gingerbread.

At two o’clock he was tired and his feet were sore, but his step was light as he went in through the gate of the Royal Botanic Gardens, noticing briefly the blaze of color of the spring flowers. He had only five minutes to wait. She came to the entrance and stopped still, searching for him. Several other people turned to look at her. He was not surprised; she was most striking with her dramatic face and proud bearing, head high. She wore white muslin sprigged with dark blue, and the lines of the bodice echoed the same vivid color, accentuating the femininity of it. Her hat had roses on the brim, and her parasol was trimmed with blue ribbons. Several gentlemen stared at her, smiling for longer than was really polite, but their admiration robbed it of offense.

She saw Monk, and her face lit with pleasure, almost relief. He knew she must have been here many days, each time hoping to see him. He felt a welling up of satisfaction because at last he could tell her that as far as any investigation could show, Dalgarno was innocent of fraud, and even if there was land fraud by anyone else, it could have no connection with any crash. Her fears were honorable but needless.

She came toward him swiftly, stopping so close to him he could smell the perfume she wore, warm and musky, quite different from the sweet, fresh smell of the flowers around them.

“You have news?” she said with a gasp. “I can see it in your face.”

“Yes.” He smiled back at her.

There was a wildness in her eyes, and he saw her bosom rise and fall in the effort to control her breathing. He put his hand up as if to touch her arm, to reassure her, then realized how little he really knew her. The understanding of her fears, the feeling of identity with her, was on his side only. She would regard his touch as intrusive, which it would be. He let his hand fall again.

“Most importantly, I have been able to ascertain that Mr. Dalgarno did not leave his house at a time or for a duration where he could possibly be involved in Nolan Baltimore’s death.”

She was startled. “How?” she said incredulously. “How could anyone know that?”

“Burglars leave men on watch,” he explained dryly. “They call them crows. There was at least one on that street between midnight and dawn.”

She breathed out very slowly, her face very pale. “Thank you. Thank you very much. But… but what about…”

“I have searched exhaustively in London and in Liverpool, where the company was based earlier, Miss Harcus,” he said. “And I can find no evidence of fraud at all.”

“None…” She started, her voice high, her head moving very slowly in a gesture of denial, disbelief.

“A little oversharp profit on certain deals,” he conceded. “But that is common.” He stated it with authority, realizing only afterwards that he was speaking from memory. He was not guessing, he knew. “And everything was in the company name, not that of Mr. Dalgarno. He is a successful businessman, and as honest as most.”

“Are you certain?” she pleaded, her face flooded with amazement and dawning joy. “Absolutely certain, Mr. Monk?”

“I am sure there is nothing whatever to raise doubt as to his honor,” he repeated. “You may rest in confidence that his reputation is in no peril.”

She jerked back, her eyes wide. An onlooker might have thought he had insulted her from the disbelief in her face, which seemed almost like anger. “Rest?” she said fiercely. “But the crash! What about the danger of another?”

“The Liverpool crash had nothing to do with the track,” he said patiently. “It was driver error, with a possibility that the brakemen also were-”

Now she was angry, flinging her hand back, almost as if to strike the person behind her. “What-all of them?” she challenged. “They all chose the same moment to make a mistake?”

He caught her wrist. “No, they don’t mean that. They mean it was one of them, and possibly the others panicked and didn’t know how to right it.”

“Are you saying that Baltimore and Sons was innocent?” she demanded. “Always? Then and now?”

“Innocent of the crash, yes.” He heard his own voice, and he sounded uncertain. Why? There was nothing to implicate Nolan Baltimore in the Liverpool crash or in the fraud that had ruined Arrol Dundas. It was his own emotions, his own shadow of guilt, trying to place the blame on someone he did not care about.

She took a step towards him. Now she seemed almost excited. Her eyes were bright, her body tense, her cheeks flushed with pink. She put her hands on the front of his chest, closing her fingers tightly over the edges of his jacket. “Is there proof of their innocence?” she said hoarsely. “Real proof? Something that would stand in a court? I have to be sure. An innocent man was convicted once before.”

He felt his own body tighten and the blood pound in his veins. He clasped her wrists. “How do you know that?” he said between his teeth. He was startled to find that he was shaking.

She pulled away from him violently. He felt the button in her hand rip off his coat, but it hardly mattered. Her face was filled with emotion so intense her eyes blazed and her color was hectic. She stared at him for a long, desperate moment, then spun on her heel and all but ran back toward the gate.

Monk was aware that several people were staring at them, but he did not care. What did she know about Arrol Dundas? That question filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else. He strode after her, almost catching up with her at the gate out onto Inner Circle pathway, but she was moving rapidly. She crossed the path and followed it through the grass and trees past the Toxophilite Society grounds on the left, toward the bridge over an arm of the lake. He managed to stop her on the far side, again to the alarm and curiosity of passersby.

“How do you know that?” he repeated the demand. “What have you heard? From whom-Dalgarno?”

“Dalgarno?” she said incredulously, then she started to laugh, a wild sound, close to hysteria. But she did not answer. Instead, she turned away from him again and half ran along York Gate towards the Marylebone Road and the general traffic with carriages and hansoms going in both directions. “I’m going home!” she called at him over her shoulder.

He ran after her, catching up again and walking beside her as she reached the road and raised her parasol to hail a cab. One pulled up almost immediately and Monk helped her in, climbing in after her.

She made no protest, almost as if she had expected him to.

“If it was not Dalgarno, then from whom?” he insisted after she had given the driver instructions to take her to Cuthbert Street in Paddington.

She turned to face him. “You mean the fraud case, all those years ago?”

“Yes, of course I do!” He kept his temper only with the greatest difficulty. It mattered intensely. What did she know? How could she know anything, except from Baltimore’s records or something she had overheard him say?

She stared straight ahead, smiling, but there was a hollowness in her eyes. “Did you imagine I made no enquiries myself, Mr. Monk?” Her voice was hard-edged, grating. “Did you think I learned nothing about the past history of Baltimore and Sons when I knew how deeply Michael was involved in it, and expected to make his fortune through it?”

“You said that you knew an innocent man was convicted of fraud in that case,” he said grimly, horrified at how his own voice betrayed the emotion choking him. “How do you know that? No one knew it then.”

“Didn’t they?” she asked, staring ahead of her.

“Of course they didn’t, or he wouldn’t have died in jail!” He grasped her arm. “How do you know? What happened?”

She turned in the seat to stare at him, her face twisted with a fury so intense he drew back from it, loosening his hold on her.

“A great wrong, Mr. Monk,” she said softly, her voice trembling, her words almost a hiss. “People were wronged then, and are wronged now. But revenge will come-that I promise you. It will come… on my mother’s grave… on mine if need be.”

“Miss Harcus…”

“Please get out!” Her face was ashen now. “I need to think, and I must do it alone.” She snatched her hand from him and, picking up the parasol, banged on the front of the hansom to draw the driver’s attention. “I will tell you… this evening.”

She banged on the front again, more fiercely.

“Yes, miss?” the driver answered.

“Mr. Monk is alighting. Would you be so good as to stop,” she ordered.

“Yes, miss,” he said obediently, and pulled in to the curb. They were at the corner of Marylebone Street and the Edgware Road, traffic streaming around them in both directions.

Monk was touched by a deep concern for her. She looked so torn by conflicting passions it was almost as if she had a fever. He wanted desperately to know what she meant by stating so vehemently that Dundas was innocent and that revenge would come, or what the present wrong was that he could not see. But now that he knew where she lived at least he could find her again when she was calmer. Perhaps he could even be of some help to her. Now she needed to rest and compose herself.

“I’ll call upon you, Miss Harcus,” he said far more gently. “Of course, you need time to consider.”

She made an intense effort at self-control, breathing in very deeply and letting it out in a sigh. “Thank you, Mr. Monk. That would be very good of you. You are most patient. If you would call upon me this evening-after eight, if you would be so good-then I shall tell you what you wish. I shall speak to Michael Dalgarno again, and that will be the end of it, I promise. You have played your part perfectly, Mr. Monk. I could not have wished better. You will see me after eight? Do you give me your word-absolutely?”

“I do,” he swore.

“Good.” The faintest ghost of a smile touched her face. “At twenty-three Cuthbert Street. You have given me your word!”

“Yes. I will be there.”

He alighted and stood on the pavement as the hansom pulled away from the curb immediately and was lost in the traffic.

Monk went home to Fitzroy Street and an empty house. He washed and slept at last. At ten past eight, as the light was fading, he took a hansom to twenty-three Cuthbert Street. He was startled back to attention from his thoughts when they stopped abruptly and the cabbie looked in and told him that he could not go any further.

“Sorry, sir,” he said apologetically. “P’lice blockin’ the road. Dunno wot’s ’appened, but there’s a big ruckus up front. Can’t go no further. Yer’ll ’ave ter walk, if they’ll let yer.”

“Thank you.” Monk scrambled out, paid him, leaving the change of eight pence, and started to walk toward figures he could see standing under the street lamps. There were three men, two arguing with each other, the third, familiar in its tall, stiff outline, looking down at something like a bundle of clothes that lay at his feet. It was Runcorn, who had been Monk’s rival in the old days, then his superior; who had always hated and feared him until the quarrel when he had dismissed Monk at the same moment Monk had resigned in fury. Then the case of the artist’s model just months before had drawn them together again, and in shared emotions, painful and unexpected pity, they had formed an uneasy alliance.