Death of a Stranger (25 page)

I have not confronted him yet, but I believe I must. How else can I behave honorably?

Dear Emma, I wish you were here, so I could counsel with you what to do. I am suddenly deeply afraid.

There was no more written.

Monk stared at it. Who was Emma? Where did she live? There was no address. What else might Katrina have written to her?

He flicked very carefully through the other papers in the first drawer and found bills, an old invitation, and another letter, written in a cramped, sloping backhand:

My dearest Katrina,

It is so good to hear from you, as always, but I confess I do not care for the sound of this man, Monk, whom you have employed, and all you have told me only adds to my foreboding. Please, my dear, be very careful. Do not trust him.

He scanned the rest, but it was merely pleasant gossip about mutual acquaintances, mentioned only by Christian name. If Runcorn found these he would think Monk himself could have killed her. Fingers fumbling, moving slowly so as to not rattle the paper, he slid both of them off the pile and heard them rustle.

Runcorn had come in from the balcony. He was holding up a large, slightly crumpled man’s cloak. In the gaslight it appeared to be black.

“What’s that?” Monk asked, moving to shield the papers from Runcorn’s view, and put out his other hand to leaf the pages and mask the sound of the two he was taking out. He folded them quickly and slid them inside his shirt, around the side of his body where movement would not make them crackle.

“It was out there,” Runcorn said with a frown. “Lying on the ground near the edge where she must have gone over.” He looked at it. “It’s too long for her, and anyway it’s not a woman’s.”

Monk was surprised. “That’s a careless thing to do-leave it behind.”

“Must have come off when he struggled with her.” Runcorn wrapped it over, lining to the outside. “Doesn’t have a tailor’s name, but we’ll find out where it comes from and whose it is. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing significant yet,” Monk replied, keeping his voice perfectly level, unnaturally so. He leafed through another few sheets and saw a scribbled note. The sweat stood out on his skin as he read it.

Tell Monk of conversation I overheard which makes me certain that there is a fraud currently at Baltimore and Sons and that I am deeply afraid that Michael Dalgarno is involved. A very great deal of money is to be made shortly, but the matter must be kept completely secret.

The land fraud is basically the same as before-he will see that when he looks carefully enough. Questions to raise-is it cheaper, and therefore illegal profit to be made by diverting the line and somehow stealing the difference from investors? Or is there bribery, either by someone to use their land-or not to use it? There are several possibilities.

Again, Michael has to know of it! His signature is on the wages receipts and on the land purchase orders.

There was nothing more, as if it were written as an aid to her own memory.

Runcorn looked at Monk. “Well?” he demanded. “Are those the papers you looked into?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you found nothing to incriminate this Dalgarno?” Runcorn was skeptical. “Not like you to miss something-’specially if you know all about railways! You’re slipping, aren’t you?” There was only the very faintest trace of the old animosity in his voice, but Monk heard it. He was too sensitive to years of enmity not to know every shade and nuance of a jibe when it was there. He had made enough of his own; more often than not, Runcorn had been the victim.

“There wasn’t any land fraud like the first,” he said defensively.

Runcorn’s eyes widened. “Oh-you found the first, then?”

“Yes, of course I did!” Monk desperately did not want to tell Runcorn about Arrol Dundas or anything to do with his own past with all its secrets and its wounds. “That was land fraud, and this time it looked to be the same, but Dalgarno didn’t buy the land himself, so there was no profit for him when it was sold.”

Runcorn looked at him pensively. “And what was the fraud the first time, exactly?”

“A man bought poor land at a cheap price, then had the railway line diverted to it when it didn’t have to be, and sold the land to the railway company at a much higher price,” Monk replied, hating putting it into words.

“And she thought this was the same, but it wasn’t?” Runcorn concluded.

“That seems so.”

“Then why did this Dalgarno kill her?”

“I don’t know.” It did not occur to Monk that it might not be Dalgarno. She had spoken of him with such a consuming hunger for revenge; only someone she had once loved could have aroused such a fury in her. Strangers could never waken passion so deep.

“Well, I intend to find out,” Runcorn said with scalding heat. “I’ll hunt him down and I’ll drag him all the way to the gallows. I promise you that, Monk!”

“Good. I’ll help you-if I can.”

“Help me look at the rest of this, in case you can explain any of it-to do with railways and so on,” Runcorn said. “Then you can go home, and I’ll go and find Mr. Dalgarno and see what he has to say for himself!”

By quarter past ten Monk was at home in Fitzroy Street again. Hester was sitting by a low fire, but she started up as soon as she heard him at the door. She looked tired and a little pale; her hair was pinned rather lopsidedly, as if she had done it without a looking glass. She stared at him, the question in her eyes. If she had intended to speak, the look in his face must have been sufficient to silence her.

The misery of his own failure was like a gray fog around him. He longed to be able to tell her all of it and allow her to comfort him, to say over and over that it did not matter, that it was not true of him, but only a collision of circumstances.

But even if she said all that, he would not believe her. He was afraid that it was true, and he was even more afraid that she would be denying it out of pity, and loyalty, not because in her heart she could believe it. She would be disappointed, let down. It was not her standard of integrity ever to have done such a thing, or been so dishonest at the core.

It was the past reaching out like a dark hand to pull him back from all he had built, staining the present, stopping him from being the man he tried to be.

But he had to tell her something, and it must be true, if not all the truth.

“I went to see Miss Harcus,” he said, taking off his coat with its torn button. He would have to replace it if he could, or get rid of the coat. “To tell her that I can find no proof that Dalgarno is guilty of anything… in fact, there doesn’t seem to be anything to be guilty of.”

She waited, her face pale, eyes wide.

“She was dead,” he told her. “Someone threw her off the balcony of her apartment. Runcorn was there.”

“William… I’m so sorry…” She meant it; the pity was there in her face-for him, but far more for the woman she had never met. “Do you have any idea who-”

“Dalgarno,” he said before she had finished. He suddenly realized how cold he was, and walked over to the fire.

“Michael Dalgarno?” she said slowly, turning so she was still facing him.

“Yes. Why?” He studied her face, the profound unhappiness in it more intense than even a moment before. “Hester?”

“What relationship does she have to Dalgarno?” she asked, her eyes not leaving his. “Why did she think he was guilty of something, and why do you think he killed her, William?”

“She was betrothed to him. Did I not tell you that?”

“No, not by name.”

“Why do you ask? Tell me!”

She looked down, then up at him quickly, her face full of pain. “I went to see Livia Baltimore to tell her a little about what I have discovered regarding her father’s death. It isn’t much…” She must have seen his impatience. “I met Michael Dalgarno. He was there.”

“He works for Baltimore and Sons. It’s not surprising.” He knew as he said it that she had not told him all that mattered.

“He was paying court to Livia,” she answered. “And from the way she received him, she was expecting it, so he has been doing so for some time. If he was betrothed to Miss Harcus, then he was behaving disgracefully.”

He knew she would not be mistaken in such a thing. She understood the nuances of courtship, even if she had never flirted in her life. She also knew the correct way for a young woman to behave, and what was acceptable for a man to do, and what was not.

So Dalgarno had betrayed Katrina in love as well as in financial honesty. Had she known that? Had she found out that very night when she had challenged him over the land fraud? Had he shown himself the ultimate opportunist, and knowing that he had no intention of marrying her now that Baltimore’s daughter would accept him, had she threatened to expose the fraud? And so had he killed her?

Monk bent to poke the fire, glad of the flames as it burned up, and of the excuse to look away from Hester.

“Poor Katrina,” he said aloud. “He betrayed her in every way. First he was a thief, then he jilted her for another woman, and when she faced him with it-he murdered her.” He found it difficult even to say the words.

“But you’ll prove it… won’t you,” Hester said quietly. “You won’t let it go…”

“No, I won’t,” he promised, standing up again. “I couldn’t save her, but by God I’ll have justice for her!”

“I wish that were more comfort,” Hester replied. She stepped toward him almost tentatively, then very gently put her head on his shoulder and slid her arms around him, holding him softly, as if he were so physically hurt that she might cause him pain.

It did comfort him, but the pain was too deep inside to be touched. That she should love him was so infinitely precious that he would give anything he owned not to lose it, but there was nothing to give it to, no bargain to make. He lifted his hands and stroked her hair, her neck, and held her.

Monk slept late. It was a long time since he had lain in his own bed with Hester beside him and any kind of peace in his mind, even if it were only the peace of exhaustion, and the knowledge that he could do nothing more to help Katrina Harcus. Avenging her was a different matter. It was important, but he was not alone in it. Runcorn would not let go. Monk could and would help him as the occasion arose.

When he got up in the morning he offered to riddle the kitchen stove and get it going well enough for breakfast. Hester accepted with slight surprise. Monk carried heavy things willingly enough for her, but he was not naturally domestic. He was used to being cared for and accepted it without question, barely noticing the detail.

When he was alone in the kitchen he worked hard at shaking loose the old ash, then took it out on the shovel and put it in the ash can. He brought in a little kindling to get the flames going quickly, then light coal, and as soon as he had the fire burning well enough, he pulled the papers out of his shirtfront, where he had concealed them when dressing, and poked them into the fire. Within moments they were consumed, but they were only two letters, and obviously there had been others. Who was Emma? How could he find her? Where could he even begin to look? He closed the stove door and stood up just as Hester came back from the dining room.

“It’s going well,” he said with a smile.

“That was quick!” She regarded him with surprise. “If you are so good at it, perhaps I should have you do it every day.”

It was meant as teasing, and he relaxed at the ease of it, the old banter returned. “Chance,” he said airily. “Just good luck. Might never happen again.”

“Don’t be so modest!” she retorted with a sideways look at him.

The papers were burnt. He felt guilty about it, they were evidence, but he also felt a wave of relief, at least for the moment. It gave him time. He did not yet know what he would do about the jacket and its missing button. “I thought you admired modesty,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

They had only just finished breakfast when Runcorn arrived. He looked tense and angry. At first he refused Hester’s offer of tea, then almost straightaway changed his mind and sat down heavily at the table while she went to brew a fresh pot.

“The man’s a swine!” he said savagely. He had not even removed his coat, as if he were too knotted up to relax sufficiently. “I’ll see him hang for this if it’s the last thing I do!” He glared at Monk. “He’s a liar of the worst sort. He says he never had any intention of marrying Katrina Harcus. Can you believe that?”

“No,” Monk said coldly. “But I can believe that when he found he had a chance to marry Baltimore’s only daughter he seized it with both hands, and suddenly found Katrina something of an embarrassment.”

Runcorn stiffened. “You knew!” he accused him. “You lied. For God’s sake, Monk, what were you thinking of? Trying to protect her feelings or her dignity? She’s dead! And a pound to a penny Dalgarno killed her! It-”

“I only found out last night after I got home!” Monk cut across him, his voice sharp with anger at Runcorn for prejudging him, at Dalgarno for being greedy, dishonest and cruel, and at Katrina for loving so passionately a man unworthy of her, or of anyone.

Runcorn was regarding him with disbelief.

“Hester told me,” Monk snapped at him. Then, seeing Runcorn’s continued doubt, he went on. “She knew something was wrong. I told her Katrina Harcus was dead and that it looked as if Dalgarno had killed her. When she heard his name she said that she had been to see Livia Baltimore-”

“Why?” Runcorn interrupted.

“Because Livia Baltimore’s father was murdered in Leather Lane, everyone assumes by a prostitute,” Monk replied curtly. “You knew that. Hester has set up a house in Coldbath Square where injured women can get some medical help.” He felt a certain satisfaction at seeing the amazement, and then the admiration, in Runcorn’s face. He remembered the deep and powerful change of heart he had seen in him over the women driven to prostitution when they had investigated the death of the artist’s model together. It was the moment when Monk had been obliged, intensely against his will, to see a goodness in Runcorn that he could not ignore, or disdain. He had liked him for it, genuinely.