The Silent Cry (40 page)

"I don't know, ma'am," he answered frankly. "It is not what I had expected you to say. I admit, this throws me into some confusion. You have no doubt whatsoever about the date?”

"None at all. We were discussing the fact that it was Christmas Eve the following day," she affirmed.

"Thank you. I appreciate your courtesy.”

"Then we will not detain you any further, Mr. Monk," Kynaston said abruptly just as Fidelis was about to speak again.

Monk bowed and took his leave, thoroughly puzzled. If Rhys had been at the Kynastons' until two in the morning, then it could not have been he with whom Leighton Duff had fought in St. Giles shortly after midnight. He did not doubt Fidelis, but it would be simple to check with Lady Sandon. He had not asked for her address, but a woman of title would not be difficult to locate.

As soon as he reached his rooms he went to his desk and took out all his notes on the times, dates and places of the rapes he had investigated. They were in chronological order, and it took him only moments to ascertain that his memory was correct. There had been a particularly brutal rape and beating on the night before Christmas Eve, as near as the victim could tell, shortly before midnight, probably two men rather than three.

The conclusion was startling, and inescapable. Rhys could not have been guilty of this one. Leighton Duff had been there, and had been involved in a struggle of some sort. Marmaduke Kynaston could have been there. Arthur Kynaston, like Rhys, could not. He must be absolutely certain. There were more facts to check, with Lady Sandon, and with Sylvestra Duff, and for extra certainty, with the servants in the Duff house.

Had Leighton Duff followed and confronted Marmaduke Kynaston, and his companion in rape, whoever that was… or was he himself the companion? And had Rhys, usually the third, on this occasion been more spellbound by something else, and remained in the Kynaston home, listening to tales of Egypt and the Rosetta Stone?

Was it even possible that the three men who committed the rapes were not always the same ones?

He went to bed with his mind racing, and slept fitfully, haunted by dreams.

In the morning he arose, dressed, and aft era hasty breakfast went out barely feeling the cold. By two in the afternoon he had ascertained his facts. Rhys Duff had been at the Kynaston house until two in the morning, and had returned straight to his own home where he had remained until midday of Christmas Eve. He could not have been in St.

Giles.

Leighton Duff had gone out at half past nine in the evening and had returned at an unknown hour. The footman had not waited up for him.

Mr. Duff was always most considerate and never required the servants to remain out of their beds on his account.

It was confirmed that Duke Kynaston had retired before the end of the party, but whether he had then gone out or not, no one could say. While he was at the Kynaston house, Monk took the opportunity to deliver a warning. He had doubted whether to do so, or to leave justice to fortune. Now as the picture grew even less certain in his mind, the doubt vanished. He asked to see both brothers, and learned that Arthur was out, but Marmaduke could give him a few moments if he cared to come to the morning room.

Duke looked at him with a mixture of interest and scorn.

"A private agent of enquiry, eh?" he said with a lift of the eyebrow.

"What a curious way to make one's living. Still, I suppose it is better than catching rats, or repossessing the furniture of debtors.”

"There are times when it bears a closer resemblance to catching rats than one might wish," Monk answered with a corresponding sneer.

"I hear you were the one who caught up with Rhys Duff," Duke said quickly, cutting across him a little. "Do you think the court will find him guilty?”

"Is that why you consented to see me," Monk asked with amusement.

"Because you think I might know what the outcome will be!”

There was a faint flush on Duke's cheeks. "Do you?" he demanded.

Monk was surprised. Under the bravado, was it possible Duke actually felt some concern, and some responsibility, or guilt?

"No, I don't," Monk said more gently. "I thought I knew the answer without doubt, but I have since discerned some information which makes me less sure.”

"Why did you come here?" Duke frowned. "What do you want from us?”

"When you left the party on the night before Christmas Eve, where did you go?”

"To bed! Why? What does that matter?”

"You did not go to St. Giles with Leighton Duff?”

His utter amazement was too profound to disbelieve.

"What?”

Monk repeated what he had said.

"With Leighton Duff? Have you lost your wits? I've been whoring in St. Giles, certainly, with Rhys, for mat matter, and my brother Arthur. But Leighton Duff. That pompous, dry-as-dust old stick!" He started to laugh, and it was harsh, critical, but as far as Monk could tell, perfectly genuine.

"I take it you think it unlikely Mr. Duff would have gone to St. Giles in search of a prostitute?”

"About as likely as Her Majesty appearing on the stage of the music halls, I should think," Duke replied bitterly. "Whatever gave you that notion? You must be very out of touch with the case. You really have not the least idea, have you!”

Monk took the picture of Leighton Duff out of his pocket.

"Is that a good likeness of him?”

Duke considered it for a moment. "Yes, it is, actually. It is extremely good. He had just that rather patronising air of self-righteousness.”

"You did not like him," Monk observed.

"A crashing remark of the obvious." Duke raised his eyebrows. "Do you really make a living at this, Mr. Monk?”

"You would be surprised how people betray themselves when they imagine themselves safe, Mr. Kynaston," Monk said with a smile. "But thank you for your concern on my behalf. It is not necessary. What I came for was to warn you, and your brother, that the people of St. Giles, and of Seven Dials as well, are aware of who committed the recent rapes in their areas, and if either of you should return there, it is very probable you will meet with most unpleasant ends. You have been there.

You know or can imagine how easily that could be accomplished, and your bodies never found… at least not recognisable ones.”

Duke stared at him with a mixture of shock and incomprehension, but there was markedly fear in it as well.

"Why do you care if I get murdered in St. Giles?" he said truculently, then passed his tongue over dry lips.

"I don't," Monk replied with a smile, but even as he said it, it was not entirely true. He disliked Marmaduke Kynaston less than when he had come in, for no reason that he would have been prepared to explain.

"I don't want the people of St. Giles to be pursued by a murder enquiry.”

Duke took a deep breath. "I should have known. Are you from St.

Giles?”

Monk laughed outright. It was the first time he had felt like it for days.

"No. I come from Northumberland.”

"I suppose I should thank you for the warning," Duke said casually, but his eyes still held the shock, and there was a reluctant sincerity in his voice.

Monk shrugged and smiled.

He left the house even further confused.

Time was desperately short.

He took Leighton Duffs picture to Seven Dials and showed it to cabbies, street pedlars, a running patterer, sellers of flowers, bootlaces, matches, glassware, and to a rat catcher and several prostitutes. It was recognised by at least a dozen people, and some without any hesitation at all. Not one of them was prepared to identify Rhys.

By the second night Monk had only one more question in his mind. He returned to St. Giles to pursue the answer, and walked the alleys and courtyards, the dripping passages and up and down the rotting stairs until dawn came grey and bleak at about seven o'clock, and he was exhausted, and so cold his feet were numb and he could not control the shaking of his body. But he knew two things. Rhys Duff and his father had come to St. Giles on the night of the murder from different directions, and there was no proof they had met until the fatal encounter in Water Lane.

The other thing he learned by chance. He was talking to a woman who had been a prostitute in her youth, and had saved sufficient money to purchase a boarding house, but still knew a remarkable amount of gossip. He went to her partly to confirm certain dates and places, but mainly from his compulsion to probe the darkness in his own mind, the fear that gathered every time Runcorn's face came to his thoughts, which it did so often in these dark, slippery paths. It was not Runcorn as he was now, greying at the temples, a little broader at the waist, but a younger, keener Runcorn, shoulders straight, eyes clearer and braver.

"Do you remember the raid in the brothel when the magistrate, Gutteridge, was caught with his trousers down?" He was not sure why he asked, or what he expected the answer to be, only that it lay at the back of his mind, and would not leave.

She gurgled with delight. "Course I do. Why?”

"Runcorn led it?”

"You know that! Can't tell me you've forgot!" She looked at him narrowly, her head on one side.

"Did he set it up?" he asked.

"Wot's this, a game or sum mink You set it up, an' Runcorn took it from yer. Yer let 'im, cos yer know'd poor of Gutt'ridge was gonna be there. Runcorn walked right inter it, daft sod.”

"Why? It was Gutteridge's own fault. Did he expect the police to hold off, just because he was indulging himself?”

Her eyes widened. "Yeah! Course 'e did! Or at least warn 'im! Upset a lot o' people, that did… important people, like. None o' us, mind! Laughed till we creased ourselves, we did!”

"What people?" Monk paused, knowing something eluded him, something that mattered.

"Ere, wot's this abaht?" she said with a frown. "It's all dead an' buried nah! "Oo cares any more? It don't 'ave nuffink ter do wi' them rapes 'ere.”

"I know it doesn't. I just want to know. Tell me," he pressed.

"Well, there was a few gents wot felt their selves a bit exposed like, arter that." She laughed hugely at her own joke. "They'd always trusted you rozzers to keep yer distance from certain 'ouses o' pleasure." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Arter that they din't trust no one. Couldn't! It kind o' soured relations at ween the rozzers and certain people o' influence. On'y time I ever thought as I could like Mr. Runcorn. Bleedin' pain 'e is, most o' the time. Worse'n you! Yer a mean bastard, but yer was straight, and yer weren't full o' cant. I never knowed yer preach one thing an' do another. Not like 'em." She looked at him more closely. "Wot is it, Monk? W'y dyer give a toss abaht a twenty-year-old raid in a bawdy 'ouse?”

"I'm not sure," he said honestly.

"After yer, is 'e?" she asked with a note of something which could even have been sympathy. He was not sure whether it was for him, or for Runcorn.

"Afterme?" he repeated. "Why?" It sounded foolish, but she knew something about it, or she would not have leaped to such a conclusion.

He had to know. He was too close now not to grasp it, whatever it was.

"Well, yer droppedim right in it, din't yer?" she said incredulously. "Yer knew all them folk was there, an' yer never toP 'im. Let 'im charge in an' make a right fool of is self Don't suppose nuffink was said, but they don' never fergive that kind o' thing. Lorst 'is promotion then, an' lorst 'is girl too, cos 'er father were one of 'em, weren't 'e?" She shrugged. "I'd watch me back, if I was you, even arterall this time. "E don' fergive, yer know? Carries a grudge 'and, does Runcorn.”

Monk was barely listening. He could not remember doing it, even after her description. But he could remember the feeling of victory, the deep, hot satisfaction of knowing he had beaten Runcorn. Now it was only shame. It was a shabby trick and too deep a revenge for anything Runcorn could have done to him. Not that he knew of anything.

He thanked her quietly and walked out, leaving her puzzled, muttering to herself about how times had changed.

Why? He walked with his head down into the rain, hands deep in his pockets, ignoring the gutters and his wet feet. It was fully light now. Why had he done such a thing? Had it been as deliberate and as calculatedly cruel as everyone else thought? If it had, then no wonder Runcorn still hated him. To lose the promotion was fair enough. That was the fortune of war. But to lose the woman he loved was a bitter blow, and one Monk would not now have dealt to any man.

The trial of Rhys Duff had already begun. The information he had was highly pertinent, even if it offered little real help. He should go and tell Rathbone. Hester would be hurt. How Sylvestra Duff would take the news that her husband was also a rapist, he could not even imagine.

He crossed Regent Street, barely noticing he was out of St. Giles, and stopped to buy a hot cup of tea. Perhaps he should not tell Rathbone?

It did not clear Rhys of the murder of his father, only of one rape, with which he was not charged anyway!

But it was part of the truth, and the truth mattered. They had too little of it to make sense as it was. Rathbone had paid him to learn all he could. He had promised Hester. He needed to cling on to his sense of honour, the integrity, and the trust of the friends he had now. What he had been was acutely painful. He had no memory of it, no understanding.

Did Rhys Duff understand himself?

That was irrelevant. Monk was a grown man, and whether he remembered it or not, he was responsible. He was certainly in possession of all his faculties and answerable now. His only reason for not facing himself was fear of what he would find, and the gall to his pride effacing Runcorn, and admitting his remorse.

Had he what it took courage?

He had been cruel, arbitrary, too hasty to judge, but he had never been a liar, and he had never ever been a coward.

He finished the last of his tea, took a bun and paid for it, then eating it as he went, he started towards the police station.

He was obliged to wait until quarter past nine before Runcorn arrived.

He looked warm and dry in his smart overcoat, his face pink and freshly barbered, his shoes shining.