The Sins of the Wolf (33 page)

“Rathbone? Rathbone, where the devil are you going?”

Rathbone swung around and came face-to-face with Monk, dressed immaculately and looking grim and angry. He knew without asking that there was no good news.

“To meet Mr. James Argyll,” Rathbone said tartly. “He seems to be our only hope.” He raised his eyebrows, opening his eyes wide. “Unless you have uncovered something you have not yet told me?” He was being sarcastic, and they both knew it. Without words Monk had understood as well as he that neither of them had any practical ideas to follow, and the same desperation choked in each of them, the same sense of panic rose and made them breathless. They each felt towards the other the desire to hurt, to find fault. It was one of the many masks of fear. Behind them on the platform there was a commotion as people were pushing each other and craning to look, not forwards as might be expected, but back towards the rear of the platform where the guard’s van stood.

“Oh God!” Rathbone said wretchedly.

“What?” Monk demanded, his face white.

“Hester …”

“What? Where?”

“In the guard’s van. They’ve brought her up.”

Monk looked as if he were about to strike him.

“It’s the way they always do it,” Rathbone said between his teeth. “You must know that. Come on. There’s no point in standing here gaping with the rest of the crowd. We can’t help her.”

Monk hesitated, loath simply to leave. The shouting and the catcalls were getting worse.

Rathbone looked up the platform towards the exit, then back down its length where a crowd was gathering. He was in an agony of indecision.

“Train murderess on trial!” a newsboy called out. “Read all about it here! Here, sir, ye want one? Penny, sir….”

There was a constable wending his way alone towards them, shouldering people aside.

“Now then, now then! On about your business. There’s nothing to see. Just some poor woman come to stand trial. It’ll all come out then. On your way, please! Come on, move along there.”

Rathbone made up his mind, turning and starting off again towards the way out.

“When does the trial start?” Monk asked, matching him stride for stride, and at last the other passengers also scrambling with loss of dignity, and corresponding loss of temper.

“Impudent beggar!” an elderly man said furiously, but neither Monk nor Rathbone heard him. “Watch where you’re going, sir! I really don’t know … as if the police weren’t enough. One can hardly travel decently anymore….”

“What are you basing the defense on?” Monk demanded as he and Rathbone strode through the gate and out towards the street. “That way.” He indicated the steps up to Princes Street.

“I’m not,” Rathbone said bitterly. “It’s all up to Argyll.”

Monk knew what the letter had said, and all the reasons, but it did nothing to ease his fear.

“For God’s sake, doesn’t Hester have anything to say about it?” he demanded as they burst out into Princes Street, nearly knocking over a pretty woman with a child in tow.

“I beg your pardon,” Rathbone said abruptly to her. “Not a great deal, I imagine. I haven’t met the man yet, I have only corresponded with him, and that was kept to the formalities. I have no idea whether he even believes she is innocent.”

“You bloody incompetent!” Monk exploded, swinging around to face him. “You mean you have hired a lawyer to defend her without even knowing if he believes in her?” He grasped Rathbone by the lapels, his face twisted with fury.

Rathbone slapped him away with surprising violence. “I did not hire him, you ignoramus! Lady Callandra Daviot hired him. And belief in her innocence is a very pleasant
thing to have, but in our parlous state it is a luxury we may not be able to afford. For a start, such a thing may not exist—in Edinburgh.”

Monk opened his mouth to retaliate, then realized the truth of the remark and let it go.

Rathbone smoothed down his lapels.

“Well, what are you standing there for?” Monk said acidly. “Let us go and see this man Argyll, and find out if he is any good.”

“There is no point in being a crack shot if you have no ammunition,” Rathbone said bitterly, turning to face the way they had been going and resuming his journey. He knew Argyll’s address was in Princes Street itself, and had been advised it was easy walking distance from the station. “If you have no idea who did kill Mary Farraline, at least tell me who could have, and why. I presume you have something since you last wrote. It is three days.”

Monk’s face was tight and very pale as he fell in step with Rathbone again. For several moments they walked in silence, then finally he spoke, his voice rasping.

“I’ve been over the apothecaries again. I can’t find the source of the digitalis, for Hester or anyone else….”

“So you wrote.”

“Apparently there was a digitalis poisoning a few months ago here in Edinburgh. It received some attention. It may have given our killer the idea.”

Rathbone’s eyes widened. “That’s interesting. Not much, but you are right, it may have prompted the idea. What else?”

“Our best chance still seems the bookkeeper. Kenneth Farraline has a mistress….”

“Not unusual,” Rathbone said dryly. “And hardly a crime. What of it?”

Monk kept his temper with momentary difficulty. “She’s expensive, and he is the company bookkeeper. Old Hector Farraline says the books were tampered with….”

Rathbone stopped and swung around.

“Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because it happened some time ago, and Mary already knew about it.”

Rathbone swore.

“Very helpful,” Monk said acidly.

Rathbone glared at him.

Monk continued walking. “The weakest point in this case seems to be the questions of timing. Hester could not have purchased the digitalis here in Edinburgh—at least it is almost impossible. And she could not have seen the pearl brooch until she was already in the train on the way back. She could only have done it if she had brought the digitalis with her from London, which is absurd.”

“Of course it’s absurd,” Rathbone said between his teeth. “But I’ve seen people hanged on evidence as poor—when public hatred is deep enough. Haven’t you sense, man?”

Monk swung around to face him. “Then you’ll have to change the public mood, won’t you.” It was not a question but a demand. “That’s what you’re paid for. Make them see Hester as a heroine, a woman who gave up her own family and happiness to minister to the sick and injured. Make them see her in Scutari, passing all night along the rows of wounded with a lamp in her hand, mopping brows, comforting the dying, praying—anything you like. Let them see her braving shot and shell to reach the wounded without thought for herself … then returning home to fight the medical establishment for better conditions here … and losing her post for her impertinence, so she has to nurse privately, moving from post to post.”

“Is that how you see Hester?” Rathbone asked, standing still in the middle of the footpath opposite him, his eyes wide, his lips almost in a smile.

“No, of course not!” Monk said. “She’s an opinionated, self-willed woman doing precisely what she wants to do. But that is not the point.” There was a faint color in his face as he said it, and it occurred to Rathbone that there was more truth in what Monk had said than he was prepared
to admit. And Rathbone also realized with a shiver of surprise that he would not have found it difficult to put forward that picture of Hester himself.

“I can’t,” he said bitterly. “You seem to have forgotten that this is Scotland.”

Monk swore viciously, and with several words Rathbone had not heard before.

“Oh very helpful,” Rathbone said, mimicking his earlier tone exactly. “But I shall do all I can to see that Argyll uses that to the best advantage. I have achieved one thing.” He tried to sound casual, and not too smug.

“Oh good—do tell me,” Monk said sarcastically. “If there is something, I should like to know it!”

“Then hold your tongue long enough and I will!” They were walking again and Rathbone quickened his pace. “Florence Nightingale herself will come and testify as a character witness.”

“That’s marvelous!” Monk shouted with such exuberance two passersby pulled faces and shook their heads, supposing him intoxicated. “That’s brilliant of you … it’s …”

“Thank you. We have established that physically any member of the household could have killed Mary Farraline. What about motive?”

The elation vanished from Monk’s face. “I thought I had two….”

“You didn’t tell me!”

“They disappeared on examination.”

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly. Alastair’s wife is extravagant, and goes out at night to meet a scruffy-looking individual dressed in working clothes and carrying a pocket watch.”

Rathbone stopped in disbelief. “And that’s not a motive?”

Monk snorted. “She’s building a flying machine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She is building a large machine, big enough to carry a passenger, which she hopes will fly,” Monk elaborated. “In
an old warehouse in the slum quarter. All right, she’s eccentric….”

“Eccentric? Is that what you call it? I would have said insane.”

“Most inventors are a trifle strange.”

“A trifle? A flying machine?” Rathbone pulled a face. “Come on, man, she’ll be locked up if anyone finds out.”

“Probably that is why she does it in secret, and at midnight,” Monk agreed, beginning to walk again. “But from what I’ve heard of Mary Farraline, she’d have been entertained by it. She certainly wouldn’t have had her committed.”

Rathbone said nothing.

“The other one is the middle daughter, Eilish,” Monk resumed. “She also goes out at night, secretly, but alone. I followed her.” He omitted mentioning that twice he had been knocked senseless for his pains. “And I found where she goes: down in Cowgate, which is a slum tenement area.”

“Not another fantastical machine?” Rathbone said wryly.

“No, something far more elementary,” Monk replied with a tone of surprise in his voice. “She is conducting her own ragged school for adults.”

Rathbone frowned. “Why in the middle of the night? That seems a highly honorable thing to do!”

“Because presumably her pupils are at their labors during the day,” Monk said waspishly. “Added to which, she has coerced her brother-in-law, who is in love with her, into giving her books from the family company for her pupils’ use.”

“You mean pilfering?” Rathbone chose to ignore the sarcasm.

“If you like. But again, I’m damned sure Mary would have approved heartily had she known. And she might have.”

Rathbone raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t think to ask?”

“Ask whom?” Monk inquired. “Eilish would have said
yes, if it mattered and she hadn’t…. The only other person to ask would have been Mary.”

“And is that all?”

“The only other thing is the company books.”

“We’ve no evidence to raise it,” Rathbone pointed out. “You said Hector Farraline is as tight as a newt most of the time. His drunken ramblings, even if he’s right, won’t be enough to demand an audit. Is he fit to put in the witness-box?”

“God knows.”

They had stopped, having reached the building where James Argyll had his offices.

“I’m coming in,” Monk stated.

“I really don’t think …” Rathbone began, but Monk had marched ahead of him through the doors and up the stairs and there was nothing for him to do but follow.

The office was quite small, and not nearly as imposing as Rathbone had expected, being lined with shabby books on three sides, the fourth having a small fireplace with a hotly burning fire and paneled in wood of some African origin.

But the man himself was an entirely different matter. He was tall with powerful shoulders and muscular body, but it was his face which commanded attention. In his youth he must have been very dark, what was referred to as a black Celt, with fine eyes and olive complexion. Now what was left of his hair was grizzled gray, and his deeply lined face was full of humor and intelligence. When he smiled he had marvelous teeth.

“You must be Mr. Oliver Rathbone,” he said, looking past Monk. His voice was deep and his accent was savored with relish, as if he were proud of being a Scot. He held out his hand. “James Argyll at your service, sir. I feel we have a great challenge in front of us. I have your letter stating that Miss Florence Nightingale is prepared to travel to Edinburgh to appear as a character witness for the defense. Excellent, excellent.” He waved to one of the leather chairs
and Monk sat in it. Without being asked, Rathbone took the other, and Argyll resumed his own seat.

“Did you have an agreeable journey?” he asked, looking at Rathbone.

“We have no time for chatter,” Monk cut across him. “All we have to fight with are Miss Latterly’s reputation and what we can make of Miss Nightingale. I presume you are well acquainted with her role in the war and how she is greatly regarded? If you were not before, you should be now.”

“I am, Mr. Monk,” Argyll said with unconcealed amusement. “And I am also aware that so far, it is all we have with which to fight. I presume you have still uncovered nothing factually relevant within the Farraline household? We will naturally consider the possible value of innuendo and suggestion, but as you will be aware by now, if you were not before, the family is well thought of in Edinburgh. Mrs. Mary Farraline was a woman of remarkable character, and Mr. Alastair is the Procurator Fiscal, a position close to that of your own Crown Prosecutor.”

Monk took the irony and knew it was well deserved.

“You are saying that to make an unsubstantiated attack would count against us?”

“Yes, without question.”

“Can we get the company books audited?” Monk leaned forward.

“I doubt it, unless you have evidence of embezzlement, and that it is likely to be connected with Mrs. Farraline’s murder. Have you?”

“No … one can hardly count old Hector’s ramblings.”

Argyll’s expression sharpened. “Tell me more about old Hector, Mr. Monk.”

In precise detail and without interruption, Monk recounted what Hector had said to him.

Argyll listened intently.