A Sudden, Fearful Death Read online

  But it was Kristian’s features, not Monk’s, which were in her mind.

  “I appreciate it will be hard,” she said without hesitation. “But it is a hospital. I shall be there. I can observe things and tell you. And perhaps it would be more effective if we could get Hester a position there? She would see much that I would not, and indeed that Inspector Jeavis would not.”

  “Callandra!” he interrupted. Calling her by her given name without her title was a familiarity—indeed, an arrogance—which she did not mind. If she had, she would have corrected him rapidly enough. It was the pain in his voice which chilled her.

  “Hester has a gift for observation,” she carried on, disregarding him, Kristian’s face still vivid in her mind. “And she is as good as you are at piecing together information. She has an excellent understanding of human nature, nor is she afraid to pursue a cause.”

  “In that case you will hardly need me.” He said it waspishly, but it was redeemed at the last instant by a flash of humor in his eyes.

  She was spoiling her own case by pressing too hard.

  “Perhaps I overstated it a trifle,” she conceded. “But she would certainly be an asset, and be able to observe those things you were not in a position to. Then she could report to you so you could make deductions and tell her what next to inquire into?”

  “And if there is a murderer in this hospital of yours, have you considered what danger you might be putting her into? One nurse has already been killed,” he pointed out.

  She saw in his face that he was aware of his own victory.

  “No, I had not thought of that,” she confessed. “She would have to be most careful, and look without asking. Still, even so, she would be of invaluable assistance to you.”

  “You speak as though I were going to take the case.”

  “Am I mistaken?” This time it was her victory, and she also knew it.

  Again the smile lit his face, showing an unaccustomed gentleness. “No, no you are not. I shall do what I can.”

  “Thank you.” She felt a rush of relief which surprised her. “Did I mention it, John Evan is the sergeant assisting Jeavis?”

  “No, you did not mention it, but I happened to know that he was working with Jeavis.”

  “I thought you might. I am glad you are still keeping your friendship with him. He is an excellent young man.”

  Monk smiled.

  Callandra rose to her feet and he rose automatically also.

  “Then you had better go and see Hester,” she instructed. “There is no time to be lost. I would do it myself, but you can tell her what you wish her to do for you better than I. You may tell her I shall use my influence to see that she obtains a position. They will be looking for someone to take poor Prudence Barrymore’s place.”

  “I shall ask her,” he agreed, pulling a slight face. “I promise,” he added.

  “Thank you. I shall arrange it all tomorrow.” And she went out of the door as he held it for her, and then through the front door into the warm evening street. Now that there was nothing more that she could do, she felt tired and extraordinarily sad. Her coach was waiting for her and she rode home in somber mood.

  Hester received Monk with a surprise which she did not bother to conceal. She led him into the tiny front room and invited him to sit. She looked far less tired today; there was a vigor about her, a good color to her skin. Not for the first time he was aware of how intensely alive she was—not so much physically, but in the mind and in the will.

  “This cannot be a social call,” she said with a slight smile of amusement. “Something has happened.” It was a statement, not a question.

  He did not bother with prevarication.

  “Callandra came to see me earlier this evening,” he began. “This morning there was a nurse murdered in the hospital where she is on the Board of Governors. A nurse from the Crimea, not just a woman to fetch and carry.” He stopped, seeing the shock in her face and quite suddenly realizing that in all probability it was someone she knew, maybe well, someone she might even have cared for. Neither he nor Callandra had thought of that.

  “I’m sorry.” He meant it. “It was Prudence Barrymore. Did you know her?”

  “Yes.” She took a deep, shaky breath, her face pale. “Not well, but I liked her. She had great courage—and great heart. How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. That is what Callandra wants us to find out.”

  “Us?” She looked startled. “What about the police? Surely they have called the police?”

  “Yes of course they have,” he said tartly. Suddenly all his old contempt for Runcorn boiled up again, and his own resentment that he was no longer on the force with his rank and power and the respect he had worked so long and hard to earn, even had it been laced with fear. “But she doesn’t have any confidence that they will solve it.”

  Hester frowned and looked at him carefully.

  “Is that all?”

  “All? Isn’t it enough?” His voice rose incredulously. “We have no power, no authority, and there are no obvious answers so far.” He stabbed his finger viciously on the chair arm. “We have no right to ask questions, no access to the police information, medical reports, or anything else. What more do you want to provide a challenge?”

  “An arrogant and disagreeable colleague,” she said. “Just to make it really difficult!” She stood up and walked over to the window. “Really, there are times when I wonder how you succeeded for so long in the police.” She looked at him. “Why is Callandra so concerned, and why does she doubt that the police will be able to solve it? Isn’t it a little early to be so skeptical?”

  He could feel his body tighten with anger, and yet there was also a strange kind of comfort in being with someone so quick to grasp the essential facts—and the nuances that might in the end matter even more. There were times when he loathed Hester, but she never bored him, nor had he ever found her trivial or artificial. Indeed, sometimes to quarrel with her gave him more satisfaction than to be agreeable with someone else.

  “No,” he said candidly. “I think she is afraid they may blame a Dr. Beck because he is a foreigner, and it may well be easier than questioning an eminent surgeon or dignitary With luck it may turn out to have been another nurse”—his voice was hard-edged with contempt—“or someone equally socially dispensable, but it may not. And there are no men in the hospital who are not eminent in some way, either as doctors, treasurers, chaplains, or even governors.”

  “What does she think I can offer?” Hester frowned, leaning a little against the windowsill. “I know less of the people of the hospital than she does. London is nothing like Scutari! And I was hardly in any hospital here long enough to learn much.” She pulled a rueful face, but he knew the memory of her dismissal still hurt.

  “She wishes you to take a position at the Royal Free.” He saw her expression harden and hurried on. “Which she will obtain for you, possibly even as soon as tomorrow. They will require someone to take Nurse Barrymore’s place. From that position of advantage, you might be able to observe much that would be of use, but you are not to indulge in questioning people.”

  “Why not?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I can hardly learn a great deal if I don’t.”

  “Because you may well end up dead yourself, you fool,” he snapped back. “For Heaven’s sake, use your wits! One outspoken, self-opinionated young woman has already been murdered there. We don’t need a second to prove the point.”

  “Thank you for your concern.” She swung around and stared out of the window, her back to him. “I shall be discreet. I did not say so because I had assumed that you would take it for granted, but apparently you did not. I have no desire to be murdered, or even to be dismissed for inquisitiveness. I am perfectly capable of asking questions in such a way that no one realizes my interest is more than casual and quite natural.”

  “Are you,” he said with heavy disbelief. “Well, I shall not permit you to go unless you give me your word that you will si
mply observe. Just watch and listen, no more. Do you understand me?”

  “Of course I understand you. You are practically speaking in words of one syllable,” she said scathingly. “I simply do not agree, that is all. And what makes you imagine you can give me orders, I have no idea. I shall do as I think fit. If it pleases you that is good. If it does not, as far as I am concerned that is just as good.”

  “Then don’t come screaming to me for help if you’re attacked,” he said. “And if you are murdered I shall be very sorry, but not very surprised!”

  “You will have the satisfaction, at my funeral, of being able to say that you told me so,” she replied, staring at him with wide eyes.

  “Very little satisfaction,” he retorted, “if you are not there to hear me.”

  She swung away from the window and walked across the room.

  “Oh do stop being so ill-tempered and pessimistic about it. It is I who have to go back and work in the hospital, and obey all the rules and endure their suffocating incompetence and their old-fashioned ideas. All you have to do is listen to what I report and work out who killed Prudence, and of course why.”

  “And prove it,” he added.

  “Oh yes.” She flashed him a sudden brilliant smile. “That at least will be good, won’t it?”

  “It would, it would be very good indeed,” he admitted frankly. It was another of those rare moments of perfect understanding between them, and he savored it with a unique satisfaction.

  4

  MONK BEGAN his investigation not in the hospital—where he knew they would still be highly suspicious and defensive, and he might even jeopardize Hester’s opportunities—but by taking the train on the Great Western line to Hanwell, where Prudence Barrymore’s family lived. It was a bright day with a gentle breeze, and it would have been a delightful walk from the station through the fields into the village and along Green Lane toward the point where the river Brent met the Grand Junction Canal, had he not been going to see people whose daughter had just been strangled to death.

  The Barrymore house was the last on the right, with the water rushing around the very end of the garden. At first, in the sunlight, with the windowpanes reflecting the image of the climbing roses and the air full of birdsong and the sound of the river, it was easy to overlook the drawn blinds and the unnatural stillness of the house. It was only when he was actually at the door, seeing the black crepe on the knocker, that the presence of death was intrusive.

  “Yes sir?” a red-eyed maid said somberly.

  Monk had had several hours to think of what he would say, how to introduce himself so they would not find him prying and meddlesome in a tragedy that was none of his business. He had no official standing now, which still stung him. It would be foolish to resent Jeavis, but his dislike of Runcorn was seated deep in the past, and even though he still remembered only patches of it, their mutual antagonism was one thing of which he had no doubt. It was in everything Runcorn said, in his gestures, in the very bearing of his body, and Monk felt it in himself as instinctive as flinching when something passed too close to his face.

  “Good morning,” he said respectfully, offering her his card. “My name is William Monk. Lady Callandra Daviot, a governor of the Royal Free Hospital and a friend of Miss Barrymore’s, asked me if I would call on Mr. and Mrs. Barrymore, to see if I could be of assistance. Would you ask them if they would be kind enough to spare me a little time? I realize the moment is inopportune, but there are matters which unfortunately will not wait.”

  “Oh—well.” She looked doubtful. “I’ll ask, sir, but I can’t say as I think they will. We just had a bereavement in the family, as I suppose you know, from what you say.”

  “If you would?” Monk smiled slightly.

  The maid looked a trifle confused, but she acceded to his request, leaving him in the hallway while she went to inform her mistress of his presence. Presumably the house did not boast a morning room or other unoccupied reception room where unexpected callers might wait.

  He looked around curiously as he always did. One could learn much from the observation of people’s homes, not merely their financial situations but their tastes, a guess at their educations, whether they had traveled or not, sometimes even their beliefs and prejudices and what they wished others to think of them. In the case of family homes of more than one generation, one could also learn something of parents, and thus of upbringing.

  The Barrymores’ hallway did not offer a great deal. The house was quite large, but of a cottage style, low-windowed, low-ceilinged, with oak beams across. It had apparently been designed for the comfort of a large family, rather than to entertain guests or to impress. The hall was wooden-floored, pleasant; two or three chintz-covered chairs sat against the walls, but there were no bookcases, no portraits or samplers from which to judge the taste of the occupants, and the single hat stand was not of particular character and boasted no walking stick, and only one rather well worn umbrella.

  The maid returned, still looking very subdued.

  “If you will come this way, sir, Mr. Barrymore will see you in the study.”

  Obediently he followed her across the hall and down a narrow passage toward the rear of the house, where a surprisingly pleasant room opened onto the back garden. Through French doors he saw a closely clipped lawn shaded at the end by willows leaning over the water. There were few flowers, but instead delicate shrubs with a wonderful variety of foliage.

  Mr. Barrymore was a tall, lean man with a mobile face full of imagination. Monk could see that the man in front of him had lost not only a child, but some part of himself. Monk felt guilty for intruding. What did law, or even justice, matter in the face of this grief? No solution, no due process or punishment, would bring her back or alter what had happened. What on earth use was revenge?

  “Good morning, sir,” Barrymore said soberly. The marks of distress were plain in his face, and he did not apologize for them or make useless attempts at disguise. He looked at Monk uncertainly. “My maid said you had called with regard to our daughter’s death. She did not mention the police, but do I assume that that is who you are? She mentioned a Lady Daviot, but that must have been a misunderstanding. We know no one of that name.”

  Monk wished he had some art or gift to soften what must be said, but he knew of none. Perhaps simple truth was the best. Prevarication would lengthen it to no purpose.

  “No, Mr. Barrymore, I used to be in the police, but I left the force. Now I work privately.” He loathed saying that. It sounded grubby, as if he chased sneak thieves and errant wives. “Lady Callandra Daviot”—that sounded better—“is a member of the Board of Governors of the hospital, and had a deep regard for Miss Barrymore. She is concerned in case the police do not learn all the facts of the case, or do not pursue it thoroughly, should it lead to troubling any authorities or persons of consequence. Therefore she asked me, as a personal favor to her, if I would pursue the matter myself.”

  A wan smile flickered over Barrymore’s face and vanished again.

  “Does it not concern you to disturb important people, Mr. Monk? I would have thought you more vulnerable to disfavor than the police. One assumes they have the force of government to back them.”

  “That rather depends on who the important people are,” Monk pointed out.

  Barrymore frowned. They were still standing in the middle of the charming room with the garden beyond. It did not seem an occasion to sit.

  “Surely you cannot suspect anyone of that nature to be involved in Prudence’s death.” Barrymore said the last word as if he still found it difficult to grasp, and none of the first agonizing pain had yet dulled.

  “I have no idea,” Monk replied. “But it is very usual for a murder investigation to uncover a great many other events and relationships which people would prefer to have kept secret. Sometimes they will go to considerable lengths to see that they remain so, even if it means concealing the real crime.”

  “And you imagine you will be able to l
earn something that the police will not?” Barrymore asked. He was still courteous but his disbelief was undeniable.

  “I don’t know, but I shall try. I have in the past succeeded where they have failed.”

  “Have you?” It was not a challenge, not even a question, merely a noting of fact. “What can we tell you? I know nothing of the hospital at all.” He stared out of the window at the sunlight on the leaves. “Indeed, I know very little of the practice of medicine. I am a collector of rare butterflies, myself. Something of an authority on the subject.” He smiled sadly, looking back at Monk. “It all seems rather pointless now, doesn’t it?”

  “No,” Monk said quietly. “The study of what is beautiful can never be wasted, especially if you are seeking to understand and preserve it.”

  “Thank you,” Barrymore said with a flash of gratitude. It was a minor thing, but at such times of numb tragedy the mind remembers the smallest kindness and clings to it amid the confusion and despair of events. Barrymore looked up at Monk and suddenly realized they were both standing and he had offered no hospitality of any sort. “Please sit down, Mr. Monk,” he asked, sitting himself. “And tell me what I can do that will help. I really don’t understand….”

  “You could tell me something about her.”

  Barrymore blinked. “How can that help? Surely it was some madman? What sane person would do that to …” He was obliged to struggle to retain command of himself.

  “That may be so,” Monk interposed, to save Barrymore embarrassment. “But it is also possible that it was someone she knew. Even madmen have to have some sort of reason, unless they are simply lunatics, and there is no reason so far to suppose that there was a lunatic loose in the hospital. It is a place for the treatment of illnesses of the body, not of the mind. But of course, the police will make extensive inquiries to see if there were any strangers observed at all. You may be quite sure of that.”