Dark Assassin Page 5

  “Why did she find it so hard to believe?” he said, more sharply than he had meant to.

  Cardman started with surprise at the emotion in Monk’s voice. “There was no reason,” he said gravely. “That is why Miss Mary believed he had been murdered. More and more she became convinced that either he had found something in the tunneling works or he was about to, and for that he had been killed.”

  “What made her more convinced?” Monk said quickly. “Did something happen, or was it simply her need to clear her father of suicide?”

  “If I knew, sir, I’d tell you,” Cardman replied, looking directly into Monk’s eyes. There was a kind of desperation in him, as if he was clinging to a last thread of hope too delicate to name. “Miss Mary read all through her father’s papers, sat all day and up half the night. Over and over she searched them. Many’s the time I’d go to his study and find her there at his desk, or fallen asleep in the big chair, one of his books open in her hands.”

  “What kind of book?” Monk did not know what he was looking for, but Cardman’s emotion caught him also.

  “Engineering,” Cardman said, as if Monk should have understood.

  Monk was puzzled. “Engineering, did you say?”

  “Mr. Havilland was a senior engineer and surveyor for Mr. Argyll’s company, until the day of his death. That’s why they quarrelled. Mr. Argyll’s company has never had a bad accident—in fact, they’re better than most for safety—but Mr. Havilland believed it would happen.”

  “And he told Mr. Argyll?”

  Cardman shifted position slightly.

  “Yes, of course. But Mr. Argyll said it was just his feelings about being underground, closed in, as it were. Mr. Havilland was embarrassed to admit to them. Argyll as much as called him a coward, albeit politely. Of course he never used that word.”

  “Was that what Miss Havilland was doing also, enquiring into engineering, as regards the tunnels?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m certain of it.”

  “But she found nothing, either?”

  Cardman looked chagrined. “No, sir, not so far as I am aware.”

  “Did she continue to see Mr. Toby Argyll?”

  “She broke off their agreement, but of course she still saw him socially now and then. She could hardly help it, since he was Miss Jennifer’s brother-in-law, and the Argyll brothers were very close.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Argyll’s feelings on the subject?” Monk asked. “She was surely caught in the middle of a most unfortunate development.”

  Cardman’s lips pressed together before he spoke.

  “She was loyal to her husband, sir. She was convinced that her father’s fears had unbalanced his judgment, and she was annoyed with Miss Mary for pandering to him rather than encouraging him to abandon the matter.” There was a wealth of anger and distress in his voice.

  Monk was bitterly aware that the house in which Cardman lived was the center of a double disgrace, and there seemed no one left to care except the butler and the other servants for whom he was responsible.

  “I see. Thank you very much for your honesty,” Monk said, rising to his feet. “Just one more thing: Who investigated Mr. Havilland’s death?”

  “A Superintendent Runcorn,” Cardman replied. “He was very civil about it, and seemed to be thorough. I cannot think of anything more that he could have done.” He stood also.

  Runcorn! That was the worst answer Cardman could have given. The past returned to Monk like a draft of cold air. How many times had he second-guessed Runcorn—gone over his work, corrected a flaw here and there, and altered the conclusion? It seemed as if he had always needed to prove himself the cleverer. Increasingly he disliked the man he had been then. The fact that he disliked Runcorn even more mitigated nothing.

  “Mr. Argyll did not doubt the correctness of the verdict?” he asked aloud, his voice rasping with emotion.

  “No, sir, just Miss Mary.” Grief filled Cardman’s face, and he seemed unashamed of it, as if at least in front of Monk he felt no need to mask it anymore. He swallowed hard. “Sir, I would be most grateful if you could inform us when…when she is…if Mrs. Argyll doesn’t…” He did not know how to finish.

  “I will make certain you are told,” Monk said hoarsely. “But you might consider whether the female staff wish to attend. Burials can be…very arduous.”

  “You are telling me it will be in unhallowed ground. I know, sir. If Miss Mary was strong enough to go to her father’s burial, we can go to hers.”

  Monk nodded, tears in his throat, for Mary Havilland, for Hester’s father, for uncounted people in despair.

  Cardman saw him to the door in silent understanding.

  Outside in the street Monk began to walk back down the hill towards Westminster Bridge. It would be the best place to catch a hansom, but he was in no hurry. He must face Runcorn in his own station and yet again challenge his judgment, but he was not ready to do it yet. Were it not for the thought of Mary Havilland buried in the grave of an outcast, her courage and loyalty to her father credited as no more than the dementia of a bereaved woman, he would have accepted the verdict and consider he had done all that duty required.

  But he remembered her face, the white skin, the strong bones and the gentle mouth. She was a fighter who had been beaten. He refused to accept that she had surrendered. At least he could not yet.

  He wanted to prepare what he would say to Runcorn, weigh his words to rob them of criticism, perhaps even gain his support. The wind was cold blowing up off the river, and the damp in it stung the flesh. It crept through the cracks between scarf and coat collar, and whipped trousers around the ankles. The magnificent Gothic lines of the Houses of Parliament stood on the far bank. Big Ben indicated that it was twenty minutes before eleven. He had been longer with Cardman than he had realized.

  He hunched his shoulders and walked more rapidly along the footpath. Hansoms passed him, but they were all occupied. Should he have asked Cardman outright if he believed the Havillands had committed suicide? He thought the butler was a good judge of character, a strong man.

  No. He was also loyal. Whatever he thought, he would not have told a stranger that both his master and then his mistress had committed such an act of cowardice before the law of man and of God. His own judgment might have been wiser and gentler, but he would not have left them open to the censure of the world.

  He reached the middle of the bridge and saw an empty cab going the other way. He stepped out into the road and hailed it, giving the police station address.

  The journey was too short. He was still not ready when he arrived, but then perhaps he never would be. He paid the driver and went up the station steps and inside. He was recognized immediately.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Monk,” the desk sergeant said guardedly. “What can we do for you, sir?”

  Monk could not remember the man, but that meant nothing, except that he had not worked with him since the accident, nearly eight years ago now. Had he really known Hester so long? Why had it taken him years to find the courage within himself, and the honesty, to acknowledge his feelings for her? The answer was easy. He did not want to give anyone else the power to hurt him so much. And in closing the door on the possibility of pain, of course, he had closed it on the chance for joy as well.

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” he replied, stopping in front of the desk. “I would like to speak to Superintendent Runcorn, please. It concerns a case he handled recently.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said with a hint of satisfaction at the lack of authority in Monk’s voice. “That will be on behalf of whom, sir?”

  Monk forbore from smiling, although he wanted to. The man had not recognized his police coat. “On behalf of the Thames River Police,” he replied, opening his jacket a little so that his uniform showed beneath.

  The sergeant’s eyes widened and he let out his breath slowly. “Yes, sir!” he said, turning on his heel and retreating, and Monk heard his footsteps as he went upstairs to break the news.
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br />   Five minutes later Monk was standing in Runcorn’s office. It had a large, comfortable desk in it and the air was warm from the stove in the corner. There were books on the shelf opposite and a rather nice carving of a wooden bear on a plinth in the middle. It was all immaculately tidy as always—part of Runcorn’s need to conform, and impress.

  Runcorn himself had changed little. He was tall and barrel-chested, with large eyes a fraction too close together above a long nose. His hair was still thick and liberally sprinkled with gray. He had put on a few pounds around the waist.

  “So it’s true!” he said, eyebrows raised, voice too carefully expressionless. “You’re in the River Police! I told Watkins he was daft, but seems he wasn’t.” His face stretched into a slow, satisfied smile at his own power to give help or withhold it. “Well, what can I do for you, Inspector? It is Inspector, isn’t it?” There was a wealth of meaning behind the words. Monk and Runcorn had once been of equal rank, long ago. It was Monk’s tongue that had cost him his seniority. He had been more elegant than Runcorn, cleverer, immeasurably more the gentleman, and he always would be. They both knew it. But Runcorn was patient—prepared to play the game by the rules, bite back his insolence, curb his impatience, climb slowly. Now he had his reward in superior rank, and he could not keep from savoring it.

  “Yes, it is,” Monk replied. He ached to be tart, but he could not afford it.

  “Down at Wapping? Live there, too?” Runcorn pursued the subject of Monk’s fall in the world. Wapping was a less elegant, less salubrious place than Grafton Street had been, or at least than it had sounded.

  “Yes,” Monk agreed again.

  “Well, well,” Runcorn mused. “Would never have guessed you’d do that! Like it, do you?”

  “Only been there a few weeks,” Monk told him.

  Again Runcorn could not resist the temptation. “Got tired of being on your own, then? Bit hard, I should imagine.” He was still smiling. “After all, most people can call the police for nothing. Why should they pay someone? Knew you’d have to come back one day. What do you need my help with? Out of your depth already?” He oozed pleasure now.

  Monk itched to retaliate. He had to remind himself again that he could not afford to. “James Havilland,” he answered. “About two months ago. Charles Street.”

  Runcorn’s face darkened a little, the pleasure draining out of it. “I remember. Poor man shot himself in his own stables. What is it to do with the River Police? It’s nowhere near the water.”

  “Do you remember his daughter, Mary?” Monk remained standing. Runcorn had not offered him a seat, and for Monk to be comfortable would seem inappropriate in this conversation, given all the past that lay between them.

  “Of course I do,” Runcorn said gravely. He looked unhappy, as if the presence of the dead had suddenly intruded into this quiet, tidy police room from which he ruled his little kingdom. “Has…has she complained to you that her father was murdered?”

  Monk was stunned, not by the question, but by the fact that he could see no outrage in Runcorn, no sense of territorial invasion that Monk, of all people, should trespass on his case.

  “Who did she think was responsible?” he asked.

  Runcorn was too quick for him. “Did she?” he challenged him. “Why did you say did?”

  “She fell off Waterloo Bridge yesterday evening,” Monk replied.

  Runcorn was stunned. He stood motionless, the color receding from his face. For an absurd moment he reminded Monk of the butler who also had grieved so much for Mary Havilland. Yet Runcorn had hardly known her. “Suicide?” he said hoarsely.

  “I’m not sure,” Monk replied. “It looked like it at first. She was standing near the railing talking to a man. They seemed to be arguing. He took hold of her, and a moment or two later they both were pressed hard against the railing, and then both overbalanced and fell.”

  “A man?” Runcorn’s eyes widened. “Who? Argyll?”

  “Why do you think it was Argyll?” Monk demanded.

  Runcorn lost his temper, color flooding up his cheeks. “Don’t play your damn fool games with me, Monk!” he said harshly. “You always were a heartless bastard! That young woman lost her father, and now she’s dead, too! It’s my case, and I’ll have you thrown out of the River Police, and every other damn force in London, if you try to use that to prove yourself fit to be an officer again. Do you hear me?”

  Monk’s temper flared also, then died again even more rapidly. He went on in a perfectly level voice. “If you’re fit to be a policeman of any rank at all, let alone superintendent, you’ll care about the case, and not guard your little patch of authority,” he retorted. “I don’t know whether Mary Havilland jumped, fell, or was pushed. I was watching when it happened, but I was looking upwards from two hundred feet away—too far to see in the dark.” He was not going to explain to Runcorn why he cared so much. Runcorn had no right to know about Hester’s history. That was another grief, another time. “If I knew exactly what happened to James Havilland, it might help me.”

  Runcorn grunted, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His shoulders sagged a little. “Oh. Well, I suppose you do need that. Sit down.” He waved at a wooden chair piled with papers, and eased himself into his own leather-padded seat behind his desk.

  Monk moved the papers onto the floor and obeyed.

  Runcorn’s face became somber. He had dealt with death both accidental and homicidal all his adult life, but this one apparently moved him, even in memory.

  “Stable boy found him in the morning,” he began, looking down at his large hands rather than at Monk. “Seems the boy lived a mile or so away, and used to walk to work every morning. Mews are small there, and the room above the stable was kept for harnesses and the like. He could have slept in the straw, but seems he had an aunt with a lodging house in the area, and he helped out there too, and got fed and looked after for it. He seemed like an honest lad, but we checked it all, and it was the truth. He was home all night, and Havilland’s butler said they’d never had a day’s bother with him.”

  Monk nodded.

  “Boy arrived about six,” Runcorn went on. “Found his master on the floor of the room where they keep the hay and feed. Lying on his back, shot through the head. One clean bullet into the brain. Must’ve been standing near the middle of the room, and fell backwards. Blood exactly where you’d expect it to be. Gun fallen out of his hand but not more than a foot away.”

  Monk felt a chill settle over him.

  “Boy went in and told the butler—can’t remember his name,” Runcorn went on. “Carter, or something like that.”

  “Cardman,” Monk supplied.

  “That’s right,” Runcorn agreed, blinking several times. “He went out to look. Saw just what the boy had said, and sent the footman for the police. It was nearer eight o’clock by the time I got there. Didn’t know Havilland personally, but I knew him by repute. A very decent man. Hard to believe he’d taken his own life.” He looked up at Monk suddenly. “But one thing police work teaches you: You never know what goes on in somebody else’s mind. Loves and hates that their own families don’t ever dream about.”

  Monk nodded. For once he had no quibble at all. He tried to imagine Runcorn and the scene: the small stable, the straw, the sound and smell of horses, the leather harnesses, the gleam of lantern light on polished brass, the dead man lying on the floor, the sickly smell of blood.

  “Were the horses frightened?” he asked. “Any injuries?”

  Runcorn frowned. “No. Bit nervous. They’d smelled blood and they must have heard the shot, but nothing was disturbed as if there’d been a fight. No wounds, no wood kicked, no cuts, neither of ’em really spooked. And before you ask, there were no other marks on the body, no bruises, clothes as neat as you please. I’d lay my reputation no one struggled or fought with him before he was shot. And the way he was lying, either he shot himself, which everything pointed to, or whoever else did it stood within a couple of feet of him, b
ecause there was nowhere else to stand in a room that size.”

  “And nothing was taken, nothing missing?” Monk asked without hope now. He had outwitted Runcorn many times in the past, but that was years ago. They had both learned in the time between: Monk to be a little gentler, and more honest in his reasons for cleverness; Runcorn to think a little harder before coming to conclusions, perhaps also to keep his attention on the case more, and less on his own vanity.

  “Nothing to take in the stables,” Runcorn replied. “Unless you count the odd horse brass, but the stable boy said they were all there.”

  “Coachman agree?” Monk put in.

  “Seems a footman doubled as coachman,” Runcorn answered. “He was handy, and with a butler and junior footman who doubled as boot boy, that was all that was necessary.”

  “And the house?” Monk pressed. “Anyone intrude in the night? Or impossible to tell, if Havilland had left the door open. Had he?”

  “Yes. The butler says he sat up late. Told them he wanted to work in his study, and sent them all to bed. But a thorough search was made and both Miss Havilland herself and the housekeeper said nothing at all was missing, or even moved. And there were plenty of nice things, easy to carry, if a burglar’d wanted. Easy to sell.”

  “What time did he die?” Monk was not yet willing to give up, although it was beginning to look more and more as if Mary Havilland’s belief in her father’s murder was simply a desperate young woman’s refusal to accept the truth that he had killed himself.

  “Police surgeon reckoned between midnight and about three, close as he could tell. Pretty cold in the stables, late autumn. The thirteenth of November, to be exact. Frost was sharpish that night. I remember it was still white all around the edges of the leaves on the garden bushes we passed going in.” Runcorn was hunched up, as if the memory chilled him.

  “No one heard a shot?”

  “No.” Runcorn gave a tiny, bleak smile. “Which was unusual. You’d think someone would’ve. Tried shooting the thing myself, and it was loud enough. Could hear it clear a hundred yards off, on a still night like that. I followed that one all the way, but if anyone heard, they wouldn’t admit to it.” There was long experience in his face, and fighting against it a very faint quickening of hope.