A Sudden, Fearful Death Page 5

  “Very civil of you.” Audley disregarded her and nodded to Monk. “Are you from Halifax also?”

  “No, Northumberland,” Monk replied. “But I shall pass through on my way north.” He was getting deeper and deeper in the lie. He would have to post the parcel and hope cousin Albert replied with the necessary information. Presumably if he did not, they would use the excuse that he was obdurate.

  “Indeed.” Audley apparently had no further interest, and they were spared the necessity of small talk by the arrival of the maid to announce that Mrs. Hylton had called and wish to see Mrs. Penrose.

  She was shown in and arrived looking flustered and full of curiosity. Both Monk and Audley rose to greet her, but before they could speak she rushed into words, turning from one to another of them.

  “Oh, Mr. Monk! I am so glad you have not yet left. My dear Mrs. Penrose, how very pleasant to see you. Miss Gillespie. I am so sorry about your experience, but I am quite sure it will prove to have been no more than a stray cat or something of the sort. Mr. Penrose. How are you?”

  “In good health, thank you, Mrs. Hylton,” Audley replied coolly. He turned to his sister-in-law. “What experience is this? I have heard nothing!” He was very pale, with two spots of color in his cheeks. His hands were clenched by his sides and his knuckles showed white from the pressure.

  “Oh dear!” Mrs. Hylton said hastily. “Perhaps I should not have spoken of it. I’m so sorry. I hate indiscretion, and here I am committing it.”

  “What experience?” Audley demanded again, his voice catching. “Julia?”

  “Oh …” Julia was lost, foundering. She dared not turn to Monk, or Audley would know she had confided in him, if he did not guess already.

  “Only something in the bushes in the garden,” Monk said quickly. “Miss Gillespie feared it might be some tramp or stray person who was peeping. But I am sure Mrs. Hylton is correct and it was simply a cat. It can be startling, but no more. I am certain there is no danger, Miss Gillespie.”

  “No.” Marianne swallowed. “No, of course not. I fear I was foolish. I—I have been … hasty.”

  “If you sent Mr. Monk looking for a tramp you most certainly were,” Audley agreed testily, his breath harsh in his throat. “You should have mentioned it to me! To have troubled a guest was quite unnecessary and unfortunate.”

  “Miss Gillespie did not ask me,” Monk said defensively. “I was in the garden in her company at the time. It was the most natural thing in the world to offer to see if there were anyone trespassing.”

  Audley fell silent with the best grace he could muster, but it was less than comfortable.

  “I was afraid one of my children might have thrown a ball too far and came to retrieve it,” Mrs. Hylton said apologetically, looking from one to the other of them, curiosity alight in her face, and a taste for drama. “Most inconsiderate, I know, but children tend to be like that. I am sure you will find it so, when you have your own….”

  Audley’s face was white, his eyes glittering, but his hard glance was not directed at Mrs. Hylton, nor at Julia, but out the window into the trees. Julia’s cheeks were scarlet, but she too was mute.

  It was Marianne who spoke, her voice quivering with pain and indignation.

  “That may be so, Mrs. Hylton, but we do not all wish to have the same patterns of life. And for some of us the choices are different. I am sure you have sufficient sensitivity to appreciate that….”

  Mrs. Hylton realized she had made an appalling blunder and blushed deeply, although from the confusion in her face, she still did not fully understand what it had been.

  “Yes,” she said hastily. “Of course. I see, yes. Naturally. Well, I am sure you have done the right thing, Mr. Monk. I—I just wished to—well—good day to you.” And she turned around and retreated in disorder.

  Monk had seen more than sufficient to confirm his fears. He would have to speak to Marianne alone, but he would not do it with Audley in the house. He would return tomorrow morning, when he could be almost certain he would find the women alone.

  “I don’t wish to intrude,” he said aloud, looking first at Julia, then at Audley. “If it is acceptable, ma’am, I shall call again in the near future to pick up your gift for Mr. Finnister?”

  “Oh. Thank you,” Julia accepted quickly, relief flooding her face. “That would be most kind.”

  Audley said nothing, and with a few more words, Monk excused himself and left, walking out rapidly into the heat of Hastings Street and the noise and clatter of passing carriages and the trouble of his thoughts.

  In the morning he stood in the summerhouse with Marianne. A dozen yards away there were birds singing in the lilac tree and a faint breeze blew a few fallen leaves across the grass. It was Rodwell’s day off.

  “I think I have made all the inquiries I can,” Monk began.

  “I cannot blame you if you can discover very little,” Marianne answered with a tiny smile. She was leaning against the window, the pale sprigged muslin of her dress billowing around her. She looked very young, but oddly less vulnerable than Julia, even though Monk was aware of the fear in her.

  “I discovered several things,” he went on, watching her carefully. “For instance, no one came over the wall into the garden, from any direction.”

  “Oh?” She was very still, almost holding her breath, staring away from him across the grass.

  “And you are sure it was not Rodwell?”

  Now she was incredulous, swinging around to look at him with wide eyes. “Rodwell? You mean the gardener? Of course it was not him! Do you think I wouldn’t recognize our own gardener? Oh—oh no! You can’t think …” She stopped, her face scarlet.

  “No I don’t,” he said quickly. “I simply had to be sure. No, I don’t think it was Rodwell, Miss Gillespie. But I do think you know who it was.”

  Now her face was very pale except for the splashes of color high in her cheeks. She looked at him in hot, furious accusation.

  “You think I was willing! Oh dear heaven, how could you! How could you?” She jerked away and her voice was filled with such horror his last vestiges of doubt vanished.

  “No I don’t,” he answered, aware of how facile that sounded. “But I think you are afraid that people will believe it, so you are trying to protect yourself.” He avoided using the word lying.

  “You are wrong,” she said simply, but she did not turn back to face him. She still stood with shoulders hunched and staring toward the shrubbery and the end wall of the garden beyond which came the intermittent shouts of the Hylton children playing.

  “How did he get in?” he asked gently. “No stranger could come through the house.”

  “Then he must have come through the herb garden,” she replied.

  “Past Rodwell? He said he saw no one.”

  “He must have been somewhere else.” Her voice was flat, brooking no argument. “Maybe he went ’round to the kitchen for a few minutes. Perhaps he went for a drink of water, or a piece of cake or something, and didn’t like to admit it.”

  “And this fellow seized his chance and came through into the back garden?” He did not try to keep the disbelief from his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “What for? There’s nothing here to steal. And what a risk! He couldn’t know Rodwell would leave again. He could have been caught here for hours.”

  “I don’t know!” Her voice rose desperately.

  “Unless he knew you were here?”

  Finally she swung around, her eyes brilliant. “I don’t know!” she shouted. “I don’t know what he thought! Why don’t you just admit you can’t find him and go away? I never thought you would. It’s only Julia who even wants to, because she’s so angry for me. I told you you would never find anyone. It’s ridiculous. There’s no way to know.” Her voice caught in her throat huskily. “There cannot be. If you don’t want to explain to her, then I will.”

  “And honor will be satisfied?” he said dryly.

  “If you like.” She w
as still furious.

  “Do you love him?” he asked her softly.

  The anger vanished from her face, leaving it totally shocked.

  “What?”

  “Do you love him?” he repeated.

  “Who? What are you talking about? Love whom?”

  “Audley.”

  She stared at him as if mesmerized, her eyes dark with pain and some other profound emotion he thought was horror.

  “Did he force you?” he went on.

  “No!” she gasped. “You are quite wrong! It wasn’t Audley! That’s a dreadful thing to say—how dare you? He is my sister’s husband!” But there was no conviction in her voice and it shook even as she tried to uphold her outrage.

  “It is exactly because he is your sister’s husband that I cannot believe you were willing,” he persisted, but he felt a profound pity for her distress, and his own emotion was thick in his voice.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “It wasn’t Audley,” she said again, but this time it was a whisper, and there was no anger in it, and no conviction. It was a protest for Julia’s sake, and even she did not expect him to believe it.

  “Yes it was,” he said simply.

  “I shall deny it.” Again it was a statement of fact.

  He had no doubt she would, but she seemed not to be certain he was convinced. “Please, Mr. Monk! Say nothing,” she implored. “He would deny it, and I should look as if I were a wicked woman as well as immoral. Audley has given me a home and looked after me ever since he married Julia. No one would believe me, and they would think me totally without gratitude or duty.” Now there was real fear in her voice, far sharper than the physical fear or revulsion of the assault. If she were branded with such a charge she would find herself not only homeless in the immediate future, but without prospects of marriage in the distance. No respectable man would marry a woman who first took a lover, whether reluctantly or not, and then made such a terrible charge against her sister’s husband, a man who had been so generous to her.

  “What do you want me to say to your sister?” he asked her.

  “Nothing! Say you cannot find out. Say he was a stranger who came in somehow and has long ago escaped.” She put out her hand and clasped his arm impulsively. “Please, Mr. Monk!” It was a cry of real anguish now. “Think what it would do to Julia! That would be the worst of all. I couldn’t bear it. I had rather Audley said I was an immoral woman and put me out to fend for myself.”

  She had no idea what fending for herself would mean: the sleeping in brothels or doss houses, the hunger, the abuse, the disease and fear. She had no craft with which to earn her living honestly in a sweatshop working eighteen hours a day, even if her health and her nerve would stand it. But he easily believed she would accept it rather than allow Julia to know what had really happened.

  “I shall not tell her it was Audley,” he promised. “You need not fear.”

  The tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She gulped and sniffed.

  “Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Monk.” She fished for a handkerchief a few inches square and mostly lace. It was useless.

  He passed her his and she took it silently and wiped her eyes, hesitated, then blew her nose as well. Then she was confused, uncertain whether to offer it back to him or not.

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Keep it,” he offered.

  “Thank you.”

  “Now I had better go and give your sister my final report.”

  She nodded and sniffed again. “She will be disappointed, but don’t let her prevail upon you. However put out she is by not knowing, knowing would be infinitely worse.”

  “You had better stay here.”

  “I shall.” She gulped. “And—thank you, Mr. Monk.”

  He found Julia in the morning room writing letters. She looked up as soon as he came in, her face quick with anticipation. He loathed the need to lie, and it cut his pride to have to admit defeat at all, and when he had actually solved the case it was acutely bitter.

  “I am sorry, Mrs. Penrose, but I feel that I have pursued this case as far as I can, and to follow it any further would be a waste of your resources—”

  “That is my concern, Mr. Monk,” she interrupted quickly, laying her pen aside. “And I do not consider it a waste.”

  “What I am trying to say is that I shall learn nothing further.” He said it with difficulty. Never previously that he could recall had he flinched from telling someone a truth, regardless of its ugliness. Perhaps he should have. It was another side of his character it would probably be painful to look into.

  “You cannot know that,” she argued, her face already beginning to set in lines of stubbornness. “Or are you saying that you do not believe that Marianne was assaulted at all?”

  “No, I was not saying that,” he said sharply. “I believe without question that she was, but whoever did it was a stranger to her, and we have no way of finding him now, since none of your neighbors saw him or any evidence that might lead to his identity.”

  “Someone may have seen him,” she insisted. “He did not materialize from nowhere. Maybe he was not a tramp of any sort, but a guest of someone in the neighborhood. Have you thought of that?” Now there was challenge in her voice and in her eyes.

  “Who climbed over the wall in the chance of finding mischief?” he asked with as little sarcasm as was possible to the words.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said tartly. “He must have come in through the herb garden when Rodwell was not there. Maybe he mistook the house and thought it was that of someone he knew.”

  “And found Miss Gillespie in the summerhouse and assaulted her?”

  “It would seem so. Yes,” she agreed. “I daresay he indulged in some sort of conversation first, and she cannot remember it because the whole episode was so appalling she has cut it all from her mind. Such things happen.”

  He thought of his own snatches of memory and the cold sweat of horror, the fear, the rage, the smell of blood, confusion, and blindness again.

  “I know that,” he said bitterly.

  “Then please continue to pursue it, Mr. Monk.” She looked at him with challenge, too consumed in her own emotion to hear his. “Or if you are unable or unwilling to, then perhaps you can recommend me the name of another person of inquiry who will.”

  “I believe you have no chance of success, Mrs. Penrose,” he said a little stiffly. “Not to tell you so would be less than honest.”

  “I commend your integrity,” she said dryly. “Now you have told me, and I have heard what you say, and requested you to continue anyway.”

  He tried one more time. “You will learn nothing!”

  She stood up from her desk and came toward him. “Mr. Monk, have you any idea how appalling a crime it is for a man to force himself upon a woman? Perhaps you imagine it is merely a matter of modesty and a little reluctance, and that really when a woman says no she does not truly mean it?”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but she rushed on. “That is a piece of meretricious simplicity men use to justify to themselves an act of brutality that can never be excused. My sister is very young, and unmarried. It was a violation of the very worst nature. It has introduced her to—to bestiality—instead of to a—a …” She blushed but did not avoid his eyes. “A sacred relationship which she—oh—really.” She lost patience with herself. “No one has a right to behave toward anyone else in such a way, and if your nature is too insensitive to appreciate that, then there is no way for me to tell you.”

  Monk chose his words carefully. “I agree with you that it is a base offense, Mrs. Penrose. My reluctance to continue has no relation to the seriousness of the crime, only to the impossibility of finding the offender now.”

  “I suppose I should have come to you sooner,” she conceded. “Is that what you are saying? Marianne did not tell me the true nature of the event until several days after it had happened, and then it took me some little while to make up my mind what was best to do. After that it took me
another three days to locate you and inquire something of your reputation—which is excellent. I am surprised that you have given in so quickly. That is not what people say of you.”

  The anger hardened inside him and only Marianne’s anguish stopped him retaliating.

  “I shall return tomorrow and we shall discuss it further,” he said grimly. “I will not continue to take your money for something I believe cannot be done.”

  “I will be obliged if you will come in the morning,” she replied. “As you have observed, my husband is not aware of the situation, and explanations are becoming increasingly difficult.”

  “Perhaps you should give me a letter to your cousin Mr. Finnister,” he suggested. “In case anything is said, I shall post it, so there will be no unfortunate repercussions in the future.”

  “Thank you. That is most thoughtful of you. I will do so.”

  And still angry, and feeling disturbed and confused, he took his leave, walking briskly back toward Fitzroy Street and his rooms.

  He could come to no satisfactory conclusion himself. He did not understand the events and the emotions profoundly enough to be confident in a decision. His anger toward Audley Penrose was monumental. He could have seen him punished with intense satisfaction; indeed, he longed to see it. And yet he could understand Marianne’s need to protect not only herself but also Julia.

  For once his own reputation as a detective was of secondary importance. Whatever the outcome of his entering the case, he could not even consider improving his professional standing at the expense of ruining either of the women.

  Miserable, and in a very short temper, he went to see Callandra Daviot, and his ill humor was exacerbated immediately on finding Hester Latterly present. It was several weeks since he had last seen her, and their parting had been far from friendly. As so often happened, they had quarreled about something more of manner than of substance. In fact, he could not remember what it was now, only that she had been abrasive as usual and unwilling to listen or consider his view. Now she was sitting in Callandra’s best chair, the one he most preferred, looking tired and far from the gently feminine creature Julia Penrose was. Hester’s hair was thick and nearly straight and she had taken little trouble to dress it with curls or braids. Pulled as it was it showed the fine, strong bones of her face and the passionate features, the intelligence far too dominant to be attractive. Her gown was pale blue and the skirt, without hoops, a trifle crushed.