The William Monk Mysteries Page 8

  His disappointment was shattering when she showed complete ignorance. Temper boiled inside him at the frustration. She must know. But her placid, blunt face was expressionless.

  He was about to argue, to shout at her that she must know, when he realized how foolish it would be. He would only anger her, drive from himself a friend he sorely needed.

  She was staring at him, her face puckered.

  “My, you are in a state. Let me ask Mr. Worley for yer; he’s a rare fine understanding o’ the city. O’ course I expect it’s on the Marylebone Road, but ezac’ly where I’m sure I wouldn’t know. It’s a long street, that is.”

  “Thank you,” he said carefully, feeling foolish. “It’s rather important.”

  “Going to a wedding, are yer?” She looked at his carefully brushed dark coat. “What you want is a good cabby, what knows ’is way, and’ll get you there nice and prompt, like.”

  It was an obvious answer, and he wondered why he had not thought of it himself. He thanked her, and when Mr. Worley had been asked, and given his opinion that it might be opposite York Gate, he went out to look for a cab.

  Evensong had already begun when he hurried up the steps and into the vestry. He could hear the voices lifted rather thinly in the first hymn. It sounded dutiful rather than joyous. Was he a religious man; or, it would be truer to ask, had he been? He felt no sense of comfort or reverence now, except for the simple beauty of the stonework.

  He went in as quickly as he could, walking almost on the sides of his polished boots to make no noise. One or two heads turned, sharp with criticism. He ignored them and slid into a back pew, fumbling for a hymnbook.

  Nothing sounded familiar; he followed the hymn because the tune was trite, full of musical clichés. He knelt when everyone else knelt, and rose as they rose. He missed the responses.

  When the minister stepped into the pulpit to speak, Monk stared at him, searching his face for some flicker of memory. Could he go to this man and confide in him the truth, ask him to tell him everything he knew? The voice droned on in one platitude after another; his intention was benign, but so tied in words as to be almost incomprehensible. Monk sank deeper and deeper into a feeling of helplessness. The man did not seem able to remember his own train of thought from one sentence to the next, let alone the nature and passions of his flock.

  When the last amen had been sung, Monk watched the people file out, hoping someone would touch his memory, or better still, actually speak to him.

  He was about to give up even that when he saw a young woman in black, slender and of medium height, dark hair drawn softly back from a face almost luminous, dark eyes and fragile skin, mouth too generous and too big for it. It was not a weak face, and yet it was one that could have moved easily to laughter, or tragedy. There was a grace in the way she walked that compelled him to watch her.

  As she drew level she became aware of him and turned. Her eyes widened and she hesitated. She drew in her breath as if to speak.

  He waited, hope surging up inside him, and a ridiculous excitement, as if some exquisite realization were about to come.

  Then the moment vanished; she seemed to regain a mastery of herself, her chin lifted a little, and she picked up her skirt unnecessarily and continued on her way.

  He went after her, but she was lost in a group of people, two of whom, also dressed in black, were obviously accompanying her. One was a tall, fair man in his mid-thirties with smooth hair and a long-nosed, serious face; the other was a woman of unusual uprightness of carriage and features of remarkable character. The three of them walked towards the street and waiting vehicles and none of them turned their heads again.

  Monk rode home in a rage of confusion, fear, and wild, disturbing hope.

  4

  BUT WHEN MONK ARRIVED on Monday morning, breathless and a little late, he was unable to begin investigation on Yeats and his visitor. Runcorn was in his room, pacing the floor and waving a piece of blue notepaper in his hand. He stopped and spun around the moment he heard Monk’s feet.

  “Ah!” He brandished the paper with a look of bright, shimmering anger, his left eye narrowed almost shut.

  The good-morning greeting died on Monk’s tongue.

  “Letter from upstairs.” Runcorn held up the blue paper. “The powers that be are after us again. The Dowager Lady Shelburne has written to Sir Willoughby Gentry, and confided to the said member of Parliament”—he gave every vowel its full value in his volume of scorn for that body—“that she is not happy with the utter lack of success the Metropolitan Police Force is having in apprehending the vile maniac who so foully murdered her son in his own house. No excuses are acceptable for our dilatory and lackadaisical attitude, our total lack of culprits to hand.” His face purpled in his offense at the injustice of it, but there was no misery in him, only a feeding rage. “What the hell are you doing, Monk? You’re supposed to be such a damn good detective, you’ve got your eyes on a superintendency—the commissionership, for all I know! So what do we tell this—this ladyship?”

  Monk took a deep breath. He was more stunned by Runcorn’s reference to himself, to his ambition, than anything in the letter. Was he an overweeningly ambitious man? There was no time for self-defense now; Runcorn was standing in front of him commanding an answer.

  “Lamb’s done all the groundwork, sir.” He gave Lamb the praise that was due him. “He’s investigated all he could, questioned all the other residents, street peddlers, locals, anyone who might have seen or known anything.” He could see from Runcorn’s face that he was achieving nothing, but he persisted. “Unfortunately it was a particularly foul night and everyone was in a hurry, heads down and collars up against the rain. Because it was so wet no one hung around, and with the overcast it was dark earlier than usual.”

  Runcorn was fidgeting with impatience.

  “Lamb spent a lot of time checking out the villains we know,” Monk continued. “He’s written up in his report that he’s spoken to every snout and informer in the area. Not a peep. No one knows anything; or if they do, they’re not saying. Lamb was of the opinion they were telling the truth. I don’t know what else he could have done.” His experience offered nothing, but neither could his intelligence suggest any omission. All his sympathy was with Lamb.

  “Constable Harrison found a watch with the initials J.G. on it in a pawnbroker’s—but we don’t know it was Grey’s.”

  “No,” Runcorn agreed fiercely, running his finger with distaste along the deckle edge of the notepaper. It was a luxury he could not afford. “Indeed you don’t! So what are you doing, then? Take it to Shelburne Hall—get it identified.”

  “Harrison’s on his way.”

  “Can’t you at least find out how the bloody man got in?”

  “I think so,” Monk said levelly. “There was a visitor for one of the other residents, a Mr. Yeats. He came in at nine forty-five and left at roughly ten thirty. He was a biggish man, dark, well muffled. He’s the only person unaccounted for; the others were women. I don’t want to leap to conclusions too soon, but it looks as if he could be the murderer. Otherwise I don’t know any way a stranger could have got in. Grimwade locks up at midnight, or earlier if all the residents are in, and after that even they have to ring the bell and get him up.”

  Runcorn put the letter carefully on Monk’s desk.

  “And what time did he lock up that night?” he asked.

  “Eleven,” Monk replied. “No one was out.”

  “What did Lamb say about this man who visited Yeats?” Runcorn screwed up his face.

  “Not much. Apparently he only spoke to Yeats once, and then he spent most of the time trying to find out something about Grey. Maybe he didn’t realize the importance of the visitor at that time. Grimwade said he took him up to Yeats’s door and Yeats met him. Lamb was still looking for a thief off the street then—”

  “Then!” Runcorn leapt on the word, sharp, eager. “So what are you looking for now?”

  Monk realized what he
had said, and that he meant it. He frowned, and answered as carefully as he could.

  “I think I’m looking for someone who knew him, and hated him; someone who intended to kill him.”

  “Well for God’s sake don’t say so to the Dowager Lady Shelburne!” Runcorn said dangerously.

  “I’m hardly likely to be speaking to her,” Monk answered with more than a trace of sarcasm.

  “Oh yes you are!” There was a ring of triumph in Runcorn’s voice and his big face was glowing with color. “You are going down to Shelburne today to assure Her Ladyship that we are doing everything humanly possible to apprehend the murderer, and that after intensive effort and brilliant work, we at last have a lead to discovering this monster.” His lip curled very faintly. “You’re generally so blunt, damn near rude, in spite of your fancy airs, she won’t take you for a liar.” Suddenly his tone altered again and became soft. “Anyway, why do you think it was someone who knew him? Maniacs can kill with a hell of a mess; madmen strike over and over again, hate for no reason.”

  “Possibly.” Monk stared back at him, matching dislike for dislike. “But they don’t scout out the names of other residents, call upon them, and then go and kill someone else. If he was merely a homicidal lunatic, why didn’t he kill Yeats? Why go and look for Grey?”

  Runcorn’s eyes were wide; he resented it, but he took the point.

  “Find out everything you can about this Yeats,” he ordered. “Discreetly, mind! I don’t want him scared away!”

  “What about Lady Shelburne?” Monk affected innocence.

  “Go and see her. Try to be civil, Monk—make an effort! Evan can chase after Yeats, and tell you whatever he finds when you get back. Take the train. You’ll be in Shelburne a day or two. Her Ladyship won’t be surprised to see you, after the rumpus she’s raised. She demanded a report on progress, in person. You can put up at the inn. Well, off you go then. Don’t stand there like an ornament, man!”

  Monk took the train on the Great Northern line from the King’s Cross Station. He ran across the platform and jumped in, slamming the carriage door just as the engine belched forth a cloud of steam, gave a piercing shriek and jolted forward. It was an exciting sensation, a surge of power, immense, controlled noise, and then gathering speed as they emerged from the cavern of the station buildings out into the sharp late-afternoon sunlight.

  Monk settled himself into a vacant seat opposite a large woman in black bombazine with a fur tippet around her neck (in spite of the season) and a black hat on at a fierce angle. She had a packet of sandwiches, which she opened immediately and began to eat. A little man with large spectacles eyed them hopefully, but said nothing. Another man in striped trousers studiously read his Times.

  They roared and hissed their way past tenements, houses and factories, hospitals, churches, public halls and offices, gradually thinning, more interspersed with stretches of green, until at last the city fell away and Monk stared with genuine pleasure at the beauty of soft countryside spread wide in the lushness of full summer. Huge boughs clouded green over fields heavy with ripening crops and thick hedgerows starred with late wild roses. Coppices of trees huddled in folds of the slow hills, and villages were easily marked by the tapering spires of churches, or the occasional squarer Norman tower.

  Shelburne came too quickly, while he was still drinking in the loveliness of it. He grabbed his valise off the rack and opened the door hastily, excusing himself past the fat woman in the bombazine and incurring her silent displeasure. On the platform he inquired of the lone attendant where Shelburne Hall lay, and was told it was less than a mile. The man waved his arm to indicate the direction, then sniffed and added, “But the village be two mile in t’opposite way, and doubtless that be w’ere you’re a-goin’.”

  “No thank you,” Monk replied. “I have business at the hall.”

  The man shrugged. “If’n you say so, sir. Then you’d best take the road left an’ keep walking.”

  Monk thanked him again and set out.

  It took him only fifteen minutes to walk from the station entrance to the drive gates. It was a truly magnificent estate, an early Georgian mansion three stories high, with a handsome frontage, now covered in places by vines and creepers, and approached by a sweeping carriageway under beech trees and cedars that dotted a parkland which seemed to stretch towards distant fields, and presumably the home farm.

  Monk stood in the gateway and looked for several minutes. The grace of proportion, the way it ornamented rather than intruded upon the landscape, were all not only extremely pleasing but also perhaps indicative of something in the nature of the people who had been born here and grown up in such a place.

  Finally he began walking up the considerable distance to the house itself, a further third of a mile, and went around past the outhouses and stables to the servants’ entrance. He was received by a rather impatient footman.

  “We don’t buy at the door,” he said coldly, looking at Monk’s case.

  “I don’t sell,” Monk replied with more tartness than he had intended. “I am from the Metropolitan Police. Lady Shelburne wished a report on the progress we have made in investigating the death of Major Grey. I have come to give that report.”

  The footman’s eyebrows went up.

  “Indeed? That would be the Dowager Lady Shelburne. Is she expecting you?”

  “Not that I know of. Perhaps you would tell her I am here.”

  “I suppose you’d better come in.” He opened the door somewhat reluctantly. Monk stepped in, then without further explanation the man disappeared, leaving Monk in the back hallway. It was a smaller, barer and more utilitarian version of the front hall, only without pictures, having only the functional furniture necessary for servants’ use. Presumably he had gone to consult some higher authority, perhaps even that autocrat of below-stairs—and sometimes above—the butler. It was several minutes before he returned, and motioned Monk to go with him.

  “Lady Shelburne will see you in half an hour.” He left Monk in a small parlor adjacent to the housekeeper’s room, a suitable place for such persons as policemen; not precisely servants or tradesmen, and most certainly not to be considered as of quality.

  Monk walked slowly around the room after the footman had gone, looking at the worn furniture, brown upholstered chairs with bow legs and an oak sideboard and table. The walls were papered and fading, the pictures anonymous and rather puritan reminders of rank and the virtues of duty. He preferred the wet grass and heavy trees sloping down to ornamental water beyond the window.

  He wondered what manner of woman she was who could control her curiosity for thirty long minutes rather than let her dignity falter in front of a social inferior. Lamb had said nothing about her. Was it likely he had not even seen her? The more he considered it, the more certain he became. Lady Shelburne would not direct her inquiries through a mere employee, and there had been no cause to question her in anything.

  But Monk wanted to question her; if Grey had been killed by a man who hated him, not a maniac in the sense of someone without reason, only insofar as he had allowed a passion to outgrow control until it had finally exploded in murder, then it was imperative Monk learn to know Grey better. Intentionally or not, Grey’s mother would surely betray something of him, some honesty through the memories and the grief, that would give color to the outline.

  He had had time to think a lot about Grey and formulate questions in his mind by the time the footman returned and conducted him through the green baize door and across the corridor to Lady Fabia’s sitting room. It was decorated discreetly with deep pink velvet and rosewood furniture. Lady Fabia herself was seated on a Louis Quinze sofa and when Monk saw her all his preconceptions fled his tongue. She was not very big, but as hard and fragile as porcelain, her coloring perfect, not a blemish on her skin, not a soft, fair hair out of place. Her features were regular, her blue eyes wide, only a slightly jutting chin spoiled the delicacy of her face. And she was perhaps too thin; slenderness had given wa
y to angularity. She was dressed in violet and black, as became someone in mourning, although on her it looked more like something to be observed for one’s own dignity than any sign of distress. There was nothing frail in her manner.

  “Good morning,” she said briskly, dismissing the footman with a wave of her hand. She did not regard Monk with any particular interest and her eyes barely glanced at his face. “You may sit if you wish. I am told you have come to report to me the progress you have made in discovering and apprehending the murderer of my son. Pray proceed.”

  Opposite him Lady Fabia sat, her back ramrod-straight from years of obedience to governesses, walking as a child with a book on her head for deportment, and riding upright in a sidesaddle in the park or to hounds. There was little Monk could do but obey, sitting reluctantly on one of the ornate chairs and feeling self-conscious.

  “Well?” she demanded when he remained silent. “The watch your constable brought was not my son’s.”

  Monk was stung by her tone, by her almost unthinking assumption of superiority. In the past he must have been used to this, but he could not remember; and now it stung with the shallow sharpness of gravel rash, not a wound but a blistering abrasion. A memory of Beth’s gentleness came to his mind. She would not have resented this. What was the difference between them? Why did he not have her soft Northumbrian accent? Had he eradicated it intentionally, washing out his origins in an attempt to appear some kind of gentleman? The thought made him blush for its stupidity.

  Lady Shelburne was staring at him.

  “We have established the only time a man could have gained entry to the buildings,” he replied, still stiff with his own sense of pride. “And we have a description of the only man who did so.” He looked straight into her chilly and rather surprised blue eyes. “He was roughly six feet tall, of solid build, as far as can be judged under a greatcoat. He was dark-complexioned and clean-shaven. He went ostensibly to visit a Mr. Yeats, who also lives in the building. We have not yet spoken to Mr. Yeats—”