A Breach of Promise

chapter 10
Monk spent a miserable, agitated evening. It would be ridiculous to expect every case to resolve into a solution so absolute there could be no doubt about any part of it. None ever did. There were always unknowns, thoughts he could not fathom. One had to let go once sufficient answers were found to be certain of the truth of the verdict.

But this one troubled him more deeply than most. It was not only the tragedy of it, it was the feeling, the almost certainty, that Keelin Melville had some last secret she had taken to the grave with her, which would make sense of her behavior.

He paced back and forth across his sitting room, ignoring the dying embers of the fire and the rain spattering against the windows, loud because he had forgotten to draw the curtains.

He could understand why Melville had not told Zillah she was really a woman. She had kept the secret so long she could not trust anyone at all, except Wolff, not to reveal it. Perhaps it would only have been a confidence to a girl friend, whispered in exchange for some other romantic secret or dream, a moment's hurt and loneliness eased by sharing. But then what would bind the friend to keep total silence? The chance to share such a dramatic piece of information could be a temptation too great.

No, she was wiser to trust no one. Too much depended on it. And once the case had gone so far, it was too late to hope Barton Lambert would keep silent. If he had told anyone in anger, no matter how much he had regretted it, it would be too late to take it back. Knowledge can never be withdrawn.

Before it all happened, Monk would have thought it trivial. What did it matter whether a person was a man or a woman, except to those who knew that person? The works of art were the same. Why not let it be known, and if there were no more commissions, then leave! Go to Italy, or France, or anywhere one liked.

But Melville had spent twelve years in England, had designed some of the loveliest buildings in the country. She did not want to see them belittled for a reason that had nothing to do with their value. And she had been right. It was happening already, the derisory remarks, the suddenly altered perception when nothing in the reality was changed. She had been prepared to take the chance, and fought to survive in England.

And, of course, once the trial had begun she could not leave. And it seemed she really had believed it would turn out differently.

So what had made her change her mind and take belladonna poison... in the middle of the afternoon?

He stopped at the window and stared out of it, seeing only the blur of the rain. Nobody else cared now, except Rathbone, of course, and that was for emotional reasons. He hated failure, and he was not used to guilt. Monk smiled to himself. He was much more used to it, but he liked it no better. The only difference was that for him it was a familiar pain, for Rathbone it had all the shock of the new.

At least Monk imagined it had!

Was that why Keelin Melville had killed herself? Guilt?

Over what? The injury she had done to Zillah Lambert could very easily be explained. It was error, private social clumsiness possibly. Certainly nothing that warranted suicide.

Anyway, wasn't genius rather more self-protective than that? He tried to think back on what he knew of the lives of the great creative people. Many of them had hurt others, been eccentric, selfish, single-minded, impossible to live with happily, sometimes even to live with at all. But it was those around them they injured, not themselves. They were too fired by their passion to make, to build, to create, paint, dance or whatever it was that formed their gift to the world. Sometimes they burned themselves out; sometimes illness or accident consumed them. Many died young.

But he could think of no example of one who had killed himself over guilt regarding his abuse of women. The very idea was almost a contradiction within itself.

Was Melville so different simply because she was a woman?

He doubted it.

Then what?

The rain was streaming down the window now, distorting the lamps of carriages passing in the street below, reflecting in the puddles.

The more he thought about the buildings full of light, the clean lines soaring into the air, the sense of comfort and peace he had felt inside them, the less could he believe Melville would have taken her own life.

Was it conceivable that somewhere, in some way he had yet even to imagine, somebody else had killed her?

Why? Why would anybody want to? What else had happened that day, or the day before, to make her dangerous to anyone? If she had known anything about Zillah that was not to her credit, surely she would have said so before this, long before Isaac Wolff was tarnished by the whole affair, even put in jeopardy of imprisonment, for a crime which now was ludicrous, in light of the truth.

He pushed his hands into his pockets. Below him in the street it was raining harder. The gutters were swirling over their edges. A footman standing at the side of a carriage was soaking wet. His figure in the riding lights was expressive of his utter dejection. A stray dog was splashing about happily.

A man strode by with an umbrella which was ineffectual.

Monk turned away, back to the room and the firelight. What had been the result of Melville's death? The case had been concluded. There was nothing more to say, nothing to pursue. It did not matter anymore whether Zillah Lambert was as innocent as she appeared.

But Monk had already done all he could to uncover any fault in her, past or present, and found nothing. Besides, he really did not believe she would willingly have harmed Melville, far less killed her, even if there was a way to have accomplished it.

Nor had anybody, for that matter. Melville had neither eaten nor drunk anything, by another's hand or by her own.

Was there some other way in which the poison could have been administered? No. The surgeon would not be wrong about whether it was eaten or injected into the blood.

Except that he thought it was suicide, and therefore it had hardly mattered.

But why murder? What threat was Keelin Melville to anyone, except possibly Wolff? If the case had continued as it was, only Keelin herself, and Wolff, would suffer.

Why hadn't Wolff simply told the court she was a woman? The most cursory medical examination would have proved him right, and he of all men knew that! Keelin would not have refused.

The fire was going out. He had neglected it. He bent down and with the tongs picked up half a dozen pieces of coal and put them on one by one. The fire looked like it was being smothered. Damn! It was getting cold and he was not ready to go to bed yet. Also he was angry with his own carelessness. He dropped the tongs and picked up the bellows, blowing gently, sending up a cloud of white ash. He swore again, and tried more gently still.

The reason had to be in what might happen if the case continued. Someone was frightened.

What would happen? Monk would continue to search in the past of Zillah Lambert and her family, but particularly her past romances. Perhaps they were not as very slight and natural as they appeared, no more than most pretty girls might experience. If he had continued, with his characteristic ruthlessness, what would he have uncovered? And who knew about it other than Zillah herself? Her father?

Hester seemed to think it would be her mother, the immaculate Delphine Lambert.

And, of course, the man involved... and possibly his family.

But murder! Over a spoiled reputation! Surely Zillah herself could simply have told her father and asked that he settle out of court? He would have been willing enough, if he realized her happiness and the family honor depended on it. He might have been angry for a while, even punished her one way or another, but that hardly warranted murder-in a sane person.

Monk's labor with the fire was rewarded by a spurt of flame. It licked up around the coal and began to burn. He smiled in satisfaction. A small victory-very small indeed.

Tomorrow he would retrace his steps over Zillah Lambert's past. This time he would press harder, not accept any equivocations. He would treat it as if it were murder. The trivial matter of breach of promise was a thing of the past.

He sat by the fire until the coal was entirely consumed, going over the notes he had made on his first investigation. He knew where he would begin tomorrow.

Actually, it took him two days to find the incident he had overlooked the first time-or, more accurately, had considered too trivial and too normal in anyone's life to matter. He still thought it of no real importance. But then he was not of the same level of society as the Lamberts, and certainly not of that level into which they aspired to marry.

He had followed Hester's advice about tracing back the weekly life of the Lamberts to discover a sudden move, probably involving only Zillah and her mother, coming at a time which seemed unplanned, made in haste, and perhaps in other ways inconvenient.

This time he was far more ruthless, pressing people, sometimes with only part of the truth, sometimes frightening them into revealing a fact that with more time to consider they would have kept discreet. The incident had occurred when Zillah was nearly sixteen, a holiday taken without warning, all personal plans disrupted. A garden party-a ball which Delphine had been very eager to attend; indeed, for which she had gone to great trouble to acquire an invitation-had been abandoned. A marvelous gown had to be set aside, to be worn when it was no longer impressive, certainly no longer the forerunner of fashion but rather the trailer behind, seeming a copy instead of an original. Knowing a little about clothes and vanity himself, he appreciated what a sacrifice Delphine had made. There would have to have been a very compelling reason to leave at that time, and a very urgent one.

To begin with, the friendship between Zillah and young Hugh Gibbons had seemed innocent enough, but if Delphine had been prepared to make such a sacrifice, then there must have been more to it. If he pressed he could find it.

It was morning on the third day before he had gathered sufficient evidence to prove it beyond denial. Of course, there was no witness that the two had been lovers in any but a romantic sense. But they had spent much time alone together. Hugh was nineteen, an age when Monk knew the emotions were wild and the blood hot and disinclined to moderation and self-discipline. Zillah had apparently been a willful fifteen-year-old, full of dreams and certain no one else understood them, except Hugh. She had read the great romances in the schoolroom.

By all accounts her parents had been generous and more inclined to indulgence than harshness. Any responsible mother would have done as Delphine had, possibly even sooner. The only answer to such a liaison was to leave the city for a while. Hugh was unsuitable socially-he had no means to keep a wife and no prospects; and Zillah was too young, and utterly impractical. The unplanned nature of the departure made it unarguable that Delphine had discovered a situation which could not be allowed to continue even another day or two, let alone weeks.

Did Barton Lambert know of it? Had it been serious enough for public knowledge of it to ruin Zillah?

But surely if it had, and Lambert knew about it, then he would not have begun the proceedings against Melville?

Had anyone else been concerned? Was there something about Hugh Gibbons? If Monk had pursued him instead of Zillah, would he have found something ugly enough to prompt murder? It seemed highly improbable. He could not imagine what. Another affair, perhaps a child or a rape? What had happened to Hugh Gibbons since then?

Before pursuing that, which might take a long time and be quite fruitless, he decided to speak to Barton Lambert.

It was shortly before one o'clock, and he was admitted readily into the house and, after the briefest hesitation, was shown into the large, very comfortable withdrawing room. French doors opened onto a small lawn surrounded by hydrangea bushes carpeted underneath with tiny white flowers.

The room was warmed by a handsome fire, and heavy brocade curtains framed the big windows and kept the draft from chilling the air. Delphine Lambert was sitting on one of the sofas. She was dressed in vivid blue, her enormous skirts gleaming in the light. She looked calm and happy. Wystan Sacheverall was standing closer to the window only a yard from Zillah; in fact, the frills of her dusky pink skirt covered the toes of his polished shoes. He was looking at her, disregarding Monk's entry as if he were not even aware of it and in any case it held no interest for him whatever. His face was filled with eagerness and he was talking to her, and smiling.

Zillah appeared to be absorbed by something in the garden beyond the glass, a flower or a bird. She did not take her eyes from it even when Sacheverall seemed to be asking a question. Her shoulder was lifted a little, pulling the fabric of her bodice, and Monk could only see the side of her head and the curve of her cheek. As soon as she heard his voice she turned and started towards him.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Lambert, Mrs. Lambert," he said formally. "Miss Lambert..."

"Good afternoon, Mr..." Delphine trailed off as if she had already forgotten his name.

"Monk," Lambert supplied. "Good afternoon, Monk. What can we do for you?"

Sacheverall deliberately remained by the window. He stared at Monk but made no move to come forward. His coldness could hardly be misinterpreted.

Zillah, on the other hand, seemed almost pleased to see him. Whatever had interested her in the garden was instantly forgotten.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Monk. How are you?"

She looked still tired, still hurt, but there was no air of self-pity about her, and no blame towards Monk. Again he was consumed with anger at this whole absurd charade which had already destroyed Keelin Melville and was going to damage Zillah yet further. He even hesitated whether to say what he had come for. What good would it do now?

He looked past her at Sacheverall, who had turned to face the room, watching Zillah. Was it affection in his eyes or enlightened self-interest, plus perhaps a little very natural desire towards an extremely attractive young woman? And she was attractive. She had an unusual mixture of innocence and individuality. A man who loved her might waken all kinds of passions in her, and high among them would be loyalty.

Monk looked beyond her again at Sacheverall and disliked him profoundly.

"What may we do for you, Mr. Monk?" Lambert enquired.

Monk recalled himself. "I am sorry to intrude," he apologized. "May I speak with you alone, Mr. Lambert? I hope it will be brief."

Lambert glanced at his wife.

"Oh, there is plenty of time before luncheon," she assured him. "It is still a trifle cool for me, but T daresay Mr. Sacheverall would like to take a short walk around the garden. Zillah can show him some of our treasures."

Zillah looked at her father appealingly, but he misunderstood. "Yes, of course, my dear," he agreed. "I daresay we shall be no more than half an hour at the most."

Sacheverall offered his arm with a smile and considerable enthusiasm, and Zillah accepted it.

Lambert went to the door and opened it into the hall to usher Monk towards somewhere more private.

Monk excused himself to Delphine and followed.

They went to the study. It was a pleasant room, well furnished with books. A large desk was scattered with papers and there were two cabinets for the storage of yet more papers. Four chairs for visitors faced the desk, and Lambert turned to look at Monk, his brow furrowed, his eyes still filled with his sense of tragedy.

"Well, Monk, what is this about? Is this some further matter to do with Melville?" The absence of title suggested he still thought of Melville as a man. Over the shock of disclosure and all the loss that had followed, he remembered the friend he had known and cared for.

Monk felt a tightening inside himself. A daughter, even as pretty and as charming and as seemingly agreeable as Zillah, was a source for all kinds of fears. Illness and accident were only the worst. There were so many humanly made, unnecessary other traps and snares, even in a young life barely begun.

"What is it?" Lambert repeated, not yet offering Monk a seat.

Monk had been considering where to begin. Lambert was a blunt man. He would not appreciate prevarication.

"I have been looking into Keelin Melville's death," he said directly, watching Lambert's face. "For Rathbone's sake as much as anything. It seems so..."

He saw the look of pain in Lambert's eyes.

"So oddly timed," he went on. "According to the police surgeon, she must have taken the poison while she was actually in the court, and yet she was observed all the time, and she neither ate nor drank anything at all. And why then, rather than later at home? Why would anyone choose to take poison in public in order to die in private, when doing both at home would have been so much easier?"

Lambert stared at him, puzzled and now also troubled. It seemed that up until now his emotions had crowded out thought. This came to him as an ugly intrusion, but he did not evade it.

"What are you trying to say, Monk? You are not a man to come here to see me simply to say there are things you do not understand. You have no need to understand, unless you believe there is something wrong, something criminal, or at the very least, something profoundly immoral. What do you expect of me?" He walked back to one of the chairs, not the one behind the desk but one of those arranged in front of it, and sat on it.

Monk sat in one of the others, crossing his legs and leaning back.

"One possibility troubles me, and I would like to prove it wrong before I let go of it."

"Yes? What is that possibility, and how does it concern me or my family?"

"I am not sure that it does," Monk admitted. "The possibility is that she was murdered."

Lambert leaned forward. "What?" He seemed genuinely not to have understood.

Monk repeated what he had said.

"Why?" Lambert puckered his face, his eyes narrowed. "Why would anybody want to murder Melville? He was the most..." He swallowed. "She was the most likable person. Of course, she had professional rivals, but people don't kill for that sort of reason." He waved his hand. "That's preposterous. And no one except Wolff knew she was a woman. You're not suggesting Wolff killed her, are you? I don't believe that for an instant!" Everything in his voice, his expression, emphasized what he said.

"No I don't," Monk agreed. "If it was murder, then I think it was to stop the case from going any further."

"The only person who'd want to stop that was poor Killian... Keelin... herself." A twinge of pain shot over Lambert's face. "I'm sorry... I still find it hard to believe all this. I liked her, you know. I liked her very much, even after she- she... damn it! Even after the marriage with Zillah fell through, I still liked him-her!"

Lambert stood up and began pacing restlessly back and forth across the room, seesawing his hands in the air.

"I went ahead with the case because I had to!" He looked at Monk with a desperate urgency, willing him to believe. "I had to protect my daughter's reputation. If I hadn't, people would have said Melville had discovered something about her that made it impossible to marry her. They would assume she was without morals, a loose woman. No one would have had her." His lips tightened. "Do you know what happens to a young woman whose reputation is gone, Mr. Monk? She has no place!" He chopped the air again. "No decent man will marry her. She is no longer invited to the decent houses. Young women with hopes no longer associate with her, in case the dirt rubs off. If she marries at all, it is to a man beneath her, and he treats her as what she is, one of society's castoffs."

He looked at Monk intently, willing him to understand. "Or she stays single, dependent upon her father, while all her friends gain husbands, houses, status-in time, children. Would you want that for your daughter? Wouldn't you fight any battle, any justified battle at all, rather than let that happen? Especially when you know she has done nothing to warrant it."

"I should probably do it whether she had warranted it or not," Monk said frankly. He disliked what he was going to do. Only there was the remembrance that Keelin Melville had been a young woman too, also denied what she wanted most because of the beliefs and conventions of others. There had been no one to feel for her, now not even herself. "What about Hugh Gibbons?"

Lambert's face showed nothing. No man could be so complete a master of himself as to have hidden guilt behind such a bland exterior.

"Who is Hugh Gibbons?"

"A young man who was in love with Zillah some three years ago," Monk replied. "He was unsuitable and the romance had gone too far. Mrs. Lambert took Zillah away, very suddenly, on a prolonged trip to the seaside-in North Wales. Crickieth, to be precise."

Lambert's face paled suddenly. He remained motionless where he was by the window, the light behind him.

"You remember now," Monk said unnecessarily.

The blood rushed back to Lambert's cheeks. He came forward to the desk, leaning over it. "Are you saying my daughter has lost her virtue, sir?"

"I have no idea," Monk replied. "I am agreeing with you that malicious supposition, whether true or not, can ruin a young person, and it would be natural for those who care for them to go to great lengths to prevent that."

Lambert drew in a long, slow breath. "You are accusing me of murdering Melville to hide some damned indiscretion which was caught before it was anything! God Almighty, what kind of a man do you think I am?"

Monk glanced down and saw that Lambert's hands on the desk were shaking and his knuckles were white. He would have swom that the idea genuinely horrified him.

"I am not accusing you, Mr. Lambert," Monk answered quietly. "I am trying to find out why Keelin Melville chose such an extraordinary time to kill herself, and how. She did not eat or drink anything during the time when the police surgeon says the poison entered her body... yet he says it was swallowed. It does not make sense, does it?"

Lambert frowned. He sat down again, this time behind the desk. "No... not that I can see," he agreed. "But if she did not eat or drink anything, then how did anyone else poison her?"

"I don't know that either," Monk confessed. "I'm looking for a lot of things. I've seen Keelin Melville's buildings, her dreams, something of what was in her soul. I can't let this go without doing everything I can to understand what happened to her."

Lambert swallowed, his throat convulsing. "Dammit! So am I! I'll retain you if necessary. Nothing we do can bring her back. Nothing I do can alter my part in it. But I can find out what finally broke her, and learn to live with it... or if it was someone else, then I'll see they pay." He bent his head and put his hands over his face. "Listen to me! Am I going to find the man I want to punish is myself?"

Monk was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of empathy with him. They were as different as possible, physically, in pattern of life and fortune, in turn of mind and personality, and yet Monk had stood in exactly the same place: pursuing what he believed to be a monster and terrified that when he found him, it would prove to be his own face he saw.

"Are you not going to punish yourself anyway?" He did not move his eyes from Lambert, and slowly Lambert looked up.

"Yes. But either way I have to know the truth, if you can find it."

"What happened to Hugh Gibbons?"

"What? I've no idea. Can it matter now?"

"I don't know. Can you think of any other incident in Zillah's life which anyone might fear my looking into?"

"I don't fear that." Some of the indignation came back into Lambert's voice. "It could have been tragic, but it wasn't. My wife dealt with it before it went too far. Took Zillah away." There was no shadow in his face, not the slightest duplicity. If there had been anything more to it Monk would swear Lambert knew nothing of it. But then that was entirely possible. A wise mother might well not tell the father of any such thing. She might fear his reaction, his anger, his sense of outrage. He could all too easily lose his temper and, without realizing it, bring about the very disaster his wife was laboring to avoid.

Lambert saw the disbelief in Monk's face. "It wasn't!" he repeated fiercely.

"What about Hugh Gibbons?" Monk said again. "Might he have gone on to become involved with another young woman, and her mother not have acted so quickly, or so effectively?"

"I've no idea. What difference could it make?" Lambert's eyes opened wide. "Are you suggesting Gibbons came to the courtroom and poisoned Melville to stop you from looking into it? That's ridiculous. How? Why didn't we see him? And how would he know about you anyway? What would you have done about it if you had found something? You would hardly have ruined some other young woman just for the sake of it. It wouldn't have helped Melville's cause." His contempt for the idea was plain.

So was Monk's, he had to admit. If it was this incident, then it was to do with Zillah.

The same thought must have occurred to Lambert. He rose to his feet.

"We'll ask my wife and get the whole thing disposed of. Come."

Monk followed obediently, catching up with him at the withdrawing room door. "Would you rather not discuss it with Sacheverall present?" he asked.

"Not at all. He is our family lawyer, and as you may have observed, extremely fond of Zillah. We have no secrets to hide from him." He opened the door and walked in.

Delphine was sitting elegantly on the sofa with a piece of embroidery in her hands, although she was paying it little attention. Zillah and Sacheverall had returned from their walk in the garden. Perhaps it was a little cool. Now they stood over by the window close together, and Sacheverall was talking to her earnestly, gazing at her eyes, her lips. The sunlight caught the brilliance of her hair, shining bronze and gold. They all looked at Lambert as he came in.

Lambert went straight to the point. "Mr. Monk has told me some disturbing things about Melville's death. It seems it is not as simple a suicide as it first appeared."

Sacheverall made as if to interrupt, coming a step forward into the room.

Lambert overrode him. "There are things which need explaining, and we cannot let the matter go until that has been done."

"With respect, sir," Sacheverall argued, "to continue to go over the matter can only cause further distress to innocent people. That Melville should take her own life is easy enough to understand." He shrugged his broad shoulders. "She was obviously a person of-at its kindest-a disturbed mind and unnatural disposition. She realized the great wrong she had done both to Zillah"-he smiled at her and put his hand on her arm-"and to Isaac Wolff. To avoid further dishonor, she killed herself. What further explanation can be needed?"

"A great deal," Lambert answered with a sharpness that surprised Monk, and from the look in his face, Sacheverall also. Only Zillah seemed happy with her father's words.

Delphine looked merely annoyed. "Leave the wretched creature in peace." She shook her head. "As Mr. Sacheverall so wisely says, she was only too obviously disturbed. Pursuing her reasons for taking her life can only distress you, my dear, and perhaps cause you to blame yourself where there is no justification. I have told you over and over that no fault lies with you. You believed what she told you, as did we all." She placed her hand lightly on his arm. "It is not fair to hold yourself responsible in any way. I hate to see you suffer for this. Please... let us all put it behind us. No good can come of knowing any more, even if it were possible." She regarded him very earnestly. "And truly, Barton, can we say that her inner turmoil is any of our business? Can we not allow her, at least in death, a little privacy?"

For the first time Lambert hesitated. He glanced at Monk, then back at Delphine.

"What things?" Zillah asked.

Lambert did not answer.

She looked beyond him to Monk. "What things need to be answered, Mr. Monk? Why do you care what happened? Please answer me truthfully. I am very tired of evasions and euphemisms told to protect me."

"You don't need to know, my dear..." Sacheverall said, reaching toward her with his hand.

She moved a step away from him. "I wish to know," she said, still looking at Monk. "Did she kill herself over what we did to her? Was it because of what everyone said about Mr. Wolff?"

Delphine winced.

"We can't blame ourselves for that!" Sacheverall said quickly, a flush of anger marking his cheeks.

Zillah appeared not even to have heard him. She remained looking at Monk.

"I don't know what it was, Miss Lambert," he answered. "If that was the cause, I don't understand why she did not tell the truth. It would have ruined her professional reputation in this country, but there are other countries, and she had lived and studied in some of them. Surely that would have been better than death? The only crime she was accused of was so easily explained."

"Easily!" Sacheverall said with amazement. "Perhaps in your circles, Monk, but hardly in the society in which he-she moved, and among the people who would be her patrons. I think you forget she practiced her profession among the very cream of society, not the sort of person who might regard that kind of... perversion... as acceptable."

Zillah swung around to glare at him. "It was not a perversion!" she defended hotly. "She did nothing wrong or not... normal. She only dressed as a man; she didn't behave as one in-in a personal sense." The color was hot in her cheeks also, but for the embarrassment of having to seek words for something she was uncertain of and which it was indelicate to discuss. "You are trying to say that she was in some way mad, and that's not true."

"My dear Zillah, you have no idea what she may have done... in private!" Sacheverall expostulated.

"Neither have you!" she said instantly. "You are suggesting something ugly, but you don't know."

"We know she killed herself," he said gently. "That is unarguable. Young people in good health, with sufficient funds and a stable character, do not take their own lives. It is a crime against God, as well as against the state." He looked calm and satisfied with that answer.

Zillah looked back at Monk. "Is that true?"

"It is part of the truth," he agreed.

"And the rest of it?"

"Zillah..." Delphine said warningly.

"The rest of it?" Her eyes did not deviate from Monk's.

"The rest of it is that I wonder if she did kill herself, or if someone else did in order to bring the case to a conclusion before I investigated any further and uncovered something unpleasant," he replied.

She looked completely confused, as if she could see no sense in what he had said.

Sacheverall let out a guffaw of ridicule.

"What were you investigating?" Zillah asked. "About Killian? I-I mean Keelin... I don't understand a great deal about the law, but if there was something, surely if she told Sir Oliver, he would have kept it secret? Doesn't he have to, if he was her barrister? Anyway, what could it be?" Her brow darkened. "And why were you investigating her? Sir Oliver was supposed to be defending her. He was on her side!" She was indignant. She felt a trust had been abused.

"No, Miss Lambert," Monk said softly. "I was investigating you."

"Me?" She was amazed. "I have nothing to hide."

"What about Hugh Gibbons?"

"Oh!" She looked away and the color rushed crimson up her cheeks. "Well, that was all rather foolish. I suppose I was indiscreet-"

"Zillah!" Delphine said warningly.

Sacheverall frowned and stood perfectly still. It was the first time he had seemed uncertain of himself since Monk had come in.

Zillah ignored her mother. She was still facing Monk. "I did not behave very well. I should know better now. I would not permit myself to become so... emotional. Unless, of course, I were married." She took a deep breath but did not lower her eyes.

Monk found himself feeling extraordinarily partisan towards her. Each time he saw her, it became easier to understand why Keelin Melville had liked her so much she had inadvertently allowed this tragedy to happen.

"Perhaps anyone who is capable of passion is indiscreet at some time or other," he said quietly. He had no idea how he might have erred in his own youth. It was gone, with all his other memories. But he knew himself well enough to be sure it had occurred, and probably often. Not that it was the same for women, of course-at least not to society.

"That is hardly a worthy sentiment, Mr. Monk," Delphine said, looking quickly at Sacheverall and away again. "I would be obliged if you would not express it here. It is not the way we believe-or behave. Zillah was fond of this young man and saw him more frequently than we desired. It was inevitable, since he moved in the same circles. Before he became too enamored of her and overstepped propriety, or we unintentionally encouraged hopes in him that would not be fulfilled, we went for a short holiday to Crickieth, in North Wales." She forced herself to smile. "By the time we returned he had formed an attachment for another young lady, altogether more suitable to his age and situation. The word passion is far too strong for such a childhood fondness."

Her words fell in silence, as if they all knew they were a gilding of the truth to such a point as to amount to a lie. Zillah was the only one who seemed unconcerned.

"What has it to do with Keelin's death?" she persisted. "Hugh wouldn't have harmed anyone over me, no matter how ardent he seemed at the time. He said a lot of things he didn't mean. He was hotheaded, but there was no real violence in him."

"Of course there wasn't!" Delphine said urgently, looking at Zillah with warning in her eyes, then at Sacheverall. "It was all very young and innocent, and over with years ago."

"No, it wasn't," Zillah contradicted "He went on writing to me..." She disregarded Delphine's obvious anger. "I collected the letters from a friend. And there is no use asking me who, because I shall not tell you..."

"You will do as you are told, young lady!" Delphine snapped, moving forward as if to restrain her physically.

"Was he jealous over your betrothal to Melville?" Lambert asked, holding up his hand to Delphine and looking steadily at his daughter, his expression hard and anxious. "Does he still care for you enough to have hated Melville for her insult to you? Tell me the truth, Zillah. He will not be blamed for anything he did not do, but I will not allow Keelin Melville's death to go unavenged if anyone else is responsible for it but herself. We may be speaking of murder. I will have no false loyalties or soft ideas of romance. Your loyalty is to the truth, girl, before all else. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Papa." She did not flinch. "I wrote to Hugh long after Mama took me to Wales, but I never saw him again, except by chance, and never alone. He says that he still cares for me. Of course, I don't know whether that is true or just his idea of romance. But he wrote very well to me when the betrothal was announced, even if there was some regret in it." She shook her head as if almost certain. "I cannot believe he has it in him to have hurt Keelin, whatever he felt." Her voice was very earnest and she ignored everyone but her father. "He wrote that no matter how it grieved him to see me marry someone else, he still wished me happiness. I believe he meant it." For the first time the shadow of a smile touched her lips. Something sweet had been remembered and it came through even present pain.

Sacheverall stared at her. Perhaps without being aware of it he took a step backward, opening a greater distance between them. The eagerness had gone from his face. Delphine had seen it. Zillah still had her back to him.

"I shall speak to you later about your disobedience," Lambert said to her, but the coldness in his voice was pretense; there was no echo of it in his eyes. "It is up to Mr. Monk whether he chooses to investigate young Gibbons or judges it to be worth pursuing. I have engaged him to learn the truth of Melville's death."

"That, of course, is your choice," Sacheverall said with noticeable chill. "I have discharged my duties in the matter. My final advice to you"-he looked at Lambert, not at Zillah-"is that you consider the matter ended and resume your lives and put it from your mind. You conducted yourselves both legally and morally in a perfectly upright manner and have nothing with which to reproach yourselves. Private mistakes of the past are no one else's concern. I shall not mention them, and I presume Monk is bound by the same constraints, although of course I cannot answer for him."

"You don't need to!" Monk said savagely. "I consider Miss Lambert's reputation to be without blemish."

Sacheverall gave him a curious look, a mixture of contempt for his naivete and amusement in the mistaken assumption that Monk admired her in a personal sense and would consider courting her.

In defense of Zillah, Monk did not disabuse him.

Sacheverall bade them farewell and took his leave.

The moment he was gone Delphine rose to her feet, her face white, tight-lipped.

"You fool!" she said furiously, glaring at Zillah. "How could you be so unbelievably stupid? You didn't have to say anything about that wretched Gibbons boy! You could have said I took you away because he was pestering you!" She was breathing hard. "You could have said anything at all. A dozen different things would have been perfectly believable and left you with a reputation. Look what you've done." She flung her arm out. "You haven't the wits you were born with! Or at least when you were a child! Sometimes I wonder where you got your stupidity from. It's certainly nothing I've taught you."

She jabbed her finger towards the closed door again. "He would have married you. He was utterly charmed. You were everything he wanted. He has an excellent family, intelligence, good manners and very fine prospects indeed. His reputation is perfect. Do you think I don't look into these things before I let anyone pay court to you? Do you?"

Zillah drew in her breath.

"Well, do you?" Delphine demanded, her eyes blazing. "Haven't I always taken the best care of you, done everything for your interest, for your welfare and your future? Now in one idiotic conversation you've sent another man off out of your life." She gestured towards the door again. "And he won't come back-don't hold any hopes of that. He thought you lost your virtue to Gibbons, and nothing you say now is going to change his mind. He won't look at you again, except with polite contempt. And do you imagine people won't guess why?" Her voice was rising steadily and getting wilder, and unconsciously she was moving towards Zillah. "Two men attracted to you and then leaving you suddenly-in as many months! There's only one conclusion anyone with a jot of sense will draw from that."

"Delphine..." Lambert interrupted, moving towards her.

She shook her head impatiently. "Don't be absurd, Barton! Face reality. People may like her, young men may desire her, heaven knows she's beautiful enough, I've seen to that. But they won't marry her. Their mothers won't allow it, whatever they think." She whirled around to Zillah again, her eyes burning in a white face. "Is that what you'll settle for? Being liked and desired while all the eligible men marry other girls? I can tell you, it may be fine for another year or two, but in five years, when they have houses and families and you are still here with us, it will look very different. The invitations will stop coming. You will have more and more time to sit by yourself and consider your idiocy."

"Delphine, stop it!" Lambert commanded.

But she would not be stopped; the heat of passion consumed any restraint. "And when you are thirty, and an old maid, and your beauty is gone, what then? Who's going to keep you? What are you going to do with yourself?"

"I'll keep her, should that arise!" Lambert responded angrily. "And she'll do with herself whatever she chooses."

"There won't be anything to choose from," Delphine pointed out. "Can't you see what she's done? Are you so blind you still don't understand?" There were tears of grief and frustration in her eyes. "One suitor leaving her she might get over, but not two!" Her voice dropped to be deeply sarcastic. "Or are you going to suggest there is something wrong with Sachev-erall? He's a woman in disguise, perhaps?"

Lambert was momentarily lost for a reply.

"He was an opportunistic coward who did not love her," Monk supplied with deep disgust. "And any woman is worthy of more than that." He was so filled with loathing for the whole system of values where beauty and reputation were the yardsticks of worth that he did not trust himself to say more. "It is not a misfortune that he showed his nature before you could no longer extricate yourself from any connection with him gracefully." He said this last to Zillah. He turned to Barton Lambert. "Thank you for your time, sir. I shall learn what more I can about Melville's death, and advise you if it is of worth. Good day." And he bowed to the women and left.

It was later in the afternoon when he was recalling the conversation that he realized how odd were the particular words Delphine had used regarding Zillah. She had almost sounded as if she had not known her in her first year or so of life. She had seemed to disclaim responsibility for Zillah's inherited qualities. Had Barton Lambert been married before, and Zillah was his daughter but not hers? Zillah was apparently an only child, which was not a common circumstance.

Could that be relevant to anything? It hardly affected Melville's death. If he found out, it would be simply from personal curiosity and because he wished an excuse not to go back to the letters and the grievance of the sister-in-law he had been working on before.

It should not be so difficult to find out. He had ascertained earlier that Zillah was not illegitimate because the Lamberts had publicly celebrated a wedding anniversary which ruled that out. But, of course, no one had required proof of the marriage. Perhaps he should have been more thorough then? Of course, it was completely irrelevant now.

Nevertheless, for his own satisfaction he would learn.

It took him the nest of the day, many judiciously placed questions and a lot of searching through papers, but he learned that Barton Lambert, aged thirty-eight, and Delphine Willowby, aged thirty-two, had been married exactly when they had said. But in the parish where they lived there was no record of Zillah Lambert's being born to them, or of any other child.

Some three years later they had moved, and arrived at their new address with a very lovely child of about eighteen months, a little girl with wide eyes and red-gold hair.

So Zillah was adopted. Delphine had married later than most women, in spite of her beauty and intelligence, and perhaps had been unable to bear children. She would not be the only woman afflicted by such grief. It had happened throughout the ages, accompanied by pain and too often public condescension, the kind of pity that is touched with judgment.

Had she married late because she too had suffered some unjust rejection? Was her anger at Zillah rooted in her own experience of hurt?

Suddenly Monk's dislike of her evaporated and was overtaken by compassion. No wonder she had been angry with Melville and been determined, at any cost, to defend Zillah's good name.

Perhaps he owed it to Rathbone to give him this small piece of information and tell him that so far that was all he knew. It was no help, but it was at least a courtesy.

He arrived at noon the next day at Vere Street.

Rathbone was busy with a client, and Monk was obliged to wait nearly half an hour before he was shown into the office.

"What have you learned?" Rathbone asked immediately, not even waiting to invite Monk to be seated.

Monk looked at his anxious face, the fine lines between his brows and the tension in his lips. His sense of failure was acute.

"Nothing of importance," he said quietly, sitting down anyway. "Zillah Lambert was adopted when she was a year and a half old. It seems Delphine could not bear children. She was well over thirty when she married Lambert. That might explain why she is so desperate that Zillah should marry well, and so jealous for her reputation. She knows what it means to society." He added a brief summary of his visit with the Lamberts, and Sacheverall's sudden departure.

Rathbone used a word about Sacheverall Monk was not aware he even knew and Sacheverall would have resented profoundly. He sank back in his chair, staring across the desk. "If we can't find anything better than we have, the inquest on Melville will find suicide." He watched Monk closely, his eyes shadowed, questioning.

"It probably was suicide," Monk said softly. "I don't know why she did it then, or exactly how. We probably never will. But then, I don't know how anyone could have murdered her either. And what is more pertinent, I don't know of any reason why they would. The Lamberts had nothing to hide."