A Dangerous Mourning

chapter 10
"I am sorry, " Rathbone said very gently, looking at Hester with intense concern. "I did everything I could, but the passion was rising too high and there was no other person whom I could suggest with a motive powerful enough."

"Maybe Kellard?" she said without hope or conviction. "Even if she was defending herself, it doesn't have to have been from Percival. In fact it would make more sense if it was Myles, then screaming wouldn't do much good. He would only say she'd cried out and he'd heard her and come to see what was wrong. He would have a far better excuse than Percival for being there. And Percival she could have crushed with a threat of having him dismissed. She could hardly do that with Myles, and she may not have wanted Araminta ever to know about his behavior."

"I know that." He was standing by the mantel in his office and she was only a few feet away from him, the defeat crushing her and making her feel vulnerable and an appalling failure. Perhaps she had misjudged, and Percival was guilty after all? Everyone else, apart from Monk, seemed to believe it. And yet there were things that made so little sense.

"Hester?"

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "My attention was wandering."

"I could not raise Myles Kellard as a suspect."

"Why not?"

He smiled very slightly. "My dear, what evidence should I call that he had the least amorous interest in his sister-in-law? Which of his family do you imagine would testify to that? Araminta? She would become the laughingstock of London society, and she knows that. If it were rumored she might be pitied, but if she openly admits she knows of it, she will be despised. From what I have seen of her, she would find them equally intolerable."

"I doubt Beatrice would lie," Hester said, and then knew instantly it was foolish. "Well, he raped the maid Martha Rivett. Percival knew that."

"And what?" he finished for her. "The jury will believe Percival? Or I should call Martha herself? Or Sir Basil, who dismissed her?"

"No, of course not," she said miserably, turning away. "I don't know what else we can do. I'm sorry if I seem unreasonable. It is just so-" She stopped and looked across at him. "They'll hang him, won't they?"

"Yes." He was watching her, his face grave and sad. "There are no mitigating circumstances this time. What can you say in defense of a footman who lusts after his master's daughter, and when she refuses him, knifes her to death?"

"Nothing," she said very quietly. "Nothing at all, except that he is human, and by hanging him we diminish ourselves as well."

"My dear Hester." Slowly and quite deliberately, his lashes lowered but his eyes open, he leaned forward until his lips touched hers, not with passion but with utmost gentleness and long, delicate intimacy.

When he drew away she felt both more and less alone than she ever had before, and she knew at once from his face that it had caught him in some way by surprise also.

He drew breath as if to speak, then changed his mind and turned away, going over to the window and standing with his back half towards her.

"I am truly sorry I could not do better for Percival," he said again, his voice a little rough and charged with a sincerity she could not doubt. "For him, and because you trusted me."

"You have discharged that trust completely," she said quickly. "I expected you to do all you could-I did not expect a miracle. I can see how passion is rising among the public. Perhaps we never had a chance. It was simply necessary that we try everything within our power. I am sorry I spoke so foolishly. Of course you could not have suggested Myles-or Araminta. It would only have turned the jury even more against Percival; I can see that if I free my mind from frustration and apply a little intelligence."

He smiled at her, his eyes bright. "How very practical."

"You are laughing at me," she said without resentment. "I know it is considered unwomanly, but I see nothing attractive in behaving like a fool when you don't have to."

His smile broadened. "My dear Hester, neither do I. It is extremely tedious. It is more than enough to do so when we cannot help ourselves. What are you going to do now? How will you survive, once Lady Moidore no longer considers herself in need of a nurse?''

"I shall advertise for someone else who does-until I am able to search for a job in administration somewhere."

"I am delighted. From what you say you have not abandoned your hope of reforming English medicine.''

"Certainly not-although I do not expect to do it in the lifetime your tone suggests. If I initiate anything at all I will be satisfied."

"I am sure you will." His laughter vanished. "A determination like yours will not be thwarted long, even by the Pom-eroys of the world.''

"And I shall find Mr. Monk and go over the whole case again," she added. "Just so I am sure there is nothing whatever we can still do."

"If you find anything, bring it to me." He was very grave indeed now. "Will you promise me that? We have three weeks in which it might still be possible to appeal."

"I will," she said with a return of the hard, gray misery inside her. The moment's ineffable warmth was gone, Percival remembered. "I will." And she bade him good-bye and took her leave to seek Monk.

***

Hester returned to Queen Anne Street light-footed, but the leaden feeling was at the edge of her mind waiting to return now that she was forced to think of reality again.

She was surprised to learn from Mary, as soon as she was in the house, that Beatrice was still confining herself to her room and would take her evening meal upstairs. She had gone

into the ironing room for a clean apron, and found Mary there folding the last of her own linen.

"Is she ill?" Hester said with some concern-and a pang of guilt, not only for what might be dereliction of her duty but because she had not believed the malady was now anything but a desire to be a trifle spoilt, and to draw from her family the attention she did not otherwise. And that in itself was something of a mystery. Beatrice was not only a lovely woman but vivid and individual, not made in the placid mold of Romola. She was also intelligent, imaginative and at times capable of considerable humor. Why should such a woman not be the very heartbeat of her home?

"She looked pale,'' Mary replied, pulling a little face."But then she always does. I think she's in a temper, myself- although I shouldn't say that."

Hester smiled. The feet that Mary should not say something never stopped her, in fact it never even made her hesitate.

"With whom?" Hester asked curiously.

"Everyone in general, but Sir Basil in particular."

"Do you know why?"

Mary shrugged; it was a graceful gesture. "I should think over what they said about Miss Octavia at the trial." She scowled furiously.'' Wasn 't that awful! They made out she was so tipsy she encouraged the footman to make advances-" She stopped and looked at Hester meaningfully."Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Was that not true?"

"Not that I ever saw." Mary was indignant. "She was tipsy, certainly, but Miss Octavia was a lady. She wouldn't have let Percival touch her if he'd been the last man alive on a desert island. Actually it's my belief she wouldn't have let any man touch her after Captain Haslett died. Which is what made Mr. Myles so furious. Now if she'd stabbed him, I'd have believed it!"

"Did he really lust after her?" Hester asked, for the first time using the right word openly.

Mary's dark eyes widened a fraction, but she did not equivocate.

"Oh yes. You should have seen it in his face. Mind, she was very pretty, you know, in a quite different way from Miss Araminta. You never saw her, but she was so alive-" Suddenly misery gripped hold of her again, and all the realization of loss flooded back, and the anger she had been trying to suppress. "That was wicked, what they said about her! Why do people say things like that?" Her chin came up and her eyes were blazing. "Fancy her saying all those wretched things about Dinah, and Mrs. Willis and all. They won't ever forgive her for that, you know. Why did she do it?"

"Spite?" Hester suggested. "Or maybe just exhibitionism. She loves to be the center of attention. If anyone is looking at her she feels alive-important.''

Mary looked confused.

"There are some people like that." Hester tried to explain what she had never put into words before. "They're empty, insecure alone; they only feel real when other people listen to them and take notice.''

"Admiration. "Mary laughed bitterly. "It's contempt. What she did was vicious. I can tell you, no one 'round here'll forgive her for it."

"I don't suppose that'll bother her," Hester said dryly, thinking of Fenella's opinion of servants.

Mary smiled. "Oh yes it will!" she said fiercely. "She won't get a hot cup of tea in the morning anymore; it will be lukewarm. We will be ever so sorry, we won't know how it happened, but it will go on happening. Her best clothes will be mislaid in the laundry, some will get torn, and no one will know who did it. Everyone will have found it like that. Her letters will be delivered to someone else, caught between the pages, messages for her or from her will be slow in delivery. The rooms she's in will get cold because footmen will be too busy to stoke the fires, and her afternoon tea will be late. Believe me, Miss Latterly, it will bother her. And Mrs. Willis nor Cook won't put a stop to it. They'll all be just as innocent and smug as the rest of us, and not have an idea how it happens. And Mr. Phillips won't do nothing either. He may have airs like he was a duke, but he's loyal when it comes down to it. He's one of us."

Hester could not help smiling. It was all incredibly trivial, but there was a kind of justice in it.

Mary saw her expression, and her own eased into one of satisfaction and something like conspiracy. "You see?" she said.

"I see," Hester agreed. "Yes-very appropriate." And still with a smile she took her linen and left.

Upstairs Hester found Beatrice sitting alone in her room in one of the dressing chairs, staring out of the window at the rain beginning to fall steadily into the bare garden. It was January, bleak, colorless, and promising fog before dark.

"Good afternoon, Lady Moidore," Hester said gently. "I am sorry you are unwell. Can I do anything to help?"

Beatrice did not move her head.

"Can you turn the clock back?" she asked with a tiny self-mocking smile.

"If I could, I would have done it many times," Hester answered. "But do you suppose it would really make a difference?"

Beatrice did not reply for several moments, then she sighed and stood up. She was dressed in a peach-colored robe, and with her blazing hair she had all the warmth of dying summer in her.

"No-probably none at all," she said wearily. "We would still be the same people, and that is what is wrong. We would all still be pursuing comfort, looking to save our own reputations and just as willing to hurt others." She stood by the window watching the water running down the panes. "I never realized Fenella was so consumed with vanity, so ridiculously trying to hold on to the trappings of youth. If she were not so prepared to destroy other people simply to get attention, I should feel more pity for her. As it is I am embarrassed by her."

"Perhaps it is all she feels she has." Hester spoke equally softly. She too found Fenella repellent in her willingness to hurt, especially to expose the foibles of the servants-that was gratuitous. But she understood the fear behind the need for some quality that would earn her survival, some material possessions, however come by, that were independent of Basil and his conditional charity, if charity was the word.

Beatrice swung around to face her, her eyes level, very wide.

"You understand, don't you? You know why we do these grubby things-"

Hester did not know whether to equivocate; tact was not what Beatrice needed now.

"Yes, it isn't difficult."

Beatrice dropped her eyes. "I'd rather not have known. I guessed some of it, of course. I knew Septimus gambled, and I thought he took wine occasionally from the cellars." She smiled. "In feet it rather amused me. Basil is so pompous about his claret." Her face darkened again and the humor vanished. "I didn't know Septimus took it for Fenella, and even then I wouldn't have cared about it if it were sympathy for her-but it isn't. I think he hates her. She's everything in a woman that is different from Christabel-that is the woman he loved. That isn't a good reason for hating anyone, though, is it?"

She hesitated, but Hester did not interrupt.

"Strange how being dependent, and being reminded of it all the time, sours you," Beatrice went on. "Because you feel helpless and inferior, you try to get power again by doing just the same to someone else. God how I hate investigations! It will take us years to forget all we've learned about each other- maybe by then it will be too late."

"Maybe you can learn to forgive instead?" Hester knew she was being impertinent, but it was the only thing she could say with any truth, and Beatrice not only deserved truth, she needed it.

Beatrice turned away and traced her finger on the dry inside of the window, following the racing drops.

"How do you forgive someone for not being what you wanted them to be, or what you thought they were? Especially when they are not sorry-perhaps they don't even understand?"

"Or again, perhaps they do?'' Hester suggested."And how do they forgive us for having expected too much of them, instead of looking to see what they really were, and loving that?"

Beatrice's finger stopped.

"You are very frank, aren't you!" It was not a question. "But it isn't as easy as that, Hester. You see, I am not even sure that Percival is guilty. Am I wicked still to have doubts in my mind when the court says he is, and he's been sentenced, and the world says it is all over? I dream, and wake up with my mind torn with suspicions. I look at people and wonder, and I hear double and triple meanings behind what they say.''

Again Hester was racked with indecision. It would seem so

much kinder to suggest that no one else could be guilty, that it was only the aftermath of all the fear still lingering on, and in time it would melt away. Daily life would comfort, and this extraordinary tragedy would ease until it became only the grief one feels for any loss.

But then she thought of Percival in Newgate prison, counting the few days left to him until one morning there was no more time at all.

"Well if Percival is not guilty, who else could it have been?" She heard the words spoken aloud and instantly regretted her judgment. It was brutal. She never for an instant thought Beatrice would believe it was Rose, and none of the other servants had even entered the field of possibility. But it could not be taken back. AD she could do was wait for Beatrice's answer.

"I don't know.'' Beatrice measured each word."I have lain in the dark each night, thinking this is my own house, where I came when I was married. I have been happy here, and wretched. I have borne five children here, and lost two, and now Octavia. I've watched them grow up, and themselves marry. IVe watched their happiness and their misery. It is all as familiar as bread and butter, or the sound of carriage wheels. And yet perhaps I know only the skin of it all, and the flesh beneath is as strange to me as Japan.''

She moved to the dressing table and began to take the pins from her hair and let it down in a shining stream like bright copper.

"The police came here and were full of sympathy and respectfully polite. Then they proved that no one could have broken in from outside, so whoever killed Octavia was one of us. For weeks they asked questions and forced us to find the answers-ugly answers, most of them, things about ourselves that were shabby, or selfish, or cowardly." She put the pins in a neat little pile in one of the cut glass trays and picked up the silver-backed brush.

"I had forgotten about Myles and that poor maid. That may seem incredible, but I had. I suppose I never thought about it much at the time, because Araminta didn't know." She pulled at her hair with the brush in long, hard strokes. "I am a coward, aren't I," she said very quietly. It was a statement, not a question. "I saw what I wanted to, and hid from the rest. And Cyprian, my beloved Cyprian-doing the same: never standing up to his father, just living in a dream world, gambling and idling his time instead of doing what he really wanted.'' She tugged even harder with the brush. "He's bored with Romola, you know. It used not to matter, but now he's suddenly realized how interesting companionship can be, and conversation that's real, where people say what they think instead of playing polite games. And of course it's far too late."

Without any forewarning Hester realized fully what she had woken in indulging her own vanity and pleasure in Cyprian's attention. She was only partly guilty, because she had not intended hurt, but it was enough. Neither had she thought, or cared, and she had sufficient intelligence that she could have.

"And poor Romola," Beatrice went on, still brushing fiercely. "She has not the slightest idea what is wrong. She has done precisely what she was taught to do, and it has ceased to work.''

"It may again," Hester said feebly, and did not believe it.

But Beatrice was not listening for inflections of a voice. Her own thoughts clamored too loudly.

"And the police have arrested Percival and gone away, leaving us to wonder what really happened." She began to brush with long, even strokes. "Why did they do that, Hester? Monk didn't believe it was Percival, I'm sure of that." She swiveled around on the dresser seat and looked at Hester, the brush still in her hand. "You spoke to him. Did you think he believed it was Percival?"

Hester let out her breath slowly. "No-no, I thought not."

Beatrice turned back to the mirror again and regarded her hair critically. "Then why did the police arrest him? It wasn't Monk, you know. Annie told me it was someone else, not even the young sergeant either. Was it simply expediency, do you suppose? The newspapers were making a terrible fuss about it and blaming the police for not solving it, so Cyprian told me. And Basil wrote to the Home Secretary, I know." Her voice sank lower. "I imagine their superiors demanded they produce some result very quickly, but I did not think Monk would give in. I thought he was such a strong man-" She did not add that Percival was expendable when a senior officer's career was threatened, but Hester knew she was thinking it; the anger in her mouth and the misery in her eyes were sufficient.

"And of course they would never accuse one of us, unless they had absolute proof. But I can't help wondering if Monk suspected one of us and simply could not find any mistake large enough, or tangible enough, to justify his action."

"Oh I don't think so," Hester said quickly, then wondered how on earth she would explain knowing such a thing. Beatrice was so very nearly right in her estimate of what had happened, Runcorn's expediency over Monk's judgment, the quarrels and the pressure.

"Don't you?'' Beatrice said bleakly, putting down the brush at last. "I am afraid I do. Sometimes I think I would give anything at all to know which one of us, just so I could stop suspecting the others. Then I shrink back in horror from it, like a hideous sight-a severed head in a bucketful of maggots-only worse.'' She swiveled around on the seat again and looked at Hester. "Someone in my own family murdered my daughter. You see, they all lied. Octavia wasn't as they said, and the idea of Percival taking such a liberty, or even imagining he could, is ridiculous."

She shrugged, her slender shoulders pulling at the silk of her gown.

"I know she drank a trifle too much sometimes-but nothing like as much as Fenella does. Now if it were Fenella that would make sense. She would encourage any man." Her face darkened. "Except she picks out those who are rich because she used to accept presents from them and then pawn the gifts for money to buy clothes and perfumes and things. Then she stopped bothering with the pretenses and simply took the money outright. Basil doesn't know, of course. He'd be horrified. He'd probably throw her out."

"Was that what Octavia discovered and told to Septimus?'' Hester said eagerly."Perhaps that was what happened?'' Then she realized how insensitive such enthusiasm was. After all, Fenella was still one of the family, even if she was shallow and vicious, and now, after the trial, a public embarrassment. She composed her face into gravity again.

"No," Beatrice said flatly. "Octavia knew about it ages ago. So did Minta. We didn't tell Basil because we despised it but understood. It is surprising what one will do when one has no money. We devise little ways, and usually they are not attractive, sometimes not even honorable." She started to fiddle with a perfume bottle, pulling the stopper out. "We are such cowards at times. I wish I couldn't see that, but I can. But Fenella would not encourage a footman beyond silly flattery. She's vain and cruel, and terrified of growing old, but she is not a whore. At least-I mean, she does not take men simply because she enjoys it-" She gave a convulsive little shudder and jammed the perfume stopper in so hard she could not remove it again. She swore under her breath and pushed the bottle to the back of the dressing table.

"I used to think Minta didn't know about Myles having forced himself on the maid, but perhaps she did? And perhaps she knew that Myles was more than properly attracted to Oc-tavia. He is very vain too, you know? He imagines all women find him pleasing." She smiled with a downward curl of her mouth, a curiously expressive gesture. "Of course a great many do. He is handsome and charming. But Octavia didn't like him. He found that very hard to take. Perhaps he was determined to make her change her mind. Some men find force quite justifiable, you know?"

She looked at Hester, then shook her head. "No, of course you don't know-you are not married. Forgive me for being so coarse. I hope I have not offended you. I think it is all a matter of degree. And Myles and Tavie thought very differently about it."

She was silent for a moment, then pulled her gown closer around her and stood up.

"Hester-I am so afraid. One of my family may be guilty. And Monk has gone off and left us, and I shall probably never know. I don't know which is worse-not knowing, and imagining everything-or knowing, and never again being able to forget, but being helpless to do anything about it. And what if they know I know? Would they murder me? How can we live together day after day?''

Hester had no answer. There was no possible comfort to give, and she did not belittle the pain by trying to find something to say.

***

It was another three days before the servants' revenge really began to bite and Fenella was sufficiently aware of it to complain to Basil. Quite by chance Hester overheard much of the conversation. She had become as invisible as the rest of the

servants, and neither Basil nor Penella was aware of her through the arch of the conservatory from the withdrawing room. She had gone there because it was the nearest she could come to a walk alone outside. She was permitted to use the ladies' maids' sitting room, which she did to read, but there was always the chance of being joined by Mary or Gladys and having to make conversation, or explain her very intellectual choice of reading.

"Basil." Fenella swept in, bristling with anger. "I really must complain to you about the servants in this house. You seem to be quite unaware of it, but ever since the trial of that wretched footman, the standards have declined appallingly. This is three days in a row my morning tea has been almost cold. That fool of a maid has lost my best lace peignoir. My bedroom fee has been allowed to go out. And now the room is like a morgue. I don't know how I am supposed to dress in it. I should catch my death."

"Appropriate for a morgue," Basil said dryly.

"Don't be a fool," she snapped. "I do not find this an occasion for humor. I don't know why on earth you tolerate it. You never used to. You used to be the most exacting person I ever knew-worse even than Papa."

From where Hester was she could see only Fenella's back, but Basil's face was clearly visible. Now his expression changed and became pinched.

"My standards are as high as his ever were,'' he said coldly. "I don't know what you mean, Fenella. My tea was piping hot, my fire is blazing, and I have never missed anything in the laundry all the years I have lived here."

"And my toast was stale on my breakfast tray," she went on. "My bed linen has not been changed, and when I spoke to Mrs. Willis about it, all I got was a lot of limp excuses, and she barely even listened to what I said. You have not the command of the house you should have, Basil. I wouldn't tolerate it a moment. I know you aren't the man Papa was, but I didn't imagine you would go to pieces like this and allow everything around you to fall apart as well."

"If you don't care for it here, my dear," he said with vi-ciousness, "you may always find somewhere that suits you better, and ran it according to your own standards."

"That's just the sort of thing I would expect you to say,"

she retorted. "But you can hardly throw me out in the street now-too many people are looking at you, and what would they say? The fine Sir Basil, the rich Sir Basil"-her face was twisted with contempt-"die noble Sir Basil whom everyone respects, has thrown his widowed sister out of his home. I doubt it, my dear, I doubt it. You always wanted to live up to Papa, and then you wanted to exceed him. What people think of you matters more than anything else. I imagine that's why you hated poor Harry Haslett's father so much, even at school-he did with ease what you had to work so hard for. Well you've got it now-money, reputation, honors-you won't jeopardize it by putting me out. What would it look like?" She laughed abrasively. "What would people say? Just get your servants to do their duty.''

"Has it occurred to you, Fenella, that they are treating you like this because you betrayed their vulnerabilities in public from the witness stand-and brought it upon yourself?" His face was set in an expression of loathing and disgust, but mere was also a touch of pleasure in it, a satisfaction that he could hurt. "You made an exhibition of yourself, and servants don't forgive that."

She stiffened, and Hester could imagine the color rising up her cheeks.

"Are you going to speak to them or not? Or do they just do as they please in this house?"

"They do as they please, Fenella," he said very quietly. "And so does everyone else. No, I am not going to speak to them. It amuses me that they should take their revenge on you. As far as I am concerned, they are free to continue. Your tea will be cold, your breakfast burnt, your fire out and your linen lost as long as they like.''

She was too furious to speak. She let out a gasp of rage, swung on her heel and stormed out, head high, skirts rattling and swinging so wide they caught an ornament on the side table and sent it crashing.

Basil smiled with deep, hard, inward pleasure.

***

Monk had already found two small jobs since he advertised his services as a private inquiry agent prepared to undertake investigations outside police interest, or to continue with cases from which the police had withdrawn. One was a matter of property, and of very little reward other than that of a quickly satisfied customer and a few pounds to make sure of at least another week's lodging. The second, upon which he was currently engaged, was more involved and promised some variety and pursuit-and possibly the questioning of several people, the art for which his natural talents fitted him. It concerned a young woman who had married unfortunately and been cut off by her family, who now wished to find her again and heal the rift. He was prospering well, but after the outcome of the trial of Percival he was deeply depressed and angry. Not that he had for a moment expected anything different, but there was always a stubborn hope, even until the last, more particularly when he heard Oliver Rathbone was engaged. He had very mixed emotions about the man; there was a personal quality in him which Monk found intensely irritating, but he had no reservations in the admiration of his skill or the conviction of his dedication.

He had written to Hester Latterly again, to arrange a meeting in the same chocolate house in Regent Street, although he had very little idea what it might accomplish.

He was unreasonably cheered when he saw her coming in, even though her face was sober and when she saw him her smile was only momentary, a matter of recognition, no more.

He rose to pull out her chair, then sat opposite, ordering hot chocolate for her. They knew each other too honestly to need the niceties of greeting or the pretense at inquiry after health. They could approach what burdened them without prevarication.

He looked at her gravely, the question in his eyes.

"No," sheanswered. "I haven't learned anything that I can see is of use. But I am certain beyond doubt at all that Lady Moidore does not believe that Percival is guilty, but neither does she know who is. At moments she wants more than anything else to know, at other times she dreads it, because it would finally condemn someone and shatter all the beliefs and the love she has felt for that person until now. The uncertainty is poisoning everything for her, yet she is afraid that if one day she learns who it is, then that person may realize she knows and she herself will be in danger."

His face was tight with inner pain and the knowledge that

for all the effort and the straggle he had put forth, and the price it had cost him, he had failed.

"She is right,'' he said quietly."Whoever it is has no mercy. They are prepared to allow Percival to hang. It would be a flight of fancy to suppose they will spare her if she endangers them."

"And I think she would." Now Hester's expression was pinched with anxiety. "Underneath the fashionable woman who retreated to her bedroom with grief there is someone of more courage, and a deeper horror at the cruelty and the lies.''

"Then we still have something to fight for,'' he said simply. "If she wants to know badly enough, and the suspicion and the fear become unbearable to her, then one day she will."

The waiter appeared and set their chocolate in front of them. Monk thanked him.

"Something will fall into place in her memory," he continued to Hester. "A word, a gesture; someone's guilt will draw them into an error, and suddenly she will realize-and they will see it, because she will not possibly be able to be the same towards them-how could she?"

"Then we must find out-before she does." Hester stirred her chocolate vigorously, risking slopping it over with every round of the spoon. "She knows that almost everyone lied, in one degree or another, because Octavia was not as they described her in the trial." And she told him of everything that Beatrice had said the last time they spoke.

"Maybe." Monk was dubious. "But Octavia was her daughter; it is possible she simply did not want to see her as clearly as they did. If Octavia were indiscreet in her cups, perhaps vain, and did not keep the usual curb on her sensuality-her mother may not be prepared to accept that as true."

"What are you saying?" Hester demanded. "That what they all testified was right, and she encouraged Percival, and then changed her mind when she thought he would take her at her word? And instead of asking anyone for help, she took a carving knife to her bedroom?"

She picked up her chocolate but was too eager to finish the thought to stop. "And when Percival did intrude in the night, even though her brother was next door, she fought to the death with Percival and never cried out? I'd have screamed my lungs raw!" She sipped her chocolate. "And don't say she was embarrassed he'd say she had invited him. No one in her family would believe Percival instead of her-and it would be a lot easier to explain than either his injured body or his corpse."

Monk smiled with a harsh humor. "Perhaps she hoped the mere sight of the knife would send him away-silently?"

She paused an instant. "Yes," she agreed reluctantly. "That does make some sense. It is not what I believe though."

"Nor I," he assented. "There is too much else that is out of character. What we need is to discover the lies from the truths, and perhaps the reasons for the lies-that might be the most revealing."

"In order of testimony, "she agreed quickly. "I doubt Annie lied. For one thing she said nothing of significance, merely that she found Octavia, and we all know that is true. Similarly the doctor had no interest in anything but the best accuracy of which he was capable." She screwed up her face in intense concentration. "What reasons do people who are innocent of the crime have to lie? We must consider them. Then of course there is always the possibility of error that is not malicious, simply a matter of ignorance, incorrect assumption, and simple mistake."

He smiled in spite of himself. "The cook? Do you think Mrs. Boden could be in error about her knife?"

She caught his amusement, but responded with only a moment's softening of her eyes.

"No-I cannot think how. She identified it most precisely. And anyway, what sense would there be in it being a knife from anywhere else? There was no intruder. The knife does not help us towards the identity of who took it."

"Mary?"

Hester considered for a moment. "She is a person of most decided opinions-which is not a criticism. I cannot bear wishy-washy people who agree with whoever spoke to them last-but she might make an error out of a previously held conviction, without the slightest mal intent!"

"That it was Octavia's peignoir?"

"No of course not. Besides, she was not the only person to identify it. At the time you found it you asked Araminta as well, and she not only identified it but said that she remembered that Octavia had worn it the night of her death. And I think Lizzie the head laundrymaid identified it too. Besides, whether it was Octavia's or not, she obviously wore it when she was stabbed"-poor woman."

"Rose?"

"Ah-there is someone much more likely. She had been wooed by Percival-after a manner of speaking-and then passed over when he grew bored with her. And rightly or not, she imagined he might marry her-and he obviously had no such intention at all. She had a very powerful motive to see him in trouble. I think she might even have the passion and the hatred to want him hanged."

"Enough to lie to bring about the end?" He found it hard to believe such a terrible malice, even from a sexual obsession rejected. Even the stabbing of Octavia had been done in hot blood, at the moment of refusal, not carried out deliberately step by step, over weeks, even months afterwards. It was chilling to think of such a mind in a laundrymaid, a trim, pretty creature one would scarcely look at except with an absent-minded appreciation. And yet she could desire a man, and when rejected, torture him to a judicial death.

Hester saw his doubt.

"Perhaps not with such a terrible end in mind," she conceded. "One lie begets another. She may have intended only to frighten him-as Araminta did with Myles-and then events took over and she could not retreat without endangering herself." She took another sip of chocolate; it was delicious, although she was becoming used to the best of foods. "Or of course, she may have believed him guilty," she added. "Some people do not consider it as in the least to bend the truth a little in order to bring about what they see as justice."

"She lied about Octavia's character?" He took up the thread. "If Lady Moidore is right. But she may also have done that from jealousy. Very well-let us assume Rose lied. What about the butler, Phillips? He bore out what everyone else said about Percival."

"He was probably largely right," she conceded. "Percival was arrogant and ambitious. He clearly blackmailed the other servants over their little secrets-and perhaps the family as well; we shall probably never know that. He is not at all likable-but that is not the issue. If we were to hang everyone in London who is unlikable we could probably get rid of a quarter of the population."

"At least," he agreed. "But Phillips may have embroidered his opinion a trifle out of obligation to his employer. This was obviously the conclusion Sir Basil wished, and he wished it speedily. Phillips is not a foolish man, and he is intensely aware of duty. He wouldn't see it as any form of untruth, simply as loyalty to his superior, a military ideal he admires. And Mrs. Willis testified for us."

"The family?" she prompted.

"Cyprian also testified for us, and so did Septimus. Rom-ola-what is your opinion of her?"

A brief feeling of irritation troubled Hester, and one of guilt. "She enjoys the status of being Sir Basil's daughter-in-law, and of living in Queen Anne Street, but she frequently tries to persuade Cyprian to ask for more money. She is adept at making him feel guilty if she is not happy. She is confused, because he is bored by her and she does not know why. And sometimes I have been so frustrated that he does not tell her to behave like an adult and take responsibility for her own feelings. But I suppose I do not know enough about them to judge."

"But you do," he said without condemnation. He loathed women who put such a burden of emotional blackmail upon their fathers or their husbands, but he had no idea why the thought touched such a raw nerve in him.

"I suppose so," she admitted. "But it hardly matters. I think Romola would testify according to whatever she thought Sir Basil wanted. Sir Basil is the power in that house; he has the purse strings, and they all know it. He does not need to make a demand, it is implicit; all he has to do is allow them to know his wishes."

Monk let out his breath in a sharp sigh. "And he wishes the murder of Octavia to be closed as rapidly and discreetly as possible-of course. Have you seen what the newspapers are saying?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Don't be absurd. Where in heaven's name would I see a newspaper? I am a servant-and a woman. Lady Moidore doesn't see anything but the social pages, and she is not interested in them at the moment."

"Of course-I forgot." He pulled a wry face. He had only remembered that she was a friend of a war correspondent in the Crimea, and when he had died in the hospital in Scutari,

she had sent his last dispatches home and then, born out of the intensity of her feelings and observations, herself written the succeeding dispatches and sent them under his name. Since the casualty lists were unreliable, his editor had not been aware of the change.

"What are they saying?" she asked. "Anything that affects us?"

"Generally? They are bemoaning the state of the nation that a footman can murder his mistress, that servants are so above themselves that they entertain ideas of lust and depravity involving the well-born; that the social order is crumbling; that we must hang Percival and make an example of him, so that no such thing will ever happen again.'' He pulled his face into an expression of disgust. "And of course they are full of sympathy for Sir Basil. All his past services to the Queen and the nation have been religiously rehearsed, all his virtues paraded, and positively fulsome condolences written."

She sighed and stared into the dregs of her cup.

"All the vested interests are ranged against us," he said grimly. "Everyone wants it over quickly, society's vengeance taken as thoroughly as possible, and then the whole matter forgotten so we can pick up our lives and try to continue them as much like before as we can.''

"Is there anything at all we can do?" she asked.

"I can't think of anything.'' He stood up and held her chair. "I shall go and see him."

She met his eyes with a quick pain, and admiration. There was no need either for her to ask or for him to answer. It was a duty, a last rite which failure did not excuse.

***

As soon as Monk stepped inside Newgate Prison and the doors clanged shut behind him he felt a sickening familiarity. It was the smell, the mixture of damp, mold, rank sewage and an all-pervading misery that hung in the stillness of the air. Too many men who entered here left only to go to the executioner's rope, and the terror and despair of their last days had soaked into the walls till he could feel it skin-crawling like ice as he followed the warder along the stone corridors to the appointed place where he could see Percival for the last time.

He had misrepresented himself only slightly. Apparently he had been here before, and as soon as the warder saw his face

he leaped to a false conclusion about his errand, and Monk did not explain.

Percival was standing in a small stone cell with one high window to an overcast sky. He turned as the door opened and Monk was let in, the gaoler with his keys looming huge behind.

For the first moment Percival looked surprised, then his face hardened into anger.

"Come to gloat?" he said bitterly.

"Nothing to gloat about," Monk replied almost casually. "I've lost my career, and you will lose your life. I just haven't worked out who's won."

"Lost your career?" For a moment doubt flickered across Percival's face, then suspicion. "Thought you'd have been made. Gone on to something better! You solved the case to everyone's satisfaction-except mine. No ugly skeletons dragged out, no mention of Myles Kellard raping Martha, poor little bitch, no saying Aunt Fenella is a whore-just a jumped-up footman filled with lust for a drunken widow. Hang him and let's get on with our lives. What more could they ask of a dutiful policeman?"

Monk did not blame him for his rage or his hate. They were justified-only, at least in part, misdirected. It would have been fairer to blame him for incompetence.

"I had the evidence," he said slowly. "But I didn't arrest you. I refused to do it, and they threw me out."

"What?" Percival was confused, disbelieving.

Monk repeated it.

"For God's sake why?" There was no softness in Percival, no relenting. Again Monk did not blame him. He was beyond the last hope now, perhaps there was no room in him for gentleness of any sort. If he once let go of the rage he might crumble and terror would win; the darkness of the night would be unbearable without the burning of hate.

"Because I don't think you killed her," Monk replied.

Percival laughed harshly, his eyes black and accusing. But he said nothing, just stared in helpless and terrible knowledge.

"But even if I were still on the case," Monk went on very quietly, "I don't know what I should do, because I have no idea who did." It was an overwhelming admission of failure,

and he was stunned as he heard himself make it to Percival of all people. But honesty was the very least of all he owed him.

"Very impressive," Percival said sarcastically, but there was a brief flicker of something in his face, rapid as the sunlight let through the trees by a turning leaf, then gone again. "But since you are not there, and everyone else is busy covering their own petty sins, serving their grievances, or else obliged to Sir Basil, we'll never know-will we?"

"Hester Latterly isn't." Instantly Monk regretted he had said it. Percival might take it for hope, which was an illusion and unspeakably cruel now.

"Hester Latterly?" For an instant Percival looked confused, then he remembered her. "Oh-the terribly efficient nurse. Daunting woman, but you're probably right. I expect she is so virtuous it is painful. I doubt she knows how to smile, let alone laugh, and I shouldn't think any man ever looked at her," he said viciously. "She's taken her vengeance on us by spending her time ministering to us when we are at our most vulnerable-and most ridiculous."

Monk felt a deep uprush of rage for the cruel and unthinking prejudice, then he looked at Percival's haggard face and remembered where he was, and why, and the rage vanished like a match flame in a sea of ice. What if Percival did need to hurt someone, however remotely? His was going to be the ultimate pain.

"She came to the house because I sent her," Monk explained. "She is a friend of mine. I hoped that someone inside the household in a position where no one would pay much regard to them might observe things I could not."

Percival's amazement was as profound as anything could be over the surface of the enormous center of him, which knew nothing but the slow, relentless clock ticking away his days to the last walk, the hood, the hangman's rope around his neck, and the sharp drop to tearing, breaking pain and oblivion.

"But she didn't learn anything, did she?" For the first time his voice cracked and he lost control of it.

Monk loathed himself for stupidly giving this knife thrust of hope, which was not hope at all.

"No," he said quickly. "Nothing that helps. All sorts of trivial and ugly little weaknesses and sins-and that Lady Moidore believes the murderer is still in the house, and almost certainly one of her family-but she has no idea who either."

Percival turned away, hiding his face.

"What did you come for?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps simply not to leave you alone, or to think no one believes you. I don't know if it helps, but you have the right to know. I hope it does."

Percival let out an explosion of curses, and swore over and over again until he was exhausted with repeating himself and the sheer, ugly futility of it. When he finished Monk had gone and the cell door was locked again, but through the tears and the bloodless skin, there was a very small light of gratitude, ease from one of the clenched and terrible knots inside him.

***

On the morning Percival was hanged Monk was working on the case of a stolen picture, more probably removed and sold by a member of the family in gambling debt. But at eight o'clock he stopped on the pavement in Cheapside and stood still in the cold wind amid the crowd of costers, street peddlers of bootlaces and matches and other fripperies, clerks on errands, a sweep, black-faced and carrying a ladder, and two women arguing over a length of cloth. The babble and clatter rolled on around him, oblivious of what was happening in Newgate Yard, but he stood motionless with a sense of finality and a wounding loss-not for Percival individually, although he felt the man's terror and rage and the snuffing out of his life. He had not liked him, but he had been acutely aware of his vitality, his intensity of feeling and thought, his identity. But his greatest loss was for justice which had failed. At the moment when the trapdoor opened and the noose jerked tight, another crime was being committed. He had been powerless to prevent it, for all the labor and thought he had put into it, but his was not the only loss, or even necessarily the main one. All London was diminished, perhaps all England, because the law which should protect had instead injured.

***

Hester was standing in the dining room. She had deliberately come to collect an apricot conserve from the table for Beatrice's tray at precisely this time. If she jeopardized her position, even if she lost it and were dismissed, she wanted to see the faces of the Moidores at the moment of hanging, and to be sure each one of them knew precisely what moment this was.

She excused herself past Fenella, uncharacteristically up so early; apparently she intended to ride in the park. Hester spooned a little of the conserve into a small dish.

"Good morning, Mrs. Sandeman," she said levelly. "I hope you have a pleasant ride. It will be very cold in the park this early, even though the sun is up. The frost will not have melted at all. It is three minutes to eight."

"How very precise you are," Fenella said with a touch of sarcasm. "Is that because you are a nurse-everything must be done to the instant, in strict routine? Take your medicine as the clock chimes or it will not do you good. How excruciatingly tedious.'' She laughed very slightly, a mocking, tinkly sound.

"No, Mrs. Sandeman," Hester said very distinctly. "It is because in two minutes now they will hang Percival. I believe they are very precise-I have no idea why. It can hardly matter; it is just a ritual they keep.''

Fenella choked on a mouthful of eggs and went into a spasm of coughing. No one assisted her.

"Oh God!" Septimus stared ahead of him, bleak and unblinking, his thoughts unreadable.

Cyprian shut his eyes as if he would block out the world, and all his powers were concentrated on his inner turmoil.

Araminta was sheet white, her curious lace frozen.

Myles Kellard slopped his tea, which he had just raised to his lips, sending splashes all over the tablecloth, and the stain spread out in a brown, irregular pattern. He looked furious and confused.

"Oh really," Romola exploded, her fece pink. "What a tasteless and insensitive thing to have said. What is the matter with you, Miss Latterly? No one wishes to know that. You had better leave the room, and for goodness' sake don't be so crass as to mention it to Mama-in-law. Really-you are too stupid.''

Basil's face was very pale and there was a nervous twitch in the muscles at the side of his cheek.

"It could not be helped," he said very quietly. "Society must be preserved, and the means are sometimes very harsh. Now I think we may call the matter closed and proceed with our lives as normal. Miss Latterly, you will not speak of it again. Please take the conserve, or whatever it is you came for, and carry Lady Moidore's breakfast to her."

"Yes, Sir Basil," Hester said obediently, but their faces remained in the mirror of her mind, the misery and finality of it like a patina of darkness upon everything.