A Sudden Fearful Death

Synopsis:
Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, is found strangled to death in a London hospital. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime. Gradually, Monk assembles the portrait of a remarkable woman. Yet he also discerns the shadow of a tragic evil and a frightening glimmer of his own eclipsed past...

Chapter 1
When she first came into the room, Monk thought it would simply be another case of domestic petty theft, or investigating the character and prospects of some suitor. Not that he would have refused such a task; he could not afford to. Lady Callandra Daviot, his benefactress, would provide sufficient means to see that he kept his lodgings and ate at least two meals a day, but both honor and pride necessitated that he take every opportunity that offered itself to earn his own way.

This new client was well dressed, her bonnet neat and pretty. Her wide crinoline skirts accentuated her waist and slender shoulders, and made her look fragile and very young, although she was close to thirty. Of course the current fashion tended to do that for all women, but the illusion was powerful, and it still woke in most men a desire to protect and a certain rather satisfying feeling of gallantry.

"Mr. Monk?" she inquired tentatively. "Mr. William Monk?"

He was used to people's nervousness when first approaching him. It was not easy to engage an inquiry agent. Most matters about which one would wish such steps taken were of their very nature essentially private.

Monk rose to his feet and tried to compose his face into an expression of friendliness without overfamiliarity. It was not easy for him; neither his features nor his personality lent itself to it.

"Yes ma'am. Please be seated." He indicated one of the two armchairs, a suggestion to the decor of his rooms made by Hester Latterly, his sometimes friend, sometimes antagonist, and frequent assistant, whether he wished it or not. However, this particular idea, he was obliged to admit, had been a good one.

Still gripping her shawl about her shoulders, the woman sat down on the very edge of the chair, her back ramrod straight, her fair face tense with anxiety. Her narrow, beautiful hazel eyes never left his.

"How may I help you?" He sat on the chair opposite her, leaning back and crossing his legs comfortably. He had been in the police force until a violent difference of opinion had precipitated his departure. Brilliant, acerbic, and at times ruthless, Monk was not used to setting people at their ease or courting their custom. It was an art he was learning with great difficulty, and only necessity had made him seek it at all.

She bit her lip and took a deep breath before plunging in.

"My name is Julia Penrose, or I should say more correctly, Mrs. Audley Penrose. I live with my husband and my younger sister just south of the Euston Road..." She stopped, as if his knowledge of the area might matter and she had to assure herself of it.

"A very pleasant neighborhood." He nodded. It meant she probably had a house of moderate size, a garden of some sort, and kept at least two or three servants. No doubt it was a domestic theft, or a suitor for the sister about whom she entertained doubts.

She looked down at her hands, small and strong in their neat gloves. For several seconds she struggled for words.

His patience broke.

"What is it that concerns you, Mrs. Penrose? Unless you tell me, I cannot help."

"Yes, yes I know that," she said very quietly. "It is not easy for me, Mr. Monk. I realize I am wasting your time, and I apologize..."

"Not at all," he said grudgingly.

She looked up, her face pale but a flash of humor in her eyes. She made a tremendous effort. "My sister has been... molested, Mr. Monk. I wish to know who was responsible."

So it was not a petty matter after all.

"I'm sorry," he said gently, and he meant it. He did not need to ask why she had not called the police. The thought of making such a thing public would crush most people beyond bearing. Society's judgment of a woman who had been sexually assaulted, to whatever degree, was anything from prurient curiosity to the conviction that in some way she must have warranted such a fate. Even the woman herself, regardless of the circumstances, frequently felt that in some unknown way she was to blame, and that such things did not happen to the innocent. Perhaps it was people's way of coping with the horror it engendered, the fear that they might become similar victims. If it were in some way the woman's own fault, then it could be avoided by the just and the careful. The answer was simple.

"I wish you to find out who it was, Mr. Monk," she said again, looking at him earnestly.

"And if I do, Mrs. Penrose?" he asked. "Have you thought what you will do then? I assume from the fact that you have not called the police that you do not wish to prosecute?"

The fair skin of her face became even paler. "No, of course not," she said huskily. "You must be aware of what such a court case would be like. I think it might be even worse than the-the event, terrible as that must have been." She shook her head. "No-absolutely not! Have you any idea how people can be about..."

"Yes," he said quickly. "And also the chances of a conviction are not very good, unless there is considerable injury. Was your sister injured, Mrs. Penrose?"

Her eyes dropped and a faint flush crept up her cheeks.

"No, no, she was not-not in any way that can now be proved." Her voice sank even lower. "If you understand me? I prefer not to... discuss-it would be indelicate..."

"I see." And indeed he did. He was not sure whether he believed the young woman in question had been assaulted, or if she had told her sister that she had in order to explain a lapse in her own standards of morality. But already he felt a definite sympathy with the woman here in front of him. Whatever had happened, she now faced a budding tragedy.

She looked at him with hope and uncertainty. "Can you help us, Mr. Monk? 'Least-at least as long as my money lasts? I have saved a little from my dress allowance, and I can pay you up to twenty pounds in total." She did not wish to insult him, and embarrass herself, and she did not know how to avoid either.

He felt an uncharacteristic lurch of pity. It was not a feeling which came to him easily. He had seen so much suffering, almost all of it more violent and physical than Julia Penrose's, and he had long ago exhausted his emotions and built around himself a shell of anger which preserved his sanity. Anger drove him to action; it could be exorcised and leave him drained at the end of the day, and able to sleep.

"Yes, that will be quite sufficient," he said to her. "I should be able either to discover who it is or tell you that it is not possible. I assume you have asked your sister, and she has been unable to tell you?"

"Yes indeed," she responded. "And naturally she finds it difficult to recall the event-nature assists us in putting from our minds that which is too dreadful to bear."

"I know," he said with a harsh, biting humor she would never comprehend. It was barely a year ago, in the summer of 1856, just at the close of the war in the Crimea, that he had been involved in a coaching accident and woken in the narrow gray cot of a hospital, cold with terror that it might be the workhouse and knowing nothing of himself at all, not even his name. Certainly it was the crack to his head which had brought it on, but as fragments of memory had returned, snatches here and there, there was still a black horror which held most of it from him, a dread of learning the unbearable. Piece by piece he had rediscovered something of himself. Still, most of it was unknown, guessed at, not remembered. Much of it had hurt him. The man who emerged was not easy to like and he still felt a dark fear about things he might yet discover: acts of ruthlessness, ambition, brilliance without mercy. Yes, he knew all about the need to forget what the mind or the heart could not cope with.

She was staring at him, her face creased with puzzlement and growing concern.

He recalled himself hastily. "Yes of course, Mrs. Penrose. It is quite natural that your sister should have blanked from her memory an event so distressing. Did you tell her you intended coming to see me?"

"Oh yes," she said quickly. "It would be quite pointless to attempt to do it behind her back, so to speak. She was not pleased, but she appreciates that it is by far the best way." She leaned a little farther forward. "To be frank, Mr. Monk, I believe she was so relieved I did not call the police that she accepted it without the slightest demur."

It was not entirely flattering, but catering to his self-esteem was something he had not been able to afford for some time.

"Then she will not refuse to see me?" he said aloud.

"Oh no, although I would ask you to be as considerate as possible." She colored faintly, raising her eyes to look at him very directly. There was a curiously firm set to her slender jaw. It was a very feminine face, very slight-boned, but by no means weak. "You see, Mr. Monk, that is the great difference between you and the police. Forgive my discourtesy in saying so, but the police are public servants and the law lays down what they must do about the investigation. You, on the other hand, are paid by me, and I can request you to stop at any time I feel it the best moral decision, or the least likely to cause profound hurt. I hope you are not angry that I should mark that distinction?"

Far from it. Inwardly he was smiling. It was the first time he felt a spark of quite genuine respect for Julia Penrose.

"I take your point very nicely, ma'am," he answered, rising to his feet. "I have a duty both moral and legal to report a crime if I have proof of one, but in the case of rape-I apologize for such an ugly word, but I assume it is rape we are speaking of?"

"Yes," she said almost inaudibly, her discomfort only too apparent.

"For that crime it is necessary for the victim to make a complaint and to testify, so the matter will rest entirely with your sister. Whatever facts I learn will be at her disposal."

"Excellent." She stood up also and the hoops of her huge skirt settled into place, making her once more look fragile. "I assume you will begin immediately?"

"This afternoon if it will be convenient to see your sister then? You did not tell me her name."

"Marianne-Marianne Gillespie. Yes, this afternoon will be convenient."

"You said that you had saved from your dress allowance what seems to be a considerable sum. Did this happen some time ago?"

"Ten days," she replied quickly. "My allowance is paid quarterly. I had been circumspect, as it happens, and most of it was left from the last due date."

"Thank you, but you do not owe me an accounting, Mrs. Penrose. I merely needed to know how recent was the offense."

"Of course I do not. But I wish you to know that I am telling you the absolute truth, Mr. Monk. Otherwise I cannot expect you to help me. I trust you, and I require that you should trust me."

He smiled suddenly, a gesture which lit his face with charm because it was so rare, and so totally genuine. He found himself liking Julia Penrose more than he had anticipated from her rather prim and exceedingly predictable appearance-the huge hooped skirts so awkward to move in and so unfunctional, the neat bonnet which he loathed, the white gloves and demure manner. It had been a hasty judgment, a practice which he despised in others and even more in himself.

"Your address?" he said quickly.

"Number fourteen, Hastings Street," she replied.

"One more question. Since you are making these arrangements yourself, am I to assume that your husband is unaware of them?"

She bit her lip and the color in her cheeks heightened. "You are. I should be obliged if you would be as discreet as possible."

"How shall I account for my presence, if he should ask?"

"Oh." For a moment she was disconcerted. "Will it not be possible to call when he is out? He attends his business every weekday from nine in the morning until, at the earliest, half past four. He is an architect. Sometimes he is out considerably later."

"It will be, I expect, but I would prefer to have a story ready in case we are caught out. We must at least agree on our explanations."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "You make it sound so... deceitful, Mr. Monk. I have no wish to lie to Mr. Penrose. It is simply that the matter is so distressing, it would be so much pleasanter for Marianne if he did not know. She has to continue living in his house, you see?" She stared up at him suddenly with fierce intensity. "She has already suffered the attack. Her only chance of recovering her emotions, her peace of mind, and any happiness at all, will lie in putting it all behind her. How can she do that if every time she sits down at the table she knows that the man opposite her is fully aware of her shame? It would be intolerable for her!"

"But you know, Mrs. Penrose," he pointed out, although even as he said it he knew that was entirely different.

A smile flickered across her mouth. "I am a woman, Mr. Monk. Need I explain to you that that brings us closer in a way you cannot know. Marianne will not mind me. With Audley it would be quite different, for all his gentleness. He is a man, and nothing can alter that."

There was no possible comment to make on such a statement.

"What would you like to tell him to explain my presence?" he asked.

"I-I am not sure." She was momentarily confused, but she gathered her wits rapidly. She looked him up and down: his lean, smooth-boned face with its penetrating eyes and wide mouth, his elegant and expensively dressed figure. He still had the fine clothes he had bought when he was a senior inspector in the Metropolitan Police with no one to support but himself, before his last and most dreadful quarrel with Runcorn.

He waited with a dry amusement.

Evidently she approved what she saw. "You may say we have a mutual friend and you are calling to pay your respects to us," she replied decisively.

"And the friend?" He raised his eyebrows. "We should be agreed upon that."

"My cousin Albert Finnister. He is short and fat and lives in Halifax where he owns a woolen mill. My husband has never met him, nor is ever likely to. That you may not know Yorkshire is beside the point. You may have met him anywhere you choose, except London. Audley would wonder why he had not visited us."

"I have some knowledge of Yorkshire," Monk replied, hiding his smile. "Halifax will do. I shall see you this afternoon, Mrs. Penrose."

"Thank you. Good day, Mr. Monk." And with a slight inflection of her head she waited while he opened the door for her, then took her leave, walking straight-backed, head high, out into Fitzroy Street and north toward the square, and in a hundred yards or so, the Euston Road.

Monk closed the door and went back to his office room. He had lately moved here from his old lodgings around the corner in Grafton Street. He had resented Hester's interference in suggesting the move in her usual high-handed manner, but when she had explained her reasons, he was obliged to agree. In Grafton Street his rooms were up a flight of stairs and to the back. His landlady had been a motherly soul, but not used to the idea of his being in private practice and unwilling to show prospective clients up. Also they were obliged to pass the doors of other residents, and occasionally to meet them on the stairs or the hall or landing. This arrangement was much better. Here a maid answered the door without making her own inquiries as to people's business and simply showed them in to Monk's very agreeable ground-floor sitting room. Grudgingly at first, he conceded it was a marked improvement.

Now to prepare to investigate the rape of Miss Marianne Gillespie, a delicate and challenging matter, far more worthy of his mettle than petty theft or the reputation of an employee or suitor.

* * * * *

It was a beautiful day when he set out: a hot, high summer sun beating on the pavements, making the leafier squares pleasant refuges from the shimmering light hazy with the rising smoke of distant factory chimneys. Carriages clattered along the street past him, harnesses jingling, as people rode out to take the air or to pay early afternoon calls, drivers and footmen in livery, brasses gleaming. The smell of fresh horse droppings was pungent in the warmth and a twelve-year-old crossing sweeper mopped his brow under a floppy cap.

Monk walked to Hastings Street. It was little over a mile and the additional time would give him further opportunity to think. He welcomed the challenge of a more difficult case, one which would test his skills. Since the trial of Alexandra Carlyon he had had nothing but trivial matters, things that as a policeman he would have delegated to the most junior constable.

Of course the Carlyon case had been different. That had tested him to the utmost. He remembered it with a complexity of feelings, at once triumphant and painful. And with thought of it came memory of Hermione, and unconsciously he lengthened his pace on the hot pavement, his body tightened and his mouth clenched shut in a hard line. He had been afraid when her face first came fleetingly into his mind; a shred of the past returned, uncertain, haunting him with echoes of love, tenderness, and terrible anxiety. He knew he had cared for her, but not when or how, if she had loved him, what had happened between them that he had nothing left, no letters, no pictures, no reference to her in his possessions.

But regardless of memory, his skill was always there, dedicated and ruthless. He had found her again. Fragment by fragment he had pieced it together until he stood on the doorstep and at last he knew her, the whole gentle almost childlike face, the brown eyes, the halo of hair. The entire memory flooded back.

He swallowed hard. Why was he deliberately hurting himself? The disillusion burned over him in anger as if it had been only moments ago, the searing knowledge that she preferred the comfortable existence of half love; emotions that did not challenge; commitment of the mind and body, but not of the heart; always a reservation to avoid the possibility of real pain.

Her gentleness was accommodation, not compassion. She had not the courage to do more than sip at life; she would never drain the cup.

He was walking so blindly he bumped into an elderly man in a frock coat and apologized perfunctorily. The man stared after him with irritation, his whiskers bristling. An open landau passed with a group of young women huddled together and giggling as one of them waved to some acquaintance. The ribbons on their bonnets danced in the breeze and their huge skirts made them seem to be sitting on mounds of flowered cushions.

Monk had already resolved to look no further into the emotions of his past. He knew more than he wanted to about Hermione; and he had detected or deduced enough about the man who had been his benefactor and mentor, and who would have introduced him into successful commerce had he not been cheated into ruin himself-a fate from which Monk had tried so hard to rescue him, and failed. It was then, in outrage at the injustice, that he had abandoned commerce and joined the police, to fight against such crime; although as far as he could remember, he had never caught that particular fraud. Please God at least he had tried. He could remember nothing, and he felt sick at the thought of trying, in case his discovery shed even further ugly light on the man he had been.

But he had been brilliant. Nothing cast shadow or doubt on that. Even since the accident he had solved the Grey case, the Moidore case, and then the Carlyon case. Not even his worst enemy-and so far that seemed to be Runcorn, although one never knew who else he might discover-but not even Runcorn had said he lacked courage, honesty, or the will to dedicate himself totally to the pursuit of truth, and labor till he dropped, without counting the cost. Although it seemed he did not count the cost to others either.

At least John Evan liked him, although of course he had known him only since the accident, but he had liked him whatever the circumstances. And he had chosen to continue something of a relationship even after Monk had left the force. It was one of the best things to have happened, and Monk hugged it to himself, a warm and acutely valuable thing, a friendship to be nurtured and guarded from his own hasty temper and biting tongue.

Hester Latterly was a different matter. She had been a nurse in the Crimea and was now home in an England that had no use for highly intelligent, and even more highly opinionated, young women-although she was not so young. She was probably at least thirty, too old to be considered favorably for marriage, and thus destined to either continue working to support herself or be permanently dependent upon the charity of some male relative. Hester would loathe that.

To begin with she had found a position in a hospital here in London, but in a very short time her outspoken counsel to doctors, and finally her total insubordination in treating a patient herself, had earned her dismissal. The fact that she had almost certainly saved the patient's life only added to the offense. Nurses were for cleaning the ward, emptying slops, winding bandages, and generally doing as they were told. The practice of medicine was for doctors alone.

After that she had taken up private nursing. Goodness only knew where she was at this moment. Monk did not.

He was in Hastings Street. Number fourteen was only a few yards away, on the far side. He crossed over, climbed the steps, and rang the doorbell. It was a gracious house, neo-Georgian, and spoke of quiet respectability.

After a moment or two the door was opened by a maid in a blue stuff dress and white cap and apron.

"Yes sir?" she said inquiringly.

"Good afternoon." He held his hat in his hand courteously, but as if fully expecting to be admitted. "My name is William Monk." He produced a card which gave his name and address but not his occupation. "I am an acquaintance of Mr. Albert Finnister of Halifax, whom I believe to be a cousin of Mrs. Penrose and Miss Gillespie. Since I was in the area, I wondered if I might pay my respects?"

"Mr. Finnister, you said, sir?"

"That is correct, of Halifax in Yorkshire."

"If you'd like to wait in the morning room, Mr. Monk, I will see if Mrs. Penrose is at home."

The morning room where he waited was comfortably furnished but with a care which spoke of a well-managed economy. There was no unnecessary expense. Decoration was a home-stitched sampler modestly framed, a print of a romantic landscape, and a rather splendid mirror. The chair backs were protected by well-laundered antimacassars, and the armrests were worn where countless hands had rubbed them. Certainly there was something of a track across the carpet from door to fireplace. A nicely arranged vase of white daisies sat on the low central table, a pleasingly feminine touch. The bookcase had one brass doorknob which was not quite the same as the others. Altogether it was an agreeable, unexceptional room, designed for comfort rather than to impress.

The door opened and the maid informed him that Mrs. Penrose and Miss Gillespie would be delighted to receive him, if he would come to the withdrawing room.

He followed her obediently back across the hall again to another, larger room, but this time there was no opportunity to look about him. Julia Penrose was standing by the window in a rose-colored afternoon dress, and a young woman about eighteen or nineteen, whom he assumed to be Marianne, was sitting on the small sofa. She looked very pale in spite of her darker natural coloring, hair almost black and springing from her brow in a remarkable widow's peak. She also had a small mole high on her left cheekbone in what Monk thought the Regency dandies would have called the "gallant" position. Her eyes were very blue.

Julia came forward, smiling. "How do you do, Mr. Monk. How charming of you to call upon us," she said for the maid's benefit. "May we offer you some refreshment? Janet, please bring us some tea and cakes. You will have cakes, Mr. Monk?"

He accepted politely, but as soon as the maid was gone the charade fell away. Julia introduced him to Marianne and invited him to begin his task. She stood behind her sister's chair with her hand on the younger woman's shoulder as if she would give her of her own strength and resolve.

Monk had dealt with a case of assault upon a woman only once before. Rape was very seldom reported because of the shame and the scandal attached. He had given a great deal of thought how to begin, but still he was uncertain.

"Please tell me what you remember, Miss Gillespie," he said quietly. He was not sure whether to smile or not. She might take it as a lightness on his part, as if he had no sympathy with her. And yet if he did not, he knew his features were of a naturally grim cast.

She swallowed and cleared her throat, then cleared it again. Julia's hand tightened on her shoulder.

"I really don't remember very much, Mr. Monk," she apologized. "It was very-unpleasant. At first I tried to forget it. Maybe you cannot understand that, and I daresay I am to blame-but I did not realize..." She stopped.

"It is quite natural," he assured her with more sincerity than she could know. "We all try to forget what hurts us. It is sometimes the only way we can continue."

Her eyes widened in sudden surprise and a faint flush touched her cheeks.

"How sensitive of you." There was profound gratitude in her face, but no easing of the tension which gripped her.

"What can you tell me about it, Miss Gillespie?" he asked again.

Julia made as if to speak, then with an effort changed her mind. Monk realized she was some ten or twelve years older than her sister and felt a fierce sense of protection toward her.

Marianne looked down at her small square hands clenched in the lap of her enormous skirt.

"I don't know who it was," she said very quietly.

"We know that, dear," Julia said quickly, leaning forward a little. "That is what Mr. Monk is here to find out. Just tell him what you know-what you told me."

"He won't be able to find out," Marianne protested. "How could he, when I don't know myself? Anyway, you cannot undo it, even if you did know. What good will it do?" Her face was set in utter determination. "I'm not going to accuse anyone."

"Of course not!" Julia agreed. "That would be terrible for you. Quite unthinkable. But there are other ways. I shall see that he never comes near you again, or any other decent young woman. Please just answer Mr. Monk's questions, dear. It is an offense which cannot be allowed to happen. It would be quite wrong of us to continue as if it did not matter."

"Where were you when it happened, Miss Gillespie?" Monk interrupted. He did not want to be drawn into the argument as to what action could be taken if they discovered the man. That was for them. They knew the consequences far better than he.

"In the summerhouse," Marianne replied.

Instinctively Monk glanced toward the windows, but he could see only sunlight through the cascading leaves of a weeping elm and the lush pink of a rose beyond.

"Here?" he asked. "In your own garden?"

"Yes. I go there quite often-to paint."

"Often? So anyone familiar with your day might have expected to find you there?"

She colored painfully. "I-suppose so. But I am sure that can having nothing to do with it."

He did not reply to that. "What time of day was it?" he asked instead.

"I am not certain. About half past three, I think. Or perhaps a little later. Maybe four." She shrugged very slightly. "Or even half past. I was not thinking of time."

"Before or after tea?"

"Oh-yes-I see. After tea. I suppose it must have been half past four then."

"Do you have a gardener?"

"It wasn't he!" she said, jerking forward in some alarm.

"Of course not," he soothed. "Or you would have known him. I was wondering if he had seen anyone. If he had been in the garden it might help to determine where the man came from, which direction, and perhaps how he left, even the precise time."

"Oh yes-I see."

"We do have a gardener," Julia said with keenness quickening in her face and some admiration for Monk lighting her eyes. "His name is Rodwell. He is here three days a week, in the afternoons. That was one of his days. Tomorrow he will be back again. You could ask him then."

"I shall do," Monk promised, turning back to Marianne. "Miss Gillespie, is there anything at all about the man you can recall? For example," he continued quickly, seeing her about to deny it, "how was he dressed?"

"I-I don't know what you mean." Her hands knotted more tightly in her lap, and she stared at him with mounting nervousness.

"Was he dressed in a dark jacket such as a man of business might wear?" he explained. "Or a working smock, like a gardener? Or a white shirt, like a man of leisure?"

"Oh." She seemed relieved. "Yes. I see. I think I recall something-something pale." She nodded, becoming more assured. "Yes, a pale jacket, such as gentlemen sometimes wear in the summer."

"Was he bearded, or clean shaven?"

She hesitated only a moment. "Clean shaven."

"Can you remember anything else about his appearance? Was he dark or fair, large or small?"

"I-I don't know. I-" She took a sharp breath. "I suppose I must have had my eyes closed. It was..."

"Hush, dear," Julia said quickly, tightening her hand on Marianne's shoulder again. "Really, Mr. Monk, she cannot tell you anything more of him. It is a most terrible experience. I am only glad it has not turned her mind. Such things have been known to."

Monk retreated, uncertain just how far he ought to press. It was a terror and revulsion he could only imagine. Nothing could show to him her experience.

"Are you sure you wish to pursue it?" he asked as gently as he could, looking not at Julia but at Marianne.

However, as before, it was Julia who answered.

"We must." There was resolute decision in her voice. "Quite apart from justice, she must be protected from ever encountering this man again. You must persevere, Mr. Monk. What else is there that we can tell you that may be of use?"

"Perhaps you would show me the summerhouse?" he asked, rising to his feet.

"Of course," Julia agreed immediately. "You must see it, or how else can you judge for yourself?" She looked at Marianne. "Do you wish to come, dear, or would you rather not?" She turned back to Monk. "She has not been there since it happened."

Monk was about to say that he would be present to protect her from any danger, then realized just in time that being alone with a man she had newly met might in itself be enough to alarm her. He felt he was foundering. It was going to be even harder than he had anticipated.

But Marianne surprised him.

"No-that is quite all right, Julia," she said firmly. "I will take Mr. Monk and show him. Perhaps tea will come while we are out, and we shall be able to return to it." And without waiting for Julia's reply, she led the way out into the hall and to the side door into the garden.

After a glance at Julia, Monk followed her and found himself outside in a small but extremely pleasant paved yard under the shade of a laburnum tree and a birch of some sort. Ahead of them stretched a long, narrow lawn and he could see a wooden summerhouse about fifteen yards away.

He, walked behind Marianne over the grass under the trees and into the sun. The summerhouse was a small building with glassed windows and a seat inside. There was no easel there now, but plenty of room where one might have stood.

Marianne turned around on the step.

"It was here," she said simply.

He regarded his surroundings with care, absorbing the details. There was at least a twenty-foot distance of grass in every direction, to the herbaceous border and the garden walls on three sides, to the arbor and the house on the fourth. She must have been concentrating very profoundly on her painting not to have noticed the man approach, and the gardener must have been at the front of the house or in the small kitchen herb garden at the side.

"Did you cry out?" he asked, turning to her.

Her face tightened. "I-I don't think so. I don't remember." She shuddered violently and stared at him in silence. "I-I might have. It is all..." She stared at him in silence again.

"Never mind," he dismissed it. There was no use in making her so distressed that she could recall nothing clearly. "Where did you first see him?"

"I don't understand."

"Did you see him coming toward you across the grass?" he asked.

She looked at him in total confusion.

"Have you forgotten?" He made an effort to be gentle with her.

"Yes." She seized on it. "Yes-I'm sorry..."

He waved his hand, closing the matter. Then he left the summerhouse and walked over the grass toward the border and the old stone wall which marked the boundary between this and the next garden. It was about four feet high and covered in places by dark green moss. He could see no mark on it, no scuff or scratch where anyone had climbed over. Nor were there any broken plants in the border, although there were places where one might have trodden on the earth and avoided them. There was no point in looking for footprints now; the crime had been ten days ago, and it had rained several times since then, apart from whatever repairs the gardener might have made with a rake.

He heard the faint brush of her skirts over the grass and turned to find her standing just behind him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her face puckered with anxiety.

"Looking to see if there are any traces of someone having climbed in over the wall," he replied.

"Oh." She drew in her breath as if about to continue speaking, then changed her mind.

He wondered what she had been about to say, and what thought had prevented her. It was an ugly feeling, and yet he could not help wondering if she had, after all, known her attacker-or even whether it had truly been an attack and not a seduction. He could well understand how a young woman who had lost her most precious commodity, her virtue in the eyes of others, and who thus was ruined for the marriage market, might well claim an attack rather than a yielding on her own part, whatever the temptation. Not that being the victim of rape would be any more acceptable. Perhaps it was only to her own family that it might make any difference. They would do all they could to see that the rest of the world never knew.

He walked over to the wall at the end of the garden where it abutted the opposite property. Here the stones were crumbling in one or two places, and an agile man might have climbed over without leaving a noticeable trace. She was still with him and she read his thoughts, her eyes wide and dark, but she said nothing. Silently he looked at the third wall separating them from the garden to the west.

"He must have come over the end wall," she said very quietly, looking down at the grass. "No one could have come through the herb garden to the side because Rodwell must have been there. And the door from the yard on the other side is locked." She was referring to the paved area to the east side where the rubbish was kept and where the coal chute to the cellar and the servants' entrance to the scullery and kitchen were located.

"Did he hurt you, Miss Gillespie?" He asked it as respectfully as he could, but even so it sounded intrusive and disbelieving.

She avoided his eyes, a dark rush of blood staining her cheeks.

"It was most painful," she said very quietly. "Most painful indeed." There was undisguised surprise in her voice, as if the fact amazed her.

He swallowed. "I mean did he injure you, your arms or your upper body? Did he restrain you violently?"

"Oh-yes. I have bruises on my wrists and arms, but they are growing paler now." Carefully she pushed up her long sleeves to show him ugly yellow-gray bruising on the fair skin of her wrists and forearms. This time she looked up at him.

"I'm sorry." It was an expression of sympathy for her hurt, not an apology.

She flashed him a sudden smile; he saw a glimpse of the person she had been before this event had robbed her of her confidence, pleasure, and peace of mind. Suddenly he felt a furious anger toward whoever had done this to her, whether it had been seduction to begin with, or always a violation.

"Thank you," she said, then straightened her shoulders. "Is there anything else you would care to see out here?"

"No, thank you."

"What will you do next?" she asked curiously.

"About this? Speak to your gardener, and then your neighbors' servants, to see if they saw anything unusual, anyone in the area not known to them."

"Oh. I see." She turned away again. The scent of flowers was heavy around them, and somewhere close he could hear bees.

"But first I shall take my leave of your sister," he said.

She took a step toward him.

"About Julia-Mr. Monk..."

"Yes?"

"You must forgive her being a little... overprotective of me." She smiled fleetingly. "You see, our mother died a few days after I was born, when Julia was eleven." She shook her head a little. "She might have hated me for it: it was my birth which caused Mama's death. Instead she looked after me right from that moment. She has always been there to give me all the tenderness and the patience when I was small, and later to play with me when I was a child. Then as I grew older she taught me and shared in all my experiences. No one could have been sweeter or more generous." She looked at him very candidly, an urgency in her face that he should do more than believe, that he should understand.

"Sometimes I fear she gave me the devotion she might have given to a child of her own, had she one." Now there was guilt in her. "I hope I have not been too demanding, taken from her too much time and emotion."

"You are quite able to care for yourself, and must have been for some time," he replied reasonably. "Surely she would not still devote so much to you unless she wished to."

"I suppose not," she agreed, still looking at him earnestly. The slight breeze stirred the muslin of her skirt. "But I shall never be able to repay her for all she has done for me. You must know that, Mr. Monk, so you will understand a little better, and not judge her."

"I do not judge, Miss Gillespie," he lied. He was very prone to judge, and frequently harshly. However in this particular case he saw no fault in Julia Penrose's care for her sister, and perhaps that redeemed the untruth.

As they reached the side door to the house, they were met by a man in his mid-thirties. He was slender, of average height, with a face whose features and coloring were ordinary enough, but their expression gave him an air of crumpled vulnerability overlying a volatile temper and a huge capacity to be hurt.

Marianne moved a little closer to Monk and he could feel the warmth of her body as her skirts brushed around his ankles.

"Good afternoon, Audley," she said with a slight huskiness in her voice, as though speaking had come unexpectedly. "You are home early. Have you had an agreeable day?"

His eyes moved from her to Monk, and back again.

"Quite commonplace, thank you. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

"Oh-this is Mr. Monk," she explained easily. "He is a friend of cousin Albert's, from Halifax, you know."

"Good afternoon, sir." Audley Penrose's manner was polite, but without pleasure. "How is cousin Albert?"

"He was in good spirits the last time I saw him," Monk replied without a flicker. "But that was some little time ago. I was passing in this area, and since he spoke so kindly of you, I took the liberty of calling."

"No doubt my wife has offered you tea? I saw it set out in the withdrawing room."

"Thank you." Monk accepted because it would have called for considerable explanation to leave without it now, and half an hour or so in their company might give him a better feel for the family and its relationships.

However, when he did leave some forty-five minutes later he had neither altered nor added to his original impression, nor his misgivings.

* * * * *

"What troubles you?" Callandra Daviot asked over supper in her cool green dining room. She sat back in her chair regarding Monk curiously. She was middle-aged, and not even her dearest friend would have called her beautiful. Her face was full of character; her nose was too long, her hair obviously beyond the ability of her maid to dress satisfactorily, let alone fashionably, but her eyes were wide, clear, and of remarkable intelligence. Her gown was a most pleasing shade of dark green, though of a cut neither one thing nor another, as though an unskilled dressmaker had tried to update it Monk regarded her with total affection. She was candid, courageous, inquisitive, and opinionated in the best possible way. Her sense of humor never failed her. She was everything he liked in a friend, and she was also generous enough to have engaged him as a business partner, sustaining him during those times when his cases were too few or too paltry to provide an adequate income. In return she required to know all he was able to tell her of each affair in which he involved himself. Which was what he was doing this evening in the dining room, over an excellent supper of cold pickled eel and fresh summer vegetables. He knew, because she had told him, that there was plum pie and cream to follow, and a fine Stilton cheese.

"It is totally unprovable," he answered her question. "There is nothing whatever except Marianne's word for it that the whole event ever took place at all, let alone that it took place as she described it."

"Do you doubt her?" she said curiously, but there was no offense in her voice.

He hesitated several moments, unsure, now that she asked, whether he did or not. She did not interrupt his silence, nor draw the obvious conclusion, but went on eating her fish.

"Some of what she says is the truth," he said finally. "But I think she is also concealing something of importance."

"That she was willing?" She looked up at him, watching his face.

"No-no I don't think so."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"And what do they intend to do if you should discover who it is?" she asked with raised eyebrows. "After all, who could it be? Total strangers do not vault over suburban garden walls in the hope of finding some maiden alone in the summerhouse whom they can ravish, sufficiently quietly not to rouse the gardener or servants, and then leap back again and disappear."

"You make it sound absurd," he said dryly, taking a little more of the eel. It really was excellent.

"Life is often absurd," she replied, passing him the sauce. "But this is also unlikely, don't you agree?"

"Yes I do." He spooned sauce onto his plate liberally. "What is most unlikely is that it is really someone who was a complete stranger to her. If it was someone she knew, who came through the house, and therefore was aware that there was no one within earshot, and that his mere presence would not alarm her, as a stranger would, then it becomes much less unlikely."

"What concerns me far more," Callandra went on thoughtfully, "is what they intend to do when you tell them who it is-if you do."

It was something which had troubled him also.

Callandra grunted. "Sounds like a private revenge. I think perhaps you should consider very carefully what you tell them. And William..."

"Yes?"

"You had better be absolutely sure you are right!"

Monk sighed. It was getting uglier and more complicated with each new thought that came to him.

"What impression did you form of the sister and her husband?" Callandra pursued.

"Of them?" He was surprised. "Very sympathetic to her. I can't believe she has anything to fear from them, even if she did not resist as thoroughly as she might."

Callandra said nothing. They finished their course in companionable silence and the plum pie was brought in and served. It was so delicious that they both ate without speaking for several minutes, then finally Callandra set her spoon down.

"Have you seen Hester lately?"

"No."

She smiled with some inner amusement. He felt annoyed and then unaccountably foolish.

"I have not seen her," he went on. "The last time we parted it was with less than amiability. She is the most opinionated and abrasive woman I have ever met, and dogmatic to the degree that she does not listen to anyone else. And she is absurdly complacent about it, which makes it insufferable."

"Qualities you do not like?" she asked innocently.

"Good God no!" he exploded. "Does anyone?"

"You find firmly held opinions and spirited defense of them displeasing?"

"Yes!" he said vehemently, setting down his spoon momentarily. "It is unbecoming, irritating in manner, and makes all intelligent and open conversation impossible. Not that most men would be seeking an intelligent conversation with a woman of her age," he added.

"Especially when her views are mistaken," she said with her eyes bright.

"That adds to it, of course," he conceded, quite sure now that she was laughing.

"You know she said something very similar about you when she was here about three weeks ago. She is nursing an elderly lady with a broken leg, but at that point the woman was almost recovered, and I don't think she has a further position offered her yet."

"Perhaps if she were to guard her tongue a little and make herself more obliging-and modest?" he suggested.

"I am sure you are right," Callandra agreed. "With your own experience of the value of such qualities, perhaps you might give her some excellent advice." She made the suggestion with a face almost wiped of humor.

He looked at her more closely. There was the slightest curl of a smile on her mouth and her eyes avoided his.

"After all," she continued, keeping a sober expression with an effort, "intelligent conversation with the open-minded is so agreeable, don't you think?"

"You are twisting my words," he said between his teeth.

"No I am not," she denied, looking up at him with quite open affection and amusement. "You mean that when Hester has an opinion and will not move from it, it is dogmatic and unbecoming and it annoys you incredibly. When you have one it is courageous and committed, and the only path for anyone with integrity. That is what you said, one way or another, and I am quite sure it is what you mean.".

"You think I am wrong." He leaned forward on the table.

"Oh frequently. But I should never dare to say so. Would you care for more cream with your pie? I suppose you have not heard from Oliver Rathbone lately either?"

He helped himself to the cream.

"I looked into a minor case for him ten days ago." Rathbone was the highly successful barrister with whom Monk had worked on all his outstanding cases since the accident. He admired Rathbone's professional ability profoundly and found the man himself both attractive and irritating. There was a suaveness and a self-confidence in him which caught a nerve in Monk's nature. They were too alike in some aspects, and too unalike in others. "He seemed in excellent health," he finished with a tight smile, meeting Callandra's eyes. "And how are you? We have spoken of everything else..."

She looked down at her plate for a moment, then up again at him.

"I am very well, thank you. Do I not look it?"

"Indeed, you look exceptionally well," he replied truthfully, although he had actually just noticed it for the first time. "You have found an interest?"

"How perceptive of you."

"I am a detective."

She looked at him very steadily and for that moment there was honest and equal friendship between them, without barrier of words.

"What is it?" he said quietly.

"I am on the Board of Governors in the Royal Free Hospital."

"I am delighted." He knew her late husband had been an army surgeon. It was a position which would suit her experience and her natural abilities and inclinations admirably. He was genuinely pleased for her. "How long?"

"Only a month, but already I feel I have been of some service." Her face was quickened with excitement and her eyes brilliant. "There is so much to be done." She leaned forward across the table. "I know a little about the new methods, Miss Nightingale's beliefs about air and cleanliness. It will take time, but we can accomplish what will seem like miracles if we work hard enough." Unconsciously she was beating her forefinger on the tablecloth. "There are so many progressive doctors, as well as the die-hards. And the difference it makes to have anesthetic! You have no idea how things have changed in the last ten or twelve years."

She pushed the sugar scuttle away, her eyes intent upon his. "Do you know they can make a person completely senseless, oblivious of pain, and then recover him without harm!" Again her finger beat on the cloth. "That means all manner of surgery can be performed. There is no longer any need to tie a person down and hope to complete everything in a matter of two minutes or so. Now speed is not the primary consideration: one may take time-and care. I never imagined I would see such things-it is absolutely marvelous."

Her face darkened and she leaned back again. "Of course, the trouble is we still lose at least half the patients to infection afterwards. That is where we must improve things." Again she leaned forward. "But I am sure it can be done-there are brilliant and dedicated men here. I really feel I may make some difference." Suddenly the earnestness vanished and she smiled with total candor. "Finish your pie and have some more."

He laughed, happy for her enthusiasm, even though he knew so much of it would end in defeat. Still, any victory was precious. "Thank you," he accepted. "It is really exceedingly good."