Defend and Betray

chapter 4
At mid-morning on May 11, Hester received an urgent invitation from Edith to call upon her at Carlyon House. It was hand-written and delivered by a messenger, a small boy with a cap pulled over his ears and a broken front tooth. It requested Hester to come at her earliest convenience, and that she would be most welcome to stay for luncheon if she wished.

"By all means," Major Tiplady said graciously. He was feeling better with every day, and was now quite well enough to be ferociously bored with his immobility, to have read all he wished of both daily newspapers and books from his own collection and those he requested from the libraries of friends. He enjoyed Hester's conversation, but he longed for some new event or circumstance to intrude into his rife.

"Go and see the Carlyons," he urged. "Learn something of what is progressing in that wretched case. Poor woman! Although I don't know why I should say that." His white eyebrows rose, making him look both belligerent and bemused. "I suppose some part of me refuses to believe she should kill her husband - especially in such a way. Not a woman's method. Women use something subtler, like poison - don't you think?" He looked at Hester's faintly surprised expression and did not wait for an answer. "Anyway, why should she kill him at all?" He frowned. "What could he have done to her to cause her to resort to such a - a - fatal and inexcusable violence?"

"I don't know," Hester admitted, putting aside the mending she had been doing. "And rather more to the point, why does she not tell us? Why does she persist in this lie about jealousy? I fear it may be because she is afraid it is her daughter who is guilty, and she would rather hang than see her child perish."

"You must do something," Tiplady said with intense feeling. "You cannot allow her to sacrifice herself. At least. . ." He hesitated, pity twisting his emotions so plainly his face reflected every thought that passed through his mind: the doubt, the sudden understanding and the confusion again. "Oh, my dear Miss Latterly, what a terrible dilemma. Do we have the right to take from this poor creature her sacrifice for her child? If we prove her innocent, and her daughter guilty, surely that is the last thing she would wish? Do we then not rob her of the only precious thing she has left?"

"I don't know," Hester answered very quietly, folding the linen and putting the needle and thimble back in their case. "But what if it was not either of them? What if she is confessing to protect Sabella, because she fears she is guilty, but in fact she is not? What hideous irony if we know, only when it is too late, that it was someone else altogether?"

He shut his eyes. "How perfectly appalling. Surely this friend of yours, Mr. Monk, can prevent such a thing? You say he is very clever, most particularly in this field."

A flood of memory and sadness washed over her. "Cleverness is not always enough ..."

"Then you had better go and see what you can learn for yourself," he said decisively. "Find out what you can about this wretched General Carlyon. Someone must have hated him very dearly indeed. Go to luncheon with his family. Watch and listen, ask questions, do whatever it is detectives do. Goon!"

"I suppose you don't know anything about him?" she asked without hope, looking around the room a last time before going to her own quarters to prepare herself. Everything he might need seemed to be available for him, the maid would serve his meal, and she should be back by mid-afternoon herself.

"Well, as I said before, I know him by repute," Tiplady replied somberly. "One cannot serve as long as I have and not know at least the names of all the generals of any note -  and those of none."

She smiled wryly. "And which was he?" Her own opinion of generals was not high.

"Ah . . ."He breathed out, looking at her with a twisted smile. "I don't know for myself, but he had a name as a soldier's soldier, a good-enough leader, inspiring, personally heroic, but outside uniform not a colorful man, tactically neither a hero nor a disaster."

"He did not fight in the Crimea, then?" she said too quickly for thought or consideration to guard her tongue. "They were all one or the other - mostly the other."

A smile puckered his lips against his will. He knew the army's weaknesses, but they were a closed subject, like family faults, not to be exposed or even admitted to outsiders -  least of all women.

"No," he said guardedly. "As I understand it he served most of his active time in India - and then spent a lot of years here at home, in high command, training younger officers and the like."

"What was his personal reputation? What did people think of him?" She straightened -his blanket yet again, quite unnecessarily but from habit.

"I've no idea." He seemed surprised to be asked. "Never heard anything at all. I told you - he was not personally a colorful man. For heaven's sake, do go and see Mrs. Sobell. You have to discover the truth in the matter and save poor Mrs. Carlyon - or the daughter."

"Yes, Major. I am about to go." And without adding anything further except a farewell, she left him alone to think and imagine until she should return.

* * * * *

Edith met her with a quick, anxious interest, rising from the chair where she had been sitting awkwardly, one leg folded under her. She looked tired and too pale for her dark mourning dress to flatter her. Her long fair hair was already pulled untidy, as if she had been running her hand over her head and had caught the strands of it absentmindedly.

"Ah, Hester. I am so glad you could come. The major did not mind? How good of him. Have you learned anything? What has Mr. Rathbone discovered? Oh, please, do come and sit down - here." She indicated the place opposite where she had been, and resumed her own seat.

Hester obeyed, not bothering to arrange her skirts.

"I am afraid very little so far," she answered, responding to the last question, knowing it was the only one which mattered. "And of course there will be limits to what he could tell me anyway, since I have no standing in the case."

Edith looked momentarily confused, then quite suddenly she understood.

"Oh yes - of course." Her face was bleak, as if the different nature of things lent a grimmer reality to it. "But he is working on it?"

"Of course. Mr. Monk is investigating. I expect he will come here in due course."

"They won't tell him anything." Edith's brows rose in surprise.

Hester smiled. "Not intentionally, I know. But he is already engaged with the possibility that it was not Alexandra who killed the general, and certainly not for the reason she said. Edith . . ."

Edith stared at her, waiting, her eyes intent.

"Edith, it may be that it was Sabella after all - but is that going to be an answer that Alexandra will want? Should we be doing her any service to prove it? She has chosen to give her life to save Sabella - if indeed Sabella is guilty." She leaned forward earnestly."But what if it was neither of them? If Alexandra simply thinks it is Sabella and she is confessing to protect her . . ."

"Yes," Edith said eageiiy. "That would be marvelous! Hester, do you think it could be true?"

"Perhaps - but then who? Louisa? Maxim Furnival?"

"Ah." The light died out of Edith's eyes. "Honestly, I wish it could be Louisa, but I doubt it. Why should she?"

"Might she really have been having an affair with the general, and he threw her over - told her it was all finished? You said she was not a woman to take rejection lightly."

Edith's face reflected a curious mixture of emotions: amusement in her eyes, sadness in her mouth, even a shadow of guilt.

"You never knew Thaddeus, or you wouldn't seriously think of such a thing. He was ..." She hesitated, her mind reaching for ideas and framing them into words. "He was . . . remote. Whatever passion there was in him was private, and chilly, not something to be shared. I never saw him deeply moved by anything."

A quick smile touched her mouth, imagination, pity and regret in it. "Except stories of heroism, loyalty and sacrifice. I remember him reading 'Sohrab and Rustum' when it was first published four years ago." She glanced at Hester and saw her incomprehension. "It's a tragic poem by Arnold." The smile returned, bleak and sad."It's a complicated story; the point is they are father and son, both great military heroes, and they kill each other without knowing who they are, because they have wound up on opposite sides in a war. It's very moving."

"And Thaddeus liked it?"

"And the stories of the great heroes of the past - ours and other people's. The Spartans combing their hair before Thermopylae - they all died, you know, three hundred of them, but they saved Greece. And Horatius on the bridge ..."

"Iknow," Hester said quickly. "Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' I begin to understand. There were the passions he could identify with: honor, duty, courage, loyalty - not bad things. I'm sorry ..."

Edith gave her a look of sudden warmth. It was the first time they had spoken of Thaddeus as a person they could care about rather than merely as the center of a tragedy. "But I think he was a man of thought rather than feeling," she went on, returning to the business of it. "Usually he was very controlled, very civilized. I suppose in some ways he was not unlike Mama. He had an absolute commitment to what is right, and I never knew him to step outside it - in his speech or his acts."

She screwed up her face and shook her head a little. "If he had some secret passion for Louisa he hid it completely, and honestly I cannot imagine him so involved in it as to indulge himself in what he would consider a betrayal, not so much of Alexandra as of himself. You .see, to him adultery would be wrong, against the sanctity of home and the values by which he lived. None of his heroes would do such a thing. It would be unimaginable."

She lifted her shoulders high in an exaggerated shrug. "But suppose if he had, and then grown tired of her, or had an attack of conscience. I really believe that Louisa - whom I don't much care for, but I must be honest, I think is quite clever enough to have seen it coming long before he said anything - would have preempted him by leaving him herself. She would choose to be the one to end it; she would never allow him to."

"But if she loved him?" Hester pressed. "And some women do love the unattainable with a passion they never achieve for what is in their reach. Might she not be reluctant to believe he would never respond - and care so much she would rather kill him than ..."

Edith laughed jerkily. "Oh Hester. Don't be absurd! What a romantic you are. You live in a world of grand passions, undying love and devotion, and burning jealousy. Neither of them were remotely like that. Thaddeus was heroic, but he was also pompous, stuffy, very rigid in his views, and cold to talk to. One cannot always be reading epic poetry, you know. Most of the time he was a guarded, ungiving man. And Louisa is passionate only about herself. She likes to be loved, admired, envied - especially envied - and to be comfortable, to be the center of everyone's attention. She would never put involvement with anyone else before her own self-image. Added to that, she dresses gorgeously, parades around and flirts with her eyes, but Maxim is very proper about morality, you know? And he has the money. If Louisa went too far he wouldn't stand for it." She bit her soft lower lip. "He loved Alex very much, you know, but he denied himself anything with her. He wouldn't let Louisa play fast and loose now."

Hester watched Edith's face carefully; she did not wish to hurt, but the thoughts were high in her mind. "But Thaddeus had money surely? If Louisa married him, she wouldn't need Maxim's money?"

Edith laughed outright."Don't be absurd! She'd be ruined if Maxim divorced her - and Thaddeus certainly wouldn't get involved in anything like that. The scandal would ruin him too."

"Yes, I suppose it would," Hester agreed sensibly. She sat silently for several minutes, thoughts churning around in her head.

"I hate even to think of this at all," Hester said with a shudder of memory. "But what if it were someone else altogether? Not any one of the guests, but one of the servants? Did he go to the Furnivals' house often?"

"Yes, I believe so, but why on earth should a servant want to kill him? That's too unlikely. I know you want to find something - but..."

"I don't know. Something in the past? He was a general -  he must have made both friends and enemies. Perhaps the motive for his death lies in his career, and is nothing to do with his personal life."

Edith's face lit up. "Oh Hester. That's brilliant of you! You mean some incident on the battlefield, or in the barracks, that has at long last been revenged? We must find out all we can about the Furnivals' servants. You must tell him - Monk, did you say? Yes, Mr. Monk. You must tell him what we have thought of, and set him about it immediately!"

Hester smiled at the thought of so instructing Monk, but she acquiesced, and before Edith could continue with her ideas, the maid came to announce that luncheon was served and they were expected at table.

Apparently Edith had already informed the family that Hester was expected. No remarks were passed on her presence, except a cool acknowledgment of her arrival and an invitation to be seated at the specified place, and a rather perfunctory wish that she should enjoy her meal.

She thanked Felicia and took her seat otherwise in silence.

"I imagine you have seen the newspapers?" Randolph said, glancing around the table. He looked even wearier today than the last time Hester had seen him, but certainly had Monk asked her now if she thought him senile, she would have denied it without doubt. There was an angry intelligence in his eyes, and any querulousness around his mouth or droop to his features was set there by character as much as the mere passage of time.

"Naturally I have seen the headlines," Felicia said sharply. "I do not care for the rest. There is nothing we can do about it, but we do not have to discuss this with one another. It is like all evil speaking and distasteful speculation: one sets one's mind against it and refuses to be distressed. Would you be so good as to pass me the condiments, Peverell?"

Peverell did as he was bidden, and smiled from the corner of his vision at Hester. There was the same gentleness in his eyes, a mild awareness of humor, as she had observed before. He was an ordinary man - and yet far from ordinary. She could not imagine that Damaris had entertained romantic notions about Maxim Furnival; she was not foolish enough to destroy what she had for a cheap moment of entertainment. For all her flamboyance, she was not a stupid or shallow woman.

"I have not seen the newspapers," Edith said suddenly, looking at her mother.

"Of course you haven't." Felicia stared at her with wide eyes. "Nor shall you."

"What are they saying of Alexandra?" Edith persisted, apparently deaf to the warning note in Felicia's voice.

"Precisely what you would expect," Felicia answered. "Ignore it."

"You say that as if we could." Damaris's tone was sharp, almost an accusation. "Don't think about it, and it is of no importance. Just like that - it is dealt with."

"You have a great deal yet to learn, my dear," Felicia said with chill, looking at her daughter in something close to exasperation. "Where is Cassian? He is late. A certain amount of latitude may be allowed, but one must exercise discipline as well." She reached out her hand and rang the little silver bell.

Almost immediately a footman appeared.

"Go and fetch Master Cassian, James. Tell him he is required at luncheon."

"Yes ma'am." And obediently he left.

Randolph grunted, but spoke no words, and addressed himself again to his food.

"I imagine the newspapers write well of General Carlyon." Hester heard her own voice loud in the silence, sounding clumsy and terribly contrived. But how else was she to serve any purpose here? She could not hope any of them would say or do something in which she could find meaning, simply eating their luncheon. "He had a brilliant career," she went on. "They are bound to have written of it."

Randolph looked at her, his heavy face puckered.

"He did," he agreed. "He was an outstanding man, an ornament to his generation and his family. Although what you can possibly know about it, Miss latterly, I fail to see. I daresay your remark is well meant, and intended as a kindness, and for your civility, I thank you." He looked anything but grateful.

Hester felt as if she had trespassed by praising him, as though they felt he was their particular property and only they might speak of him.

"I have spent a considerable time in the army myself, Colonel Carlyon," she said in defense.

"Army!" he snorted with quite open contempt. "Nonsense, young woman! You were a nurse, a skivvy to tend to the slops for the surgeons. Hardly the same thing!"

Her temper frayed raw, and she forgot Monk, Rathbone and Alexandra Carlyon.

"I don't know how you know anything about it," she said, mimicking his tone savagely and precisely. "You were not there. Or you would be aware that army nursing has changed a great deal. I have watched battles and walked the field afterwards. I have helped surgeons in field hospitals, and I daresay I have known asrmany soldiers in the space of a few years as you have."

His face was turning a rich plum color and his eyes were bulging.

"And I did not hear General Carlyon's name mentioned by anyone," she added coldly. "But I now work nursing a Major Tiplady, and he knew of General Carlyon, because he had also served in India, and he spoke of him in some detail. I did not speak without some knowledge. Was I misinformed?"

Randolph was torn between the desire to be thoroughly rude to her and the need to defend his son, his family pride, and to be at least reasonably civil to a guest, even one he had not invited. Family pride won.

"Of course not," he said grudgingly. "Thaddeus was exceptional. A man not only of military brilliance, but a man without a stain of dishonor on his name."

Felicia kept her eyes on her plate, her jaw tight. Hester wondered what inner grief tore at her at the loss of her only son, grief she would keep hidden with that same rigid discipline which had no doubt sustained her all her life, through the loneliness of long separations, perhaps service abroad in unfamiliar places, harsh climate, fear of injury and disease; and now scandal and devastating loss. On the courage and duty of such women had the soldiers of the Empire leaned.

The door opened and a small boy with fair hair and a thin, pale face came into the room; his first glance was to Randolph, then to Felicia.

"I'm sorry, Grandmama," he said very quietly.

"You are excused," Felicia replied formally. "Do not make a habit of it, Cassian. It is impolite to be late to meals. Please take your place, and James will bring your luncheon."

"Yes, Grandmama." He skirted wide around his grandfather's chair, around Peverell without looking at him, then sat in the empty seat next to Damaris.

Hester resumed eating her meal, but discreetly she looked at him as he kept his eyes down on his plate and without relish began his main course. Since he was too late for soup he was not to be spoiled by being permitted to catch up. He was a handsome child, with honey fair hair and fair skin with a dusting of freckles lending tone to his pallor. His brow was broad, his nose short and already beginning to show an aquiline curve. His mouth was wide and generous, still soft with childhood, but there was a suikiness to it, an air of secrecy. Even when he looked up at Edith as she spoke to him, and to request the water or the condiments, there was something in his aspect that struck Hester as closed, more careful than she would have expected a child to be.

Then she remembered the appalling events of the last month, which must have scarred his senses with a pain too overwhelming to take in. In one evening his father was dead and his mother distraught and filled with her own terrors and griefs, and within a fortnight she was arrested and forcibly taken from him. Did he even know why yet? Had anyone told him the full extent of the tragedy? Or did he believe it was an accident, and his mother might yet be returned to him?

Looking at his careful, wary face it was impossible to know, but he did not look terrified and there were no glances of appeal at anyone, even though he was with his family, and presumably knew all of them moderately well.

Had anyone taken him in their arms and let him weep? Had anyone explained to him what was happening? "Or was he wandering in a silent confusion, full of imaginings and fears? Did they expect him to shoulder his grief like a full-grown man, be stoic and continue his new and utterly changed life as if it needed no answers and no time for emotion? Was his adult air merely an attempt to be what they expected of him?

Or had they not even thought about it at all? Were food and clothes, warmth and a room-of his own, considered to be all a boy his age required?

The conversation continued desultorily and Hester learned nothing from it. They spoke of trivialities of one sort or another, acquaintances Hester did not know, society in general, government, the current events and public opinion of the scandals and tragedies of the day.

The last course had been cleared away and Felicia was taking a mint from the silver tray when Damaris at last re.-turned to the original subject.

"I passed a newsboy this morning, shouting about Alex," she said unhappily. "He was saying some awful things. Why are people so - so vicious? They don't even know yet if she did anything or not!"

"Shouldn't have been listening," Randolph muttered grimly. "Your mother's told you that before."

"I didn't know you were going out." Felicia looked across the table at her irritably. "Where did you go?"

"To the dressmakers'," Damaris replied with a flicker of annoyance. "I have to have another black dress. I'msureyou wouldn't wish me to mourn in purple."

"Purple is half mourning."- Felicia's large, deep-set eyes rested on her daughter with disfavor. "Your brother is only just buried. You will maintain black as long as it is decent to do so. I know the funeral is over, but if I find you outside the house in lavender or purple before Michaelmas, I shall be most displeased."

The thought of black all summer was plain in Damaris's face, but she said nothing.

"Anyway, you did not need to go out," Felicia went on. "You should have sent for the dressmaker to come to you." A host of thoughts was plain in Damaris's face, most especially the desire to escape the house and its environs.

"What did they say?" Edith asked curiously, referring to the newspapers again.

"They seemed to have judged already that she was guilty," Damaris replied. "But it isn't that, it was the - the vicious-ness of it."

"What do you expect?" Felicia frowned. "She has confessed to the world that she has done something quite beyond understanding. It defies the order of everyone's lives, like madness. Of course people wilLbe . . . angry. I think vicious is the wrong word to choose. You don't seem to understand the enormity of it." She pushed her salmon mousse to the side of her plate and abandoned it. "Can you imagine what would happen to the country if every woman whose husband flirted with someone else were to murder him? Really, Damaris, sometimes I wonder where your wits are. Society would disintegrate. There would be no safety, no decency or certainty in anything. Life would fall to pieces and we would be in the jungle."

She signaled peremptorily for the footman to remove the plate. "Heaven knows, 'Alexandra had nothing untoward to have to endure, but if she had then she should have done so, like thousands of other women before her, and no doubt after. No relationships are without their difficulties and sacrifices."

It was something of an exaggeration, and Hester looked around at their faces to see if anyone was going to reason with her. But Edith kept her eyes on her plate; Randolph nodded as if he agreed totally; and Damaris glanced up, her eyes on Hester, but she said nothing either. Cassian looked very grave, but no one seemed to bother that the allusions to his parents were made in front of him, and he showed no emotions at all.

It was Peverell who spoke.

"Fear, my dear," he said, looking at Edith with a sad smile. "People are frequently at their ugliest when they are afraid. Violence from garroters we expect, from the working classes among themselves, even now and then from gentlemen - a matter of insult and honor over a woman, or - in very bad taste, but it happens - over money."

The footman removed all the fish plates and served the meat course.

"But when women start using violence," Peverell went on, "to dictate how men shall behave in the matter of morals or their appetites, then that threatens not only their freedom but the sanctity of their homes. And it strikes real terror into people, because it is the basic safety at the core of things, the refuge that all like to imagine we can retreat to from whatever forays into conflict we may make in the course of the day or the week."

"I don't know why you use the word imagine." Felicia fixed him with a stony stare. "The home is the center of peace, morality, unquestioning loyalty, which is the refuge and the strength to all who must labor, or battle in an increasingly changing world." She waved away the meat course, and the footman withdrew to serve Hester. "Without it what would there be worth living for?" she demanded. "If the center and the heart give way, then everything else is lost. Can you wonder that people are frightened, and appalled,' when a woman who has everything given her turns 'round and kills the very man who protected and provided for her? Of course they react displeased. One cannot expect anything else. You must ignore it. If you had sent for the dressmaker, as you should have, then you would not have witnessed it."

Nothing further was said in the matter, and half an hour later when the meal was finished, Edith and Hester excused themselves. Shortly after that, Hester took her leave, having told Edith all she knew of progress so far, and promising to continue with every bit of the very small ability she possessed, and trying to assure her, in spite of her own misgivings, that there was indeed some hope.

* * * * *

Major Tiplady was staring towards the window waiting for her when she returned home, and immediately enquired to know the outcome of her visit.

"I don't know that it is anything really useful," she answered, taking off her cloak and bonnet and laying them on the chair for Molly to hang up. "But I learned quite a lot more about the general. I am not sure that I should have liked him, but at least I can feel some pity that he is dead."

"That is not very productive," Tiplady said critically. He regarded her narrowly, sitting very upright. "Could this Louisa woman have killed him?"

Hester came over and sat on the chair beside him.

"It looks very doubtful," she confessed. "He seems a man far more capable of friendship than romances; and Louisa apparently had too much to lose, both in reputation and finance, to have risked more than a flirtation." She felt suddenly depressed. "In fact it does seem as if Alexandra was the one - or else poor Sabella - if she really is deranged."

"Oh dear." Tiplady looked crushed. "Then where do we go from here?"

"Perhaps it was one of the servants," she said with sudden hope again.

"One of the servants?" he said incredulously. "Whatever for?"

"I don't know. Some old military matter?"

He looked doubtful.

"Well, I shall pursue it!" she said firmly. "Now, have you had tea yet? What about supper? What would you care for for supper?"

* * * * *

Two days later she took an afternoon off, at Major Tiplady's insistence, and went to visit Lady Callandra Daviot in order to enlist her help in learning more of General Carlyon 's military career. Callandra had helped her with both counsel and friendship when she first returned from the Crimea, and it was with her good offices that she had obtained her hospital post. It was extremely gracious of Callandra not to have been a good deal harsher in her comments when Hester had then lost it through overstepping the bounds of her authority.

Callandra's late husband, Colonel Daviot, had been an army surgeon of some distinction; a quick-tempered, charming, stubborn, witty and somewhat arbitrary man. He had had a vast acquaintance and might well have known something of General Carlyon. Callandra, still with connections to the Army Medical Corps, might be able either to recall hearing of the general, or to institute discreet enquiries and learn something of his career and, more importantly, of his reputation. She might be able to find information about the unofficial events which just might lead to another motive for murder, either someone seeking revenge for a wrong, a betrayal on the field, or a promotion obtained unfairly - or imagined to be so, or even some scandal exposed or too harshly pursued. The possibilities were considerable.

They were sitting in Callandra's room, which could hardly be called a withdrawing room, since she would have received no formal visitors there. It was full of bright sunlight, desperately unfashionable, cluttered with books and papers, cushions thrown about for comfort, two discarded shawls and a sleeping cat which should have been white but was liberally dusted with soot.

Callandra herself, well into middle age, gray hair flying all over the place as if she were struggling against a high wind, her curious intelligent face long-nosed, full of humor, and quite out of fashion also, was sitting in the sunlight, which if it were habit might account for her indelicate complexion. She regarded Hester with amusement.

"My dear girl, do you not imagine Monk has already told me of the case? That was our bargain, if you recall. And quite naturally I have made considerable efforts to learn what I can of General Carlyon. And of his father. One may learn much of a man by knowing something of his parents - or of a woman, of course." She scowled ferociously."Really, that cat is quite perverse. God intended him to be white, so what does he do but climb up chimneys! It quite sets,my teeth on edge when I think that sooner or later he will lick all that out of his coat. I feel as if my own mouth were full of soot. But I can hardly bathe him, although I have thought of it - and told him so."

"I should think a great deal of it will come off on your furniture," Hester said without disquiet. She was used to Callandra, and she had quite an affection for the animal anyway.

"Probably," Callandra agreed. "He is a refugee from the kitchen at the moment, and I must give the poor beast asylum."

"Why? I thought his job was in the kitchen, to keep the mice down."

"It is - but he is overfond of eggs."

"Can the cook not spare him an egg now and again?"

"Of course. But when she doesn't he is apt to help himself. He has just looped his paw 'round half a dozen this morning and sent them all to the floor, where quite naturally they broke, and he was able to eat his fill. We shall not now be having souffle for dinner." She rearranged herself rather more comfortably and the cat moved itself gently in its sleep and began to purr. "I presume you wish to know what I have heard about General Carlyon?" Callandra asked.

"Ofcourse."

"It is not very interesting. Indeed he was a remarkably uninteresting man, correct to a degree which amounts to complete boredom - for me. His father purchased his commission in the Guards. He was able and obeyed the letter of the law, very popular with his fellows, most of them, and in due course obtained promotion, no doubt a great deal to do with family influence and a certain natural ability with a weapon. He knew how to command his men's absolute loyalty - and that counts for a lot. He was an excellent horseman, which also helped."

"And his private reputation?" Hester said hopefully.

Callandra looked apologetic. "A complete blank," she confessed. "He married Alexandra FitzWilliam after a brief courtship. It was most suitable and both families were happy with the arrangement, which since they were the ones who were largely responsible for it, is not surprising. They had one daughter, Sabella, and many years later, their only son, Cassian. The general was posted to the Indian army, and remained abroad for many years, mostly in Bengal, and I have spoken to a friend of mine who served there also, but he had never heard anything the least bit disreputable about Carlyon, either his military duties or his personal life. His men respected him, indeed some intensely so.

"I did hear one small story which seems to indicate the character of the man. One young lieutenant, only been in India a few weeks, made an awful mess of a patrol, got himself lost and half of his men wounded. Carlyon, a major at the time, rode out with a couple of volunteers to look for this young fellow, at considerable risk to himself, found him, looked after the wounded and fought off an attack of some sort. He got nearly all of them safely back to the post. Tore the young fellow to shreds himself, but lied like a trooper to save him from coming up on a charge for total incompetence. Which all seems very unselfish, until you realize how it enhances his own reputation, and how his men admired him for it. He seems to have counted the hero worship of his men more than his own preferment, although that came too."

"Very human," Hester said thoughtfully. "Not entirely admirable, but not hard to understand."

"Not at all admirable," Callandra said grimly. "Not in a military leader. A general should be above all trusted; that is a far calmer emotion than hero worship, and far more to be relied on when the going is really hard."

"I suppose so - yes, of course." Hester reasserted her common sense. It was the same with any great leader. Florence Nightingale was not an especially lovable woman, being far too autocratic, insensitive to the vanities and foibles of others, intolerant of weakness and yet highly eccentric herself. But she was a leader even those who most loathed her would still follow, and the men she served regarded her as a saint - but then perhaps most saints were not easy peo-pie.

"I asked with some hope if he had gambled excessively," Callandra continued. "Been too rigid with discipline, espoused any barbaric sects of belief, earned any personal enemies, or had friendships that might lay him open to question - if you see what I mean?" She looked at Hester dubiously.

"Yes, I see what you mean," Hester acknowledged with a wry smile. It was not a thought which had occurred to her, but it was a good one. What if the general's lover was not a woman, but a man? But it seemed that was not to be fruitful either. "What a pity - that would be a powerful motive."

"Indeed." Callandra's face tightened. "But I could find no evidence whatsoever. And the person to whom I spoke was one who would not have minced words and pretended he would not have heard of such things. I am afraid, my dear, that General Carlyon was of totally traditional behavior in every way - and not a man who seems to have given anyone cause to hate him or to fear him."

Hester sighed. "Nor his father?"

"Much the same - very much the same, simply less successful. He served in the Peninsular War under the Duke of Wellington, and saw Waterloo - which one would think might make him interesting, but apparently it did not. The only difference between father and son seems to be that the colonel had his son first and his two daughters afterwards, whereas the general did it the other way 'round. And he reached a higher rank, no doubt because he had a father of influence to aid him. I'm sorry my enquiries have turned up so very little. It is most disappointing."

And on that note, their conversation became more general, and they spent a most agreeable afternoon together until Hester rose to lake her leave and return to Major Tiplady and her duties.

* * * * *

At the same time as Hester was dining with the Carlyon family, Monk was paying his first visit to Dr. Charles Hargrave, both as someone unrelated to the Carlyon family who had attended the party that evening and as the medical officer who had first seen the body of the general.

He had made an appointment in order not to find the doctor out on a call when he came, and therefore he approached with confidence, even at the unsuitable hour of half past eight in the evening. He was admitted by the maid and shown immediately to a pleasant and conventional study where he was received by Hargrave, an unusually tall man, lean and elegant of build, broad shouldered, and yet not athletic in manner. His coloring was nondescript fair, his eyes a little hooded and greenish blue in shade, his nose long and pointed, but not quite straight, as if at some time it had been broken and ill set. His mouth was small, his teeth when he smiled very regular. It was a highly individual face, and he seemed a man very much at his ease.

"Good evening, Mr. Monk. I doubt I can be of any assistance, but of course I shall do everything I can, although I have already spoken to the police - naturally."

"Thank you, sir," Monk accepted. "That is most generous of you."

"Not at all. A wretched business." Hargrave waved towards one of the large leather-covered chairs beside the fireplace, and as Monk sat in one, he sat in the other."What can I tell you? I assume you already know the course of events that evening."

"I have several accounts, none seriously at variance with another," Monk replied. "But there remain some unanswered questions. For example, do you know what so distressed Mrs.'Erskine?"

Hargrave smiled suddenly, a charming and candid gesture. "No idea at all. Quarrel with Louisa, I should think, but I haven't the faintest notion about what. Although it did seem to me she was quite uncharacteristically beastly to poor Maxim. Sorry not to be more helpful. And before you ask, neither do I know why Thaddeus and Alexandra quarreled."

"Could that also have been about Mrs. Furnival?" Monk asked.

Hargrave considered for a moment or two before replying, placing his fingers together in a steeple and looking at Monk over the point of them.

"I thought at first that it was unlikely, but on consideration perhaps it is not. Rivalry is a strange thing. People may fight passionately over something, not so much because they desire it for itself but because they wish to win the struggle, and be seen to win it - or at least not to lose." He regarded Monk closely, searching his face, his expression grave. "What I was going to say is that although Alexandra was not deeply in love with the general, it may be that her pride was very precious to her, and to have her friends and family see him giving his attention to someone else may have been more than she was prepared to endure." He saw Monk's doubt, or imagined it. "I realize murder is a very extreme reaction to mat." He frowned, biting his lips. "And solves nothing at all. But then it is absurd to imagine it would solve anything else either - but the general was undoubtedly murdered."

"Was he?" Monk did not ask the question with skepticism so much as enquiry for clarification. "You examined the body; you did not perceive it as murder immediately, did you?"

Hargrave smiled wryly. "No," he admitted. "I would not have said anything that evening, whatever I had thought. I confess, I was considerably shaken when Maxim came back and said Thaddeus had had an accident, and then of course when I saw him I knew immediately that he was dead. It was a very nasty wound. My first thoughts, after it was obvious I could do nothing for him, were to break it as gently as possible to his family, many of whom were present, especially his wife. Of course I had no idea then that she was involved in it, and already knew better than any of us what had happened."

"What had happened, Dr. Hargrave, in your medical opinion?"

Hargrave pursed his lips.

"Exactly," Monk added.

"Perhaps I had better describe the scene as I found it." Hargrave crossed his legs and stared at the low fire in the hearth, lit against the evening chill. "The general was lying sprawled on the floor below the curve of the banister," he began. "The suit of armor was on the floor beside him. As I remember, it had come to pieces, presumably from the impact of his body on it. It can have been held together only by rather perished leather straps, and a certain amount of sheer balance and weight of itself. One gauntlet was under his body, the other close to his head. The helmet had rolled away about eighteen inches."

"Was the general on his back or his face?" Monk asked.

"His back," Hargrave said immediately. "The halberd was sticking out of his chest. I assumed he had gone over sideways, overbalanced and then twisted in the air in his effort to save himself, so that the point of the halberd had gone through his chest. Then when he hit the armor, it had deflected him and he had landed on his back. Awkward, I can see that now, but I wasn't thinking of murder at the time - only of what I could do to help."

"And you saw immediately that he was dead?"

A bleak, rueful expression crossed Hargrave's face. "The first thing I did was to bend and reach for a pulse. Automatic, I assume. Pretty futile, in the circumstances. When I found none, I looked more closely at the wound. The halberd was still in it." He did not shiver, but the muscles of his body tightened and he seemed to draw into himself. "When I saw how far it had penetrated, I knew he could not possibly live more than a few moments with such an injury. It had sunk more than eight inches into his body. In fact when we moved him later we could see the mark where the point had scarred the floor underneath. She must have ..." His voice caught. He took a breath. "Death must have been more or less instantaneous."

He swallowed and looked at Monk apologetically. "I've seen a lot of corpses, but mostly from age and disease. I haven't had to deal with violent death very often."

"Of course not," Monk acknowledged with a softer tone. "Did you move him?"

"No. No, it was obvious it was going to require the police. Even an accident of that violence would have to be reported and investigated."

"So you went back into the room and informed them he was dead? Can you recall their individual reactions?"

"Yes!" Hargrave looked surprised, his eyes widening.

"They were shocked, naturally. As far as I can remember, Maxim and Peverell were the most stunned - and my wife. Damaris Ersldne had been preoccupied with her own emotions most of the evening, and I think it was some time before she really took in what I said. Sabella was not there. She had gone upstairs - I think honestly to avoid being in the room with her father, whom she loathed - "

"Do you know why?" Monk interrupted.

"Oh yes." Hargrave smiled tolerantly. "Since she was about twelve or thirteen she had had some idea of becoming a nun - sort of romantic idea some girls get." He shrugged, a shadow of humor across his face. "Mostofthem grow out of it - she didn't. Naturally her father wouldn't hear of such a thing. He insisted she marry and settle down, like any other young woman. And Fenton Pole is a nice enough man, well-bred, well-mannered, with more than sufficient means to keep her in comfort."

He leaned forward and poked the fire, steadying one of the logs with the poker. "To begin with it looked as if she had accepted things. Then she had a very difficult confinement and afterwards seemed not to regain her balance-mentally, that is. Physically she is perfectly well, and the child too. It can happen. Most unfortunate. Poor Alexandra had a very difficult time with her - not to mention Fenton."

"How did she take her father's death?"

"I'm afraid I really don't know. I was too preoccupied with Alexandra, and with sending for the police. You'll have to ask Maxim or Louisa."

"You were occupied with Mrs. Carlyon? Did she take the news very hard?"

Hargrave's eyes were wide and there was a grim humor there. "You mean was she surprised? It is impossible to tell. She sat frozen as if she could hardly comprehend what was happening. It might have been that she already knew - or equally easily it might have been shock. And even if she knew, or suspected murder, it may have been fear that it was Sabella who had done it. I have thought it was many times since then, and I have no more certainty now than I did at the time."

"And Mrs. Furnival?"

Hargrave leaned back and crossed his legs.

"There I am on much surer ground. I am almost positive that she was taken totally by surprise. The evening had been very tense and not at all pleasant due to Alexandra's very evident quarrel with her husband, Sabella's continued rage with him, which she made almost no effort to conceal, in spite of the obvious embarrassment it caused everybody, and Damaris Erskine's quite unexplainable almost hysteria, and her rudeness to Maxim. She seemed to be so consumed with her own emotions she was hardly aware of what was going on with the rest of us."

He shook his head. "Peverell was naturally concerned with her, and embarrassed. Fenton Pole was annoyed with Sabella because she had made something of a habit of this recently. Indeed the poor man had every cause to find the situation almost intolerable.

"Louisa was, I confess, taking up the general's attention in a manner many wives would have found difficult to accommodate - but then women have their own resources with which to deal with these things. And Alexandra was neither a plain woman nor a stupid one. In the past Maxim Furnival paid more than a little attention to her - quite as much as the general was giving Louisa that evening - and I have a suspicion it was rooted in a far less superficial feeling. But that is only a notion; I know nothing."

Monk smiled, acknowledging the confidence.

"Dr. Hargrave, what is your opinion of the mental state of Sabella Pole? In your judgment, is it possible that she killed her father and that Alexandra has confessed to protect her?"

Hargrave leaned back very slowly, pursing his lips, his eyes on Monk's face.

"Yes, I think it is possible, but you will need a great deal more than a possibility before the police will take any notice of it. And I certainly cannot say she definitely did anything, or that her behavior betrays more than an emotional imbalance, which is quite well known in women who have recently given birth. Such melancholia sometimes takes the form of violence, but towards the child, not towards their own fathers."

"And you also were the medical consultant to Mrs. Carlyon?"

"Yes, for what that is worth, which I fear is nothing in this instance." Again he shook his head. "I can offer no evidence of her sanity or the unlikelihood that she committed this crime. I really am sorry, Mr. Monk, but I believe you are fighting a lost cause."

"Can you think of any other reason whatever why she should have killed her husband?"

"No." Hargrave was totally serious. "And I have tried. So far as I am aware, he was never violent to her or overtly cruel in any way. I appreciate that you are seeking any mitigating circumstances - but I am truly sorry, I know of none. The general was a normal, healthy man, and as sane as any man alive. A trifle pompous, perhaps, and outside military matters, a bore - but that is not a capital sin."

Monk did not know what he had been hoping for; still he felt a deep sense of disappointment. The possibilities were narrowing, the chances to discover something of meaning were fading one by one, and each was so inconclusive.

"Thank you, Dr. Hargrave." Monk rose to his feet. "You have been very patient."

"Not at all." Hargrave stood up and moved towards the door. "I'm only sorry I could be of no assistance. What will you do now?"

"Retrace my steps," Monk said wearily. "Go back over police records of the investigation, recheck the evidence, times, places, answers to questions."

"I am afraid you are in for a disappointing time," Hargrave said ruefully. "I have very little idea why she should suddenly leave all sanity and self-interest, but I fear you will find in the end that Alexandra Carlyon killed her husband."

"Possibly," Monk conceded, opening the door. "But I have not given up yet!"

* * * * *

Monk had not so far been to the police about the case, and he would not go to Runcorn. The relationship between them had always been difficult, strained by Monk's ambition forever treading on Runcorn's heels, hungry for his rank, and making no secret that he believed he could do the job better. And Runcorn, afraid in his heart that that was true, had feared him, and out of fear had come resentment, bitterness, and then hatred.

Finally Monk had resigned in rage, refusing to obey an order he considered profoundly incompetent and morally mistaken. Runcom had been delighted, free at last of his most dangerous subordinate. The fact that Monk had proved to be correct, as had happened so often before, had robbed him of victory, but not of the exquisite release from Monk's footsteps at his back and his shadow forever darkening his prospects.

John Evan was a totally different matter. He had not known Monk before the accident and had been assigned to work as his sergeant on his return from convalescence, when he began the Grey case. He had found a man discovering himself through evidence, the views and emotions of others, records of past cases, and not at all certain that he liked what he saw. Evan had learned Monk's vulnerability, and eventually guessed how little he knew of himself, and that he fought to keep his job because to lose it would be to lose not just his means of livelihood but the only certainty he possessed. Even at the very worst times, when Monk had doubted himself, not merely his competence but even his honor and his morality, Evan had never once betrayed him, to Runcorn or to anyone else. Evan and Hester Latterly had saved him when he himself had given it up as impossible.

John Evan was an unusual policeman, the son of a country parson, not quite a gentleman but certainly not a laborer or an artisan. Consequently Evan had an ease of manner that Monk admired and that irritated Runcorn, since both of them in their very different ways had aspirations to social advancement.

Monk did not wish to return to the police station to see Evan. It held too many memories of his own prowess and authority, and his final leaving, when juniors of all sorts had gathered, spellbound and awestruck, ears to the keyhole, to hear that last blazing quarrel, and then had scattered like rabbits when Monk threw open the door and strode out, leaving Runcorn scarlet-faced but victorious.

Instead he chose to seek him in the public house where Evan most frequently took his luncheon, if time and opportunity afforded. It was a small place, crowded with the good-natured chatter of street sellers, newsmen, petty clerks and the entrepreneurs on the edge of the underworld. The smells of ale and cider, sawdust, hot food and jostling bodies were pervasive and not unpleasant. Monk took a position where he could see the door, and nursed a pint of cider until Evan came in. Then he forced his way to the counter and pushed till he was beside him.

Evan swung around with surprise, and pleasure lit his face immediately. He was a lean young man with a long, aquiline nose, hazel eyes and an expression of gentle, lugubrious humor. Now he was quite openly delighted.

"Mr. Monk!" He had never lost the sense that Monk was his superior and must be treated with a certain dignity."How are you? Are you looking forme?" There was a definite note of hope in his voice.

"I am," Monk confessed, more pleased at Evan's eagerness than he would willingly have expected, or conceded.

Evan ordered a pint of cider and a thick mutton-and-pickle sandwich, made with two crusty slices, and another pint for Monk, then made his way over to a corner where they could be relatively private.

"Yes?" he said as soon as they were seated. "Have you a case?"

Monk half hid his smile. "I'm not sure. But you have."

Evan's eyebrows shot up. "I have?"

"General Carlyon."

Evan's disappointment was apparent. "Oh - not much of a case there, I'm afraid. Poor woman did it. Jealousy is a cruel thing. Ruined a good many lives." His face puckered. "But how are you involved in it? " He took a large bite from his sandwich.

"Rathbone is defending her," Monk answered."He hired me to try and find out if there are any mitigating circumstances - and even if it is possible that it was not she who killed him but someone else."

"She confessed," Evan said, holding his sandwich in both hands to keep the pickle from sliding out.

"Could be to protect the daughter," Monk suggested. "Wouldn't be the first time a person confessed in order to take the blame for someone they loved very deeply."

"No." Evan spoke with his mouth full, but even so his doubt was obyious. He swallowed and took a sip of his cider, his eyes still on Monk. "But it doesn't look like it in this case. We found no one who saw the daughter come downstairs."

"But could she have?"

"Can't prove that she didn't - just no cause to think she did. Anyway, why should she kill her father? It couldn't possibly gain her anything, as far as she was concerned; the harm was already done. She is married and had a child - she couldn't go back to being a nun now. If she'd killed him, then . . ."

"She'd have very little chance indeed of becoming a nun," Monk said dryly. "Not at all a good start to a life of holy contemplation."

"It was your idea, not mine." Evan defended himself, but mere was an answering flick of humor in his eyes. "And as for anyone else - who? I can't see Mrs. Carlyon confessing to save Louisa Furnival from the gallows, can you?"

"Not intentionally, no, only unintentionally, if she thought it was Sabella." Monk took a long pull from his cider.

Evan frowned. "We thought it was Sabella to begin with," he conceded. "Mrs. Carlyon only confessed when it must have seemed to her we were going to arrest Sabella."

"Or Maxim Furnival," Monk went on. "Perhaps he was jealous. It looks as if he had more cause. It was Louisa who was doing the flirting, setting the pace. General Carlyon was merely responding."

Evan continued with his sandwich, and spoke with his mouth full again. "Mrs. Furnival is the sort of woman who always flirts. It's her manner with most men. She even flirted with me, in a sort of way." He blushed very slightly, not at the memory -  he was a most personable young man, and he had been flirted with before - but at reciting it to Monk. It sounded so unbecomingly immodest. "This can't have been the first time she made a public spectacle of exercising her powers. Why, if he put up with it all these years - the son is thirteen so they have been married fourteen years at least, and actually I gather quite a lot longer - why would Maxim Furnival suddenly lose his head so completely as to murder the general? From what I gather of him, General Carlyon was hardly a romantic threat to him. He was a highly respectable, rather pompous soldier well past his prime, stiff, not much sense of humor and not especially handsome. He had money, but so has Furnival."

Monk said nothing, and began to wish he had ordered a sandwich as well.

"Sorry," Evan said sincerely. "I really don't think there is anything you can do for Mrs. Carlyon. Society will not see any excuses for murdering a husband out of jealousy because he flirted. In feet, even if he had a full-blown affair and flaunted it publicly, she would still be expected to turn the other way, affect not to have seen anything amiss, and behave with dignity." He looked apologetic and his eyes were full of regret. "As long as she was provided for financially, and had the protection of his name, she would be considered to have a quite satisfactory portion in life, and must do her duty to keep the sanctity and stability of the home - whether he wished to return to it or not."

Monk knew he was right, and whatever his private thoughts of the morality of it, that was how she would be judged. And of course any jury would be entirely composed of men, and men of property at that. They would identify with the general. After all, what would happen to them if women were given the idea that if their husbands flirted they could get away with killing them? She would find very short shrift there.

"I can tell you the evidence as we found it if you like, but it won't do any good," Evan said ruefully. "There's nothing interesting in it; in fact nothing you couldn't have deduced for yourself."

"Tell me anyway," Monk said without hope.

Evan obliged, and as he had said, there was nothing of any use at all, nothing that offered even a thread to follow.

Monk went back to the bar and ordered a sandwich and two more pints of cider, then after a few more minutes of conversation about other things, bade Evan farewell and left the public house. He went out into the busy street with a sense of the warmth of friendship which was still a flavor to be relished with a lingering surprise, but even less hope for Alexandra Carlyon than before.

* * * * *

Monk would not go back to Rathbone and admit defeat. It was not proved. Really he had no more than Rathbone had told him in the beginning. A crime had three principal elements, and he cited them in his mind as he walked along the street between costermongers' barrows, young children of no more than six or seven years selling ribbons and matches. Sad-faced women held bags of old clothes; indigent and disabled men offered toys, small handmade articles, some carved of bone or wood, bottles of this and that, patent medicines. He passed by news vendors, singing patterers and every other inhabitant of the London streets. And he knew beneath them in the sewers there would be others hunting and scavenging a living, and along the river shore seeking the refuse and the lost treasures of the wealthier denizens of the great city.

Motive had foiled him. Alexandra had a motive, even if it was a self-defeating and short-sighted one. She had not looked like a woman torn by a murderously jealous rage. But that might be because it had been satisfied by his death, and now she could see the folly, and the price of it.

Sabella had motive, but it was equally self-defeating, and she had not confessed. Indeed she seemed genuinely concerned for her mother. Could it be she had committed the crime, in a fit of madness, and did not even remember it? From her husband's anxiety, it seemed not impossible he thought so.

Maxim Furnival? Not out of jealousy over Louisa, unless the affair were a great deal deeper than anyone had so far discovered. Or was Louisa so in love with the general she would have caused a public scandal and left her husband for him? On the evidence so far that was absurd.

Louisa herself? Because the general had flirted with her and then rejected her? There was no evidence whatsoever to suggest he had rejected her at all. On the contrary, there was every indication he was still quite definitely interested -  although to what degree it was impossible to say.

Means. They all had the means. All it required was a simple push when the general was standing at the turn of the stairs with his back to the banister, as he might if he had stopped to speak to someone. He would naturally face them. And the halberd was there for anyone to use. It did not require strength or skill. Any person of adult height could have used his or her body's weight to force that blade through a man's chest, although it might take an overtowering passion to sink it to the floor.

Opportunity. That was his only course left. If the events of the dinner party had been retold accurately (and to imagine them all lying was too remote and forced an idea to entertain), then there were four people who could have done it, the four he had already considered: Alexandra, Sabella, Louisa and Maxim.

Who else was in the house and not at the party? All the servants - and young Valentine Furnival. But Valentine was little more than a child, and by all accounts very fond of the general. That left the servants. He must make one last effort to account for their whereabouts that evening. If nothing else, it might establish beyond question whether Sabella Pole could have come downstairs and killed her father.

He took a hansom - after all, Rathbone was paying for it -  and presented himself at the Furnivals' front door. Although he wanted to speak to the servants, he must obtain permission first.

Maxim, home early, was startled to see him, and even more to hear his request, but with a smile that conveyed both surprise and pity he granted it without argument. Apparently Louisa was out taking tea with someone or other, and Monk was glad of it. She was far more acute in her suspicion, and might well have hindered him.

He began with the butler, a very composed individual well into his late sixties, with a broad nose and a tight, satisfied mouth.

"Dinner was served at nine o'clock." He was uncertain whether to add the "sir" or not. Precisely who was this person making enquiries? His master had been unclear.

"Which staff were on duty?" Monk asked.

The butler's eyes opened wide to convey his surprise at such an ignorant question.

"The kitchen and dining room staff, sir." His voice implied "of course."

"How many?" Monk kept his patience with difficulty.

"Myself and the two footmen," the butler replied levelly. "The parlormaid and the downstairs maid who serves sometimes if we have company. In the kitchen there were the cook, two kitchen maids and a scullery maid - and the boot-boy. He carries things if he's needed and does the occasional errand."

"In all parts of the house?" Monk asked quickly.

"That is not usually required," the butler replied somberly.

"And on this occasion?"

"He was in disgrace, sent to the scullery."

"What time in the evening was that?" Monk persisted.

"Long before die general's death - about nine o'clock, I gather."

"That would be after the guests arrived," Monk observed.

"It would," the butler agreed grimly.

It was only idle curiosity which made him ask, "What happened?"

"Stupid boy was carrying a pile of clean linen upstairs for one of the maids, who was busy, and he bumped into the general coming out of the cloakroom. Wasn't looking where he was going, I suppose - daydreaming - and he dropped the whole lot. Then instead of apologizing and picking them up, like any sensible person, he just turned on his heel and fled. The laundress had a few hard words to say to him, I can promise you! He spent the rest of the evening in the scullery. Didn't leave it."

"I see. What about the rest of the staff?" "The housekeeper was in her sitting room in the servants' wing. The tweenies would be in their bedroom, the upstairs maids in theirs, the stillroom maid had an evening off to go and visit her mother, who's been took poorly. Mrs. Fumi-val's ladies' maid would be upstairs and Mr. Furnival's valet likewise."

"And the outside staff?"

"Outside, sir." The butler looked at him with open contempt.

"They have no access to the house?" "No sir, they have no need."

Monk gritted his teeth. "And none of you heard the general fall onto the suit of armor, or the whole thing come crashing down?"

The butler's face paled, but his eyes were steady. "No sir. I already told the police person who enquired. We were about our duties, and they did not necessitate any of us coming through the hall. As you may have observed, the withdrawing room is to the rear of the house, and by that time dinner was well finished. We had no cause to pass in that direction."

"After dinner were you all in the kitchen or the pantry clearing away?"

"Yes sir, naturally."

"No one left?"

"What would anyone leave for? We had more than sufficient to keep us busy if we were to get to bed before one."

"Doing what, precisely?" It galled Monk to have to persist in the face of such dignified but subtly apparent scorn. But he would not explain to the man.

Because his master had required it, the butler patiently answered these exceedingly tedious and foolish questions.

"I saw to the silver and the wine, with the assistance of the first footman. The second footman tidied up the dining room and set everything straight ready for morning, and fetched more coal up in case it was required - "

"The dining room," Monk interrupted. "The second footman was in the dining room. Surely he would have heard the armor go over?"

The butler flushed with annoyance. He had been caught out.

"Yes sir, I suppose he would," he said grudgingly. "If he'd been in the dining room when it happened."

"And you said he fetched up coal. Where from?"

"The coal cellar, sir."

"Where is the door to it? "

"Back of the scullery. . . sir. "The "sir" was heavy with irony.

"Which rooms would he bring coal for?"

"I ..." The butler stopped. "I don't know, sir." His face betrayed that he had realized the possibilities. For the dining room, the morning room, the library or billiard room the footman would have crossed the hall.

"May I speak with him?" Monk did not say please; the request was only a formality. He had every intention of speaking with the man regardless.

The butler was not going to put himself in the position of being wrong again.

"I'll send him to you." And before Monk could argue that he would go to the man, which would give him an opportunity to see the servants' area, the butler was gone.

A few minutes later a very nervous young man came in, dressed in ordinary daytime livery of black trousers, shirt and striped waistcoat. He was in his early twenties, fair haired and fair skinned, and at the moment he was extremely ill at ease. Monk guessed the butler had reasserted his authority over the situation by frightening his immediate junior.

Out of perversity Monk decided to be thoroughly pleasant with the young man.

"Good morning," he said with a disarming smile - at least that was how it was intended. "I apologize for taking you from your duties, but I think you may be able to help me."

"Me sir?" His surprise was patent. " 'Ow can I do that, sir?"

"By telling me, as clearly as you can remember, everything you did the evening General Carlyon died, starting after dinner when the guests went to the withdrawing room."

The footman screwed up his race in painfully earnest concentration and recounted his usual routine.

"Then what?" Monk prompted.

"The withdrawing room bell rang," the footman answered. "And since I was passing right by there, I answered it. They wanted the fire stoked, so I did it."

"Who was there then?"

"The master wasn't there, and the mistress came in just as I was leaving."

"And then?"

"Thenl-er. . ."

"Had another word with the kitchen maid?" Monk took a guess. He smiled as he said it.

The footman colored, his eyes downcast. "Yes sir."

"Did you fetch the coal buckets for the library?"

"Yes sir - but I don't remember how many minutes later it was." He looked unhappy. Monk guessed it was probably quite some time.

"And crossed the hall to do it?"

"Yes sir. The armor was still all right then."

So whoever it was, it was not Louisa. Not that he had held any real hope that it might be.

"Any other rooms you took coal for? What about upstairs?"

The footman blushed hotly and lowered his eyes.

"You were supposed to, and didn't?" Monk guessed.

The footman looked up quickly. "Yes I did, sir! Mrs. Furnival's room. The master doesn't care for a fire at this timeo' the year."

"Did you see someone, or something, when you were upstairs?"

"No sir!"

What was the man lying about? There was something; it was there in his pink face, his downcast eyes, his awkward hands and feet. He was riddled with guilt.

"Where did you go upstairs? What rooms did you pass? Did you hear something, an argument?"

"No sir." He bit his lip and still avoided Monk's eyes.

"Well?" Monk demanded.

"I went up the front stairs - sir..."

Suddenly Monk understood. "Oh, I see - with the coal buckets?"

"Yes sir. Please sir ..."

"I shan't tell the butler," Monk promised quickly.

"Thank you, sir! I - thank you sir." He swallowed. "The armor was still there, sir; and I didn't see the general - or anyone else, except the upstairs maid."

"I see. Thank you. You have helped me considerably."

"Have I sir?" He was doubtful, but relieved to be excused.

Next Monk went upstairs to find the off-duty housemaids. It was his last hope that one of them had seen Sabella.

The first maid offered no hope at all. The second was a bright girl of about sixteen with a mass of auburn hair. She seemed to grasp the significance of his questions, and answered readily enough, although with wary eyes, and he caught a sense of eagerness that suggested to him she had something to hide as well as something to reveal. Presumably she was the one the footman had seen.

"Yes, I saw Mrs. Pole," she said candidly. "She wasn't feeling well, so she lay down for a while in the green room."

"When was that?"

"I - I dunno, sir."

"Was it long after dinner?"

"Oh, yes sir. We 'as our dinner at six o'clock!"

Monk realized his mistake and tried to undo it.

"Did you see anyone else while you were on the landing?"

The color came to her tace and suddenly the picture was clearer.

"I shan't report what you say, unless I have to. But if you lie, you may go to prison, because an innocent person could be hanged. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

Now she was ashen white, so frightened as to be robbed momentarily of words.

"So who did you see?"

"John." Her voice was a whisper.

"The footman who was rilling the coal buckets?"

"Yes sir - but I didn't speak to him - honest! I jus' came to the top o' the stairs, like. Mrs. Pole were in the green room, 'cause I passed the door and it was open, an' I seen 'erlike."

"You came all the way down from your own room at the top of the house?"

She nodded, guilt over her attempt to see the footman outweighing every other thought. She had no idea of the significance of what she was saying.

"How did you know when he was going to be there?"

"I..." She bit her lip. "I waited on the landing."

"Did you see Mrs. Carlyon go upstairs to Master Valentine's room?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you see Mrs. Carlyon come down again?"

"No sir, nor the general, sir - I swear to God!"

"Then what did you do?"

"I went as far as the top o' the stairs and looked for John, sir. I knew that was about the time 'e'd be fillin' the coal buckets."

"Did you see him?"

"No. I reckon I were too late. I 'ad to 'ang around cos of all the people comin' and goin'. I 'ad ter wait for the master ter go down again."

"You saw Mr. Furnival go down again?"

"Yes sir."

"When you were at the top of the stairs, looking for John -think very carefully, you may have to swear to this in court, before a judge, so tell the truth, as you know it..."

She gulped. "Yes sir?"

"Did you look down at the hallway below you?"

"Yes sir. I were looking for John."

"To come from the back of the house?"

"Yes sir - with the coal buckets."

"Was the suit of armor standing where it usually does?"

"I think so."

"It wasn't knocked over?"

"No - o' course it weren't, or I'd 'ave seen it. It'd be right between me and the corridor to the back."

"Then where did you go, after waiting for John and realizing you were too late?"

"Back upstairs again."

He saw the flicker in her eyes, barely discernible, just a tremor.

"Tell me the truth: did you pass anyone?"

Her eyes were downcast, the blush came again. "I heard someone comin', I don't know who. I didn't want to be caught there, so I went into Mrs. Pole's room to see if she needed anything. I was goin' ter say I thought I'd 'eard 'er call out, if anyone asked me."

"And the people passed, going along the passage to the front stairs?"

"Yes sir."

"When was that?"

"I dunno, sir. God help me, I don't! I swear it!"

"That's all right, I believe you." Alexandra and the general, minutes before she killed him.

"Did you hear anything?"

"No sir."

"You didn't hear voices?"

"No sir."

"Or the suit of armor crashing over?"

"No sir. The green room is a long way from the top o' the stairs, sir." She did not bother to swear - it was easily verifiable.

"Thank you," he said honestly.

So only Alexandra had the opportunity after all. It was murder.

"YouVe been a great help." He forced the words out. "A very great help. That's all - you can go," And Alexandra was guilty. Louisa and Maxim had already gone up and come down again, and the general was alive.

"Yes sir. Thank you, sir." And she turned on her heel and fled.