The Twisted Root

chapter Nine
"Yes. It matters whether she was expecting someone to call on her or not."

"Oh. Yes. I see. No, I don't. She wouldn't hardly expect a thief who 'd break in an' kill her!"

"No one broke in, Pearl."

"What are you saying?" She was aghast. Her hands tightened hi her lap till the handkerchief tore.

Robb took charge of the situation again.

"We are saying it was someone already in the house who killed Mrs. Stourbridge."

"It ... it never is!" She shook her head. "No one 'ere would do such a thing! We in't murderers!" Now she was both frightened and affronted.

"Yes, it was," Robb insisted. "The local police and your own butler and footman have made a thorough search. No one broke in. Now, tell me all you know of everyone's comings and goings from the time you left the dinner table until now."

She replied dutifully, but nothing she had to say either incriminated anyone or cleared them.

The maid assigned to Miriam was of no greater help. She had seen Miriam to her bed even earlier, and had no idea whether she had remained there or not. She had been excused and gone up to her own room in the attic. Mrs. Gardiner was extremely easy to work for, and she could not believe any ill of her, no matter what anyone said. People who couldn't speak well shouldn't speak at all.

Nor could any of the other servants swear to the movements of any of the family. However, the maids knew the time of each other's retiring. The cook, whose room was nearest the stairs down, was a light sleeper, and the second stair creaked. She was certain no one had passed after she had gone up at a quarter to eleven.

At last Monk forced himself to go and look at the body. A local constable was on duty on the landing outside the door. He was tired and unhappy. He showed them in without looking past them.

Verona Stourbridge lay as if eased gently onto her back, halfway between the chest of drawers and the bed. It must have been where her husband had laid her when he realized he could do nothing more for her and at last let her go. The carpet was soaked dark with blood about a foot away from her head. It was easy to see where she had originally fallen.

Her hands were limp, and there was nothing in either of them. She was wearing a robe over her nightgown. It looked like silk, and when Monk bent to touch it he knew instantly that it was: soft, expensive and beautiful. He wondered if he would ever be able to buy Hester anything like that. This one would be thrown away after the case was closed. No one would ever want to wear it again.

He stood up and turned to Robb.

"Member of the family?" Robb said hoarsely.

"Yes," Monk agreed.

"Why?" Robb was bewildered. "Why would any of them kill her? Her husband, do you think? Or Lucius?" He took a deep breath. "Or Miriam Gardiner? But why would she?"

"We'll look for the reason afterwards," Monk answered. "Let's go and speak to Major Stourbridge."

Robb turned reluctantly and allowed Monk to lead the way.

Harry Stourbridge met them in the library. He was fully dressed in a dark suit. His fair hair was poking up in tufts, and his eyes were sunken into the bones of his head as if the flesh no longer had life or firmness. He did not speak, but looked from Robb to Monk and then back again.

"Please sit down, Major Stourbridge," Robb said awkwardly. He did not know whether the man was a bereaved husband with whom he should sympathize, or a suspect who deserved his hostility and contempt.

Stourbridge obeyed. His legs seemed to fold under him, and he hit the seat rather too hard.

Robb sat opposite him, and Monk took the third chair in the group.

In a low, husky voice, Stourbridge retold the story of the forgotten message, of leaving his own room and going along the corridor, seeing and hearing no one else, of knocking on his wife's door and going in.

Monk stopped him. "Was the light on, sir?"

"No... not the main light, just the bracket on the wall." He turned to look at him with a lift of interest. "Does that mean something? She sleeps with it like that. Doesn't like the dark. Just enough to see by, a glow, no more."

"But enough if she were speaking with someone?" Monk persisted.

"Yes, I suppose so. If it were ... someone she knew well. One would not receive - " He stopped, uncertainty filling his face again.

"We have already ascertained that it was not any of the servants," Robb said quietly. "That leaves only the family and Mrs. Gardiner."

Stourbridge looked as if he had been struck again.

"That is not p-possible," he stammered. "No one would - " He stopped. He was a man experienced in war, the violence and pain of battle and the horror of its aftermath. There was little that could shock or astound him, but this had cut deep into his emotion in a way the honesty of battle never could. He turned to Monk.

There was nothing Monk could alter, but he could ease the manner of dealing with it. Reality was a kind of healing - and the beginning of exerting some control over the chaos.

"We need to speak to everyone," he said, looking at Stourbridge and meeting his eyes. "Once we have eliminated the impossible, we will have a better idea of what happened."

"What? Oh, yes, I see. I don't think I can be of much help." He seemed to focus a little more clearly. "I believe Aiden retired quite early to his room. He had a number of letters to write. He has been away from his home for a while. Verona ... Verona relied on him rather a lot. They have always been close. I..." He took a deep breath and mastered himself with difficulty. "I was away a great deal during the early years of our marriage. Military duties." He looked beyond Monk into some distance within his memory. "A young army wife does not have an easy time. I was often posted to places where it was unsuitable for her to accompany me. No facilities for women, you see? We were fighting, moving about. She didn't lack courage, but she hadn't the physical strength. She..." - he blinked fiercely - "she lost several babies ... early stages. Lucius was... long waited for. She was thirty-five. We had all but given up." His voice cracked. "She longed for a child so much."

Monk was loath to interrupt him, even though he was wandering far from the point. He had known and loved her. Perhaps it was necessary to him to bring her back even in words, to try to make others see her as he had.

"When I was in Egypt and the Sudan," he went on, "which I was quite a lot, Aiden would be with her."

"Mrs. Gardiner..." Robb asked.

Stourbridge jerked up his head. "No! No - I cannot believe it of her."

Monk could not either, and yet the alternatives were little easier. Of course, it was possible Stourbridge himself was lying, but then anyone might be.

"What time did she retire?" he asked. "Perhaps you had better tell me the pattern of the whole evening, from sitting down to dinner."

Again Stourbridge looked not at either of his listeners but into the distance between them. "Miriam did not dine with us. She said she felt unwell and would have a tray sent up to her room. I don't think she cared whether she ate or not; she did it to oblige us, and perhaps to avoid discussing the subject or causing Lucius to try to persuade hen In fact, she would not speak to him except in company."

"They had quarreled?" Robb asked quickly.

"No." He shook his head. "That is the thing I do not understand. Nor does he. There has been no quarrel at all. She speaks to him in the gentlest manner but will not explain why she left, nor what happened to Treadwell. And since the Anderson woman has been arrested, that question is no longer at issue." He frowned, creasing up his face. "She merely sits in her room and refuses to do or say anything beyond the barest civility."

"She is deeply distressed over Mrs. Anderson," Monk interposed. "She was in every sense except the literal a mother to her, perhaps the only one she knows."

Stourbridge looked down at the floor. "I forgot. Of course, she must be distressed beyond words. But I wish she would turn to us for comfort and not grieve by herself. We are at our wits' end to know how to help her."

"No one can help," Monk replied. "It must simply be borne. Please describe what happened during dinner, any conversation of importance, especially any differences of opinion, however trivial."

Stourbridge looked up at him. "That's just it, there were no differences. It was most agreeable. There was no shadow upon our lives except Miriam's silence."

"What did you discuss?"

Robb was watching him, then looking at Monk.

Stourbridge shrugged very slightly, with no more than half a gesture.

"Egypt, as I recall. Verona came out there to see me once.

It was marvelous. We saw such sights together. She loved it, even the heat, and the food she was unaccustomed to, and the strange ways of the native people." He smiled. "She kept a diary of it all, especially of the voyage back down the Nile. She allowed me to read some of it when I came here again. She shared it with Lucius, too. Had she been able to remain, he would have been born in Egypt. I think it was that knowledge which made him so keen to go there himself. It was almost as if he could remember it through her eyes." He stopped abruptly, the color rising in his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm sure that is far more detail than you require. I just remembered .. .how close we were... it was all so... normal..."

"Is that all?" Monk pressed, seeking for something which could have precipitated the terrible violence he had seen. Egypt sounded such a harmless subject, something imper,-sonal which any cultured family might have discussed pleasantly around the table.

"As far as I recall, Aiden said something about the political news, but it was a mere observation on the Foreign Secretary and his own feelings about the question of the unification of Germany. It was all..." He shook his head."... of no importance. Verona retired to bed, Aiden to write letters. Lucius walked in the garden for a while. I don't know when he came in, but doubtless the footman would."

They questioned him further, but he could add nothing which explained the emotions that had exploded in his wife's bedroom, nor any fact which implicated anyone or precluded them.

Robb did not put words to his question, but it was clear in his face that he was struggling with the issue of whether Stourbridge himself could have killed his wife.

Monk was torn with the same indecision. He profoundly believed that he had not, but he was afraid it was his loyalty to a client and his personal liking for the man which were forming his judgment. There was nothing he had seen or heard that night which proved him innocent.

There was a knock on the door.

Robb rose and opened it.

Aiden Campbell came in. He was very pale, and his hands shook a little. His eyes were unnaturally bright and his body stiff. He moved clumsily.

"Surely, Harry didn't call you into this?" he asked, looking at Monk with surprise.

"No. Sergeant Robb asked me to come, since I am already acquainted with some of the circumstances concerning the household," Monk replied.

"Oh - I see. Well, I suppose that is sensible enough," he conceded, coming a little farther into the room. "Anything that can be done to get this over as rapidly as possible. My family is suffering profoundly. First Mrs. Gardiner's inexplicable behavior, and now this - this tragedy to my poor sister. We hardly know which way to turn. Lucius is - " He stopped. "Worsnip tells me you have found no indication of intruders. Is that correct?"

"Yes sir," Robb answered. "And I regret to say all your household staff are also accounted for."

"What?" Aiden turned to Monk.

"That is true, Mr. Campbell," Monk agreed. "Whoever killed Mrs. Stourbridge, it was one of her family. I'm sorry."

"Or it was Mrs. Gardiner," Aiden said quickly. "She is not family, Mr. Monk, not yet, and I fear after the events of the last two weeks, it were better that she not become so. It was a pity that the police saw fit to release her into Lucius's custody. It would have been far better if she had gone back to her own people."

"Mrs. Anderson is the only one she has," Monk pointed out. "And she is presently in the Hampstead jail accused of murdering James Treadwell."

"Then someone else should have been found," Aiden protested. "She lived in Hampstead for twenty years. She must have other friends."

There was a moment's silence.

"I apologize," Aiden said quietly, clenching his jaw and looking down. "That was uncalled for. This has been a terrible night." His voice broke. "I was very close to my sister... all my life. Now my brother-in-law and my nephew are hi the utmost distress, and there is nothing I can do to help them." He lifted his head again. "Except assist you to deal with this as rapidly as possible and leave us to begin a decent mourning."

Robb looked wretchedly uncomfortable. His rawness at murder showed clearly in his young face. Monk was also sharply aware that Robb could not afford to fail. He needed his job not only for himself but to provide for his grandfather. The shadows of weariness streaked his skin, and it obviously cost him an effort to stand straight-backed.

"We will do everything we can to solve this crime as quickly as we can, sir," he promised. "But we must go according to the law, and we must be right in the end. Now, if you would like to recount the evening as you remember it, sir?"

"Of course. From what time?"

"How about when you all sat down to dinner?"

Aiden sank into the large chair opposite where Robb and Monk were standing, then they also sat. He told them largely what Harry Stourbridge had, varying only in a description here and there. He had been asleep when Harry Stourbridge had awakened him to tell him of the terrible thing that had happened. He fancied that his man, Gibbons, could substantiate most of it.

"Well?" Robb asked when Aiden had gone and closed the door behind him. "Not much help, is it?"

"None at all," Monk agreed. "Can't see any reason why he should lie. According to Stourbridge, he was on the best possible terms with his sister and always had been."

"I can't see any money in it," Robb added disconsolately. "If Mrs. Stourbridge had had any of her own before her marriage, it would belong to her husband since then, and Lucius would inherit it when his father dies ... along with the title and lands."

Monk did not bother to answer. "And if Mrs. Stourbridge gave Campbell any financial gifts or support that would end at her death. No, I can't see any reason for him to be anything except exactly what he says. We'd better see Lucius."

This was the interview Monk was dreading the most, perhaps because Lucius had been his original client, and so far he had brought him only tragedy, one appalling disaster after another. And now it could appear as if he suspected Lucius of murder as well, or suspected Miriam, which Lucius might feel to be even worse. And yet, what alternative was there? The murderer was someone in the house - and not a servant. Not that he had seriously considered the servants.

When Lucius came he was haggard. His eyes were sunken with shock, staring fixedly from red-rimmed lids, and his dark complexion was bleached of all its natural warmth. He sat down as if he feared his legs might not support him. He did not speak, but waited for Monk, not regarding Robb except for a moment.

Monk had never flinched from duty, no matter how unpleasant. He tended, rather, to attack it more urgently, as if anger at it could overcome whatever pain there might be.

"Can you tell us what happened this evening from the time you sat down to dinner, and anything before that if rt was remarkable in any way," he began.

"No." Lucius's voice was a little higher than usual, as if his throat was so tight he could barely force the words through it. "It was the most ordinary dinner imaginable. We talked of trivia, entirely impersonal. It was mostly about Egypt." A ghost of dreadful humor crossed his face. "My father was describing Karnak and the great hall there, how massive it is, beyond our imagining. We speculated a while on what happened to a whole lost civilization capable of creating such beauty and power. Then he spoke of the Valley of the Kings. He described it for us. The depth of the ravines and how insignificant one feels standing on their floor staring up at a tiny slice of sky so vivid blue it seems to burn the eyes. He said it was a place to force one to think of God and eternity, whether one were disposed to or not. All those ancient pharaohs lying there in their huge sarcophagi with their treasures of the world around them - waiting out the millennia for some awakening to heaven, or hell. He knew a little of their beliefs. It was a strange, mystical conversation. My mother had been there to visit him before I was born. She was so lonely in England without him." His voice was so choked with tears he was obliged to stop.

Robb waited a few moments before he spoke. "And there were no disagreements?" he asked at length.

Lucius swallowed. "No, none. What is there to disagree about?"

"And Mrs. Gardiner was not at the table?"

Lucius's face tightened. "No. She was not well. She is terribly distressed about Mrs. Anderson, who was in every way a mother to her for most of her life. How could she not be? I wish there were something we could do to help. Of course, we will find the best lawyer to represent her, but it looks terribly as if she is guilty. I would do anything to protect Miriam from it, but what is there?" He looked back at Monk as if he still hoped Monk might think of something.

"You have already done all you can," Monk agreed, "unless Mrs. Anderson herself can say something in mitigation, and so far she has refused to say anything at all. But tonight we have another issue to deal with, and that will not involve her." He saw Lucius wince. "Please continue. You were all together until your mother retired quite early?"

Lucius braced himself. "Yes. No one wanted to move; there was no point in separating," he said wearily. "We talked a little of politics, I can't remember what. Something to do with Germany. No one was particularly interested. It was just something to say. I went for a walk in the garden. It was peaceful, and I preferred to be alone. I... was thinking." He did not need to explain what troubled him.

"Did you see anyone as you came in or went upstairs?" Monk asked him.

"Only the servants... and Miriam. I went to her room, but she would not do more than bid me good-night. I didn't see anyone else."

"Did your man assist you to undress, or lay your clothes out for the next day?"

"No. I sent him to bed. I didn't need him, and I preferred to be alone."

"I see. Did you hear anything after that? Any sound, movement, a cry, footsteps?"

"No. At least not that I recall."

Monk thanked him. Lucius seemed about to ask something further, then changed his mind and rose stiffly to his feet.

When he had gone, Robb turned to Monk. They had learned nothing more. No one was implicated nor excluded from suspicion. Robb ran his hand through his hair, his fingers closing so he pulled at it. "One of them killed her! It couldn't have been an accident, and not possibly a suicide!"

"We had better see Miriam Gardiner," Monk said grimly.

Robb shot him a look of helplessness and frustration, then rose and went to the door to send the maid for Miriam.

She looked a shadow of the woman she had been, even when Monk had found her frightened and hiding. Her body was skeletal, as if she had barely eaten since then. Her dress hung on her shoulders so the bones showed through the thin clothes, and her bosom was scarcely rounded. Her skin had no color at all, and her beautiful hair had been dressed with little attention. She looked as if she was a stranger to any kind of rest of mind or body.

She moved jerkily, and refused to be seated when Robb asked her. Her hands were clenched and shaking. She seemed not to blink but to stare fixedly, as though her attention was only partly here.

Robb looked at Monk desperately, then, as Monk said nothing, he began to question her.

She replied in a voice that was unnaturally calm that she knew nothing at all. She had taken dinner in her room and had not left it except to go to the bathroom. She had seen no one other than the servant who had ministered to her personal needs. She had no idea what had happened. She had never quarreled with Mrs. Stourbridge... or with anyone else. She refused to say anything further.

And no matter how either Robb or Monk pressed her, she did not yield a word. She walked away stiffly, swaying a little, as if she might lose her balance.

"Did she do it?" Robb asked as soon as the door was closed.

"I have no idea," Monk confessed. He hated the thought, but she appeared to be in a state of suppressed hysteria, almost as if she moved in a trance, a world of her own connected only here and there with reality. He judged that if there was one more pressure, however slight, she would lose control completely.

Was that what had happened? Had she, for some reason or other, gone to see Mrs. Stourbridge in her bedroom, and something, however innocently or well meant, had precipitated an emotional descent into insanity? Had Verona Stourbridge made some remark about Cleo Anderson, suggesting Miriam leave the past and its griefs behind, and Miriam had reacted by releasing all the terror and violence inside her in one fearful blow?

But where had the croquet mallet come from? One did not keep such things in a bedroom. Whoever had killed Verona Stourbridge had brought it, and it could only be as a weapon.

The murder was premeditated. He said as much aloud.

"I know," Robb admitted. "I know. But she still seems the most likely one. We'll have to go farther back than I thought. I'll start again with the servants. It's here, whatever it is, the reason, the jealousy or the fear, or the rage. It's in this house. It has to be."

They worked all night, asking, probing, going back over detail after detail. They were so tired the whole house seemed to be a maze going around and around itself, like a symbol of the confusion within. Monk's throat was dry, and he felt as if there were sand in his eyes. The cook brought them a tray of tea at three o'clock in the morning, and another at a quarter to five, this time with roast beef sandwiches.

They again questioned Mrs. Stourbridge's maid. The woman looked exhausted and terrified, but she spoke quite coherently.

"I don't know nothing to her discredit, not really," she said when Robb asked her about Miriam. "She's always bin very civil, far as I know."

Monk seized on the hesitation, reading the indecision in her face.

"You must be frank," he said gravely. "You owe Mrs. Stourbridge that. What do you mean 'not really'? What were you thinking about when you said that?"

Still, she was reluctant.

Monk looked at her grimly until she flushed and finally answered.

"Well... I was thinking of that time I brought back Mrs. Stourbridge's clean petticoats, to hang them up, like, an' I found Mrs. Gardiner sitting at Mrs. Stourbridge's dressing table... and she had one of Mrs. Stourbridge's necklaces on. She said as Mrs. Stourbridge had said she could borrow it -  but she never said nothing to me as anyone could. And ... and Mrs. Stourbridge's diary was lying open on her bed, an' that's a thing I've never seen before."

"Did she explain that, too?"

"No... I never asked."

"I see."

She looked wretched, and seemed glad to escape when they excused her.

It was half past five. Robb stood facing the window and the brilliant sunlight as the first noises of awakening came in from the street. A horse and cart rolled by. Somewhere on the farther side of the road there were footsteps on the pavement. A door opened and closed. He turned back to the room. His face was pale and he looked exhausted and miserable.

"I've got to arrest her," he said flatly. "Seems she couldn't wait to get her hands on the pretty things ... or to pry into Mrs. Stourbridge's affairs. I wish that wasn't so. Money does strange things to some people."

"She didn't have to hurt Verona Stourbridge to have that," Monk pointed out. "No one objected to the marriage."

"Perhaps she did," Robb said, his back stiff, his head high. He was determined to stand up to Monk on the issue, because he believed it. It was a testing ground between them, and he was going to prove his own authority. "Perhaps Mrs. Stourbridge knew whatever it was Treadwell knew, or even that Miriam killed him."

Monk drew in his breath to argue, but each protest died on his lips. They were empty, and he knew it. No one else had any reason or motive to harm Verona Stourbridge, and there was no physical evidence to implicate any of them. Miriam was already deeply involved in the murder of James Treadwell. And strangely enough, she had not defended herself in any coherent way. Any jury would find it easy enough to believe that she had set out deliberately to charm Lucius, a wealthy and naive young man. He was handsome and intelligent enough, but not worldly wise, and might be easily duped by a woman older than he and well practiced in the ways of pleasing.

Then she had seen the luxury of the life she could expect, but through an unforeseeable misfortune, the coachman knew something of her past which was so ugly it would have spoiled her dream. He had blackmailed her.

Her mentor and accomplice, also blackmailed for theft by the same wretched coachman, either helped her kill him or hid her afterwards and obscured the evidence of the crime. He had no choice but to charge her.

The family was shattered. Harry stood white-faced, stammering incoherent assurances that he would do all he could to help her. He looked as if he hardly knew what he was saying or doing. He kept turning to Lucius as if he would protect him, and then realized he was helpless to make any difference at all.

Monk had never felt more pity for any man, but he did not believe that even Oliver Rathbone could do anything to relieve this tragedy. The most compassionate thing would be to deal with it as quickly as possible. To prolong the suffering was pointless.

Miriam herself seemed the least surprised or distressed. She accepted the situation as if she had expected it, and made no protest or appeal for help. She did not even deny the charge. She thanked Harry Stourbridge for his behavior towards her, then walked uprightly, quite firmly, a step or two ahead of Robb out to the front door. She hesitated as if to speak to Lucius, then changed her mind.

At the doorway, Monk looked back at the three men as they stood in the hall. Harry and Lucius were paralyzed. Aiden Campbell put his arm around Lucius as if to support him.

It was after seven in the morning by the time Monk returned home. It was broad daylight, and the streets were full of traffic, the hiss of wheels, the clatter of hooves and people shouting to each other.

He went in at his own door and closed it behind him. All he wanted to do was wash the heat and grime off himself, then sink into bed and sleep all day.

He was barely across the room when Hester appeared, dressed in blue-and-white muslin and looking as if she had been up for hours.

"What happened?" she said instantly. "You look terrible. The kettle is on. Would you like breakfast, or are you too tired?"

"Just tea," he answered, following her into the kitchen and sitting down. His legs ached and his feet were hot and so tired they hurt. His head throbbed. He wanted somewhere cool and dark and as quiet as possible.

She made the tea and poured it for him before asking any further, and then it was by a look, not words.

"She was struck once, with a croquet mallet," he told her. "There was enough evidence to prove it had to be one of the family ... or Miriam Gardiner. There was no reason for any of the servants to do it."

She sat across the small table from him, her face very solemn. "And for her?" she asked.

"The obvious. Whatever Treadwell knew of her, Verona Stourbridge knew it as well... or else she deduced it from something Miriam said. I'm sorry. The best you can say of her is that she has lost her mind, the worst that she deliberately planned to marry Lucius and assure herself of wealth and social position for the rest of her life... and indirectly, of course, for Cleo Anderson as well. When Treadwell threatened that plan, either alone or with Cleo's help, she killed him. And then later when Verona threatened it, she killed her, too. It makes a hideous sense."

"But do you believe it?" she asked, searching his face.

"I don't know. Not easily. But logic forces me to accept it." That was the truth, but he was reluctant to say it. When Miriam had denied it he had more than believed her. He had liked her, and felt compelled to go farther than duty necessitated in order to defend her. But he was not governed by emotion. He must let reason be the last determiner.

Hester sat silently for several minutes, sipping her own tea.

"I don't believe Cleo Anderson was part of killing anyone for gain," she said at last. "I still think we should help her."

"Do you?" He looked at her as closely as his weariness and sense of disillusion would allow. He saw the bewilderment in her, the confusion of thought and feelings, and understood it precisely. "Are you sure you are not looking for a spectacular trial to show people the plight of men like John Robb, old and ill and forgotten, now that the wars they fought are all won and we are safe?"

She drew in her breath to deny it indignantly, then saw in his eyes that he was a step ahead of her.

"Well, I wouldn't mind if something were to draw people's attention to it," she conceded. "But I wasn't using Cleo. I believe she took the medicines to give to those who needed them, not for any profit for herself, and if she killed James Treadwell, at least in part he deserved it."

"And when did it become all right for us to decide that someone deserves to die?"

She glared at him.

He smiled and stood up slowly. It was an effort. He was even more tired than he had thought, and the few moments relaxing had made it worse.

"What are we going to do?" She stood up also, coming towards him almost as if she would block his way to the door. "She hasn't any money. She can't afford a lawyer, never mind a good one. And now Miriam is charged as well, there is no one to help her. You can't expect Lucius Stourbridge to."

He knew what she wanted: that they should go to Oliver Rathbone and try to persuade him to use his professional skill, free of charge, to plead for Cleo Anderson. Because of their past friendship - love would not be too strong a word, at least on Rathbone's part - she would also probably rather that Monk asked him, so that it did not appear that she was abusing his affection.

Oliver Rathbone was the last person of whom he wanted to ask any favors, no matter on whose behalf. Was it guilt, because he had asked Hester to marry him before Rathbone had, knowing that Rathbone also loved her?

That was ridiculous. Rathbone had had his opportunity and failed to take it... for whatever reason. Monk was not responsible.

Perhaps it was a certain guilt because he had seized a happiness that he knew Rathbone would have treasured, or in some ways would have been more worthy of. There was too often a fear at the back of his mind that Rathbone could have made her happier, given her things Monk never could - not only material possessions and security, or social position, but emotional certainties. He would not have loved her more, but he might have been a better man to share her life with, an easier one, a man who would have caused her less fear or doubt, less anxiety. At the very least, she would have known Rathbone's past. There were no ghosts, no black regions or forgotten holes.

She was waiting for an answer, her brow furrowed, her chin lifted a little because she knew he did not want to, even if she could not guess why.

He would not let Rathbone beat him.

"I think we should ask Rathbone's opinion," he said slowly and quite distinctly. "And if he is willing, his help. He'll take up a lost cause every now and again if the issue is good enough. I'm sure we could persuade him this one is." He smiled with a downward twist of his lips, "And the appearance of Sir Oliver Rathbone in court to defend a nurse accused of theft and murder will ensure that the newspapers give it all the attention we could wish."

She smiled very slowly, her body relaxing.

"Thank you, William. I knew you would say that."

He had not known it, but if she thought so well of him he, was certainly not going to argue.

"Now go to sleep," she urged. "I'll waken you in time to go to Vere Street and see Oliver before the end of the day."

He grunted, too tired to argue that tomorrow would do, and climbed slowly up the stairs.

Monk hated presenting himself at Rathbone's chambers on Vere Street without an appointment, and fully expected to be turned away. If he was received, he was certain it would be because Hester was with him. He would rather she had not come, but he could understand her insistence. She wanted to be there not simply to add her own thoughts and words to the story and to try her own persuasion if Monk's should fail, but because she would feel cowardly if she sent Monk and did not go herself. It would seem as if she wanted a favor of Rathbone but had not the courage to face him to ask it.

Therefore they stood in the outer office and explained to the clerk that they had no appointment but they were well acquainted with Sir Oliver (which he knew) and had a matter of some urgency to lay before him. It was the end of the afternoon, and the last client was presently in Sir Oliver's rooms with him. It was a fortunate time.

Some fifteen minutes passed by. Monk found it almost impossible to sit still. He glanced at Hester and read the misgiving in her face, and equally the determination. Cleo Anderson's life was worth a great deal more than a little embarrassment.

At twenty minutes past five the client left and Rathbone came to the door. He looked startled to see them. His eyes flew to Hester, and there was a sudden warmth in them, and the faintest flush on his narrow cheeks. He forced himself to smile, but there was not the usual humor in it. He came forward.

"Hester! How nice to see you. You look extremely well."

"We are sorry to intrude," Hester replied with an equally uncertain smile. "But we have a case that is so desperate we know of no one else who would have even a chance of success in it."

Rathbone half turned to Monk. For the first time since the wedding their eyes met. Then Monk had been the bridegroom. Now he was the husband, the last barrier had been crossed, there was a new kind of intimacy from which Rathbone was forever excluded. Rathbone's eyes were startlingly, magnificently dark in his fair face. Everything that had passed through Monk's mind he read in them. He held out his hand.

Monk shook it, feeling the strength and the coolness of Rathbone's grip.

"Then you had better come in and tell me," Rathbone said calmly. His voice held no trace of emotion. He was supremely courteous. What effort of pride or dignity that had cost him Monk could only guess.

He and Hester followed into Rathbone's familiar office and sat down in the chairs away from the desk. It was a formal visit, but not yet an official one. The late sun poured in through the window, making bright patterns on the floor and shining on the gold lettering on the books in their mahogany case.

Rathbone leaned back and crossed his legs. As always, he was immaculately dressed, but with an understated elegance and the ease of someone who knows he does not have to try.

"What is this case?" he enquired, looking at each of them in turn.

Monk was determined to answer first, before Hester could speak and make it a dialogue between herself and Rathbone, with Monk merely an onlooker.

"A nurse has been stealing medicines from the North London Hospital, where Hester is now assisting Lady Callandra." He had no need to explain that situation; Rathbone knew and admired Callandra. "She doesn't want the medicines for herself, or to sell, but to give to the old and poor that she visits, who are in desperate need, many of them dying."

"Laudable but illegal," Rathbone said with a frown. His interest was already caught, and his concern.

"Precisely," Monk agreed. "Somehow a coachman named James Treadwell learned of her thefts and was blackmailing her. How he learned is immaterial. He comes from an area close by, and possibly he knew someone she was caring for. He was found dead on the path close to her doorway. She has been charged with his murder."

"Physical evidence?" Rathbone said with pressed lips, his face already darker, brows drawn down.

"None, all on motive and opportunity. The weapon has not been found. But that is not all...."

Rathbone's eyes widened incredulously. "There's more?"

"And worse," Monk replied. "Some twenty years ago Mrs. Anderson found in acute distress a girl of about twelve or thirteen years old. She took her in and treated her as her own." He saw Rathbone's guarded expression, and the further spark of interest in his eyes. "Miriam grew up and married comfortably," Monk continued. "She was widowed, and then fell deeply in love with a young man, Lucius Stourbridge, of wealthy and respectable family, who more than returned her feelings. They became engaged to marry with his parents' approval. Then one day, for no known reason, she fled, with the said coachman, back to Hampstead Heath."

"The night of his death, I presume," Rathbone said with a twisted smile.

"Just so," Monk agreed. "At first she was charged with his murder and would say nothing of her flight, its reason, or what happened, except to deny that she killed him."

"And she wasn't charged?" Rathbone was surprised.

"Yes, she was. Then when a far better motive was found for the nurse, she was released."

"And the worse that you have to add?" Rathbone asked.

Monk's shoulders stiffened. "Last night I had a message from the young policeman on the case - incidentally, his grandfather is one of those for whom the nurse stole medicines - to ask me to go to the family home in Cleveland Square, where the mother of the young man had just been found murdered ... in what seems to be exactly the same manner as the coachman on Hampstead Heath."

Rathbone shut his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. "I hope that is now all?"

"Not quite," Monk replied. "They have arrested Miriam and charged her with the murder of Stourbridge's mother, and Miriam and Cleo as being accomplices in murder for gain. There is considerable money in the family, and lands."

Rathbone opened his eyes and stared at Monk. "Have you completed this tale to date?"

"Yes."

Hester spoke for the first time, leaning forward a little, her voice urgent. "Please help, Oliver. I know Miriam may be beyond anything anybody can do, except perhaps plead that she may be mad, but Cleo Anderson is a good woman. She took medicine to treat the old and ill who have barely enough money to survive. John Robb, the policeman's grandfather, fought at Trafalgar - on the Victory. He, and men like him, don't deserve to be left to die in pain that we could alleviate! We asked everything of them when we were in danger. When we thought Napoleon was going to invade and conquer us, we expected them to fight and die for us, or to lose arms or legs or eyes..."

"I know!" Rathbone held up his slender hand. "I know, my dear. You do not need to persuade me. And a jury might well be moved by such things, but a judge will not. He won't ask them to decide whether a blackmailer is of more or less value than a nurse, or an old soldier, simply did she kill him or not. And what about this other woman, the younger one? What possible reason or excuse did she have for murdering her prospective mother-in-law?"

"We don't know," Hester said helplessly. "She won't say anything."

"Is she aware of her position, that if she is found guilty she will hang?"

"She knows the words," Monk replied. "Whether she comprehends their meaning or not I am uncertain. I was there when she was arrested, and she seemed numb, but she left with the police with more dignity than I have seen in anyone else I can recall." He felt foolish as he said it. It was an emotional response, and he disliked having Rathbone see him in such a light. It made him vulnerable. He was about to add something to qualify it, defend himself, but Rathbone had turned to Hester and was not listening.

"Do you know this nurse?" he asked.

"Yes," she said unhesitatingly. "And I know John Robb. I have been to a few of the patients she visited. I can and will testify that the medicines were used for them and that no return of any kind was asked."

Rathbone forbore from saying that that would be of no legal help. The sympathy of the jury would not alter her guilt and was unlikely to mitigate the sentence. Anyway, was hanging so very much worse than a lifetime spent in the Coldbath Fields, or some other prison like it? He stayed silent for several moments, considering the question, and neither Monk nor Hester prompted him.

"I presume she has no money, this nurse?" Rathbone said at last. "And the family are hardly likely to wish to defend her."

Monk felt anger harsh inside him. So it was all a matter of payment.

"So she is unlikely to have anyone to represent her already," Rathbone concluded. "There will be no professional ethics to break if I were to go and visit her. I can at least offer my services, and then she may accept or decline them as she wishes."

"And who is going to pay you?" Monk asked with a lift of his eyebrows.

Rathbone looked straight back at him. "I have done sufficiently well lately that I can afford to do it without asking payment," he replied levelly. "I imagine she will have no means to pay you either."

Monk felt an unaccustomed heat rise up his cheeks, but he knew the rebuke was fair. He had earned it.

"Thank you!" Hester said quickly, rising to her feet. "Her name is Cleo Anderson, and she is in the Hampstead police station."

Rathbone smiled with a dry twist of humor, as if there were a highly subtle joke which was at least half against himself.

"Don't thank me," he said softly. "It sounds like a challenge which ought to be attempted, and I know no one else fool enough to try it."

oliver rathbone sat in his office after Monk and Hester had gone, aware that he had made an utterly impetuous decision, which was most unlike him. He was not a man who acted without consideration, which was part of the reason why he was probably the most brilliant barrister currently practicing in London. It might also be why he had allowed Monk to ask Hester to marry him before he had asked her himself.

No, that was not entirely true. He had been on the verge of asking her, but she had very delicately allowed him to understand that she would not accept. It had been to save his feelings and the awkwardness between them that would have followed.

But then, if he were honest, the reason she would not accept him might easily have been her sense of his uncertainty. Monk would never have allowed his head to rule his heart. That was what Rathbone both admired in him and despised. There was something ungoverned in Monk, something even dark.

And yet he had come with Hester to try to persuade Rathbone to take the hopeless case of defending a nurse certainly guilty of theft, and almost as certainly guilty of murder. That could not have been easy for him. Rathbone leaned back farther in his chair and smiled a little as he remembered the look on Hester's face, the stiffness in her body. He could imagine her thoughts. Monk would have done it for Hester's sake, and he would know that Rathbone knew it also.

He was surprised how sharp the pain was on seeing Hester again, hearing the passion in her voice as she spoke of Cleo Anderson and the old sailor John Robb. That was just like her, full of pity and anger and courage, bound on some hopeless cause, not listening to anyone who told her the impossibility ofit.

And he had agreed to help - in fact, to undertake some kind of defense. He would be a fool to pretend it would be less than that. Now he had begun she would not allow him to stop - nor would he allow himself. He would never admit to Monk that he would quit a fight before he had either won it or lost. Monk would understand defeat and forgive it, and respect winner or loser alike. He had tasted bitterness too often himself not to understand. But he would not forgive surrender.