“I’m sure I don’t know either!” Merrit said. “I can only think you were worried in case Mr. Breeland might at last persuade my father of the justice of his cause, and you should find yourself without the purchase you expected.” It was a challenge, and she made no concession to courtesy. Her passionate conviction rang in her voice so sincerely it almost robbed it of rudeness.
Casbolt shook his head. He looked at Merrit patiently. “You know better than that, my dear. However profound your convictions, you understand your father better than to think he would go back on his word for anyone. I hope Mr. Trace knows that also. If he doesn’t, he soon will.” He looked across at Monk. “We must apologize to you, sir, and to you,” he said, including Hester for an instant. “This must all seem inexplicably heated to you. I daresay no one explained to you, Daniel and I are dealers and shippers, among other things. Guns of good quality are in great demand, with the United States at war, as it regrettably is. Men from both the Union and the Confederacy are scouring Europe and buying up everything they can. Most of the available weapons are quite possibly inferior, as likely to blow up in the faces of the men who use them as to do any damage to the enemy. Some of them have aims so bad you would be lucky to hit the broad side of a barn at twenty paces. Do you know anything about guns, sir?”
“Nothing at all,” Monk said truthfully. If he ever had such knowledge, it had gone with the coach accident five years ago which had robbed him of all memory before that time. He could not recall ever having fired a gun. However, Casbolt’s explanation made clear the turbulence of emotions Monk had felt in the room, the presence of both Breeland and Trace, and the bitter emotion between them. It had nothing to do with Merrit Alberton, or any of the family.
Casbolt’s face lit with enthusiasm. “The best modern gun-say, for example, the P1853, last year’s model-is built of a total of sixty-one parts, including screws and so on. It weighs only eight pounds and fourteen and a half ounces, without bayonet, and the barrel is rifled, of course, and thirty-nine inches long. It is accurate over at least nine hundred yards-well over half a mile.”
Judith looked at him with a slightly reproving smile.
“Of course!” He apologized, glancing at Hester, then at Monk again. “I’m sorry. Please tell us something of your business, if it is not all confidential?” His expression held an interest so sharp it was difficult to imagine it was affected purely for the sake of mere politeness.
Monk had never been asked such a question in the society of a dinner party. Normally it was the last thing people wished to speak of, because he was present to investigate something which had caused them recent pain and in all likelihood was still doing so. Crime not only brought fear, bereavement, and inevitably suspicion, it ripped from quiet lives the decent masks of secrecy everyone put over all manner of smaller sins and weaknesses.
“Robert!” Judith said urgently. “I think you are asking Mr. Monk to tell us about people’s tragedies.”
Casbolt looked wide-eyed and not in the least put out. “Am I? What a shame. How can I circumvent that? I really would like to hear something of Mr. Monk’s fascinating occupation.” He was still smiling, but there was a determination in his voice. He sat back from the table a little, picking up a small bunch of a dozen or so green grapes in his fingers. “Tell me, do you spend a lot of time on robberies, missing jewels, and so on?”
It was a far safer subject than guns or slavery. Monk saw the interest flicker in Judith’s face, in spite of her awareness that the subject was possibly not one a polite society would pursue.
Daniel Alberton also seemed relieved. His fingers stopped twisting the fruit knife he held.
“Mrs. Monk says that her involvement in your cases has replaced the exhilaration, the horror, and the responsibility she felt on the battlefield,” Casbolt prompted. “They can hardly be affairs of finding the lost silver saltcellar or the missing great-niece of Lady So-and-so.”
They were all waiting for Monk to tell them something dramatic and entertaining which had nothing whatever to do with their own lives or the tensions which lay between them. Even Hester was looking at him, smiling.
“No,” he agreed, taking a peach off the dish. “There are a few of that order, but every so often there is a murder which falls to me, rather than to the police-”
“Good heavens!” Judith said involuntarily. “Why?”
“Usually because the police suspect the wrong person,” Monk replied.
“In your opinion?” Casbolt said quickly.
Monk met his eyes. There was banter in Casbolt’s voice, but his look was level, unflickering and highly intelligent. Monk was certain this remark at least was not made idly, to relieve the previous embarrassment between Breeland and Trace.
“Yes, in my belief,” he answered with the weight he thought it deserved. “I have been seriously wrong at times, but only for a while. I was once convinced a famous man was innocent, and worked very hard to prove him so, only to find in the end that he was horribly and cold-bloodedly guilty.”
Merrit did not wish to be interested, but in spite of herself she was. “Did you manage to put right your mistake? What happened to him?” she asked, ignoring the grapes on her plate.
“He was hanged,” Monk said without pleasure.
She stared at him, a shadow flickering in her eyes. There was something in his manner she did not understand, not the words but the emotion. “Weren’t you pleased?”
How could he explain to her the anger he had felt at the loss of the woman who had been killed, and that revenge, which was all that a hanging was, brought nothing back? Justice, as the law contained it, was necessary, but there was no joy in it. He looked at the soft lines of her face; she had barely outgrown the roundness of childhood, and she was so certain she was right about the American war, so burning with indignation, love and consuming idealism.
“No,” he said, needing to be honest to himself whether she understood or not. “I am pleased the truth was known. I am pleased he had to answer for his crime, but I regretted his destruction. He was a clever man, greatly gifted, but his arrogance was monstrous. In the end he thought everyone else should serve his talents. It consumed his compassion and his judgment, even his honor.”
“How tragic,” Judith said softly. “I’m glad Robert asked you; your answer is better than I had expected.” She glanced at her husband, whose expression confirmed her own.
“Thank you, my dear.” Casbolt flashed her a sudden smile, then turned back to Monk. “Tell us, how did you catch him? If he was clever, then you must have been even cleverer!”
Monk answered a trifle smugly. “He made mistakes-old cases, old enemies. I uncovered them. It is a matter of understanding loyalties and betrayals, of watching everything, and never giving up.”
“Hounding him?” Breeland asked with distaste.
“No!” Monk replied sharply. “Seeking the truth, whether it is what you want it to be or not. Even if it is what you dread most and cuts deepest at what you want to believe, never lie, never twist it, never run away, and never give up.” He was surprised at the vehemence with which he meant what he said. He heard it in his voice and it startled him.
He saw the agreement in Hester’s face, and felt himself color. He had not realized her respect mattered so much to him. He had never intended to be so vulnerable.
Merrit was staring at him with a sudden interest, as if in a space of moments he had metamorphosed into a man she could like and she did not know how to deal with the change.
“There you are,” Casbolt said with evident pleasure. “I knew you had invited a most interesting man, my dear,” he said to Judith. “Are you ever defeated, Mr. Monk? Do you ever retire from the fray and concede to the villain?”
Monk smiled back, a trifle wolfishly. Now the passion was gone; they were fencing to entertain.
“Not yet. I’ve come close a few times. I’ve feared my own client was guilty, or that the person I was employed to protect might be, and I have wanted to let go, just walk away and pretend I did not know the truth.”
“And did you?” Alberton asked. He was leaning forward a little across the table, his plate ignored, his eyes intent upon Monk’s face.
“No. But sometimes I liked the villain better than the victim,” Monk answered honestly.
Judith was surprised. “Really? When you understood the crime you had more sympathy with the murderer than the person he killed?”
“Once or twice. There was a woman whose child was systematically molested. I liked her far better than the man she killed for it.”
“Oh!” She sucked in her breath sharply, her face blanched with pain. “Poor creature!”
