'Of course!' Lucius shot to his feet. 'Thank you, Mr. Monk. I am eternally grateful to you. I am sure if you can just find Miriam, and I could be certain that she is unhurt, then we shall overcome everything else.' Shadows filled his face again as he realized how strong was the possibility that she was not all right. He could think of no reason otherwise why she would not have sent him some message. 'When shall you be ready to depart?'
Monk felt rushed, and yet Lucius was right: the matter was urgent-in fact, they might already be too late. If he was going to attempt the job at all, he should do it immediately. He could leave a note for Hester, explaining that he had accepted a case and would return whenever he had made his first assessment of the situation. He could not tell her in person because she was at the hospital working with Callandra Daviot. Of course, it was in a purely voluntary way. He had refused absolutely to allow her to help to support them by earning her own living. The subject was still one of contention between them. No doubt she would return to it sooner or later.
For the moment Monk had a case himself, and he must make himself ready to go with Lucius Stourbridge.
The Stourbridge house in Cleveland Square in Bayswater was handsome in the effortless style of those to whom money is not of concern. Its beauty was restrained, and it had obviously been designed in an earlier and simpler age. Monk found it greatly pleasing and would have paused to admire it longer had not Lucius strode ahead of him to the front door and opened it without waiting for a footman or maid.
'Come in,' he invited Monk, standing back and waving his hand as if to urge him to hurry.
Monk stepped inside, but was given no time to look around him at the hallway with its family portraits against the oak paneling. He was dimly aware of one picture dominating the others, a portrait of a horseman in the uniform of the Hussars at the time of Waterloo. Presumably he was some earlier Stourbridge, also of military distinction.
Lucius was walking rapidly across the dark tiled floor towards the farthest doorway. Monk followed after him, no more than glancing up at the finely plastered ceiling or the wide stairway.
Lucius knocked on the door and, after the slightest hesitation, turned the handle and opened it. Only then did he look back at Monk. 'Please come in,' he urged. 'I am sure you will wish to meet my father, and perhaps compare with him all that I have told you.' He stood aside, his face furrowed with anxiety, his body stiff. 'Father, this is Mr. William Monk. He has agreed to help us.'
Monk walked past Lucius into the room beyond. He had a brief impression of comfortable, well-used furniture, not there for effect but for the pleasure of the occupant, before his attention was taken by the man who stood up from one of the dark leather armchairs and came towards him. He was slender, and of little more than average height, but there was a vigor and grace in him which made him commanding. He was of similar build to Lucius, but in no other way resembled him. He must have been in his fifties, but his fair hair was hardly touched with gray and his blue eyes were surrounded by fine lines, as if he had spent years narrowing them against a brilliant light.
'How do you do, Mr. Monk,' he said immediately, offering his hand. 'Harry Stourbridge. My son tells me you are a man who may be able to help us in our family misfortune. I am delighted you have agreed to try, and most grateful.'
'How do you do, Major Stourbridge,' Monk said with unaccustomed formality. He shook Stourbridge’s hand, and looking at him a little more closely, saw the anxiety in the older man’s face that courtesy could not hide. There was no sign of relief that Miriam Gardiner had gone. For whatever reasons, he was deeply troubled by her disappearance also. 'I shall do my best,' Monk promised, painfully aware of how little that might be.
'Sit down,' Stourbridge said, indicating one of the other chairs. 'Luncheon will be in an hour. Will you join us?'
'Thank you,' Monk accepted. It would give him an opportunity to observe the family together and to form some opinion of their relationships-and perhaps how Miriam Gardiner might have fitted in as Lucius’s wife. 'But before that, sir, I should like to speak more confidentially to you. There are a number of questions I need to ask.'
'Of course, of course,' Stourbridge agreed, not sitting but moving restlessly about the room, in and out of the broad splashes of sunlight coming through the windows. 'Lucius, perhaps if you were to call upon your mother?' It was a polite and fairly meaningless suggestion, intended to offer him an excuse to leave.
Lucius hesitated. He seemed to find it difficult to tear himself away from the only thing that mattered to him at the moment. His intelligence must have told him there were discussions better held in his absence, but he could not put his mind or his imagination to anything else.
'She has missed you,' the elder Stourbridge prompted. 'She will be pleased to hear that Mr. Monk is willing to assist us.'
'Yes… yes, of course,' Lucius agreed, glancing at Monk with the shadow of a smile, then going out and closing the door.
Harry Stourbridge turned to Monk, the sunlight bright on his face, catching the fine lines and showing more nakedly the tiredness around his eyes.
'Ask what you wish, Mr. Monk. I will do anything I can to find Miriam, and if she is in any kind of difficulty, to offer her all the help I can. As you can see, my son cares for her profoundly. I can imagine no one else who will make him as happy.'
Monk found it impossible to doubt Major Stourbridge’s sincerity, which placed upon him an even greater emotional burden. Why had Miriam Gardiner fled their house, their family, without a word of explanation? Had it been one sudden event or an accumulation of small things amounting to a whole too great for her? What could it be that she could not even offer these people who loved her some form of explanation?
And where was Treadwell the coachman?
Stourbridge was staring at Monk, waiting for him to begin.
But Monk was uncertain where to start. Harry Stourbridge was not what he had imagined, and he found himself unexpectedly sensitive to his feelings.
'What do you know of Mrs. Gardiner?' he asked, more brusquely than he had intended. Pity was of no use to Lucius or his father. He was here to address their problem, not wallow in emotions.
'You mean her family?' Stourbridge understood straightaway what Monk was thinking. 'She never spoke of them. I imagine they were fairly ordinary. I believe they died when she was quite young. It was obviously a matter of sadness to her, and none of us pursued the subject.'
'Someone will have cared for her while she was growing up,' Monk pressed. He had no idea if it was a relevant point, but there were so few obvious avenues to follow.
'Of course,' Stourbridge agreed, sitting down at last. 'She was taken in by a Mrs. Anderson, who treated her with the greatest kindness. Indeed, she still visits her quite frequently. It was from Mrs. Anderson’s home that she met Mr. Gardiner, when she was about seventeen, and married him two years later. He was considerably older than she.' He crossed his legs, watching Monk anxiously. 'I made enquiries myself, naturally. Lucius is my only son, and his happiness is of the greatest importance to me. But nothing I learned explains what has happened. Walter Gardiner was a quiet, modest man who married relatively late. He was nearly forty. But his reputation was excellent. He was rather shy, a trifle awkward in the company of women, and he worked extremely hard at his business-which, incidentally, was the selling of books. He made a modest success of it and left Miriam well provided for. By all accounts she was very happy with him. No one had an ill word to say for either of them.'
'Did they have children?' Monk asked.
A shadow crossed Stourbridge’s eyes. 'No. Unfortunately not. That is a blessing that does not come to every marriage.' He drew in his breath and let it out silently. 'My wife and I have only the one child.' There was a sharp memory of pain in his face, and Monk was very aware of it. It was a subject he himself had considered little. He had no title or estates to leave, and he had no memory of ever considering marriage, far less a family. He felt in no way incomplete without such a thing. But, then, Hester was not an ordinary woman. He had married her with no thought of the comfort of domestic life. She was not the one he would have chosen if he had. The thought made him smile unconsciously. One could not tell what the future might bring. He had already surprised himself by changing as radically as he had. Perhaps in a few years he would think of children. Now he was honest enough to know that he would resent such other demands on Hester’s time and emotion as a child would have to be.
Stourbridge was waiting for his attention.
'She is somewhat older than your son,' Monk put in as tactfully as he could. 'Exactly how much older is she?'
A flash of amusement crossed Stourbridge’s face.
