“Damn you!” Bledsoe said between his teeth. “I shall deny it.”
Monk looked at him, lifting his own lip in a suggestion of disdain. “If that is what your code of honor says you must do, sir, then you must follow your conscience. It is very noble of you.”
Bledsoe looked startled. “Noble?”
“Yes, sir. Now that I know whose it is, it will be easy enough to prove. You will look something of a fool in court, and everything of a liar, but you will have been loyal to your friend. Good day, sir.” He turned on his heel and strode away. He was furious, but far more than that, he was filled with misery. He desperately did not want the suspect to be someone he liked-worse, someone Hester liked.
Mickey Parfitt had been a monster. Any of his victims could have been tempted to destroy him, even if afterward they would have regretted either their rage or their loss of the fuel he’d supplied for their appetite. It simply had not occurred to Monk that Rupert Cardew, with his wealth, his privilege, and above all his charm, should have become entangled in such filth.
Why not? Dependency had nothing to do with position. It was about need.
Perhaps someone had stolen the cravat from him? Monk hoped so. It would not solve the crime, but then, perhaps that did not matter.
Over the next two days he traced Rupert Cardew to various prostitutes in the Chiswick area and farther south along the riverbank. The water and its people seemed to fascinate Rupert, as if there were both a vitality and a danger in its moods, its sleeping surface, so often smooth, reflecting the light and hiding its own heart.
He found other witnesses who had seen Rupert, who knew his tastes, women he had used from time to time. It was not difficult to follow the trail of the money he had gambled and lost, the debts he had paid only with his father’s help.
Eventually there was no reasonable doubt left. Monk took Orme with him and went to the magnificent house in Chelsea where Rupert Cardew still lived with his father. He chose to go early in the morning on purpose, so there was little chance either Lord Cardew or Rupert would be out.
The butler admitted him. Perhaps he should have gone to the back door, but that was something he had always refused to do, even when he had been a junior officer in the Metropolitan Police. Now, as commander of the Thames River Police he did not even think of it.
“I require to speak to Mr. Rupert Cardew regarding a most serious matter,” he said gravely as he was shown to the morning room to await Rupert’s convenience.
The interior of the house was magnificent, in the manner of one that has been lived in by the same family for generations. Little was new. The large hallway had a marble-flagged floor, worn uneven by the passage of feet over generations. The wooden banister sweeping down from the gallery above was darkened in places by the constant touch of hands. There was a carved chest with animals on it, which had been carefully mended.
In the morning room the carpet was beautiful, but the sun of countless summers had muted the colors. The leather on the chairs was scuffed in places. At another time he would have loved the room. Today it hurt, fueling his anger against Mickey Parfitt and all that he’d soiled with his manipulation of weakness.
He told the footman that he would wait until Mr. Cardew had had his breakfast, and asked to see the valet. He felt deceitful to show the picture of the cravat to a servant first, trading on his innocence, but in the end it was less cruel than placing him in the position where he could lie, and would feel obliged to do so.
When it was identified, Monk waited until Rupert came into the morning room. He looked as easy and charming as when Monk had met him at the clinic in Portpool Lane.
“Morning, Monk,” he said with a smile. Then he stopped. “God, man, you look dreadful! Nothing wrong with Mrs. Monk, I hope?” For a moment fear flickered in his face, as if it mattered to him.
Monk felt the deceit scorch inside him. He pulled the picture out of his pocket again and held it up.
“Your valet says that this is yours. It’s pretty distinctive.”
Rupert frowned. “It’s a piece of paper! Did you find my cravat?”
“If this is yours, yes. Is it?” Monk insisted.
Rupert looked at him with complete incomprehension. “Why on earth does it matter? Yes, it’s mine. Why?”
Monk had a moment’s doubt. Had Cardew no idea what he had done? Was Parfitt so worthless that he really didn’t think killing him mattered?
As if reciting something pointless, Monk told him, “It was used to murder someone called Mickey Parfitt. We found his body in the water at-” He stopped.
Rupert was ashen. Suddenly the meaning of it was clear to him.
“And you think I did it?” He had trouble articulating the words. He swayed a little, put out his hand to grasp something, but there was nothing there.
“Yes, Mr. Cardew, I do think so,” Monk said quietly. “I wish I didn’t. I wish I could believe he died of natural causes, but that is impossible. He was strangled with your cravat.”
“I …” Rupert made a jerky little movement with his hand, his eyes never leaving Monk’s face. “Is there any point in my denying it?”
“It’s not my decision,” Monk told him. “I might choose to believe you, whatever the facts say. But you knew him, you patronized his appalling boat. He blackmailed most of his clients. It was only a case of which one broke first.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Rupert said quietly, his face scarlet. “I paid.”
“And lent someone your cravat to kill him with?”
“It was stolen. Or … or I lost it. I don’t know.” Rupert’s expression said he did not expect to be believed.
Monk wished Rupert would stop. It was hopeless. “Please don’t make it worse than it is,” he said.
“Have you told my father?”
“No. You may, if you prefer. But don’t-”
“Run away?” Rupert asked with a flash of agonizing humor. “I won’t. Please wait here. I shall return in a few minutes.”
He kept his word. Ten minutes later he was in a hansom, sitting silently between Monk and Orme.
CHAPTER 5
Rathbone felt a touch of chill in the pit of his stomach when his clerk told him Monk was in the waiting room, looking tired and rather drawn.
“Send him in,” Rathbone replied. He wanted to get it over with. He would find it hard to give his full attention to a client, with his imagination racing as to what it was that Monk had discovered. The fact that he had come to Rathbone at all made it inescapable that it had to do with Mickey Parfitt’s murder and the boat on which he’d practiced his particularly filthy trade.
Rathbone had tried to put from his mind Sullivan’s words blaming Arthur Ballinger for his downfall-first the temptation, then the corruption. Had his mind been deranged, and he had blamed Ballinger because he could not accept his own responsibility for what he had become? There had never been anything but words, perhaps hysterical-no facts, not even any details Sullivan could not have invented himself.
Monk came in through the door and closed it behind him. The clerk was right: he looked tired and miserable, almost defeated. The iron fist inside Rathbone’s stomach clenched tighter. He waited.
“I found out who killed Mickey Parfitt,” Monk said quietly. “The proof seems pretty conclusive. I thought you’d like to know.”
“I would!” Rathbone snapped. “So damned well tell me! Don’t stand there like an undertaker with toothache-tell me!”
A smile flickered across Monk’s face and disappeared. “Rupert Cardew.”
Rathbone was stunned. He had difficulty believing it. Certainly Rupert was a little dissolute, but surely not more than many young men with too much money and too many privileges. How on earth could he have become so degraded so young?
And yet even as a kind of sorrow washed over Rathbone, so did a relief. It was ridiculous to think that Arthur
