“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Tomorrow I’ll ask Claudine if she remembers writing this, and what she did with it.”
“Don’t you let her feel you think as she done it!” he warned. “It’d hurt her something terrible, and she don’t deserve that.”
In spite of herself, Hester smiled. She could remember very clearly how Claudine and Squeaky had hated each other in the beginning. She had thought him obscene, both physically and morally. He had seen her as arrogant, useless, and cold, a middle-aged woman sterile of mind and devoid of passions. It had been her crazy pursuit of Phillips’s pornographic photographs, at fearful risk to herself, that had finally changed his mind. And it was his effective, if rather quixotic, rescue of her that had changed her mind about him.
“I won’t,” she promised.
Hester was in early on Monday morning, but a brief and businesslike meeting with Margaret in the pantry delayed her meeting with Claudine.
“We are rather short of laundry supplies,” Margaret warned. “I have just been down there and cautioned them to be a little less generous in their use. We cannot afford to replace them at this rate.”
“Thank you,” Hester said briefly. “Is there anything else?”
Margaret hesitated, seemingly on the edge of saying something more, then changed her mind and went out of the room. Hester heard her footsteps on the wooden floor, brisk and purposeful.
She found Claudine in the medicine room and showed her the paper, holding out only the side with the list on it.
Claudine frowned, then looked up and met Hester’s eyes. “What happened to it? I wrote it out for Margaret, and she got me all those things. That list is several weeks old.”
Hester felt bruised, suddenly tired. “How many weeks?”
“I don’t know. Four, maybe five. Why? It hardly matters,” Claudine replied.
“You’re sure you gave it to Margaret?” Hester insisted.
“Yes, of course I am.”
“She actually got all those things for you?”
“Yes. If she hadn’t, I would have written it out again. But I didn’t have to. What is this about, Hester? Is something missing?”
“No. Nothing at all. It doesn’t have to do with the clinic.”
“I don’t understand.” Claudine looked thoroughly puzzled.
Hester shook her head a little. “You don’t want to,” she said gently. “It’s the message on the other side that’s important, not this. What happened to the list after she brought you the items on it?”
“I’ve no idea. I didn’t see it again after I gave it to her.”
“You didn’t check off the items against it?” Hester suggested.
“I had the receipts from the apothecary. Those are all I need for the ledger.”
“Are you quite sure you didn’t ever see the list again?”
“Not until now. Why?”
“Thank you.” Hester gave her a tiny smile, almost more of a grimace, and went out of the room, closing the door softly.
She gave the list back to Monk.
He waited.
“It’s Claudine’s list for Margaret to shop from,” she told him. “Margaret never gave it back, because Claudine took the prices from the apothecary’s receipts.” She swallowed hard. “I wish it weren’t.”
“I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. I can’t leave it. If it’s Ballinger, I must still find him, not for Parfitt’s sake but because of the children.”
She nodded. “Oliver will defend him. He can’t refuse.” She watched Monk’s face. “We’ll have to have irrefutable proof.”
Rupert Cardew closed the door of the morning room behind him and stared at Monk. He still looked tired, as if the shock of arrest had not completely left him, even though he was now free. However, he was composed and courteous, and, as always, beautifully dressed.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Monk?” he asked.
Monk felt churlish, and it put him at a disadvantage.
“I apologize. What I have to ask you is extremely unpleasant, but this is a case I cannot afford to leave.”
Rupert looked surprised. “Really? You care so much that Parfitt is dead?”
“On the contrary. If that were all, I would be delighted to turn my time to something more important,” Monk admitted. “But I want to find the man behind the blackmail.”
Rupert smiled very slightly, not in amusement but in self-criticism. “Are you going to warn me that I am still vulnerable? I assure you, I know that.”
“I assumed you were aware of it, Mr. Cardew,” Monk told him. “That is not why I came.”
“Oh?” Rupert looked surprised, but not worried.
“I need to know a great deal more from you than you have told me so far,” Monk replied. “I’m sorry.” He meant the apology more than Cardew would understand, or believe.
“I don’t know anything more,” Rupert said simply. “I really have no idea who killed Parfitt. For God’s sake, man, don’t you think I’d have told you already if I did?”
“Of course, if you had realized, or thought for a moment that I would believe you. I think it was Arthur Ballinger who did it; if not personally, then by using one of Parfitt’s own men.” He saw Cardew start with surprise, and ignored it. “But I have to prove it beyond any doubt,” he continued. “If Ballinger is charged, he will be defended by Oliver Rathbone, and I know from experience that Rathbone could get even Jericho Phillips off. How hard do you imagine he is going to fight for his father-in-law?”
Rupert’s mouth tightened, and the corners went down. “I see. But I still don’t know anything.”
“You know about the trade,” Monk said grimly.
Rupert blushed. “I don’t know about his side of it.”
“I didn’t expect you to. I can deduce a good deal of that. I need to know his clients, how the blackmail was paid, the sort of amounts, and exactly what the performances were like and who attended.”
Rupert went white.
Monk ignored that also. “And I need to know about the suicide a few months ago. What led up to it?”
“I can’t tell you that!” Rupert was appalled. “That would be a … betrayal.”
“I knew you would see it that way,” Monk said quietly. “Yes. You would, in a sense, be betraying the other men who used the abuse of children for their entertainment.”
He saw Rupert wince, the shame filling his face. He had expected it. It hurt Monk to have to be so blunt, but it changed nothing. “Whereas if you don’t tell me, you will be betraying the children on that boat-and all those like them. And if you think carefully and with absolute honesty, you’ll realize you will be betraying your father, and perhaps the better part of yourself.”
Rupert shook his head slowly. “You don’t know what you’re asking …”
“Really?” Monk raised his eyebrows. “Do you think your social class are the only people who feel loyalty toward their friends, or to those to whom they are bound by promises of conspiracy, and hiding their shame? You are ashamed of it, aren’t you?”
A flame of anger lit Rupert’s eyes. “Yes, of course I am! You …” He struggled for words, and could not find them.
“And you think embarrassment and an apology are enough to make the balance even again?”
“No, I don’t! I’ll regret it the rest of my life!” Rupert was shouting now. “But I can’t undo it.”
“Remorse is excellent,” Monk said levelly. “But it isn’t enough. Nor is money. If you want any kind of redemption, then you must help me stop at least some of it from happening again.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know who killed Parfitt!” Rupert said desperately. “It may well have been Ballinger, but I don’t know anything to help you prove it. I didn’t see him, and I wouldn’t recognize him if I had. I don’t even remember half that evening, except as a nightmare. Telling you the names of my friends who
