replied. “I’ve got-”
“I know,” she agreed calmly, her voice reassuring.
He looked at her pleasant face. It was far from beautiful, but full of strength and-at this moment-a quiet courage.
“Then, she went out at the back,” he said more steadily. “That means she did it deliberately. She tricked someone into leaving her alone. Why? What on earth would make her do that? Did someone here threaten her? Who have you had in since she came?”
“An old woman upstairs with a fever,” Claudine replied. “She’s delirious and probably dying. And a young woman with a stab wound and a broken collarbone. All others were just in and out.”
He stared at her.
“One of us?” she said with a catch in her voice. She seemed about to add something else, then changed her mind.
He knew from her face that she was thinking of Margaret, and trying to deny it to herself. He was thinking the same. There had to be some more complex explanation, but just at the moment it did not matter.
“I’ve got to see if I can find her,” Monk said, although he had no idea where to begin. Should he even tell Hester? There was nothing she could do, except run into danger herself.
“Where will you look?” Claudine asked him.
“I don’t know. If she was alone, or escaped from whoever she went with, she’ll probably go back to the places she knows. All I can do is ask.”
“Can I help?”
“No … thank you. Just … don’t tell Hester … yet.”
“I won’t have to,” Claudine said grimly. “She’ll know.”
Monk left without adding anything more. Once outside in Portpool Lane he walked as rapidly as he could, not even aware of the rain. He would like to have run but it was pointless, and he needed his strength. He could not stop until he found Hattie.
He asked questions of street peddlers, a seller of matches, another with bootlaces, one with hot chocolate and ham sandwiches. The sandwich man had seen a young woman with pale skin and very fair hair, in company with a woman a little older, brown-haired, going down Leather Lane toward High Holborn, at almost half past nine. They had been on foot, and hurrying.
It was confusing. Was that Hattie or not? With a woman? Who? It was the best lead he had. Standing in the traffic, people passing him by, the rattle of wheels and clip of hooves on the road, the spray of dirty water from the gutters soaking his legs, he was overwhelmed with the uselessness of it. It might have been Hattie, or equally easily it might not. And she could have been going anywhere in London.
There was no point in waiting here. He might as well see if anyone else had seen them. He could think as he walked. He might realize something that had eluded him so far.
But he did not, and in the late afternoon as it was growing dusk, he knew nothing more than half a dozen sightings, which might have been Hattie or any other fair-haired young woman. He decided to take a hansom and go out to Chiswick. At least there she was known, and any sighting would be real. It was just possible she had become homesick and gone back to the one place where she had friends, and which was familiar to her. She might feel safer there, even if in fact she was not.
The ride seemed interminable. Every dark street looked like every other. Lamps were lit, glaring eyes in the increasing gloom. Everything was full of shadows. The moving carriage lamps were yellow, and there was the hiss of wheels on the wet cobbles even though the rain had stopped.
Finally Monk reached the Chiswick mall on the edge of the river opposite the Eyot. He leaped out of the hansom, paid the driver, and strode over toward the lights moving down by the stretch of mud and stones left by the low tide. He could hear voices. If it was the police, he would ask for their help.
As he reached the steps, his stomach was churning, his breath tight in his chest, throat aching.
One of the men held his lantern higher, and Monk could see that there were four of them, grim, wet, feet and ankles caked with river mud. There was a woman’s body on the stones, and the yellow light shone on her face, and on the pale blond hair that was almost silver.
Monk knew it was Hattie, even before he was close enough to see her features.
CHAPTER 9
Rathbone was at his parents-in-law’s for dinner again when the butler announced that a Mr. Monk had called to see Mr. Ballinger and was waiting for him in the morning room.
“What an inconvenient time to call!” Mrs. Ballinger said stiffly, her eyes wide. She looked at the butler. “Tell him to wait. In fact, better than that, tell him to come back tomorrow morning, at a reasonable hour.” She turned to Rathbone. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I know he is a friend of yours, more or less, but this is too much. The man has no breeding at all.”
The butler had not moved.
“What is it, Withers?” Ballinger said tartly. “Tell Monk, if he wants to wait, I’ll see him when I’ve had dinner. And when the evening is over and my visitors have gone home.”
The butler, acutely embarrassed, moved from one foot to the other, his face a dull pink.
Rathbone stood up. “I’ll go and see what he wants,” he offered, going toward the door as he spoke.
“For heaven’s sake, Oliver, let the man wait!” George snapped. “You’re not his lackey to go jumping up and down after him simply because he arrives at the door.”
Rathbone felt Margaret’s eyes on him as he left, but he did not turn back. He realized, as he closed the drawing room door behind him and walked across the wide hall with its sweeping staircase, that he was afraid. He knew Monk too well to imagine that he had called at this hour without a very compelling reason.
Rathbone had seen the pride and the pain in Monk when Rathbone had beaten him in court over Jericho Phillips. He knew Monk would not let that happen again.
He opened the morning room door and came face-to-face with him.
“Why are you here?” Rathbone asked, closing the door behind him and remaining standing in front of it.
“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized. “I thought this better than at his place of business. This affords him a less public exhibition, at least for the time being.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Rathbone demanded, although he felt a hollow fear that he knew.
“And you are here also,” Monk continued. “Your clerk said that you would be. Perhaps it is as well.”
“Monk!” Rathbone kept his voice level with difficulty.
Monk straightened up and put his shoulders back, altering his weight from the easier stance he had held before. “I have new evidence that is compelling. I have come to arrest Arthur Ballinger for the murder of Michael Parfitt,” he replied.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Rathbone said sharply. It was like a bad dream spiraling out of control. “Ballinger was at Bertram Harkness’s house. You know that, and if you don’t, I certainly do.”
“I know,” Monk said calmly. “It is not far from where Parfitt was found, and the movement of the tide can account for the difference. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be-”
“I’ll make it as hard as I can!” Rathbone heard his own voice rising, losing control. “You can’t come in here to the man’s own house and accuse him, just because of what Sullivan said. He was desperate and on the brink of suicide. You know that as well as I do.”
“Oliver-,” Monk began.
Rathbone thought of Margaret in the quiet family withdrawing room across the hall, just beyond the closed doors. He must protect her from this. With an effort he lowered his voice.
“Think of it, Monk. Even if you were right and Ballinger had some involvement with Phillips, and even with Parfitt, why on earth would he kill Parfitt? From what Sullivan said, supposing he were sane, and right about the facts-which we don’t know-Ballinger would have had every reason to keep him alive! He would be a source of considerable income for him.”
