intolerable to someone else, that threatened their happiness, even their continued safety?
But what? What could Mary have known? Did Oonagh know it now, albeit without being aware of its danger to her?
Mercifully Hector was absent, and so, as far as Monk could see, was Kenneth. There was nothing to be gained remaining alone. Reluctantly, more tense than he could account for, he straightened up and went down the steps into the throng.
At dinner he was seated next to a large woman in a burgundy and black dress with skirts so huge no one could get within a yard and a half of her. Not that Monk wished to. He would like to have been spared the obligation of conversation also, but that was more than he was granted.
Deirdra was sitting opposite at the farther side of the table, and several times he caught her eye and smiled. He was beginning to think it was a waste of his time, although he knew at least one reason why Oonagh had invited him. She wished to know if he had progressed in discovering where Deirdra spent her money. Did she already know, and was she only looking for him to provide proof so she could confront Deirdra, and perhaps precipitate the quarrel Mary had been killed in order to avoid?
Looking across the table at Deirdra’s warm, intelligent, stubborn face, he did not believe it She might be what some people would refer to as immoral, apparently she was extravagant, but he did not believe she had murdered Mary Farraline, certainly not over something as easily curbed as extravagance.
But he had been wrong before, especially where women were concerned.
No-that was unfair. He had been wrong as to their strength, their loyalty, even their ability to feel passion or conviction-but not their criminality. Why did he doubt himself so deeply?
Because he was failing Hester. Even as he sat there eating a sumptuous meal amid the clatter of cutlery, the chink of glasses, the blaze of lights and murmur of voices, the rustle of silks and creak of stays, Hester was in Newgate Prison awaiting trial, after which, if she were found guilty, they would hang her.
He felt a failure because he was failing.
“… most becoming gown, Mrs. Farraline,” someone was saying to Deirdra. “Most unusual.”
“Thank you,” Deirdra acknowledged, but without the pleasure Monk would have expected her to show at such a compliment.
“Charming,” the large lady next to him added with a downward turn of her ungenerous mouth. “Quite charming. I am very fond of those lines, and jet beading is so elegant, I always think. I had one very like it myself, very like it indeed. Cut a little differently around the shoulder, as I recall, but the design of the stitching was just the same.”
One gentleman looked at her with surprise. It was an odd thing to remark, and not altogether polite.
“Last year,” the large lady added with finality.
On a wild impulse, a flicker of thought, Monk asked an inexcusable question.
“Do you still have it, ma’am?”
She gave an inexcusable answer.
“No… I disposed of it.”
“How wise,” Monk retorted with sudden viciousness. “That gown”-he glanced at her ample figure-”is more becoming to your… station.” He had so nearly said “age”; everyone else had, in their minds, said it for him.
The woman turned puce, but said nothing. Deirdra also blushed a light shade of pink, and Monk knew in that moment, although he could not yet prove it, that whatever Deirdra spent her money on, it was not gowns, as she had claimed. She bought hers secondhand, and presumably had a discreet dressmaker alter them to fit her and change them just enough that they were no longer completely identifiable.
She stared at him across the salmon mousse and cucumber and the remains of the sorbet, her eyes pleading.
He smiled and shook his head fractionally, which was ridiculous. He had no reason to keep her secret.
When he encountered Oonagh later, he met her eyes and told her he was investigating the matter but as yet had found no conclusive evidence. The lie troubled him not in the slightest.
In the morning post there was a letter from Callandra. Monk tore it open and read:
My dear William,
I am afraid the news from here is all of the very worst. I have visited Hester as often as I am permitted. She has great courage, but I can see that the strain is telling on her profoundly. I had foolishly imagined that her time in the Scutari hospital would have inured her to at least some of the hardships that Newgate would offer. Of course it is wildly different. The physical portion is relatively negligible. It is the mental suffering, the endless tedium of day after day with nothing to do but let her imagination conjure the worst. Fear is more debilitating than almost anything else.
In Scutari she was endlessly needed, respected, even loved. Here she is idle and the object of hatred and contempt from warders who have no doubt of her guilt.
I hear from Oliver that you have made no significant progress in learning who else may have killed Mary Farraline. I wish I could offer some assistance. I have asked Hester over and over for every memory or impression she might have, but nothing has come to mind which she has not already told you.
I am afraid the worst news of all is something we should have foreseen, but I regret we did not. Not that we could have helped it, even had we known from the outset. Since the crime was committed while the train was in Scotland, whoever is guilty, they have demanded that Hester be tried in Edinburgh. We have no grounds whatever upon which to contest it. She will be returned to stand trial in Edinburgh High Court, and Oliver will not be able to do anything more than offer his personal assistance. Since he is qualified only to practice English Law, he cannot appear for her.
Of course I shall make provision for the best Scottish lawyer I can find, but I confess I feel deeply distressed that Oliver cannot do it. He has the unparalleled advantage that he believes entirely in her innocence.
Still, we must not lose courage. The battle is not yet over, and as long as it is not, we have not lost-nor shall we.
My dear William, spare nothing to learn the truth, neither time nor money are of the least importance. Write to me for anything at all you might need.
Yours faithfully,
Callandra Daviot
He stood in the bitter autumn sunlight with the white paper a blur in front of him; his body was shaking. Rathbone could not defend her. He had never even thought of that- but now that Callandra wrote it, it seemed so obvious. He had not realized until now just how much he had been counting on Rathbone’s skill, how the lawyer’s past victories had weighed unconsciously on his mind, making him hope the impossible. Now, with one blow, that was ended.
It was minutes before his mind cleared. A dray stopped in the street outside. The cellarman shouted and the driver swore. The sound of the horses stamping on the cobbles and the rattle of wheels came up clearly through the window ajar.
Someone in the Farraline house had tampered with Mary’s medicine, with the knowledge it would kill her. Someone had put her pearl brooch in Hester’s bag. Greed? Fear? Revenge? Some motive not yet guessed at?
Where did Eilish go down the Kings Stables Road? Who was the rough, uncouth man who waited for Deirdra, and whom she met with such intense and secret conversation before running back into the house? A lover? Surely not, not in such clothes. A blackmailer? More probable. Over what? Her extravagance. Did she gamble, pay off old debts, keep a lover, a relative, an illegitimate child? Or was the extravagance simply to pay off a blackmailer? One thing, it was not to buy fashionable dresses. She had unquestionably lied about that.
It was an ugly resolution, but he decided he must follow her, or the man, and find the truth of it, whatever it was. And he must follow Eilish too. If it was a love affair with her sister’s husband, or with anyone else, that also must be known, and beyond doubt.
The first night was totally fruitless. Neither Deirdra nor Eilish appeared. But the second night at a little after midnight the man in the torn coat came again, and after lingering furtively beyond the arc of light from the streetlamp, and again looking at his watch, Deirdra appeared, creeping like a shadow out of the side gate. After a
