tea? You… look…” He hesitated, not sure how literal to be.
“No-yes.” Monk shrugged. “Tea won't help.” He made as if to stand up, too restless to wait, but then apparently found it painful, and reclined back into his chair.
“It was a rough chase?” Rathbone said with a dry smile.
Monk winced. “Very.”
Rathbone rang his bell and when the clerk appeared he ordered tea. “I want it, even if you don't. Now, tell me why you've come. It wasn't to know the Crown Prosecutor's opinion of the case.”
“No,” Monk agreed, then remained silent for several seconds.
Rathbone felt a chill inside. For something to have affected Monk this deeply it must be very ugly indeed. He had another appointment in twenty minutes. He could not afford delay, and yet he knew impatience would be clumsy, and he had no desire to add to the burden, whatever it was. Perhaps Monk sensed his urgency. He looked up suddenly, as if having reached a resolve. His jaw was clenched and there was a muscle flicking in his temple. His words came out in a tight, level, carefully controlled monotone, as though he dared not allow any emotions through or it would all explode beyond his mastery.
“I met a woman some time ago, by chance, on the steps of the Geographical Society in Sackville Street. We became acquainted and I saw her several times after that. She was charming, intelligent, full of wit and enthusiasm.” His voice was a flat concentrated monotone. “She expressed interest in the Stonefield case, because I was looking to find trace of Angus Stonefield. The long and short of it is we spent an evening together walking around Soho area looking for places where either Angus or Genevieve Stonefield might have met a lover. Of course we didn't find anything. I don't know if either of us expected to. It was an evening of enjoyment, away from the restrictions of society for her, and from the misery of poverty and crime for me.”
Rathbone nodded but did not interrupt. It sounded very natural. He had no idea what was coming.
“I took her home in a hansom-” Monk stopped, his face white.
Rathbone said nothing to fill the silence.
Monk took a deep breath and gritted his teeth.
“We were passing along North Audley Street and were forced to slow because one of the large houses had been holding some social event and the guests were leaving. Suddenly she tore open the bodice of her gown, stared at me with passionate hatred, then shrieked and threw herself out of the moving hansom. She landed sprawled in the street, picked herself up and ran, screaming that I had assaulted her.”
It was preposterous, but it was not a story utterly new to Rathbone. He had heard of hysterical women inviting advances and then suddenly and without the slightest warning that a man could see, losing their heads and accusing assault. Usually the matter could be kept private with a little sensible discussion and the exchange of money-or a promise of marriage. Money was preferable-it was a far cheaper price in the long run. But why would anyone do such a thing to Monk? She could hardly wish to marry him. No society woman could marry a private agent of inquiry. And he had no money. Although possibly she did not know that. He dressed like a wealthy man.
Monk had a letter in his hand. He held it out. Rathbone took it and read it, then folded it up and laid it on his desk.
“That puts rather a different complexion on the subject,” he said slowly.
“It would appear from this that it is revenge she wishes. I assume you have no idea why, or you would have mentioned it.”
“No. I've racked my memory, what there is of it.” A bitter mockery passed over his face. “There's nothing at all. Not a shred. She's beautiful, amusing, a delight to be with, and there's not even a ghost, not a tiny thread, of familiarity.” His voice rose, sharp in desperation. “Nothing!”
Rathbone caught a moment of the nightmare, the bitter horror of living inside a man you did not know. The one thing which in all eternity you could never escape was yourself. Quite suddenly and devastatingly he understood Monk as he never had before.
But if he were to be of use, he must quash emotion. A man clouded by feelings was less able to think rationally or to perceive the truth. “Then perhaps it was not she you wronged,” he said thoughtfully, “but someone she loved. A woman will often feel more passionately and take far greater risks to protect a loved one than she will to save herself.” He saw the sudden light of hope in Monk's eyes.
“But for God's sake, who?” he demanded. “It could be anyone!”
There was a light rap on the door, and they both ignored it.
“Well I know of no one better able to investigate it than you,” Rathbone pointed out. “And it matters, Monk.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk between them. “Don't delude yourself you can remain unharmed if she chooses to pursue this. Even if she proves nothing at all, such a charge, quite unsubstantiated, would still be enough to ruin you. If you were a gentleman in society, with means and family reputation, and she were a young woman seeking a husband, then you might ride it out. You could say she was hysterical, a lightly balanced woman, given to vapors or imaginings… even that she had imagined your favor and taken your rejection hard.
But no one is going to believe that of a man in your position.”
“Good God, don't you think I know that!” Monk said furiously. “If she were a young woman seeking a husband, and I were likely material, she wouldn't do it anyway. Think what it would do to her own reputation. What gentleman will look at her now? I'm not so damned ignorant I don't know what it will cost her. Nor is she. That's what makes it so terrifying. She hates me enough to destroy herself in order to destroy me.”
“Then whatever you did to cause it is profound,” Rathbone said. It was not meant in cruelty, but there was no time or space to deal in less than the truth, and he was aware of his desk just beyond the door, and his next ap- pointment. “I'm not sure how much it may protect you to know,” he went on, “but if you do search, I would begin by looking for someone who may have been unjustly convicted, or a person hanged, or jailed and perhaps died there. Don't begin with thefts or embezzlements, or the victims of petty crime. In other words, start with the result of the investigation, not the weight of the evidence or your own certainty that the prosecution was just.”
“Will it help if I find it?” Monk asked, pinned between hope and bitterness.
Rathbone toyed with a lie, but only for an instant. Monk was not a man to give another an easy sop. He did not deserve it himself.
“Possibly not,” he answered. “Only if it comes to trial, and you could prove she has a motive of revenge. But if she has as much intelligence as you suggest, I doubt she'll seek a prosecution. She'd be unlikely in that event to get one, certainly not a conviction, unless she had an extraordi- nary biased jury.” His face tightened and his eyes were steady. “She will do far more damage to you, and leave you less chance of escape, vindication, or counterattack, if she simply passes the word around. She will not land you in prison that way, but she will ruin your career. You will be reduced to-' I know!” Monk snapped, rising to his feet abruptly, and with a sharp intake of breath as his aching muscles and bruised body hurt him. “I shall have to scrape a living working for people in the fringes of trade or the under- world, looking for errant husbands, collecting bad debts and chasing petty thieves.” He turned his back on Rathbone and stared out of the window. “And I shall be lucky if they can afford to pay me enough for me to eat daily.
There will be no more cases of any interest to Callandra Daviot, and she can't keep supporting me for nothing. I don't need you to tell me that. I shall have to move lodgings, and when my clothes wear out I shall be reduced to secondhand. I know all that.”
Rathbone longed to be able to say something, anything, of comfort, but there was nothing, and he was increasingly aware of the faint noises from the office, and his next client waiting.
“Then for your own peace of mind at least, you had better do all you can to discover who she is,” he said grimly. “And more importantly, who she was, and why she hates you so much she is prepared to do this.”
“Thank you,” Monk murmured as he went out, closing the door behind him and all but bumping into the clerk hovering until he should leave, and he might show in the gentleman waiting impatiently at his elbow.
Of course Rathbone was right. He had not really needed anyone to tell him, it was simply a release of the loneliness of it to hear the words from someone else, and someone who, for all their past differences, at least believed his account. And his advice regarding where to search was sound.
He walked along Vere Street deep in thought, oblivious of other pedestrians or carriages passing him by.
There was only one course open to him, and deeply as he loathed the prospect, he dared not delay. He must search his past records of cases and try to find the one in which Drusilla had been involved, albeit indirectly. At least Rathbone's suggestions gave him somewhere to start. It would be impossible to approach Runcorn. He would
