her know he took her opinion seriously.
She looked back. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, her nose pink.
'I think she found out 'oo sent that letter to 'er father lurin' 'im inter the stable ter be shot,' she said defiantly. 'The master'd never 'ave shot 'isself, any more'n she'd go jumpin' off bridges.' She took a deep breath. 'An' don't yer go sittin' there eatin' my cake an' tellin' me as they would.'
He was startled. No one else had spoken of a letter.
'What letter, Mrs. Plimpton?' he said quietly, controlling the urgency in his voice with an effort.
'Letter as come ter 'im the night 'e died,' she answered.
'Mr. Cardman didn't mention it.'
' 'Cos 'e didn't know,' she replied reasonably, automatically refilling his cup from the big brown teapot. 'It came ter the back door an' Lettie took it to 'im. We didn't find it after, so I s'pose 'e didn't keep it. But it was right after that that 'e told Mr. Cardman as 'e'd decided ter sit up, an' no one was ter bother waitin' fer 'im. 'E'd lock up 'isself. It were somebody as was goin' ter meet 'im, I'd set me life on it!' She drew in her breath in a little gasp, as if realizing suddenly that she was right: Havilland had done just that, and lost his life.
'You are quite sure?'
'Course I am!' She was shaking now, but her eyes did not waver.
'May I speak to Lettie?' Monk asked.
'Yer think I'm makin' it up!' she accused him, her face pinched, her breathing heavy.
'No, I don't,' he assured her. 'If I did, there would be no point in my speaking to Lettie, would there? I want to see what she remembers of it: paper, ink, handwriting. I'd like to know if she saw Mr. Havilland open it, and how he reacted. Was he surprised, afraid, alarmed, or excited, even pleased? Was he expecting it or not?'
'Oh… yes. Well!' She could not bring herself to apologize, but she pushed the cake plate across the table to him. 'Well, I'll send for Lettie.' She walked to the door and called the kitchen maid to fetch the housemaid.
Lettie appeared and answered his questions. She was about fifteen and stood in front of him twisting her fingers in her apron. She could not read, and had no idea about the paper or the writing, but she remembered quite clearly that Mr. Havilland was both surprised and disturbed by the letter. After reading it he had put it straight into the fire and then told her to send Cardman to him. He had written no reply.
'Have you any idea whom the letter was from?' he asked.
'No, sir, I ain't.'
'What did he say, as clearly as you can remember?'
'Ter send Mr. Cardman straightaway, sir.'
'That's all?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Have you ever seen the handwriting before?'
'I dunno, sir. I din't never look.'
Monk thanked her and Mrs. Plimpton. He left the house through the scullery door and the tradesman's yard, heading past the coal and coke sheds and up the area steps into the bitter wind slicing down the street. Who had written to Havilland, disturbing him so much? Was it to arrange a meeting in the stables that evening, or something completely different? Certainly Havilland had dismissed the servants immediately after receiving it, and apparently decided not to retire as normal. It would even explain his presence in the stables. But whom would he meet in such a place on a winter night, rather than in his house, where it was warm and dry, but presumably less private?
Why would he need such extraordinary privacy? Was his own study not sufficiently discreet, with the servants in bed, and presumably Mary also? Had he taken the gun in order to protect himself, expecting an attack? Why? From whom? Perhaps Mary Havilland had been right. If so, then certainly she also would have been killed deliberately, and it could have been only by Toby Argyll.
It was now impossible to turn his back on the chance that Mr. Havilland had found some real danger in the tunnels and been murdered to silence him before he could ruin the Argylls' business by making it public.
But the visitor had then taken the gun from him and shot him with it. A man younger and stronger, more ruthless, and with the element of surprise? Havilland was frightened, but he had come essentially to talk. The other man had come intending to kill.
Alan Argyll?
And was that what Mary learned, and why Toby Argyll had killed her, too?
He bent forward into the wind, feeling the ice in it sting his face. He began to walk a little faster.
FIVE
When Monk arrived home that evening Hester could see that he was in some mental turmoil. He was shivering from the river crossing, and he concentrated on warming at least his hands and feet before he even attempted to say anything beyond a greeting. He ate the bowl of soup she brought him, and gradually he stopped shaking.
She wondered yet again if they would have been wiser to have found a house on the northern bank of the Thames, even if the area was less to their liking.
When she had gone to Portpool Lane she had taken the omnibus westwards and over whichever of the bridges was appropriate, but since they were directly opposite Wapping, it made sense for Monk to cross by ferry and be at the police station in fifteen minutes or so. Sometimes the patrol boat picked him up directly from the steps.
But the cold was intense, and on a night like this, with its drifting sleet, she wished profoundly he did not have to be on the open water.
She sat opposite him, looking at the red glow of the fire on his face, the soup bowl in his hands, and wondered if it had been a good idea for him to join a regular force again. She had offered to apply for a regular nursing job at one of the big hospitals, even though nursing in those circumstances was actually almost nothing to do with the care of patients.
One was rather more like a domestic servant in circumstances where a usual household maid would refuse to go.
She had tried it, before their marriage, and it had made her full of zeal to reform the practice of hospital nursing after her experience in the Crimea. She had failed spectacularly, very nearly incurring legal action against herself for insubordination, and worse. But still she would have swallowed her pride and applied again if it would have helped. Monk had refused outright.
Now she looked at him relaxing at last in the chair opposite her, and worried that he was finding the obedience to authority harder than he had expected, and the restrictions and demands of leadership too cramping to both his nature and his abilities. She was trying to think of the words to ask him when he spoke.
'Sixsmith, who's in charge of the practical side of the tunneling, is certain that Havilland committed suicide when he couldn't cope with the claustrophobia of working underground,' he said, watching her face.
She felt herself tighten, ready to argue, but kept her temper, waiting for what else he would say.
He smiled slightly, just an easing of the tiredness in him. 'I went back to the Havilland house and spoke to the cook and one of the maids,' he went on. 'They said Havilland received a note that night, hand-delivered to the back door. As soon as he read it he burnt it, and then told the butler to go to bed and he would lock up himself.'
'He was going to meet someone in the stable!' she said instantly, sitting upright and staring at him. 'Whom?'
He looked rueful. 'They had no idea. The envelope had only his name on it. The cook saw it briefly, and the maid who carried it doesn't read.'
'Well, who could it be?' she said eagerly. At last there was something to grasp hold of. She felt a surge of hope, which was absurd. It should not matter to her so much. She had never known Mary Havilland. She might not have liked her in the least if she had. She was remembering her own grief, the feeling of having been bruised all over, stunned by confusion, when she had first stood on the dockside at Scutari and read the letter from her brother, telling her of her fathers suicide, and then her mother's death from what was termed a broken heart. She could not help imagining Mary Havilland feeling the same searing pain.
Except that Hester had believed it and Mary had not. Had Mary been wrong, making it harder for herself, and for her sister, by refusing to accept the inevitable? 'Who could it be?' she repeated.
