“What is it now?” he said with ill grace.
Runcorn walked into the studio and looked around, his coat dripping water on the floor. Allardyce was working at a picture on the easel; his shirt was smeared with paint where he had wiped his hands.
“You told us you saw Niemann with Mrs. Beck a number of times,” Monk began. “Before the night she was killed.”
“Yes. They were friends. I never saw them quarrel.” Allardyce looked at him challengingly, his blue eyes clear and hard.
“How often altogether, then or earlier?”
“Earlier?”
“You heard me. Did he come over from Vienna just once, or several times?”
“Two or three that I know of.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.” Allardyce shrugged. “Once in the spring, once in the summer.”
“You’ve moved things!” Runcorn accused, pulling at the sofa. “It used to be over there!”
Allardyce glared at him. “I have to live here,” he said bitterly. “Do you think I want it exactly as it was? I need the light. And wherever I live I can’t get rid of the memories and I can’t bring them back, but I don’t have to keep it just as it was. I’ll have the sofa and the carpets any damn way I like.”
“Put them back,” Runcorn ordered.
“Go to hell!” Allardyce responded.
“Just a minute!” Monk stepped forward and almost collided with Runcorn. “We can work out where the bodies lay. Look at the line of the windows; they haven’t moved.” He faced Allardyce. “Put the carpets where they were— now!”
Allardyce remained motionless. “What for? What have you found?”
“Nothing yet. It’s only an idea. Do you know which woman died first?”
“No, of course . . .” Allardyce stopped, suddenly realizing what he meant. “You think someone might have killed Sarah, and Elissa was an accidental witness? Who?” His face was full of disbelief. “She never did anyone any harm. A few silly quarrels, like everybody.”
“Maybe she learned something she wasn’t meant to know?” Monk suggested.
“Put the carpets back!” Runcorn repeated.
Silently, Allardyce obeyed, moving them with Monk’s help. They were neither large nor heavy, and he was almost finished when Monk noticed that just under the fringed edge of one of them there was a knothole in the pine boards. “I didn’t see that before!”
“That’s why I put the edges there,” Allardyce pointed out.
Monk put his foot on the fringe and scuffed it up, showing the hole again. He glanced at Runcorn and saw the flash of understanding in his eyes. “Get me a chisel or one of those heavy knives,” he ordered Allardyce.
“What for? What is it?”
“Do as you’re told!” Monk said.
Allardyce obeyed, passing him a small claw-headed hammer, and a moment later there was a splintering of wood and the screech of nails prying loose as the board with the knothole came up. Lying in the dust below, glinting in the light, was a delicate gold earring, the loop stained with blood.
“That was Elissa’s,” Allardyce said after a moment’s utter silence. “I painted it; I know.” His voice cracked. “But this is where Sarah was lying! It doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, it does,” Monk said quietly. “It means Elissa was killed first. The earring was torn off when he put his arm around her neck . . . and broke it. It probably caught in his sleeve and in her struggle was ripped from her. He didn’t notice it fall. Then when Sarah came out of one of the other rooms and saw Elissa dead, he killed her, too, and she fell onto the floor, over where the earring had disappeared.”
Allardyce rubbed his hand across his face, leaving a smear of green paint on his cheek. “Poor Sarah,” he said softly. “All she ever did was look beautiful. And be in the wrong place.”
Runcorn pushed his hands deep into his pockets and stared at Monk. He didn’t say anything, but there was no need. The time had come when they could avoid it no longer. It was not Sarah who was the intended victim; it had been no more to do with her than mischance. It was not gamblers or debt collectors. Max Niemann’s visits to London, his meetings with Elissa that Kristian knew nothing of, were more motive, not less. Even the paid debts made it worse. Either it was the very last of Kristian’s money, or uglier even than that, it was money Elissa had sold herself for.
“I’m going to the hospital,” Runcorn said wearily. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll come,” Monk replied. He bent and picked up the delicate earring and dropped it into Runcorn’s hand. “You can put your carpets any damn way you like, Mr. Allardyce, but if you alter that floorboard I’ll jail you as an accomplice. Do you understand?”
Allardyce did not answer but stood, head bowed, in the middle of the floor as Monk and Runcorn went out and down the steps back into the rain.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Monk left the house early in the morning, almost before his footsteps died away and Hester heard the
