She took another step back, and another. The fog thickened, then a gust of cold air blew it away again and he looked only feet from her. He must see in her face that she knew he had lied.
“Who are you?” he demanded, his voice hard and angry, or was it frightened because in a way he, too, was cornered? “Why are you asking questions about me? I didn’t kill Elissa or Sarah!”
“You lied!” she accused. “You said you were here that night, but you weren’t. If you didn’t kill them, why didn’t you tell the truth?” She was still moving away from him, and he was following.
“Because I was afraid they’d blame me anyway!” His voice was sharp and brittle. “I was in Acton Street at the gambling house, and one of the women I drew was furious about it. Her husband made a terrible scene and they knocked him senseless. She followed me out and practically tore the pictures of her away from me.”
With a wild mixture of misery and elation, Hester realized he was talking about Charles and Imogen. It wasn’t proof of his innocence, but that much at least was honest.
She gulped. “What was she like, the woman?”
He was incredulous. “What?”
“What was she like?” she all but shouted at him.
The cold mist swirled around in heavier wreaths, and the boom of a foghorn drifted up from the river, followed almost immediately by another.
“Dark,” he said. “Pretty. Soft features.”
It was enough. Imogen. “Then where did you go?” she demanded, taking another step back. Now she was in the gloom and he was under the light. She could see the droplets of moisture clinging to his hair and skin.
“Not to Acton Street!” he shouted back at her. “I got a hansom and went all the way to Canning Town. I never came back until morning.”
“If you can prove that, why did you lie?” she charged him. He was still coming towards her. Were all his words only a distraction, and when he was close enough and she was off guard, would he lunge for her, and with a swift movement, a wrenching pain, a crack, her neck would be broken, too? She wheeled around, picked up her skirts, and ran as fast as she could in the blind, clinging fog, her heart beating so violently it almost stopped her breathing, the sound of her footsteps muffled. She had no idea where she was going. She tripped over the curb of the cross street and lurched forward, almost losing her balance, flinging her arms wide to stop from pitching over.
There was a snort beside her, a blowing of air, and she stifled a scream. She shot forward and ran straight into the side of a horse. It jerked up and backwards, and the next moment a man’s voice called out angrily.
“Albert!” she yelled as loudly as she could.
“Yes, Miss! Where are you?”
“Here! I’m here!” she sobbed, scrambling back past the horse to feel for the dark bulk of the carriage and fumble to open the door. “Drive me home! If you can see your way, get me back to Grafton Street, but hurry out of here, please!”
“Yes, Miss, don’t worry,” he said calmly. “It’ll not be this bad once we’re away from the river.”
She collapsed inside the coach and slammed the door shut.
They were over the bridge and climbing into clearer air before she thought to tell the coachman to go past the police station so she could leave a message for Runcorn, and return the picture with an abject apology.
In Vienna, Monk took his leave of Ferdi over a very early breakfast, thanking him for the inestimable help he had been not only in practical terms but also for his friendship.
“Oh, it was nothing,” Ferdi said quite casually, but his eyes never left Monk’s face, and there was a deep flush in his fair cheeks. “It was all rather important, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Monk agreed. “Very important indeed.”
“Will you . . . will you write and tell me what happens to Dr. Beck?” Ferdi asked. “I . . . I’d like to know.”
“Yes, I will,” Monk promised, fearing already that it would be hard news, and he would have to struggle to find a way of wording it so it would not wound the boy more than it had to.
Ferdi smiled. “Thank you. I don’t have a card, but I borrowed one of my father’s. The name is the same, so you could get in touch with me here. If you come to Vienna again . . .” He left it, suddenly self-conscious.
“I shall write you, of course,” Monk finished for him. “And most certainly I shall call.”
“Oh . . . good.” A smile lit Ferdi’s face, and he shot out his hand to clasp Monk’s, and then as suddenly let it go and bowed very formally, clicking his heels.
“
Monk met Max Niemann at the railway station as arranged; half an hour later they were settled on the train as it pulled out. He was impatient to be home and to tell Hester what he had found. It was not the absolute solution he had hoped for, one which would save Beck, but it was as much as he could find, and he had run out of places to look.
Suddenly the burden of it was almost insupportable. Elissa had betrayed another woman to her death. Max Niemann had not known it, nor had Kristian. Assuredly, Fuller Pendreigh would not have, either. The truth he brought with him would shatter all of them.
He looked at Niemann, sitting opposite him in the carriage as they rattled and jolted, picking up speed into the dark countryside. If he knew, would he even be coming to London? What would he have paid for it not to be true? It would shatter an image he had loved and believed for years.
And what would Kristian feel? Had he ever guessed any of it? Hanna’s love for him, her knowledge that he was of her own people, even though he did not know it himself. Elissa’s single act of unbearable destruction . . .
