pork pies in a public house half a mile from Courtland’s police station. “But of course I know about it. What do you need?”
Monk smiled and took another bite of his pork pie. “They do a very good baked apple here.”
Courtland nodded. “Good. It’ll take that long for me to tell you all I can about Mr. Taft and his unfortunate ending. Mind, you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Of course not,” Monk agreed. “I observed it all myself, or deduced it. I don’t know that it’s going to be any damned use anyway. But there’s something in all this that we don’t understand.”
“Something?” Courtland raised his eyebrows. “There’s everything. Starting with, where is the money? Going on to, where did Rathbone get the picture of Drew? Why did Taft kill himself because Drew was a child abuser and pornographer? And why the devil did he kill his wife and daughters? But the facts say that that is what happened.” He took another mouthful of his pie. “And you know as well as I do that if we can prove a thing happened we don’t have to find a sane reason for it-or any reason at all.”
“Just tell me as much as you know of what are absolute facts,” Monk asked. “The sort of thing the best defense in the world couldn’t shake.”
Courtland stopped halfway through his pie and took another long draft of his ale. He put his tankard down again and met Monk’s eyes.
“Taft and his wife came home from court after the revelation about Drew and the photograph,” he began. “They got there a little after five o’clock. Both daughters were at home, but there were no servants in the house.”
“At five in the afternoon? Why not?” Monk asked, his mouth full.
“Apparently they all gave notice when the scandal broke and Taft was accused of misappropriating the charity money. Mrs. Taft is probably the only one who could confirm that, though, and she’s not here to say different, poor woman,” Courtland explained.
“But he hadn’t been found guilty yet,” Monk said with some surprise. “Looks as if they didn’t expect him to be acquitted. Why was that? Did they know something more than the prosecution did?”
“A good question,” Courtland answered. “But I doubt we’ll get a straight answer from them. If they left because they thought he was guilty, they’ll want to stay far away from the whole thing.”
Monk thought for a moment, drinking more of his ale, and Courtland waited.
Someone slapped the plump barmaid lightly on the behind, and there was a burst of laughter from the next table. She flounced off, giggling.
“Did they go before the trial began, or afterward?” Monk asked. “Because, according to the prosecution, they thought they had a good case against Taft, until Drew started to give evidence. Then he pretty well destroyed it.”
“You’re giving the servants credit for more foresight than I think they warrant,” Courtland told him grimly. “Looks more like they went as soon as they got a decent offer anywhere else. The feeling was much divided in the community. Still is. Servants don’t like uncertainty. Can’t blame them. If you’ve been in a home where there’s a scandal it can be hard to find another place.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Monk agreed. “So the daughters were home, and Mr. and Mrs. Taft got back at about five o’clock. What then?”
Courtland shook his head. “Their lawyer, Gavinton, called by. He’s not sure as to the exact time, but he thinks about half past eight. He said Taft was very upset, but he didn’t think he was in the least suicidal.”
Monk smiled bleakly. “Well, he would say that. He’s hardly likely to admit he found the man looking as if he’d kill his family and then himself. He’d have a lot of explaining to do if he walked out and left them after that.”
“True,” Courtland conceded. “All the same, it’s easy enough to believe that as far as Gavinton was concerned, Taft was distressed at the prospect of conviction, as any other man would’ve been, and upset to find that the man he had trusted so completely was a child abuser and pornographer. But that isn’t the type of distress that drives you to kill your family and then yourself. You really can’t blame Gavinton for not noticing that anything seemed out of the ordinary, given what the circumstances were.”
“Does he blame himself?” Monk asked curiously.
“Actually, yes, he does. He says he ought to have seen it, but he didn’t.”
“What about Drew? Did he call?”
“No. Not while Gavinton was there, anyway, and there is nothing to suggest that he came later on. But even if he had, Taft didn’t die until a few minutes after five in the morning, by which time Drew was miles away and can prove it. So can Gavinton. Not that anyone suspects him.”
“Five in the morning?” Monk was mildly surprised. “That’s late to commit suicide. Just about daylight again.” Had Taft sat up all night, trying to think of a way out? Or trying to find the courage to end his life?
“Yes, it is,” Courtland agreed. “Neighbors heard the shot and sent for the police. They got there from the local station well within half an hour. They found Taft shot through the roof of the mouth. Mrs. Taft had been strangled and both daughters suffocated. The gun was there, the house doors were locked. Drew was at home in his bed, as his servants will testify.” He swallowed the last of his pie. “Naturally the police searched the house, but they could find nothing to suggest anything other than the tragically obvious conclusion.”
Monk was largely ignoring his food, good as it was. He tried to picture the scene in his mind. It was all too easy. He had tasted despair himself, in the long dark hours of the night. Most people do, at one time or another. Money problems become insurmountable; news comes of a death in the family; there is incurable illness, failure, a consuming love that is not returned; or perhaps there is simply the loss of a friend who to that point had made all other grief bearable.
Some people retreat into silence, some weep, some lose their tempers and break things, very few kill themselves. That is a journey whose end is unknown, except that there is no return from it. Why had Taft, a man who professed an overpowering Christian faith, taken that road?
The obvious answer was that his faith was not real and perhaps never had been-at least not for some considerable time. But Hester had felt that his self-love was real enough; that didn’t fit the picture of suicide either.
“Do you believe the police’s conclusion?” Monk asked Courtland, looking up to meet his eyes.
“Short of finding some evidence to the contrary, I have to,” Courtland replied. “And I can’t even think of what that evidence could be.”
Monk could think of nothing either. He finished his meal in near silence, then thanked Courtland and left.
Monk spent the rest of the day examining the police evidence in detail, and it stood up to his closest scrutiny. Both Gavinton and Drew’s accounts of their whereabouts were unassailable. Gavinton had been at home with his wife and family. His wife was restless and had not slept well. She had told the police, ruefully, that the sight of her husband sleeping, blissfully unaware of her insomnia, had added to her sense of being utterly alone in the house. She had finally given in to temptation, and woken her lady’s maid to make her a cup of hot milk. The maid had confirmed this, with sufficient detail to remove doubt.
Monk had not considered Gavinton likely to be guilty of violence anyway. He decided to go to see him only because such an omission would have been incompetent.
He had found Gavinton pale-faced and looking harassed. He agreed to speak to Monk with the air of a man who felt he had little alternative. He was standing behind an unusually tidy desk, no more than one pile of papers on it.
“I’m not sure what I can tell you, Mr. Monk.” He waved his hand indicating the chair opposite. “I am as stunned as you must be by Taft’s suicide. Even more that he should take the fearful action of killing his family as well. I have no explanation to offer.”
“Was there anything he said or did that with hindsight seems relevant to you now?” Monk asked, aware that Gavinton had no obligation to answer him.
Gavinton was profoundly disconcerted. He was not used to a failure he could not deny, or about which he could shift most of the blame on to someone else. He looked down at the all-but-empty desk. “I’ve thought about that, and in spite of the fact that I defended the man, and therefore I imagined I had come to know him to a degree-I certainly knew where I thought him most vulnerable-the answer is that I cannot think of anything that makes sense of what he’s done. Believe me; I want to for my own sake.”
