AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He shook his head, and turned to accompany her back along the way he had come.
"It is unfortunate that Joscelin was murdered," she continued. "It would have been much better if he could have died at Sebastopol—better for Fabia anyway. What do you want of me? I was not especially fond of Joscelin, nor he of me. I knew none of his business, and have no useful ideas as to who might have wished him such intense harm."
"You were not fond of him yourself?" Monk said curiously. "Everyone says he was charming."
"So he was," she agreed, walking with large strides not towards the main entrance of the house but along a
graveled path in the direction of the stables, and he had no choice but to go also or be left behind. "I do not care a great deal for charm." She looked directly at him, and he found himself wanning to her dry honesty. "Perhaps because I never possessed it," she continued. "But it always seems chameleon to me, and I cannot be sure what color the animal underneath might be really. Now will you please either return to the house, or go wherever it is you are going. I have no inclination to get any wetter than I already am, and it is going to rain again. I do not intend to stand in the stable yard talking polite nonsense that cannot possibly assist you."
He smiled broadly and bowed his head in a small salute. Lady Callandra was the only person in Shelburne he liked instinctively.
"Of course, ma'am; thank you for your . . ."He hesitated, not wanting to be so obvious as to say "honesty." "... time. I wish you a good day."
She looked at him wryly and with a little nod and strode past and into the harness room calling loudly for the head groom.
Monk walked back along the driveway again—as she had surmised, through a considerable shower—and out past the gates. He followed the road for the three miles to the village. Newly washed by rain, in the brilliant bursts of sun it was so lovely it caught a longing in him as if once it was out of his sight he would never recall it clearly enough. Here and there a coppice showed dark green, billowing over the sweep of grass and mounded against the sky, and beyond the distant stone walls wheat fields shone dark gold with the wind rippling like waves through their heavy heads.
It took him a little short of an hour and he found the peace of it turning his mind from the temporary matter of who murdered Joscelin Grey to the deeper question as to what manner of man he himself was. Here no one knew him; at least for tonight he would be able to start anew, no previous act could mar it, or help. Perhaps he would
learn something of the inner man, unfiltered by expectations. What did he believe, what did he truly value? What drove him from day to day—except ambition, and personal vanity?
He stayed overnight in the village public hostelry, and asked some discreet questions of certain locals in the morning, without significantly adding to his picture of Jos-celin Grey, but he found a very considerable respect for both Grey's brothers, in their different ways. They were not liked—that was too close a relationship with men whose lives and stations were so different—but they were trusted. They fitted into expectations of their kind, small courtesies were observed, a mutual code was kept.
Of Joscelin it was different. Affection was possible. Everyone had found him more than civil, remembering as many of the generosities as were consistent with his position as a son of the house. If some had thought or felt otherwise they were not saying so to an outsider like Monk. And he had been a soldier; a certain honor was due the dead.
Monk enjoyed being polite, even gracious. No one was afraid of him—guarded certainly, he was still a Peeler— but there was no personal awe, and they were as keen as he to find who had murdered their hero.
He took luncheon in the taproom with several local worthies and contrived to fall into conversation. By the door with the sunlight streaming in, with cider, apple pie and cheese, opinions began to flow fast and free. Monk became involved, and before long his tongue got the better of him, clear, sarcastic and funny. It was only afterwards as he was walking away that he realized that it was also at times unkind.
He left in the early afternoon for the small, silent station, and took a clattering, steam-belching journey back to London.
He arrived a little after four, and went by hansom straight to the police station.
"Well?" Runcorn inquired with lifted eyebrows. "Did
you manage to mollify Her Ladyship? I'm sure you conducted yourself like a gentleman?"
Monk heard that slight edge to Runcorn's voice again, and the flavor of resentment. What for? He struggled desperately to recall any wisp of memory, even a guess as to what he might have done to occasion it. Surely not mere abrasiveness of manner? He had not been so stupid as to be positively rude to a superior? But nothing came. It mattered—it mattered acutely: Runcorn held the key to his employment, the only sure thing in his life now, in fact the very means of it. Without work he was not only completely anonymous, but within a few weeks he would be a pauper. Then there would be only the same bitter choice for him as for every other pauper: beggary, with its threat of starvation or imprisonment as a vagrant; or the workhouse. And God knew, there were those who thought the workhouse the greater evil.
"I believe Her Ladyship understood that we are doing all we can," he answered. "And that we had to exhaust the more likely-seeming possibilities first, like a thief off the streets. She understands that now we must consider that it may have been someone who knew him."
Runcorn grunted. "Asked her about him, did you? What sort of feller he was?"
"Yes sir. Naturally she was biased—"
"Naturally," Runcorn agreed tartly, shooting his eyebrows up. "But you ought to be bright enough to see past that."
Monk ignored the implication. "He seems to have been her favorite son," he replied. "Considerably the most likable. Everyone else gave the same opinion, even in the village. Discount some of that as speaking no ill of the dead." He smiled twistedly. "Or of the son of the big house. Even so, you're still left with a man of unusual charm, a good war record, and no especial vices or weaknesses, except that he found it hard to manage on his allowance, bit of a temper now and then, and a mocking wit when he chose; but generous, remembered birthdays
and servants' names—knew how to amuse. It begins to look as if jealousy could have been a motive.''
Runcorn sighed.
"Messy," he said decidedly, his left eye narrowing again. "Never like having to dig into family relationships, and the higher you go the nastier you get." He pulled his coat a little straighter without thinking, but it still did not sit elegantly. "That's your society for you; cover their tracks better than any of your average criminals, when they really try. Don't often make a mistake, that lot, but oh my grandfather, when they do!" He poked his finger in the air towards Monk. "Take my word for it, if there's something nasty there, it'll get a lot worse before it gets any better. You may fancy the higher classes, my boy, but they play very dirty when they protect their own; you believe it!"
Monk could think of no answer. He wished he could remember the things he had said and done to prompt Run-corn to these flavors, nuances of disapproval. Was he a brazen social climber? The thought was repugnant, even pathetic in a way, trying to appear something you are not, in order to impress people who don't care for you in the slightest, and can most certainly detect your origins even before you open your mouth!
But did not most men seek to improve themselves, given opportunity? But had he been overambitious, and foolish enough to show it?
