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His face was tight with inner pain and the knowledge that for all the effort and the struggle he had put forth, and the price it had cost him, he had failed.
“She is right,” he said quietly. “Whoever it is has no mercy. They are prepared to allow Percival to hang. It would be a flight of fancy to suppose they will spare her if she endangers them.”
“And I think she would.” Now Hester’s expression was pinched with anxiety. “Underneath the fashionable woman who retreated to her bedroom with grief there is someone of more courage, and a deeper horror at the cruelty and the lies.”
“Then we still have something to fight for,” he said simply. “If she wants to know badly enough, and the suspicion and the fear become unbearable to her, then one day she will.”
The waiter appeared and set their chocolate in front of them. Monk thanked him.
“Something will fall into place in her memory,” he continued to Hester. “A word, a gesture; someone’s guilt will draw them into an error, and suddenly she will realize—and they will see it, because she will not possibly be able to be the same towards them—how could she?”
“Then we must find out—before she does.” Hester stirred her chocolate vigorously, risking slopping it over with every round of the spoon. “She knows that almost everyone lied, in one degree or another, because Octavia was not as they described her in the trial.” And she told him of everything that Beatrice had said the last time they spoke.
“Maybe.” Monk was dubious. “But Octavia was her daughter; it is possible she simply did not want to see her as clearly as they did. If Octavia were indiscreet in her cups, perhaps vain, and did not keep the usual curb on her sensuality—her mother may not be prepared to accept that as true.”
“What are you saying?” Hester demanded. “That what they all testified was right, and she encouraged Percival, and then changed her mind when she thought he would take her at her word? And instead of asking anyone for help, she took a carving knife to her bedroom?”
She picked up her chocolate but was too eager to finish the thought to stop. “And when Percival did intrude in the night, even though her brother was next door, she fought to the death with Percival and never cried out? I’d have screamed my lungs raw!” She sipped her chocolate. “And don’t say she was embarrassed he’d say she had invited him. No one in her family would believe Percival instead of her—and it would be a lot easier to explain than either his injured body or his corpse.”
Monk smiled with a harsh humor. “Perhaps she hoped the mere sight of the knife would send him away—silently?”
She paused an instant. “Yes,” she agreed reluctantly. “That does make some sense. It is not what I believe though.”
“Nor I,” he assented. “There is too much else that is out of character. What we need is to discover the lies from the truths, and perhaps the reasons for the lies—that might be the most revealing.”
“In order of testimony,” she agreed quickly. “I doubt Annie lied. For one thing she said nothing of significance, merely that she found Octavia, and we all know that is true. Similarly the doctor had no interest in anything but the best accuracy of which he was capable.” She screwed up her face in intense concentration. “What reasons do people who are innocent of the crime have to lie? We must consider them. Then of course there is always the possibility of error that is not malicious, simply a matter of ignorance, incorrect assumption, and simple mistake.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “The cook? Do you think Mrs. Boden could be in error about her knife?”
She caught his amusement, but responded with only a moment’s softening of her eyes.
“No—I cannot think how. She identified it most precisely. And anyway, what sense would there be in it being a knife from anywhere else? There was no intruder. The knife does not help us towards the identity of who took it.”
“Mary?”
Hester considered for a moment. “She is a person of most decided opinions—which is not a criticism. I cannot bear wishy-washy people who agree with whoever spoke to them last—but she might make an error out of a previously held conviction, without the slightest mal intent!”
“That it was Octavia’s peignoir?”
“No of course not. Besides, she was not the only person to identify it. At the time you found it you asked Araminta as well, and she not only identified it but said that she remembered that Octavia had worn it the night of her death. And I think Lizzie the head laundrymaid identified it too. Besides, whether it was Octavia’s or not, she obviously wore it when she was stabbed—poor woman.”
“Rose?”
“Ah—there is someone much more likely. She had been wooed by Percival—after a manner of speaking—and then passed over when he grew bored with her. And rightly or not, she imagined he might marry her—and he obviously had no such intention at all. She had a very powerful motive to see him in trouble. I think she might even have the passion and the hatred to want him hanged.”
“Enough to lie to bring about the end?” He found it hard to believe such a terrible malice, even from a sexual obsession rejected. Even the stabbing of Octavia had been done in hot blood, at the moment of refusal, not carried out deliberately step by step, over weeks, even months afterwards. It was chilling to think of such a mind in a laundrymaid, a trim, pretty creature one would scarcely look at except with an absent-minded appreciation. And yet she could desire a man, and when rejected, torture him to a judicial death.
Hester saw his doubt.
“Perhaps not with such a terrible end in mind,” she conceded. “One lie begets another. She may have intended only to frighten him—as Araminta did with Myles—and then events took over and she could not retreat without endangering herself.” She took another sip of chocolate; it was delicious, although she was becoming used to the best of foods. “Or of course, she may have believed him guilty,” she added. “Some people do not consider it as in the least to bend the truth a little in order to bring about what they see as justice.”
“She lied about Octavia’s character?” He took up the thread. “If Lady Moidore is right. But she may also have done that from jealousy. Very well—let us assume Rose lied. What about the butler, Phillips? He bore out what everyone else said about Percival.”
“He was probably largely right,” she conceded. “Percival was arrogant and ambitious. He clearly blackmailed the other servants over their little secrets—and perhaps the family as well; we shall probably never know that. He is not at all likable—but that is not the issue. If we were to hang everyone in London who is unlikable we could probably get rid of a quarter of the population.”
“At least,” he agreed. “But Phillips may have embroidered his opinion a trifle out of obligation to his employer. This was obviously the conclusion Sir Basil wished, and he wished it speedily. Phillips is not a foolish man, and he is intensely aware of duty. He wouldn’t see it as any
form of untruth, simply as loyalty to his superior, a military ideal he admires. And Mrs. Willis testified for us.”
