AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thank you, Percival,” Monk said wearily. “You can go—for now.”
Percival opened his mouth to add something, then changed his mind and went out. He moved gracefully—well trained.
Monk returned to the kitchen and had the cup of tea Mrs. Boden had previously offered, but even listening carefully he learned nothing of further use, and he left by the same way he had arrived and took a hansom from Harley Street down to the City. This time he was more fortunate in finding Myles Kellard in his office at the bank.
“I can’t think what to tell you.” Myles looked at Monk curiously, his long face lit with a faint humor as if he found the whole meeting a trifle ridiculous. He sat elegantly on one of the Chippendale armchairs in his exquisitely carpeted room, crossing his legs with ease. “There are all sorts of family tensions, of course. There are in any family. But none of them seems a motive for murder to anyone, except a lunatic.”
Monk waited.
“I would find it a lot easier to understand if Basil had been the victim,” Myles went on, an edge of sharpness in his voice. “Cyprian could follow his own political interests instead of his father’s, and pay all his debts, which would make life a great deal easier for him—and for the fair Romola. She finds living in someone else’s house very hard to take. Ideas of being mistress of Queen Anne Street shine in her eyes rather often. But she’ll be a dutiful daughter-in-law until that day comes. It’s worth waiting for.”
“And then you will also presumably move elsewhere?” Monk said quickly.
“Ah.” Myles pulled a face. “How uncivil of you, Inspector. Yes, no doubt we shall. But old Basil looks healthy enough for another twenty years. Anyway, it was poor Tavie who was killed, so that line of thought leads you nowhere.”
“Did Mrs. Haslett know of her brother’s debts?”
Myles’s eyebrows shot up, giving his face a quizzical look. “I shouldn’t think so—but it’s a possibility. She certainly knew he was interested in the philosophies of the appalling Mr. Owen and his notions of dismantling the family.” He smiled with a raw, twisted humor. “I don’t suppose you’ve read Owen, Inspector? No—very radical—believes the patriarchal system is responsible for all sorts of greed, oppression and abuse—an opinion which Basil is hardly likely to share.”
“Hardly,” Monk agreed. “Are these debts of Mr. Cyprian’s generally known?”
“Certainly not!”
“But he confided in you?”
Myles lifted his shoulders a fraction.
“No—not exactly. I am a banker, Inspector. I learn various bits of information that are not public property.” He colored faintly. “I told you that because you are investigating a murder in my family. It is not to be generally discussed. I hope you understand that.”
He had breached a confidence. Monk perceived that readily enough. Fenella’s words about him came back, and her arch look as she said them.
Myles hurried on. “I should think it was probably some stupid wrangle with a servant who got above himself.” He was looking very directly at Monk. “Octavia was a widow, and young. She wouldn’t get her excitement from scandal sheets like Aunt Fenella. I daresay one of the footmen admired her and she didn’t put him in his place swiftly enough.”
“Is that really what you think happened, Mr. Kellard?” Monk searched his face, the hazel eyes under their fair brows, the long, fluted nose and the mouth which could so easily be imaginative or slack, depending on his mood.
“It seems far more likely than Cyprian, whom she cared for, killing her because she might have told their father, of whom she was not fond, about his debts—or Fenella, in case Octavia told Basil about the company she keeps, which is pretty ragged.”
“I gathered Mrs. Haslett was still missing her husband,” Monk said slowly, hoping Myles would read the less delicate implication behind his words.
Myles laughed outright. “Good God, no. What a prude you are.” He leaned back in his chair. “She mourned Haslett—but she’s a woman. She’d have gone on making a parade of sorrow, of course. It’s expected. But she’s a woman like any other. I daresay Percival, at any rate, knows that. He’d take a little protestation of reluctance, a few smiles through the eyelashes and modest glances for what they were worth.”
Monk felt the muscles in his neck and scalp tightening in anger, but he tried to keep his emotion out of his voice.
“Which, if you are right, was apparently a great deal. She meant exactly what she said.”
“Oh—” Myles sighed and shrugged. “I daresay she changed her mind when she remembered he was a footman, by which time he had lost his head.”
“Have you any reason for suggesting this, Mr. Kellard, other than your belief that it seems likely to you?”
“Observation,” he said with a shadow of irritation across his face. “Percival is something of a ladies’ man, had considerable flirtations with one or two of the maids. It’s to be expected, you know.” A look of obscure satisfaction flickered across his face. “Can’t keep people together in a house day in, day out and not have something happen now and again. He’s an ambitious little beggar. Go and look there, Inspector. Now if you’ll excuse me, there really is nothing I can tell you, except to use your common sense and whatever knowledge of women you have. Now I wish you good-day.”
Monk returned to Queen Anne Street with a sense of darkness inside. He should have been encouraged by his interview with Myles Kellard. He had given an acceptable motive for one of the servants to have killed Octavia Haslett, and that would surely be the least unpleasant answer. Runcorn would be delighted. Sir Basil would be satisfied. Monk would arrest the footman and claim a victory. The press would praise him for his rapid and successful solution, which would annoy Runcorn, but he would be immensely relieved that the danger of scandal was removed and a prominent case had been closed satisfactorily.
But his interview with Myles had left him with a vague feeling of depression. Myles had a contempt for both Octavia and the footman Percival. His suggestions were born of a kind of malice. There was no gentleness in him.
Monk pulled his coat collar a little higher against the cold rain blowing down the pavement as he turned into Leadenhall Street and walked up towards Cornhill. Was he anything like Myles Kellard? He had seen few signs of compassion in the records he had found of himself. His judgments were sharp. Were they equally cynical? It was a frightening thought. He would be an empty man inside if it were so. In the months since he had awoken in the hospital, he had found no one who cared for him deeply, no one who felt gratitude or love for him, except his sister, Beth, and her love was born of loyalty, memory rather than knowledge. Was there no one else? No woman? Where were his relationships, the debts and the dependencies, the trusts, the memories?
He hailed a hansom and told the driver to take him back to Queen Anne Street, then sat back and tried to put his own life out of his mind and think of the footman Percival—and the possibility of a stupid physical flirtation that had run out of control and ended in violence.
