AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If we didn’t know the relevant time, sir, we might think we had!” Monk replied immediately. “I’m sure you don’t want the wrong man hanged!”
Cyprian did not bother to answer.
The three women of the immediate family were waiting together in the withdrawing room, all close to the fire: Lady Moidore stiff-backed, white-faced on the sofa; her surviving daughter, Araminta, in one of the large chairs to her right, hollow-eyed as if she had not slept in days; and her daughter-in-law, Romola, standing behind her, her face reflecting horror and confusion.
“Good morning, ma’am.” Monk inclined his head to Lady Moidore, then acknowledged the others.
None of them replied. Perhaps they did not consider it necessary to observe such niceties in the circumstances.
“I am deeply sorry to have to disturb you at such a tragic time,” he said with difficulty. He hated having to express condolences to someone whose grief was so new and devastating. He was a stranger intruding into their home, and all he could offer were words, stilted and predictable. But to have said nothing would be grossly uncaring.
“I offer you my deepest sympathy, ma’am.”
Lady Moidore moved her head very slightly in indication that she had heard him, but she did not speak.
He knew who the two younger women were because one of them shared the remarkable hair of her mother, a vivid shade of golden red which in the dark room seemed almost as alive as the flames of the fire. Cyprian’s wife, on the other hand, was much darker, her eyes brown and her hair almost black. He turned to address her.
“Mrs. Moidore?”
“Yes?” She stared at him in alarm.
“Your bedroom window is between Mrs. Haslett’s and the main drainpipe, which it seems the intruder climbed. Did you hear any unaccustomed sounds during the night, any disturbances at all?”
She looked very pale. Obviously the thought of the murderer passing her window had not occurred to her before. Her hands gripped the back of Araminta’s chair.
“No—nothing. I do not customarily sleep well, but last night I did.” She closed her eyes. “How fearful!”
Araminta was of a harder mettle. She sat rigid and slender, almost bony under the light fabric of her morning gown—no one had thought of changing into black yet. Her face was thin, wide-eyed, her mouth curiously asymmetrical. She would have been beautiful but for a certain sharpness, something brittle beneath the surface.
“We cannot help you, Inspector.” She addressed him with candor, neither avoiding his eyes nor making any apology. “We saw Octavia before she retired last night, at about eleven
o’clock, or a few minutes before. I saw her on the landing, then she went to my mother’s room to wish her good-night, and then to her own room. We went to ours. My husband will tell you the same. We were awoken this morning by the maid, Annie, crying and calling out that something terrible had happened. I was the first to open the door after Annie. I saw straight away that Octavia was dead and we could not help her. I took Annie out and sent her to Mrs. Willis; she is the housekeeper. The poor child was looking very sick. Then I found my father, who was about to assemble the servants for morning prayers, and told him what had happened. He sent one of the footmen for the police. There really isn’t anything more to say.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Monk looked at Lady Moidore. She had the broad brow and short, strong nose her son had inherited, but a far more delicate face, and a sensitive, almost ascetic mouth. When she spoke, even drained by grief as she was, there was a beauty of vitality and imagination in her.
“I can add nothing, Inspector,” she said very quietly. “My room is in the other wing of the house, and I was unaware of any tragedy or intrusion until my maid, Mary, woke me and then my son told me what had … happened.”
“Thank you, my lady. I hope it will not be necessary to disturb you again.” He had not expected to learn anything; it was really only a formality that he asked, but to overlook it would have been careless. He excused himself and went to find Evan back in the servants’ quarters.
However Evan had discovered nothing of moment either, except a list of the missing jewelry compiled by the ladies’ maid: two rings, a necklace and a bracelet, and, oddly, a small silver vase.
A little before noon they left the Moidore house, now with its blinds drawn and black crepe on the door. Already, out of respect for the dead, the grooms were spreading straw on the roadway to deaden the sharp sound of horses’ hooves.
“What now?” Evan asked as they stepped out into the footpath. “The bootboy said there was a party at the east end, on the corner of Chandos Street. One of the coachmen or footmen may have seen something.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully.
“And there’ll be a duty constable somewhere around,” Monk added. “I’ll find him, you take the party. Corner house, you said?”
“Yes sir—people called Bentley.”
“Report back to the station when you’ve finished.”
“Yes sir.” And Evan turned on his heel and walked rapidly away, more gracefully than his lean, rather bony body would have led one to expect.
Monk took a hansom back to the station to find the home address of the constable who would have been patrolling the area during the night.
An hour later he was sitting in the small, chilly front parlor in a house off Euston Road, sipping a mug of tea opposite a sleepy, unshaven constable who was very ill at ease. It was some five minutes into the conversation before Monk began to realize that the man had known him before and that his anxiety was not based on any omission or failure of duty last night but on something that had occurred in their previous meeting, of which Monk had no memory at all.
He found himself searching the man’s face, trying without success to bring any feature of it back to recollection, and twice he missed what was said.
