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He waited.
“Does she say that?” she said at last. “Does she say she weren’t willing?”
“She doesn’t say anything—she’s dead.”
Her eyes grew huge with horror—and dawning realization, as memory became sharp and focused again.
“He killed her?”
“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “Was he rough with you?”
She nodded, the memory of pain sharp in her face and fear rekindling as she thought of it again. “Yes.”
“Did you tell anyone that?”
“What’s the point? They didn’t even believe me I was unwilling. They said I was loose-tongued, a troublemaker and no better than I should be. They dismissed me without a character. I couldn’t get another position. No one would take me on with no character. An’ I was with child—” Her eyes hazed over with tears, and suddenly there was life there again, passion and tenderness.
“Your child?” he asked, although he was afraid to know. He felt himself cringe inside as if waiting for the blow.
“She’s here, with the other babes,” she said quietly. “I get to see her now and again, but she’s not strong. How could she be, born and raised here?”
Monk determined to speak to Callandra Daviot. Surely she could use another servant for something? Martha Rivett was one among tens of thousands, but even one saved from this was better than nothing.
“He was violent with you?” he repeated. “And you made it quite plain you didn’t want his attentions?”
“He didn’t believe me—he didn’t think any woman meant it when she said no,” she replied with a faint, twisted smile. “Even Miss Araminta. He said she liked to be took—but I don’t believe that. I was there when she married him—an’ she really loved him then. You should have seen her face, all shining and soft. Then after her wedding night she changed. She looked like a sparkling fire the night before, all dressed in cherry pink and bright as you like. The morning after she looked like cold ashes in the grate. I never saw that softness back in her as long as I was there.”
“I see,” Monk said very quietly. “Thank you, Martha. You have been a great help to me. I shall try to be as much help to you. Don’t give up hope.”
A fraction of her old dignity returned, but there was no life in her smile.
“There’s nothing to hope for, sir. Nobody’d marry me. I never see anyone except people that haven’t a farthing of their own, or they’d not be here. And nobody looks for servants in a workhouse, and I wouldn’t leave Emmie anyway. And even if she
doesn’t live, no one takes on a maid without a character, and my looks have gone too.”
“They’ll come back. Just please—don’t give up,” he urged her.
“Thank you, sir, but you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes I do.”
She smiled patiently at his ignorance and took her leave, going back to the labor yard to scrub and mend.
Monk thanked the workhouse master and left also, not to the police station to tell Runcorn he had a better suspect than Percival. That could wait. First he would go to Callandra Daviot.
8
MONK’S SENSE OF ELATION was short-lived. When he returned to Queen Anne Street the next day he was greeted in the kitchen by Mrs. Boden, looking grim and anxious, her face very pink and her hair poking in wild angles out of her white cap.
“Good morning, Mr. Monk. I am glad you’ve come!”
“What is it, Mrs. Boden?” His heart sank, although he could think of nothing specific he feared. “What has happened?”
“One of my big kitchen carving knives is missing, Mr. Monk.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I could have sworn I had it last time we had a roast o’ beef, but Sal says she thinks as it was the other one I used, the old one, an’ now I reckon she must be right.” She poked her hair back under her cap and wiped her face agitatedly. “No one else can remember, and May gets sick at the thought. I admit it fair turns my stomach when I think it could’ve been the one that stabbed poor Miss Octavia.”
Monk was cautious. “When did this thought come to you, Mrs. Boden?” he asked guardedly.
“Yesterday, in the evening.” She sniffed. “Miss Araminta sent down for a little thin-cut beef for Sir Basil. He’d come in late and wanted a bite to eat.” Her voice was rising and there was a note of hysteria in it. “I went to get my best knife, an’ it weren’t there. That’s when I started to look for it, thinking as it had been misplaced. And it in’t here—not anywhere.”
