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Percival was very pale, but more composed than when he came in. He thought he knew what the threat was now, and it disturbed him less than the unknown.
“Maybe. The knife looks like several in the kitchen. The silk could be any of those I’ve passed in the laundry. But I certainly haven’t seen them like that. Is that what killed Mrs. Haslett?”
“It certainly looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Don’t you want to know where we found them?” Monk glanced past him to Evan and saw the doubt in his face also, an exact reflection of what he was feeling himself. If Percival knew they had found these things in his room, he was a superb actor and a man of self-control worthy of anyone’s admiration—and an incredible fool not to have found some way of disposing of them before now.
Percival lifted his shoulders a fraction but said nothing.
“Behind the bottom drawer in the dresser in your bedroom.”
This time Percival was horrified. There was no mistaking the sudden rush of blood from his skin, the dilation of his eyes and the sweat standing out on his lip and brow.
He drew breath to speak, and his voice failed him.
In that moment Monk had a sudden sick conviction that Percival had not killed Octavia Haslett. He was arrogant, selfish, and had probably misused her, and perhaps Rose, and he had money that would take some explaining, but he was not guilty of murder. Monk looked at Evan again and saw the same thoughts, even to the shock of unhappiness, mirrored in his eyes.
Monk looked back at Percival.
“I assume you cannot tell me how they got there?”
Percival swallowed convulsively. “No—no I can’t.”
“I thought not.”
“I can’t!” Percival’s voice rose an octave to a squeak, cracking with fear. “Before God, I didn’t kill her! I’ve never seen them before—not like that!” The muscles of his body were so knotted he was shaking. “Look—I exaggerated. I said she admired me—I was bragging. I never had an affair with her.” He started to move agitatedly. “She was never interested in anyone but Captain Haslett. Look—I was polite to her, no more than that. And I never went to her room except to carry trays or flowers or messages, which is my job.” His hands moved convulsively. “I don’t know who killed her—but it wasn’t me! Anyone could have put these things in my room—why would I keep them there?” His words were falling over each other. “I’m not a fool. Why wouldn’t I clean the knife and put it back in its place in the kitchen—and burn the silk? Why wouldn’t I?” He swallowed hard and turned to Evan. “I wouldn’t leave them there for you to find.”
“No, I don’t think you would,” Monk agreed. “Unless you were so sure of yourself you thought we wouldn’t search? You’ve tried to direct us to Rose, and to Mr. Kellard, or even Mrs. Kellard. Perhaps you thought you had succeeded—and you were keeping them to implicate someone else?”
Percival licked his dry lips. “Then why didn’t I do that? I can go in and out of bedrooms easily enough; I’ve only got to get something from the laundry to carry and no one would question me. I wouldn’t leave them in my own room, I’d have hidden them in someone else’s—Mr. Kellard’s—for you to find!”
“You didn’t know we were going to search today,” Monk pointed out, pushing the argument to the end, although he had no belief in it. “Perhaps you planned to do that—but we were too quick?”
“You’ve been here for weeks,” Percival protested. “I’d have done it before now—and said something to you to make you search. It’d have been easy enough to say I’d seen something, or to get Mrs. Boden to check her knives to find one gone. Come on—don’t you think I could do that?”
“Yes,” Monk agreed. “I do.”
Percival swallowed and choked. “Well?” he said when he regained his voice.
“You can go for now.”
Percival stared wide-eyed for a long moment, then turned on his heel and went out, almost bumping into Evan and leaving the door open.
Monk looked at Evan.
“I don’t think he did it,” Evan said very quietly. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“No—neither do I,” Monk agreed.
“Mightn’t he run?” Evan asked anxiously.
Monk shook his head. “We’d know within an hour—and it’d send half the police in London after him. He knows that.”
“Then who did it?” Evan asked. “Kellard?”
“Or did Rose believe that Percival really was having an affair, and she did it in jealousy?” Monk thought aloud.
