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“Do you believe she nourished daydreams about him?” he asked.
She looked up at the ceiling. “Heaven knows. I would have thought she would place them more interestingly—Dr. Beck, for a start. He is a man of feeling and humor, a little vain, and I would have thought of a more natural appetite.” She gave a little laugh. “But then perhaps that was not what she wanted.” She looked back at him again. “No, to be candid, Mr. Monk, I think she admired Sir Herbert intensely, as do we all, but on an impersonal level. To hear that it was a romantic vision surprises me. But then life is constantly surprising, don’t you find?” Again the light was in her eyes and the lift, the sparkle that was almost an invitation, although whether to do more than admire her was not certain.
And that was all that he could learn from her. Not much use to Oliver Rathbone, but he reported it just the same.
* * *
With Kristian Beck he fared not much better, although the interview was completely different. He met him in his own home, by choice. Mrs. Beck was little in evidence, but her cold, precise nature was stamped on the unimaginative furnishings of her house, the rigidly correct placement of everything, the sterile bookshelves where nothing was out of place, either in the rows of books themselves or in their orthodox contents. Even the flowers in the vases were carefully arranged in formal proportions and stood stiffly to attention. The whole impression was clean, orderly, and forbidding. Monk never met the woman (apparently she was out performing some good work or other), but he could imagine her as keenly as if he had. She would have hair drawn back from an exactly central parting, eyebrows without flight or imagination, flat cheekbones, and careful passionless lips.
Whatever had made Beck choose such a woman? He was exactly the opposite; his face was full of humor and emotion and as sensuous a mouth as Monk had ever seen, and yet there was nothing coarse about it, nothing self-indulgent, rather the opposite. What mischance had brought these two together? That was almost certainly something he would never know. He thought with bitter self-mockery that perhaps Beck was as poor a judge of women as he himself. Maybe he had mistaken her passionless face for one of purity and refinement, her humorlessness for intelligence, even piety.
Kristian led him to his study, a room entirely different, where his own character held sway. Books were piled on shelves, books of all sorts, novels and poetry along with biography, history, philosophy, and medicine. The colors were rich, the curtains velvet, the fireplace faced with copper and the mantel displaying an idiosyncratic collection of ornaments. The icy Mrs. Beck had no place here. In fact, the room reminded Monk rather more of Callandra in its haphazard order, its richness and worth. He could picture her here, her sensitive, humorous face, her long nose, untidy hair, her unerring knowledge of what really mattered.
“What can I do to assist you, Mr. Monk?” Kristian was regarding him with puzzlement. “I really have no idea what happened, and the little I have learned as to why the police suspect Sir Herbert I find very hard to believe. At least if the newspaper reports are correct?”
“Largely,” Monk replied, dragging his attention back to the case. “There is a collection of letters from Prudence Barrymore to her sister which suggests that she was deeply in love with Sir Herbert and that he had led her to suppose that he returned her feelings and would take steps to make marriage between them possible.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Kristian said with concern, silently indicating a chair for Monk to be seated. “What could he possibly do? He has an excellent wife and a large family—seven, I think. Of course he could have walked out on them, in theory, but in practice it would ruin him, a fact of which he cannot p
ossibly have been unaware.”
Monk accepted the invitation and sat down. The chair was extremely comfortable.
“Even if he did, it would not free him to marry Miss Barrymore,” he pointed out. “No, I am aware of that, Dr. Beck. But I am interested to learn your opinion of both Sir Herbert and Miss Barrymore. You say you find all this hard to believe—do you believe it?”
Kristian sat opposite him, thinking for a moment before replying, his dark eyes on Monk’s face.
“No—no, I don’t think I do. Sir Herbert is essentially a very careful man, very ambitious, jealous for his reputation and his status in the medical community, both in Britain and abroad.” He put the tips of his fingers together. He had beautiful hands, strong, broad palmed, smaller than Sir Herbert’s. “To become involved in such a way with a nurse, however interesting or attractive,” he went on, “would be foolish in the extreme. Sir Herbert is not an impulsive man, nor a man of physical or emotional appetite.” He said it without expression, as if he neither admired nor despised such an absence. Looking at his face, Monk knew Dr. Beck was as different from Sir Herbert as it was possible for another clever and dedicated man to be, but he had no indication of Kristian’s feelings.
“You used the words intelligent and attractive about Nurse Barrymore,” he said curiously. “Did you find her so? I gathered from Lady Ross Gilbert that she was a trifle priggish, naive as to matters of love, and altogether not the sort of woman a man might find appealing.”
Kristian laughed. “Yes—Berenice would see her in that light. Two such different women it would be hard to imagine. I doubt they could ever have understood each other.”
“That is not an answer, Dr. Beck.”
“No, it isn’t.” He seemed quite unoffended. “Yes, I thought Nurse Barrymore was most attractive, both as a person and, were I free to think so, as a woman. But then my taste is not usual, I confess. I like courage and humor, and I find intelligence stimulating.” He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair, regarding Monk with a smile. “It is, for me, extremely unprofitable to spend my time with a woman who has nothing to talk about but trivia. I dislike simpering and flirting, and I find agreement and obedience essentially very lonely things. If a woman says she agreed with you, whatever her own thoughts, in what sense do you have her true companionship at all? You may as well have a charming picture, because all you are receiving from her are your own ideas back again.”
Monk thought of Hermione—charming, docile, pliable—and of Hester—opinionated, obstructive, passionate in her beliefs, full of courage, uncomfortable to be with (at times he disliked her more that anyone else he knew)—but real.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “I take your point. Do you think it is likely that Sir Herbert also found her attractive?”
“Prudence Barrymore?” Kristian bit his lip thoughtfully. “I doubt it. I know he respected her professional abilities. We all did. But she occasionally challenged his opinions, and that incensed him. He did not accept that from his peers, let alone from a nurse—and a woman.”
Monk frowned. “Might that have angered him enough to lash out at her for it?”
Kristian laughed. “Hardly. He was chief surgeon here. She was only a nurse. He had it eminently in his power to crush her without resort to anything so out of character, so dangerous to himself.”
“Even if he had been wrong and she was right?” Monk pressed. “It would have become known to others.”
Kristian’s face suddenly became serious.
“Well, that would put a different complexion upon it, of course. He would not take that well at all. No man would.”
“Might her medical knowledge have been sufficient for that to happen?” Monk asked.
Kristian shook his head slightly.
“I don’t know. I suppose it is conceivable. She certainly knew a great deal, far more than any other nurse I have ever met, although the nurse who replaced her is extraordinarily good.”
