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“It’s closed tomorrow,” Baird replied, blinking at him as if he had barely understood what he had said.
Hector reached for more wine. “Why?” he asked, frowning. “What’s wrong with it? Tomorrow is Monday, isn’t it? Why aren’t you working on a Monday?” He hiccupped gently.
“There are building alterations being done outside. There will be no gas. We cannot work in the dark.”
“Should have built more windows,” Hector said irritably. “It’s that damn secret room of Hamish’s. Always said it was a stupid idea.”
Deirdra looked confused. “What are you talking about, Uncle Hector? You can’t have windows, except at the front. The other three sides are the back with the doors and the yard, and where it joins to the other warehouses at both sides.”
“I don’t know what he wanted a secret room for.” Hector was not listening to her. “Quite unnecessary. Told Mary that.”
“Secret room?” Deirdra smiled wryly.
Oonagh offered Hector the decanter, and when he had fumbled for it ineffectually, filled his glass for him.
“There is no secret room in the printworks, Uncle Hector. You must be remembering something from the old house, when you were boys.”
“Don’t …” he started angrily, then looked into her steady blue eyes, clear and level as his own must have been thirty years earlier, and his words died away.
Oonagh smiled at him, then turned to Monk.
“I apologize, Mr. Monk. We have placed you in an invidious position, and probably embarrassed you as well, with our family quarrels. Of course we cannot expect you to keep silent over your discoveries regarding the very objectionable Mr. Arkwright and his occupancy of Mother’s croft. He claims that he has paid rent for it, and my husband claims that he has not, but that my mother allowed him to live there freely in return for his silence. Whether these arrangements were made with my mother’s knowledge and consent we shall never know beyond question. Quinlan, for his own reasons, believes they were not. I choose to believe they were. You must do whatever you feel to be right.”
She turned to Hester. “And you also, Miss Latterly. I can only apologize to you for involving you in our family’s tragedy. I hope that word of it has not reached London in the detail it has been reported here, and it will not affect your life or your livelihood, as Quinlan supposes. If I could undo it for you, I would, but it is beyond my power. I am sorry.”
“We all regret it,” Hester said quietly. “You should feel no need to apologize, but I thank you for your graciousness. I knew Mrs. Farraline for only a very brief time, but from her conversation that evening on the train, I choose to believe as you do, and do not find it in the least difficult.”
Oonagh smiled, but there was no answer in her eyes, no relief from the tension there.
As soon as the meal was over Monk seemed in some haste to depart.
“I shall leave the matter in your hands,” he said to Alastair. “You are aware of your mother’s property, and of the disposition of it, and of Arkwright’s tenancy. You must inform the police of whatever you think appropriate. As Procurator Fiscal, you are far better placed than I to judge what is evidence and what is not.”
“Thank you,” Alastair accepted gravely, but also apparently without relief. “Good-bye, Mr. Monk, Miss Latterly. I hope your journey back to London is agreeable.”
As soon as they were out of the door and on the pavement, Monk pulling his collar higher and Hester wrapping her blue coat tighter around her against the wind, Monk spoke.
“I’m damned if I’m finished yet! One of them killed her. If it wasn’t McIvor, it was one of the others.”
“I would dearly like it to be Quinlan,” Hester said with feeling as they crossed the road and stepped onto the grass. “What a perfectly odious man. Why on earth did Eilish marry him? Any fool can see she loathes him now—and little wonder. Do you think Hector was drunk?”
“Of course he was drunk. He’s always drunk, poor old devil.”
“I wonder why,” she said thoughtfully, increasing her speed to keep up with him. “What happened to him? From what Mary said, he used to be every bit as dashing as Hamish, and a better soldier.”
“Envy, I suppose,” he replied without interest. “Younger brother, lesser commission, Hamish got the inheritance, and appears to have had the brains as well, and the talent.”
They reached the far side of the Place and turned down Glenfinlas Street.
“I meant do you think he was so drunk he was talking nonsense?” she resumed.
“About what?”
“A secret room, of course,” she replied impatiently, having to run again to keep at his side, and brushing past a woman with a basket. “Why would Hamish build a secret room in a printing works?”
“I don’t know. To hide illegal books?”
“What sort of books would be illegal?” she asked breathlessly. “You mean stolen ones? But that doesn’t make any sense.”
