AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Did Mary know?” Hester asked, searching his face.
He looked at her slowly, frowning, his fair brows drawn down, the early sunlight catching the freckles across his cheeks.
“Mary? Of course not. She’d never have stood for it. Mary was a good woman … she had her … her …” He colored painfully. “Her weaknesses—she told lies, she had to….” There was a moment of fierce defensive anger in him. Then as quickly as it had flared up, it died again. “But she was not dishonest. Not in that way. She would never have allowed that! It’s—it’s not stealing from one person, it’s stealing from everyone. It’s … corrupt.”
“I didn’t think she would,” Hester said with satisfaction, although she was puzzled by what else he had said, profoundly puzzled. She turned to Monk. “Where are we going? If you are looking for a carriage of some sort, we have just passed the main road.”
“You’re going to the offices, aren’t you.” Hector made it a statement rather than a question. “You’re going to face them with it. Are you sure you are …” He frowned again, looking doubtfully across at Hester, then to Monk. “We three are not the best soldiers you could have…. You have been locked up all night without air, I am an old man too worn with drink and unhappiness to stand upright, and Miss Latterly, begging your pardon, ma’am, is merely a woman.”
“I am quite refreshed,” Monk said bleakly. “You are a soldier, sir, and will not fail in the hour of need, and Miss Latterly is no ordinary woman. We shall be sufficient.”
They continued in silence, each in solitary thoughts. It was actually only another two or three hundred yards; the offices were naturally enough no farther from the printing works than was necessary. Once it was on the edge of Hester’s mind to ask how Hector had known of the room at all and why he had never bothered to look for it before. Presumably in his muddled mind the whole thing was a confusion of memory, childhood envies and secrets, and since Hamish was long dead none of it had mattered much at all until he had dimly, through a haze of alcohol, perceived that something was urgently wrong.
They reached the offices and book warehouse still without having spoken any further. Now they stopped, hesilated only a moment, then Monk knocked sharply on the door and, as soon as a clerk opened it, strode in, closely followed by the two others.
The clerk backed away, sputtering expostulations, and was ignored. Monk led the way through the outer area into the large open space, off which led the iron stairway up to Baird’s office and the other one which Alastair used on the rare occasions when he came. As always the cavern below was filled with presses, bales of paper, bolts of cloth, reels of twine and, stretching to the distance, rack after rack of books ready to be shipped. There seemed to be no one else about. Even the clerk had disappeared again. If there was anyone else, they were at the far end of the building, packing or loading books.
Hector looked puzzled, his emotions veering between disappointment and relief. He wanted the last battle, but he was too tired to relish it and too unsure of its outcome.
Monk had no such misgivings. His face was set like a steel mask, through which his eyes glittered hard and bright, and he strode up the iron steps.
“Come on,” he ordered, without waiting to see if they obeyed. At the top he took the passage in three strides and flung open the door to Baird’s office.
Three people were present—Alastair, Oonagh, and Quinlan Fyffe. Alastair looked surprised and angry at the intrusion, Quinlan merely startled, and Oonagh’s usual calm was intensified into an icy chill. She stared at Monk, not even seeing Hester behind him, or Hector not yet in the doorway.
“What in God’s name do you want now?” Alastair demanded. He looked harassed and weary, but not noticeably alarmed, and certainly not guilty to see Monk still alive.
Monk looked at Quinlan, who looked back with a half smile of ironical humor, and Oonagh, as so often, was unreadable.
“I’ve come to make my last report,” Monk replied with something approaching irony himself.
“You already did, Mr. Monk,” Oonagh said coldly. “And we have thanked you for your efforts. We shall tell the police what we choose in the affair of Mother’s croft. It is no longer your concern. If the matter troubles your conscience, you will have to act as you think best. There is nothing we can do about it.”
“Not, for example, lock me in the secret room in your warehouse and leave me to suffocate to death?” he said with raised eyebrows, glancing quickly at Quinlan and seeing the blood drain from his cheeks, his eyes turned to Oonagh.
So she at least knew!
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Oonagh said levelly. She still had not even noticed Hester and Hector. “But if you were locked in the warehouse, you have only yourself to blame, Mr. Monk. You were trespassing to be there, and I cannot think of any honest purpose you could have had in the middle of a Sunday night. Still, you obviously managed to effect an exit, and you seem none the worse for it.”
“I did not effect an exit. I was released by Major Farraline.”
“Bloody Hector!” Quinlan said between his teeth. “Trust the drunken old sot to interfere!”
“Hold your tongue,” Oonagh said without looking at him. She spoke to Monk. “What were you doing in our warehouse, Mr. Monk? How do you explain yourself?”
“I went to look for the secret room that Major Farraline mentioned at dinner,” he replied, watching her as closely as she watched him. For each of them, there might have been no one else present. “I found it.”
Her fair brows rose. “Did you? I was not aware of such a place.”
He knew she was lying; he had seen it in Quinlan’s face.
“It was full of equipment with which to forge bank notes,” he replied. “All denominations, and for several banks.”
There was still nothing in her face to betray her.
“Good heavens! Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
