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He reached the door in silence and peered in through the wide crack. The sight that met his eyes was so extraordinary, so wildly fanciful and absurd, he stared at it for several minutes before his brain accepted its reality. It was a huge shed, big enough to have built a boat in
, except that the structure that crouched in the center of the floor was surely never intended to sail. It had no keel and no possible place for masts. It would have resembled a running chicken, but it had no legs. Its body was large enough for a full-grown man to sit inside, and the wings were outspread as if it fully intended to take off and fly. It seemed to be constructed primarily of wood and canvas. There was some kind of machinery where the heart would have been, were it a real bird.
But more incredible, if anything could be, was Deirdra Farraline, dressed in old clothes, a leather apron over her gown, thick leather gloves over her small, strong hands, her hair scraped back out of her eyes. She was bent forward earnestly laboring over the contraption, tightening screws with delicate, intense efficiency. The man who had come for her was now stripped to his shirtsleeves and was pushing and heaving at another piece of structure which he seemed to be intending to attach to the rear of the bird, by which to extend its tail by some eight or nine feet.
Monk had little enough to lose. He pushed the door open far enough for him to squeeze through and get inside. Neither of the two workers noticed him, so engrossed were they in their labors. Deirdra bent her head, her tongue between her teeth, her brow drawn down in the power of her thought. Monk watched her hands. She was quick and very certain. She knew exactly what she was doing, which tool she wanted and how to use it. The man was patient, and skilled also, but he appeared to be working under her direction.
It was fully five minutes before Deirdra looked up and saw Monk standing in the doorway. She froze.
“Good evening, Mrs. Farraline,” he said quietly, moving forward. “Pardon my technical ignorance, but what are you making?” His voice was so normal, so devoid of any criticism or doubt, he might have been discussing the weather at some polite social function.
She stared at him, her dark eyes searching his face for ridicule, anger, contempt, any of the emotions she expected, and finding none of them.
“A flying machine,” she said at last.
It was a remark so preposterous no explanation seemed adequate, or even worth attempting. Her companion stood with a spanner in his hand, waiting to see whether she needed support, protection or silence on his part. He was quite clearly embarrassed, but Monk judged it was for her reputation, not his own, and certainly not for their project.
All kinds of questions raced through Monk’s head, none of them relevant to Hester’s dilemma.
“It must be expensive,” he said aloud.
She looked startled. Her eyes widened. She had been ready to counter with defense of the possibility of flying, the necessity to try, the previous ideas and drawings of da Vinci or of Roger Bacon, but the cost was the last thing she had imagined he would mention.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, of course it is.”
“More expensive than a few fashionable dresses,” he went on.
That brought a rush of color to her cheeks as she realized his thoughts.
“It is all my own money,” she protested. “I’ve saved by buying secondhand clothes and having them made over. I never took anything from the family. I know someone has falsified the company books, but I never had a farthing from them. I swear it! And Mary knew what I was doing,” she rushed on. “I can’t prove it, but she did. She thought it was quite mad, but she enjoyed it. She thought it was a wonderful piece of insanity.”
“And your husband?”
“Alastair?” she said incredulously. “Good heavens, no. No.” She came towards him, her face puckered with anxiety. “Please, you must not tell him! He would not understand. He is a good man in so many ways, but he has no imagination, and no sense of … of …”
“Humor?” he suggested.
A flash of temper lit her face, then after a second softened into amusement.
“No, Mr. Monk, not humor either. And you may laugh, but one day it will fly. You don’t understand now, but one day you will.”
“I understand dedication,” he said with a twisted smile. “Even obsession. I understand the desire to do something which is so powerful that all other desires are sacrificed to it.”
The man moved forward a step, the spanner held firmly in his hand, but at least for the moment he judged Monk constituted no danger to her, and he remained silent.
“I swear I did not harm Mary, Mr. Monk, nor do I know who did.” Deirdra took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “What are you going to do about this?”
“Nothing,” Monk replied, amazed at his own answer. He had spoken before he had weighed the matter; his reply was instinctive and emotional. “Providing you give me all the help you can to learn who did kill Mrs. Farraline.”
She looked at him with dawning perception in her eyes, and as far as he could judge, not so much anger as amazement.
“You are not here for the prosecution, are you?”
“No. I have known Hester Latterly for a long time, and I will never believe she poisoned a patient. She might kill someone in outrage, in self-defense, but never for gain.”
The color drained out of her face; her eyes shadowed.
“I see. That means one of us did … doesn’t it?”
