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“What is it, sir? Has there been another … incident?”
“No. Nothing further has happened, but we now understand more of what occurred the night of Mr. Duff’s death. I am afraid we need to come in.”
The butler hesitated only a moment. He had caught the authority in Evan’s voice and he knew suddenly the weight of his office.
“Yes sir. If you will please follow me I shall inform Mrs. Duff you are here.” He stood back for them to enter. Evan and Monk did so, leaving Shotts outside as previously agreed. He was there only as a precaution. He expected the possibility of remaining all night, until he was relieved by someone else in the morning. His only release lay in Rhys’s being deemed sufficiently well to be moved to a place of imprisonment pending his trial.
Inside the hall was warm and bright, a different world from the icy gloom of the street. The butler walked across the hall towards the withdrawing room door.
“Wharmby,” Evan said suddenly.
“Yes sir?”
“Perhaps you had better ask Miss Latterly to come downstairs.”
“Sir?”
“It might be easier for Mrs. Duff to have someone else present, someone who can offer her some … assistance …”
“Wharmby turned even paler. He swallowed so his throat jerked.
“I’m sorry …” Evan repeated.
“What … what have you come for, sir?” Wharmby asked.
“To tell Mrs. Duff what we know of how Mr. Duff met his death, and then the duty which follows from that. Tell her we are here, and then please ask Miss Latterly to come.”
Wharmby pulled his jacket down and straightened his back, then opened the withdrawing room door.
“Mr. Evan is here to see you, ma’am, and another gentleman with him.” He said no more but backed out again, gave Evan one more look, then went to the stairs, leaving them to go in alone.
Sylvestra was standing on the carpet in front of the fire. Naturally she was still dressed in black, with her dark hair piled in a great coil on the back of her head and falling to her neck. In the firelight she looked beautiful with her high cheekbones and slender throat.
“Yes, Mr. Evan. What is it?” she asked with a slight surprise arching her brows. She looked beyond him to Monk.
Evan introduced them briefly, without explanation.
“Good evening, Mr. Monk …” She did no more than acknowledge him.
“Ma’am.” He inclined his head. To have wished her “Good evening” in return would have been a mockery. He closed the door and went farther into the room.
Evan wished there were any way whatever to escape this moment. He was acutely conscious of Monk standing at his shoulder, his mind filled with the cruelty whose results he had seen, the rage smoldering inside him.
“Yes, Mrs. Duff. We have learned a great deal of what happened the night your husband was killed. First I would like to ask you one or two last questions.” He ignored the look of astonishment on her face, and Monk shifting from one foot to the other behind him. “Did Mr. Duff express to you, or in any way show, anxiety as to what Mr. Rhys was doing during the evenings he was away from home or the company he was keeping?”
“Yes … you know he did. I told you so myself.”
“Did he indicate, either in words or by his behavior, that he had learned anything recently which troubled him additionally?”
“No. At least, he said nothing to me. Why?” Her tone was getting sharper. “Will you please be plain with me, Mr. Evan? Have you discovered what my husband was doing in St. Giles, or not? I told you when you first came here that I believed he had followed Rhys to try to reason with him about the type of young woman he was associating with. Are you telling me that is true?” She lifted her chin a little, almost as if challenging him. “That hardly warrants your coming here, with Mr. Monk, at this hour.”
“We also believe we know how he met his death, Mrs. Duff, and we must act accordingly,” Evan replied. He had not intended to be cruel, but he realized that by stretching out what he had to say, he was doing so. A swift blow was better in the end. “We have witnesses who saw Rhys several times in St. Giles, sometimes with others, sometimes alone. One young woman places him there that evening—”
“Obviously he was there that evening, Mr. Evan,” Sylvestra cut in. “What you are telling me we already know. It is obvious.”
Monk could bear it no longer. He stepped forward into the circle of candlelight from the shadows, his face grim.
“I have been investigating a series of violent rapes, Mrs. Duff. They were committed by three men together. They raped women, sometimes as young as twelve or thirteen years old, then beat them, breaking their bones, kicking them … sometimes into insensibility.”
