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“Ah!” Mr. Burnham smiled and settled a little farther down in his chair. Florence was purring loudly. “You’re a skeptic. Of course you are. It’s your job. Silly of me to have forgotten it.”
Monk found himself recalling how much he had liked Mr. Burnham in their previous acquaintance. He had been almost sorry when the case was concluded. It was not a feeling he indulged in often. All too frequently he saw pettiness, spite, a mind too willing to leap to prejudiced assumptions, instances where unnecessary cruelty or greed had opened the way for acts of impulse which were beyond the borders of selfishness and into the area of actual crime. Sometimes there was a justice to be served, too often simply a law. The case here had been one of the happy exceptions.
Mr. Burnham put more coals in the fire. It was now roaring rather dangerously up the chimney, and he regarded it with a flicker of alarm before deciding it would not set the actual fabric of it alight, and relaxed again, folding his hands across his stomach and resettling the cat to its satisfaction.
“Let me tell you a little story about Barton Lambert,” he began with candid pleasure. He loved telling stories and could find too few people to listen to him. He was a man who should have had grandchildren. “And you will see what I mean.”
Monk smiled, amused at both of them. “Please do.” It was just possible the tale would even be enlightening, and he was extremely comfortable and looking forward to a very fine supper. He had tasted Mrs. Shipton’s cooking twice before.
Mr. Burnham settled himself still deeper into his chair and began.
“You must understand one thing about Barton Lambert. He loves beauty in all its forms. For all his rather unrefined exterior, frankly, and his”—he smiled, not unkindly, as he said it—“rather plebeian background—he was in trade—he has the soul of an artist. He has not the talent, but instead of envying those who do, he supports them. That is his way of being part of what they create.”
A coal fell out of the fire and he ignored it, in spite of the smoke it sent up.
Monk recovered it with the tongs and replaced it in the blazing heap.
“He is a man without envy,” Mr. Burnham carried on without apparently having noticed. “And that of itself is a very beautiful thing, my dear fellow. And I think he is entirely unconscious of it. Virtue that does not regard itself is of peculiar value.”
Monk wanted to urge him to begin the story, but he knew from past experience it would only interrupt his thought and hurt his feelings.
Mrs. Shipton came in and set the small gate-legged table with a lace-edged cloth, silver, salt and pepper pots and very fine crystal glasses, and a few moments later carried in the supper and served it. Mr. Burnham continued with his story, barely hesitating as he removed Florence from his lap and conducted Monk to his chair, and thanked Mrs. Shipton. They began to eat.
“Lord …” He hesitated. “I think I shall decline, in the interests of discretion, to give him a name. In any case, someone approached Mr. Lambert about building a civic hall for the performance of musical concerts for the public.” He passed Monk the dish of steaming vegetables and watched with satisfaction as he took a liberal helping. “Excellent, my dear fellow,” he applauded. “The hall would have been most expensive, and milord was prepared to put forward at least half of the cost himself if Lambert would put forward the other half. He had connections with the royal family.” He put a small piece of pie on a saucer and put it on the floor for Florence. “The prestige would have been enormous, and something not open to Lambert from any other source. You may imagine what it would have meant to such a man, who is genuinely most patriotic. The mere mention of the Queen’s name will produce in him a solemnity and a respect which is quite marked. Only a most insensitive person would fail to be affected by it, because it is sincere. No honorable man mocks what is honest in another.”
Monk was enjoying his meal very much. The rich home baking was a luxury he was offered far too seldom, and the thought that all this was so far of no professional value was overridden by physical pleasure, and possibly also by the knowledge that Mr. Burnham was enjoying himself.
“This hall,” Mr. Burnham went on, helping himself to more dark, spicy pickle and pushing the dish across the table towards Monk, “was to be dedicated to Her Majesty. It was some time ago now, and Killian Melville was not the architect, but some other fellow put forward by milord. The plans were given to Lambert and he was cock-a-hoop with excitement. He seemed on the brink of stepping into a circle he had previously barely dreamed of. He was man of the world enough to know his rough origins would never allow him to be accepted in such society ordinarily. Mrs. Lambert, on the other hand, has all the bearing of a lady; whether that is bred in her or learned, no one knows. Women seem to acquire these things more easily. It is in their nature to adapt. I daresay it has to be!”
Monk did not comment. His mouth was full.
“She is a remarkably pretty woman, and has the art to please without ever seeming to seek to or to be overeager,” Mr. Burnham continued. “And yet in her own way she is a perfectionist too, an artist in domestic detail, a woman who can create an air of grace and luxury so natural it appears always to have been there.” He watched Monk to assure himself he understood, and was appare
ntly satisfied.
The first course was finished and treacle tart was offered with cream. Monk accepted with undisguised pleasure, and Mr. Burnham beamed at him in delight. He gave Florence a teaspoonful of cream.
“You may imagine,” he said, resuming his tale, “Mrs. Lambert’s happiness when milord’s only son took a marked fancy to her only daughter, a charming, high-spirited girl, not yet of marriageable age but fast approaching it. In a couple of years the two families could have made a most acceptable arrangement, and in due course young Miss Lambert would have become a lady in every sense of the word, the chatelaine of one of the finest country seats in England.”
“But something spoiled it?” Monk was now truly interested.
“Indeed,” Mr. Burnham agreed, without losing a shred of his satisfaction. He was quite obviously not on the brink of recounting a tragedy. “Indeed it did.” He leaned forward across the table, his face gleaming in the candlelight and the reflected glow of the spring evening beyond the tall window. “This hall was to be magnificent,” he repeated urgently. “Lambert was enthralled with the idea. He took the plans and drawings home with him and pored over them like a man studying holy writ. He was alight with the idea. After all, it is a kind of immortality, is it not? A work of art which can last a thousand years or longer. Do we not still revere the man who designed the Parthenon? Do we not travel halfway around the world like pilgrims to gaze on its beauty and dream of the minds who thought it up, the genius which brought it into reality, even the men and women who daily passed beneath it in their ordinary lives?” He gazed at Monk steadily.
Monk nodded. Words were not necessary.
“He sat up night after night reading those plans,” Mr. Burnham said in little above a whisper. “And he found a flaw in them … a fatal flaw! At first he could hardly believe it—he could not bear to! It was the shattering of his dreams. And not only his, but his wife’s as well, and such possible future happiness for his daughter; although that, of course, was less problematical. She was a very charming girl and would no doubt find other suitors. I don’t think it was a matter of the heart—at least not deeply.” He smiled with some indulgence. “Shall we say a touch of glamour, to which we are most of us susceptible?”
“But Lambert chose to decline the building?” Monk concluded, eating the last piece of his treacle tart. It was an illuminating story, although not helpful to his cause. It said much of Barton Lambert but shed no light upon Melville’s reason for abandoning Zillah.
“Yes … much to milord’s anger,” Mr. Burnham agreed. “Lambert’s withdrawal provoked questions, and the flaws in the plan were exposed. Reputations were damaged.”
“Lambert made powerful enemies?” It was hardly a motive for Melville’s act, but he had to press every point.
“Oh no, my dear fellow,” Mr. Burnham said with a broad smile. “On the contrary, he came out of it rather well. We may be a society with our share of sycophants and hypocrites, but there are still many who admire an honest man. It was milord who suffered.”
“I see.”
“You look disappointed,” Mr. Burnham observed, regarding Monk keenly. “What had you hoped?”
