AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Then what?
The rain was streaming down the window now, distorting the lamps of carriages passing in the street below, reflecting in the puddles.
The more he thought about the buildings full of light, the clean lines soaring into the air, the sense of comfort and peace he had felt inside them, the less could he believe Melville would have taken her own life.
Was it conceivable that somewhere, in some way he had yet even to imagine, somebody else had killed her?
Why? Why would anybody want to? What else had happened that day, or the day before, to make her dangerous to anyone? If she had known anything about Zillah that was not to her credit, surely she would have said so before this, long before Isaac Wolff was tarnished by the whole affair, even put in jeopardy of imprisonment, for a crime which now was ludicrous, in light of the truth.
He pushed his hands into his pockets. Below him in the street it was raining harder. The gutters were swirling over their edges. A footman standing at the side of a carriage was soaking wet. His figure in the riding lights was expressive of his utter dejection. A stray dog was splashing about happily.
A man strode by with an umbrella which was ineffectual.
Monk turned away, back to the room and the firelight. What had been the result of Melville’s death? The case had been concluded. There was nothing more to say, nothing to pursue. It did not matter anymore whether Zillah Lambert was as innocent as she appeared.
But Monk had already done all he could to uncover any fault in her, past or present, and found nothing. Besides, he really did not believe she would willingly have harmed Melville, far less killed her, even if there was a way to have accomplished it.
Nor had anybody, for that matter. Melville had neither eaten nor drunk anything, by another’s hand or by her own.
Was there some other way in which the poison could have been administered? No. The surgeon would not be wrong about whether it was eaten or injected into the blood.
Except that he thought it was suicide, and therefore it had hardly mattered.
But why murder? What threat was Keelin Melville to anyone, except possibly Wolff? If the case had continued as it was, only Keelin herself, and Wolff, would suffer.
Why hadn’t Wolff simply told the court she was a woman? The most cursory medical examination would have proved him right, and he of all men knew that! Keelin would not have refused.
The fire was going out. He had neglected it. He bent down and with the tongs picked up half a dozen pieces of coal and put them on one by one. The fire looked like it was being smothered. Damn! It was getting cold and he was not ready to go to bed yet. Also he was angry with his own carelessness. He dropped the tongs and picked up the bellows, blowing gently, sending up a cloud of white ash. He swore again, and tried more gently still.
The reason had to be in what might happen if the case continued. Someone was frightened.
What would happen? Monk would continue to search in the past of Zillah Lambert and her family, but particularly her past romances. Perhaps they were not as very slight and natural as they appeared, no more than most pretty girls might experience. If he had continued, with his characteristic ruthlessness, what would he have uncovered? And who knew about it other than Zillah herself? Her father?
Hester seemed to think it would be her mother, the immaculate Delphine Lambert.
And, of course, the man involved … and possibly his family.
But murder! Over a spoiled reputation! Surely Zillah herself could simply have told her father and asked that he settle out of court? He would have been willing enough, if he realized her happiness and the family honor depended on it. He might have been angry for a while, even punished her one way or another, but that hardly warranted murder—in a sane person.
Monk’s labor with the fire was rewarded by a spurt of flame. It licked up around the coal and began to burn. He smiled in satisfaction. A small victory—very small indeed.
Tomorrow he would retrace his steps over Zillah Lambert’s past. This time he would press harder, not accept any equivocations. He would treat it as if it were murder. The trivial matter of breach of promise was a thing of the past.
He sat by the fire until the coal was entirely consumed, going over the notes he had made on his first investigation. He knew where he would begin tomorrow.
Actually, it took him two days to find the incident he had overlooked the first time—or, more accurately, had considered too trivial and too normal in anyone’s life to matter. He still thought it of no real importance. But then he was not of the same level of society as the Lamberts, and certainly not of that level into which they aspired to marry.
He had followed Hester’s advice about tracing back the weekly life of the Lamberts to discover a sudden move, probably involving only Zillah and her mother, coming at a time which seemed unplanned, made in haste, and perhaps in other ways inconvenient.
This time he was far more ruthless, pressing people, sometimes with only part of the truth, sometimes frightening them into revealing a fact that with more time to consider they would have kept discreet. The incident had occurred when Zillah was nearly sixteen, a holiday taken without warning, all personal plans disrupted. A garden party—a ball which Delphine had been very eager to attend; indeed, for which she had gone to great trouble to acquire an invitation—had been abandoned. A marvelous gown had to be set aside, to be worn when it was no longer impressive, certainly no longer the forerunner of fashion but rather the trailer behind, seeming a copy instead of an original. Knowing a little about clothes and vanity himself, he appreciated what a sacrifice Delphine had made. There would have to have been a very compelling reason to leave at that time, and a very urgent one.
To begin with, the friendship between Zillah and young Hugh Gibbons had seemed innocent enough, but if Delphine had been prepared to make such a sacrifice, then there must have been more to it. If he pressed he could find it.
It was morning on the third day before he had gathered sufficient evidence to prove it beyond denial. Of course, there was no witness that the two had been lovers in any but a romantic sense. But they had spent much time alone together. Hugh was nineteen, an age when Monk knew the emotions were wild and the blood hot and disinclined to moderation and self-discipline. Zillah had apparently been a willful fifteen-year-old, full of dreams and certain no one else understood them, except Hugh. She had read the great romances in the schoolroom.
By all accounts her parents had been generous and more inclined to indulgence than harshness. Any responsible mother would have done as Delphine had, possibly even sooner. The only answer to such a liaison was to leave the city for a while. Hugh was unsuitable socially—he had no means to keep a wife and no prospects; and Zillah was too young, and utterly impractical. The unplanned nature of the departure made it unarguable that Delphine had discovered a situation which could not be allowed to continue even another day or two, let a
lone weeks.
