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"Oh!" He was surprised. "Am I? No, I don’t know anything. I suppose I am just ... happy ..." He leaned forward and much to her surprise, kissed her long and slowly, with increasing passion.
The following day was the eleventh since Monk had first been approached by Lucius Stourbridge to find his fiancée. Now she was in prison charged with murder, and Monk had very little further idea what had happened the day of her flight. He had still less idea what had occasioned it, unless it was some threat of disclosure of a portion of her past which she believed would ruin either her or someone she loved. And it seemed she would tell no one. Even trial and execution appeared preferable.
What secret could be so fearful?
He could not imagine any, even though as he took a hansom to the Hampstead police station, his mind would not leave it alone.
He arrived still short of nine o’clock to be told that Sergeant Robb had been working until dark the previous evening and was not yet in. Monk thanked the desk sergeant and left, walking briskly in the sun towards Robb’s home. He had no time to waste, even though he feared his discoveries, if he made them, would all be those he preferred not to know. Perhaps that was why he hurried. Good news could be savored, bad should be bolted like evil-tasting medicine. The anticipation at least could be cut short, and hope was painful.
There was little he wanted to tell Robb, only his discoveries about Treadwell’s extravagant spending habits. He had debated whether to mention the subject or not. It gave Miriam a powerful motive, if she were being blackmailed. But a man who would blackmail one person might blackmail others, therefore there would be other suspects. Perhaps one of them had lain in wait for him, and Miriam had fled the scene not because she was guilty but because she could not prove her innocence.
It was a slender hope, and he did not believe it himself. What if there was an illegitimate child somewhere, Miriam’s and Treadwell’s? Or simply that he knew of one? That would be enough to ruin her marriage to Lucius Stourbridge.
But was any blackmail worth the rope?
Or had she simply panicked, and now believed all was lost? That was only too credible.
He could not alone pursue all the other possible victims Treadwell might have had. That required the numbers of the police, and their authority.
He reached Robb’s home and knocked on the door. It was opened after several minutes by Robb himself, looking tired and harassed. He greeted Monk civilly but with a further tightening of the tension inside him.
"What is it? Be as brief as you may, please. I am late and I have not yet given my grandfather his breakfast."
Monk would like to have helped, but he had no skills that were of use. He felt the lack of them sharply.
"I have learned rather more about James Treadwell, and I thought I should share it with you. Let me tell you while you get breakfast," Monk offered.
Robb accepted reluctantly.
Monk excused himself to the old man, then, sitting down, recounted what he had discovered over the previous two days. As he did so, and Michael prepared bread and tea and assisted his grandfather, Monk’s eyes wandered around the room. He noticed the cupboard door open and the small stack of medicines, still well replenished, and that there were eggs in a bowl on the table by the sink and a bottle of sherry on the floor. Michael did very well by his grandfather. It must cost him every halfpenny of his sergeant’s wages. Monk knew what they were and how far they went. It was little enough for two, especially when one of them needed constant care and expensive medicines.
Michael cleared away the plate and cup and washed them in the pan by the sink, his back to the room.
The old man looked at Monk. "Good woman, your wife," he said gently. "Never makes it seem like a trouble. Comes here and listens to my tales with her eyes like stars. Seen the tears running down her cheeks when I told her about the death o’ the admiral an’ how we came home
to England with the flags lowered after Trafalgar."
"She loved hearing it," Monk said sincerely. He could imagine Hester sitting in this chair, the vision so clear in her mind that the terror and the sorrow of it moved her to tears. "She must have been here some considerable time to hear such a long account."
"Seen a good bit o’ battle herself, she has," the old man said with a smile. "Told me about that. Calm and quiet as you like, but I could see in her eyes what she really felt. You can, you know. People who’ve really seen it don’t talk that much. Just sometimes you need to, an’ I could see it in her."
Was that true? Hester needed to speak of her experiences in the Crimea, even now. She shared it with this old man she barely knew rather than with him, or even Callandra. But then, they had not seen war. They could not understand, and this man could. Most of the time horror was best forgotten. Occasionally, it broke the surface of the mind and had to be faced. He knew that himself, sensing the ghosts of his past who were no more than shadows to him.
"She must have come several times," he said aloud.
The old man nodded. "Drops by every day, maybe just for half an hour or so, to see how I am. Not many people care about the old and the sick if they’re not their own."
"No," Monk agreed with a strangely sinking knowledge that that was true. It had not been said in self-pity but as a simple statement. He could imagine Hester’s anger and her pity, not just for John Robb but for all the untold thousands he represented. When he spoke it was from instinct. "Did she ask you about other sailors and soldiers?"
"You mean old men like me? Yes, she did. Didn’t she tell you?"
"I’m afraid I wasn’t paying as much attention as perhaps I should have been."
Robb smiled and nodded. He, too, had not always listened to women. He understood.
"She would care," Monk continued, hating himself for the thoughts of missing medicines and blackmail that were in his mind and that he could not ignore. "She’s a good nurse. Puts her patients before herself, like a good soldier, duty first."
"That’s right." The old man nodded, his eyes bright and soft. "She’s a real good woman. I seen a few good nurses. Come around now and again to see how you are."
