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“Clothes,” Monk said almost absently. “How were they dressed?”
“The model had on a loose kind of gown, a sort of. . shift, I suppose you’d call it,” Runcorn said awkwardly. His embarrassment and contempt for her style of life and all he imagined of it were sharp in his voice. His lips tightened and a faint color washed up his cheeks. “And Mrs. Beck wore an ordinary sort of dress, high neck, dark, buttoned down the front. It fitted her very well, but it’s not new.”
“Boots?” Monk asked curiously.
“Of course. She didn’t go there barefoot.” Then understanding flashed in his face. “Oh-you mean had she them on? Yes.”
“Actually, I meant were they old or new?” Monk replied. “I assumed that if she had taken them off you’d have mentioned it.”
The color deepened in Runcorn’s face, but this time it was irritation. “Oldish-why? Doesn’t Beck make a decent living? Her father’s Fuller Pendreigh. Very important man, and bound to have money.”
“Doesn’t mean he gave any of it to his daughter,” Monk pointed out. “Now that she’s a married woman, and has been for. . do you know how long?”
Runcorn raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you know?”
“No idea,” Monk admitted testily. Except that it had to be longer than he had known Callandra, but he would not say that to Runcorn.
“I suppose you want to see them. They won’t tell you much. I’ve already looked.” But Runcorn did not argue. He covered the white face again, tucking in the corner of the sheet as if it mattered, then he led the way across the floor, his footsteps echoing, to the small room where property of the dead was kept. It was locked away. He had to get a clerk to open up the drawers for him.
Monk picked up Sarah Mackeson’s shift. There was still a faint aroma of her clinging to it, almost like a warmth. The sense of her reality came over him like a wave, more powerful than actually seeing her body. His hands were shaking as he put it down. There was no underwear. Had she been so confident in her beauty she was happy to dispense with the privacy more conventional dress would have given her? Or had she been sitting for Allardyce and simply slipped these thi
ngs on while he took a break, expecting him to resume? Why hadn’t he?
Or had she gone to bed for the night, either alone or with someone, when Mrs. Beck had arrived? For that matter, did she often spend the night at Allardyce’s studio? There were a lot of questions to be answered about her. The most important in Monk’s mind, and becoming more and more insistent with every moment, was, had she been the intended victim, and Kristian’s wife only an unwilling witness who had been silenced in the most terrible way?
“Is there really nothing to tell which one died first?” he said, putting the shift back and beginning to go through the next box, which was Mrs. Beck’s. He found it difficult to think of her by that name, she was so different from anything he had envisioned, and yet he knew no other.
“Nothing so far.” Runcorn was watching him as if every move he made, every shadow across his face, might have meaning. He was desperate. “Surgeon can’t tell me anything, but we know from the tenant on the floor below that he heard women’s voices at about half past nine in the evening.”
“Presumably Mrs. Beck arriving?” Monk observed. “Or whoever killed her? At least one or both of them were alive then.”
“Presumably,” Runcorn agreed. “Maybe you’ll make something more of it if you speak to the man.”
Monk hid a very slight smile. Runcorn still had that inner belief that there was always something hidden that Monk would find and he would not. It had happened so many times in the past it was the pattern of their lives.
Mrs. Beck’s clothes were good quality, he could feel it in the fabric under his fingers, fine cambric in the undergarments, even though they had been laundered so many times they were worn almost threadbare in places. The dress was wool, but the slight strain on the seams of the bodice betrayed that it had been worn several years, and altered at least once. The boots were excellent leather and beautifully cut, but a cobbler had resoled and reheeled them again and again. Even the uppers were scuffed now and had taken a lot of polishing to make them look good. Was that poverty or thrift? Or had Kristian been meaner than Monk had imagined?
He picked up the thin, gold wedding ring, and one delicate earring which might have been gold or pinchbeck. It was a pretty thing, but not expensive. He looked up at Runcorn, trying to judge what he made of it, and seeing confusion in his eyes.
“Well?” Runcorn asked.
Monk folded the clothes and closed the box without answering.
“I suppose you want to see the studio?” Runcorn pursed his lips.
“What do you make of Allardyce?” Monk asked, following him out, thanking the surgeon and going into the street. This time Runcorn stopped a hansom and gave the Acton Street address.
“Hard to say,” Runcorn replied at last, as they jolted along and joined the traffic. “Bit of a mess, actually.”
Monk let it go until they arrived in Acton Street, as the light was beginning to fade. It was a reasonable-sized house. The ground floor was let to a jeweler who was presently away on business, the second floor to a milliner, who repeated to Monk exactly what he had told Runcorn. There had been a loud cry, a woman’s voice, at about half past nine.
“Was it a scream?” Monk asked. “A cry? Fear? Or pain?”
The man’s face puckered. “To be honest, it sounded like laughter,” he replied. “That’s why I thought nothing of it.”
“Can’t shake him from that,” Runcorn said in disgust. “Got men out in the street. Might turn up something.”
There was a constable on duty on the landing outside the door. Runcorn greeted him perfunctorily and then went in, Monk on his heels.
