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n to put herself in the place of those less fortunate and to see how their lot could be made better.”
“No wonder Dr. Beck fell in love with her,” Runcorn said.
Monk was afraid he was beginning to suspect Kristian of jealousy, because he could not keep the thought from his own mind.
“He was far from the only one.” Pendreigh sighed. “It was not always easy to be so admired. It gives one. . too much to live up to.”
“But she chose Dr. Beck, not any of the others.” Monk made it a statement. He saw Runcorn’s warning look and ignored it. “Do you know why?”
Pendreigh thought for several moments before he replied. “I’m trying to remember what she wrote at the time.” He drew his fair brows into a frown of concentration. “I think he had the same kind of resolve that she did, the nerve to go through with what he planned even when circumstances changed and the cost became higher.” He looked at Monk intently. “He was a very complex man, a disciple of medicine and its challenges, and yet at the same time of great personal physical courage. Yes, I think that was it, the sheer nerve in the face of danger. That appealed to her. She had a certain pity for people who wavered, she entirely understood fear. . ”
Monk looked quickly at Runcorn and saw the puzzlement in his face. This all seemed so far away from an artist’s studio in Acton Street and the beautiful woman they had seen in the morgue. And yet it was easily imaginable of the woman in the painting of the funeral in blue.
Pendreigh shivered, but he was standing a little straighter, his head high. “I remember one incident she wrote about to me. It was in May, but still there was danger in the air. For months there had been hardly anything to buy in the shops. The emperor had left Vienna. The police had banished all unemployed servants from the city, but most of them had come back, one way or another.” Anger sharpened his voice. “There was chaos because the secret police had been done away with and their duties taken over by the National Guard and the Academic Legion. There was an immediate crime wave, and anyone remotely well-dressed was likely to be attacked in the street. That was when she first noticed Kristian. Armed only with a pistol, and quite alone, he faced a mob and made them back down. She said he was magnificent. He could easily have walked the other way, effected not to notice, and no one would necessarily have thought the worse of him.”
“You said he was complex,” Monk prompted. “That sounds like a fairly simple heroism to me.”
Pendreigh stared into the distance. “I knew only what she told me. But even the most idealistic battles are seldom as easy as imagined by those not involved. There are good people on the enemy side also, and at times weak and evil people on one’s own.”
Runcorn shifted position a little uncomfortably, but he did not interrupt, nor did he look away from Pendreigh.
“And battle requires sacrifice,” Pendreigh continued, “not always of oneself, sometimes of others. She told me what a fine leader Kristian was, decisive, farsighted. Where some men would see what would happen one or two moves ahead, he could see a dozen. There was strength in him that set him apart from those less able to keep a cause in mind and understand the cost of victory as well as that of defeat.” His voice was edged with admiration, and now even his shoulders were straight, as if an inner courage had been imparted to him by the thought.
Monk admired it, too, but he was confused. Pendreigh was painting a picture of a man utterly unlike the compassionate and scrupulous person Monk had seen in the fever hospital in Limehouse, or all that he had heard from Callandra. The leader of such inner certainty and strength was of a nature unlike the doctor who labored without judgment of any kind, risking his own life as much for the fever- and lice-ridden beggar as for the nurse like Enid Ravensbrook. How had Hester seen him? A man of compassion, idealism, dedication, moral courage perhaps, but not a man capable of the ruthless leadership Pendreigh described. The Kristian Beck that Hester saw would not have raised his hand against anyone, much less with a sword or a gun in it.
He looked at Runcorn. His face was only slightly puckered. But then he did not know Kristian, he had not even met him until today. This picture that Pendreigh had received from Elissa, and re-created for them, did not contradict any image in his mind.
Could Kristian have changed so much in thirteen years? Or was he a man of two natures, and showed the one that suited his purpose or the need of the time?
Runcorn was staring at him impatiently, waiting for him to say something.
Monk looked directly at Pendreigh. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss, sir. Mrs. Beck was obviously a person of extraordinary courage and honor.”
“Thank you,” Pendreigh said, turning at last to face them fully. “I feel as if the world is darkening, and there will not now be another summer. She had such laughter, such hunger for life. I have no other family left. My wife has been gone many years, and my sister also.” He said the words with very little expression, which made their impact the greater. It was not self-pity but a bleak statement of fact. He spoke with neither courage nor despair but a kind of numbness.
Monk was overtaken by anger on Pendreigh’s behalf, for the profound foolishness of an action which in a moment’s violence had robbed him of so much. He turned to Runcorn, expecting to see him preparing to make their excuses and leave. He was startled to see a confusion of emotions in his face, embarrassment and alarm, an acute knowledge that he was out of his depth. Monk turned back to Pendreigh. “I assume that had you any idea who might be responsible you would have spoken of it?” he asked.
“What? Oh, yes, of course I would. I can only imagine that there was some quarrel with the other poor woman, a lover or whatever, and Elissa was unfortunate enough to witness it.”
“You commissioned the portrait?” Monk continued.
“Yes. Allardyce is a very fine artist.”
“What do you know about him personally?”
“Nothing. But I’ve seen his work in several places. I wasn’t interested in his morality, only his skill. My daughter did not sit alone for him, Mr. Monk, if that is what you are wondering. She took a woman friend with her.”
“Do you know who?”
“No, of course I don’t! I imagine it was not always the same person. If I knew who it was this time, I would have told you. I assume she went to some assignation of her own, and is too shocked and ashamed of having left Elissa to come forward yet.”
Runcorn turned abruptly to Monk, annoyance in his eyes. He should have thought of that himself. “Naturally!” he said, looking back to Pendreigh. “We’ll see if we can learn who it was. We will ask Dr. Beck for a list of possibilities. Thank you, sir. We’ll not disturb you any further.”
“Please. . let me know what else you learn?” Pendreigh asked, his face stiff with the effort of control.
“Yes sir. As soon as there is anything,” Runcorn promised. “Good day.”
Outside on the pavement, Runcorn started to speak again, then changed his mind and marched down the street in the hope of finding a hansom. Monk followed after, deep in thought.
