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Monk resisted the idea that Runcorn could possibly feel the same mixture of pity and resentment for Sarah that he did. He and Runcorn were nothing alike. Yet they were there side by side, avoiding each other’s eyes, aware of the chill of the wet ground under their feet and the dark hole gaping in front of them, the ritual words which should have held passion and comfort, if spoken with feeling, and the solitary figure of Mrs. Clark sniffing and dabbing a sodden handkerchief to her eyes.
When it was over, Monk looked once at Runcorn, who nodded curtly as if they were acquaintances met by chance, then hurried away.
Monk left a few minutes after him, headed towards the Gray’s Inn Road. He turned his mind back to the question of Kristian’s movements on the evening of the murders. He went to the patients Kristian had visited and asked them again for times as exactly as they could recall. The answers were unsatisfactory. Memories were hazy with pain and with the confusion of days which blurred one into another in a round of medicines, meals, naps, the occasional visit. Time meant very little. There was really no meaning in whether the doctor came at eight or at nine, or on Monday or Tuesday this week, or was it last?
He left uncertain as to whether or not Kristian could prove himself elsewhere at the time of the murder. He began to fear more and more that he could not.
What Hester had told him of Elissa’s gambling crowded his mind with ugly thoughts. Too easily, he could imagine the fear of ruin spiraling out of control, until one day the self-discipline snapped and violence broke through. The deed would be done before he had had time to realize what he meant. Then he would be faced with Sarah Mackeson, drunk, frightened, perhaps hysterical and beginning to scream. He would silence her in self-preservation, possibly his old fighting skills returning from the revolution in Vienna, where the cause had been great, and war and death in the air mixed with the hope, and then the despair.
Did such events change a man’s core, the way he responded to a threat, the value he placed on life?
He was walking more slowly now, turning south down Gray’s Inn Road. He passed a gingerbread man, very smartly dressed, smiling broadly. “Here’s your nice gingerbread, your spiced gingerbread!” he called out. “Melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat and rumble in your inside like Punch in a wheelbarrow!” He grinned at Monk. “You never heard o’ ’Tiddy Diddy Doll’?”
Monk smiled back at him. “Yes I did. Bit before your time, though, wasn’t he?”
“Hundred year,” the man agreed. “Best gingerbread man in England, ’e were. An’ why shouldn’t I copy him? Do you good-warm the cockles o’ yer ’eart. ’Ere-threepence worth. Keep the cold out o’ yer.”
Monk handed him threepence and took the generous slice. “Thank you. You here most evenings?”
“ ’Course I am. Come by any time. You’ll not find better in London,” the man assured him.
“Do you know Dr. Beck, Bohemian gentleman, who tends patients all around this area? He’s a couple of inches shorter than I am, dark hair, remarkable dark eyes. Probably always in a hurry.”
“Yeah, I know the gent you mean. Foreign. Out all hours. Friend o’ yours?”
“Yes. Can you remember the last time you saw him?”
“Lorst ’im, ’ave yer?” He grinned again.
Monk maintained his self-control with an effort. “It was his wife who was murdered in Acton Street. When did you see him?”
The gingerbread man whistled between his teeth, and all the humor died out of his face. “I saw ’im that night, but it were about ten-ish. Bought a piece o’ gingerbread an’ took a cab up north. Goin’ ’ome, I reckoned, but maybe not. I went ’ome meself just arter that. ’E were me last customer.”
“How was he?”
“Fit ter drop, if yer ask me. That tired ’e could ’ardly stand up. Terrible thing to lose yer wife like that.” He shook his head and sighed.
Monk thanked him and moved on. He was not sure if the man’s news was good or bad. It tallied roughly with what Kristian had said, but it also placed him within a few hundred yards of Acton Street.
Perhaps rather than trying to follow Kristian he should learn more about Elissa? Obviously, she had been in Allardyce’s studio at the time of the murder, but what about before that? Both he and Runcorn had assumed she had gone from her home straight to Allardyce’s studio. Maybe she had gone to Swinton Street to gamble? Regardless of that, he should know more of her gambling. He had accepted Kristian’s word, given to Hester. If he believed Kristian capable of killing his wife, why did he assume that his account was true in every other particular, simply because it was humiliating and gave him a motive in her death? There might be things he was ignorant of, or mistaken in. He could be lying to conceal something else.
It was not difficult to find the gambling house. The most simple questions, asked with an assured eagerness and a certain glint in the eye, determined that it was the fifth house along from the Gray’s Inn Road, in the north side of the street, well concealed behind a butcher’s shop.
He walked briskly and went up the shallow step and through the interior, stacked only with a few miserable-looking sausages, and knocked on the door beyond. It was opened by a large-shouldered man with a badly broken nose and a soft, slightly lisping voice. “Yes?” he said guardedly.
“I’m told a man with a little money to spend can find rather better amusement here than in music halls or the local tavern,” Monk replied. “Something with a chance to win. . or lose. . a bit of involvement.”
“Well now? And who told you that, then?” The man still looked dubious, but there was a flicker of interest in his face.
“A lady I know who enjoys some excitement in her life now and then. Gentlemen don’t mention names.”
The man smiled, showing a chipped front tooth, and asked to see the color of his money.
“Gold-same color as everyone else’s! What’s the matter? Only cater for silver here, do you? Or copper, maybe?”
“No call to be rude,” the man said patiently. “Just a few ladies and gentlemen spending a pleasant afternoon. Causing nobody no fuss. But I think as I’d like ter know your friend’s name, gentleman or no gentleman.”
“Unfortunately, my friend met with a. . misfortune,” Monk replied.
