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“Innocent of the crash, yes.” He heard his own voice, and he sounded uncertain. Why? There was nothing to implicate Nolan Baltimore in the Liverpool crash or in the fraud that had ruined Arrol Dundas. It was his own emotions, his own shadow of guilt, trying to place the blame on someone he did not care about.
She took a step towards him. Now she seemed almost excited. Her eyes were bright, her body tense, her cheeks flushed with pink. She put her hands on the front of his chest, closing her fingers tightly over the edges of his jacket. “Is there proof of their innocence?” she said hoarsely. “Real proof? Something that would stand in a court? I have to be sure. An innocent man was convicted once before.”
He felt his own body tighten and the blood pound in his veins. He clasped her wrists. “How do you know that?” he said between his teeth. He was startled to find that he was shaking.
She pulled away from him violently. He felt the button in her hand rip off his coat, but it hardly mattered. Her face was filled with emotion so intense her eyes blazed and her color was hectic. She stared at him for a long, desperate moment, then spun on her heel and all but ran back toward the gate.
Monk was aware that several people were staring at them, but he did not care. What did she know about Arrol Dundas? That question filled his mind to the exclusion of everything else. He strode after her, almost catching up with her at the gate out onto Inner Circle pathway, but she was moving rapidly. She crossed the path and followed it through the grass and trees past the Toxophilite Society grounds on the left, toward the bridge over an arm of the lake. He managed to stop her on the far side, again to the alarm and curiosity of passersby.
“How do you know that?” he repeated the demand. “What have you heard? From whom—Dalgarno?”
“Dalgarno?” she said incredulously, then she started to laugh, a wild sound, close to hysteria. But she did not answer. Instead, she turned away from him again and half ran along York Gate towards the Marylebone Road and the general traffic with carriages and hansoms going in both directions. “I’m going home!” she called at him over her shoulder.
He ran after her, catching up again and walking beside her as she reached the road and raised her parasol to hail a cab. One pulled up almost immediately and Monk helped her in, climbing in after her.
She made no protest, almost as if she had expected him to.
“If it was not Dalgarno, then from whom?” he insisted after she had given the driver instructions to take her to Cuthbert Street in Paddington.
She turned to face him. “You mean the fraud case, all those years ago?”
“Yes, of course I do!” He kept his temper only with the greatest difficulty. It mattered intensely. What did she know? How could she know anything, except from Baltimore’s records or something she had overheard him say?
She stared straight ahead, smiling, but there was a hollowness in her eyes. “Did you imagine I made no enquiries myself, Mr. Monk?” Her voice was hard-edged, grating. “Did you think I learned nothing about the past history of Baltimore and Sons when I knew how deeply Michael was involved in it, and expected to make his fortune through it?”
“You said that you knew an innocent man was convicted of fraud in that case,” he said grimly, horrified at how his own voice betrayed the emotion choking him. “How do you know that? No one knew it then.”
“Didn’t they?” she asked, staring ahead of her.
“Of course they didn’t, or he wouldn’t have died in jail!” He grasped her arm. “How do you know? What happened?”
She turned in the seat to stare at him, her face twisted with a fury so intense he drew back from it, loosening his hold on her.
“A great wrong, Mr. Monk,” she said softly, her voice trembling, her words almost a hiss. “People were wronged then, and are wronged now. But revenge will come—that I promise you. It will come . . . on my mother’s grave . . . on mine if need be.”
“Miss Harcus . . .”
“Please get out!” Her face was ashen now. “I need to think, and I must do it alone.” She snatched her hand from him and, picking up the parasol, banged on the front of the hansom to draw the driver’s attention. “I will tell you . . . this evening.”
She banged on the front again, more fiercely.
“Yes, miss?” the driver answered.
“Mr. Monk is alighting. Would you be so good as to stop,” she ordered.
“Yes, miss,” he said obediently, and pulled in to the curb. They were at the corner of Marylebone Street and the Edgware Road, traffic streaming around them in both directions.
Monk was touched by a deep concern for her. She looked so torn by conflicting passions it was almost as if she had a fever. He wanted desperately to know what she meant by stating so vehemently that Dundas was innocent and that revenge would come, or what the present wrong was that he could not see. But now that he knew where she lived at least he could find her again when she was calmer. Perhaps he could even be of some help to her. Now she needed to rest and compose herself.
“I’ll call upon you, Miss Harcus,” he said far more gently. “Of course, you need time to consider.”
She made an intense effort at self-control, breathing in very deeply and letting it out in a sigh. “Thank you, Mr. Monk. That would be very good of you. You are most patient. If you would call upon me this evening—after eight, if you would be so good—then I shall tell you what you wish. I shall speak to Michael Dalgarno again, and that will be the end of it, I promise. You have played your part perfectly, Mr. Monk. I could not have wished better. You will see me after eight? Do you give me your word—absolutely?”
“I do,” he swore.
“Good.” The faintest ghost of a smile touched her face. “At twenty-three Cuthbert Street. You have given me your word!”
“Yes. I will be there.”
