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Cardman’s eyes widened. He had heard the one word that had mattered to him. His voice trembled a little. “You said he was killed, sir. Did you mean that someone else was responsible after all? Miss Mary was right?”
“Yes, Mr. Cardman, it looks very like it,” Monk replied.
Cardman’s face tightened. “And if you can’t find the envelope, sir, does that mean you won’t be able to prove who did it?”
“Somebody lured him to the stable,” Monk told him gravely. “We are certain it was someone else who actually killed him. Whether we can catch the second person I don’t know, but it’s the first we want most.”
“I’m afraid we’ve long ago disposed of all the rubbish in the study,” Cardman said. “There are only Mr. Havilland’s papers there now, and of course household bills and receipts. Miss Mary took care of everything like that. No one has been here yet to…to see to…” He trailed off, swamped by the small realities of loss again.
“I’m sure Mr. Argyll will appoint someone,” Monk said. Then the moment the words were spoken he realized the appalling urgency of searching the study.
“Which is the study?” Runcorn asked.
Cardman showed them. “Would you like a pot of tea, sir?” he offered.
“I’m afraid the room is extremely cold.”
They both accepted, speaking together.
Two hours later they knew a great deal about both Havilland’s domestic arrangements and how efficiently Mary had continued with them. Everything had been precisely and carefully dealt with. The bills had been checked and paid on time. There were also no unnecessary papers kept, no unanswered letters, no notes made on envelopes or scraps of paper.
“Perhaps it was always going to be a waste of time,” Runcorn said wearily. “Damn!” He swore with sudden fury. “I’d stake my life it was Argyll! How the hell do we catch him? Come on, Monk! You’re so clever you could tie an eel in knots. How do we get the bastard?”
Monk’s mind was racing. “There’d have been a lot of blood on his clothes,” he began, thinking aloud.
Runcorn did not see the point. The irritation flickered across his face. “So there would. What does it matter now?”
“Probably too much to clean off. Anyway, who’d want the clothes a man was wearing when he committed suicide?”
“No one—Oh! You mean they’re still somewhere! There might be something in the pockets!” Runcorn stood up as if suddenly regaining energy. He walked towards the door, then remembered that there was a bell in the room for summoning servants. Avoiding Monk’s eyes, he turned back, reached for it, and pulled.
Cardman answered, and five minutes later they were in James Havilland’s dressing room. The clothes he had been wearing at his death were piled neatly on one of the shelves in the tallboy. It was obvious that Mary had never had the stomach to come into the room since that night, and had not permitted the servants to either. Perhaps she would have done so after she had proved that he was not a suicide. Everything seemed to be waiting.
The trousers were marked only by dust and a few pieces of hay. The jacket was quite heavy—a natural enough choice for a man going out to the stables in the middle of a winter night, possibly to wait a little while until someone arrived.
The question rose again: Why the stables? If Havilland wished to be private, it was easy enough to send the servants to bed and open the front door for the guest himself. Monk had a crowding sense that there was some major fact that had escaped him completely.
Runcorn was waiting, watching him.
He unrolled the jacket and laid it on the dresser. There was blood thick and dark on the left lapel and over the shoulder. It was completely dried now and stiff. A few spots had fallen on the sleeve, though not a great deal. After all, it had been a shot to the head, and Havilland must have died almost instantly.
“Look,” Runcorn instructed.
Without hope of finding anything, Monk pushed his hands into the inside pocket. His fingers closed on paper, and he pulled it out. It was folded up but unmarked. An envelope. On the back a word—Tyburn—was scrawled, and some figures, and then no name and some more figures in the same grouping. He turned it over. On the front was his name, Mr. James Havilland. There was no address. It had been hand-delivered. He looked up
at Runcorn.
Runcorn’s eyes were bright. “That’s it!” he said, excitement making his voice tremble. “That’s the envelope from the note he got!” He held out his hand.
Monk passed it to him.
“Woman’s writing,” Runcorn said after only a second or two, disappointment so keen he could not mask it. He looked up at Monk, pain and confusion naked. “Was it an assignation after all? Who the devil shot him? A husband? Did the man in the two cabs have nothing to do with it?”
Monk was unhappy, too, but for an entirely different reason. “Jenny Argyll,” he said. “If it was she who wrote, he would go out there to meet her. Don’t forget Mary was in the house. Maybe he wanted to speak with Jenny without Mary knowing, or Jenny with him.”
Runcorn looked around for the bell. He found it and rang it, and Cardman answered a few moments later.
Runcorn held out the envelope. “Do you know whose handwriting that is?” he asked.
