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He made his way to where Margaret had gone out through the big doors onto the steps, then down into the busy street. He had enough money to get an omnibus. He would probably have the best part of an hour in which to make up his mind how he was going to explain himself when he got home.
CHAPTER 15
Monk was back in his home just before midday, sitting at the kitchen table with Hester, a pot of tea between them and a crusty loaf of bread with butter and crumbly Wensleydale cheese, and of course homemade chutney. Hester had discovered, to her surprise, that she was rather good at making it.
Monk had told Hester about the commissioner’s warning. He would much rather not have, but if she did not know, it was much more likely that she might make some slip that would eventually get back to the commissioner. Then Monk might be dismissed, or at the very least, severely reprimanded. Possibly Byrne’s warning had not so much meant “don’t do it” as “do it discreetly enough that I can pretend I don’t know about it.”
“We’ve got to find out something,” she said urgently. “Oliver doesn’t have a chance without it.”
Monk looked bleak. “I’m not sure he has a chance, even if we do,” he warned her, his face filled with unhappiness.
She knew he was trying to help soften the blow of defeat, if it came, but she did not want to hear that. She was being childish, and Monk was allowing her to be.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s time I grew up, isn’t it? You don’t have to think how to protect me. I know Oliver was wrong, even if he did it for the right reasons.”
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers gently.
“I still think there’s got to be something we can do. Have you been able to get permission to enter Taft’s house?” she went on quickly, in case he got the
idea that she was giving up gracefully.
“I’m trying, but I have to be pretty devious about it.” He smiled slightly in spite of himself. “We don’t even know who our enemies are in this, Hester. There are some very important people looking to convict Rathbone because they need to show that you can’t expose people the way he’s done with the photograph of Drew. And it’s not only that, it’s what else Rathbone could do. If you go out hunting something really dangerous, you either kill it with your first blow or you run like hell without firing, because you know that if you give it the chance to fight back, it would finish you. They see Oliver as that dangerous animal, and they just want to feel safe again.”
She felt the cold ripple through her as if no heat could ever quite get rid of it. “So what are we going to do?” Her voice wavered a little. “Sit here paralyzed? Isn’t that just what they want?”
He pulled a face of disgust, but it vanished after an instant. “Yes, but we don’t know who else is drawn into this.” He lifted his shoulders a fraction; it was barely a movement at all. “Not Byrne, I don’t think, but what if he has a brother in one of the photos? Or his favorite sister’s husband? Or his father, or son … people do terrible things when they’re afraid.”
“Or they do nothing at all,” Hester said very quietly. “And they let innocent people go to the wall.”
“Oliver isn’t innocent,” he said gently, watching her face to see how deeply he had cut into her emotions, her intense and at times unreasoning loyalty.
She knew that.
“He is guilty of being stupid! I’ve done lots of stupid things, and I didn’t have to pay for all of them like this. It shouldn’t be so easy to punish people when you know you’ve deserved worse yourself.”
He took her hand gently. “I love you.”
She smiled at him.
“That doesn’t make you right about this,” he added.
In spite of herself, in spite of the twisting sense of fear inside her, she laughed. “I know.”
He stood up. “I’m going back to the local police station nearest Taft’s house. It’s time I stopped asking nicely for favors and started demanding them.”
“I’m coming too.” She rose to her feet also. “I’ll wait outside while you talk to them.”
It took some considerable argument, and Monk did not tell Hester what threat or favor he had used, but after a heated forty-five minutes he emerged from the police station and found Hester on a bench in the sun, where she had been sitting waiting for him. He had been told not to touch anything. The police had already thoroughly searched the whole house at the time the deaths were discovered and found nothing of interest.
Monk and Hester quickly walked the short distance to Taft’s house.
“What are we looking for?” Hester asked as they lengthened their stride for the slight gradient in the road.
“I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “The only thing that gives me hope is that I’m told Drew still wants to get in-so he hasn’t found what he wants.” He was walking a little faster than she was, and she had to hurry to keep up with him. She was a little breathless and really had no useful reply to offer, so she said nothing.
The house was attractive, solidly built of brick, and in its own very well-tended garden. They walked up the driveway and Monk produced the key to the front door.
Hester was surprised almost as soon as they entered the hallway. Just inside the door was a vestibule with exactly the sort of things she would have expected: an umbrella stand; pegs for outdoor clothes of the heavier, winter sort and for casual hats; a long mirror, possibly to make last-minute adjustments as one was leaving. But farther inside, the room opened out into a wood-paneled hall of some size. From it rose a very gracious staircase with a large, heavily ornamental newel post and then a curved stair, which was wide at the bottom and swung around against the wall, up to a gallery with passages running off in both directions.
