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“I wonder what time Taft was actually shot,” Monk said, chewing his lip a little. “It can’t have been all that long before he was found, or the body would have been too cold.”
“About three,” Hester suggested. “Drew was back home at five, we know, because he woke his valet. But h
e could well have been here at three.”
“It doesn’t have to have been Drew,” Monk argued.
She looked at him witheringly. “Who else? It wasn’t a burglar. This was prepared very carefully by someone who was here often enough to know about the ladder into the attic and who could set up that contraption feeling confident that he would be able to come back here, without raising suspicion, to take it down again.”
Monk went on playing devil’s advocate. She understood what he was doing.
“Why?” he asked. “Murdering four people is pretty extreme.”
“Maybe in his mind it was only one,” she reasoned. “Just Taft himself, because he knew how deeply Drew was implicated. He couldn’t be trusted, especially once the case turned against him. Mrs. Taft and the daughters were just necessary tidying up.”
He thought for a moment. “But wasn’t there always the risk that Taft would turn against him to free himself?”
“It seemed that he trusted not,” she replied. “But then he was exposed in the photograph and was forced to change his evidence entirely. So if Taft really didn’t know about Drew’s perversions, that might well have been the end of any loyalty Taft felt toward Drew, and certainly the end of any belief that Drew could, or would, help him stay out of prison.” She knew she was right even before his face broke into a smile and he straightened up.
“Right, I believe you,” he said with conviction in his voice. “Now let’s find out how he got in. He wouldn’t have had a key, and he certainly wouldn’t have rung the doorbell at three in the morning.”
“How do you know he wouldn’t have a key?” she said, then saw the look in his eyes. “Oh-of course. If he had a key he wouldn’t be asking the police for permission to get in. He’d have been back ages ago to dismantle that contraption. In that case, why hasn’t he just broken in?”
“He’d be seen in the daytime,” Monk answered. “This place has some very curious neighbors now, whatever they were before. I saw one of them watching us when we came in. If we’d picked the lock instead of having a key, I’ll wager either they’d have been around here finding out who we were or they’d have sent for the police. At this time of the day it wouldn’t have taken them long to get here.”
“At night?” she persisted, smiling herself now.
“I can’t think of anything but the risk of getting caught. A silly chance to take, if he can come in here openly with a perfectly believable excuse.”
“What if the police had sent somebody with him?” Hester wasn’t going to give up so easily. “He couldn’t go up to the gun, or they’d have seen him.”
“He could have come into the study and gone up without anyone knowing. I doubt someone would’ve escorted him the whole way.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And carried down the gun and that contraption off the table?”
“No need. Just hide them in one of the boxes up in the attic,” he replied. “It would take only moments. Actually, even if anyone knew he had gone up to the attic, so long as they didn’t go up before he’d hidden it, it still wouldn’t matter.”
“Right, I believe you,” she mimicked his line exactly, with a wide smile.
“So-back to the question of how he got in that night when he killed Taft and his family,” he went on.
“A window?” she suggested. “One of the side or back doors, maybe?”
Together they went around every door and window in the house. The doors were all fast and showed no signs of having been picked or otherwise tampered with, but one larder window had scratches that indicated a very carefully and quite skillfully picked catch, probably with a long narrow-bladed knife.
“I’ll find you a hansom,” he told her as they closed the door and walked out onto the sunlit street. “I need to talk to the police surgeon again, then I’ll go to speak to Dillon Warne. I don’t know when I’ll be home, but if I’m late, you and Scuff have supper without me. I can’t afford to wait with this.”
“I know,” she agreed. “And I’ll find my own cab.”
“No. I’ll take you …”
“William! I can find a hansom cab for myself! Go and see the police surgeon.”
He touched her cheek with a quick gesture, smiled back at her, then turned and walked away rapidly.
She walked in the sun toward the main road and hailed the first passing hansom cab, then settled down for the long ride home.
Monk did not have to wait long for the police surgeon. The man came in, glad to be interrupted in his paperwork. He looked interested as soon as Monk told him which case he was referring to.
