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HOOPER SPENT THE AFTERNOON tracing Doyle’s movements. He was a widower who still lived in the house he had shared with his wife. He had two adult children, both of whom lived in other parts of the country. He kept a full household staff and occasionally entertained those men and their wives that he had befriended when his own wife was alive.
He dined at his club at least twice a week. It was a pleasant gentlemen’s club; not aristocratic, but a place to display one’s respectability and increasing wealth. The chief steward could swear to Doyle’s presence at the time the kidnapper, Lister, had been killed. He had been involved in a game of cards that had lasted several hours. Doyle had not been there on the night of the kidnap, nor the night following the attempted ransom that had ended in murder. He had not been there on the previous night when Bella Franken had been killed, either.
Doyle’s butler was loyal and discreet, but he could hardly rely on the rest of the staff lying effectively. They were too confused, contradicting each other without realizing it. In the end, Hooper did not know who to believe. They were partly motivated by loyalty, but partly also by the fear of losing jobs they needed, without letters of recommendation and character, as a result of being disloyal.
Hooper told Monk this before he left for the evening, too tired to think about it clearly.
He was about halfway home before he remembered Celia Darwin implying, rather obliquely, that Kate was not as happy as one might suppose. What did she mean by that? Did she know something personal and was only being discreet in not mentioning it? He remembered her face very clearly as she said it. He could see it in his mind, as i
f they had only just parted. She had an expression almost of embarrassment. There was the faintest possible flush in her cheeks. She had fair skin, a little too colorless for some tastes. Hooper found it pure, like a canvas upon which anything could be painted.
Was there something more about Kate that would explain, at least in part, the circumstances around her death?
He wished he could go and ask Celia what she had meant. He even hesitated in his step. Could she really tell him anything? And would she? He thought—in fact he was certain—that she would keep other people’s secrets even more fervently than she would keep her own.
Would she judge the weight of it in hindsight, now that Kate was dead?
Secrets brought Twist’s face back to his mind, bright as if in direct sunlight, just as he had seen it, for an instant, in Runcorn’s police station. Except now that person called himself Fisk. Surely that kind of glittering sunlight happened only at sea, where the mirror surface of the water magnified it and repeated it a thousand times? Tropical sea. The answer was there in his mind.
The only question was, was it him at the station, or was it only someone who was reminiscent of him? He quickened his step again. He did not want to see Celia Darwin right now. She woke ideas in him of things he could not have, and they were better untouched.
Even so, he went. It was late, an unsuitable time to call. He knew all that, but he went anyway.
The maid must have been off duty, perhaps in her own bedroom, because it was Celia herself who answered the door, opening it guardedly, then almost with relief when she saw it was Hooper.
“Come in, Mr. Hooper.” She stood back to allow him to pass her before closing the door again and slipping the bolt home. It was habit rather than forethought; she seemed scarcely aware of doing it. She stood in the hallway, facing him. “What has happened? You look very grave.”
“I am afraid there has been another death.” How could he explain why he had come to see her, this late in the evening? “I…we have to—”
“I understand,” she cut across him, perhaps seeing his difficulty. “Come in by the fire.” Without waiting for him, she led the way into the parlor. The fire was low. She had obviously let it die down for the night. She had probably been intending to go to bed very shortly. Now she bent down and picked more coal out of the scuttle.
“Let me,” he said, kneeling beside her and taking the tongs from her hands. He was aware of her closeness, of the faint smell of something warm, like vanilla, or some kind of flower. It was clean rather than sweet.
She hesitated a moment, almost as if she did not mind his being so close to her. Then she stood up and murmured her thanks.
He fueled the fire, mindful not to use the last of the coal, then rose and sat in the chair opposite her. There was no point in putting off telling her. It might look as if he had no urgent reason to have come.
“It was the bank ledger clerk,” he said quietly. “A Miss Bella Franken…”
He was not prepared for the shock with which Celia recognized the name: shock and unconcealed grief.
“You knew her?” he asked.
“Yes, not well, but…” She took several deep breaths and tried to compose herself. “How did it happen? Please…be honest, Mr. Hooper. This is too horrible to trivialize for the sake of mercy. Poor Bella, she was so…alive!” For a moment she could not mask her distress. She put her hands up to her face and bent forward, struggling to keep from weeping openly.
Hooper felt profoundly for her. It was not the time to berate himself for his stupidity in not having thought Celia might know Bella Franken. All he could think of was what he could say to ease the misery. He wanted to touch her, to put his hand over hers at least, but that would be an inexcusable intrusion when she was so very vulnerable.
“She did not suffer,” he said softly. “She knew nothing. One blow…” He thought of what she would read or hear tomorrow. “She was found in the river, but she did not drown.”
She looked up slowly. “Found?”
“She went to meet Mr. Monk, to tell him something. They were to meet at the Greenwich Pier. Her choice of place. But she never got there.”
“Tell him something? You mean from the bank?”
“Yes.”
