A Sudden, Fearful Death

"Good afternoon, Lady Stanhope," he replied. He must force himself to be gentle with her. Impatience would serve no one; it was a weakness, and he must look at it so. "Good afternoon, Mr. Stanhope," he added, acknowledging Arthur.

Arthur nodded. "Please be seated, Mr. Monk," he invited, rectifying his mother's omission. "What can we do for you, sir? As you may imagine, my mother is not seeing people unless it is absolutely necessary. This time is very difficult for us."

"Of course," Monk conceded, sitting in the offered chair. "I am assisting Mr. Rathbone in preparing a defense for your father, as I believe I wrote you."

"His defense is that he is innocent," Arthur interrupted. "The poor woman was obviously deluded. It happens to unmarried ladies of a certain age, I believe. They construct fantasies, daydreams about eminent people, men of position, dignity. It is usually simply sad and a little embarrassing. On this occasion it has proved tragic also."

With difficulty Monk suppressed the question that rose to his lips. Did this smooth-faced, rather complacent young man think of the death of Prudence Barrymore, or only of the charge against his father?

"That is one thing that is undeniable," he agreed aloud. "Nurse Barrymore is dead, and your father is in prison awaiting trial for murder."

Lady Stanhope gasped and the last vestige of color drained from her cheeks. She clutched at Arthur's hand resting on her shoulder.

"Really, sir!" Arthur said furiously. "That was unnecessary! I would think you might have more sensitivity toward my mother's feelings. If you have some business with us, please conduct it as briefly and circumspectly as you can. Then leave us, for pity's sake."

Monk controlled himself with an effort. He could remember doing this before, sitting opposite stunned and frightened people who did not know what to say and could only sit mesmerized by their grief. He could see a quiet woman, an ordinary face devastated by tormenting loss, white hands clenched in her lap. She too had been unable to speak to him. He had been filled with a rage so vast the taste of it was still familiar in his mouth. But it had not been against her, for her he felt only a searing pity. But why? Why now, after all these years, did he remember that woman instead of all the others?

Nothing came, nothing at all, just the emotion filling his mind and making his body tense.

"What can we do?" Lady Stanhope asked again. "What can we say to help Herbert?"

Gradually, with uncharacteristic patience, he drew from them a picture of Sir Herbert as a quiet, very proper man with an ordinary domestic life, devoted to his family, predictable in all his personal tastes. His only appetite seemed to be for a glass of excellent whiskey every evening, and a fondness for good roast beef. He was a dutiful husband, an affectionate father.

The conversation was slow and tense. He explored every avenue he could think of to draw from either of them anything that would be of use to Rathbone, better than the predictable loyalty which he believed was quite literally the truth but not necessarily likely to influence a jury. What else could a wife say? And she was not a promising witness. She was too frightened to be coherent or convincing.

In spite of himself he was sorry for her.

He was about to leave when there was a knock at the door. Without waiting for a reply, a young woman opened it and came in. She was slender-in fact, thin-and her face was so marked with illness and disappointment it was hard to tell her age, but he thought probably not more than twenty.

"Excuse my interruption," she began, but even before she spoke Monk was overcome by a wave of memory so vivid and so agonizing his present surroundings became invisible to him, Lady Stanhope and Arthur merely blurs on the edge of his vision. He knew what the old case was, violently and with sickening immediacy. A girl had been molested and murdered. He could still see her thin broken body and feel the rage inside himself, the confusion and the pain, the aching helplessness. That was why he had driven his constables so hard, worried and harassed his witnesses, why his contempt had scalded Runcorn without mercy or patience.

The horror was back inside him with all the freshness it had had when he was twenty. It did not excuse the way he had treated people, it did not undo anything, but it explained it. At least he had had a reason, a passion which was not centered upon himself. He was not merely cruel, arrogant, and ambitious. He had cared-furiously, tirelessly, single-mindedly.

He found himself smiling with relief, and yet there was a sickness in his stomach.

"Mr. Monk?" Lady Stanhope said nervously.

"Yes-yes, ma'am?"

"Are you going to be able to help my husband, Mr. Monk?"

"I believe so," he said firmly. "And I shall do everything within my power, I promise you."

"Thank you. I-we-are most grateful." She held Arthur's hand a little more tightly. "All of us."

Chapter 9