A Sudden, Fearful Death

"Hush, dear," Julia said quickly, tightening her hand on Marianne's shoulder again. "Really, Mr. Monk, she cannot tell you anything more of him. It is a most terrible experience. I am only glad it has not turned her mind. Such things have been known to."

Monk retreated, uncertain just how far he ought to press. It was a terror and revulsion he could only imagine. Nothing could show to him her experience.

"Are you sure you wish to pursue it?" he asked as gently as he could, looking not at Julia but at Marianne.

However, as before, it was Julia who answered.

"We must." There was resolute decision in her voice. "Quite apart from justice, she must be protected from ever encountering this man again. You must persevere, Mr. Monk. What else is there that we can tell you that may be of use?"

"Perhaps you would show me the summerhouse?" he asked, rising to his feet.

"Of course," Julia agreed immediately. "You must see it, or how else can you judge for yourself?" She looked at Marianne. "Do you wish to come, dear, or would you rather not?" She turned back to Monk. "She has not been there since it happened."

Monk was about to say that he would be present to protect her from any danger, then realized just in time that being alone with a man she had newly met might in itself be enough to alarm her. He felt he was foundering. It was going to be even harder than he had anticipated.

But Marianne surprised him.

"No-that is quite all right, Julia," she said firmly. "I will take Mr. Monk and show him. Perhaps tea will come while we are out, and we shall be able to return to it." And without waiting for Julia's reply, she led the way out into the hall and to the side door into the garden.

After a glance at Julia, Monk followed her and found himself outside in a small but extremely pleasant paved yard under the shade of a laburnum tree and a birch of some sort. Ahead of them stretched a long, narrow lawn and he could see a wooden summerhouse about fifteen yards away.

He, walked behind Marianne over the grass under the trees and into the sun. The summerhouse was a small building with glassed windows and a seat inside. There was no easel there now, but plenty of room where one might have stood.

Marianne turned around on the step.

"It was here," she said simply.

He regarded his surroundings with care, absorbing the details. There was at least a twenty-foot distance of grass in every direction, to the herbaceous border and the garden walls on three sides, to the arbor and the house on the fourth. She must have been concentrating very profoundly on her painting not to have noticed the man approach, and the gardener must have been at the front of the house or in the small kitchen herb garden at the side.

"Did you cry out?" he asked, turning to her.

Her face tightened. "I-I don't think so. I don't remember." She shuddered violently and stared at him in silence. "I-I might have. It is all…" She stared at him in silence again.

"Never mind," he dismissed it. There was no use in making her so distressed that she could recall nothing clearly. "Where did you first see him?"

"I don't understand."

"Did you see him coming toward you across the grass?" he asked.

She looked at him in total confusion.

"Have you forgotten?" He made an effort to be gentle with her.

"Yes." She seized on it. "Yes-I'm sorry…"

He waved his hand, closing the matter. Then he left the summerhouse and walked over the grass toward the border and the old stone wall which marked the boundary between this and the next garden. It was about four feet high and covered in places by dark green moss. He could see no mark on it, no scuff or scratch where anyone had climbed over. Nor were there any broken plants in the border, although there were places where one might have trodden on the earth and avoided them. There was no point in looking for footprints now; the crime had been ten days ago, and it had rained several times since then, apart from whatever repairs the gardener might have made with a rake.

He heard the faint brush of her skirts over the grass and turned to find her standing just behind him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her face puckered with anxiety.

"Looking to see if there are any traces of someone having climbed in over the wall," he replied.

"Oh." She drew in her breath as if about to continue speaking, then changed her mind.