"Doesn"t matter, if you will give me permission to look for it!"
"What is the other letter you wish to compare it with?" She avoided his eyes. "I would rather not say ... please... unless I have to." There was a minute"s silence. Not even any hospital noises intruded through the thick walls into the room.
"There is a letter she wrote me, some time ago, in the top drawer of the chest in my bedroom. I ... I would like it back..." His voice broke and he gulped in, trying to control it.
"I don"t need to take it away," she said quickly. "I don"t need to read it just compare the handwriting. They may be quite different, and it will mean nothing at all."
"And if they are the same?" he said huskily. "Will that mean that Elissa has done something... wrong?"
"No." She denied it, then knew it was a lie. To have an addiction is a grief, but intentionally to introduce someone else to it she regarded as a profound wrong. "I may be mistaken. It is only an idea." He drew in breath as if to ask again, then changed his mind.
"If it has anything to do with her death, I will tell you," she promised, still looking down. She could not bear to intrude on the pain in his eyes. "Before I tell anyone else, except William."
"Thank you." Again he seemed about to continue, and changed his mind.
"The room is full of people," she said, gesturing towards the door.
"What is your cleaning woman"s name, so that she knows I have spoken to you?"
"Mrs. Talbot."
"Thank you." And before either of them could struggle for anything more to say, she turned and went out through the waiting room and down the corridor to the entrance, and the street, to look for an omnibus or a hansom back towards Haverstock Hill.
She alighted within a few yards of Kristian"s house and as soon as she knocked Mrs. Talbot opened the door. She had been cleaning the hall floor and the mop and bucket stood a few feet inside.
Hester bade her good morning by name, and explained her errand. Rather doubtfully Mrs. Talbot conducted her upstairs, after carefully closing the front door. She remained in the bedroom while Hester went to the chest. Feeling guilty for the intrusion into what was deeply private, Hester opened the top drawer and looked through the dozen or so papers that were there. Actually there were two letters from Elissa, undated, but from the first line or two she could see that they were old, from when they were immeasurably closer than they had been when Elissa died.
With fumbling hands she opened her reticule and took out the letter Charles had given her, although she already knew the answer. It was more scrawled, a little larger, but the characteristic curls and generous capitals were the same.
She placed them side by side on top of the dresser, and for a sick, dizzy moment fought off reality, searching for differences, anything that would tell her they were only similar, not the same. On the second one the tails were longer! A "b" had a loop, the "z" was different. And even as she was doing it, she knew it was not true. It was time and haste which gave an illusion of difference. It was Elissa who had drawn Imogen into gambling. Of course she had not forced her, only invited her, but Charles might blame her as if it were a seduction. It is so easy, so instinctive to bring the fault away from those we love.
Would he have known it was Elissa? He had no other writing to compare.
But he did not need it. On his own admission, he had followed Imogen.
He needed only to have kept one of the appointments in the letters, and seen who she met. Why the Drury Lane lie? For the same reason as any lie to conceal the truth.
Thank you," she said to Mrs. Talbot. Conspicuously she folded up Kristian"s letter and replaced it, and closed the drawer, then put Charles"s letter back in her reticule. "I won"t disturb you any more."
"You look poorly, miss ... an" cold, if you don"t mind me sayin". If yer"d like a cup o" tea, the kettle"s on the "ob," Mrs. Talbot offered.
Hester hesitated. Part of her was irritated and anxious to face Charles and know the best or the worst. But it would be the same whenever she went, and a hot cup of tea would warm her, perhaps undo some of the knots in her clenched stomach. She looked at the woman"s weary face and felt a rush of grat.i.tude. "Yes, please. Let"s do that." Mrs. Talbot relaxed and a surprisingly sweet smile lit her face.
"D"yer mind the kitchen, miss?"
"I"d like the kitchen," Hester said honestly. For a start it would be a good deal warmer than the ice-cold room she was standing in now, and no doubt the one furnished morning room would be equally chilly.
It was an hour and a half later that she was shown into Charles"s office in the City, and that was only after some rather heavy-handed insistence.
Charles rose from his desk and came around to greet her. "What is it?" he demanded, his voice sharp. "My clerk said it was an emergency. Has something happened to Imogen?"
"Not so far as I know." Hester took a deep breath. "But she is still gambling, even though she now goes alone." She watched his face intently, and saw the dull flush of colour and the heat in his eyes.
Denial was impossible.
"If it"s not Imogen, what is it?" She hated having to press him. It would have been so much easier if they could have spoken as allies instead of adversaries, but she could not afford to let him evade the truth any longer. "You told me that the night of Elissa"s death you followed Imogen south, down Drury Lane towards the river." He could not retract it. "Yes," he said, his voice cracking a little.
"You seemed to be thinking she was involved in ... in the murder. Or she might have seen something."
"She might have." Hester was hating this. Why did he not trust her enough to tell her the truth? Was it so hideous? "You didn"t go down Drury Lane that evening. A dray slid over and dropped all its load of raw sugar barrels, blocking everything. They took hours to clear it up." He stood motionless, not answering her. She had never seen him look more wretched. The fear bit so hard and deep inside her that for the first time she truly acknowledged the possibility that he was involved in Elissa"s death.
"Where was she?" she asked him. "Did you follow her that night?"
"Yes." It was little more than a whisper.
She found herself gulping also. "Where? Where did she go, Charles?"
"Gambling."
"Gambling where?" Now she was all but shouting. "Where?" He shook his head firmly. "She wouldn"t have killed Elissa. She wouldn"t have hurt her at all!"
"Possibly not. But would you?" He looked startled, as if he had not even thought of such a thing. For the first time she hoped. Her heart lurched and steadied.
"No! I..." He let out his breath slowly. "How could you think that?"
"Where were you?" she persisted. "Where did you follow her, Charles?
Someone killed Elissa Beck. It wasn"t the artist and it wasn"t one of the gamblers. I want above everything else to be able to prove it wasn"t you."
"I don"t know who it was!" There was desperation in his voice now, rising close to panic.
"Where did Imogen go?" she said again.
"Swinton Street," he whispered.
"Then where?"
"I..." He gulped. "I ... got very angry." He closed his eyes as if he could not bear to say it while looking at her. "I made a complete fool of myself. I created a scene, and one of the doormen hit me over the head with something ... I think I remember falling. Later I woke up in the dark, my head feeling as if it were splitting, and I lay for quite a little while so dizzy I daren"t move." He bit his lip. "When I did, I crawled around and realised I was in a small room, not much more than a cupboard. I shouted, but no one came, and the door was heavy, and, of course, it was locked. It was daylight when they let me out." Now he was looking at her, no more evasion in his face, only the most agonising embarra.s.sment.
She believed him. She was so overwhelmed with relief the stiff, formal office swam around her in a blur, and she had to make an effort not to buckle at the knees. Very deliberately she walked forward and sat down in the chair opposite his desk. "Good," she said almost normally.
"That"s... good." What an idiotic understatement. He was not guilty! It was impossible. He had spent the entire night locked up in a cupboard. She remembered the bruises on his face, how ill he had looked when she had seen him afterwards. The gambling club doormen would remember him and could swear to it. She would tell Monk, of course, and get their testimony before they realised how important it was. Charles was safe. What was a little humiliation, compared with what she had feared?
She looked up at him and smiled.
For an instant he thought she was laughing at him, then he read her face more closely and his eyes filled with sudden tears. He turned away and blew his nose.
She gave him a moment, but only one, then she stood up and went to him, putting her arms around him and holding him as tightly as she could.
She said nothing. She could not promise that it would be all right, that Imogen was not involved, or even that she would stop gambling now.
She did not know any of those things. But she did know that he could not have killed Elissa himself, and she could prove it.
The trip to the hospital was one of the worst journeys Monk could ever recall having made. He and Runcorn took a hansom, intending it to wait outside so they would have no difficulty in obtaining one for the return to the police station with Kristian Beck. Neither of them even mentioned the possibility of taking the police van in which criminals were customarily transported. They sat side by side without speaking, avoiding looking at each other. To do so would have made the silence even more obvious.
Monk thought about how he would tell Callandra that he had failed, and as he tried to work out in his mind what words he would use, each time he discarded them as false, and unintentionally condescending, something which she deserved least of all from him.
By the time they reached the hospital, and Runcorn had instructed the cabbie to wait, Monk"s sense of failure was for having led her to hope so fiercely, rather than warning her more honestly in the beginning, so she might have been better prepared for this.
They went up the steps side by side, and in through the doors to the familiar smells of carbolic, disease, drifting coal s.m.u.ts, and floors too often wet. The corridors were empty except for three women with mops and buckets, but they did not need to ask their way. They both knew by now where Kristian"s rooms were, and the operating room.
"Are we Monk began.
"Are we what?" Runcorn said tartly, glaring at him.
"Going to wait until he"s seen his patients?" Monk finished.
"What the h.e.l.l do you think I"m going to do?" Runcorn snapped. "Take him away with a knife in his hand, and some poor devil"s arm half off?" He drove his fists savagely into his pockets and strode along the corridor ahead of Monk, not looking back at him. He turned the corner and left Monk to follow.
As it happened Kristian was not operating, but he still had five people in his waiting room, and Runcorn sat down on the bench as if he were the sixth. He gave Monk one glowering look, and then ignored him.
The door opened and Kristian came out. He saw Runcorn first, then Monk.
Monk would not lie, even by implication. He wished he could have, because he knew Kristian would see the rest of those waiting for him, and it would have been easier if he had not known why the police were there. But the instant he met Monk"s eyes the question existed, and then the understanding. Something inside him faded, as if he had come to the end of a long test of endurance, and reached the point at which he could no longer struggle.
"Mr. Newbury?" he said, turning away and looking at a large man with a pale, flabby face and receding hair. "Will you come in, please?" Newbury stood up and limped across the floor, watched by everyone else in the room.
Monk sat stiffly in his seat, willing himself not to fidget, not to stand up and pace back and forth. These other people here were sick, and probably frightened of whatever pain or debility lay ahead of them.
Kristian faced G.o.d knew what. All Monk had to deal with was the misery of arresting Kristian, and then of telling Hesterand Callandra what had happened. Comparatively, it was nothing.
Still the minutes dragged by, and as one patient went in after another he alternated between anger with Runcorn simply for being here, for knowing what was in Monk"s mind because he had worked with him and could remember a thousand things Monk could not, and a desire to say something to him to ease the waiting, because he knew Runcorn also loathed this necessity. He too admired Kristian, whether he wanted to or not, and would have given a great deal for it to have been anyone else, preferably someone of a cla.s.s and type he despised. Best of all if it could have been a gambler, but Allardyce would have done. Far bette ran artist, living a bohemian and essentially alien and dissolute life, than a doctor who spent his time healing the sick, the ordinary poor who came to this particular hospital. But Runcorn did not have the courage or the imagination not to do his duty!
No, that was unfair and Monk knew it even as the thought filled his mind. Monk too would have arrested Kristian, even if it had not been forced upon him by Runcorn"s presence. His own knowledge was enough.
He could have forgiven Kristian for killing Elissa. She had provoked him beyond the limits of forbearance. But Sarah had done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong moment. There was no sense to it that he could explain, but the fact that no one else had mourned her except Mrs. Clark, and Runcorn of all people, made her murder more of an offence in his eyes.
The last patient came out, and after barely a minute Kristian followed.
He stood in the middle of the room, stiff and very straight, his head high. There were marks of sleeplessness like bruises around his eyes, and his skin was bleached of colour. "I a.s.sume you believe that I murdered Elissa," he said very quietly, not looking at either of them.
"I did not, but I cannot prove it."
"I"m sorry, Dr. Beck," Runcorn replied. He was acutely miserable, but he would not shirk doing his duty to the letter. "I don"t know whether you killed her or not, but the evidence all points that way, and there"s nothing to say anybody else did. You"ll have to come with me, sir. You are under arrest for the murders of Elissa Beck and Sarah Mackeson." Kristian said nothing.
Monk cleared his throat. He was surprised how difficult it was to speak steadily. "Would you like me to collect some clothes for you from your home?" Kristian blinked and turned to him. "I"d be grateful if you would tell the hospital what has happened, and... and Mrs. Talbot, who cleans my house for me." The ghost of a smile touched his mouth and echoed in his dark eyes. "Fermin Thorpe will be pleased. It will justify his opinion of me at last." He could not have said anything which would have made Monk feel worse, or more totally inadequate. He saw with a flash of irony that Kristian recognised that, and although possibly he had not intended it, he could not apologise.
"I"ll do both," Monk replied, looking at Runcorn.
Runcorn nodded.
Kristian held out his hand with the front door key in it.
"Thank you." Monk took it and turned away, engulfed in misery.
Monk went straight to Haverstock Hill and let himself into the house with the key. Mrs. Talbot had already left and there was no sound or movement at all. He found it acutely distressing to see the bare, chilly rooms, and to go upstairs to the stark bedroom Kristian occupied. The dressing room held only the necessities of grooming a plain hairbrush, a wooden-handled open razor and leather strop, cufflinks and shirt studs such as a clerk or shopkeeper might have owned. In the dresser he found four clean shirts and the minimum of underwear. There were two other suits in the wardrobe, and one other pair of boots, carefully resoled. This was all that was owned by a man with years of skill and experience, who worked from dawn to dusk and into the night, every day of the week.
He left a note for Mrs. Talbot, finding it difficult to think of the words, then he took the clothes back to the police station and gave them to the desk sergeant for Kristian. Now he could no longer put off going home and telling Hester that he had failed, and why.
When he went out into the street again it was raining steadily and he walked for barely a mile, getting thoroughly soaked, before he finally caught a hansom for the last part of his journey. He reached home shivering with cold, wishing there were any way of avoiding what he must do.
Inside, he took off his wet overcoat and removed his boots to save putting footprints over the carpet. He heard Hester come through from the kitchen and half expected her to know already. She was so quick to sense things, to understand, he imagined she would be aware of his failure and prepared for it.
He looked up and saw her face, full of relief, as if some burden had been lifted from her and realised how mistaken he was.
"William..." She stopped. "What is it?" The muscles of her face and neck pulled tight.
He straightened up, ignoring the wet boots. "Kristian wasn"t where he said he was. G.o.d knows he had cause enough to kill her. She"s bled him of everything, and if she"d lived she would have gone on until he ended up in prison. Queen"s if he was lucky! Coldbath if he wasn"t." "For heaven"s sake!" she exploded. "Some gambler killed her! Someone she owed " He took her shoulder, forcing her to face him. "No they didn"t. Do you think we haven"t pressed that as far as it will go? No one wants it to be Kristian."
"Runcorn she began.
"No," he said sharply. "He"s stubborn and prejudiced, full of ambition, taking offence where there isn"t any, thick-skinned and short of imagination ... at times. But he didn"t want it to be Kristian."
"Didn"t!" she challenged, her eyes blazing. "You said "didn"t"!"
"Didn"t," he repeated. He shook his head very slightly. "There"s nothing we could do to prevent it. The evidence was too much."
"What evidence?" she demanded. "There"s nothing except motive. You can"t convict anyone because they had a reason. All you know is that he can"t prove he was somewhere else!"
"And that he lied about it, intentionally or not," he answered quietly.
"No one else has reason to, Hester. Allardyce was in the Bull and Half Moon on the other side of the river. It doesn"t make sense for any of the gamblers to kill her. Apart from that, her debts were paid anyway."
"Then the other poor woman was the intended victim," she said instantly. "I don"t know why you even think Elissa Beck was the one killed first, and not Sarah Mackeson! Perhaps she was having a love affair with someone and they quarrelled? Isn"t that far more likely than Kristian following his wife to an artist"s studio and killing her there? For heaven"s sake, William! He"s a doctor ... if he wanted to kill her there are dozens of bette rand safer ways of doing it than that!" He did not bother to argue with her about pa.s.sion and sense. It was true, but irrelevant to this. "Sarah wasn"t killed first," he said, still holding her and feeling her pull against him, her muscles tight.
"Elissa was."
"You don"t know that! No doctor could tell you which of two people died first when it was within minutes of each other," she retaliated.
"We found Elissa"s earring, torn from her ear in the struggle, fallen through a knot-hole in the floorboard, under where Sarah was lying." She drew in her breath, then let it out in a sigh. "Oh," she said very quietly. The anger drained out of her, leaving only misery, and he pulled her, unresisting, closer to him, then held her in his arms, feeling her shiver and struggle to keep from weeping.
It was several minutes, clinging close to him, before she finally drew back. "Then we"ve got to fight it," she said, gasping over the words.
"You... you mean Runcorn will arrest him, don"t you?"
"He already has. I took his clothes and razor to him."
"He"s in ... prison?" Her eyes were wide.