It was getting even colder. They moved closer yet, the warmth of each other comforting, even the steady rhythm of breathing a kind of safety in the threat of enclosing darkness and the knowledge that time was short and every second that pa.s.sed meant one fewer left.
"What did she say-on the train?" Monk asked presently.
"She talked about the past, for the most part." She thought back yet again to that evening. "She traveled then. She danced at the ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, you know?" She stared into the darkness, speaking softly. It seemed appropriate to the mood and it saved energy. They were sitting so close together whispering would serve. "She described it to me, the colors and the music, the soldiers in their uniforms, all the scarlets and the blues and golds, the cavalrymen, the artillery, the hussars and dragoons, the Scots Greys." She smiled as she pictured Mary"s face and the light in it as she relived that night. "She spoke of Hamish, how elegant he was, how dashing, how all the ladies loved him."
"Was Hector sober then?" he asked.
"Oh yes. She spoke of Hector too, he was always quieter, tenderer-that isn"t the word she used, but that is what she meant. And she said he was actually a better soldier." She smiled. "She described the band and the gaiety, the laughter at any joke at all, the hectic dancing, whirling "round and "round, the lights and color, the brilliance of jewels and the candle flames and the flash of reds." She drew in a deep breath. "And the knowledge in everyone that tomorrow perhaps perhaps one in ten of them would die, and two or three be injured, maybe marred for life, limbs lost, blinded, G.o.d knows what. Whatever they thought or felt, no one spoke of it, and the musicians never missed a beat. Wellington himself was there. It was the high tide of history. All Europe hung in the balance." one in ten of them would die, and two or three be injured, maybe marred for life, limbs lost, blinded, G.o.d knows what. Whatever they thought or felt, no one spoke of it, and the musicians never missed a beat. Wellington himself was there. It was the high tide of history. All Europe hung in the balance."
She swallowed and tried to keep her voice from shaking. She must have Mary"s courage. She had faced death before, and worse death. She would be with Monk, and in spite of all the enmity they had shared, the quarrels and the anger and the contempt, she would not have had anyone else there, except for his sake. "She said how terrified she was for Hector, but she never allowed him to know," she finished.
"You mean Hamish," he corrected.
"Do I? Yes, of course I do. The air is getting thin, isn"t it?"
"Yes."
"She spoke about her children as well, mostly Oonagh and Alastair, how close they had always been, even when they were young." She recounted what she could remember of Mary"s story of the night of the storm, and finding the two together, comforting each other.
"A very remarkable woman, Oonagh," he said softly. "A little frightening, so much strength."
"Alastair must have strength too, or he would not be Procurator Fiscal. It must have taken courage to refuse to prosecute Galbraith. Apparently it was a very big case, very political, and everyone expected him to face trial and be found guilty. I think Mary did too."
"From what the woman in front of us in the church said, he has refused to prosecute quite a few. Are you cold?"
"Yes, but it doesn"t matter."
"Do you want my coat?"
"No-then you"ll be cold."
He took it off. "Don"t argue," he said grimly, and began to put it around her.
"Put it "round both of us." She moved so that was possible.
"It isn"t big enough," he complained.
"It"ll do."
"Mary expected Galbraith to be prosecuted? How do you know that?"
"She said something about seeing an Archie Frazer in the house, very late one night, rather furtively. I think it worried her."
"Why? Who is he?"
"A witness in the Galbraith case."
He stiffened. "A witness?" He turned around a little to look at her in the lamplight. "What would a witness be doing coming to Alastair"s house at night? And Mary was worried?"
"Yes, it seemed to disturb her."
"Because she knew he had no business there. Alastair had no business seeing a witness privately. And then the case was thrown out, never prosecuted?"
She stared at him. Even in the failing light, the yellow glare and shadow, she could see from his eyes that the same thought had come to him as now filled her mind.
"Bribery?" she whispered. "The Fiscal took money, or something else, not to prosecute Mr. Galbraith-and Mary feared it!"
"Once?" Monk said slowly. "Or often? The woman in the church said there had been a few cases dropped unexpectedly. Is our Fiscal a just man brave enough to defy expectations and throw out a poor case, regardless of public opinion; or is he a corrupt man taking some reward, monetary or otherwise, in order not to prosecute those who can and will pay his price?"
"And even if we can answer that," she went on, almost under her breath, "there arises the other question-did Mary know it or fear it? And was he aware of that?"
He sat silently for several minutes, half turned in their cramped corner, his body sideways, legs out in front of him, covered by her skirts, which were keeping them both warm. The lamp was growing lower, the corners of the room completely lost in darkness. The air was getting very thin and stale.
"Maybe not Kenneth or Baird at all," she whispered at last. "Or even Quinlan for the forgery. I"d rather think she didn"t know."
"d.a.m.n," he said between his teeth. "d.a.m.n Alastair Farraline!"
The same anger and frustration stirred within her, but far overriding it was a desire to share the intensity of feeling with all its subtleties and shades of disappointment, fear, memories, understanding and half-glimpsed thoughts, hunger for truth, and sense of self-blame.
He reached his hand over to take hold of hers where it lay on her skirt. For a moment she did not move, then without thinking, she leaned forward, her brow against his cheek, sliding her head down until it rested in the hollow of his neck, her face half turned on his shoulder. The whole gesture seemed oddly familiar and right. A sense of peace filled her and the anger drained away. It was all still true, still unjust and unresolved, but it no longer had the same importance.
The air was painfully thin. She had not the remotest idea what time it was. Daylight would make no difference here.
Gently he pushed her away until there was a s.p.a.ce between them. She looked at him in the last of the lamplight, at the strong planes of his face, the wide gray eyes. In that moment there was no pretense between them, no lingering vestige of reserve or attempt to escape, no denial. It was final and complete.
Very slowly he leaned forward, infinitely slowly, and kissed her mouth with exquisite tenderness, almost a reverence, as if this one gesture with the last of his strength were almost a holy thing, a surrender of the final bastion.
She never thought not to answer him, not to give her inner self with as much generosity as he, in an embrace she had so long ached for, and to admit it in the pa.s.sionate tenderness of her lips and her arms.
It was not long after when the lamp had finally guttered and gone out and they lay together, cold and almost senseless in the last of the air, when without warning there was a sound, a thump and a sc.r.a.ping. A shaft of light fell across the room, yellow and dim. And most blessedly of all, there was a draft, clean and sweet, smelling of paper.
"Are you there? Mr. Monk?" It was a tentative voice, a little blurred, and with the lift and music of the north.
Monk sat up slowly, his head hurting, eyes difficult to focus. Hester was still beside him; he could barely feel her breathing.
"Mr. Monk?" came the voice again.
"Hector!" Monk said with dry lips. "Hector...is that...are you ..." He ended in a spasm of coughing.
Hester sat up awkwardly, holding on to him. "Major Farraline?" she whispered.
Stumbling over a ream of paper left in his path, knocking himself on the corner of the press and letting out a gasp of pain, Hector made his way over to them, setting his lamp on the floor. He looked dreadful in its yellow light, his thinning hair standing out in spikes, his eyes bloodshot and dark-rimmed. His concentration was intense, and obviously costing him effort, but the relief in his face redeemed it all.
"Mr. Monk! Are you all right?" Then he saw Hester. "Good G.o.d! Miss Latterly! I-I"m sorry-I didn"t even think of you being here, ma"am!" He extended his arm to a.s.sist her up. "Are you able to stand, ma"am? Would you like...I mean ..." He hesitated, uncertain if he was physically capable of lifting her, any more than in his present state Monk would be.
"Yes, I am sure I am all right, thank you." She attempted to smile. "Or at least I will be, when I have a little air."
"Of course, of course!" He stood up again, then realized he still had not given her any aid. However, Monk was there before him, climbing to his feet awkwardly and bending down to pull Hester up.
"Please hasten," Hector urged, retrieving the lamp. "I don"t know who locked you in, but it is not inconceivable they may have missed me and will come looking. I really think it would be much better not to be found here."
Monk gave a sharp laugh, more like a bark, and without further comment they left the secret room, closing the door behind them. They followed Hector carefully through the printing works, now barely lit by daylight pouring through the windows at the front and even in the farthest reaches giving a strained light.
"What made you come after us?" Hester asked when they were outside and she had begun to get some strength back from breathing the fresh air.
Hector looked embarra.s.sed. "I-I think I was a little tipsy last night. I don"t remember a great deal of what pa.s.sed at the dinner table. I should have stopped about three gla.s.ses before I did. But I woke in the night, I"ve no idea what time. My head was as thick as a Chinaman"s coat, but I knew something was wrong. I could remember that-very wrong." He blinked apologetically and looked profoundly ashamed. "But I could not for the life of me think what it was."
"Never mind," Monk said generously. "You came in time." He pulled a face. "Not a lot to spare, mind you!" He took the older man by the elbow and they started to walk, three abreast, along the unevenly cobbled street.
"But that doesn"t explain why you are here," Hester protested.
"Oh ..." Hector looked unhappy. "Well, when I woke up this morning I remembered. I knew I said something about the secret room...."
"You said you knew there was one," Monk put in. "In the printing works. But you didn"t seem very certain. I gathered it was by deduction rather than observation-at least as to what was in there."
"Deduction?" Hector still sounded confused. "I don"t know. What is in there?"
"Well, why did you come?" Monk said, repeating Hester"s question. "What made you think we would be in there, or that anyone would lock us in?"
Hector"s face cleared. "Ah-that"s obvious. You fastened onto the idea, that was plain in your expression. I knew you"d go and look for it. After all, you can"t let Miss Latterly live the rest of her life under the shadow, can you?" He shook his head. "Though I never thought she"d be there too." He frowned at Hester, walking a little sideways and having to be steered back into a straight course by Monk"s pushing his arm. "You are a very original young woman." A flood of sadness filled him, altering his features starkly. "I know why Mary liked you. She liked anyone with the courage to be themselves, to drink life to the lees and drain the cup without fear. She used to say that." He searched her eyes earnestly. And again Monk had to keep him from veering off into the gutter, even though they were walking comparatively slowly.
"And once I realized you"d go looking for it," Hector went on, "I knew, of course, that if it was in use for anything, whoever was using it would go after you and most likely shut you in." He blinked. "To tell you the truth, I was very afraid they would already have killed you. I"m so glad they haven"t."
"We are obliged to you," Monk said sincerely.
"Very much," Hester added, holding Hector"s arm a little more tightly.
"You"re welcome, my dear," he replied. Then a look of puzzlement crossed his face again. "What is in there, anyway?"
"You don"t know?" Monk said it almost casually, but there was an edge to his voice.
"No I don"t. Is it something of Hamish"s?"
"I think so. Hamish"s in the past. Quinlan"s now."
"That"s odd. Hamish never knew Quinlan all that well. He was ill by the time Eilish met him. In fact, he was going blind, and definitely had times of mental confusion and paralysis of his limbs. Why would he leave anything to Quinlan, rather than Alastair, or even Kenneth?"
"Because Quinlan is an artist," Monk answered, guiding Hester across the uneven road and onto the farther pavement.
"Is he?" Hector looked surprised. "I didn"t know that. Never seen anything he"s done. Knew Hamish was, of course. Didn"t like his work much, too much draftsmanship and not enough imagination. Still, matter of taste, I suppose."
"Don"t want imagination in bank notes," Monk said dryly.
"Bank notes?" Hector stopped in the middle of the path.
"Forgery," Monk explained. "That"s what is in there. Plates and presses for printing money."
Hector let out a long, slow sigh, as if the thought and the fear had been inside him, pent up for years.
"Is it indeed," was all he said.
"Did Mary know?" Hester asked, searching his face.
He looked at her slowly, frowning, his fair brows drawn down, the early sunlight catching the freckles across his cheeks.
"Mary? Of course not. She"d never have stood for it. Mary was a good woman...she had her...her ..." He colored painfully. "Her weaknesses-she told lies, she had to...." There was a moment of fierce defensive anger in him. Then as quickly as it had flared up, it died again. "But she was not dishonest. Not in that way. She would never have allowed that! It"s-it"s not stealing from one person, it"s stealing from everyone. It"s...corrupt."
"I didn"t think she would," Hester said with satisfaction, although she was puzzled by what else he had said, profoundly puzzled. She turned to Monk. "Where are we going? If you are looking for a carriage of some sort, we have just pa.s.sed the main road."
"You"re going to the offices, aren"t you." Hector made it a statement rather than a question. "You"re going to face them with it. Are you sure you are ..." He frowned again, looking doubtfully across at Hester, then to Monk. "We three are not the best soldiers you could have.... You have been locked up all night without air, I am an old man too worn with drink and unhappiness to stand upright, and Miss Latterly, begging your pardon, ma"am, is merely a woman."
"I am quite refreshed," Monk said bleakly. "You are a soldier, sir, and will not fail in the hour of need, and Miss Latterly is no ordinary woman. We shall be sufficient."
They continued in silence, each in solitary thoughts. It was actually only another two or three hundred yards; the offices were naturally enough no farther from the printing works than was necessary. Once it was on the edge of Hester"s mind to ask how Hector had known of the room at all and why he had never bothered to look for it before. Presumably in his muddled mind the whole thing was a confusion of memory, childhood envies and secrets, and since Hamish was long dead none of it had mattered much at all until he had dimly, through a haze of alcohol, perceived that something was urgently wrong.
They reached the offices and book warehouse still without having spoken any further. Now they stopped, hesilated only a moment, then Monk knocked sharply on the door and, as soon as a clerk opened it, strode in, closely followed by the two others.
The clerk backed away, sputtering expostulations, and was ignored. Monk led the way through the outer area into the large open s.p.a.ce, off which led the iron stairway up to Baird"s office and the other one which Alastair used on the rare occasions when he came. As always the cavern below was filled with presses, bales of paper, bolts of cloth, reels of twine and, stretching to the distance, rack after rack of books ready to be shipped. There seemed to be no one else about. Even the clerk had disappeared again. If there was anyone else, they were at the far end of the building, packing or loading books.
Hector looked puzzled, his emotions veering between disappointment and relief. He wanted the last battle, but he was too tired to relish it and too unsure of its outcome.
Monk had no such misgivings. His face was set like a steel mask, through which his eyes glittered hard and bright, and he strode up the iron steps.
"Come on," he ordered, without waiting to see if they obeyed. At the top he took the pa.s.sage in three strides and flung open the door to Baird"s office.
Three people were present-Alastair, Oonagh, and Quinlan Fyffe. Alastair looked surprised and angry at the intrusion, Quinlan merely startled, and Oonagh"s usual calm was intensified into an icy chill. She stared at Monk, not even seeing Hester behind him, or Hector not yet in the doorway.
"What in G.o.d"s name do you want now?" Alastair demanded. He looked hara.s.sed and weary, but not noticeably alarmed, and certainly not guilty to see Monk still alive.
Monk looked at Quinlan, who looked back with a half smile of ironical humor, and Oonagh, as so often, was unreadable.
"I"ve come to make my last report," Monk replied with something approaching irony himself.
"You already did, Mr. Monk," Oonagh said coldly. "And we have thanked you for your efforts. We shall tell the police what we choose in the affair of Mother"s croft. It is no longer your concern. If the matter troubles your conscience, you will have to act as you think best. There is nothing we can do about it."
"Not, for example, lock me in the secret room in your warehouse and leave me to suffocate to death?" he said with raised eyebrows, glancing quickly at Quinlan and seeing the blood drain from his cheeks, his eyes turned to Oonagh.
So she at least knew!
"I have no idea what you"re talking about," Oonagh said levelly. She still had not even noticed Hester and Hector. "But if you were locked in the warehouse, you have only yourself to blame, Mr. Monk. You were trespa.s.sing to be there, and I cannot think of any honest purpose you could have had in the middle of a Sunday night. Still, you obviously managed to effect an exit, and you seem none the worse for it."
"I did not effect an exit. I was released by Major Farraline."
"b.l.o.o.d.y Hector!" Quinlan said between his teeth. "Trust the drunken old sot to interfere!"
"Hold your tongue," Oonagh said without looking at him. She spoke to Monk. "What were you doing in our warehouse, Mr. Monk? How do you explain yourself?"
"I went to look for the secret room that Major Farraline mentioned at dinner," he replied, watching her as closely as she watched him. For each of them, there might have been no one else present. "I found it."