A Breach of Promise (20 page)

“What do you think of the work of Killian Melville?” he asked candidly.

Mr. Burnham cocked his head to one side, his blue eyes bright with interest.

“Sublime,” he answered. “In a word—sublime! Finest architect this century.” He did not ask why Monk wished to know, but he did not take his gaze from Monk’s face.

“Where did he study?” Monk frowned.

“No idea,” Mr. Burnham said instantly. “No one does. At least, no one I have met. Appeared in London about five years ago from God knows where. Can’t place his accent. Tried to. Don’t think it matters. Man is a genius. He can be a law unto himself. Although don’t mistake me,” he added earnestly. “He’s a very pleasant fellow, no airs or graces, no filthy temper, doesn’t keep a mistress or practice any excesses, so far as I know.” Still he did not ask why Monk was enquiring.

“Could he have studied abroad?” Monk asked.

Florence leaped up into Mr. Burnham’s lap, turned around several times and then settled.

“Of course he could!” Mr. Burnham answered. “Probably did, in fact. He is far too original to have gathered all his inspirations here. But if you doubt his technical ability, you have no need. I know Barton Lambert quite well enough to stake all I possess on his having assured himself, beyond even the slightest question, that all Melville’s drawings are structurally perfect before he would put forward a halfpenny to have them built.” He stroked Florence absentmindedly. “You may rely absolutely upon that as you would upon the Bank of England!
Stand as long as the Tower of London, I assure you.” There was absolute conviction in his face, and he smiled as he spoke.

The door opened and a stout and very agreeable woman came in. Mr. Burnham introduced her as Mrs. Shipton, his housekeeper, and requested that supper be served for two. She seemed pleased to have a guest and disappeared briskly about her business.

“A man whose word you would trust?” Monk asked. “And his judgment?”

“Absolutely!” Mr. Burnham answered instantly. “Ask anyone.”

Monk smiled. “I am not sure ‘anyone’ will tell me the truth, or even that they know it.”

“Ah!” Mr. Burnham smiled and settled a little farther down in his chair. Florence was purring loudly. “You’re a skeptic. Of course you are. It’s your job. Silly of me to have forgotten it.”

Monk found himself recalling how much he had liked Mr. Burnham in their previous acquaintance. He had been almost sorry when the case was concluded. It was not a feeling he indulged in often. All too frequently he saw pettiness, spite, a mind too willing to leap to prejudiced assumptions, instances where unnecessary cruelty or greed had opened the way for acts of impulse which were beyond the borders of selfishness and into the area of actual crime. Sometimes there was a justice to be served, too often simply a law. The case here had been one of the happy exceptions.

Mr. Burnham put more coals in the fire. It was now roaring rather dangerously up the chimney, and he regarded it with a flicker of alarm before deciding it would not set the actual fabric of it alight, and relaxed again, folding his hands across his stomach and resettling the cat to its satisfaction.

“Let me tell you a little story about Barton Lambert,” he began with candid pleasure. He loved telling stories and could find too few people to listen to him. He was a man who should have had grandchildren. “And you will see what I mean.”

Monk smiled, amused at both of them. “Please do.” It was just possible the tale would even be enlightening, and he was
extremely comfortable and looking forward to a very fine supper. He had tasted Mrs. Shipton’s cooking twice before.

Mr. Burnham settled himself still deeper into his chair and began.

“You must understand one thing about Barton Lambert. He loves beauty in all its forms. For all his rather unrefined exterior, frankly, and his”—he smiled, not unkindly, as he said it—“rather plebeian background—he was in trade—he has the soul of an artist. He has not the talent, but instead of envying those who do, he supports them. That is his way of being part of what they create.”

A coal fell out of the fire and he ignored it, in spite of the smoke it sent up.

Monk recovered it with the tongs and replaced it in the blazing heap.

“He is a man without envy,” Mr. Burnham carried on without apparently having noticed. “And that of itself is a very beautiful thing, my dear fellow. And I think he is entirely unconscious of it. Virtue that does not regard itself is of peculiar value.”

Monk wanted to urge him to begin the story, but he knew from past experience it would only interrupt his thought and hurt his feelings.

Mrs. Shipton came in and set the small gate-legged table with a lace-edged cloth, silver, salt and pepper pots and very fine crystal glasses, and a few moments later carried in the supper and served it. Mr. Burnham continued with his story, barely hesitating as he removed Florence from his lap and conducted Monk to his chair, and thanked Mrs. Shipton. They began to eat.

“Lord …” He hesitated. “I think I shall decline, in the interests of discretion, to give him a name. In any case, someone approached Mr. Lambert about building a civic hall for the performance of musical concerts for the public.” He passed Monk the dish of steaming vegetables and watched with satisfaction as he took a liberal helping. “Excellent, my dear fellow,” he applauded. “The hall would have been most expensive, and
milord was prepared to put forward at least half of the cost himself if Lambert would put forward the other half. He had connections with the royal family.” He put a small piece of pie on a saucer and put it on the floor for Florence. “The prestige would have been enormous, and something not open to Lambert from any other source. You may imagine what it would have meant to such a man, who is genuinely most patriotic. The mere mention of the Queen’s name will produce in him a solemnity and a respect which is quite marked. Only a most insensitive person would fail to be affected by it, because it is sincere. No honorable man mocks what is honest in another.”

Monk was enjoying his meal very much. The rich home baking was a luxury he was offered far too seldom, and the thought that all this was so far of no professional value was overridden by physical pleasure, and possibly also by the knowledge that Mr. Burnham was enjoying himself.

“This hall,” Mr. Burnham went on, helping himself to more dark, spicy pickle and pushing the dish across the table towards Monk, “was to be dedicated to Her Majesty. It was some time ago now, and Killian Melville was not the architect, but some other fellow put forward by milord. The plans were given to Lambert and he was cock-a-hoop with excitement. He seemed on the brink of stepping into a circle he had previously barely dreamed of. He was man of the world enough to know his rough origins would never allow him to be accepted in such society ordinarily. Mrs. Lambert, on the other hand, has all the bearing of a lady; whether that is bred in her or learned, no one knows. Women seem to acquire these things more easily. It is in their nature to adapt. I daresay it has to be!”

Monk did not comment. His mouth was full.

“She is a remarkably pretty woman, and has the art to please without ever seeming to seek to or to be overeager,” Mr. Burnham continued. “And yet in her own way she is a perfectionist too, an artist in domestic detail, a woman who can create an air of grace and luxury so natural it appears always to have been there.” He watched Monk to assure himself he understood, and was apparently satisfied.

The first course was finished and treacle tart was offered with cream. Monk accepted with undisguised pleasure, and Mr. Burnham beamed at him in delight. He gave Florence a teaspoonful of cream.

“You may imagine,” he said, resuming his tale, “Mrs. Lambert’s happiness when milord’s only son took a marked fancy to her only daughter, a charming, high-spirited girl, not yet of marriageable age but fast approaching it. In a couple of years the two families could have made a most acceptable arrangement, and in due course young Miss Lambert would have become a lady in every sense of the word, the chatelaine of one of the finest country seats in England.”

“But something spoiled it?” Monk was now truly interested.

“Indeed,” Mr. Burnham agreed, without losing a shred of his satisfaction. He was quite obviously not on the brink of recounting a tragedy. “Indeed it did.” He leaned forward across the table, his face gleaming in the candlelight and the reflected glow of the spring evening beyond the tall window. “This hall was to be magnificent,” he repeated urgently. “Lambert was enthralled with the idea. He took the plans and drawings home with him and pored over them like a man studying holy writ. He was alight with the idea. After all, it is a kind of immortality, is it not? A work of art which can last a thousand years or longer. Do we not still revere the man who designed the Parthenon? Do we not travel halfway around the world like pilgrims to gaze on its beauty and dream of the minds who thought it up, the genius which brought it into reality, even the men and women who daily passed beneath it in their ordinary lives?” He gazed at Monk steadily.

Monk nodded. Words were not necessary.

“He sat up night after night reading those plans,” Mr. Burnham said in little above a whisper. “And he found a flaw in them … a fatal flaw! At first he could hardly believe it—he could not bear to! It was the shattering of his dreams. And not only his, but his wife’s as well, and such possible future happiness for his daughter; although that, of course, was less problematical. She was a very charming girl and would no doubt
find other suitors. I don’t think it was a matter of the heart—at least not deeply.” He smiled with some indulgence. “Shall we say a touch of glamour, to which we are most of us susceptible?”

“But Lambert chose to decline the building?” Monk concluded, eating the last piece of his treacle tart. It was an illuminating story, although not helpful to his cause. It said much of Barton Lambert but shed no light upon Melville’s reason for abandoning Zillah.

“Yes … much to milord’s anger,” Mr. Burnham agreed. “Lambert’s withdrawal provoked questions, and the flaws in the plan were exposed. Reputations were damaged.”

“Lambert made powerful enemies?” It was hardly a motive for Melville’s act, but he had to press every point.

“Oh no, my dear fellow,” Mr. Burnham said with a broad smile. “On the contrary, he came out of it rather well. We may be a society with our share of sycophants and hypocrites, but there are still many who admire an honest man. It was milord who suffered.”

“I see.”

“You look disappointed,” Mr. Burnham observed, regarding Monk keenly. “What had you hoped?”

“An explanation as to why a young man might be reluctant to marry Miss Lambert,” Monk confessed. “I suppose her reputation is as impeccable as it seems?” Florence wound herself around his ankles, doubtless leaving long, silky hairs on his trouser legs.

Mr. Burnham’s sparse eyebrows shot up. “So far as I know, she has the normal share of high spirits, and a young and pretty girl’s desire to flirt and trifle more than is modest, to play the game dangerously from time to time. That is no more than healthy. Let us say she is not tedious and leave it at that?”

Monk laughed in spite of himself. The evening had been most enjoyable, and as far as he could see of no use whatever to Rathbone. He thanked Mr. Burnham sincerely and remained another half hour listening to irrelevant stories, then went
home without removing the cat hairs, in case it should offend Mr. Burnham, and considered his tactics for the morrow.

He spent Sunday morning equally fruitlessly. He called upon two or three acquaintances, who merely confirmed what he had already heard. One of them owned a gambling house in the less-reputable part of the West End and occasionally loaned money to gentlemen temporarily embarrassed in a financial way. He usually knew who owed money, and to whom. He was expert in assessing precisely what any given man was worth. He was better at it than many a legitimate banker. He had never heard of Killian Melville, and he knew of Barton Lambert only by repute. Neither of them owed a halfpenny to anyone, so far as he was aware. Certainly neither of them gambled heavily.

Another acquaintance, who owned a couple of brothels in the Haymarket area and was familiar with the tastes and weaknesses of many of the leading gentlemen in society, also knew neither man.

By early afternoon Monk was irritable, chilly in the intermittent showers of rain, and profoundly discouraged. It appeared Killian Melville was simply a young man who had made a rash offer of marriage, perhaps in a moment of physical passion, and now regretted it and was foolish enough to believe he could walk away unscathed. Perhaps he had prevailed upon her virtue and now despised her, wondering if he were the first or would be the last. It was a shabby act, and Monk had little patience with it. If one wished to satisfy an appetite, there were plenty of women available without using a respectable girl who believed you loved her. She would be ruined in reputation, whatever her emotional distress or lack of it. Melville must know that as well as anyone.

And yet as Monk fastened his coat more tightly at the neck and put his head down as the rain grew harder, he could not think that the man who had designed the building he had walked through yesterday, so full of soaring lines and radiant light, would be such a hypocrite or a coward as to run away
from responsibility for his own acts. Could a man be of such a double nature?

Monk had no idea. He had never known a creative genius. Some people made excuses for artists, poets and composers of great music. They believed such men did not have to live by the standards of ordinary people. That thought provoked in him a deep disgust. It was fundamentally dishonest.

Was it possible Melville was merely naive, as he had told Rathbone, and had been maneuvered into a betrothal he had never intended? Was the marriage really unbearable to him?

Monk stepped off the pavement over the swirling gutter and ran across the cobbled street as a hansom driver came around the corner at a canter and swore at him for getting in the way. The wheels threw an arc of water over his legs, soaking his trousers, and he swore back at the man fluently.