Funeral in Blue (18 page)

Runcorn pursed his lips and pulled out one thick woollen sock, then another. “That’s what I thought, too. What about Sarah Mackeson?”

Monk tried to read Runcorn’s face, the doubt, the hope, the anger in it, until Runcorn turned away, pulling on his socks one by one. “We’ve found nothing to suggest anyone cared enough to kill her,” he said miserably. He would rather have said there was passion, envy, fear, anything better than indifference. The most feeling she awoke seemed to have been in Allardyce, because she was beautiful to paint. The only other person who cared was Mrs. Clark.

“I wish we knew which of them was killed first,” Runcorn said, slamming the drawer shut. “But the surgeon can’t tell us a damn thing.”

Monk sat on the edge of the desk with his hands in his pockets. He turned over in his mind what possible evidence there could be which would tell them which woman had died first. It would be no use at all going back to the doctor. All he could say was that they had died in the same manner, and common sense said they had been killed by the same person. Only physical facts would make a difference.

Runcorn was watching him. “We never found the earring,” he said, as if following Monk’s thoughts. It was disconcerting to have him so perceptive.

“Well, if it got caught in his clothing, whoever it was, he’d have thrown it away,” Monk replied. “It wasn’t on the floor.”

Runcorn said nothing, and silence filled the room again.

“The ear bled,” Monk said after a while. “It must have. You can’t tear flesh like that without leaving marks on something.”

Runcorn climbed to his feet, looking beyond Monk to the rain streaming down the window. “Do you want to go to Acton Street again?” he asked. “We didn’t see anything on the carpet before, but we can try again. If we could prove Sarah Mackeson died first it would change everything.”

Monk stood up also. “It’s worth trying. And we could ask Allardyce how often he saw Max Niemann, and when.”

“Think he could be involved?” Runcorn said hopefully. “Lovers’ quarrel? Nothing to do with the doctor?” His voice sank at the end. If Elissa and Max Niemann had been lovers, that was more motive for Kristian than ever. And Kristian had lied about where he was, even if unintentionally.

But then Niemann had lied to Kristian also, by omission, allowing Kristian to believe that the funeral was the first time he had been to London in years.

“Can you send men to find out where Niemann stayed?” Monk asked, collecting his coat from the stand. “If he stayed at the same place each time, we can see how often he was here.”

“You think he paid her debts?” Runcorn said quickly. His face was pinched with unhappiness. “At a price, maybe?”

“Wouldn’t be the first woman who felt she had to sell herself to pay her debts,” Monk replied, walking to the door and opening it. The thought sickened him, but it was pointless denying its possibility. As they passed the desk, Runcorn gave the sergeant instructions to send men searching the hotels for where Niemann had stayed.

They set out in the direction of Acton Street, intending to pick up a hansom on the way, but they were no more than two hundred yards from Allardyce’s studio when they finally saw one that was free. It was not worth the effort or the fare. Runcorn shrugged in disgust and waved it away.

Allardyce was busy, and irritated to see them, but he knew better than to refuse them admittance.

“What is it now?” he said with ill grace.

Runcorn walked into the studio and looked around, his coat dripping water on the floor. Allardyce was working at a picture on the easel; his shirt was smeared with paint where he had wiped his hands.

“You told us you saw Niemann with Mrs. Beck a number of times,” Monk began. “Before the night she was killed.”

“Yes. They were friends. I never saw them quarrel.” Allardyce looked at him challengingly, his blue eyes clear and hard.

“How often altogether, then or earlier?”

“Earlier?”

“You heard me. Did he come over from Vienna just once, or several times?”

“Two or three that I know of.”

“When?”

“I don’t remember.” Allardyce shrugged. “Once in the spring, once in the summer.”

“You’ve moved things!” Runcorn accused, pulling at the sofa. “It used to be over there!”

Allardyce glared at him. “I have to live here,” he said bitterly. “Do you think I want it exactly as it was? I need the light. And wherever I live I can’t get rid of the memories and I can’t bring them back, but I don’t have to keep it just as it was. I’ll have the sofa and the carpets any damn way I like.”

“Put them back,” Runcorn ordered.

“Go to hell!” Allardyce responded.

“Just a minute!” Monk stepped forward and almost collided with Runcorn. “We can work out where the bodies lay. Look at the line of the windows; they haven’t moved.” He faced Allardyce. “Put the carpets where they were—now!”

Allardyce remained motionless. “What for? What have you found?”

“Nothing yet. It’s only an idea. Do you know which woman died first?”

“No, of course . . .” Allardyce stopped, suddenly realizing what he meant. “You think someone might have killed Sarah, and Elissa was an accidental witness? Who?” His face was full of disbelief. “She never did anyone any harm. A few silly quarrels, like everybody.”

“Maybe she learned something she wasn’t meant to know?” Monk suggested.

“Put the carpets back!” Runcorn repeated.

Silently, Allardyce obeyed, moving them with Monk’s help. They were neither large nor heavy, and he was almost finished when Monk noticed that just under the fringed edge of one of them there was a knothole in the pine boards. “I didn’t see that before!”

“That’s why I put the edges there,” Allardyce pointed out.

Monk put his foot on the fringe and scuffed it up, showing the hole again. He glanced at Runcorn and saw the flash of understanding in his eyes. “Get me a chisel or one of those heavy knives,” he ordered Allardyce.

“What for? What is it?”

“Do as you’re told!” Monk said.

Allardyce obeyed, passing him a small claw-headed hammer, and a moment later there was a splintering of wood and the screech of nails prying loose as the board with the knothole came up. Lying in the dust below, glinting in the light, was a delicate gold earring, the loop stained with blood.

“That was Elissa’s,” Allardyce said after a moment’s utter silence. “I painted it; I know.” His voice cracked. “But this is where Sarah was lying! It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, it does,” Monk said quietly. “It means Elissa was killed first. The earring was torn off when he put his arm around her neck . . . and broke it. It probably caught in his sleeve and in her struggle was ripped from her. He didn’t notice it fall. Then when Sarah came out of one of the other rooms and saw Elissa dead, he killed her, too, and she fell onto the floor, over where the earring had disappeared.”

Allardyce rubbed his hand across his face, leaving a smear of green paint on his cheek. “Poor Sarah,” he said softly. “All she ever did was look beautiful. And be in the wrong place.”

Runcorn pushed his hands deep into his pockets and stared at Monk. He didn’t say anything, but there was no need. The time had come when they could avoid it no longer. It was not Sarah who was the intended victim; it had been no more to do with her than mischance. It was not gamblers or debt collectors. Max Niemann’s visits to London, his meetings with Elissa that Kristian knew nothing of, were more motive, not less. Even the paid debts made it worse. Either it was the very last of Kristian’s money, or uglier even than that, it was money Elissa had sold herself for.

“I’m going to the hospital,” Runcorn said wearily. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll come,” Monk replied. He bent and picked up the delicate earring and dropped it into Runcorn’s hand. “You can put your carpets any damn way you like, Mr. Allardyce, but if you alter that floorboard I’ll jail you as an accomplice. Do you understand?”

Allardyce did not answer but stood, head bowed, in the middle of the floor as Monk and Runcorn went out and down the steps back into the rain.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Monk left the house early in the morning, almost before his footsteps died away and Hester heard the front door close, her mind was filled again with the fear that Charles was involved in Elissa’s death. It loomed so sharp and painful she would almost rather the unsigned letter Charles had left with her were a love letter from some man than proof that it was Elissa who had introduced Imogen to the gambling which had grown into a thing that now raged through her like a destroying fire.

She had to know. As long as it was still unresolved every nightmare was a possibility. And yet it was also possible that the note was not from Elissa, and the two women had never met, and whatever had made Charles lie to her about having driven down Drury Lane was perfectly innocent, at least as far as Elissa was concerned. It could be simply embarrassing, a little foolish.

As soon as Mrs. Patrick, her housekeeper, arrived, Hester explained that she had an urgent errand to run. With the letter in her reticule, she put on her hat and coat and went out into the rain. It was a considerable journey from Grafton Street to the Hampstead Hospital to ask Kristian for any piece of Elissa’s handwriting to compare.

All the long journey she sat and twisted her hands together, trying to keep her racing imagination from picturing Imogen and Elissa, Charles’s fury when he found out, his incomprehension, and all the violence and tragedy that could have flowed from it. She argued one way, and then the other, hope to terror, and back again. It was so easy to let the mind race away, creating pictures, building pain.

By the time she reached the hospital and alighted she was so tense she stumbled over the curb and regained her balance only just in time to prevent herself from falling. This was ridiculous! She had faced battlefields. Why did it strike into the heart of her that her brother might have killed Elissa Beck?

Because whoever it was had killed Sarah Mackeson as well. There was an element in a crime of desperation to save someone you love from a force of destruction. But killing Sarah was to save himself, an instinctive resort to violence at the cost of someone else’s life.

She ran up the steps, all but bumping into a student doctor coming down. He scowled at her and muttered something under his breath. She stopped and asked the porter if Dr. Beck was in, and was told with a nod of sympathy that he was. She thanked him and hurried down the corridor to the patients’ waiting room, where there were already three people sitting huddled in their pain and anxiety, now and then talking to each other to ease the imagination and the passing of time.

Hester considered whether to use the prerogative of interrupting, which she could exercise as someone who worked in the hospital. Then she looked at their faces, strained already with hardship far beyond her own, and decided to wait.

She also talked, to fill the time, learning something of their lives and telling them a little of her own, until at last it was her turn, and there were seven more people waiting after her.

Kristian was startled. “Hester? You’re not ill? You look very pale,” he said with concern. Considering his own ashen face and hollow eyes, at any other time the remark would have held its element of irony.

“No, thank you,” she said quickly. “I’m just worried, like all of us.” There was no point in being evasive. “I have a letter and I need to compare the handwriting in order to know who sent it, because there is no signature. I am hoping I am mistaken, but I must be certain. Have you anything that Elissa wrote? It doesn’t matter what it is; a laundry list would do.”

A shadow of humor crossed his eyes, then vanished. “Elissa didn’t write laundry lists. I expect I can think of something, but it will be at home, not here. . . .”

“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 did 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 working on 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 close.

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 whom 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, closed the drawer, then put Charles’s letter back in her reticule. “I won’t disturb you anymore.”

“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 gratitude. “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 before 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.” She 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 color 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 murders. 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 . . .” He stopped.

“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 realized 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 agonizing embarrassment.

She believed him. She was so overwhelmed with relief that 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. They would remember him and could swear to it. She would tell Monk, of course, and get their testimony before they realized 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 Imogen 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 she deserved least of all from him.

By the time they reached the hospital, and Runcorn had instructed the cabbie to wait, his 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 smuts, 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.