The Sins Of The Wolf Part 6

"Shock," Callandra said sympathetically. "Drink it. It will make you feel better."

Hester sipped again, and felt the hot liquid down her throat.

"She was so well the evening before," she said vehemently. "We sat up and talked about all sorts of things. She would have talked longer, only her daughter instructed me she should not stay up later than quarter past eleven at the outside."

"If she was well until the very last evening of her life, she was most fortunate," Callandra said, looking at Hester over the top of the cup. "Most people have at least some period of illness, usually weeks. Of course it is a shock, but in a little while it will seem more of a blessing."

"I expect it will," Hester said slowly. Her brain knew that what Callandra said was perfectly true, but her emotions were sharp with guilt and regret. "I liked her very much," she said aloud.

"Then be glad for her that she did not suffer."

"I felt so-inefficient, so uncaring," Hester protested. "I didn't help her in the slightest. I didn't even wake up. For any use or comfort I was to her, I could have stayed at home."

"If she died in her sleep, my dear girl, there was no use or comfort you could have been," Callandra pointed out.

"I suppose so...."

"I imagine you had to inform someone? Family?"

"Yes. Her daughter and son-in-law had come to meet her. She was very distressed."

"Of course. And sometimes sudden grief can make people very angry, and quite unreasonable. Was she unpleasant to you?"

"No-not at all. She was really very fair." Hester smiled bitterly. "She didn't blame me at all, and she could well have done. She seemed more distressed that she could not learn what her mother was going to tell her than anything else. The poor soul is with child, and it is her first. She was anxious about her health, and Mrs. Farraline had gone to rea.s.sure her. She was almost distracted that she would never know what it was that Mrs. Farraline was going to say."

"A most unfortunate situation altogether," Callandra said sympathetically. "But no one is at fault, unless it is Mrs. Farraline for having undertaken such a journey when she was in such delicate health herself. A long letter would have been much better advised. Still, we can all be clever after the event."

"I don't think that I have ever liked a patient more thoroughly or more immediately," Hester said, swallowing hard. "She was very direct, very honest. She told me about dancing the night away before the Battle of Waterloo. Everyone who was anyone in Europe was there that night, she said. It was all gaiety, laughter and beauty, with a desperate, wild kind of life, knowing what the morrow might bring." For a moment the dim lamplight of the carriage, and Mary's quick, intelligent face, seemed more real man the green room and the fire of the present.

"And then their partings in the morning," she went on. "The men in their scarlet and braid, the horses smelling the excitement and the whiff of battle, harnesses jingling, hooves never still." She finished the last of the chocolate but kept holding the empty cup. "There was a portrait of her husband in the hall. He had a remarkable face, full of emotion, and yet so much of it half hidden, only guessed at. Do you know what I mean?" She looked at Callandra questioningly. "There was pa.s.sion in his mouth, but uncertainty in his eyes, as if you would always have to guess at what he was really thinking."

"A complex man," Callandra agreed. "And a clever artist to catch all that in a face, by the sound of it."

"He formed the family printing company."

"Indeed."

"He died eight years ago."

Callandra listened for another half hour while Hester told her about the Farralines, about the little she had seen of Edinburgh, and what she would do about obtaining another position. Then she rose and suggested that Hester tidy her hair, which was still lacking several pins and far from dressed, and they should consider luncheon.

"Yes-yes of course," Hester said quickly, only just realizing how much of Callandra's time she had taken. "I'm sorry.... I...should have ..."

Callandra stopped her with a look.

"Yes," Hester said obediently. "Yes, I'll go and find some more pins. And I daresay Daisy will wish for her dress back. It was very kind of her to lend me this."

"Yours will hardly be dry yet," Callandra pointed out. "There will be plenty of time after we have eaten."

Without further argument Hester went upstairs to the spare bedroom where Daisy had put her bag, and opened it to find her comb and some additional pins. She poked her hand down the side hopefully and felt around. No comb. She tried the other side and her fingers touched it after a moment. moment. The pins were harder. They should be in a little screw of paper, but after several minutes she still had not come across it. The pins were harder. They should be in a little screw of paper, but after several minutes she still had not come across it.

Impatiently she tipped up the bag and emptied the contents out onto the bed. Still the pins were not immediately visible. She picked up her chemise that she had changed out of in Mrs. Farraline's house when she had rested. It was hard to realize that had been only yesterday. She shook it and something flew out and went onto the floor with a faint sound. It must be the screw of paper with the pins. It was the right size and weight. She went around to the far side of the bed and knelt down to find it. It was gone again. She moved her hand over the carpet, gently feeling for it.

There it was. Next to the leg of the bed. She picked it up, and instantly knew something was wrong. It was not paper, or even loose pins. It was a complicated scroll of metal. She looked at it. Then her stomach lurched and her mouth went suddenly dry. It was a jeweled pin, a hoop and scroll set with diamonds and large gray pearls. She had never seen it before, but its description was sharp in her mind. It was Mary Farraline's brooch, the one she had said was her favorite and which she had left behind because the dress it complemented was stained.

With clumsy fingers she clasped it, and, her hair still trailing out of its pins, she went back down the stairs and into the green room.

Callandra looked up.

"What is it?" She had taken one look at Hester's face and knew there was something new and seriously wrong. "What has happened?"

Hester held out the pin.

"It is Mary Farraline's," she said huskily. "I just found it in my bag."

"You had better sit down," Callandra said grimly, holding out her hand for the brooch.

Hester sank into the chair gratefully. Her legs seemed to have no strength in them.

Callandra took the brooch and turned it over carefully, examining the pearls, then the hallmark on the back.

"I think it is probably worth a good deal," she said in a soft, very grave voice. "At least ninety to a hundred pounds." She looked at Hester with a frown between her brows. "I suppose you have no idea how it came to be in your bag?"

"No-none at all. Mrs. Farraline said she had not brought it with her because the dress she wears it with had been stained."

"Then it would seem that her maid did not obey instructions very well." Callandra bit her lip. "And is also...a great deal less than honest. It is hard to see how this could have happened by accident. Hester, there is something seriously wrong here, but try as I might, I cannot understand it. We need a.s.sistance, and I propose that you ask William ..."

Hester froze.

"... to give us his advice," Callandra finished. "This is not something we can deal with ourselves, nor would it be sensible to try. My dear, there is something very wrong. The poor woman is dead. It may be some kind of unfortunate error that her jewelry has found its way into your belongings, but for the life of me I cannot think what."

"But do you think ..." Hester began, hating the thought of going to Monk for help. It seemed so ineffectual, and at the moment she felt too tired and stunned to be up to the kind of emotional battle Monk would engender.

"Yes I do," Callandra said, yielding nothing. "Or I would not have suggested it. I will not override your wishes, but I I cannot urge you strongly enough to get counsel and do so without delay." cannot urge you strongly enough to get counsel and do so without delay."

Hester stood still for several moments, thinking, trying to find an explanation so she would not have to go to Monk, and even as she was doing it, knowing it was futile. There was no explanation that made any kind of sense.

Callandra waited, knowing she had carried the argument, it was simply a matter of coming to the point of surrender.

"Yes ..." Hester said quietly. "Yes, you are right. I shall go back upstairs and find the pins, then I'll go and see if I can find Monk."

"You may take my carriage," Callandra offered.

Hester smiled wanly. "Do you not trust me to go?" But she did not wait for an answer. They both knew it was the only course that made sense.

Monk looked at her with a frown. They were in the small sitting room she had suggested he use as a place to receive prospective clients. It would make them feel much more at ease than his rather austere office, which was far too functional and intimidating. Monk himself was unnerving enough, with his smooth, lean-boned face and unwavering eyes.

He was standing by the mantelpiece, having heard the outer door open and come in immediately. His expression on recognizing her was an extraordinary mixture of pleasure and irritation. Obviously he had been hoping for a client. Now he regarded with disfavor her plain dress, the one borrowed from Callandra's maid, her pale face and her hastily done hair.

"What's wrong? You look dreadful." It was said in a tone of pure criticism. Then a flicker of anxiety crossed his eyes. "You are not ill, are you?" There was anger in his voice. It would inconvenience him if she were ill. Or was it fear?

"No, I'm not ill," she said tartly. "I have returned from Edinburgh on the overnight train, with a patient." It was difficult to say this with the composure and the chill she wished. If only there had been someone else to turn to who would be equally able to see the dangers and give good and practical advice.

He drew breath to make some stinging retort, then, knowing her as well as he did, realized there was something profoundly wrong. He waited, looking at her intently.

"My patient was an elderly lady of some position in Edinburgh," she went on, her voice growing quieter and losing its sharpness. "A Mrs. Mary Farraline. I was employed to give her her medicine last thing at night, that was really all I had to do. Apart from that, I think it was mainly company for her."

He did not interrupt. She smiled with a bitter amus.e.m.e.nt. A few months ago he would have. Being obliged to seek customers in order to obtain a living, instead of having them as a right, as he had when a police inspector, had taught him, if not humility, at least enlightened self-interest.

He motioned her to sit down, while he sat opposite her, still listening.

She returned her mind painfully to her reason for being there.

"She went to sleep about half past eleven," she continued. "At least she seemed to. I slept quite well myself, having been up...in a second-cla.s.s carriage all the way from London the night before." She swallowed. "When I awoke in the morning, shortly before our arrival in London, I tried to rouse her, and discovered she was dead."

"I'm sorry," he said. There was sincerity in his voice, but also a waiting. He knew it must have disturbed her. Although it was probably beyond her control, it was a kind of failure and he knew she would regard it as such. But she had never confided her failures or sadnesses to him before...or at least only indirectly. She would not have come simply to say this. He stood with one foot on the fender, shoulder against the mantelshelf, waiting for her to continue.

"Of course I had to inform the stationmaster, and then her daughter and son-in-law, who had come to meet her. It was some time before I was able to leave the station. When I did, I went to see Callandra...."

He nodded. It was what he would have expected. In fact, it was what he would have done himself. Callandra was perhaps the only person in whom he would confide his emotions. He would never willingly allow Hester to see his vulnerability. Of course she had seen it a few times as Callandra never had, but that was different, and had been unintentional.

"While I was there I had occasion to go upstairs and search for some further hairpins...."

His smile was sarcastic. She knew her hair was still untidy, and exactly what was pa.s.sing through his mind. Her voice sharpened again.

"I put my hand into my case, and instead of pins I found a brooch...with diamonds and gray pearls in it. It is not mine, and I am quite sure it was Mrs. Farraline's, because she described it to me in the course of conversation about what she might do in London."

His face darkened and he moved away from the mantelpiece and sat down in the chair opposite her, waiting patiently for her to be seated also.

"So she was not wearing it on the train?" he asked.

"No. That is the point. She said she had left it at home in Edinburgh because the gown it went with had been stained!"

"It only went with one gown?" he said in surprise, but the disbelief in his voice did not carry to his eyes. Already his mind was ahead, understanding the fears.

"Gray pearls," she explained unnecessarily. "They would look wrong with most colors, rather dull." She went on talking to avoid the moment when she would have to acknowledge what it really meant. "Even black wouldn't be-"

"All right," he said. "She said she had left it behind? I don't suppose she packed her own clothes. She had a maid for that sort of thing. And her cases would be in the guard's van during the journey. Did you meet this maid? Did you quarrel with her? Was she jealous of you because she wished to come to London herself, and you were taking her place?"

"No. She didn't want to go at all. And we did not quarrel. She was perfectly agreeable."

"Then who put the brooch in your bag? You wouldn't be coming to me if you'd done it yourself."

"Don't be fatuous!" she said. "Of course I didn't do it. If I were a thief, I would hardly come and tell you about it!" Her voice was getting louder and higher with anger as fear caught hold of her and she began to see more clearly the peril of the situation.

He looked at her unhappily. "Where is the brooch now?"

"At Callandra's house."

"Since the unfortunate woman is dead, it is not a matter of simply returning it to her. And we do not know if it was lost in a genuine accident or if it is part of an attempted crime. It could become very ugly." He bit his lip doubtfully. "People in bereavement are often irrational and only too ready to retreat from grief into anger. It is easier to be angry, to feel relief at having something with which to blame someone else. The matter of returning it should be dealt with professionally, by someone retained solely to look after your interests in the case. We had better go and speak to Rathbone." And without waiting to see whether she agreed with this advice, he took his coat from the rack and his hat off the stand and advanced towards the door. "Well, don't sit there," he said tartly. "The more rapidly it is done, the better. Besides, I might lose a client if I dither around wasting time."

"You don't need to come with me," she said defensively, rising to her feet. "I can find Oliver myself and tell him what happened. Thank you for your advice." She went past him and out of the door into the entranceway. It was raining outside, and as she opened the street door the cold air chilled her, matching the fear and sense of isolation within.

He ignored her words and followed her out, closing the door behind him and beginning to walk towards the main thoroughfare, where they could find a hansom to take them from Tottenham Court Road west across the city towards the Inns of Court and Vere Street, where Oliver Rathbone had his office. She was obliged to go with him, or else start an argument which would have been totally foolish.

The traffic was heavy, carriages, cabs, wagons, carts of every description pa.s.sing by, splas.h.i.+ng the water out of the gutters, wheels hissing on the wet road, horses dripping, sodden hides dark. Drivers sat hunched with collars up and hats down in a futile attempt to keep the cold rain from running down their necks, hands clenched on the reins.

The crossing sweeper, a boy of about eight or nine years, was still busily pus.h.i.+ng manure out of the way to make a clean path for any pedestrian who wished to reach the other side. He seemed to be one of those cheerful souls willing to make the best out of any situation. His skimpy trousers stuck to his legs, his coat was too long for him and gaped around the neck, but his enormous cap seemed to keep most of the rain off his head, except for his chin and nose. He wore the cap tilted at such an angle that the lower half of his face was visible, and his gap-toothed smile was the first thing one saw of him.

Monk had no need to cross the road, but he threw him a halfpenny anyway, and Hester felt a sudden surge of hope. The boy caught it and automatically put it between his teeth to a.s.sure himself it was real, then tipped his finger to the peak of his cap, almost invisible under its folds, and called out his thanks.

Monk hailed a hansom and as it stopped, he pulled open the door for her and then followed her in, calling out Rathbone's address to the driver.

"Shouldn't I go and get the brooch first?" Hester asked. "Then I can give it to him to return to the Farralines."

"I think you should report it first," he replied, settling himself in his seat as the cab lurched forward. "For your own safety."

The chill returned. She said nothing. They rode in silence through the wet streets. All she could think of was Mary Farraline, and how much she had liked her, her stories of Europe in her youth, of Hamish as a soldier, das.h.i.+ng and brave, and the other men with whom she had danced the nights away before those tumultuous days. They had seemed so alive in her memory. It was hard to accept that she too was suddenly and so completely gone.

Monk did not interrupt her thoughts. Whatever he was concerned with, it apparently held him totally. Once she glanced sideways at him and saw the deep concentration in his face, eyes steadily ahead, brows drawn fractionally downward, mouth tense.

She looked away again, feeling closed out.

At Vere Street the cab stopped and Monk alighted, held the door for her long enough for her to move over and grasp it herself, then paid the driver and went across the pavement to the entrance of the offices and tugged sharply at the bellpull.

The door was opened by a white-haired clerk in winged collar and frock coat.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Monk," he said stiffly. Then he caught sight of Hester behind him. "Good afternoon, Miss Latterly. Please come in out of the rain. Fearful weather." He shook his head, standing back for them to follow him into the foyer, and then the outer office. "I am afraid Mr. Rathbone is not expecting you." He looked at them doubtfully, his pale gray eyes very steady, like a disillusioned schoolmaster. "He has a gentleman with him presently."

"We'll wait," Monk said grimly. "This is a matter of urgency."

"Of course." The clerk nodded his head and indicated a seat where they could make themselves comfortable. Monk declined and stood impatiently, staring through the gla.s.s part.i.tions to the office where juniors in black coats copied writs and deeds in copperplate, and other more senior clerks searched in huge law books for references and precedents.

Hester sat down, and Monk sat also but almost immediately rose to his feet again, unable to keep still. One or two heads lifted as they caught sight of him out of the corner of their eyes, but no one spoke.

Minutes ticked by. Monk's face grew tighter and his impatience more obvious.

Finally the door of Rathbone's office opened and an elderly gentleman with ma.s.sive side whiskers came out, turned and said something, then bowed very slightly and made his way across the office to where the clerk who had welcomed Hester and Monk left his desk and handed the gentleman his hat and cane.

Monk moved forward. No one was going to preempt him. He grasped the handle of the office door and swung it wider, coming face-to-face with Oliver Rathbone.

"Good afternoon," Monk said briskly. "Hester and I have the most urgent matter with which we require your a.s.sistance."

Rathbone did not back away. His long face with its humorous eyes and mouth registered only good-natured surprise.

"Indeed?" He looked past Monk at the clerk who had shown the previous client to the door and was now standing wondering what to do about Monk and his regrettable lapse from good manners. Rathbone met his eyes, and understanding pa.s.sed between them. Monk saw it, and unaccountably it irritated him. But he was in the position of a supplicant, so it would be self-defeating to be sarcastic. He stepped back to allow Rathbone to see Hester, who was now just behind him.

Oliver Rathbone was of medium height, slender, and dressed with the immaculate ease of one who is accustomed to the best of material things and has grown to take elegance for granted. It required no effort; it was a way of life.