A sudden, fearful death (40 page)

There may not be any evidential
proof that anyone else was guilty; no footprints, pieces of torn cloth,
witnesses who had seen or overheard, no lies in which to catch anyone.

If not Sir Herbert, who?

He did not know where to begin.
There were two options: prove someone else guilty, which might not be possible;
or cast such strong doubt on Sir Herbert's guilt that a jury could not accept
it. He had already done all that he could think of in the former. Until some
new idea occurred to him, he would pursue the latter. He would seek out Sir
Herbert's colleagues and learn his reputation among them. They might prove
impressive character witnesses, if nothing more.

There followed several days of
routine, excessively polite interviews in which he struggled, to provoke some
comments deeper than fulsome professional praise, carefully expressed
disbelief that Sir Herbert could have done such a thing, and rather nervous
agreement to testify on his behalf—if it were stricdy necessary. The hospital
governors were transparently nervous of becoming involved in something which
they feared might prove to be very ugly before it was finished. It was
painfully apparent in their faces that they did not know whether he was guilty
or not, or where they should nail their colors to avoid sinking with a lost
cause.

From Mrs. Flaherty he got
tight-lipped silence and a total refusal to offer any opinion at all or to
testify in court should she be asked. She was frightened, and like many who
feel themselves defenseless, she froze. Monk was surprised to find he
understood her with more patience than he had expected of himself. Even as he
stood in the bleak hospital corridor and saw her pinched face with its pale
skin and bright spots of color on the cheekbones, he realized her vulnerability
and her confusion.

Berenice Ross Gilbert was entirely
different. She received him in the room where the Board of Governors normally
met, a wide gracious chamber with a long mahogany table set around with chairs,
sporting prints on the walls and brocade curtains at the windows. She was
dressed in deepest teal green trimmed with turquoise. It was expensive, and
remarkably flattering to her auburn coloring. Its huge skirts swept around her,
but she moved them elegantly without effort.

She regarded Monk with amusement,
looking over his features, his strong nose, high cheekbones, and level unflinching
eyes. He saw the spark of interest light in her face and the smile curve her
lips. It was a look he had seen many times before, and he understood its
meaning with satisfaction.

"Poor Sir Herbert." She
raised her arched brows. "A perfectly fearful thing. I wish I knew what
to say to help, but what can I do?" She shrugged graceful shoulders.
"I have no idea what the man's personal weaknesses may have been. I always
found him courteous, highly professional, and correct at all times. But then"—she
smiled at Monk, meeting his eyes—"if he were seeking an illicit romance,
he would not have chosen me with whom to have it" The smile widened. He
knew she was telling both the truth and a lie. She expected him to decipher its
double meanings. She was no trivial pastime to be picked up and put down; but
on the other hand, she was a sophisticated and elegant woman, almost beautiful
in her own way, perhaps better than beautiful—full of character. She had
thought Prudence prim, naive, and immeasurably inferior to herself in all aspects
of charm and allure.

Monk had no specific memories, and
yet he knew he had stood in this position many times before, facing a wealthy,
well-read woman who had found him exciting and was happy to forget his office
and his purpose.

He smiled back at her very
slightly, enough to be civil, not enough to betray any interest himself.

"I am sure it was part of your
duties as a governor of the hospital, Lady Ross Gilbert, to be aware of the
morals and failings of members of the staff. And I imagine you are an acute
judge of human nature, particularly in that area." He saw her eyes glisten
with amusement. "What is Sir Herbert's reputation? Please be
honest—euphemisms will serve neither his interest nor the hospital's."

"I seldom deal in euphemisms, Mr.
Monk," she said, still with the curl of a smile on her lips. She stood
very elegantly, leaning a little against one of the chairs. "I wish I
could tell you something more interesting, but I have never heard a word of
scandal about Sir Herbert." She pulled a sad, mocking little face.
"Rather to the contrary, he appears to be a brilliant surgeon but
personally a boringly correct man, rather pompous, self-opinionated, socially,
politically, and religiously orthodox."

She was watching Monk all the time.
"I doubt if he ever had an original idea except in medicine, in which he
is both innovative and courageous. It seems as if that has drained all his
creative energies and attentions, and what is left is tedious to a
degree." The laughter in her eyes was sharp and the interest in them more
and more open, betraying that she did not believe for an instant that he fell
into that category.

"Do you know him personally,
Lady Ross Gilbert?" he asked, watching her face.

Again she shrugged, one shoulder a
fraction higher than the other. "Only as business required, which is very
little.

I have met Lady Stanhope socially,
but not often." Her voice altered subtly, a very delicately implied
contempt. "She is a very retiring person. She prefers to spend her time at
home with her children—seven, I believe. But she always seemed most
agreeable—not fashionable, you understand, but quite comely, very feminine,
not in the least a strident or awkward creature." Her heavy eyelids
lowered almost imperceptibly. "I daresay she is in every way an excellent
wife. I have no reason to doubt it."

"And what of Nurse
Barrymore?" he asked, again watching her face, but he saw no flicker in
her expression, nothing to betray any emotion or knowledge that troubled her.

"I knew of her only the little
I observed myself or what was reported to me by others. I have to confess, I
never heard anything to her discredit." Her eyes searched his face.
"I think, frankly, that she was just as tedious as he is. They were well
matched."

"An interesting use of words,
ma'am."

She laughed quite openly.
"Unintentional, Mr. Monk. I had no deeper meaning in my mind."

"Do you believe she nourished
daydreams about him?" he asked.

She looked up at the ceiling.
"Heaven knows. I would have thought she would place them more
interestingly—Dr. Beck, for a start. He is a man of feeling and humor, a little
vain, and I would have thought of a more natural appetite." She gave a
little laugh. "But then perhaps that was not what she wanted." She
looked back at him again. "No, to be candid, Mr. Monk, I think she admired
Sir Herbert intensely, as do we all, but on an impersonal level. To hear that
it was a romantic vision surprises me. But then life is constantly surprising,
don't you find?" Again the light was in her eyes and the lift, the sparkle
that was almost an invitation, although whether to do more than admire her was
not certain.

And that was all that he could
learn from her. Not much use to Oliver Rathbone, but he reported it just the
same.

* * * * *

With Kristian Beck he fared not
much better, although the interview was completely different. He met him in his
own home, by choice. Mrs. Beck was little in evidence, but her cold, precise
nature was stamped on the unimaginative furnishings of her house, the rigidly
correct placement of everything, the sterile bookshelves where nothing was out
of place, either in the rows of books themselves or in their orthodox contents.
Even the flowers in the vases were carefully arranged in formal proportions
and stood stiffly to attention. The whole impression was clean, orderly, and
forbidding. Monk never met the woman (apparently she was out performing some
good work or other), but he could imagine her as keenly as if he had. She would
have hair drawn back from an exactly central parting, eyebrows without flight
or imagination, flat cheekbones, and careful passionless lips.

Whatever had made Beck choose such
a woman? He was exactly the opposite; his face was full of humor and emotion
and as sensuous a mouth as Monk had ever seen, and yet there was nothing coarse
about it, nothing self-indulgent, rather the opposite. What mischance had
brought these two together? That was almost certainly something he would never
know. He thought with bitter self-mockery that perhaps Beck was as poor a judge
of women as he himself. Maybe he had mistaken her passionless face for one of
purity and refinement, her humorlessness for intelligence, even piety.

Kristian led him to his study, a
room entirely different, where his own character held sway. Books were piled on
shelves, books of all sorts, novels and poetry along with biography, history,
philosophy, and medicine. The colors were rich, the curtains velvet, the
fireplace faced with copper and the mantel displaying an idiosyncratic
collection of ornaments. The icy Mrs. Beck had no place here. In fact, the
room reminded Monk rather more of Callandra in its haphazard order, its
richness and worth. He could picture her here, her sensitive, humorous face,
her long nose, untidy hair, her unerring knowledge of what really mattered.

"What can I do to assist you,
Mr. Monk?" Kristian was regarding him with puzzlement. "I really have
no idea what happened, and the little I have learned as to why the police
suspect Sir Herbert I find very hard to believe. At least if the newspaper
reports are correct?"

"Largely," Monk replied,
dragging his attention back to the case. "There is a collection of letters
from Prudence Barrymore to her sister which suggests that she was deeply in
love with Sir Herbert and that he had led her to suppose that he returned her
feelings and would take steps to make marriage between them possible."

"But that's ridiculous,"
Kristian said with concern, silently indicating a chair for Monk to be seated.
"What could he possibly do? He has an excellent wife and a large
family—seven, I think. Of course he could have walked out , on them, in theory,
but in practice it would ruin him, a fact of which he cannot possibly have been
unaware."

Monk accepted the invitation and
sat down. The chair was extremely comfortable.

"Even if he did, it would not
free him to marry Miss Barrymore," he pointed out. "No, I am aware of
that, Dr. Beck. But I am interested to learn your opinion of both Sir Herbert
and Miss Barrymore. You say you find all this hard to believe—do you believe
it?"

Kristian sat opposite him, thinking
for a moment before replying, his dark eyes on Monk's face.

"No—no, I don't think I do.
Sir Herbert is essentially a very careful man, very ambitious, jealous for his
reputation and his status in the medical community, both in Britain and
abroad." He put the tips of his fingers together. He had beautiful hands,
strong, broad palmed, smaller than Sir Herbert's. 'To become involved in such a
way with a nurse, however interesting or attractive," he went on,
"would be foolish in the extreme. Sir Herbert is not an impulsive man, nor
a man of physical or emotional appetite." He said it without expression,
as if he neither admired nor despised such an absence. Looking at his face,
Monk knew Dr. Beck was as different from Sir Herbert as it was possible for
another clever and dedicated man to be, but he had no indication of Kristian's
feelings.

"You used the words
intelligent
and
attractive
about Nurse Barrymore," he said curiously.
"Did you find her so? I gathered from Lady Ross Gilbert that she was a
trifle priggish, naive as to matters of love, and altogether not the sort of
woman a man might find appealing."

Kristian laughed.
"Yes—Berenice would see her in that light. Two such different women it
would be hard to imagine. I doubt they could ever have understood each
other."

"That is not an answer, Dr.
Beck."

"No, it isn't." He seemed
quite unoffended. "Yes, I thought Nurse Barrymore was most attractive,
both as a person and, were I free to think so, as a woman. But then my taste is
not usual, I confess. I like courage and humor, and I find intelligence
stimulating." He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair, regarding
Monk with a smile. "It is, for me, extremely unprofitable to spend my time
with a woman who has nothing to talk about but trivia. I dislike simpering and
flirting, and I find agreement and obedience essentially very lonely things. If
a woman says she agreed with you, whatever her own thoughts, in what sense do
you have her true companionship at all? You may as well have a charming
picture, because all you are receiving from her are your own ideas back
again."

Monk thought of Hermione—charming,
docile, pliable— and of Hester—opinionated, obstructive, passionate in her
beliefs, full of courage, uncomfortable to be with (at times he disliked her
more that anyone else he knew)—but real.

"Yes," he said
reluctantly. "I take your point. Do you think it is likely that Sir
Herbert also found her attractive?"

"Prudence Barrymore?"
Kristian bit his lip thoughtfully. "I doubt it. I know he respected her
professional abilities. We all did. But she occasionally challenged his
opinions, and that incensed him. He did not accept that from his peers, let
alone from a nurse—and a woman."