Death of a Stranger (26 page)

“So she went to see Miss Baltimore…” Runcorn prompted.

Hester came back with a fresh pot of tea and without speaking poured for Runcorn and passed the cup to him. He nodded his appreciation, but his eyes were on Monk.

“Yes,” Monk answered the question. “Dalgarno was there, and their feelings for each other were quite open.”

They both glanced at Hester and she nodded.

Runcorn made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat, wordless and eloquent of his fury and contempt.

“Where was he last night?” Monk asked, knowing Runcorn would have found out.

Runcorn’s face split into a sudden smile. “Alone in his rooms,” he said with profound satisfaction. “Or so he claims. But he can’t prove it. Manservant out, no porter, no callers.”

“So he could have been in Cuthbert Street?” Monk was surprised at the mixture of emotions that awoke in him. Had Dalgarno been able to account for his time it would mean he could not be guilty, at least not in person, and that would have thrown the whole question wide open. Monk knew of no one else with any reason to harm Katrina. But it also caused him more distress than he would have imagined, because he thought of her facing the man she had loved so deeply, and seeing in his eyes that he meant to kill her. Had she known it immediately? Or had she waited, standing in the room, or out on the balcony, even until the last moment unable to believe he would, and then she had felt his hands on her and his strength, and knew she was pitching backward, falling?

“Monk!” Runcorn’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Yes…” he said sharply. “What else did he say? How did he react?”

“To her death?” Runcorn’s loathing was quite open. “With affected surprise-and indifference. He’s the coldest swine I’ve ever dealt with. One would have judged from his manner that the whole thing was a tragedy that barely touched on his life, a matter of regret for decency’s sake, but in reality of complete indifference. He’s got his eye on being part of the Baltimore company, and that’s all he cares about. I’ll get him, Monk, I swear it!”

“We’ve got to prove his motive,” Monk said, concentrating his mind on the issue. Fury, outrage, and pity were all understandable emotions, but they accomplished nothing now.

“Greed,” Runcorn said simply, as if the one word were damnation in itself. He picked up his tea and sipped it gingerly, afraid of burning himself.

“That doesn’t prove he killed her,” Monk pointed out with controlled patience. “Lots of people are greedy. He wouldn’t be the first man to have broken his promise to a woman of little means in favor of an heiress, once he realized he had the chance. It’s despicable, but it’s not a crime.”

“He has no proof where he was.” Runcorn put down his cup and touched the points off on his fingers. “He had the opportunity to have been in Cuthbert Street. He resembles the figure seen on the roof by the witnesses. Only an impression, but elegant, dark, taller than she was, but not by a great deal. But she was quite a tall woman.” Runcorn held up his second finger. “He needed nothing to kill her with except his own weight and strength. And of course there was the man’s coat button we found in her hand. We’ll look at all his clothes.”

Monk felt the chill run through him and then the sweat break out on his body. He prayed Runcorn did not notice it. The jacket with the missing button was in his wardrobe in the bedroom. Thank God he had not stuffed it into the stove with the paper. He had thought about it!

“Hope he hasn’t destroyed it,” Runcorn went on. “But even if he has, people will know he had another coat, and how will he explain its disappearance?”

Monk said nothing. His mouth was dry. Where could he find another button and replace it? If he went to a tailor Runcorn might find out.

Runcorn held up a third finger. “And she had accused him of being involved in fraud; we know that she hired you to prove it!”

Monk licked his lips.

“Disprove it, actually,” he countered.

“And he wanted to cast her aside and marry the Baltimore heiress,” Runcorn went on relentlessly. “That’s more than motive enough.”

Hester was looking silently from one to the other of them.

“Only if we prove the land fraud,” Monk argued. “And Livia Baltimore is probably quite comfortably off, but she’s not an heiress.”

“She will be when Baltimore and Sons sells its railway components to India,” Runcorn answered vehemently. “It will make them all rich, and it will only be the beginning. The money will go on and on.”

Something flickered in Monk’s brain, then vanished.

“What is it?” Runcorn demanded, looking at him more closely.

Monk sat motionless, trying to bring it back, to catch something of it from the edge of his mind, but it was gone. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Anger flared for an instant in Runcorn’s eyes, then was replaced by understanding. “Well, if you remember, tell me. In the meantime, I’ve got to tie Dalgarno into the fraud better.” His tone of voice had a lift at the end, as if waiting for Monk to complete the thought for him.

“I’ll help,” Monk said immediately. It was a statement. He intended to whether Runcorn agreed or not; it would simply be easier if he did.

Runcorn must have searched the rest of Katrina’s house. Had he found any letters from Emma? There would be a return address on them. Dare he ask? What excuse could he give?

The moment slipped away.

Runcorn gave a wry smile. “Thought you would.” He pulled a sheaf of papers out of his pocket, maybe half a dozen or so, and for an instant Monk felt as if he must have spoken aloud. “Got these from Miss Harcus’s rooms.” Runcorn looked at him, all shadow of even the most bitter humor gone from his eyes. “They’re order forms and receipts from Baltimore and Sons. She really suspected him. She must have gone to a lot of trouble, and risk, to take these. She was a brave woman with a passionate love of honesty.” He held the papers high in his hand. “No matter how much she loved him, she wasn’t going to protect him from fraud. Even though when she started out suspecting, she was still betrothed to him, so in time she would have shared with him whatever he got out of it.” He shook his head very slowly. “Why are people such fools, Monk? Why did he want dishonest money more than a really fine woman? Not as if she wasn’t handsome as well, and young.”

“Precisely because she was honest, I expect,” Hester replied for him. “She loved him in spite of what he was, not because of it. Maybe his pride couldn’t live with that. He wants admiration.”

“Then he’d have to have been a saint,” Runcorn said in disgust. “As it is, he’ll swing for her. Sorry, Mrs. Monk, but he will.” He held the papers out to Monk. “Here, take these and see if you can find anything. I’m going to follow the Baltimore money and see just how much of it ends up with Dalgarno, either now or if he marries Miss Baltimore.” He turned to Hester. “Thank you for the tea. I apologize for disturbing you.”

She smiled and rose to see him to the door.

Monk stood in the center of the room with his hands clenched and shaking, the papers crumpled by the power of his grip.

Monk read very carefully through everything Runcorn had left with him. There were no letters to implicate Dalgarno in anything but the desire to make as large a profit as possible, and that was common to all businessmen. There was nothing illegal, nothing even underhanded. All they showed was that Dalgarno was involved in every aspect of the survey, bargaining for and purchasing the land. But that was part of his duty. Jarvis Baltimore had apparently dealt with the purchase of timber, steel and other necessary materials for the track itself, and Nolan Baltimore had overseen the whole enterprise and concerned himself with the government and the competition. The fiercest rivalry between railway companies lay in the great days of expansion, a generation or so before, but it still required knowledge now, ability and the right connections, to achieve any success.

The one thing that impressed itself upon Monk as he looked over the papers a third time, reading the principal pieces aloud to Hester, was that the amounts of profit were not undue.

“The Baltimores must be comfortably off,” she observed. “But it is not really a fortune.”

“No,” he agreed wryly. “Not by railway standards, I suppose.”

Memory teased him that Dundas had been accused of defrauding for much larger profits than anything written here. It was only glimpses so brief they were gone again before he could understand them. They might have no connection with the present issue, but something in them could be the key, the one element still missing. And there was something that would tie them all together and make sense of them, but it floated always just beyond his reach, melting into shapelessness one moment, on the verge of identity the next. He grasped for it, and it melted into fear without meaning.

But there was another fear with very precise shape-Emma, to whom Katrina had written so frankly and in whom she had confided that she did not trust Monk. Who was she, and why had she not come forward? Someone would tell her Katrina had been murdered, friends, gossips, even possibly some lawyer with whom Katrina had entrusted her affairs. From his brief sight of her rooms, and the clothes she had worn to meet him, she was not without means.

If they corresponded with such candor then they were close, wrote frequently. There would surely be some note among Katrina’s papers-of her address, or at least something from which he could deduce where she lived.

She might even know more about Dalgarno than Katrina had told him, something to help Runcorn.

He must go back to her rooms. The question was: would it be wiser to go brazenly in daylight, lie that he had authority, or break in at night and trust to his skill not to be caught? Either way he had no honest explanation. Worst of all could be if he were caught having found Emma’s address, or some further damning letter from her.

But the risk of leaving it was too great, not only if Runcorn found it, but for the first time in his life that he could remember, his nerves were raw enough to betray him, to Hester at least, and it was she who mattered, even above the law.

He did not know if it was the braver of the two ways or not, but he chose to go by daylight. He would have a better chance of bluffing his way if he was questioned, and it was quicker. He wanted it over with. The waiting was almost as hard as the preparation and the doing.

He found no one on duty at the door of Katrina’s building, but there was a beat constable twenty yards away. He hesitated. Should he wait until the man moved on, then try to sneak in, and if he was caught think of some excuse for not being honest? Or would it be better to go up to him boldly, lie about having thought of something useful and having Runcorn’s permission to search? Implicitly he did have. Runcorn wanted him to prove Dalgarno’s guilt.

There were only two choices; the latter had dangers, but it was the better of the two. He forced the consequences out of his mind. Fear would show in his face, and if the constable was very good he would see it. He walked firmly up to the constable and stopped in front of him.

“Good morning, Constable,” he said with a very faint smile, no more than a gesture of civility. “My name is Monk. You may remember me from the night Miss Harcus was killed.” He saw recognition in the man’s face with a wave of relief. “Mr. Runcorn has asked for my assistance, since I knew Miss Harcus and was working on a case for her. I need to go into the house again and make a further search. I do not require your assistance. I am simply informing you so that you are not concerned if you see me there.”

“Right, sir. Thank you,” the constable said with a nod. “If you need me, sir, I’ll be ’ere.”

“Good. I’ll send for you if there’s anything. Good day.” And before the man could sense his tension, he turned and left, going as rapidly as he dared toward the house. He had no keys. He was going to have to fiddle with the lock and pick his way in, but that was an art he had learned from a master in the days before the accident, and the skill had not left him.

He was inside the house within seconds, and retraced his steps up to Katrina’s rooms. It took him even less time to pick the lock on her door, and then he was in the room. The sense of tragedy closed around him, the silence, the very faint film of dust showing on the wooden surfaces in the sunlight through the bay windows. Perhaps to someone else it would simply have looked like the room of someone on holiday; to him the presence of death was as tangible as another person watching him, waiting.

He jerked his attention back to the moment. There was no time to think about what had happened here, to try to picture Dalgarno, if it had been him, standing probably where Monk was now, charming her, quarreling, whatever it had been, then going out onto the balcony with her, the last furious words, the struggle, and her falling…

He was looking for papers, letters, address books. Where would they be? In the desk where Runcorn had already looked, or in some other similar kind of place. He moved quickly to the desk, opened it and started with the pigeonholes, then the drawers. There was surprisingly little for a woman who conducted her own affairs, and nothing dating farther back than a few months. Presumably that was when she had come to London.

There was nothing else to Emma, which was not surprising. They would naturally all have been posted. He was chilled inside at the thought of what Emma might have. And it seemed Katrina had not kept Emma’s other letters, at least not in the desk. Nor was there any note of her address. Was it one that she knew so well there was no need to note it down?

He stood in the middle of the floor, staring around him. Where else might she keep anything on paper? Where did she cook? Did she have recipe books, kitchen accounts that were separate? A diary? Where did women keep diaries? Bedside table or cabinet? Under the mattress, if it were private enough.

He searched more and more frantically, trying to steady his hands and be methodical, miss nothing, replace everything as he had found it. There were no other letters, no address book, only the cooking notes any woman might have, a book of recipes handed on from Eveline Mary M. Austin, and brief memos on how to launder certain difficult fabrics.