The Face of a Stranger (49 page)

She shuddered and her body seemed to shrink into itself as if
withdrawing from something vile. "Now this woman has come here with her
warped and fabricated story, and you stand there and listen to it. If you were
men worthy of the name, you would throw her out and damn it for the slander it
is. But it seems I must do it myself. No one has any sense of the family honor
but me." She put her hands on the arm of her chair as if to rise to her
feet.

"You'll have no one thrown out until I say so," Lovel said
with a tight, calm voice, suddenly cutting like steel across her emotion.
"It is not you who have defended the family honor; all you've defended is
Joscelin—whether he deserved it or not. It was Menard who paid his debts and
cleaned up the trail of cheating and welching he left behind—"

"Nonsense. Whose word do you have for that? Men-ard's?" She
spat the name. "He is calling Joscelin a cheat, no one else. And he
wouldn't dare, if Joscelin were alive. He only has the courage to do it now
because he thinks you will back him, and there is no one here to call him the
pathetic, treacherous liar he is."

Menard stood motionless, the final blow visible in the agony of his
face. She had hurt him, and he had defended Joscelin for her sake for the last
time.

Callandra stood up.

"You are wrong, Fabia, as you have been wrong all the time. Miss
Latterly here, for one, will testify that Joscelin was a cheat who made money
deceiving the bereaved who were too hurt and bewildered to see him for what he
was. Menard was always a better man, but you were too fond of flattery to see
it. Perhaps you were the one Joscelin

deceived most of all—first, last and always.'' She did not flinch now,
even from Fabia's stricken face as she caught sight at last of a fearful truth.
"But you wanted to be deceived. He told you what you wished to hear; he
told you you were beautiful, charming, gay—all the things a man loves in a
woman. He learned his art in your gullibility, your willingness to be
entertained, to laugh and to be the center of all the life and love in
Shelburne. He said all that not because he thought for a moment it was true,
but because he knew you would love him for saying it— and you did, blindly and
indiscriminately, to the exclusion of everyone else. That is your tragedy, as
well as his."

Fabia seemed to wither as they watched her.

"You never liked Joscelin," she said in a last, frantic
attempt to defend her world, her dreams, all the past that was golden and
lovely to her, everything that gave her meaning as it crumbled in front of
her—not only what Joscelin had been, but what she herself had been. "You
are a wicked woman."

"No, Fabia," Callandra replied. "I am a very sad
one." She turned to Hester. "I assume it is not your brother who
killed Joscelin, or you would not have come here to tell us this way. We would
have believed the police, and the details would not have been necessary.'' With
immeasurable sorrow she looked across at Menard. "You paid his debts. What
else did you do?"

There was an aching silence in the room.

Monk could feel his heart beating as if it had the force to shake his
whole body. They were poised on the edge of truth, and yet it was still so far
away. It could be lost again by a single slip; they could plunge away into an
abyss of fear, whispered doubts, always seeing suspicions, double meanings,
hearing the footstep behind and the hand on the shoulder.

Against his will, he looked across at Hester, and saw that she was
looking at him, the same thoughts plain in her eyes. He turned his head quickly
back to Menard, who was ashen-faced.

"What else did you do?" Callandra repeated. "You knew
what Joscelin was—"

"I paid his debts." Menard's voice was no more than a whisper.

"Gambling debts," she agreed. "What about his debts of
honor, Menard? What about his terrible debts to men like Hester's father and
brother—did you pay them as well?"

"I—I didn't know about the Latterlys," Menard stammered.

Callandra's face was tight with grief.

"Don't equivocate, Menard. You may not have known the Latterlys by
name, but you knew what Joscelin was doing. You knew he got money from
somewhere, because you knew how much he had to gamble with. Don't tell us you
didn't learn where it came from. I know you better than that. You would not
have rested in that ignorance— you knew what a fraud and a cheat Joscelin was,
and you knew there was no honest way for him to come by so much. Menard—"
Her face was gentle, full of pity. "You have behaved with such honor so
far—don't soil it now by lying. There is no point, and no escape."

He winced as if she had struck him, and for a second Monk thought he was
going to collapse. Then he straightened up and faced her, as though she had
been a long-awaited execution squad—and death was not now the worst fear.

"Was it Edward Dawlish?" Now her voice also was barely above a
whisper. "I remember how you cared for each other as boys, and your grief
when he was killed. Why did his father quarrel with you?"

Menard did not evade the truth, but he spoke not to Callandra but to his
mother, his voice low and hard, a lifetime of seeking and being rejected naked
in it finally.

"Because Joscelin told him I had led Edward into gambling beyond
his means, and that in the Crimea he had got in over his head with his brother
officers, and would have died in debt—except that Joscelin settled it all for
him."

There was a rich irony in that, and it was lost on no one. Even Fabia
flinched in a death's-head acknowledgment of its cruel absurdity.

"For his family's sake," Menard continued, his voice husky,
his eyes on Callandra. "Since I was the one who had led him to ruin."

He gulped. "Of course there was no debt. Joscelin never even served
in the same area as Edward—I found that out afterwards. It was all another of
his lies—to get money." He looked at Hester. "It was not as bad as
your loss. At least Dawlish didn't kill himself. I am truly sorry about your
family."

"He didn't lose any money." Monk spoke at last. "He
didn't have time. You killed Joscelin before he could take it. But he had
asked."

There was utter silence. Callandra put both her hands to her face. Lovel
was stunned, unable to comprehend. Fabia was a broken woman. She no longer
cared. What happened to Menard was immaterial. Joscelin, her beloved Joscelin,
had been murdered in front of her in a new and infinitely more dreadful way.
They had robbed her not only of the present and the future, but all the warm,
sweet, precious past. It had all gone; there was nothing left but a handful of
bitter ash.

They all waited, each in a separate world in the moments between hope
and the finality of despair. Only Fabia had already been dealt the ultimate blow.

Monk found the nails of his hands cutting his palms, so tightly were his
fists clenched. It could all still slip away from him. Menard could deny it,
and there would be no proof sufficient. Runcorn would have only the bare facts,
and come after Monk, and what was there to protect him?

The silence was like a slow pain, growing with each second.

Menard looked at his mother and she saw the movement of his head, and
turned her face away, slowly and deliberately.

"Yes," Menard said at last. "Yes I did. He was
despicable. It wasn't only what he had done to Edward Dawlish, or me, but what
he was going to go on doing. He had to be stopped—before it became public, and
the name of Grey was a byword for a man who cheats the families of his dead
comrades-in-arms, a more subtle and painful version of those who crawl over the
battlefield the morning after and rob the corpses of the fallen."

Callandra walked over to him and put her hand on his arm.

"We will get the best legal defense available," she said very
quietly. "You had a great deal of provocation. I think they will not find
murder."

"We will not." Fabia's voice was a mere crackle, almost a
sob, and she looked at Menard with terrible hatred.

"I will," Callandra corrected. "I have quite sufficient
means." She turned back to Menard again. "I will not leave you alone,
my dear. I imagine you will have to go with Mr. Monk now—but I will do all that
is necessary, I promise you."

Menard held her hand for a moment; something crossed his lips that was
almost a smile. Then he turned to Monk.

"I am ready."

Evan was standing by the door with the manacles in his pocket. Monk
shook his head, and Menard walked out slowly between them. The last thing Monk
heard was Hester's voice as she stood next to Callandra.

"I will testify for him. When the jury hears what Joscelin did to
my family, they may understand—"

Monk caught Evan's eye and felt a lift of hope. If Hester Latterly
fought for Menard, the battle could not easily be lost. His hand held Menard's
arm—but gently.