Alexandra said nothing, but he could feel her emotion as if it were an electric charge in the room.

“She said he was arbitrary and dictatorial-that he had forced her into a marriage against her will,” he went on.

She stood up and turned away from him.

Then again he had a sudden jolt of memory so sharp it was like a physical blow. He had been here before, stood in a cell with a small fanlight like this, and watched another slender woman with fair hair that curled at her neck. She too had been charged with killing her husband, and he had cared about it desperately.

Who was she?

The image was gone and all he could recapture was a shaft of dim light on hair, the angle of a shoulder, and a gray dress, skirts too long, sweeping the floor. He could recall no more, no voice, certainly no faintest echo of a face, nothing- eyes, lips-nothing at all.

But the emotion was there. It had mattered to him so fiercely he had thrown all his mind and will into defending her.

But why? Who was she?

Had he succeeded? Or had she been hanged?

Was she innocent-or guilty?

Alexandra was talking, answering him at last.

“What?”

She swung around, her eyes bright and hard.

“You come in here with a cruel tongue and no-no gentleness, no-no sensibility at all. You ask the harshest questions.” Her voice caught in her throat, gasping for breath. “You remind me of my daughter whom I shall probably never see again, except across the rail of a courtroom dock-and then you haven't even the honor to listen to my answers! What manner of man are you? What do you really want here?”

“I am sorry!” he said with genuine shame. “My thoughts were absent for only a moment-a memory… a-a painful one-of another time like this.”

The anger drained out of her. She shrugged her shoulders, turning away again.

“It doesn't matter. None of it makes any difference.”

He pulled his thoughts together with an effort.

“Your daughter quarreled with her father that evening…”

Instantly she was on guard again, her body rigid, her eyes wary.

“She has a very fierce temper, Mrs. Carlyon-she seemed to be on the edge of hysteria when I was there. In fact I gathered that her husband was anxious for her.”

“I already told you.” Her voice was low and hard. “She has not been well since the birth of her child. It happens sometimes. It is one of the perils of bearing children. Ask anyone who is familiar with childbirth-and…”

“I know that,” he agreed. “Women quite often become temporarily deranged-”

“No! Sabella was ill-that's all.” She came forward, so close he thought she was going to grasp his arm, then she stood still with her hands by her sides. “If you are trying to say that it was Sabella who killed Thaddeus, and not I, then you are wrong! I will confess it in court, and will certainly hang”-she said the word plainly and deliberately, like pushing her hand into a wound-”rather than allow my daughter to take the blame for my act. Do you understand me, Mr. Monk?”

' There was no j ar of memory, nothing even faintly familiar. The echo was as far away now as if he had never heard it.

“Yes, Mrs. Carlyon. It is what I would have expected you to say.”

“It is the truth.” Her voice rose and there was a note of desperation in it, almost of pleading. “You must not accuse Sabella! If you are employed by Mr. Rathbone-Mr. Rathbone is my lawyer. He cannot say what I forbid him to.”

It was half a statement, half a reassurance to herself.

“He is also an officer of the court, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said with sudden gentleness. “He cannot say something which he knows beyond question to be untrue.”

She stared at him without speaking.

Could his memory have something to do with that older woman who wept without distorting her face? She had been the wife of the man who had taught him so much, upon whom he had modeled himself when he first came south from Northumberland. It was he who had been ruined, cheated in some way, and Monk had tried so hard to save him, and failed.

But the image that had come to him today was of a young woman, another woman like Alexandra, charged with murdering her husband. And he had come here, like this, to help her.

Had he failed? Was that why she no longer knew him? There was no record of her among his possessions, no letters, no pictures, not even a name written down. Why? Why had he ceased to know her?

The answers crowded in on him: because he had failed, she had gone to the gallows…

“I shall do what I can to help, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said quietly. “To find the truth-and then you and Mr. Rathbone must do with it whatever you wish.”

Chapter 4

At mid-morning on May 11, Hester received an urgent invitation from Edith to call upon her at Carlyon House. It was hand-written and delivered by a messenger, a small boy with a cap pulled over his ears and a broken front tooth. It requested Hester to come at her earliest convenience, and that she would be most welcome to stay for luncheon if she wished.

“By all means,” Major Tiplady said graciously. He was feeling better with every day, and was now quite well enough to be ferociously bored with his immobility, to have read all he wished of both daily newspapers and books from his own collection and those he requested from the libraries of friends. He enjoyed Hester's conversation, but he longed for some new event or circumstance to intrude into his rife.

“Go and see the Carlyons,” he urged. “Learn something of what is progressing in that wretched case. Poor woman! Although I don't know why I should say that.” His white eyebrows rose, making him look both belligerent and bemused. “I suppose some part of me refuses to believe she should kill her husband-especially in such a way. Not a woman's method. Women use something subtler, like poison-don't you think?” He looked at Hester's faintly surprised expression and did not wait for an answer. “Anyway, why should she kill him at all?” He frowned. “What could he have done to her to cause her to resort to such a-a-fatal and inexcusable violence?”

“I don't know,” Hester admitted, putting aside the mending she had been doing. “And rather more to the point, why does she not tell us? Why does she persist in this lie about jealousy? I fear it may be because she is afraid it is her daughter who is guilty, and she would rather hang than see her child perish.”

“You must do something,” Tiplady said with intense feeling. “You cannot allow her to sacrifice herself. At least…” He hesitated, pity twisting his emotions so plainly his face reflected every thought that passed through his mind: the doubt, the sudden understanding and the confusion again. “Oh, my dear Miss Latterly, what a terrible dilemma. Do we have the right to take from this poor creature her sacrifice for her child? If we prove her innocent, and her daughter guilty, surely that is the last thing she would wish? Do we then not rob her of the only precious thing she has left?”

“I don't know,” Hester answered very quietly, folding the linen and putting the needle and thimble back in their case. “But what if it was not either of them? What if she is confessing to protect Sabella, because she fears she is guilty, but in fact she is not? What hideous irony if we know, only when it is too late, that it was someone else altogether?”

He shut his eyes. “How perfectly appalling. Surely this friend of yours, Mr. Monk, can prevent such a thing? You say he is very clever, most particularly in this field.”

A flood of memory and sadness washed over her. “Cleverness is not always enough…”

“Then you had better go and see what you can learn for yourself,” he said decisively. “Find out what you can about this wretched General Carlyon. Someone must have hated him very dearly indeed. Go to luncheon with his family. Watch and listen, ask questions, do whatever it is detectives do. Goon!”