Or had she been guilty of the crime after all? Was that why he had tried to expunge her from his mind? And she returned now only because he had forgotten the circumstances, the guilt, the dreadful end of the aflair? Could he have been so mistaken in his judgment? Surely not. It was his profession to detect truth from lies-he could not have been such a fool!
“… and I liked the way he always spoke gently,” Sabella was saying. “I can't recall that I ever heard him shout, or use language unbecoming for us to hear. He had a lovely voice.” She was looking up at the ceiling, her face softer, the anger gone from it, which he had only dimly registered when she must have been speaking of some of the things she disliked in her father.”He used to read to us from the Bible- the Book of Isaiah especially,” she went on. “I don't remember what he said, but I loved listening to him because his voice wrapped all 'round us and made it all seem important and good.”
“And your greatest dislike?” he prompted, hoping she had not already specified it when he was not listening.
“I think the way he would withdraw into himself and not even seem to notice that I was there-sometimes for days,” she replied without hesitation. Then a look of sorrow came into her eyes, and a self-conscious pain. “And he never laughed with me, as if-as if he were not altogether comfortable in my company.” Her fair brows puckered as she concentrated on Monk. “Do you know what I mean?”
Then as quickly she looked away. “I'm sorry, that is a foolish question, and embarrassing. I fear I am being no help at all-and I wish I could.” This last was said with such intense feeling that Monk ached to be able to reach across the bright space between them and touch her slender wrist, to assure her with some more immediate warmth than words, that he did understand. But to do so would be intrusive, and open to all manner of misconstruction. All he could think of was to continue with questions that might lead to some fragment of useful knowledge. He did not often feel so awkward.
“I believe he had been friends with Mr. and Mrs. Furoival for a long time?”
She looked up, recalling herself to the matter in hand and putting away memory and thought of her own wounds.
“Yes-about sixteen or seventeen years, I think, something like that. They had been much closer over the last seven or eight years. I believe he used to visit them once or twice a week when he was at home.” She looked at him with a slight frown. “But he was friends with both of them, you know. It would be easy to believe he was having an affair with Louisa-I mean easy as far as his death is concerned, but I really do not think he was. Maxim was very fond of Mama, you know? Sometimes I used to think-but that is another thing, and of no use to us now.
“Maxim is in the business of dealing in foodstuffs, you know, and Papa put a very great deal of army contracts his way. A cavalry regiment can use a marvelous amount of corn, hay, oats and so on. I think he also was an agent Car saddlery and other things of that sort. I don't know the details, but I know Maxim profited greatly because of it, and has become a very respected power in the trade, among his fellows. I think he must be very good at it.”
“Indeed.” Monk turned it over in his mind; it was an interesting piece of information, but he could not see how it was of any use to Alexandra Carlyon. It did not sound in any way corrupt; presumably a general might suggest to his quartermaster that he obtain his stores from one merchant rather than another, if the price were feir. But even had it not been, why should that cause Alexandra any anger or distress-still less drive her to murder?
But it was another thread leading back to the Furnivals.
“Do you remember the incident where your father was stabbed with the ornamental knife? It happened at the Furnivals' house. It was quite a deep injury.”
“He wasn't stabbed,” she said with a tiny smile. “He slipped and did it himself. He was cleaning the knife, or something. I can't imagine why. It wasn't even used.”
“But you remember it? “
“Yes of course. Poor Valentine was terribly upset. I think he saw it happen. He was only about eleven or twelve, poor child.”
“Was your mother there?”
“At the Furnivals'? Yes, I think so. I really don't remember. Louisa was there. She sent for Dr. Hargrave to come immediately because it was bleeding pretty badly. They had to put a lot of bandages on it, and he could barely get his trousers back on, even with Maxim's valet to help him. When he came down the stairs, assisted by the valet and the footman, I could see the great bulges under the cloth of his trousers. He looked awfully pale and he went straight home in the carriage.”
Monk tried to visualize it. A clumsy accident. But was it relevant? Could it conceivably have been an earner attempt to kill him? Surely not-not in the Furnivals' house and so long ago. But why not in the Furnivals' house? She had finally killed him there. But why no attempt between men and now?
Sabella had said she saw the swell of the bandages under his trousers. Not the bloodstained tear where the knife had gone through! Was it possible Alexandra had found him in bed with Louisa and taken the knife to him in a fit of jealous rage? And they had conspired to conceal it-and the scandal? There was no point in asking Sabella. She would naturally deny it, to protect her mother.
He stayed a further half hour, drawing from her memories of her parents, some quite varied, but not showing him anything he had not already learned from his talk with the servants in Alexandra's own home. She and the general had been reasonably content in their relationship. It was cool but not intolerable. He had not abused her in any way, he had been generous, even-tempered, and had no apparent vices; he was simply an unemotional man who preferred his own interests and his own company. Surely that was the position of many married women, and nothing to warrant serious complaint, let alone violence.
He thanked her, promised her again that he would not cease to do all he could for her mother, right to the last possible moment, then took his leave with a deep regret that he could offer her no real comfort.
He was outside on the warm pavement in the sun when the sudden fragrance of lilac in bloom made him stop so abruptly a messenger boy moving along the curb nearly fell over him. The smell, the brightness of the light and the warmth of the paving stones woke in him a feeling of such intense loneliness, as if he had just this moment lost something, or realized it was beyond his reach when he had thought it his, that he found his heart pounding and his breath caught in his throat.
But why? Who? Whose closeness, whose friendship or love had he lost? How? Had they betrayed him-or he them? He had a terrible fear that it was he who had betrayed them!
One answer he knew already, as soon as the question formed in his mind-it was the woman whom he had tried to defend from a charge of killing her husband. The woman with the fair hair and dark amber eyes. That was certain: but only that-no more.
He must find out! If he had investigated the case then there would be police records of it: names, dates, places- conclusions. He would find out who the woman was and what had happened to her, if possible what they had felt for each other, and why it had ended.
He moved forward with a fresh, determined stride. Now he had purpose. At the end of Albany Street he turned into the Euston Road and within a few minutes had hailed a cab. There was only one course open. He would find Evan and get him to search through the records for the case.
But it was not so easy. He was not able to contact Evan until early in the evening, when he came back tired and dispirited from a fruitless chase after a man who had embezzled a fortune and fled with it across the Channel. Now began the burdensome business of contacting the French police to apprehend him.