His mind was still turning over the contradictions and impossibilities of it when suddenly he was engulfed in sharp, numbing pain and a black hole opened up in front of him.

He regained his senses, still on the pavement, propped up against the wall, his head aching abominably, his body cold and his temper volcanic. Eilish was nowhere to be seen.

The following day he returned to Ainslie Place in a vicious and desperate frame of mind, and set up vigil as soon as it was dark.

However it was not Eilish he saw, but a scruffy-looking man in soiled and very worn clothes approaching number seventeen nervously, looking from right to left as if he feared observation.

Monk moved farther back into the shadows, then remained absolutely motionless.

The man passed under a streetlamp and for a moment his face was visible. It was the same man Monk had seen several days before, not with Eilish, but with Deirdra. The man fished out a watch from his pocket, glanced at it, and put it back.

Curious. He did not look like a man who would be able to read a watch, far less own one.

Several minutes passed by. The man fidgeted in acute discomfort. Monk stood without moving even the angle of his head. Along the footpath the lamps made little pools of light. Between was a no-man’s-land of gathering mist and shadows. It was growing colder. Monk was beginning to feel it in his motionless state. It ate into his bones and crept up through the soles of his feet.

Then suddenly she was there. She must have come around through the areaway gate, into the street from the side-not Eilish, but the small, urgent figure of Deirdra. She did not even glance down the street or to the grass center of the Place, but went straight to the man. They stood close together for several minutes, heads bent, talking in voices so low that from where he stood Monk could not even hear a murmur.

Then suddenly Deirdra shook her head vigorously, the man touched her arm in a gentle reassuring gesture, and she turned and went back inside the house. He departed the way he had come.

Monk waited until long after midnight, growing colder and colder, but no one else came or went in the Farraline house. He could have kicked himself for not having followed the man.

Two more cold and increasingly desperate days followed in which Monk learned nothing useful, indeed nothing that common sense could not have deduced for him. He wrote at some length to Rathbone, detailing everything he had learned so far, and when he returned to his lodgings about noon on the third day there were two letters for him, one from Rathbone outlining the general provisions of Mary Farraline’s will. She had left her very considerable property, both real and personal, more or less equally among the children. Alastair had already inherited the house and most of the business on the death of his father. The second letter was from Oonagh, inviting him to attend a large civic dinner that evening and apologizing for the invitation’s being so extremely late.

Monk accepted. He had nothing left to lose. Time was treading hard on his heels, and fruitless nights spent watching the Farraline house had yielded nothing. Neither Deirdra nor Eilish had appeared again.

He dressed very carefully, but his mind was too absorbed in rehearsing every piece of information he had to be nervous as to his elegance or social acceptability. How could Hester have been idiotic enough to get herself into this appalling situation? The few impressions she had given him were useless. What if Deirdra and Eilish were both conducting clandestine affairs with men from the heart of the slums? What if Mary knew? It made no sense to murder her because of it. If she had not made it public already, then she was not going to. A family quarrel, no matter how fierce, was not cause for murder by anyone but a lunatic.

If Eilish had been the victim, that would be readily explainable. Either Quinlan or Baird Mclvor might have excellent cause. Or even Oonagh, if Baird was really in love with her.

But that made little sense either. It could hardly be Baird she was creeping along Kings Stables Road at night to see.

He arrived at the huge hall in which the dinner was to be held with his letter from Oonagh in his hand, ready to show to any doorman who might question his right to be there, but his assurance must have been sufficient and no one accosted him.

It was a dazzling occasion. Chandeliers blazed from every ceiling. He could imagine them being lowered and footmen with tapers spending hours lighting them before winding them back up again. Every niche in the gorgeous ceilings seemed to be ablaze. Fiddlers played a nameless accompaniment while guests milled around nodding and smiling and hoping to be recognized by all the right people. Servants mixed discreetly offering refreshments, and a resplendent liveried doorman announced the arrival of those whom Society considered important.

It was easy to see Eilish. Even in black she seemed to radiate a warmth and a light. Her hair was a more gorgeous ornament than the tiaras of duchesses, and her pale skin against the black of her gown seemed luminous.

From the gallery where Monk was standing he soon observed Alastair’s pale head, and the moment after, Oonagh. Even from above, where he could see only an angle of her face, she carried with her an aura of calm and a sense of both power and intelligence.

Had Mary been like that? That was what the drink-sodden Hector had suggested. Why would anyone murder such a woman? Greed for the power she exercised, or the purse strings? Jealousy because she had the innate qualities which would always make her the natural leader? Fear, because she knew something which was intolerable to someone else, that threatened their happiness, even their continued safety?

But what? What could Mary have known? Did Oonagh know it now, albeit without being aware of its danger to her?

Mercifully Hector was absent, and so, as far as Monk could see, was Kenneth. There was nothing to be gained remaining alone. Reluctantly, more tense than he could account for, he straightened up and went down the steps into the throng.

At dinner he was seated next to a large woman in a burgundy and black dress with skirts so huge no one could get within a yard and a half of her. Not that Monk wished to. He would like to have been spared the obligation of conversation also, but that was more than he was granted.

Deirdra was sitting opposite at the farther side of the table, and several times he caught her eye and smiled. He was beginning to think it was a waste of his time, although he knew at least one reason why Oonagh had invited him. She wished to know if he had progressed in discovering where Deirdra spent her money. Did she already know, and was she only looking for him to provide proof so she could confront Deirdra, and perhaps precipitate the quarrel Mary had been killed in order to avoid?

Looking across the table at Deirdra’s warm, intelligent, stubborn face, he did not believe it She might be what some people would refer to as immoral, apparently she was extravagant, but he did not believe she had murdered Mary Farraline, certainly not over something as easily curbed as extravagance.

But he had been wrong before, especially where women were concerned.

No-that was unfair. He had been wrong as to their strength, their loyalty, even their ability to feel passion or conviction-but not their criminality. Why did he doubt himself so deeply?

Because he was failing Hester. Even as he sat there eating a sumptuous meal amid the clatter of cutlery, the chink of glasses, the blaze of lights and murmur of voices, the rustle of silks and creak of stays, Hester was in Newgate Prison awaiting trial, after which, if she were found guilty, they would hang her.