A Funeral In Blue

CHAPTER THREE

Monk left home early the next morning, and by half past seven he was already walking smartly down Tottenham Court Road. There was a cold wind and the fog had lifted considerably. He heard the newsboys shouting about the American War, and there had been another outbreak of typhoid in the Stepney area, near Limehouse. He remembered the fever hospital there, and how terrified he had been that Hester would catch the disease. He had wasted so much effort trying to convince himself he did not really love her, at least not enough that he would be unable to carry on perfectly well with his life even if she were no longer there. How desperately he had struggled not to give any hostages to fortune . . . and lost!

He wondered about Kristian Beck. He had seen Beck work night and day to save the lives of strangers. His courage never seemed to fail him, nor his compassion. At first thought it was not difficult to see why Callandra admired him so much, but how well did she know him? Was it anything more than his professional character? What of his thoughts that had nothing to do with medicine? What of his fears or his griefs? What of his appetites?

He saw an empty hansom and stepped off the curb to hail it, but it hurried on blindly, the driver muffled in scarves, and he rounded a lamppost up onto the pavement again.

He increased his pace, suddenly angry, energy surging up inside him. He found his hands clenched and he all but bumped into the sandwich seller standing idly on the corner watching for custom. The streets were already busy with brewers’ drays and delivery carts with vegetables for the market. A milkman was selling by the jug or can on the corner of Francis Street, and two women were waiting, shivering in the wind and the damp.

Another hansom came by, and this one stopped. He climbed in, giving the driver the address of the police station and telling him to wait while he picked up Runcorn, then to take them both on to Haverstock Hill.

Runcorn was there within moments. He came down the steps with his jacket flapping and his cheeks still ruddy from the scraping of the razor. He climbed in beside Monk and ordered the driver on sharply.

They rode in silence. Half a dozen times Monk almost asked Runcorn for his opinion on some aspect of the case, a possibility, and each occasion he changed his mind. At least twice he heard Runcorn also draw in his breath as if to speak, and then say nothing. The longer the silence remained, the harder it became to break it.

As they went uphill out of the city, the fog lifted further and the cleaner air was sharp with the smell of damp earth, wood smoke, fallen leaves and horse manure.

When they reached the corner of Haverstock Hill and Prince of Wales Street, the hansom stopped and they alighted. Runcorn paid the driver. The house in front of them was substantial but not ostentatious. Monk glanced at Runcorn and saw the respect in his face. This was the sort of home a man of moral quality should have. The curtains were lowered. There were black crepe ribbons on the door. Monk smiled, and forced back his own thoughts.

Runcorn went ahead and yanked the bellpull, then stepped away.

After several moments the door was opened by a middle-aged maid in plain stuff dress and a white apron that was wet around the bottom. Her hands were red, and a faint line of soap showed white on her wrists. It was plain from her face that she had been weeping and was controlling herself now only with the greatest effort.

“Yes sir?” she enquired.

It was not far off nine o’clock. “May we see Dr. Beck, please?” Runcorn asked. “I’m sorry, but it’s necessary.” He produced his card and offered it to her. “I’m from the police,” he added as she ignored it, and he realized she probably could not read.

“ ’E can’t see yer,” she said with a sniff.

“I’m aware of his bereavement,” Runcorn said quietly. “It’s about that that I must speak.”

“Yer can’t,” she repeated expressionlessly. “ ’E in’t ’ere.”

Monk felt his heart beat faster. Runcorn stiffened.

“ ’E’s gorn ter the ’orspital,” the maid explained. “Up ’Ampstead. Poor soul, ’e don’t know wot ter do wif ’isself, but ’e don’t never forget the sick.” She blinked rapidly but the tears still ran down her rough cheeks. “You gotta find ’oo done this to ’im. If yer worth sixpence of a decent person’s money, yer can do that!”

Runcorn drew in his breath to be reasonable, then changed his mind. Perhaps he was conscious of Monk a step behind him, watching, listening. He would be patient. “Of course we will, but we need his help . . .”

“Up the ’orspital.” She waved her arm, indicating the direction. “I can’t do nothin’ for yer ’ere. An’ yer’d best ’urry, afore ’e starts operatin’, ’cos ’e won’t stop fer nothin’ then, not you ner me, ner Gawd ’isself.”

Runcorn thanked her and went back to the street to look for a hansom, Monk a couple of steps behind him, finding it difficult to follow graciously, but if he wanted to be included he had no choice but to comply. He was certain Runcorn was conscious of it, and enjoying it.

“Better get a cab, Monk,” Runcorn said after a moment or two.

Monk knew why he did that. Hansom drivers could spot the self-assurance of a gentleman fifty yards away. A man with breeding would have more money, more appearance of position to keep up and therefore more generosity. Whatever Runcorn wore, whatever rank he attained, he would never have that air, the unconscious arrogance that Monk was born with. That was the core of his loathing all the years they had known each other: the fact that they were both aware of the differences between them, and Monk had never yielded a word of honest praise, or stayed his tongue. He was not proud of that now, but the pattern of years was too deep to erase.

Again they rode in silence, this time as a matter of necessity. They alighted at the hospital some half an hour later, and Monk led the way, being familiar with the place from the times he had been there to see Hester.

As soon as he was inside he smelled the familiar odors of carbolic and lye and another odor, sweeter and different, which might have been blood. His imagination raced to the morning he had woken up after his own accident, and to the battlefield in America where he had seen for the first time what it was that Hester had really done in the Crimea, not the English imagination of the horror and the helplessness but the reality of flesh and pain.

Runcorn was a step behind him. The difference in experience was a gulf between them that could never be crossed. All the telling in the world, even supposing Runcorn were to listen, could not convey things for which there were no words.

They passed a middle-aged woman carrying two heavy slop buckets, her shoulders dragged down by the weight. Her eyes did not meet theirs. She was a nurse, a hospital skivvy to fetch and clean, stoke fires, launder, roll bandages and generally do as she was told.

Three medical students stood in earnest conversation, shirts spattered in blood. One had a neat incision in the side of his black frock coat, as if it had somehow got caught up in the speed of a surgical procedure. There was blood around that also, but dried dark, so not today’s events.

“We’re looking for Dr. Beck,” Monk said, stopping beside them.

They regarded him with slight disdain. “The waiting room’s over there.” One of them pointed, and then returned his attention to his colleagues.

“Police!” Monk snapped, stung by the attitude, as much for the patients treated with such cavalier manner as for himself. “And we have no intention of waiting.”

The student’s expression barely changed. He was a professional man, and he considered police to be on a level both of skill and in society equal to that of a bailiff, dealing with the detritus of the world. “You’ll have to wait,” he said dryly.

Runcorn looked at the student, then at Monk, his hope that Monk’s razor tongue had not lost its edge plain in his face.

“If the operating room is still where it was, I shall find it for myself,” Monk replied. He surveyed the young man’s coat. “I see you have something yet to learn regarding accuracy with the knife. Unless, of course, you were intending to remove your own appendix? If so, I believe it is on the other side.”

The student flushed with anger, and his colleagues hid a smile. Monk strode on with Runcorn at his heels.

“How did you know that?” Runcorn asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I’ve been here before,” Monk answered, trying to remember exactly where the operating rooms were.

“About the . . . appendix!” Runcorn corrected.

“Man called Gray published a book on anatomy about three years ago,” Monk answered. “Hester has a copy. Here.” He reached the door he thought was the correct one, and went in.

It was empty but for Kristian Beck standing beside a table. He was in shirtsleeves, and there was blood on his rolled-up cuffs, but his hands were clean. It had been a long time since Monk had seen him, and he had forgotten the impact of the doctor’s appearance. He was in his early forties, of average height, with hair receding a little, but it was his eyes which commanded the attention. They were dark and of such remarkable intelligence as to be truly beautiful. His mouth suggested passion, but there was a sense of inner control, as if the intense emotions there were seldom unguarded.

He drew in his breath to protest the intrusion; then he recognized Monk and his face relaxed, but nothing could take from it the marks of shock.

“I’m sorry,” Monk said, and the sincerity with which he felt it was clear in his voice.

Kristian did not answer, and a glance at his face showed that for a moment loss overwhelmed him and he was incapable of speech.

It was Runcorn who salvaged the situation. “Dr. Beck, I’m Superintendent Runcorn. Unfortunately, we need to ask you several questions that can’t wait for a better day. Have you time now? I expect it’ll take an hour or so.”

Kristian composed himself. Perhaps it was a relief to be practical. “Yes, of course. Although I don’t know what I can tell you that will help.” He spoke with difficulty. “You did not tell me how she was killed. I saw her, of course . . . in the morgue. She looked . . . unhurt . . .”

Runcorn swallowed as if there were something blocking his throat. “Her neck was broken. It would have been very quick. I daresay she would have felt very little.”

“And the other woman?” Kristian said softly.

“The same.” Runcorn glanced around as if to find a more suitable place to speak.

“We won’t be interrupted here,” Kristian said wryly. “There’s no one else operating today.”

“Is that why you came?” Runcorn asked. “Surely, in the circumstances . . .”

“No,” Kristian said quickly. “They’d have found someone. I . . . I had no wish to sit around and . . . think. Work can be a blessing . . .”

“Yes.” Runcorn was embarrassed by grief, especially when he could understand but not share it. His discomfort was clear in his face, his eyes studiously avoiding the array of instruments laid out on the table near the wall, and in the way he stood, not knowing what to do with his hands. “Did you know Mrs. Beck was having her portrait painted by Argo Allardyce, Doctor?”

“Yes, of course. Her father commissioned it,” Kristian replied.

“Have you ever been to the studio or met Allardyce?”

“No.”

“Not interested in a portrait of your wife?”

“I have very little time, Superintendent. Medicine, like police work, is very demanding. I would have been interested to see it when it was completed.”

“Never met Allardyce?” Runcorn insisted.

“Not so far as I know.”

“He painted several pictures of her, did you know that?”

Kristian’s face was unreadable. “No, I didn’t. But it doesn’t surprise me. She was beautiful.”

“Would it surprise you if he was in love with her?”

“No.” A faint smile flickered around Kristian’s mouth.

“And that doesn’t anger you?”

“Unless he harassed her, Superintendent, why should it?”

“Are you sure he didn’t?”

The conversation was leading nowhere, and Runcorn was as aware of it as Monk. There was a note of desperation in his voice and his body was tense and awkward, as if the room oppressed him, the pain and the fear in it remaining after the events were over. He still kept his eyes fixed on Kristian, to avoid the other things he might unintentionally see, the blades and clamps and forceps.

“Did you know she was going to Acton Street that evening?” Monk asked.

Kristian hesitated. The question seemed to cause him some embarrassment. Monk saw Runcorn perceive it also.

“No,” Kristian said, glancing from one to the other of them. He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind.

“Where did you think she was going?” Monk hated pressing the issue, but the fact that it caused discomfort was an additional reason why he had to.

“We did not discuss it,” Kristian said, avoiding Monk’s eye. “I was visiting a patient.”

“The patient’s name?”

Kristian’s eyes flicked up; only momentarily was he startled. “Of course. It was Maude Oldenby, of Clarendon Square, just north of the Euston Road. I suppose you have to consider that I might have done this.” His body was tense, the muscles standing out in his neck and jaw. His face was ashen pale, but he did not protest. “Do I need to say that I did not?”

For the first time, Monk was embarrassed also. He spoke uncharacteristically. “There are regions in all of us unknown not only to others, but even to ourselves. Tell us something about her.”

There was absolute silence. The distant noises from beyond the door intruded, footsteps, the clink of a pail handle falling, indistinguishable voices.

“How do you describe anyone?” Kristian said helplessly. “She was . . .” He stopped again.

Thoughts raced through Monk’s mind about love and obsession, boredom, betrayal, confusion. “Where did you meet her?” he asked, hoping to give Kristian a place to begin.

Kristian looked up. “Vienna,” he said, his voice taking on a sudden vibrancy. “She was a widow. She had married very young, an Austrian diplomat in London. When he returned home, naturally she went with him. He died in 1846, and she remained in Vienna. She loved the city. It is like no other in the world.” He smiled very slightly, and there was a warmth in his face, his eyes soft. “The opera, the concerts, the fashion, the cafés, and of course the waltz! But I think most of all, the people. They have a wit, a gaiety, a unique sophistication, a mixture of east and west. She cared about them. She had dozens of friends. There was always something happening, something to fight for.”

“To fight for?” Monk said curiously. It was an odd word to use.

Kristian met his eyes. “I met her in 1848,” he said softly. “We were all caught up in the revolution.”

“Is that where you lived then?”

“Yes. I was born in Bohemia, but my father was Viennese, and we had returned there. I was working in one of the hospitals and I knew students of all sorts, not just medical. All over Europe—Paris, Berlin, Rome, Milan, Venice, even in Hungary—there was a great hope of new freedoms, a spirit of courage in the air. But of course, to us Vienna seemed to be the heart of it.”

“And Mrs. . . .”

“Elissa von Leibnitz,” Kristian supplied. “Yes, she was passionate for the cause of liberty. I knew no one with more courage, more daring to risk everything for victory.” He stopped. Monk could see in his face that he was reliving those days, sharp and fresh as if they were only just past. There was softness in his eyes, and pain. “She had a brighter spirit than anyone else. She could make us laugh . . . and hope . . .” He stopped again, and this time he turned away from them, hiding his face.

Monk glanced at Runcorn and saw an instant of pity so naked it stunned him. It did not belong to the man he thought he knew. It felt intrusive for him to have seen it. Then it was gone and nothing but embarrassment remained, and an anger for being forced to feel something he did not wish to, a confusion because things were not as he had supposed, and not easy. He rushed into speech to cover the silence and his own awkwardness. “Were you both involved in the revolutions in Europe then, Dr. Beck?”

“Yes.” Kristian straightened up, lifting his head a little, then turned around slowly to face Runcorn. “We fought against those who led the tyranny. We tried to overthrow it and win some freedom for ordinary people, a right to read and write as they believed. As you know, we failed.”

Runcorn cleared his throat. The politics of foreigners were not his concern. His business was crime there in London, and he wanted to remain on ground he understood. “So you came home . . . at least you came here, and Mrs. Beck . . . Mrs. . . . what did you say?”

“Frau von Leibnitz, but she was my wife by then,” Kristian replied.

“Yes . . . yes, of course. You came to London?” Runcorn said hastily.

“In 1849, yes.” A shadow passed over Kristian’s face.

“And practiced medicine here?”

“Yes.”

“And Mrs. Beck, what did she do? Did she make friends here again?” Runcorn asked, although Monk knew from the tone of his voice that he had no purpose in mind, he was foundering. What he wanted to know was were they happy, had Elissa taken lovers, but he did not know how to say it so the answer was of value.

“Yes, of course,” Kristian answered. “She was always interested in the arts, music and painting.”

“Was she interested in your work?” Monk interrupted.

Kristian was startled. “Medicine? No . . . no she wasn’t. It . . .” He changed his mind and remained silent.

“When did she first meet Allardyce?” Runcorn went on.

“I don’t know. About four or five months ago, I think.”

“She didn’t say?”

“Not that I remember.”

Runcorn questioned him for several more minutes but knew he was achieving nothing. When there was a sharp knock on the door and a medical student asked if Kristian was ready to see patients again, both Monk and Runcorn were happy to leave.

“Was Maude Oldenby the only patient you visited?” Runcorn asked as Kristian stood at the door.

The ghost of a smile touched Kristian’s lips. “No. I also saw Mrs. Mary Ann Jackson, of 21 Argyle Street.” He went out and closed the door quietly. They heard his footsteps down the corridor.

Neither of them remarked that Argyle Street was rather a long way from Haverstock Hill, but only a few hundred yards from Acton Street.

“He’s lying,” Runcorn said when they were outside on the pavement again.

“What about?” Monk said curiously.

“I don’t know,” Runcorn said, beginning to walk rapidly and avoiding Monk’s gaze. “But he is. Don’t you know what your wife is doing and who her friends are?”

“Yes . . . but . . .”

“But what? But nothing. He knows. He’s lying. Let’s take the omnibus back.”

They did, and Monk was glad of it; it made conversation impossible, and he was able to concentrate on his own thoughts. He would have defended Kristian to Runcorn, out of loyalty to Callandra, but he also was convinced that Kristian was lying. Without saying as much, he had affected to know almost nothing of Elissa’s daily life. Certainly he was dedicated to medicine, but he was also a warm and emotional man. He was deeply moved by his wife’s death, and when he had spoken of their days in Vienna the passion of it was still there in him, taking him back to it whether he wished or not.

What had happened since then? It was thirteen years. How much did people change in that time? What did they learn of each other that became unbearable? Infatuation died, but did love? What was the difference? Did one learn that too late? Was it Elissa that Kristian still so obviously cared for, or the memory of the time when they had fought for liberty and high idealism on the barricades of Vienna?

Did Callandra know anything of this? Had she ever even met Elissa? Or, like Monk, had she imagined some tedious woman with whom Kristian was imprisoned in an honorable but intolerably lonely marriage of convenience? He had a cold, gripping fear that it was the latter.

What if she had then discovered this woman Argo Allardyce had seen, the woman whose beauty haunted him and stared out of the canvas to capture the imagination of the onlooker?

What did one love in a woman? Love was surely for honor and gentleness, courage, laughter and wisdom, and a hundred thoughts shared. But infatuation was for what the heart thought it saw, for what the vision believed. A woman with a face like Elissa Beck’s could have provoked anything!

Hester went to the hospital early, in part to see how Mary Ellsworth was progressing. She found her weak and a little nauseous, but with no fever, and no swelling or suppuration around the wound. However, even if the operation were entirely successful, she knew even better than Kristian did that that was only the beginning of healing. Mary’s real illness lay in her mind, the fears and anxieties, the introspection and the numbing boredom that crippled her days.

Hester spoke with her for a little while, trying to encourage her, then went to find Callandra. She looked in the patients’ waiting rooms and was told by a young nurse that she had seen Callandra in the front hall, but when Hester got there she met only Fermin Thorpe, looking angry and important. He seemed about to speak to Hester, then with a curt gesture of irritation he turned on his heel and went the other way. Callandra came from one of the wards, her hair flying up in a gray-brown streamer, the main coil of it askew.

“That man is an interfering nincompoop!” she said furiously, her face flushed, her eyes bright. “He wants to reduce the allowance of porter every day for nurses. I don’t approve of drunkenness any more than he does, but he’d get far better work out of them if he increased their food ration! It’s drink on an empty stomach that does it.” She blinked. “Talking about stomachs, how is Mary Ellsworth?”

Hester smiled a little bleakly. “Miserable, but there’s no infection in the wound.”

“And no heart in her,” Callandra said for her. All the time she was speaking her eyes were seeking Hester’s, looking desperately for some reassurance, some inner comfort that this nightmare would be brief and any moment they would all waken and find it was explained, proved sad, but some kind of release.

Hester longed to be able to tell her so, but she could not bring herself to, even for a day or two’s ease. “No, no heart,” she agreed. “But perhaps when it doesn’t hurt quite so much she’ll be better.”

“No more laudanum?” Callandra asked, pity softening her face.

“No. It’s too easy to depend on it. And it can be caustic, which is the last thing she needs with that wound in her stomach. Believe me, she’d sooner have the pain of the moment!”

Callandra hesitated, as if she were reading double and triple meanings into the words, then she smiled at her own foolishness and poked her flying hair back into the knot on the back of her head and went purposefully towards the apothecary’s room, leaving Hester to take a quick cup of tea with one of the nurses and then catch the omnibus back to Grafton Street.

In the afternoon Hester busied herself with housework, a large part of which was quite unnecessary. Her housekeeper came in three days a week and did most of the laundry, ironing and scrubbing. Everything that mattered had already been done, but she was too restless to sit still, so she began to clean out the kitchen cupboards, setting everything from them onto the table. Surely it must have been the artists’ model who was killed, and Kristian’s wife the unfortunate witness? It was the only answer that made sense.

Except that of course it wasn’t obvious at all.

She had every cupboard empty and a bowl full of soapy water on the bench, ready to begin scrubbing, when the doorbell rang and she was obliged to go and answer it.

Charles was on the step, looking even more haggard than three days ago, with hollows around his eyes like bruises, and a cut on his jaw, but this time he was at no loss for words.

“Oh, Hester, I’m so glad you’re home.” He came inside, moving stiffly, without waiting for her to ask. “I was afraid you might be at a hospital . . . or something. Are you still . . . no, I suppose you’re not. I mean . . . it’s . . .” He stood in the center of the room, and took a couple of deep breaths.

Hester interrupted him. “When you followed Imogen the other evening, you said it was somewhere in the direction of the Royal Free Hospital, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Swinton Street. Why?”

“Do you now know of someone she might have been visiting?” Hester asked.

“No.” The word came so quickly it almost cut off the question, but if anything, the fear in his eyes increased. He started to say something else. It seemed to be a denial, then he stopped. “I suppose you heard that there was a double murder in Acton Street, just beyond the hospital?” He was watching her intently.

“Yes, a doctor’s wife and an artists’ model.”

“Oh my God!” His legs folded, and he sank down into the armchair.

For a moment she was afraid he had collapsed. “Charles!” She knelt in front of him, clasping his hands, intensely relieved to feel strength in them. She was about to say that the locality didn’t mean anything and could have no connection with Imogen when, like a drench of cold water, she realized that he was afraid that it did. He was lying by misdirection and evasion. He was refusing to look at whatever it was that hovered just beyond his words.

“Charles!” she started again, more urgently. “What do you know about where she is going? You followed her to Swinton Street, which is a block from Acton Street . . .”

He jerked his head up. “That’s not where she went the night of the murders!” he said abruptly. “I know that, because I followed her myself.”

“Where did she go?” she asked.

“South of High Holborn,” he said immediately. “Down Drury Lane, just beyond the theater, nowhere near the top of the Gray’s Inn Road.” He stared at her almost defiantly.

Why was he so quick to deny that Imogen had been there?

She stood up and moved away, turning her back to him so he would not see the anxiety in her face. “I understand they were killed in an artist’s studio,” she said almost lightly. “The model worked for him and spent quite a lot of time there, and the doctor’s wife went for a sitting because he was painting a portrait of her.”

“Then the artist did it,” he said quickly. “The newspapers didn’t say that.”

“Apparently, he wasn’t there. A misunderstanding, I suppose.”

He sat silently.

“So you don’t need to worry,” she continued, as if she had dismissed the matter. “Anyone walking about in the evening is in no more danger in Swinton Street than anywhere else.”

She heard his intake of breath. He was frightened, confused, and now feeling even more alone. Would it persuade him at last to be more open?

But the silence remained.

Her patience broke and she swung around to face him. “What is it you are afraid of, Charles? Do you think Imogen knows someone who might be involved with this? Argo Allardyce, for example?”

“No! Why on earth should she know him?” But the color washed up his face, and he must have felt its heat. “I don’t know!” he burst out. “I don’t know what she’s doing, Hester! One day she’s elated, the next she’s in despair. She dresses in her best clothes and goes out without telling me where. She lies about things, about where she’s been, who she’s visited. She gets unsigned messages about meeting someone, and she knows from the handwriting who it is and where to go!”

He fished in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, offering it to her. She took it. It was simply an agreement to meet, no place given, and unsigned. Charles pressed his hands over his face, leaving white marks on his cheeks, and he winced sharply when he touched his jaw. “She’s changed so much I can hardly recognize her sometimes, and I don’t know why!” he said wretchedly. “She won’t tell me anything . . . she doesn’t trust me anymore. What can I think?” His eyes were hot and desperate, begging for help.

Hester heard all the details of what he said, but overriding it all she heard the panic in him, the knowledge that he had lost control and for the first time in his life his emotions were in a chaos he could not hide.

“I don’t know,” she said gently, going over to him again. “But I’ll do everything I can to find out, I promise you.” She looked at him more closely, seeing the darkening bruises. “What did you do to your face?”

“I . . . I fell. It doesn’t matter. Hester . . .”

“I know,” she said gently. “You think perhaps you would rather not find out the truth, but that isn’t so. As long as you don’t know, you will imagine, and all the worst things will be there in your mind.”

“I suppose . . . but . . .” He stood up awkwardly, as if his joints hurt. “I’m really not sure, Hester. Perhaps I’m worrying . . . I mean . . . women can be . . .”

She gave him a withering look.

“Well . . . not you, of course . . .” He foundered again, his face pale, blotches of dull color on his cheeks.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she contradicted. “I can be as irrational as anybody else, or at least I can appear so to a man who doesn’t understand me. If you recall, Papa thought so. But that was because he didn’t wish to understand that I wanted something to do just as much as you or James.”

“Oh, far more!” The faint ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “I never wanted anything with the fierceness you did. I think you terrified him.”

“I shall go and see Imogen this afternoon,” she promised.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “At least warn her. Tell her how dangerous it is. She doesn’t listen to me.”

When she arrived in Endsleigh Gardens she was let in by Nell, the parlormaid she had known for years.

“Oh, Miss Hester!” Nell looked taken aback. “I’m afraid Mrs. Latterly’s out at the minute. But come in. She’ll be back in half an hour or so, and I’m sure she’d want to see you. Can I get you anything? A cup of tea?”

“No, thank you, Nell, but I will wait, thank you,” Hester accepted, and followed her to the drawing room to possess herself with patience until Imogen should arrive. She sat down as Nell left, then, the moment after the door was closed, stood up again. She was too restless to remain on the sofa with her hands folded. She began to wander around the room, looking at the familiar furniture and pictures.

How could she gain Imogen’s confidence sufficiently to learn what it was that had changed her? Surely her husband’s sister was the last person Imogen would trust with the confidence that she was betraying him. And if Hester asked her a question to which the answer was a lie, it would only deepen the gulf between them.

She stopped in front of a small watercolor next to the mantelpiece. It was attractive, but she did not recognize it. Somehow in her mind she had seen a portrait there, a woman wearing a Renaissance pearl headdress.

She lifted it slightly and saw underneath a darker oval on the wallpaper. She was right, the portrait had been there. She looked around the room and did not find it. She went through to the dining room and it was not there, either, nor was it in the hall. It hardly mattered, but its absence occupied her mind while she waited.

She noticed other small differences: a vase she did not recognize; a silver snuffbox, which had been on the mantelpiece for years, was not there now; a lovely alabaster horse was gone from the side table near the hall door.

She was still wondering about the changes when she heard the front door close, a murmur of voices, and a moment later Imogen’s footsteps across the hall.

She threw the door open and swept in, her skirts wide, a lace fichu around her neck. Her dark eyes were shining and there was a flush on her cheeks. “Hello, Hester,” she said cheerfully. “Twice in the space of four days! Have you suddenly taken to visiting everyone you know? Anyway, it’s very pleasant to see you.” She gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then stepped back to look at the table. “No tea? I suppose it’s far too early, but surely you’d like something? Nell says you have been here for three quarters of an hour. I’m so sorry. I’ll speak to her . . .”

“Please don’t,” Hester said quickly. “She offered me tea and I declined. And don’t go to any trouble now. I expect you have only just come from luncheon?”

“What?” Imogen looked for a moment as if nothing had been farther from her mind, then she laughed. It was an excited, happy sound. “Yes . . . of course.” She seemed too restless to sit down, moving around the room with extraordinary energy. “Then if you don’t want to eat or drink, what can I offer you? I’m quite sure you don’t want gossip. You don’t know any of the people I do. Anyway, they are the most crashing bores most of the time. They say and do the same things every day, and nearly all of them are completely pointless.” She whirled around, sending her skirts flying. “What is it, Hester? Are you collecting support for some charity or other?” She was speaking rapidly, the words falling over each other. “Let me guess! A hospital? Do you want me to see if I know any friends whose daughters want to become respectable, hardworking young ladies in a noble cause? Miss Nightingale is such a heroine they just might! Although it’s not quite as fashionable as it was at the end of the war. After all, we aren’t fighting with anyone just now, or are we? Of course, there’s always America, but that’s really none of our business.” Her eyes were bright and she was staring at Hester expectantly.

“No, it never occurred to me to solicit help from any of your friends,” Hester replied with a slight edge. “People have to go into nursing because they care about it, not because anyone asked them, or they couldn’t marry the people they wished to.”

“Oh, please!” Imogen said with a sharp wave of her hand. “You sound so pompous. I know you don’t mean to, but really . . .”

Hester kept her temper with difficulty. “Do you know Argo Allardyce?” she asked.

Imogen’s eyebrows rose. “What a marvelous name! I don’t think so. Who is he?”

“An artist whose model has just been murdered,” Hester replied, watching her closely.

“I don’t read newspapers.” Imogen shrugged very slightly. “I’m sorry, of course, but things like that happen.”

“And a doctor’s wife was murdered at the same time,” Hester continued, watching her face. “In Acton Street, just around the corner from Swinton Street.”

Imogen froze, her body stiff, her eyes wide. “A doctor’s wife?”

“Yes.” Hester felt a flutter of fear inside her like nausea. “Elissa Beck.”

Imogen was sheet white. Hester was afraid she was going to faint. “I’m sorry,” she said swiftly, going to Imogen to support her in case she staggered or fell.

Imogen waved her away sharply and stepped back to the sofa, sinking down on it, her skirts puffing around her. She put her hands up to cover her face for a moment. “I was there,” she said hoarsely, her voice scratching as if her throat ached. “I mean, just around the corner! I . . . I called on a friend. How awful!”

Hester hated pursuing matters now, but the thought of Charles drove her. “What kind of friend?”

Imogen looked up, startled. “What?”

“What kind of friend do you have in that area?”

A flash of temper lit Imogen’s eyes. “That is not your concern, Hester! I have no intention of explaining myself to you, and it is intrusive of you to ask!”

“I’m trying to save you from getting involved in a very ugly investigation,” Hester said sharply. “You were in Swinton Street, one block from where the murders took place. What were you doing there, and can you explain it satisfactorily?”

“To you? Certainly not. But I was not murdering people! Anyway, how do you know where I was?” This was a demand, challenging and offended.

There was no reasonable answer but the truth, and that was going to make things worse, perhaps stop all practical help in the future.

“Because you were seen,” Hester replied. That was a good compromise.

“By somebody who told you?” Imogen said disbelievingly. “Who would you know in Swinton Street?”

Hester smiled. “If it’s respectable enough for you, why not for me?”

Imogen retreated very slightly. “And are you visiting your friends in Swinton Street as well, in case they are investigated?”

“Since they live there, there’s not much point,” Hester retorted, going along with the invention. “And you are my sister-in-law, which is rather more than just a friend.”

Imogen’s expression softened a little. “You don’t need to worry about me. I had nothing whatsoever to do with murdering anyone. I was just shocked, that’s all.”

“For heaven’s sake! I never imagined you did,” Hester said, and the moment she said it, she realized it was not true. The darkest fear inside her was that somehow Imogen had been involved, and worse, that she had drawn Charles in as well, although she could not think how.

“Good.” Imogen’s eyes were still wide and bright. “Is that what you really came for? Not luncheon? Or afternoon tea? Or a little gossip about the theater, or fashion, but to find out if I was involved in some sordid murder?”

“I came to try to help you stay out of the investigation,” Hester said, with anger, the deeper because it was unjustified.

“Thank you for your concern; I can care for my own reputation,” Imogen replied stiffly. “But had I witnessed anything to do with the murders, no one could protect me from the necessity of doing my duty regarding it.”

“No . . .” Hester felt foolish. She was caught in a trap of her own words, and it was perfectly apparent that Imogen knew it. “Then I’m sure you have other calls to make, or visitors to receive,” she went on awkwardly, trying to retreat with some grace and knowing she was failing.

“I suppose you saw it as your duty to come,” Imogen replied, swirling towards the door to show her out. Her words could have meant anything at all, or nothing, merely the formula for saying good-bye.

Hester found herself out in the street feeling inept and still afraid for both Charles and Imogen, and with no idea what to do next to be any help at all. She was not even sure whether she wanted to tell Monk anything about it.

She started to walk in the mild, damp breeze, knowing that the fog could easily close in again by nightfall.

Monk and Runcorn went from Haverstock Hill to Ebury Street to see Fuller Pendreigh, Elissa Beck’s father. It was a courtesy as much as anything. They did not expect him to have information regarding the crime, but it was possible she might have confided in him some fear or anxiety. Regardless of that, he deserved to be assured that they were giving the tragedy the greatest possible attention.

The house in Ebury Street was magnificent, as fitted a senior Queen’s Counsel with high expectations of becoming a Member of Parliament. Of course, at the moment the curtains were half lowered and there was sawdust in the street to muffle the sound of horses’ hooves. The house was further marked out from its neighbors by the black crepe over the door to signify the death of a member of the family, even though she had not been resident there.

A footman with a black armband received them unsmilingly and conducted them through the magnificent hallway to the somber, green-velveted morning room. The curtains hung richly draped, caught up with thick, silk cords. The walls were wood paneled, the color of old sherry, and one wall was entirely covered with bookshelves. There was a fine painting of a naval battle above the mantelpiece; a small brass plate proclaimed it to be Copenhagen, one of Nelson’s triumphs.

They waited nearly half an hour before Fuller Pendreigh came in and closed the door softly behind him. He was a very striking man, lean and graceful, far taller than average, although standing to his full height seemed to cost him an effort now. But it was his head which commanded most attention. His features were fine and regular, his eyes clear blue under level brows and his fair hair, untouched by gray and of remarkable thickness, sweeping up and back from a broad brow. Only his mouth was individual and less than handsome, but its tight-lipped look now might have been the shock of sudden and terrible bereavement. He was dressed totally in black except for his shirt.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said stiffly. “Have you news?”

“Good morning, sir,” Runcorn said, then introduced them both. He had no intention of allowing Monk to take the lead on this occasion. It was very much police business, and Monk was there only as a courtesy and would be reminded of such should he forget it. “I am afraid there is little so far,” he went on. “But we hoped you might be able to tell us rather more about Allardyce and save time, as it were.”

Pendreigh’s fair eyebrows rose. “Allardyce? You think he might be involved? It seems likely, on the face of it. The model was surely the intended victim, and my poor daughter simply chanced to arrive at the worst possible moment . . .”

“We must look at all possibilities, sir,” Runcorn replied. “Mrs. Beck was a very beautiful woman. I daresay she awakened admiration in a number of gentlemen. Allardyce certainly appears to have had intense feelings for her.”

“She was far more than merely beautiful, Mr. Runcorn,” Pendreigh said, controlling the emotion in his voice with obvious difficulty. “She had courage and laughter and imagination. She was the most wonderfully alive person I ever knew.” His voice dropped a little to an intense gravity. “And she had a sense of justice and morality which drove her to sublime acts—an honesty of vision.”

There was no possible answer, and it seemed trivial and intrusive to express a regret which could be no more than superficial compared with Pendreigh’s grief.

“I believe she met Dr. Beck when she was living in Vienna,” Monk remarked.

Pendreigh looked at him with slight surprise. “Yes. Her first husband was Austrian. He died young, and Elissa remained in Vienna. That was when she really found herself.” He took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. He did not look at them but somewhere into the distance. “I had always believed her to be remarkable, but only then did I realize how totally unselfish she was to sacrifice her time and youth, even risk her life, to fight beside the oppressed people of her adopted country in their struggle for freedom.”

Monk glanced at Runcorn, but neither of them interrupted.

“She joined a group of revolutionaries in April of ’48,” Pendreigh went on. “She wrote to me about them, so full of courage and enthusiasm.” He turned a little away from them, and his voice grew huskier, but he did not stop. “Isn’t it absurd that she should face death every day, carry messages into the heart of the enemy offices and salons . . . walk through the streets and alleys, even over the barricades in October, and live through it all with little more than a few scratches and bruises—and then die in a London artist’s studio?” He came to an abrupt halt, his voice choking.

Runcorn waited a moment as he felt decency required, glancing severely at Monk to forbid him from interrupting.

“Is that where she met Dr. Beck?” he said at last. “In a hospital there?”

“What?” Pendreigh shook his head. “No, not in a hospital. He was a revolutionary as well.”

Monk drew his breath in sharply.

Pendreigh looked at him, frowning a little. “You only see him now, Mr. Monk. He seems very quiet, very single-minded in serving the poor and the sick of our city. But thirteen years ago he was as passionate for revolution as anyone.” He smiled very slightly as memory stirred, and for a few moments the present was swallowed in the past. “Elissa used to tell me how brave he was. She admired courage intensely. . . .” A strange expression of pain filled his eyes and pulled his lips tight, as if a bitter memory momentarily drowned out everything else.

Then he moved his hands very slightly. “But she certainly wasn’t foolish or unaware of the dangers of speaking out against tyranny, or of making friends with others who did. She marched with the students and the ordinary people in the streets, against the emperor’s soldiers. She saw people killed, young men and women who only wanted the freedom to read and write as they chose. She knew it could be she at any time. Bullets make no moral choices.”

“She sounds like a very fine lady,” Runcorn said unhappily.

Pendreigh turned to him. “You must suppose me prejudiced in my opinion. Of course I am; she was my daughter. But ask anyone who was there, especially Kristian. He would tell you the same. And I am aware of her failings as well. She was impatient, she did not tolerate foolishness or indecision. Too often she did not listen to the views of others, and she was hasty in her judgment, but when she was wrong she apologized.” His voice softened and he blinked rapidly. “She was a creature of high idealism, Superintendent, the imagination to put herself in the place of those less fortunate and to see how their lot could be made better.”

“No wonder Dr. Beck fell in love with her,” Runcorn said.

Monk was afraid he was beginning to suspect Kristian of jealousy, because he could not keep the thought from his own mind.

“He was far from the only one.” Pendreigh sighed. “It was not always easy to be so admired. It gives one . . . too much to live up to.”

“But she chose Dr. Beck, not any of the others.” Monk made it a statement. He saw Runcorn’s warning look and ignored it. “Do you know why?”

Pendreigh thought for several moments before he replied. “I’m trying to remember what she wrote at the time.” He drew his fair brows into a frown of concentration. “I think he had the same kind of resolve that she did, the nerve to go through with what he planned even when circumstances changed and the cost became higher.” He looked at Monk intently. “He was a very complex man, a disciple of medicine and its challenges, and yet at the same time of great personal physical courage. Yes, I think that was it, the sheer nerve in the face of danger. That appealed to her. She had a certain pity for people who wavered, she entirely understood fear. . . .”

Monk looked quickly at Runcorn and saw the puzzlement in his face. This all seemed so far away from an artist’s studio in Acton Street and the beautiful woman they had seen in the morgue. And yet it was easily imaginable of the woman in the painting of the funeral in blue.

Pendreigh shivered, but he was standing a little straighter, his head high. “I remember one incident she wrote about to me. It was in May, but still there was danger in the air. For months there had been hardly anything to buy in the shops. The emperor had left Vienna. The police had banished all unemployed servants from the city, but most of them had come back, one way or another.” Anger sharpened his voice. “There was chaos because the secret police had been done away with and their duties taken over by the National Guard and the Academic Legion. There was an immediate crime wave, and anyone remotely well-dressed was likely to be attacked in the street. That was when she first noticed Kristian. Armed only with a pistol, and quite alone, he faced a mob and made them back down. She said he was magnificent. He could easily have walked the other way, effected not to notice, and no one would necessarily have thought the worse of him.”

“You said he was complex,” Monk prompted. “That sounds like a fairly simple heroism to me.”

Pendreigh stared into the distance. “I knew only what she told me. But even the most idealistic battles are seldom as easy as imagined by those not involved. There are good people on the enemy side also, and at times weak and evil people on one’s own.”

Runcorn shifted position a little uncomfortably, but he did not interrupt, nor did he look away from Pendreigh.

“And battle requires sacrifice,” Pendreigh continued, “not always of oneself, sometimes of others. She told me what a fine leader Kristian was, decisive, farsighted. Where some men would see what would happen one or two moves ahead, he could see a dozen. There was strength in him that set him apart from those less able to keep a cause in mind and understand the cost of victory as well as that of defeat.” His voice was edged with admiration, and now even his shoulders were straight, as if an inner courage had been imparted to him by the thought.

Monk admired it, too, but he was confused. Pendreigh was painting a picture of a man utterly unlike the compassionate and scrupulous person Monk had seen in the fever hospital in Limehouse, or all that he had heard from Callandra. The leader of such inner certainty and strength was of a nature unlike the doctor who labored without judgment of any kind, risking his own life as much for the fever- and lice-ridden beggar as for the nurse like Enid Ravensbrook. How had Hester seen him? A man of compassion, idealism, dedication, moral courage perhaps, but not a man capable of the ruthless leadership Pendreigh described. The Kristian Beck that Hester saw would not have raised his hand against anyone, much less with a sword or a gun in it.

He looked at Runcorn. His face was only slightly puckered. But then he did not know Kristian, he had not even met him until today. This picture that Pendreigh had received from Elissa, and re-created for them, did not contradict any image in his mind.

Could Kristian have changed so much in thirteen years? Or was he a man of two natures, and showed the one that suited his purpose or the need of the time?

Runcorn was staring at him impatiently, waiting for him to say something.

Monk looked directly at Pendreigh. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss, sir. Mrs. Beck was obviously a person of extraordinary courage and honor.”

“Thank you,” Pendreigh said, turning at last to face them fully. “I feel as if the world is darkening, and there will not now be another summer. She had such laughter, such hunger for life. I have no other family left. My wife has been gone many years, and my sister also.” He said the words with very little expression, which made their impact the greater. It was not self-pity but a bleak statement of fact. He spoke with neither courage nor despair but a kind of numbness.

Monk was overtaken by anger on Pendreigh’s behalf, for the profound foolishness of an action which in a moment’s violence had robbed him of so much. He turned to Runcorn, expecting to see him preparing to make their excuses and leave. He was startled to see a confusion of emotions in his face, embarrassment and alarm, an acute knowledge that he was out of his depth. Monk turned back to Pendreigh. “I assume that had you any idea who might be responsible you would have spoken of it?” he asked.

“What? Oh, yes, of course I would. I can only imagine that there was some quarrel with the other poor woman, a lover or whatever, and Elissa was unfortunate enough to witness it.”

“You commissioned the portrait?” Monk continued.

“Yes. Allardyce is a very fine artist.”

“What do you know about him personally?”

“Nothing. But I’ve seen his work in several places. I wasn’t interested in his morality, only his skill. My daughter did not sit alone for him, Mr. Monk, if that is what you are wondering. She took a woman friend with her.”

“Do you know who?”

“No, of course I don’t! I imagine it was not always the same person. If I knew who it was this time, I would have told you. I assume she went to some assignation of her own, and is too shocked and ashamed of having left Elissa to come forward yet.”

Runcorn turned abruptly to Monk, annoyance in his eyes. He should have thought of that himself. “Naturally!” he said, looking back to Pendreigh. “We’ll see if we can learn who it was. We will ask Dr. Beck for a list of possibilities. Thank you, sir. We’ll not disturb you any further.”

“Please . . . let me know what else you learn?” Pendreigh asked, his face stiff with the effort of control.

“Yes sir. As soon as there is anything,” Runcorn promised. “Good day.”

Outside on the pavement, Runcorn started to speak again, then changed his mind and marched down the street in the hope of finding a hansom. Monk followed after, deep in thought.