Funeral in Blue

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What did you learn from the Father?” Ferdi asked Monk eagerly on the following morning as they sat over coffee in one of the numerous cafes. Vienna served more kinds of coffee than Monk knew existed, with or without chocolate added, with or without cream, sometimes whipped cream, or hot milk, or laced with rum. This morning the wind scythed in from the Hungarian plains, touching his skin like a knife, and Monk felt an even deeper coldness inside him. He had ordered coffee with chocolate and thick cream for both of them.

Ferdi was waiting for an answer. Monk had wrestled long into the night, much of it when he should have been asleep, worrying how much to tell the boy of the truth he was now certain of, even though he had no proof and no one who would testify. Did it really have anything to do with Elissa’s death?

“Mr. Monk?” Ferdi prompted, putting down his coffee and staring across the table.

He needed Ferdi’s help. “He didn’t exactly tell me,” Monk answered slowly. “He knew many things about the time, the people, but some of them were told to him under the seal of the confessional.”

“So you learned nothing?” Ferdi said, his young face filling with disappointment. “I. . I was sure you had discovered something terrible. You seem. . different, as if all kinds of things had changed. . feelings. .” He stopped, confused and a little embarrassed that he had intruded on inner pain without thinking.

Monk smiled very slightly and stared at the cream slowly melting into his coffee. “You can guess this much from my face, and my manner?”

Ferdi hesitated. “Well. . I thought I could.”

“You can,” Monk agreed. “And if I did not deny it, and you asked me questions, made good guesses as to what it was I know, would you say that I had told you anything?” He looked up and met Ferdi’s eyes.

“Oh!” Ferdi’s face filled with understanding. “You mean the Father couldn’t tell you, but you know from his manner, his feelings, that you were right. I see.” His eyes clouded. “And what was it? It was hard, wasn’t it? Something terrible about your friend, Dr. Beck?”

“No, only slightly shabby, and he knew it and was ashamed. What was tragic and destructive”-he could not find a word powerful enough for the darkness he felt-“was about Elissa von Leibnitz. We didn’t live here in those days, we haven’t stood in her place, so we shouldn’t judge easily, and God knows, I have done many things of which I am ashamed. .”

“What?” Ferdi sounded almost frightened. “What did she do?”

Monk looked at him very steadily. “She was in love with Dr. Beck, and she knew that the Jewish girl Hanna Jakob was in love with him also, and she too was brave and generous. . and perhaps she was funny or kind. . I don’t know. Elissa betrayed her to the authorities, who tortured her to death.” He saw the color drain from Ferdi’s skin, leaving his face ashen and his eyes hollow. “She expected Hanna to break, to tell them where the others were, and she saw to it that they escaped long before they could have been caught,” he went on. “She believed Hanna would crack, and only be hurt, not killed. I don’t think she wanted anyone killed. . just broken. . shamed.”

Ferdi stared at him, tears suddenly brimming and sliding down his cheeks. He stumbled for words, and lost them.

“We all do bad things,” Monk said slowly, pushing his fingers through his hair. “She may have repented of it, or found it impossible to live except with terrible pain. It seems that after that no risk was too great for her, no mission too dangerous. We can’t say whether it was glory or redemption she was looking for. . or simply a way out.”

“What are you going to do?” Ferdi asked, his voice a whisper.

“Finish my coffee,” Monk replied. “Then I’m going to look for Hanna Jakob’s family. Father Geissner said they live somewhere in Leopoldstadt-he thinks, on Heinestrasse.”

Ferdi straightened himself up. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. At least we know where to start.”

Monk had already considered whether to send a letter introducing himself once they found the address, but he had already been in Vienna for several days, and he had no idea what had been happening in London. He could not afford the delay. Also, it would give Herr Jakob the opportunity to refuse to see him, and he could not afford that, either. He drank the last of his coffee and stood up. Ferdi left his and stood up also, facing the door and the wind outside.

It took them a surprisingly long time to trace the Jakob family. They had moved, and it was afternoon, the lamplighters out in the streets, the lights flickering on like a ribbon of jewels in the windy darkness, when they finally arrived at the right house on the Malzgasse.

The house itself was inconspicuous in an area of very similar several-story dwellings. A smartly uniformed maid answered the door, and Monk gave her the speech already prepared in his mind. Through Ferdi he told her that he was a friend of someone who had fought with their daughter Hanna in the uprising thirteen years ago and whose admiration for her had altered his life. Since Monk was in Vienna he wished to call and carry greetings, and if possible take news of them back to London. Not speaking German, he had brought a young friend to interpret for him. He hoped it did not sound as stiff as he felt.

The maid looked a trifle startled, as if he had come at an inappropriate time, but she did not rebuff him. He had thought that half past four on a weekday afternoon was quite suitable for visiting. Certainly it would have been in London. It was an hour when women would be receiving, and he thought Hanna’s mother might be the one to have observed more of Kristian, and certainly more of the relationships between people. She might well invite him to stay until Herr Jakob returned. It was far too early to disturb anyone at their evening meal.

He looked around the room where they had been asked to wait. It was warm and comfortable, decorated in excellent taste, a little old-fashioned, but the furniture was of fine quality, and his policeman’s eye estimated the value of the miniatures on the walls to be higher than one would find in most private houses, even of the well-to-do. The larger pictures over the fireplace he thought to be very pleasant but of less worth, either artistically or intrinsically.

The maid returned and said that Mr. and Mrs. Jakob would see them both, if they would follow her.

Going into the parlor, Monk had a sudden and sharp awareness of being in a different culture. This was not Austria as he had seen it; it was something intimate and far older. He glanced at Ferdi and saw the same look in his face, surprise and slight discomfort. It was a timeless room for family, not strangers. There were two beautiful, tall candles burning. Herr Jakob was a slender man with dark, shining eyes, a black cap on the crown of his head.

With a jolt of embarrassment, scraps of memory came back to Monk, and he realized why his visit had occasioned such surprise. This was Friday evening, near sundown, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. He could hardly have chosen a worse time to interrupt a family meal-and a religious celebration. It was an act of the greatest courtesy that they had received him at all.

“I’m sorry. .” he said awkwardly. “I have been traveling and I forgot what day it is. I am sorry, Frau Jakob. This is an intrusion. I can return tomorrow. . or. . or is that even worse?” How could he explain to them his urgency without prejudicing anything they might tell him?

Herr Jakob looked at him very directly, his eyes unflinching, but his deep emotion was impossible to miss. “You said that you are here on behalf of a friend of my daughter, Hanna. If that is true, Herr Monk, then you are welcome at any time, even on Shabbat.” He had replied in English, heavily accented but easily understandable. Monk need not have brought Ferdi after all.

Monk framed his answer carefully. “It is true, sir.” Only afterwards did he even realize he had deferred to this man by using the word sir. It had come naturally. “I am a friend of Kristian Beck, who is at present in serious difficulty, and I am in Vienna to see if I can be of some help to him. It is urgent, or I would more willingly delay disturbing you.”

“I am sorry to hear he is in difficulties,” Herr Jakob replied. “He is a brave man who was willing to risk all for his beliefs, which is the most any of us can do.”

“But his beliefs were different from yours?” Monk said quickly, then wondered why he had.

“No,” Herr Jakob replied with a faint smile. “Politically at least, they were the same.”

Monk did not need to ask about the other side of ethical values. He had met Josef and Magda Beck, and seen the depth and fervor of their Catholicism. He had also seen that, for whatever reason, they countenanced in their house friends who were profoundly anti-Jewish. Whatever their beliefs, their words tipped over from discrimination into persecution. The first allowed the second, and therefore was party to it, even if only by silence. A sudden memory flashed into his mind, sharp as spring sunlight in the rectory front room, the vicar himself standing quoting John Milton to a twelve-year-old Monk, teaching him great English literature. “They also serve who only stand and wait.” But now it came differently to his mind: “They also sin who only stand and watch.”

He came back to the present candlelit room in Vienna with the daylight fading rapidly beyond the windows, and this quiet couple waiting for him to say something to make sense of his visit here, and their courtesy in receiving both him and Ferdi, and welcoming them on this of all days. Anything but the truth would insult them all, he as much as they, and perhaps Kristian and Hanna as well.

“Did you know Elissa von Leibnitz?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jakob answered. There was profound feeling in his face and in the timbre of his voice, but Monk was unable to read it. Had they resented her, known that their daughter had been picked for the errand that cost her life, rather than Elissa, because Elissa, the Aryan Catholic, was valued more, her life held more important than that of Hanna, the Jewess? Immeasurably worse than that, did they know or guess that she had betrayed their daughter to a pointless death? But he had left himself no way to retreat.

“Did you know that Kristian married her?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

Monk could feel the heat burning his face. He was ashamed for people he had not even known, far less shared acts or judgments with, and yet he felt tarred with the same brush. He was aware of Ferdi next to him and that perhaps he felt the same embarrassment.

“Will you eat with us?” Frau Jakob asked softly, also in English. “The meal is nearly ready.”

Monk was touched, and oddly, he was also afraid. There was a sense of tradition, of belonging, in this quiet room, which attracted him more than he was able to cope with, or to dismiss as irrelevant to him. He wanted to refuse, to make some excuse to come back at another time, but there was no other time. Kristian’s trial would begin any day, or might already have begun, and he was no real step nearer to the truth of who had killed Elissa, or why. Certainly he had nothing to take back to Callandra.

He glanced at Ferdi, then back at Frau Jakob. “Thank you,” he said.

She smiled and excused herself to attend to matters in the kitchen.

The meal was brought in, a slow-cooked stew in a deep, earthenware pot, and served with prayers and thanksgiving, which included the servants, who seemed to join as a matter of custom. Only after that was the conversation resumed. A peace had settled in the room, a sense of timelessness, a continuity of belief which spanned the millennia. Some of these same words must have been spoken over the breaking of bread centuries before the birth of Christ, with the same reverence for the creation of the earth, for the release of a nation from bondage, and above all the same certainty of the God who presided over all things. These people knew who they were and understood their identity. Monk envied them that, and it frightened him. He noticed that Ferdi also was moved by it-and disturbed, because it reached something in him older than conscious thought or teaching.

“What is it that we can do for Kristian, or Elissa?” Herr Jakob asked.

Monk spoke the truth without even considering otherwise. “Elissa was killed. . murdered. .” He disregarded their shock. “Kristian has been charged, because he appears to have had motive, and he cannot prove that he was elsewhere. I don’t believe he would have done such a thing, no matter what the provocation, but I have no evidence to put forward in his defense.”

Herr Jakob frowned. “You say ’provocation,’ Herr Monk. What is it that you refer to?”

“She was gambling, and losing far more than he could afford,” Monk answered.

Herr Jakob did not look surprised. “That is sad, and dangerous, but perhaps not impossible to understand in a woman who had known the passion and danger of revolution, and exchanged it for the tranquillity of domestic life.”

“Domestic life should be enough.” Frau Jakob spoke for the first time. “To give of yourself is sufficient for the deepest happiness. There are always those who need. There is the community. . and of course, no matter what age they are, your children always need you, even if they pretend otherwise.” The sadness was only momentary in her face, the memory of her daughter who was beyond her help.

“Elissa had no children,” Monk explained.

“And she was not one of us,” Herr Jakob added gently. “Perhaps in England they do not have a community like ours.” He turned to Monk. “But I agree with you. I cannot imagine Kristian meaning to harm her.”

The nature of the killing sprang sharply to Monk’s mind. Elissa’s death, at least, could have been accidental, a man who had not realized his own strength. But Sarah Mackeson’s had been a deliberate act of murder. Quickly, he explained it to them, seeing the revulsion and the grief in their faces. He heard Ferdi’s sharply indrawn breath, but did not look at him.

Frau Jakob glanced at her husband.

He shook his head. “Even so,” he said grimly, “I cannot believe it. Not the second woman.”

“What?” Monk demanded, fear biting inside him. “What is it?”

Frau Jakob looked to her husband, and he to her.

“For God’s sake, his life could depend on it!” Monk said with rising panic, knowing he was failing and seeing his last chance slip away. “What do you know?” Was it the betrayal? Had it, after all, not been the secret Father Geissner had believed?

“I cannot see if it will help, and perhaps it will make things worse,” Herr Jakob said at last, his eyes filled with a sorrow that seemed too harsh and too deep for what Monk had told him, even the murder of a woman he might have admired, and the possibility that a man he had most certainly regarded highly could have been responsible.

“I need to know it anyway,” Monk said in the heavy silence. “Tell me.”

Beside him, Ferdi gulped. Herr Jakob sighed. “The history of our race is full of seeking, of homecoming, and of expulsion,” he said, looking not at Monk but at some point in the white linen tablecloth, and some vast arena of the world in his vision. “Again and again we find ourselves strangers in a land that fears us, and in the end hates us. We are permanent exiles. In Egypt, in Babylon, and across the world.”

Monk held his patience with difficulty. It was the passion of feeling that stilled his interruption rather than any regard for the words.

“We have been strangers in Europe for more than a thousand years,” Jakob went on. “And still we are strangers today, hated by many, even behind their smiling faces and their courtesy. We have lost some of our people to the fear, the exclusion, the unspoken dislike.”

Frau Jakob leaned forward a little as if to interrupt.

“I know,” he said, looking at her and shaking his head a little. “Herr Monk does not want a lesson in our history, but it is necessary to understand.” He turned to Monk. “You see, many families have changed their names, their way of life, even abandoned the knowledge of our fathers and embraced the Catholic faith, sometimes in order to survive, at other times simply to be accepted, to give their children a better chance.”

In spite of himself, Monk understood that, even if he did not admire it.

Jakob saw that in his eyes, and nodded. “The Baruch family was one such.”

“Baruch?” Monk repeated, not knowing what he meant.

“Almost three generations ago,” Jakob said.

Suddenly, Monk had a terrible premonition what Jakob was going to say.

Jakob saw it in his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “They changed their name to Beck, and became Roman Catholic.”

Monk was stunned. It was almost too difficult to believe, and yet not for an instant could he doubt it. It was monstrous, farcical, and it all made a hideous sense. It was a denial of identity, of birthright, of the faith that had endured for thousands of years, given up not for a change of conviction but for survival, to accommodate their persecutors and become one of them.

And yet had he been in the same circumstances, with a wife and children to protect, honesty told him he could not swear he would have acted differently. For oneself. . perhaps. . but for the parent who had grown old and frightened, desperately vulnerable, for the child who trusted you and for whom you had to make the decisions, with life or death as a result. . that was different.

One question beat in his brain above all others. “Did Kristian know?” he demanded.

“No,” Jakob said with a rueful smile. “Elissa knew. Hanna was the one who told her. She had a friend whose grandfather was a rabbi, and interested in all the old records. I think she wanted Elissa to know that it was she who was the one who did not belong, not Hanna. But no one told Kristian. Elissa protected him more than once. She was a remarkable woman. I am very sorry indeed to hear that she is dead. . still more that it was the result of murder, not accident. But I do not believe that Kristian would do such a thing.”

Monk took a deep breath. Hanna’s family did not know of the betrayal. His throat was suddenly tight with relief and his next words were hoarse. “Not even if she told him this now, without warning, perhaps to heighten the obligation to her?”

Jakob’s face darkened. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I think not. But people do strange things when they are deeply distressed, out of the character we know, even that they know of themselves. I hope not.”

Monk stayed a little longer, enjoying the comfort and the strange, alien certainty of the room with its millennia-old rituals and memories of history which was to him only faint, from old Bible stories. It was like a step outside the daily world into another reality. He envied Herr Jakob his belief, dearly as it had been bought. Then, at about nine o’clock, he thanked them and he and Ferdi excused themselves. Tomorrow, Monk must face Max Niemann.

Outside in the street, it was freezing. The pavements glistened with a film of ice in the pools of light from the street lamps. Monk glanced sideways at Ferdi and saw the emotion raw in him. In a few hours he had been hurled through a torrent of passion and loss beyond anything his life had prepared him for, and seen it in a people he had been taught to despise. It had been installed in him that they were different, in some indescribably way less. And he had been touched by their dignity and their pain more deeply than he could control. Even if he could not have put it into such simple words, he was inwardly aware that their culture was the fount of his own. It stirred a knowledge in him too fundamental to be ignored.

Monk wanted to comfort him, assure him. But more than that, he wanted Ferdi to remember what he felt this moment as they walked, heads down in the darkened street, feeling the ice of the wind on their faces. He wanted him never to deny it within himself, or bend or turn it to suit society. It would be yet another betrayal. He had not the excuse of ignorance anymore.

He remained silent because he did not know what to say.

By the time Monk was face-to-face with Max Niemann at last, he had decided exactly what he was going to ask him. He already knew a great deal about Niemann, his heroism during the uprising, his love for Elissa, and how generously he had reacted when she married Kristian instead. From his outward behavior it was not difficult to believe he had largely got over his own passion for her and it had resolved into a genuine friendship for both Elissa and Kristian. He had never married, but that could have been due to a number of reasons. It was not so long ago that Monk himself had been quite sure that he would never marry, or if he did it would be someone quite unlike Hester. He had been certain he wanted a gentle, feminine woman who would comfort him, yield to him, admire his strength and be blind to his weaknesses. That memory prompted in him a wry laughter now. How little he had known himself. How desperately lonely that would have made him, like a man staring into a looking glass, and seeing only his own reflection.

But then he did know himself little, only five years, and those were strands worked out by deduction and sharp, sometimes ugly, flashes of disconnected memory.

He followed Max Niemann from his work as he strolled along the Canovagasse towards the open stretch of the Karlsplatz. It was not an ideal place for the conversation he needed to have, but he could not afford to wait any longer. In London, the trial might already have started. It was that urgency which impelled him to approach Max Niemann in the cafe where he sat listening to the chatter, and the clink of glasses.

It was discourteous, at the least, to pull up a chair opposite a man who was obviously intent upon being alone, but there was no alternative.

“Excuse me,” he said in English. “I know you are Max Niemann, and I need to speak to you on a matter which cannot wait for a proper introduction.”

Niemann looked only momentarily startled, his face set in lines of mild irritation.

Before he could protest, Monk went on. “My name is William Monk. I saw you in London at the funeral of Elissa Beck, but you may not remember me. I am a friend of Kristian’s, and it is in his interest that I am here.”

He saw Niemann’s expression ease a little.

“Did you know that Kristian has been charged with the murder, and is due to stand-” He stopped. It was apparent from Niemann’s wide eyes and slack mouth that he had not known, and that the news distressed him profoundly. “I’m sorry to tell you so abruptly,” Monk apologized. “I don’t believe it can be true, but there seems to be no other explanation for which there is any evidence, and I hoped I might find something here. Perhaps an enemy from the days of the uprising.”

A look of irony and grief crossed Niemann’s face. “Who waited thirteen years?” he said incredulously. “Why?”

A waiter came by, and Monk asked Niemann’s permission, then ordered coffee with cream and chocolate in it, and Niemann ordered a second coffee with hot milk.

“Of course we had quarrels then, loves and hates like any other group of people. But they were all over in hours. There were far bigger issues to care about.” His eyes were bright, his brow furrowed a little. The noises of crockery and voices around him seemed far away. “It was passionate, life and death, but it was political. We were fighting for freedom from Hapsburg tyranny, laws that crushed people and prevented us from having any say in our own destiny. The petty things were forgotten. We didn’t wait to murder our enemies in London thirteen years later; we shot them openly at the time.” He smiled, and his eyes were bright. “If there was anything on earth Elissa hated it was a hypocrite, anyone, man or woman, who pretended to be what they were not. It was the whole charade of the court, the double standards, that drew her into the revolution in the first place.”

“Do you believe Kristian could have killed Elissa, even unintentionally, in a quarrel that got out of control?” Monk asked bluntly.

Niemann appeared to consider it. “No,” he said at length. “If you had asked me if he would have during the uprising, if she had betrayed us, I might have thought so, but he would not have lied, and he would not have killed the second woman, the artists’ model.” He looked directly at Monk without a shadow across his face. There was no guard in him, no withholding of the deeper, more terrible secret. He had used the word betrayed quite easily, because as far as he knew it had no meaning in connection with Elissa.

Monk hated the knowledge that he would have to tell him, and see the disbelief, the anger, the denial, and at last the acceptance.

“You know him well.” Monk made it half a statement, half a question.

Niemann looked up. “Yes, we fought side by side. But you know that.”

“People change sometimes, over years, or all at once because of some event-for example, the death of someone they are close to.” He watched Niemann’s face.

Niemann fiddled with his coffee cup, turning it around and around in his fingers. “Kristian changed after Hanna Jakob’s death,” he said at last. “I don’t know why. He never spoke about it. But he was quieter, much more. . solitary, as if he needed to consider his beliefs more deeply. Something changed in his ability to lead. Decisions became more difficult for him. He grieved more over our losses. I don’t think after that he could have killed someone, even if he or she was a liability to the cause. He would have hesitated, looked for another way. . possibly even lost the moment.”

“And you didn’t know why?” Monk said, compelled to press again to see if Niemann had any idea of the betrayal, or if all he knew was the subtle guilt in Kristian, the perception of his own bigotry which troubled him ever after that.

“No,” Niemann answered. “He couldn’t talk about it. I never knew what it was.”

“Do you think Elissa knew?” The question was a double irony.

Niemann thought for quite some time, then eventually answered with sadness edged in his voice. “No. I think she wanted to, and was afraid of it. I don’t think she asked him.”

Monk leaned forward a little over the table. “You went to London three times this last year. Each time you saw Elissa, but not Kristian. You did not even let him know you were in England. What happened to your friendship that you would do that?”

Niemann looked up at him, then away. “How did you know that?”

“Are you saying it is untrue?” Monk challenged.

“No.” There was weariness in Niemann’s voice, and a slump to his shoulders. “No, I did not tell Kristian because I did not want him to know. Elissa wrote to me. She was badly in debt and she knew Kristian had no more money to give her. She needed help. I went and did what I could for her, paid her debts. They were not so very great, and I have done well.” He smiled very slightly. “I did not tell Kristian. Sometimes the best way to help a friend is not to let him know that you have seen that he needs help.”

He looked up from his cup. “But surely it was the artist who killed her? What was his name. . Allardyce? He was utterly in love with her, you know. Sarah Mackeson must have known it, and she had enough imagination to fear that Elissa would supplant her not only in Allardyce’s affections, but more importantly, on canvas, and she would be without the means of support. She must have been frightened and jealous. What if she killed Elissa? She was a stronger and heavier woman. And when Allardyce came home he found Elissa’s body and knew what had happened, and in his own rage and grief, he killed Sarah.”

“Possibly,” Monk agreed with a shrug. “But he wasn’t there that evening. He was in Southwark, and didn’t return until the morning.”

Niemann looked startled, staring at Monk with slow incredulity. “Yes he was! I saw him myself. He was coming out of the gambling house with paper and pencils and things under his arm. He’d been drawing the people at the tables-he often did. There were several people in the street, men and women, but he’s highly individual to look at with that broad brow and black hair falling over it. Besides that, I knew him. I spoke to him.”

Hope surged up in Monk, making him almost dizzy. “Allardyce was there? You’re sure it was that night?”

“Yes. He was in Swinton Street. Whether he went back to the studio or not I don’t know, but he certainly wasn’t all evening in Southwark. If he said he was, then he lied.” He watched Monk closely.

“Are you prepared to come back to London and swear to that?” Monk asked.

“Of course. And you’ll find others who saw him, but they may have their own reasons for not being willing to say so.”

“Thank you. We had better hurry. Can you leave tomorrow? I know that is almost without notice, and. .”

“Of course I can.” Niemann finished his coffee and stood up. “It’s a murder trial. Once the verdict is in, nothing I say can help, unless I knew who did kill poor Elissa, and could prove it. Unfortunately, I don’t, nor can I swear that Kristian was somewhere else. Through Cologne is the best way. The train leaves at half past eight. I’ll meet you in the morning at the ticket office at the station at eight o’clock. Now you must excuse me. I need to make some arrangements, and pack my suitcase.”

Hester and Callandra sat opposite each other in the quiet, comfortable sitting room in Callandra’s house. They had been back from the trial for nearly an hour. It was dark outside but not particularly cold, and the fire blazed up in the grate, yet both were shivering. They had spoken of events during the evidence of the day, but neither had said what Hester knew they were both thinking. Kristian looked haggard and without hope as one witness after another built up a picture of Elissa’s gambling, her desperation, her total inability to exercise any control over her compulsion. Pendreigh’s skill was remarkable in that he had been able to drag out the proceedings this far. It was perhaps the greatest testament to Kristian’s innocence that the victim’s father so obviously believed it.

“It’s going badly, isn’t it?” Callandra said at last. “I can see it in the jury’s faces. They are beginning to realize that all Pendreigh’s tactics mean nothing except to spin out time.” She did not ask when Monk would be home, but the question hung heavily in the air between them. If he had found something easily he would have returned by now, or at least have sent word. Hester had received a couple of short letters, but they had been only personal, a desire to speak to her that could be partially satisfied on paper, and to let her know that he was well and still searching. He had asked her to tell Callandra so on his behalf.

The fire roared in the grate and the coals collapsed inward with a shower of sparks. It seemed the only brightness in the room.

“Yes,” Hester said aloud. There was no point in lying, and she could think of nothing to say to offer any comfort. “The trouble is we have no alternative they could believe.” Even a day ago she might have added that there must be one; today it seemed hollow. Then she looked across at Callandra. “But I have an idea where to look for one,” she said, pity wrenching inside her. Perhaps she was only putting off the inevitable, but she could see no farther than tonight. Tomorrow would have to bring whatever it would, and she would deal with it then.

“Have you?” Callandra asked, struggling to grasp hope and feeling it almost impossible. Her eyes asked not to be told, so she could imagine it was real, just for a while.

Hester stood up. She was astonished by how physically tired she was, and yet she had done nothing but sit in the courtroom all day, her body locked in the aching tension of hope and fear. “I shall begin to seek proof of it tomorrow, so I shall not be in court. Will you be all right?”

“Of course.” Callandra rose to her feet also, a lift in her voice as if real, tangible alternatives were suddenly there in plain sight. If Hester had a clear intention, it must be something capable of proof. “Do you want my carriage?” she said hastily. “It would be quicker for you.” She did not add “and cheaper,” but that was a consideration also. She had not thought to get actual money to give Hester for the expenses of hansoms, and to wait for it tomorrow would be another delay.

“Thank you,” Hester accepted. “That is a good idea.” She gave Callandra a quick, hard hug, then took her leave, her mind already planning ahead. There was no time to wonder about tactics, if she were offering false hope, or if it were wise or safe. She knew of no other course towards anything but defeat.

She slept only fitfully, waking every hour or two, her mind still racing over what she should do, mistakes to avoid, how to get around lies she might be told. And always at the back, spreading across everything like a coming nightfall drawing closer every time she looked, having to tell Callandra that she had failed.

She missed Monk with a constant hunger. Sometimes she could forget it, only to be reminded by the ache inside her. He would have known how to do this properly; success would not have eluded him if there were any chance of it whatever.

She rose early, and ate two pieces of toast. She had learned long ago that no matter how busy your mind or clenched up your stomach, if you had work to do then you must eat. To say you were too excited or too worried was a self-indulgence and highly impractical. To be of any use to others you must maintain your own strength.

Then she set out in Callandra’s carriage, whose driver had stayed around the corner at a suitable lodging house and was ready and waiting for her by half past seven. She requested to be driven straight to the police station, where she presented herself at the desk and asked for Superintendent Runcorn, telling the sergeant that it was a matter of urgency. The hour of the day and her name were sufficient to impress him, and he took the message straightaway. He returned with the answer that if she were to wait ten minutes, Mr. Runcorn would see her, and would she like a cup of tea. She declined the tea with thanks, and sat down, grateful that he was there and she could gain his attention.

In ten minutes she was duly shown up to a freshly shaven Runcorn sitting behind a tidy desk. The shaving had obviously not been for her, but she thought the clearing of the desk might have been.

“Good morning, Mr. Runcorn,” she said, swallowing down her nervousness. “Thank you for seeing me so rapidly. As you know, the trial of Dr. Beck is going badly for him. I have worked beside him for several years, and I believe there must be more to know than we have yet learned, and that the artist Argo Allardyce may be the source of at least some of it. William is in Vienna seeking knowledge of Max Niemann. I should like to pursue Argo Allardyce.” She had spoken too rapidly to allow him time to interrupt her, but she was aware that he had not attempted to, and it surprised her. His face looked sad, as if the way the evidence had gone distressed him also. He had not wished Kristian to be guilty, he had simply found it unavoidable.

“Allardyce was in Southwark all that evening, Mrs. Monk,” Runcorn said ruefully. “Got a picture that proves it, much as I’d like it not to.”

She must be very careful exactly what she said. A month ago she would have been delighted to dupe him in any way. Now she hated the necessity. She frowned, looking puzzled. “Does it really?”

“Oh it’s him, plain as day,” he replied. “And it’s the Bull and Half Moon for sure. Landlord recalls Allardyce there, knows him quite well.”

She managed to look doubtful. “I still believe he had something to do with it,” she insisted. “One way or another. If Dr. Beck wanted to kill her, he would hardly do it in another man’s house.”

“Murder isn’t often very sensible,” he said sadly.

She remained sitting. “Your sergeant was good enough to offer me a cup of tea, and I am afraid I was so eager to see you that I refused. I wonder. .”

He was glad of the chance to do something for her. “Of course.” He stood up immediately. “Just sit there, and I’ll have him bring one up.”

“Thank you,” she accepted with a slight smile.

He went out, and instantly she darted around his desk and opened the first drawer. There was nothing in it but pencils and blank paper. The second had neatly written reports. She was desperate, trying to keep her fingers from fumbling. He had spoken of the picture. Which way had he been looking? She had only moments before he came back.

Third drawer. . nothing. She turned to the shelf beside the desk. She moved two books lying flat. There it was! An artist’s sketch of a group of men sitting around a table. She snatched it and pushed it down inside her jacket just as she heard his hand on the door. She had no time to sit again. Instead, she moved towards him as if she had risen to take the cup from him.

“Thank you!” she said with gratitude more for the escape than the tea. “I hadn’t realized I was so cold, or so thirsty. That is very good of you.”

He colored very slightly. “I’m sorry it’s going badly for Dr. Beck. I wish there were. .”

“Of course,” she agreed, sitting down again and sipping the tea. “But you can’t alter the evidence, I know that. I was just hoping. I daresay it was foolish.” Since she had asked for the tea, she was obliged to stay long enough to finish it. She was terrified in case he decided to get the picture out just to prove to her that Allardyce was really in it. “I mustn’t take up your time,” she said, swallowing hastily. “You have been very patient. I suppose there is no possibility it had to do with gambling?”

“Doesn’t make any sense, Mrs. Monk,” he said regretfully. “Nothing I’d like more than to string a few of them up, but I’ve got no excuse to. They kill slowly, not by breaking a neck.”

She put the teacup down.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his face flooding with color.

“Please don’t be,” she said quickly. “It is only the truth.” She stood up. “I appreciate candor, Mr. Runcorn. Too many evils are tolerated because we give them harmless-sounding names. Thank you for your courtesy.” She did not hold out her hand in case the paper under her jacket crackled. “I can find my way downstairs. Good day.”

“Good day, Mrs. Monk.” He had risen also, and came around the desk to open the door for her.

She escaped with a pounding heart, and an acute sense of guilt, but she had the drawing.

She spent a useless morning and early afternoon around the area of Allardyce’s studio, and came to the conclusion that in this type of detective work she lacked a skill. By the middle of the afternoon she had decided to follow Allardyce’s friends more directly, and if she took the carriage south of the river Southwark she would find some of them at least already in the Bull and Half Moon. The light was fading, and no one would be able to paint by it at four o’clock or later.

It was nearly dark and the lamps were lit by the time she went through the tavern door. The warm, smoky, ale-smelling interior was already filled with the babble of conversation. The yellow light of a dozen lamps shone on all manner of faces, but entirely masculine. It was too early for street women to be seeking custom, and more respectable women had work to do: dinners to cook, laundry to iron, children to care for. She took a deep breath and went in anyway.

One or two bawdy remarks, which she ignored, were hurled at her. She was too eager to find anyone who might be a friend or associate of Allardyce to have time for offense. Then she saw a man with an arm amputated above the elbow and a scar on one lean cheek. Her spirits leapt at the thought that he might be a soldier. If he were, that would be at least one person whom she could talk to, perhaps find an ally.

There was no time for delicacy. She smiled at him, coolly, not an invitation. “Where did you serve?” she asked, hoping she was right.

Something in the tone of her voice, an expectation of friendship, even equality, startled any misunderstanding he might have had. He glanced momentarily at his empty sleeve, then up at her. “Alma,” he answered, a slight curiosity in his voice. He was waiting to see if the name of that dreadful battle had any meaning for her.

“You were lucky,” she said quietly. “Many fared a lot worse.”

Something lit in his eyes. “How do you know that, Miss? You lose somebody?”

“A lot of friends,” she replied. “I was in Sebastopol and Scutari.”

“Widow?” He raised his eyebrows, pity in his face.

She smiled. “No, nurse.”

“Let me buy you a drink,” he offered. “Anything you want. I’d get you French champagne if I could.”

“Cider will do fine,” she accepted, sitting down opposite him. She knew better than to say she would get it herself, and rob him of his generosity, or the feeling that he was in control and did not need anyone else to fetch or carry for him.

“What you doing here?” he asked after they were settled and she was sipping her drink. “You’ve not been here before.”

She had already decided that candor was the only way. She told him that she was looking for information to help a friend in serious trouble, accused of a crime of which she believed him innocent, if not in fact, then at least under mitigating circumstances. She wanted more knowledge of someone who had been here on the night of the crime, and showed him the picture she had taken from Runcorn’s office.

He screwed up his eyes as he looked at it, one face after another. “What night was that, then?” he said at last.

She told him the date.

“That’s a while back.” He pursed his lips.

“Yes, I know,” she admitted. “I should have come sooner. There have been several reasons. We were looking in a different direction. Will anyone remember? It was the night there was a big spill of raw sugar in Drury Lane, if that’s any help?”

“Wouldn’t know.” He shook his head. “Don’t have any reason to go up that way.” He concentrated on the picture again. “Know that artist fellow.” He pointed to one of the men. “And that one.” He indicated Allardyce. “He lives up that way, but he comes here every now and then.” He stared at the picture of half a dozen men around a table, ale mugs in their hands, the surroundings roughly sketched in, suggesting the tavern, the parallel walls, a couple of hanging tankards and a poster advertising a juggling act at a nearby music hall.

Hester waited with a sinking feeling of disappointment growing inside her.

The soldier still frowned. “There’s something wrong,” he said with a shake of his head. “Don’t know what.”

Hester stared around the room, looking for the place where they had been sitting. Perhaps it was not this tavern? It was too slim a thought to offer hope. Almost before it had taken form in her mind she recognized the tables and the chairs, the angles of the paneling on the wall behind them.

Then it struck her. The poster was different. The one on the wall now was for a singer in a red shirt. She hardly dared put words to it. Her heart was hammering inside her chest.

“When did they change the poster?” she asked.

The soldier’s eyes widened. “That’s it!” he said with a long sigh. “You’ve got it. That one was up the night you’re talking about-not the juggler they’ve got here. You can check at the music hall, check with anyone, they’ll tell you. This wasn’t made that night!” He poked his finger at the drawing. “He was here, all right, but not then.”

His face shone with triumph. “That help you?”

“Yes!” she said, smiling at him so widely it was a grin. “Yes, it does! Thank you very much. Now, let me get you a cider, and maybe something to eat. I could certainly do with a pie. Then I’ll go and make sure the music hall will swear to it, if necessary.”

“Thank you,” he accepted graciously. “I’ll have a mutton pie with mine, if you please. You’d like that, too. Real tasty, they are. Fill you up.”

She left the Bull and Half Moon and was startled as she stepped out into the street to see how the fog had surrounded everything with a dark shroud so thick she could barely see five or six yards in front of her. She had intended to go to the music hall and check to be absolutely certain about the dates of the juggler and the singer, and that they had actually changed the bill, but in this murk that had blown up from the river it would be almost impossible. She could not even see the other side of the street. Where was the carriage? It was not where she had left it, but the driver would not have been able to wait there. No doubt he was in the next side street.

She started to walk, and was aware of footsteps behind her, or was it an echo of her own? Fog distorted sound. But it muffled rather than magnified.

She whirled around, and saw a figure darkening the white vapor that islanded her in every direction. She stepped back, but he came forward. She went back again until she was under the street lamp and the light filtered down pale and patchy as the mist moved, and she saw Argo Allardyce’s ashen face and black hair. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she choked with blind terror. There was no point whatever in trying to deny what she had been doing. He must have followed her from the Bull and Half Moon, though she hadn’t seen him there. She still had the picture with her. Where was the carriage? How far away? Could she turn and run? Was she even going in the right direction?

She took another step back, and another. The fog thickened, then a gust of cold air blew it away again and he looked only feet from her. He must see in her face that she knew he had lied.

“Who are you?” he demanded, his voice hard and angry, or was it frightened because in a way he, too, was cornered? “Why are you asking questions about me? I didn’t kill Elissa or Sarah!”

“You lied!” she accused. “You said you were here that night, but you weren’t. If you didn’t kill them, why didn’t you tell the truth?” She was still moving away from him, and he was following.

“Because I was afraid they’d blame me anyway!” His voice was sharp and brittle. “I was in Acton Street at the gambling house, and one of the women I drew was furious about it. Her husband made a terrible scene and they knocked him senseless. She followed me out and practically tore the pictures of her away from me.”

With a wild mixture of misery and elation, Hester realized he was talking about Charles and Imogen. It wasn’t proof of his innocence, but that much at least was honest.

She gulped. “What was she like, the woman?”

He was incredulous. “What?”

“What was she like?” she all but shouted at him.

The cold mist swirled around in heavier wreaths, and the boom of a foghorn drifted up from the river, followed almost immediately by another.

“Dark,” he said. “Pretty. Soft features.”

It was enough. Imogen. “Then where did you go?” she demanded, taking another step back. Now she was in the gloom and he was under the light. She could see the droplets of moisture clinging to his hair and skin.

“Not to Acton Street!” he shouted back at her. “I got a hansom and went all the way to Canning Town. I never came back until morning.”

“If you can prove that, why did you lie?” she charged him. He was still coming towards her. Were all his words only a distraction, and when he was close enough and she was off guard, would he lunge for her, and with a swift movement, a wrenching pain, a crack, her neck would be broken, too? She wheeled around, picked up her skirts, and ran as fast as she could in the blind, clinging fog, her heart beating so violently it almost stopped her breathing, the sound of her footsteps muffled. She had no idea where she was going. She tripped over the curb of the cross street and lurched forward, almost losing her balance, flinging her arms wide to stop from pitching over.

There was a snort beside her, a blowing of air, and she stifled a scream. She shot forward and ran straight into the side of a horse. It jerked up and backwards, and the next moment a man’s voice called out angrily.

“Albert!” she yelled as loudly as she could.

“Yes, Miss! Where are you?”

“Here! I’m here!” she sobbed, scrambling back past the horse to feel for the dark bulk of the carriage and fumble to open the door. “Drive me home! If you can see your way, get me back to Grafton Street, but hurry out of here, please!”

“Yes, Miss, don’t worry,” he said calmly. “It’ll not be this bad once we’re away from the river.”

She collapsed inside the coach and slammed the door shut.

They were over the bridge and climbing into clearer air before she thought to tell the coachman to go past the police station so she could leave a message for Runcorn, and return the picture with an abject apology.

In Vienna, Monk took his leave of Ferdi over a very early breakfast, thanking him for the inestimable help he had been not only in practical terms but also for his friendship.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Ferdi said quite casually, but his eyes never left Monk’s face, and there was a deep flush in his fair cheeks. “It was all rather important, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Monk agreed. “Very important indeed.”

“Will you. . will you write and tell me what happens to Dr. Beck?” Ferdi asked. “I. . I’d like to know.”

“Yes, I will,” Monk promised, fearing already that it would be hard news, and he would have to struggle to find a way of wording it so it would not wound the boy more than it had to.

Ferdi smiled. “Thank you. I don’t have a card, but I borrowed one of my father’s. The name is the same, so you could get in touch with me here. If you come to Vienna again. .” He left it, suddenly self-conscious.

“I shall write you, of course,” Monk finished for him. “And most certainly I shall call.”

“Oh. . good.” A smile lit Ferdi’s face, and he shot out his hand to clasp Monk’s, and then as suddenly let it go and bowed very formally, clicking his heels. “Auf Wiedersehen,” he said, looking at Monk through his lashes.

“Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Gerhardt,” Monk replied. “Now I must hurry, or I shall miss the train!”

Monk met Max Niemann at the railway station as arranged; half an hour later they were settled on the train as it pulled out. He was impatient to be home and to tell Hester what he had found. It was not the absolute solution he had hoped for, one which would save Beck, but it was as much as he could find, and he had run out of places to look.

Suddenly the burden of it was almost insupportable. Elissa had betrayed another woman to her death. Max Niemann had not known it, nor had Kristian. Assuredly, Fuller Pendreigh would not have, either. The truth he brought with him would shatter all of them.

He looked at Niemann, sitting opposite him in the carriage as they rattled and jolted, picking up speed into the dark countryside. If he knew, would he even be coming to London? What would he have paid for it not to be true? It would shatter an image he had loved and believed for years.

And what would Kristian feel? Had he ever guessed any of it? Hanna’s love for him, her knowledge that he was of her own people, even though he did not know it himself. Elissa’s single act of unbearable destruction. .

Or did he know? That was the darkness greater and deeper than the night which lay beyond the carriage windows, ice-cold in the wind off the plains stretching north to the bounds of Russia. Had something happened which had told him of that awful betrayal, and had he exacted revenge for it?

Could any of it help, except possibly Max Niemann’s testimony that Allardyce had been in the neighborhood of the studio, not on the south side of the river, as he had sworn. Would Niemann’s testimony be believed? He was a foreigner, a longtime friend of Kristian’s. Might the jury think it was no more than old loyalties that prompted him now?

Of course, Monk would say nothing to Pendreigh or to Callandra about what had happened to Kristian years ago. It would be better for everyone if the tragedies and the guilt could be buried.

Unless Kristian already knew? If so, it seemed he was prepared to go to the grave keeping Elissa’s secret, and his own.

There were too many decisions to make now, without Hester.

He settled down a little further into the seat and prepared to sleep as much as he could during the long journey home, rattling and lurching through the darkness, troubled by dreams, permanently uncomfortable.

He had not intended to, but in the morning he found himself sharing the trials and wry amusements, the interest and the tribulation of travel, with Max Niemann. The Austrian was an intelligent man with quirks of character which were both unusual and pleasing. Talking with him made the time pass far more rapidly, and as long as they did not speak of Kristian, Elissa, or the uprising, there was no difficulty in avoiding the emotional traps of the knowledge he could not share.

They passed through Cologne and moved onward towards Calais. Time dragged by interminably, but they were mile by mile getting closer to England.

The Channel crossing was rough and cold, and docking seemed to take ages. The London train was delayed, and they had to go up and down looking for seats, but eventually, in the evening of the third day, at last they pulled in. Doors were flying open and people were shouting; cases were heaved out, and the scramble began to find hansoms.

Monk was tired beyond any sharpness of sense. He walked as if in a dream. Every part of his body ached, and he felt as if his muscles would never move easily again. He wanted to see Hester so intensely he half imagined her in the back of every slender woman he saw. He began to wonder if he were awake or asleep.

Max Niemann said he would stay at his usual hotel. They always found a room for him, regardless of the lack of notice, and he would report to Monk at Grafton Street in the morning.

Monk bade him good-night and began to relax at last as his cab made for the Tottenham Court Road, and Grafton Street. He was almost asleep when it jerked to a halt and the driver informed him that he had arrived. He was startled, falling half forward as he staggered out, paid him, and pulled out his door key so that he might surprise Hester and see the delight in her face, feel the warmth of the house, the familiar smells of polish, burning coal, winter leaves in the vase, and above all feel her in his arms.

But it was dark, and there was no one there. He dropped his cases, then fumbled in the gloom to find the gas knobs. There was no fire lit. There had not been all day. He was so stunned with disappointment it was as if someone had struck him physically, bruising his flesh and driving the breath out of his lungs. Exhaustion took hold of him and he began to shiver uncontrollably.

He went to the kitchen and filled the kettle. It took him half an hour to light the stove and for it to burn up heat enough to boil the water. He was about to make tea when he heard the front door open. Still with the caddy in his hand, he strode through to the front room.

Hester was just inside the front door, her coat still on. Her face was white and there was a bruise on her cheek. Her hair was coming undone and her clothes were disheveled.

“Where the hell have you been?” he shouted at her. “Do you know what time it is?”

She looked astonished, then angry. “No! Nor do I care!” she retorted.

“Where were you?” he repeated, his voice shaking with emotion he could not conceal. He could not take his eyes from her face, drawing into himself every detail of her, furious that he cared more than he could control, or hide. He wished to hold her and never let her go, not all night, not tomorrow, not ever. The power of it frightened him. “Don’t stand there! Where were you?” he demanded.

“Are you saying that you may go halfway around Europe and I may not go around the corner to the police station?” she asked with a sharp lift to her voice. She stared at him, her eyes brilliant, her face almost colorless except for the dark bruise.

“The police station? Why?” he demanded. “What’s happened?”

“I have discovered that Argo Allardyce was not in Southwark on the night Elissa was killed,” she replied. “He was in Swinton Street, at least earlier on.”

“Yes, Max Niemann saw him,” he replied. “How do you know?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “I detected it,” she said icily. “The picture he gave Runcorn wasn’t drawn that night; the music hall poster was wrong. He admitted he was in the gambling club.”

“Runcorn told you?”

“No, I told him.”

“How the devil did you know? Where have you been?” He did not intend to, but his voice had risen until he was once more shouting at her. Fear drove him, fear that she had been in danger and he had not been there to protect her, or prevent her from taking risks. “Damn it, Hester!” He hurled the caddy into the corner and watched the tea fly all over the floor.

Without any warning she began to laugh. Tearing at the ribbons of her hat, she flung it away and walked into his arms. Her laughter turned to weeping and she clung to him so hard it bruised his skin, and he was happy just to feel the strength of her. He closed his own arms around her and held on to her while he lost all sense of time and it really did not matter anymore.