A Dangerous Mourning Part 18

"Yes sir, from time to time."

"You must have experienced it?"

Percival relaxed a fraction, his body easing under his livery jacket.

"That's true."

"Is it ever an embarra.s.sment?"

"Not often. You get used to it."

Conceited swine, Monk thought, but perhaps not without cause. He had a suppressed vitality and a sort of insolence Monk imagined many women might find exciting.

"You must have to be very discreet?" he said aloud.

"Yes sir." Percival was quite amused now, off his guard, pleased with himself as memories came to mind.

"Especially if it's a lady, not merely one of the maids?" Monk went on. "Must be awkward for you if a visiting lady is ... interested?"

"Yes sir-have to be careful."

"I imagine men get jealous?"

Perciva] was puzzled; he had not forgotten why he was here. Monk could see the thoughts flicker across his face, and none of them provided explanation.

"I suppose they might," he said carefully.

"Might?" Monk raised his eyebrows. His voice was patronizing, sarcastic. "Come, Percival, if you were a gentleman, wouldn't you be jealous as the grave if your fine lady preferred the attentions of the footman to yours?''

This time the smirk was unmistakable, the thought was too sweet, the most delicious of all superiorities, better, closer to the essence of a man than even money or rank.

"Yes sir-I imagine I would be."

"Especially over a woman as comely as Mrs. Haslett?"

Now Percival was confused. "She was a widow, sir. Captain Haslett died in the war." He shifted his weight uncomfortably. "And she didn't have any admirers that were serious. She wouldn't look at anyone-still grieving over the captain."

"But she was a young woman, used to married life, and handsome," Monk pressed.

The light was back in Percival's face. "Oh yes," he agreed. "But she didn't want to marry again." He sobered quickly. "And anyway, n.o.body's threatened me-it was her that was killed. And there wasn't anyone close enough to be that jealous. Anyhow, even if there was, there wasn't anyone else in the house that night."

"But if there had been, would they have had cause to be jealous?'' Monk screwed up his face as if the answer mattered and he had found some precious clue.

"Well-" Percival's lips curled in a satisfied smile. "Yes- I suppose they would." His eyes widened hopefully. "Was there someone here, sir?"

"No." Monk's expression changed and all the lightness vanished. "No. I simply wanted to know if you had had an affair with Mrs. Haslett."

Suddenly Percival understood and the blood fled from his skin, leaving him sickly pale. He struggled for words and could only make strangled sounds in his throat.

Monk knew the moment of victory and the instinct to kill; it was as familiar as pain, or rest, or the sudden shock of cold water, a memory in his flesh as well as his mind. And he despised himself for it. This was the old self surfacing through the cloud of forgetting since the accident; this was the man the records showed, who was admired and feared, who had no friends.

And yet this arrogant little footman might have murdered Octavia Haslett in a fit of l.u.s.t and male conceit. Monk could not afford to indulge his own conscience at the cost of letting him go.

"Did she change her mind?" he asked with all the old edge to his voice, a world of biting contempt. "Suddenly saw the ridiculous vulgarity of an amorous adventure with a footman?"

Percival called him something obscene under his breath, then his chin came up and his eyes blazed.

"Not at all," he said c.o.c.kily, his terror mastered at least on the surface. His voice shook, but his speech was perfectly clear. "If it was anything to do with me, it'd be Rose, the laundrymaid. She's infatuated with me, and jealous as death. She might have gone upstairs in the night with a kitchen knife and killed Mrs. Haslett. She had reason to-I hadn't."

"You are a real gentleman." Monk curled his lip with disgust, but it was a possibility he could not ignore, and Percival knew it. The sweat of relief was glistening on the footman's brow.

"All right." Monk dismissed him. "You can go for now."

"Do you want me to send Rose in?" he asked at the door.

"No I don't. And if you want to survive here, you'll do well not to tell anyone of this conversation. Lovers who suggest their mistresses for murder are not well favored by other peo-pie."

Percival made no reply, but he did not look guilty, just relieved-and careful.

Swine, Monk thought, but he could not blame him entirely. The man was cornered, and too many other hands were turning against him, not necessarily because they thought he was guilty, but someone was, and that person was afraid.

At the end of another day of interviews, all except that with Percival proving fruitless, Monk started off towards the police station to report to Runcorn, not that he had anything conclusive to say, simply that Runcom had demanded it.

He was walking the last mile in the crisp late-autumn afternoon, trying to formulate in his mind what he would say, when he pa.s.sed a funeral going very slowly north up Tottenham Court Road towards the Euston Road. The hea.r.s.e was drawn by four black horses with black plumes, and through the gla.s.s he could see the coffin was covered with flowers. There must have been pounds and pounds worth. He could imagine the perfume of them, and the care that had gone into raising them in a hothouse at this time of the year.

Behind the hea.r.s.e were three other carriages packed full with mourners, all in black, and again there was a sudden stab of familiarity. He knew why they were crammed elbow to elbow, and the harnesses so shiny, no crests on the carriage doors. It was a poor man's funeral; the carriages were hired, but no expense had been spared. There would be black horses, no browns or bays would do. There would be flowers from everyone, even if there was nothing to eat for the rest of the week and they sat by cold hearths in the evening. Death must have its due, and the neighborhood must not be let down by a poor show, a hint of meanness. Poverty must be concealed at all costs. They would mourn properly as a last tribute.

He stood on the pavement with his hat off and watched them go past with a feeling close to tears, not for the unknown corpse, or even for those who were bereaved, but for everyone who cared so desperately what others thought of them, and for the shadows and flickers of his own past that he saw in it. Whatever his dreams, he was part of these people, not of those in Queen Anne Street or their like. He had fine clothes now, ate well enough and owned no house and had no family, but his roots were in close streets where everyone knew each other, weddings and funerals involved them all, they knew every birth or sickness, the hopes and the losses, there was no privacy and no loneliness.

Who was it whose face had come so cleaiiy for an instant as he waited outside the club Piccadilly, and why had he wanted so intensely to emulate him, not only his intellect, but even his accent of speech and his manner of dress and gait in walking?

He looked again at the mourners, seeking some sense of ident.i.ty with them, and as the last carriage pa.s.sed slowly by he caught a glimpse of a woman's face, very plain, nose too broad, mouth wide and eyebrows low and level, and it struck a familiarity in him so sharp it left him gasping, and another homely face came back to his mind and then was gone again, an ugly woman with tears on her cheeks and hands so lovely he never tired of looking at them, or lost his intense pleasure in their delicacy and grace. And he was wounded with an old guilt, and he had no idea why, or how long ago it had been.

Chapter 7.

Araminta was very composed as she stood in front of Monk in the boudoir, that room Of ease and comfort especially for the women of the house. It was ornately decorated with lush French Louis XVI furniture, all scrolls and curlicues, gilt and velvet. The curtains were brocade and the wallpaper pink embossed in gold. It was an almost oppressively feminine room, and Araminta looked out of place in it, not for her appearance, which was slender and delicately boned with a flame of hair, but for her stance. It was almost aggressive. There was nothing yielding in her, nothing soft to compliment all the sweetness of the pink room.

"I regret having to tell you this, Mr. Monk." She looked at him unflinchingly. "My sister's reputation is naturally dear to me, but in our present stress and tragedy I believe only the truth will serve. Those of us who are hurt by it will have to endure the best we may."

He opened his mouth to try to say something at once soothing and encouraging, but apparently she did not need any word from him. She continued, her face so controlled there was no apparent tension, no quiver to the lips or voice.

"My sister, Octavia, was a very charming person, and very affectionate." She was choosing her words with great care; this was a speech which had been rehea.r.s.ed before he came. "Like most people who are pleasing to others, she enjoyed admiration, indeed she had a hunger for it. When her husband, Captain Haslett, was killed in the Crimea she was, of course, deeply grieved. But that was nearly two years ago, and that is a long time for a young woman of Octavia's nature to be alone."

This time he did not interrupt, but waited for her to continue, only showing his total attention by his unwavering gaze.

The only way her inner feelings showed was a curious stillness, as if something inside her dared not move.

"What I am endeavoring to say, Mr. Monk, much as it pains me, and all my family, is that Octavia from time to time would encourage from the footman an admiration that was personal, and of a more familiar nature than it should have been.''

"Which footman, ma'am?" He would not put Percival's name in her mouth.

A flash of irritation tweaked her mouth. "Percival of course. Do not affect to be a fool with me, Mr. Monk. Does Harold look like a man to have airs above his station? Besides which, you have been in this house quite long enough to have observed that Harold is taken with the parlormaid and not likely to see anyone else in that light-for all the good it will do him.'' She jerked her shoulders sharply, as if to shrug off the distasteful idea. "Still, she is very likely not the charming creature he imagines, and he may well be better served by dreams than he would be by the disillusion of reality." For the first time she looked away from him. "I daresay she is very bland and tedious once you are tired of looking at her pretty face."

Had Araminta been a plain woman Monk might have suspected her of envy, but since she was in her own way quite remarkably fine it could not be so.

"Impossible dreams always end in awakening," he agreed. "But he may grow out of his obsession before he meets with any reality. Let us hope so."

"It is hardly important," she said, swinging back to face him and recall him to the subject that mattered. "I have come to inform you of my sister's relationship with Percival, not Harold's moonings after the parlormaid. Since it seems inescapable that someone in this house murdered Octavia, it is relevant that you should know she was overfamiliar with the footman."

"Very relevant," he agreed quietly. "Why did you not mention it before, Mrs. Kellard?"

"Because I hoped it would not be necessary, of course,"

she replied immediately. "It is hardly a pleasant thing to have to admit-least of all to the police."

Whether that was because of the implication for crime, or the indignity of discussing it with someone of the social standing of the police, she did not say, but Monk thought from the lopsided suggestion of a sneer on her mouth that it was the latter.

"Thank you for mentioning it now." He ironed out the anger from his expression as well as he could, and was rewarded, and insulted, that she seemed to notice nothing at all. "I shall investigate the possibility," he concluded.

"Naturally.'' Her fine golden eyebrows rose."I did not put myself to the discomfort of telling you for you merely to acknowledge it and do nothing."

He bit back any further comment and contented himself with opening the door for her and bidding her good-day.

He had no alternative but to face Percival, because he had already drawn from everyone else the fragments of knowledge, speculation and judgment of character on the subject. Nothing added now would be proof of anything, only the words of fear, opportunism or malice. And undoubtedly Percival was disliked by some of his fellow servants, for greater or lesser reason. He was arrogant and abrasive and he had played with at least one woman's afFections, which produced volatile and unreliable testimony, at best.

When Percival appeared this time his att.i.tude was different; the all-permeating fear was there, but far less powerfully. There was a return of the old confidence in the tilt of his head and the brash directness of his stare. Monk knew immediately there would be no point in even hoping to panic him into confession of anything.

"Sir?" Percival waited expectantly, bristlingly aware of tricks and verbal traps.

"Perhaps discretion kept you from saying so before.'' Monk did not bother to prevaricate. "But Mrs. Haslett was one of the ladies who had more than an employer's regard for you, was she not?" He smiled with bared teeth. "You need not permit modesty to direct your answer. It has come to me from another source."

Percival's mouth relaxed in something of a smirk, but he did not forget himself.

"Yes sir. Mrs. Haslett was . . . very appreciative."

Monk was suddenly infuriated by the man's complacence, his insufferable conceit. He thought of Octavia lying dead with the blood dark down her robe. She had seemed so vulnerable, so helpless to protect herself-which was ridiculous, since she was the one person in all of this tragedy who was now beyond pain or the petty fancies of dignity. But he bitterly resented this grubby little man's ease of reference to her, his self-satisfaction, even his thoughts.

"How gratifying for you," he said acidly. "If occasionally embarra.s.sing."

"No sir," Percival said quickly, but there was a smugness to his face. "She was very discreet."

"But of course," Monk agreed, loathing Percival the more. "She was, after all, a lady, even if she occasionally forgot it."

Percival's narrow mouth twitched with irritation. Monk's contempt had reached him. He did not like being reminded that it was beneath a lady to admire a footman in that way.

"I don't expect you to understand," Percival said with a sneer. He looked Monk up and down and stood a little straighter himself, his opinion in his eyes.

Monk had no idea what ladies of whatever rank might similarly have admired him; his memory was blank but his temper burned.

"I can imagine," he replied viciously. "I've arrested a few wh.o.r.es from time to time."

Percival's cheeks flamed but he dared not say what came to his mind. He stared back with brilliant eyes.

"Indeed sir? I expect your job brings you into company of a great many people I have no experience of at all. Very regrettable." Now his eyes were perfectly level and hard. "But like cleaning the drains, someone has to do it."

"Precarious," Monk said with deliberate edge. "Being admired by a lady. Never know where you are. One minute you are the servant, dutiful and respectfully inferior, the next the lover, with hints of being stronger, masterful." He smiled with a sneer like Percival's own."Then before you know where you are, back to being the footman again, 'Yes ma'am,"No ma'am,' and dismissed to your own room whenever my lady is bored or has had enough. Very difficult not to make a mistake-" He was watching Percival's face and the succession of emotions racing across it. "Very hard to keep your temper-"

There k was-the first shadow of real fear, the quick beading of sweat on the lip, the catching of breath.

"I didn't lose my temper,'' Percival said, his voice cracking and loathing in his eyes. "I don't know who killed her-but it wasn't me!"

"No?" Monk raised his eyebrows very high. "Who else had a reason? She didn't 'admire' anyone else, did she? She didn't leave any money. We cannot find anything to suggest she knew something shameful about anyone. We can't find anyone who hated her-"

"Because you aren't very clever, are you." Percival's dark eyes were narrow and bright. "I already told you Rose hated her, because she was jealous as a cat over me. And what about Mr. Kellard? Or are you too well trained to dare accuse one of the gentry if you can pin it on a servant?''

"No doubt you would like me to ask why Mr. Kellard should kill Mrs. Haslett." Monk was equally angry, but would not reply to the jibe because that would be to admit it hurt. He would as soon have charged one of the family as a servant, but he knew what Runcorn would feel, and try to drive him to do, and his frustration was equally with him as with Percival."And you will tell me whether I ask or not, to divert my attention from you."

That robbed Percival of a great deal of his satisfaction, which was what Monk had intended. Nevertheless he could not afford to remain silent.

"Because he had a fancy for Mrs. Haslett," Percival said in a hard, quiet voice. "And the more she declined him, the hotter it got-that's how it is."

"And so he killed her?" Monk said, baring his teeth in something less than a smile. "Seems an odd way of persuading her. Would put her out of his reach permanently, wouldn't it? Or are you supposing a touch of necrophilia?"

"What?"

"Gross relationship with the dead," Monk explained.

"Disgusting." Percival's lip curled.

"Or perhaps he was so infatuated he decided if he could not have her then no one should?" Monk suggested sarcastically.

It was not the sort of pa.s.sion either of them thought Myles Kellard capable of, and he knew it.

"You're playing the fool on purpose," Percival said through thin lips. "You may not be very bright-and the way you've gone about this case surely shows it-but you're not that stupid. Mr. Kellard wanted to lie with her, nothing more. But he's one that won't accept a refusal." He lifted one shoulder. "And if he fancied her and she said she'd tell everyone he'd have to kill her. He couldn't cover that up the way he did with poor Martha. It's one thing to rape a maid, no one cares-but you can't rape your wife's sister and get away with it. Her father won't hide that up for you!''

Monk stared at him. Percival had won his attention without shadow this time, and he knew it; the victory was shining in his narrowed eyes.

"Who is Martha?" Resent it as he might, Monk had no option but to ask.