William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

“Do you imagine I am going to live the rest of my life in this house with someone who murdered my daughter? What is the matter with you? Good God, don’t you know me better than that?”
    Cyprian looked as if he had been struck, and Monk felt a sharp, unexpected twinge of embarrassment. This was a scene he should not have witnessed, these were emotions that had nothing to do with Octavia Haslett’s death; a viciousness between father and son stemming from no sudden act but years of resentment and failure to understand.
    “If Monk—” Basil jerked his head towards the policeman—“is incapable of finding him, whoever it is, I shall have the commissioner send someone else.” He moved restlessly from the ornate mantel back to the center of the floor. “Where the hell is Myles? This morning at least, he should make himself available when I send for him!”
    At that moment the door opened, without a prefacing knock, and Myles Kellard answered his summons. He was tall and slender, but in every other respect the opposite of the Moidores. His hair was brown with streaks in it and waved in a sweep back from his forehead. His face was long and narrow with an aristocratic nose and a sensuous, moody mouth. It was at once the face of a dreamer and a libertine.
    Monk hesitated from politeness, and before he could speak Basil asked Myles the questions that Monk would have, but without explanation as to their purpose or the need for them. He was correct in his assumption; Myles could tell them nothing of use. He had risen late and gone out in the morning for luncheon, where he did not say, and spent the afternoon at the merchant bank where he was a director. He too had dined at home, but had not seen Octavia, except at table in the company of everyone else. He had noticed nothing remarkable.
    When he had left Monk asked if there was anyone else, apart from Lady Moidore, to whom he should speak.
    “Aunt Fenella and Uncle Septimus.” Cyprian answered this time, cutting his father off. “We would be obliged if you could keep your questions to Mama as brief as possible. In fact it would be better if we could ask her and relay her answers to you, if they are of any relevance.”
    Basil looked at his son coldly, but whether for the suggestion or simply because Cyprian stole his prerogative by making it first, Monk did not know: he guessed the latter. At this point it was an easy concession to make; there would be time enough later to see Lady Moidore, when he had something better than routine and very general questions to ask her.
    “Certainly,” he allowed. “But perhaps your aunt and uncle? One sometimes confides in aunts especially, when no one else seems as appropriate.”
    Basil let out his breath in a sharp round of contempt and turned away towards the window.
    “Not Aunt Fenella.” Cyprian half sat on the back of one of the leather-upholstered chairs. “But she is very observant—and inquisitive. She may have noticed something the rest of us did not—if she hasn’t forgotten it.”
    “Has she a short memory?” Monk inquired.
    “Erratic,” Cyprian replied with an oblique smile. He reached for the bell, but when the butler arrived it was Basil who instructed him to fetch first Mrs. Sandeman, and then Mr. Thirsk.
    Fenella Sandeman bore an extraordinary resemblance to Basil. She had the same dark eyes and short, straight nose, her mouth was similarly wide and mobile, but her whole head was narrower and the lines were smoothed out. In her youth she must have had an exotic charm close to real beauty, now it was merely extraordinary. Monk did not need to ask the relationship; it was too plain to miss. She was of approximately the same age as Basil, perhaps nearer sixty than fifty, but she fought against time with every artifice imagination could conceive. Monk did not know enough of women to realize precisely what tricks they were, but he knew their presence. If he had ever understood them it was forgotten, with so much else. But he saw an artificiality in her face: the color of the skin was unnatural, the line of her brows harsh, her hair stiff and too dark.
    She looked at Monk with great interest and refused Basil’s invitation to sit down.
    “How do you do,” she said with a charming husky voice, just a fraction blurred at the edges.
    “Fenella, he’s a policeman, not a social acquaintance,” Basil snapped. “He is investigating Octavia’s death. It seems she was killed by someone here in the house,