William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

dead woman they were burying with such a fashionable funeral now.
    A newsboy strolled past as Monk turned to go inside.
    “ ’Orrible murder!” the boy shouted out, regardless ofstanding beside the church steps. “Police baffled! Read all about it!”
    The service was very formal, sonorous voices intoning all the well-known words, organ music swelling somberly, everything jewel colors of stained glass, gray masses of stone, light on a hundred textures of black, the shuffle of feet and rustle of fabric. Someone sniffed. Footsteps were loud as ushers moved down the aisles. Boots squeaked.
    Monk waited at the back, and as they left to go after the coffin to the family vault he followed as closely as he dared.
    During the interment he stood behind them, next to a large man with a bald head, his few strands of hair fluttering in the sharpening November wind.
    Beatrice Moidore was immediately in front of him, close to her husband now.
    “Did you see that policeman here?” she asked him very quietly. “Standing at the back behind the Lewises.”
    “Of course,” he replied. “Thank God at least he is discreet and he looks like a mourner.”
    “His suit is beautifully cut,” she said with a lift of surprise in her voice. “They must pay them more than I thought. He almost looks like a gentleman.”
    “He does not,” Basil said sharply. “Don’t be ridiculous, Beatrice.”
    “He’ll be back, you know.” She ignored his criticism.
    “Of course he’ll be back,” he said between his teeth. “He’ll be back every day until he gives up—or discovers who it was.”
    “Why did you say ‘give up’ first?” she asked. “Don’t you think he will find out?”
    “I’ve no idea.”
    “Basil?”
    “What?”
    “What will we do if he doesn’t?”
    His voice was resigned. “Nothing. There is nothing to do.”
    “I don’t think I can live the rest of my life not knowing.”
    He lifted his shoulders fractionally. “You will have to, my dear. There will be no alternative. Many cases are unsolved. We shall have to remember her as she was, grieve for her, and then continue our lives.”
    “Are you being willfully deaf to me, Basil?” Her voice shook only at the last word.
    “I have heard every word you said, Beatrice—and replied to it,” he said impatiently. Both of them remained looking ahead all the time, as if their full attention were on the interment. Opposite them Fenella was leaning heavily on Septimus. He propped her up automatically, his mind obviously elsewhere. From the look of sadness not only in his face but in the whole attitude of his body, he was thinking of Octavia.
    “It was not an intruder,” Beatrice went on with quiet anger. “Every day we shall look ’round at faces, listen to inflections of voices and hear double meanings in everything that is said, and wonder if it was that person, or if not, if they know who it was.”
    “You are being hysterical,” Basil snapped, his voice hard in spite of its very quietness. “If it will help you to keep control of yourself, I’ll dismiss all the servants and we’ll hire a new staff. Now for God’s sake pay attention to the service!”
    “Dismiss the servants.” Her words were strangled in her throat. “Oh, Basil! How will that help?”
    He stood still, his body rigid under the black broadcloth, his shoulders high.
    “Are you saying you think it was one of the family?” he said at last, all expression ironed out of his voice.
    She lifted her head a little higher. “Wasn’t it?”
    “Do you know something, Beatrice?”
    “Only what we all know—and what common sense tells me.” Unconsciously she turned her head a fraction towards Myles Kellard on the far side of the crypt.
    Beside him Araminta was staring back at her mother. She could not possibly have heard anything of what had passed between her parents, but her hands tightened in front of her, holding a small handkerchief and tearing it apart.
    The interment was over. The vicar intoned the last amen, and the company turned to depart. Cyprian and his wife, Araminta with several feet between herself and her husband, Septimus militarily upright and Fenella staggering a trifle, lastly Sir Basil and Lady Moidore side by side.
    Monk watched them go with pity, anger and a growing sense of darkness.

4
    “D
O YOU WANT ME
to keep on looking for the jewelry?” Evan asked, his face puckered with doubt. Obviously he believed there was no purpose to it at all.
    Monk agreed with