William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

their station, and they forget who they are and take liberties.”
    Then she swung around and stared at him, her eyes exaggeratedly wide. “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my dear, how perfectly awful. Do you suppose that was what happened to her?” Her very small, elegantly gloved hand flew to her mouth. “She was overfamiliar with one of the servants? He ran away with the wrong idea—or, heaven help us, the right one,” she said breathlessly. “And then she fought him off—and he killed her in the heat of his passion? Oh, how perfectly frightful. What a scandal!” She gulped. “Ha-ha-ha. Basil will never get over it. Just imagine what his friends will say.”
    Monk was unaccountably revolted, not by the thought, which was pedestrian enough, but by her excitement at it. He controlled his disgust with difficulty, unconsciously taking a step backwards.
    “Do you think that is what happened, ma’am?”
    She heard nothing in his tone to dampen her titillation.
    “Oh, it is quite possible,” she went on, painting the picture for herself, turning away and beginning to walk again. “I know just the man to have done it. Percival—one of the footmen. Fine-looking man—but then all footmen are, don’t you think?” She glanced sideways, then away again. “No, perhaps you don’t. I daresay you’ve never had much occasion. Not many footmen in your line of work.” She laughed again and hunched her shoulders without looking at him. “Percival has that kind of face—far too intelligent to be a good servant. Ambitious. And such a marvelously cruel mouth. A man with a mouth like that could do anything.” She shuddered, wriggling her body as if shedding some encumbrance—or feeling something delicious against her skin. It occurred to Monk to wonder if perhaps she herself had encouraged the young footman into a relationship above and outside his station. But looking at her immaculate, artificial face the thought was peculiarly repellent. As close as he was to her now, in the hard daylight, it was clear that she must be nearer sixty than fifty, and Percival not more than thirty at the very outside.
    “Have you any grounds for that idea, Mrs. Sandeman, other than what you observe in his face?” he asked her.
    “Oh—you are angry.” She turned her limpid gaze up at him. “I have offended your sense of propriety. You are a trifle pious yourself, aren’t you, Inspector?”
    Was he? He had no idea. He knew his instinctive reaction now: the gentle, vulnerable faces like Imogen Latterly’s that stirred his emotions; the passionate, intelligent ones like Hester’s which both pleased and irritated him; the calculating, predatorily female ones like Fenella Sandeman’s which he found alien and distasteful. But he had no memory of any actual relationship. Was he a prig, a cold man, selfish and incapable of commitment, even short-lived?
    “No, Mrs. Sandeman, but I am offended by the idea of a footman who takes liberties with his mistress’s daughter and then knifes her to death,” he said ruthlessly. “Are you not?”
    Still she was not angry. Her boredom cut him more deeply than any subtle insult or mere aloofness.
    “Oh, how sordid. Yes of course I am. You do have a crass way with words, Inspector. One could not have you in the withdrawing room. Such a shame. You have a—” She regarded him with a frank appreciation which he found very unnerving. “An air of danger about you.” Her eyes were very bright and she stared at him invitingly.
    He knew what the euphemism stood for, and found himself backing away.
    “Most people find police intrusive, ma’am; I am used to it. Thank you for your time, you have been most helpful.” And he bowed very slightly and turned on his heel, leaving her standing beside her horse with her crop in one hand and the rein still over her arm. Before he had reached the edge of the grass she was speaking to a middle-aged gentleman who had just dismounted from a large gray and was flattering her shamelessly.
       He found the idea of an amorous footman both unpleasant and unlikely, but it could not be dismissed. He had put off interviewing the servants himself for too long. He hailed a hansom along the Knightsbridge Road and directed it to take him to Queen Anne Street, where he paid the driver and went down the areaway steps to the back door.
    Inside the kitchen was warm and busy and full of the odors of roasting meat, baking pastry and fresh apples. Coils of peel lay on the table, and