William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

Furnival’s at home.”
    “Thank you,” he accepted, not questioning the euphemism. “May I wait here?” he asked when they were in the hall.
    “Yes sir, if you’d rather.” She seemed to see nothing to object to, and as soon as she was gone he looked around. The stairway was very beautiful, sweeping down the righthand wall as he stood facing it. The balcony stretched the full width of the landing above, a distance of about thirtyfive feet as far as he could judge, and at least twenty feet above the hall. It would be an unpleasant fall, but not by any means necessarily a fatal one. In fact it would be quite possible to have overbalanced across the banister and dropped the distance without serious injury at all.
    And the suit of armor was still there below the corner where the banister turned to come down. One would have had to fall over the very corner of it to land on the armor. It was a fine piece, although a trifle ostentatious, perhaps, in a London house. It belonged in a baronial hall with interior stonework and great open fireplaces, but it was extremely decorative here, and an excellent conversation piece, making the house one to remain in the memory, which was presumably the purpose of it. It was full late medieval knight’s armor, covering the entire body, and the right-hand gauntlet was held as if to grasp a spear or pike of some sort, but wasempty now. No doubt the police would have the halberd as evidence to be presented at Alexandra Carlyon’s trial.
    He looked around to see the disposition of the rest of the reception rooms. There was a door to his right, just beyond the foot of the stairs. If that were the withdrawing room, surely anyone in it must have heard that suit of armor fall to the ground, even though the hall was well scattered with carpets, either Bokhara or a good imitation. The metal pieces would crash against each other, even on cushions.
    There was another door to the right, under the high point of the stairs, but that was more likely a library or billiard room. One did not often have a main reception room entrance so masked.
    To the left was a very handsome double door. He went across and opened it softly. Since the maid had not gone to it, but towards the back of the house, he trusted it was empty at the moment.
    He looked in. It was a very large, lavishly appointed dining room, with an oak table big enough to seat at least a dozen people. He pulled the door closed again quickly and stepped back. They could not have been dining when Thaddeus Carlyon fell onto the armor. Here too they could not have failed to hear it.
    He had resumed his place in the center of the hall only just in time as the maid reappeared.
    “Mrs. Furnival will see you, sir, if you like to come this way,” she said demurely.
    She led him to a wide corridor towards the back of the house, past another doorway, straight ahead to the withdrawing room, which opened onto the garden, as far as possible from the hall.
    There was no time to look at the furnishings, except to get the briefest impression of crowding with overstuffed sofas and chairs in hot pinks and reds, rich curtains, some rather ordinary pictures, and at least two gilt-framed mirrors.
    The woman who commanded his attention was actually physically quite small, but of such striking personality that she dominated the room. Her bones were slender, yet hisoverriding impression was of voluptuousness. She had a mass of dark hair, much fuller around her face than the current fashion; but it was also far more flattering to her broad, high cheekbones and long eyes, which were so narrow he could not at first be sure of their color, whether they were green or brown. She was not at all like a real cat, and yet there was an intensely feline quality in her, a grace and a detachment that made him think of small, fierce wild animals.
    She would have been beautiful, in a sensuous and highly individual way, had not a meanness in her upper lip sent a tingling jar through him, like a warning.
    “Good afternoon, Mr. Monk.” Her voice was excellent, strong and level, much more immediate than he had expected, more candid. From such a woman he had expected something self-consciously childlike and artificially sweet. This was a most pleasant surprise. “How may I help you with a legal matter? I presume it is to do with poor General Carlyon?”
    So she was both intelligent and forthright. He instantly altered what he had been going to say. He had imagined a sillier