William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

else is lost. Can you wonder that people are frightened, and appalled, when a woman who has everything given her turns ’round and kills the very man who protected and provided for her? Of course they react displeased. One cannot expect anything else. You must ignore it. If you had sent for the dressmaker, as you should have, then you would not have witnessed it.”
    Nothing further was said in the matter, and half an hour later when the meal was finished, Edith and Hester excused themselves. Shortly after that, Hester took her leave, having told Edith all she knew of progress so far, and promising to continue with every bit of the very small ability she possessed, and trying to assure her, in spite of her own misgivings, that there was indeed some hope.
        Major Tiplady was staring towards the window waiting for her when she returned home, and immediately enquired to know the outcome of her visit.
    “I don’t know that it is anything really useful,” she answered,taking off her cloak and bonnet and laying them on the chair for Molly to hang up. “But I learned quite a lot more about the general. I am not sure that I should have liked him, but at least I can feel some pity that he is dead.”
    “That is not very productive,” Tiplady said critically. He regarded her narrowly, sitting very upright. “Could this Louisa woman have killed him?”
    Hester came over and sat on the chair beside him.
    “It looks very doubtful,” she confessed. “He seems a man far more capable of friendship than romances; and Louisa apparently had too much to lose, both in reputation and finance, to have risked more than a flirtation.” She felt suddenly depressed. “In fact it does seem as if Alexandra was the one—or else poor Sabella—if she really is deranged.”
    “Oh dear.” Tiplady looked crushed. “Then where do we go from here?”
    “Perhaps it was one of the servants,” she said with sudden hope again.
    “One of the servants?” he said incredulously. “Whatever for?”
    “I don’t know. Some old military matter?”
    He looked doubtful.
    “Well, I shall pursue it!” she said firmly. “Now, have you had tea yet? What about supper? What would you care for for supper?”
        Two days later she took an afternoon off, at Major Tiplady’s insistence, and went to visit Lady Callandra Daviot in order to enlist her help in learning more of General Carlyon’s military career. Callandra had helped her with both counsel and friendship when she first returned from the Crimea, and it was with her good offices that she had obtained her hospital post. It was extremely gracious of Callandra not to have been a good deal harsher in her comments when Hester had then lost it through overstepping the bounds of her authority.
    Callandra’s late husband, Colonel Daviot, had been an army surgeon of some distinction; a quick-tempered, charming,stubborn, witty and somewhat arbitrary man. He had had a vast acquaintance and might well have known something of General Carlyon. Callandra, still with connections to the Army Medical Corps, might be able either to recall hearing of the general, or to institute discreet enquiries and learn something of his career and, more importantly, of his reputation. She might be able to find information about the unofficial events which just might lead to another motive for murder, either someone seeking revenge for a wrong, a betrayal on the field, or a promotion obtained unfairly—or imagined to be so, or even some scandal exposed or too harshly pursued. The possibilities were considerable.
    They were sitting in Callandra’s room, which could hardly be called a withdrawing room, since she would have received no formal visitors there. It was full of bright sunlight, desperately unfashionable, cluttered with books and papers, cushions thrown about for comfort, two discarded shawls and a sleeping cat which should have been white but was liberally dusted with soot.
    Callandra herself, well into middle age, gray hair flying all over the place as if she were struggling against a high wind, her curious intelligent face long-nosed, full of humor, and quite out of fashion also, was sitting in the sunlight, which if it were habit might account for her indelicate complexion. She regarded Hester with amusement.
    “My dear girl, do you not imagine Monk has already told me of the case? That was our bargain, if you recall. And quite naturally I have made considerable efforts to learn what I can of