William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

She liked solitude, the more especially in the last year or so.
    Where did she go?
    To the park.
    Alone?
    Apparently. No one had observed her with someone else.
    All the answers seemed frank and without guile; the women who gave them bemused, sad, troubled—but honest. And all were unprofitable.
    As he went from one smart house to another, echoes of memory drifted across his mind, like wraiths of mist, and as insubstantial. As soon as he grasped them they became nothing. Only the echo of emotion remained, fierce and painful, love, fear, terrible anxiety and a dread of failure.
    Had Alexandra gone to seek counsel or comfort from a Roman Catholic priest? Possibly. But there was no point in looking for such a man; his secrets were inviolable. But it must surely have been something profound to have driven her to find a priest of a different faith, a stranger in whom to confide.
    There were two other outstanding possibilities to investigate. First, that Alexandra had been jealous not of Louisa Furnival but of some other woman, and in this case justifiably so. From what he had learned of him, Monk could not see the general as an amorous adventurer, or even as a man likely to fall passionately in love to a degree where he would throw away his career and his reputation by abandoning his wife and his only son, still a child. And a mere affair was not cause for most wives to resort to murder. If Alexandra had loved her husband so possessively as to prefer him dead rather than in the arms of another woman, then she was a superb actress. She appeared intelligent and somewhat indifferent to the fact that her husband was dead. She was stunned, but not racked with grief; frightened for herself, but even more frightened for her secret being discovered. Surely a woman who had just killed a man she loved in such a fashion would show some traces of such a consuming love—and the devastation of grief.
    And why hide it? Why pretend it was Louisa if it was not? It made no sense.
    Nevertheless he would investigate it. Every possibility must be explored, no matter how remote, or seemingly nonsensical.
    The other possibility—and it seemed more likely—was that Alexandra herself had a lover; and now that she was a widow, she intended in due course to marry whoever it was. That made far more sense. It would be understandable, in those circumstances, if she hid the facts. If Thaddeus had betrayed her with another woman, she was at least the injured party. She might have, in some wild hope, imagined society would excuse her.
    But if she wished to betray him with a lover of her own, and had murdered him to free herself, no one on earth would excuse that.
    In fact the more Monk thought about it, the more did it seem the only solution that fitted all they knew. It was an exceedingly ugly thought—but imperative he learn if it were the truth.
    He decided to begin at Alexandra Carlyon’s home, which she had shared with the general for the last ten years of his life, since his return from active service abroad. Since Monk was indirectly in Mrs. Carlyon’s employ, and she had so far not been convicted of any crime, he felt certain he would find a civil, even friendly reception.
    The house on Portland Place was closed and forbidding in appearance, the blinds drawn in mourning and a black wreath on the door. For the first time he could recall, he presented himself at the servants’ entrance, as if he had been hawking household goods or was calling to visit some relative in service.
    The back door was opened by a bootboy of perhaps twelve years, round-faced, snub-nosed and wary.
    “Yes sir?” he said guardedly. Monk imagined he had probably been told by the butler to be very careful of inquisitive strangers, most especially if they might be from the newspapers. Had he been butler he would have said something of the sort.
    “Wotcher want?” the boy added as Monk said nothing.
    “To speak with your butler, and if he is not available, with your housekeeper,” Monk replied. He hoped fervently that Alexandra had been a considerate mistress, and her staff wereloyal enough to her to wish her well now and give what assistance they might to someone seeking to aid her cause, and that they would have sufficient understanding to accept that that was indeed his aim.
    “Woffor?” The boy was not so easily beguiled. He looked Monk up and down, the quality of his suit, his stiff-collared white shirt and immaculate boots. “ ’Oo are yer,