William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

maids had an extra hour in bed, and were now occupied in sweeping, beating carpets, polishing floors with meltedcandle ends and turpentine, cleaning brass with boiling vinegar.
    Up the stairs and along the landing Monk followed Hagger until they came to the master bedroom, apparently the general’s, past his dressing room next door, and on to a very fine sunny and spacious room which he announced as being Mrs. Carlyon’s. Opening off it to the left was a dressing room where cupboard doors stood open and a ladies’ maid was busy brushing down a blue-gray outdoor cape which must have suited Alexandra’s fair coloring excellently.
    The girl looked up in surprise as she saw Hagger, and Monk behind him. Monk judged her to be in her midtwenties, thin and dark, but with a remarkably pleasant countenance.
    Hagger wasted no time. “Ginny, this is Mr. Monk. He is working for the mistress’s lawyers, trying to find out something that will help her. He wants to ask you some questions, and you will answer him as much as you can—anything ’e wants to know. Understand?”
    “Yes, Mr. Hagger.” She looked very puzzled, but not unwilling.
    “Right.” Hagger turned to Monk. “You come down when you’re ready, an’ if there’s ought else as can ’elp, let me know.”
    “I will, thank you, Mr. Hagger. You have been most obliging,” Monk accepted. Then as soon as Hagger had departed and closed the door, he turned to the maid.
    “Go on with what you are doing,” he requested. “I shall be some time.”
    “I’m sure I don’t know what I can tell you,” Ginny said, obediently continuing to brush the cape. “She was always a very good mistress to me.”
    “In what way good?”
    She looked surprised. “Well … considerate, like. She apologized if she got anything extra dirty, or if she kept me up extra late. She gave me things as she didn’t want no more, and always asked after me family, and the like.”
    “You were fond of her?”
    “Very fond of’er, Mr.—”
    “Monk.”
    “Mr. Monk, can you ’elp ’er now? I mean, after she said as she done it?” Her face was puckered with anxiety.
    “I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “If there were some reason why, that people could understand, it might help.”
    “What would anybody understand, as why a lady should kill ’er ’usband?” Ginny put away the cape and brought out a gown of a most unusual deep mulberry shade. She shook it and a perfume came from its folds that caught Monk with a jolt of memory so violent he saw a whole scene of a woman in pink, standing with her back to him, weeping softly. He had no idea what her face was like, except he found it beautiful, and he recalled none of her words. But the feeling was intense, an emotion that shook him and filled his being, an urgency amounting to passion that he must find the truth, and free her from a terrible danger, one that would destroy her life and her reputation.
    But who was she? Surely she had nothing to do with Walbrook? No—one thing seemed to resolve in his mind. When Walbrook was ruined, and Monk’s own career in commerce came to an end, he had not at that point even thought of becoming a policeman. That was what had decided him—his total inability to either help Walbrook and his wife, or even to avenge them and put his enemy out of business.
    The woman in pink had turned to him because he was a policeman. It was his job to find the truth.
    But he could not bring her face to mind, nor anything to do with the case, except that she was suspected of murder—murdering her husband—like Alexandra Carlyon.
    Had he succeeded? He did not even know that. Or for that matter, if she was innocent or guilty. And why had he cared with such personal anguish? What had been their relationship? Had she cared for him as deeply, or was she simply turning to him because she was desperate and terrified?
    “Sir?” Ginny was staring at him. “Are you all right, sir?”
    “Oh—oh yes, thank you. What did you say?”
    “What would folks reckon was a reason why it might be all right for a lady to kill ’er ’usband? I don’t know of none.”
    “Why do you think she did it?” Monk asked baldly, his wits still too scattered to be subtle. “Was she jealous of Mrs. Furnival?”
    “Oh no sir.” Ginny dismissed it out of hand. “I don’t like to speak ill of me betters, but Mrs. Furnival weren’t the kind o’ person to—well, sir, I don’t rightly know ’ow to put it—”
    “Simply.”