William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

personality given to violence at all. Prudence’s treatment of him would try the patience of almost any man.
    About Nanette Cuthbertson he learned nothing conclusive at all. If she had worn a plain dress, such as nurses or domestics wear, she could have passed in and out again with no one giving her a second glance.
    By late afternoon he had exhausted every avenue, and was disgusted with the case and with his own conduct of it. He had thoroughly frightened or offended at least a dozen people, and furthered his own interests hardly at all.
    He left the hospital and went outside into the rapidly cooling streets amid the clatter and hiss of carriages, the sound of vendors’ cries as costers’ carts traveled by, peddlers called their wares, and men and women hurried to reach their destinations before the heavy skies opened up in a summer thunderstorm.
    He stopped and bought a newspaper from a boy who was shouting: “Latest on trial o’ Sir ’Erbert! Read all about it! Only a penny! Read the news ’ere!” But when Monk opened the page it was little enough: merely more questions and doubts about Prudence, which infuriated him.
    There was one more place he could try. Nanette Cuthbertson had stayed overnight with friends only a few hundred yards away. It was possible they might know something, however trivial.
    He was received very coolly by the butler; indeed, had he been able to refuse entirely without appearing to deny justice, Monk gathered he would have done so. The master of the house, one Roger Waldemar, was brief to the point of rudeness. His wife, however, was decidedly more civil, and Monk caught a gleam of admiration in her glance.
    “My daughter and Miss Cuthbertson have been friends for many years.” She looked at Monk with a smile in her eyes although her face was grave.
    They were alone in her sitting room, all rose and gray, opening onto a tiny walled garden, private, ideal forcontemplation—or dalliance. Monk quashed his speculations as to what might have taken place there and returned his attention to his task.
    “Indeed, you might say they had been from childhood,” Mrs. Waldemar was saying. “But Miss Cuthbertson was with us at the ball all evening. Quite lovely she looked, and so full of spirits. She had a real fire in her eyes, if you know what I mean, Mr. Monk? Some women have a certain”—she shrugged suggestively—“vividness to them that others have not, regardless of circumstance.”
    Monk looked at her with an answering smile. “Of course I know, Mrs. Waldemar. It is something a man does not overlook, or forget.” He allowed his glance to rest on her a fraction longer than necessary. He liked the taste of power, and one day he would push his own to find its limits, to know exactly how much he could do. He was certain it was far more than this very mild, implied flirtation.
    She lowered her eyes, her fingers picking at the fabric of the sofa on which she sat. “And I believe she went out for a walk very early,” she said clearly. “She was not at breakfast. However, I would not wish you to read anything unfortunate into that. I am sure she simply took a little exercise, perhaps to clear her head. I daresay she wished to think.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “I should have in her position. And one must be alone and uninterrupted for such a thing.”
    “In her position?” Monk inquired, regarding her steadily.
    She looked grave. She had very fine eyes, but she was not the type of woman that appealed to him. She was too willing, too obviously unsatisfied.
    “I—I am not sure if this is discreet; it can hardly be relevant….”
    “If it is not relevant, ma’am, I shall immediately forget it,” he promised, leaning an inch or two closer to her. “I can keep my own counsel.”
    “I am sure,” she said slowly. “Well—for some time poor Nanette has been most fond of Geoffrey Taunton, whom you must know. And he has had eyes only for that unfortunategirl Prudence Barrymore. Well, lately young Martin Hereford, a most pleasing and totally acceptable young man …” She invested the words with a peculiar emphasis, conveying her boredom with everything so tediously expected. “… has paid considerable attention to Nanette,” she concluded. “The night of the ball he made his admiration quite apparent. Such a nice young man. Far more suitable really than Geoffrey Taunton.”
    “Indeed?” Monk said with exactly the right mixture of skepticism, to entice