William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

fearful, naturally,” Berenice answered, adjusting the drape of her fichu. “But to judge from your expression, I thought there must be something new. I’m relieved there is not.” She was dressed in a rich shade of brown with gold lace. “The whole place is at sixes and sevens. Mrs. Flaherty cannot get sense out of any of the nurses. Stupid women seem to think there is a lunatic about and they are all in danger.” Her rather long-nosed face with its ironic amusement was full of contempt as she stared at Callandra. “Which is ridiculous. It’s obviously a personal crime—some rejected lover, as like as not.”
    “Rejected suitor, perhaps,” Callandra corrected. “Not lover. Prudence was not of that nature.”
    “Oh really, my dear.” Berenice laughed outright, her face full of scornful amusement. “She may have been gauche, but of course she was of that nature. Do you suppose she spent all that time out in the Crimea with all those soldiers out of a religious vocation to help the sick?”
    “No. I think she went out of a sense of frustration at home,” Callandra snapped back. “Adventure to travel and see other places and people, do something useful, and above all to learn about medicine, which had been her passion since she was a girl.”
    Berenice tossed her head in laughter, a rich gurgling sound. “You are naive, my dear! But by all means think what you will.” She moved a little closer to Callandra, as if to impart a confidence, and Callandra caught a breath of rich musky perfume. “Have you seen that fearful little policeman? What an oily creature, like a beetle. Have you noticed he has hardly any eyebrows, and those black eyes like stones.” She shuddered. “I swear they look just like the prune stones I used to count to know my future. You know, tinker, tailor, and so on. I am quite sure he thinks Dr. Beck did it.”
    Callandra tried to speak and had to swallow an obstruction in her throat.
    “Dr. Beck?” She should not have been surprised. It was only her fear spoken aloud. “Why? Why on earth should Dr. Beck have—have—killed her?”
    Berenice shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps he pursued her and she rejected him, and he was furious and lost his temper and strangled her?”
    “Pursued her?” Callandra stared, turmoil in her mind and a hot, sick feeling of horror rippling through her body.
    “For Heaven’s sake, Callandra, stop repeating everything I say as if you were half-witted!” Berenice said tartly. “Why not? He is a man in the prime of life, and married to a woman who at best is quite indifferent to him, and atworst, if I were unkind, refuses to fulfill her conjugal duties….”
    Callandra cringed inside. It was inexpressibly offensive to hear Berenice speaking in such terms of Kristian and his most personal life. It hurt more than she could have foreseen.
    Berenice continued, apparently with total unawareness of the horror she was causing.
    “And Prudence Barrymore was quite a handsome woman, in her own fashion, one has to grant that. Not really a demure face, or traditionally pretty, but I imagine some men may have found it interesting, and poor Dr. Beck may have been in a desperate state. Working side by side can prove peculiarly powerful.” She shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Still, it is hardly anything we can affect, and I have too much to do to spend more time on it. I have to find the chaplain, then I am invited to take tea with Lady Washbourne. Do you know her?”
    “No,” Callandra replied abruptly. “But I know someone probably more interesting, whom I must see. Good day to you.” And with that she walked off smartly before Berenice could be the one to depart first.
    She had had Monk in mind when she spoke, but actually the next person she saw was Kristian Beck himself. He came out of one of the wards into the corridor just as she was passing. He looked preoccupied and anxious, but he smiled when he recognized her and the candor of it sent a warmth through her, which only sharpened her fear. She was forced to admit she cared for him more profoundly than anyone else she could recall. She had loved her husband, but it was a friendship, a companionship of long familiarity and a number of shared ideals over the years, not the sharp, strange vulnerability she felt over Kristian Beck, and not the swift elation and the painful excitement, the inner sweetness, in spite of the pain.
    He was smiling and she had no idea what he had said. She blushed at her