William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

scrubwomen and domestics. Got ideas about being a doctor, she ’ad. Right fool, she was, poor cow. Should have heard what his lordship had to say about that.”
    “ ’Oo? Sir ’Erbert?”
    “ ’Course Sir ’Erbert. ’Oo else? Not old German George. ’E’s a foreigner and full o’ funny ideas anyway. Wouldn’t be surprised if it were ’im wot killed ’er. That’s what them rozzers are sayin’ anyway.”
    “Are they?” Hester looked interested. “Why? I mean, couldn’t it just as easily have been anyone else?”
    They all looked at her.
    “Wot yer mean?” the red-haired one said with a frown.
    Hester hitched herself onto the edge of the laundry basket. This was the sort of opportunity she had been angling for. “Well, who was here when she was killed?”
    They looked at her, then at each other.
    “Wot yer mean? Doctors, and the like?”
    “ ’Course she means doctors and the like,” the fat woman said derisively. “She don’t think one of us did her in. If I were going to kill anyone, it’d be me ol’ man, not some jumped-up nurse wi’ ideas above ’erself. Wot do I care about ’er? I wouldn’t ’av seen ’er dead, poor cow, but I wouldn’t shed no tears either.”
    “What about the treasurer and the chaplain?” Hester tried to sound casual. “Did they like her?”
    The fat woman shrugged. “Who knows? Why should they care one way or the other?”
    “Well she weren’t bad-looking,” the old one replied with an air of generosity. “And if they can chase Mary ’Iggins, they could certainly chase ’er.”
    “Who chases Mary Higgins?” Hester inquired, not sure who Mary Higgins was, but assuming she was a nurse.
    “The treasurer,” the young one said with a shrug. “Fancies ’er, ’e does.”
    “So does the chaplain,” the fat woman said with a snort.“Dirty old sod. Keeps putting ’is arm ’round ’er an’ calling ’er ‘dear.’ Mind, I wouldn’t say as ’e didn’t fancy Pru’ Barrymore neither, come ter think on it. Maybe ’e went too far, and she threatened to report ’im? ’E could ’a done it.”
    “Would he have been here at that time in the morning?” Hester asked dubiously.
    They looked at each other.
    “Yeah,” the fat one said with certainty. “ ’E’d bin ’ere all night ’cos of someone important dying. ’E were ’ere all right. Maybe ’e did it, and not German George? An’ ’is patient snuffed it, an all,” she added. “Wot were a surprise. Thought ’e were goin’ ter make it—poor sod.”
    There were several such conversations in between the sweeping and fetching, rolling bandages, emptying pails and changing beds. Hester learned a great deal about where everybody was at about seven o’clock on the morning that Prudence Barrymore had died, but it still left a great many possibilities as to who could have killed her. She heard much gossip about motives, most of it scurrilous and highly speculative, but when she saw John Evan she reported it to him in the brief moment they had alone in one of the small side rooms where medicines were kept. Mrs. Flaherty had just left, after instructing Hester to roll an enormous pile of bandages, and Sir Herbert was not due for at least another half hour, after he had finished luncheon.
    Evan half sat on the table, watching her fingers smoothing and rolling the cloth.
    “Have you told Monk yet?” he asked with a smile.
    “I haven’t seen him since Sunday,” she replied.
    “What is he doing?” he asked, his voice light but his hazel eyes watching her with brightness.
    “I don’t know,” she answered, piling another heap of bandages on the table beside him. “He said he was going to learn more about various governors on the board, in case one of them had some relationship with Prudence, or her family, that we don’t know about. Or even some connection with her in the Crimea, in any way.”
    Evan grunted, his eyes roaming over the cabinet with itsjars of dried herbs, colored crystals, and bottles of wine and surgical spirits. “That’s something we haven’t even thought of.” He pulled a face. “But then Jeavis wouldn’t. He tends to think in terms of the obvious and usually he’s right. Runcorn would never countenance disturbing the gentry, unless there is no other choice. Does Monk think it’s personal, in that way?”
    She laughed. “He’s not told me. It could be anybody. It seems the chaplain was here all that night—and Dr. Beck …”
    Evan’s head jerked