William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

imagine so.” She picked up her skirts delicately as they passed a patch of long grass by the path. “Prudence worked closely with Sir Herbert. He spoke very highly of her to me. I imagine he would take her word for such a thing.” She let her skirts fall again. “Certainly Dora Parsons is the sort of woman who could be very easily replaced. There are thousands like her in London.”
    “And very few indeed like Prudence Barrymore,” he finished the thought. “And presumably several more like Dora Parsons even within the Royal Free Hospital. So that thought is hardly conclusive.”
    They walked in silence for a while, absorbed in their own thoughts. They passed a man with a dog, and two small boys, one with a hoop, the other with a spinning top on a string, looking for a level place in the path to pull it. A young woman looked Monk up and down admiringly; her escort sulked. At length it was Hester who spoke.
    “Have you learned anything?”
    “What?”
    “Have you learned anything?” she repeated. “You must have been doing something over the last week. What is the result?”
    Suddenly he grinned broadly, as if the interrogation amused him.
    “I suppose you have as much right to know as I,” he conceded. “I have been looking into Mr. Geoffrey Taunton and Miss Nanette Cuthbertson. She is a more determined young woman than I first supposed. And she seems to have had the most powerful motive of all for wishing to be rid of Prudence. Prudence stood between her and love, respectability, and the family status she wishes for more than anything else. Time is growing short for her—very short.” They had momentarily stopped under the trees and he put his hands in his pockets. “She is twenty-eight, even though she is still remarkably pretty. I imagine panic may be rising inside her—enough to do violence. If only I could work out how she achieved it,” he said thoughtfully. “She is not as tall as Prudence by some two inches, and of slight build. And even with her head in the academic clouds, Prudence cannot surely have been so insensitive as to have been unaware of Nanette’s emotions.”
    Hester wanted to snap back that twenty-eight was hardly ancient—and of course she was still pretty. And might well remain so for another twenty years—or more. But she felt a ridiculous tightening in her throat, and found the words remained unspoken. It hardly mattered if twenty-eight were old or not—if it seemed old to him. You cannot argue someone out of such a view.
    “Hester?” He frowned at her.
    Hester stared straight ahead and began walking again.
    “She might have been,” she replied briskly. “Perhaps she valued people for their worth—their humor, or courage, integrity, their intelligence, compassion, good companionship, imagination, honor, any of a dozen things that don’t suddenly cease the day you turn thirty.”
    “For Heaven’s sake, don’t be so idiotic,” he said inamazement, striding along beside her. “We’re not talking about worth. We’re talking about Nanette Cuthbertson being in love and wanting to marry Geoffrey Taunton and have a family. That’s got nothing to do with intelligence or courage or humor. What’s the matter with you? Stop walking so fast or you’ll fall over something! She wants children—not a halo. She’s a perfectly ordinary woman. I would have thought Prudence would have had sufficient wit to see that. But talking to you—perhaps she wouldn’t. You don’t seem to have.”
    Hester opened her mouth to argue, but there was no logical answer, and she found herself at a loss for words.
    He strode on in silence, still swiping occasionally at the odd stone on the path.
    “Is that all you’ve done?” she said finally.
    “What?”
    “Discover that Nanette had a good motive, but no means, so far as you can find out.”
    “No of course it isn’t.” He hit another stone. “I’ve looked into Prudence’s past, her nursing skills, her war record, anything I can think of. It’s all very interesting, very admirable, but none of it suggests a specific motive for murdering her—or anyone who might have wished to. I am somewhat hampered by not having any authority.”
    “Well whose fault is that?” she said sharply, then immediately wished she had not, but was damned if she was going to apologize.
    They walked for a further hundred yards in silence until they were back at Doughty Street, where she excused herself, pointing out that she’d had very little