William Monk 05 - The Sins of the Wolf

gait, his long legs, not quite straight, which brought back faint, indistinct memories of being a young man, admiring his mentor intensely, almost without question. He had been very naive then. It seemed like another man whose innocence he looked at as he would a stranger’s, only the feeling was within him, unaccountably sharp for just those few moments.
    There was a legless beggar sitting on the footpath, an old soldier from some war gone from the public mind. He was selling small pieces of white heather bound into nosegays for luck.
    Suddenly Henry Rathbone’s eyes filled with agonized tears of pity. Wordlessly he smiled at the man and offered him sixpence for two bunches. He took them and walked in silence for several more paces before passing one to Monk.
    “Don’t lose hope,” he said abruptly as they stepped off the curb and across the street. “Argyll is clever too. One of the family is responsible. Think what that person must be feeling! Think of the guilt, no matter what passion drove him or her to do it, whether it was fear or greed, or hatred for some wrong, real or imagined. There is still a terror, in all but the totally mad, for having taken such an irretrievable step.”
    Monk said nothing, but kept in step with him, thoughts turning over in his mind. What Henry Rathbone said was true. Someone was laboring under a driving passion which must include both fear and guilt.
    “And perhaps a kind of elation,” Henry went on. “The culprit seems to have won, to be on the brink of victory.”
    Monk grunted. “What kind of victory? Achievement of something or escape from some danger? Is it elation or relief?”
    Henry shook his head, his face troubled. The darkness of it touched him, both for Mary Farraline and for whichever of her children, or children by marriage, had killed her.
    “Pressure,” he said, continuing to shake his head. “The process of the law may reach them, you know. That is what Oliver would do. Question. Probe. Play on their doubts of each other. I hope Argyll will do the same.”
    Neither of them said anything about Hester, but Monk knew Henry Rathbone was thinking of her too. There wasno need to talk of winning or losing. It was always just below the surface of their words anyway, too painful to touch.
    They walked on together in silence up the Lawnmarket.

9
    H
ESTER FELT
uniquely alien as she stood in the cage in the cells waiting to be drawn up through the extraordinary trapdoor affair which would bring her into the courtroom without the necessity of passing through the crowd. The day was bitterly cold and here below the courtroom there was no heat at all. She shivered uncontrollably, and told herself with a flash of mockery that it had nothing to do with fear.
    But when the time came and she was winched up into the packed court, even the warmth of the two coal fires and the expectant crowd of people crammed together to fill every space did not reach inside her and stop the shaking or ease the locked muscles.
    She did not search their faces to see Monk, or Callandra, or Henry Rathbone. It was too painful. It reminded her of all she valued and might so very soon have to leave. And that was looking more and more likely with every witness who spoke. She had seen Argyll’s tiny victories—and was not deceived. They were not enough to light hope in anyone but a fool. They kept the battle alive, futile as it was so far. They prevented surrender—but not defeat.
    The first witness of the day was Connal Murdoch. The last time she had seen him had been in the railway station in London. He had been stunned with the news of Mary’s death, confused by it, and anxious for his wife and her state both of health and of mind. Now he looked quite different. The frantic, slightly disheveled air was totally gone. He wasneatly dressed in plain black, well cut but unimaginative. It was expensive without being elegant, probably because the man himself had no conception of grace, only of what was fitting.
    But she could not deny the intelligence in his face with its hooded eyes, nervous mouth and slightly receding hair.
    “Mr. Murdoch,” Gilfeather began with an amiable air. “Allow me to take you through the events of that tragic day, as you are aware of them. You and your wife were expecting to meet Mrs. Farraline on the overnight train from Edinburgh?”
    Murdoch looked grim and nodded slightly as he replied.
    “Was it Mrs. Farraline herself who wrote to you of her