William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

again.”
    “Whatever makes you think she wants to?” she demanded hotly. It was apparent the idea was new to her, and repugnant. “There is every evidence she loved her husband deeply. What makes you think otherwise?” That was a challenge. It was quick in her eyes and her voice.
    He responded with a similar sharpness. “Her close friendship with Titus Niven, which is quite remarkable for a woman hardly on the brink of widowhood. Her husband is not even pronounced dead yet, never mind in his grave.”
    “You have a vicious mind.” She looked at him witheringly. “Mr. Niven is a family friend. For most people it is very natural to comfort a friend in time of bereavement. I’m surprised you haven’t observed it in others, even if you wouldn’t have thought it yourself.”
    “If I had just lost my wife, I wouldn’t turn to the most attractive woman I could find,” he retorted. “I would turn to another man.”
    Her contempt only increased. “Don’t be naive. If you were a woman, you would turn to a man rather than a woman, for the practical matters. Not that they are any better at it, simply that they are taken seriously by others. People always assume women are incompetent, whether they are or not. And of course they have no legal standing anyway.”
    Before he could make exactly the right crushing remark, Callandra came over to them. She too looked tired and untidy, her clothes soiled, but there was a look of pleasure in her face at seeing him.
    “Hello, William. How is your case progressing? I assume that is why you are here?” She brushed her hair out of her eyes absently, at the same time smearing her face with soot from the stove, but there was a lift in her voice and a calmness in her eyes as of some inner radiance. She met his glance absolutely squarely. “Is there something with which we can help you? We have heard quite a lot more about this wretched man, Caleb Stone. I am not sure of what use it could be.”
    “It might be of much use,” he said quickly. “I found him myself, and he admitted having killed Angus, but I still have no corpse. Even if I can never prove Caleb’s guilt, much as I would like to, the important thing is that the authorities will assume Angus’s death, for the widow’s sake.”
    “Yes, of course. I understand.”
    “Is there somewhere we can talk more privately?” he asked, looking away from Hester.
    Callandra hid the faintest smile, then excused herself and led Monk to the small storeroom where they had spoken earlier, leaving Hester to return to her duties.
    “You look in an ill temper, William,” she observed as soon as the door was closed. She sat on the only chair and he sat half sideways on the bench. “Is it the frustration of your case, or have you been quarreling with Hester again?”
    “She gets more arbitrary and set in her ways every time I see her,” he responded. “And unbearably self-righteous. It is an extraordinarily unattractive quality, especially in a woman. She seems to be utterly without humor or the ability to charm, which is a woman’s greatest asset.”
    “I see.” Callandra nodded, poking the last stray end of hair into a pin behind her ear. “How fortunate that you feel that way. Now, if she should catch typhoid, like poor Enid Ravensbrook, you will not be so distressed as if you were fond of her, or found her pleasing.”
    It was a monstrous thing to say! The idea of Hester as desperately ill as Enid Ravensbrook, or these poor souls around him, was appalling. It chilled his flesh as if he were frozen from the inside. And she would not be cared for in luxury as Enid had been. There would be no one to sit with her day and night, to nurse her with the skill and dedication to keep her alive. He could try, of course, and he would. But he had not the knowledge. How could Callandra speak so utterly heartlessly?
    “Now, about this case,” she said cheerfully, ignoring his feelings altogether. “It sounds most frustrating. What do you propose to do next? Or have you abandoned it?”
    He was about to make an extremely tart reply when he realized there was humor in her eyes, and suddenly he felt foolish, and had a brilliant memory, barely a second long, of standing at the kitchen table, resting his chin on it, watching his mother rolling pastry. She had just told himsomething which made him realize that she knew almost everything and he knew nothing at all. It had been a revelation, both humiliating and at the same time