William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

more deeply than most. It was not only the tragedy of it, it was the feeling, the almost certainty, that Keelin Melville had some last secret she had taken to the grave with her, which would make sense of her behavior.
    He paced back and forth across his sitting room, ignoring the dying embers of the fire and the rain spattering against the windows, loud because he had forgotten to draw the curtains.
    He could understand why Melville had not told Zillah she was really a woman. She had kept the secret so long she could not trust anyone at all, except Wolff, not to reveal it. Perhaps it would only have been a confidence to a girl friend, whispered in exchange for some other romantic secret or dream, a moment’s hurt and loneliness eased by sharing. But then what would bind the friend to keep total silence? The chance to share such a dramatic piece of information could be a temptation too great.
    No, she was wiser to trust no one. Too much depended on it. And once the case had gone so far, it was too late to hope Barton Lambert would keep silent. If he had told anyone inanger, no matter how much he had regretted it, it would be too late to take it back. Knowledge can never be withdrawn.
    Before it all happened, Monk would have thought it trivial. What did it matter whether a person was a man or a woman, except to those who knew that person? The works of art were the same. Why not let it be known, and if there were no more commissions, then leave! Go to Italy, or France, or anywhere one liked.
    But Melville had spent twelve years in England, had designed some of the loveliest buildings in the country. She did not want to see them belittled for a reason that had nothing to do with their value. And she had been right. It was happening already, the derisory remarks, the suddenly altered perception when nothing in the reality was changed. She had been prepared to take the chance, and fought to survive in England.
    And, of course, once the trial had begun she could not leave. And it seemed she really had believed it would turn out differently.
    So what had made her change her mind and take belladonna poison … in the middle of the afternoon?
    He stopped at the window and stared out of it, seeing only the blur of the rain. Nobody else cared now, except Rathbone, of course, and that was for emotional reasons. He hated failure, and he was not used to guilt. Monk smiled to himself. He was much more used to it, but he liked it no better. The only difference was that for him it was a familiar pain, for Rathbone it had all the shock of the new.
    At least Monk imagined it had!
    Was that why Keelin Melville had killed herself? Guilt?
    Over what? The injury she had done to Zillah Lambert could very easily be explained. It was error, private social clumsiness possibly. Certainly nothing that warranted suicide.
    Anyway, wasn’t genius rather more self-protective than that? He tried to think back on what he knew of the lives of the great creative people. Many of them had hurt others, been eccentric, selfish, single-minded, impossible to live with happily, sometimes even to live with at all. But it was those aroundthem they injured, not themselves. They were too fired by their passion to make, to build, to create, paint, dance or whatever it was that formed their gift to the world. Sometimes they burned themselves out; sometimes illness or accident consumed them. Many died young.
    But he could think of no example of one who had killed himself over guilt regarding his abuse of women. The very idea was almost a contradiction within itself.
    Was Melville so different simply because she was a woman?
    He doubted it.
    Then what?
    The rain was streaming down the window now, distorting the lamps of carriages passing in the street below, reflecting in the puddles.
    The more he thought about the buildings full of light, the clean lines soaring into the air, the sense of comfort and peace he had felt inside them, the less could he believe Melville would have taken her own life.
    Was it conceivable that somewhere, in some way he had yet even to imagine, somebody else had killed her?
    Why? Why would anybody want to? What else had happened that day, or the day before, to make her dangerous to anyone? If she had known anything about Zillah that was not to her credit, surely she would have said so before this, long before Isaac Wolff was tarnished by the whole affair, even put in jeopardy of imprisonment, for a crime which now was ludicrous, in light