William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

a back page. She might not even see it.
    And he wanted to share the burden of his feelings about it with someone to whom it needed no explanation and who would understand without his needing to tell anything but the bare facts.
    He was welcomed as usual and shown into the withdrawing room. He asked to see Hester, and this time there was no waiting. She came after barely five minutes, and a glance at his face told her why he had come.
    “It’s over?” She came in and closed the door behind her. There was a small fire burning and the room looked gentle and very domestic, shabby enough to feel at ease.
    “Yes … it’s over. Suicide.”
    She looked at him closely, studying his eyes, his face. For several moments she did not say anything more, simply sharing in silence the complex unhappiness of the knowledge. All sorts of questions and ideas went through his mind as to whether they could have done differently, what he had expected, but none of them were worth putting into words. He knew what her answer would be, and that very fact was comfortable.
    “How is Oliver?” she said at last.
    He laughed very slightly, abruptly. “Extraordinary … quite out of character,” he answered, then wondered immediately if that was so. Perhaps Rathbone had instead found a truer part of himself. “He told the court, and the public, what he thought of their general prejudice and of the value of women for their prettiness and docility, and led the way for the coroner to express his highly unflattering opinion of Sacheverall.” He remembered it with surprising pleasure as he said it.
    She smiled, a slow, sad smile, but with a gentleness he realized he had seen in her often.
    “Poor Oliver. He is not used to feeling so violently. I think he cared about Melville more than most of his cases. I’ve never seen him so angry.”
    “You admire that, don’t you?” he observed. He made it aquestion, but he knew it was true. If she had denied it he would not have believed her. He admired it too. He had no regard for someone incapable of anger at injustice.
    He had thought Rathbone cold, a creature of his intellect, of superb and total control of his emotions. To find he was not so increased Monk’s liking for him. He was not sure that he wished to like Rathbone, but even with all its complications, it was a sweeter feeling than contempt or indifference.
    “Do you want to tell Gabriel?” she asked, cutting across his thoughts.
    “Yes … yes, I will. How is he?” He asked because he liked Gabriel; it was not a matter of courtesy.
    “Better,” she replied, meeting his eyes. “I think the pain is about the same. It will be for a while. But he is sleeping with fewer nightmares now.”
    “Perdita?” he guessed.
    She smiled. “Yes. Slowly …”
    He smiled also, remembering Athol Sheldon and the look on his face when Perdita had spoken to him the last time Monk had been there. It was a battle she would not win easily, but at least she was prepared to fight it.
    Hester led the way from the withdrawing room across the hall and upstairs to Gabriel’s room. She knocked on the door.
    It was opened by Perdita. She was dressed in soft pink trimmed with wine and she looked very serious and demure in spite of the flattering color. She stared past Hester to Monk.
    “Is it more about Martha’s nieces?” she asked very quietly, in case Martha should be close and overhear her.
    “No, Mrs. Sheldon, it is about the inquest on Keelin Melville.”
    “Oh.” She hesitated only a moment. The old habit of trying to protect Gabriel did not die easily. She had to make a conscious effort to realize what she was doing. She opened the door wider and they followed her in.
    Gabriel was sitting up on the bed, but he was fully dressed. It was only the second time Monk had seen him other than under the covers. He realized with a sense of shock how thinGabriel was. Quite apart from the empty sleeve of his shirt, neatly tucked up and fastened, in the warm room with the sunlight streaming in, the thin cotton fabric showed how his body had wasted even on the other side. Heat, hunger and pain had taken a fearful toll on him. It would be half a year at least before he regained the health he had had before Cawnpore. Monk became acutely curious of his own body with its lean muscles and ease of movement, his energy, the power he did not even have to think of. So much was a matter of fortune. He could have been in the army instead of the police. He might