William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

lowered his eyes, as if protecting some inner hurt. “I found Breeland’s watch in the warehouse yard. It couldn’t have been there long; there was just a little mud on it, near where the cart tracks were. It would have been seen by anyone in daylight, and picked up. And since Alberton refused to sell him the guns, he would have no legitimate reason to be in the yard.”
    She felt a dizzy sort of coldness sweep through her.
    “Breeland’s watch?” she repeated his words. “What does it look like?”
    “Look like?” He was puzzled. “A watch! A round, gold watch that you wear on a chain.”
    “How do you know it was his?” she persisted, knowing argument was futile but still compelled to try.
    “Because it had his name on it, and the date.”
    “What date?”
    A flicker of impatience crossed his face. He was too tired and too hurt for quibbles. “What does it matter?”
    “What date?” she insisted.
    He was staring at her; his shoulders sagged with exhaustion and disappointment. “June 1, 1848. Why? Why are you making an issue over it, Hester?”
    She had to tell him. It was not something she could conceal, allow him to go to America unknowing.
    “It wasn’t Breeland who dropped it,” she said very quietly. “He gave it to Merrit for a keepsake. She showed it to me the evening we had dinner there. She said she would never let it out of her sight.”
    He looked at her as if he barely comprehended what she was saying.
    “I’m sorry,” she added. “But she must have been there, whether it was willingly or not.” Another thought occurred to her. “Unless he took the watch from her and dropped it himself, on purpose.…”
    “Why on earth would he do that?”
    But she saw in his eyes that he had thought of the answer before she said it.
    “To incriminate her … so we wouldn’t go after him … a sort of warning that he had her with him … a hostage.”
    He sat silently, turning it over in his mind.
    She waited. There was no point in detailing the possibilities. He could think of them all as well as she could, perhaps better. She poured more tea for both of them, well steeped, and now not quite so hot.
    “Mrs. Alberton knows he might hold her hostage,” he said at last. “She wants us to try anyway.”
    “And if she went willingly?” she asked. It had to be faced.
    “She knows Merrit is hotheaded and idealistic and acts before she thinks, but she doesn’t believe that in any circumstances whatever she would condone murder.” Now he was looking at her, searching her eyes to read in them if she agreed.
    “I hope she’s right,” she answered.
    “You don’t think so?” he said quickly.
    “I don’t know. But what else could any woman say of her own child?”
    “Do you want me to refuse?”
    “No.” The answer slipped out before she had time to weigh it, surprising her more than it did him. “No,” she repeated. “If it were me, I think I would rather have the truth than live with hope of the best, and fear of the worst, all my life. If I loved someone, I would like to think I would have the faith to put it to the test. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think, or you. It’s what Mrs. Alberton wants.”
    “She wants us to go to America and bring Merrit back, willingly or unwillingly, and Breeland too, if we can.”
    She was startled. “Breeland too!”
    “Yes. He’s guilty of triple murder. He should stand trial and answer for it.”
    “That’s all?” In spite of herself there was a lift of desperate sarcasm in her voice. “Just that?”
    He smiled, his eyes wide and steady. “Just that. Shall we?”
    She took a deep breath. “Yes … we shall.”
    The following day, Sunday, June 29, Hester packed the few things it would be necessary for them to take, almost entirely clothes and toiletries. Monk returned to Tavistock Square to give Judith Alberton their answer. It was a sort of relief to know that at least it was the one she wished.
    He found her alone in the study, not concealing the fact that she had been waiting for him. She was wearing black unrelieved by any ornament and it accentuated the pallor of her skin, but her hair still had the same warmth of color, and the sun streaming through the window caught the brightness of it.
    She wished him good morning with the usual formal phrases, but her eyes never left his and the question was in them, betraying her emotion.
    “I spoke to my wife,” he said as soon as she had resumed her seat and he had sat