William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

own foolishness and poked her flying hair back into the knot on the back of her head and went purposefully towards the apothecary’s room, leaving Hester to take a quick cup of tea with one of the nurses and then catch the omnibus back to Grafton Street.
     
     
    In the afternoon Hester busied herself with housework, a large part of which was quite unnecessary. Her housekeeper came in three days a week and did most of the laundry, ironing and scrubbing. Everything that mattered had already been done, but she was too restless to sit still, so she began to clean out the kitchen cupboards, setting everything from them onto the table. Surely it must have been the artists’ model who was killed, and Kristian’s wife the unfortunate witness? It was the only answer that made sense.
    Except that of course it wasn’t obvious at all.
    She had every cupboard empty and a bowl full of soapy water on the bench, ready to begin scrubbing, when the doorbell rang and she was obliged to go and answer it.
    Charles was on the step, looking even more haggard than three days ago, with hollows around his eyes like bruises, and a cut on his jaw, but this time he was at no loss for words.
    “Oh, Hester, I’m so glad you’re home.” He came inside, moving stiffly, without waiting for her to ask. “I was afraid you might be at a hospital . . . or something. Are you still . . . no, I suppose you’re not. I mean . . . it’s . . .” He stood in the center of the room, and took a couple of deep breaths.
    Hester interrupted him. “When you followed Imogen the other evening, you said it was somewhere in the direction of the Royal Free Hospital, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, Swinton Street. Why?”
    “Do you now know of someone she might have been visiting?” Hester asked.
    “No.” The word came so quickly it almost cut off the question, but if anything, the fear in his eyes increased. He started to say something else. It seemed to be a denial, then he stopped. “I suppose you heard that there was a double murder in Acton Street, just beyond the hospital?” He was watching her intently.
    “Yes, a doctor’s wife and an artists’ model.”
    “Oh my God!” His legs folded, and he sank down into the armchair.
    For a moment she was afraid he had collapsed. “Charles!” She knelt in front of him, clasping his hands, intensely relieved to feel strength in them. She was about to say that the locality didn’t mean anything and could have no connection with Imogen when, like a drench of cold water, she realized that he was afraid that it did. He was lying by misdirection and evasion. He was refusing to look at whatever it was that hovered just beyond his words.
    “Charles!” she started again, more urgently. “What do you know about where she is going? You followed her to Swinton Street, which is a block from Acton Street . . .”
    He jerked his head up. “That’s not where she went the night of the murders!” he said abruptly. “I know that, because I followed her myself.”
    “Where did she go?” she asked.
    “South of High Holborn,” he said immediately. “Down Drury Lane, just beyond the theater, nowhere near the top of the Gray’s Inn Road.” He stared at her almost defiantly.
    Why was he so quick to deny that Imogen had been there?
    She stood up and moved away, turning her back to him so he would not see the anxiety in her face. “I understand they were killed in an artist’s studio,” she said almost lightly. “The model worked for him and spent quite a lot of time there, and the doctor’s wife went for a sitting because he was painting a portrait of her.”
    “Then the artist did it,” he said quickly. “The newspapers didn’t say that.”
    “Apparently, he wasn’t there. A misunderstanding, I suppose.”
    He sat silently.
    “So you don’t need to worry,” she continued, as if she had dismissed the matter. “Anyone walking about in the evening is in no more danger in Swinton Street than anywhere else.”
    She heard his intake of breath. He was frightened, confused, and now feeling even more alone. Would it persuade him at last to be more open?
    But the silence remained.
    Her patience broke and she swung around to face him. “What is it you are afraid of, Charles? Do you think Imogen knows someone who might be involved with this? Argo Allardyce, for example?”
    “No! Why on earth should she know him?” But the color washed up his face, and he must have felt its heat. “I don’t know!” he burst