William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

black except for his shirt.
    “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said stiffly. “Have you news?”
    “Good morning, sir,” Runcorn said, then introduced them both. He had no intention of allowing Monk to take the lead on this occasion. It was very much police business, and Monk was there only as a courtesy and would be reminded of such should he forget it. “I am afraid there is little so far,” he went on. “But we hoped you might be able to tell us rather more about Allardyce and save time, as it were.”
    Pendreigh’s fair eyebrows rose. “Allardyce? You think he might be involved? It seems likely, on the face of it. The model was surely the intended victim, and my poor daughter simply chanced to arrive at the worst possible moment . . .”
    “We must look at all possibilities, sir,” Runcorn replied. “Mrs. Beck was a very beautiful woman. I daresay she awakened admiration in a number of gentlemen. Allardyce certainly appears to have had intense feelings for her.”
    “She was far more than merely beautiful, Mr. Runcorn,” Pendreigh said, controlling the emotion in his voice with obvious difficulty. “She had courage and laughter and imagination. She was the most wonderfully alive person I ever knew.” His voice dropped a little to an intense gravity. “And she had a sense of justice and morality which drove her to sublime acts—an honesty of vision.”
    There was no possible answer, and it seemed trivial and intrusive to express a regret which could be no more than superficial compared with Pendreigh’s grief.
    “I believe she met Dr. Beck when she was living in Vienna,” Monk remarked.
    Pendreigh looked at him with slight surprise. “Yes. Her first husband was Austrian. He died young, and Elissa remained in Vienna. That was when she really found herself.” He took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. He did not look at them but somewhere into the distance. “I had always believed her to be remarkable, but only then did I realize how totally unselfish she was to sacrifice her time and youth, even risk her life, to fight beside the oppressed people of her adopted country in their struggle for freedom.”
    Monk glanced at Runcorn, but neither of them interrupted.
    “She joined a group of revolutionaries in April of ’48,” Pendreigh went on. “She wrote to me about them, so full of courage and enthusiasm.” He turned a little away from them, and his voice grew huskier, but he did not stop. “Isn’t it absurd that she should face death every day, carry messages into the heart of the enemy offices and salons . . . walk through the streets and alleys, even over the barricades in October, and live through it all with little more than a few scratches and bruises—and then die in a London artist’s studio?” He came to an abrupt halt, his voice choking.
    Runcorn waited a moment as he felt decency required, glancing severely at Monk to forbid him from interrupting.
    “Is that where she met Dr. Beck?” he said at last. “In a hospital there?”
    “What?” Pendreigh shook his head. “No, not in a hospital. He was a revolutionary as well.”
    Monk drew his breath in sharply.
    Pendreigh looked at him, frowning a little. “You only see him now, Mr. Monk. He seems very quiet, very single-minded in serving the poor and the sick of our city. But thirteen years ago he was as passionate for revolution as anyone.” He smiled very slightly as memory stirred, and for a few moments the present was swallowed in the past. “Elissa used to tell me how brave he was. She admired courage intensely. . . .” A strange expression of pain filled his eyes and pulled his lips tight, as if a bitter memory momentarily drowned out everything else.
    Then he moved his hands very slightly. “But she certainly wasn’t foolish or unaware of the dangers of speaking out against tyranny, or of making friends with others who did. She marched with the students and the ordinary people in the streets, against the emperor’s soldiers. She saw people killed, young men and women who only wanted the freedom to read and write as they chose. She knew it could be she at any time. Bullets make no moral choices.”
    “She sounds like a very fine lady,” Runcorn said unhappily.
    Pendreigh turned to him. “You must suppose me prejudiced in my opinion. Of course I am; she was my daughter. But ask anyone who was there, especially Kristian. He would tell you the same. And I am aware of her failings as well. She was