William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

Dundas. Where had he lived? Who had been his friends, or his associates? What had been the style and the substance of his life? Monk had wanted to know these things, and at the same time dreaded it, ever since the first splinters of memory had begun to return. It was time to realize both the hopes and the fears.
    The newspaper accounts had stated where Dundas had lived at the time of his arrest. It was a simple enough matter to check, and take a cab out to the elegant, tree-lined street. He sat in the hansom outside number fourteen, staring up and down at the beautiful houses, which were spacious and meticulously cared for. Maids beat carpets in the back alleyways, laughing and flirting with delivery boys, or arguing over the price of fish or fresh vegetables. Here and there a bootboy idled a few minutes, or a footman stood looking important. Monk needed no one to tell him this was an expensive neighborhood.
    “This right, sir?” the cabbie asked.
    “Yes. I don’t wish to go in. Just wait here,” Monk answered. He wanted to think, to let the air of the place, the sights and sounds, swirl around him and settle in his mind. Perhaps something here would rip away the veils in his mind and show him what he hoped and dreaded to see—himself as he had been, generous or greedy, blindly loyal or a betrayer. The past was closing in. Only another fact, a smell, a sound, and he would be face-to-face with it at last.
    Who lived in this house now? Was there still a stained-glass window at the top of the stairs, before the flight turned up another story? Was there still a pear tree in the garden, white with spring blossom? There would be a different carpet in the withdrawing room, not red and blue anymore, probably not red curtains either.
    Suddenly, with a jolt of clarity, he remembered perfectly sitting at the dining room table. The curtains were blue all along the row of windows opposite him. The chandeliers were blazing with candles, reflecting on the silver cutlery and the white linen below. He could see the patterns on the handles as if he held one right now, ornate, with a
D
engraved in the center. There were fish knives as well, a new invention. Before that people had eaten fish with two forks. Mrs. Dundas was extraordinarily pleased with them. He could see her face, calm and happy. She had been wearing a sort of plum color; it complimented her rather sallow skin. She was not beautiful, but there was a dignity and an individuality about her he had always liked. But it was her voice that pleased most, low and a little husky, especially when she laughed. There was pure joy in it.
    There had been a dozen people around the table, all perfectly dressed, jewels glittering, faces smooth and happy, Arrol Dundas at the head, presiding over the good fellowship.
    There had been money, plenty of it.
    Had it been the product of fraud? Had all that elegance and charm been bought at the expense of other people’s loss? It was a thought so ugly he was surprised he could entertain it without it leaving him with a raw wound. And yet it did not. Perhaps he was too anesthetized by Katrina’s death and the snatched memories and imagination of the crash to be capable of still more hurt.
    He leaned and tapped hard to get the cabbie’s attention.
    “Thank you. Take me back to the records office, please,” he instructed him.
    “Yes, sir. Right.” The cabbie had had his fair share of eccentrics, and it made no difference to him, as long as they paid. He flicked the whip lightly and the horse moved forward, glad to stand no longer in the sharp sunlight. The overnight frost had not yet melted on the cobbles in the shade.
    Had the house been Dundas’s, or merely rented? Monk had followed enough other people’s affairs to know that all kinds of men lived on credit, sometimes the last ones you would expect. He remembered Mrs. Dundas somewhere quite different when she had told him of her husband’s death. Had she left this beautiful place for financial reasons, or because she could no longer bear to live so close to her old friends after her husband was disgraced? There would be no invitations anymore, no calls, no conversations in the street. Anyone might choose to move—he would have!
    Dundas must have left a will. And there would be records somewhere of the house’s being sold, with the date.
    It took him till the middle of the afternoon to trace what he was looking for. It left him puzzled and acutely aware of a mystery he should