William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

were it anyone other than Runcorn, with as much certainty of his guilt!

    “Of course he’s guilty!” Runcorn said indignantly when Monk went straight from the station to see him and report his failure. As always, his office was crowded with papers, but they were all neatly stacked, as though studied and dealt with. He was too busy to offer Monk tea. Anyway, he seemed to regard him now as a colleague rather than a guest. He looked at him skeptically and with some disappointment. “The fact that you still didn’t bring back any proof of the fraud doesn’t mean he’s innocent,” he said grimly. “It just means he hid it too well for you to uncover. Presumably he learned from Dundas’s mistakes. Two farms, or estates or whatever, you said?”
    “Yes,” Monk replied stiffly. “And if I’d been planning that line you wouldn’t have had to bribe me to divert around a hill rather than go through it, if it meant not vandalizing a stretch of land like that.”
    “And you think Dalgarno is the same as you, do you?” Runcorn lifted his eyebrows in a mixture of surprise and disbelief.
    Monk hesitated. The question had been meant sarcastically, but he realized how much truth there could be in it. There was a physical resemblance, increased by their similar self-assurance—one might say arrogance, the love of good clothes, a certain grace of movement. If the witnesses to Katrina’s death had really seen someone on the roof, if their descriptions fitted Dalgarno, they would just as easily fit Monk. Plenty of people had seen him with Katrina—ask anyone in the Botanic Gardens. And to an onlooker they could have appeared to be quarreling. With a chill in the pit of his stomach, Monk remembered how she had put her hands up and grasped his coat, pulling off the button. He knew when it had been torn—but she had died with it in her hand. Why? What was she doing still holding it so long after?
    Without the motive, Dalgarno was no more proved guilty than was Monk himself. Perhaps the evidence against Dalgarno was just as rooted in chance—or mischance?
    “Monk!” Runcorn said loudly. “Are you saying Dalgarno was like you?”
    Monk returned to the moment with a jolt. “Somewhat,” he answered.
    “Somewhat like you?” Runcorn said, amazement showing in his face that Monk was considering it seriously.
    Monk felt himself on the brink of a precipice and pulled back. “Superficially,” he answered. Already his mind was enmeshed in other thoughts, farther into his own doubts and necessities. “Only superficially.” He wanted to excuse himself as soon as he could. He was feeling more and more impelled to see Rathbone. It was imperative. Perhaps it was almost too late now.
    “There isn’t anything more,” he said aloud. “You’ll have to trust your prosecution. Sorry.”
    Runcorn grunted. “I suppose I should be grateful that you tried.”

    He had to wait an hour and a half before Rathbone was free to see him. It was a wretched time, far too long to sit and consider the difficulty and the embarrassment of what he must do.
    When eventually Rathbone came and he was conducted into his familiar, elegant office, he began without preamble.
    “Michael Dalgarno has been charged with murdering Katrina Harcus, but the proof depends on his having a motive,” he said bluntly.
    “Of course.” Rathbone nodded, looking at Monk with sharpening interest. They knew each other well enough for him to be aware that Monk would not be there to say something so obvious, nor would he be so tense, his body tight, his voice on edge, were it not of acute personal importance, even pain, to him. The relationship between them was deep, at times troubled by rivalry between the smooth, socially and intellectually confident Rathbone, who nevertheless lacked emotional courage, and the arrogant, uncertain Monk, who looked and behaved almost like a gentleman, yet had the inner passion to commit his heart, win or lose, and was now so desperately afraid that after all the effort, the change, the hope, it would be lose.
    Rathbone was regarding him gravely, waiting for him to explain.
    “Runcorn assumes it was because Katrina had proof of his being involved in fraudulent purchase and sale of land for Baltimore’s railway line to Derby,” he began. “I thought so too, but I’ve searched as thoroughly as I can, even comparing all the dealings with the fraud in Baltimore and Sons in Liverpool sixteen years ago, when I worked for the banks