William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

what he meant, but he could think of nothing more exact.
    She searched his face. “Have you news?” she said almost breathlessly. He noticed only now how pale she was. He could feel the emotion in her as he could in himself, tight, curled like a spring ready to break.
    “No.” He said the word more brusquely than he had intended to, because he was annoyed with himself for misleading her. “Except that I have found nothing out of order in Mr. Dalgarno’s conduct.” He stopped. There was no relief in her eyes, and he had expected it. It was as if she could not believe him. If anything, the tension in her increased. Under the fine fabric of her dress her shoulders were rigid, her breathing so intensely controlled that merely watching her he could feel it himself. She started to shake her head very slowly from side to side. “No . . . no . . .”
    “I have searched everything!” he insisted. “There may be irregularity in the purchase of land . . .”
    “Irregularity?” she said sharply. “What does that mean? Is it honest or not? I am not completely ignorant, Mr. Monk. People have gone to prison for ’irregularities,’ as you call them, if they were intentional and they have profited from them. Sometimes even if they were not intended but they were unable to prove that.”
    An elderly gentleman hesitated in his step and glanced at Katrina as if uncertain what the tone of her voice might mean. Was it anger or distress? Should he intervene? He decided not, and walked on with considerable relief.
    Two ladies smiled at each other and passed by a few feet away.
    “Yes, I know,” Monk said very quietly, old, sickening memories coming back to him as he stood in the sunlit gardens. “But fraud has to be proved, and I can find nothing.” Katrina drew in her breath as if to interrupt again, but he hurried on. “The sort of thing I am thinking of is routing a railway line through one piece of land rather than another to oblige a farmer or the owner of an estate so as not to divide his land. There might have been bribery, but I would be very surprised if it is traceable. People are naturally discreet about such things.” He offered her his arm, aware that by standing in one place they were making themselves more noticeable.
    She grasped at it till he could feel her fingers through the fabric of his jacket.
    “But the crash!” she said with panic rising in her voice. “What about the dangers? That is not just a matter of”—she gulped—“of making personal profit that is questionable. It’s . . .” She whispered the word. “Murder! At least morally.” She pulled him to a stop again, glaring with a depth of horror in her eyes that frightened him.
    “Yes, I know,” he agreed gently, turning to face her. “But I have walked the track myself, Miss Harcus, and I know about railways. There is nothing in land acquisition, even bad land, that endangers the lives of people on the train.”
    “Isn’t there?” She allowed him to move on slowly and blend in with the others strolling between the flower beds. “Are you certain?”
    “If land costs more than it should have done, or less,” he explained, “and the company owners put the difference in their own pockets instead of those of the shareholders, that is theft, but it does not affect the safety of the railway itself.”
    She looked up at him earnestly. He could see the hurt and confusion in her face, the desperation mounting inside her. Why? What did she know about Dalgarno that she was still not telling him?
    “What amounts of money could be involved?” she interrupted his thoughts. “A great deal, surely? Enough to keep an ordinary man in comfort for the rest of his life?”
    Monk had a sudden start of memory of Arrol Dundas, so vivid he could see the lines in Dundas’s skin, the curve of his nose, and a gentleness in his eyes as he looked across at Monk. He was back at the trial again, seeing people’s faces drop in amazement as amounts of money were mentioned, sums that seemed unimaginable wealth to them but in railway terms were everyday. He could see the open mouths, hear the gasps of indrawn breath and the rustle of movement around the room, the scrape of fabric, the creak of whalebone stays.
    What had happened to that money? Did Dundas’s widow have it? No, that was impossible. People did not keep the profit of crime. Had it disappeared? There must have been proof that he had had it at some time in order to convict him.
    Monk refused