Anne Perry - A Breach of Promise

Monk sat in one of the others, crossing his legs and leaning back.

"One possibility troubles me, and I would like to prove it wrong before I let go of it."

"Yes? What is that possibility, and how does it concern me or my family?"

"I am not sure that it does," Monk admitted. "The possibility is that she was murdered."

Lambert leaned forward. "What?" He seemed genuinely not to have understood.

Monk repeated what he had said.

"Why?" Lambert puckered his face, his eyes narrowed. "Why would anybody want to murder Melville? He was the most…" He swallowed. "She was the most likable person. Of course, she had professional rivals, but people don't kill for that sort of reason." He waved his hand. "That's preposterous. And no one except Wolff knew she was a woman. You're not suggesting Wolff killed her, are you? I don't believe that for an instant!" Everything in his voice, his expression, emphasized what he said.

"No I don't," Monk agreed. "If it was murder, then I think it was to stop the case from going any further."

"The only person who'd want to stop that was poor Killian… Keelin… herself." A twinge of pain shot over Lambert's face. "I'm sorry… I still find it hard to believe all this. I liked her, you know. I liked her very much, even after she- she… damn it! Even after the marriage with Zillah fell through, I still liked him-her!"

Lambert stood up and began pacing restlessly back and forth across the room, seesawing his hands in the air.

"I went ahead with the case because I had to!" He looked at Monk with a desperate urgency, willing him to believe. "I had to protect my daughter's reputation. If I hadn't, people would have said Melville had discovered something about her that made it impossible to marry her. They would assume she was without morals, a loose woman. No one would have had her." His lips tightened. "Do you know what happens to a young woman whose reputation is gone, Mr. Monk? She has no place!" He chopped the air again. "No decent man will marry her. She is no longer invited to the decent houses. Young women with hopes no longer associate with her, in case the dirt rubs off. If she marries at all, it is to a man beneath her, and he treats her as what she is, one of society's castoffs."

He looked at Monk intently, willing him to understand. "Or she stays single, dependent upon her father, while all her friends gain husbands, houses, status-in time, children. Would you want that for your daughter? Wouldn't you fight any battle, any justified battle at all, rather than let that happen? Especially when you know she has done nothing to warrant it."

"I should probably do it whether she had warranted it or not," Monk said frankly. He disliked what he was going to do. Only there was the remembrance that Keelin Melville had been a young woman too, also denied what she wanted most because of the beliefs and conventions of others. There had been no one to feel for her, now not even herself. "What about Hugh Gibbons?"

Lambert's face showed nothing. No man could be so complete a master of himself as to have hidden guilt behind such a bland exterior.

"Who is Hugh Gibbons?"

"A young man who was in love with Zillah some three years ago," Monk replied. "He was unsuitable and the romance had gone too far. Mrs. Lambert took Zillah away, very suddenly, on a prolonged trip to the seaside-in North Wales. Crickieth, to be precise."

Lambert's face paled suddenly. He remained motionless where he was by the window, the light behind him.

"You remember now," Monk said unnecessarily.

The blood rushed back to Lambert's cheeks. He came forward to the desk, leaning over it. "Are you saying my daughter has lost her virtue, sir?"

"I have no idea," Monk replied. "I am agreeing with you that malicious supposition, whether true or not, can ruin a young person, and it would be natural for those who care for them to go to great lengths to prevent that."

Lambert drew in a long, slow breath. "You are accusing me of murdering Melville to hide some damned indiscretion which was caught before it was anything! God Almighty, what kind of a man do you think I am?"

Monk glanced down and saw that Lambert's hands on the desk were shaking and his knuckles were white. He would have swom that the idea genuinely horrified him.

"I am not accusing you, Mr. Lambert," Monk answered quietly. "I am trying to find out why Keelin Melville chose such an extraordinary time to kill herself, and how. She did not eat or drink anything during the time when the police surgeon says the poison entered her body… yet he says it was swallowed. It does not make sense, does it?"

Lambert frowned. He sat down again, this time behind the desk. "No… not that I can see," he agreed. "But if she did not eat or drink anything, then how did anyone else poison her?"

"I don't know that either," Monk confessed. "I'm looking for a lot of things. I've seen Keelin Melville's buildings, her dreams, something of what was in her soul. I can't let this go without doing everything I can to understand what happened to her."

Lambert swallowed, his throat convulsing. "Dammit! So am I! I'll retain you if necessary. Nothing we do can bring her back. Nothing I do can alter my part in it. But I can find out what finally broke her, and learn to live with it… or if it was someone else, then I'll see they pay." He bent his head and put his hands over his face. "Listen to me! Am I going to find the man I want to punish is myself?"

Monk was overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of empathy with him. They were as different as possible, physically, in pattern of life and fortune, in turn of mind and personality, and yet Monk had stood in exactly the same place: pursuing what he believed to be a monster and terrified that when he found him, it would prove to be his own face he saw.

"Are you not going to punish yourself anyway?" He did not move his eyes from Lambert, and slowly Lambert looked up.

"Yes. But either way I have to know the truth, if you can find it."

"What happened to Hugh Gibbons?"

"What? I've no idea. Can it matter now?"

"I don't know. Can you think of any other incident in Zillah's life which anyone might fear my looking into?"

"I don't fear that." Some of the indignation came back into Lambert's voice. "It could have been tragic, but it wasn't. My wife dealt with it before it went too far. Took Zillah away." There was no shadow in his face, not the slightest duplicity. If there had been anything more to it Monk would swear Lambert knew nothing of it. But then that was entirely possible. A wise mother might well not tell the father of any such thing. She might fear his reaction, his anger, his sense of outrage. He could all too easily lose his temper and, without realizing it, bring about the very disaster his wife was laboring to avoid.

Lambert saw the disbelief in Monk's face. "It wasn't!" he repeated fiercely.

"What about Hugh Gibbons?" Monk said again. "Might he have gone on to become involved with another young woman, and her mother not have acted so quickly, or so effectively?"

"I've no idea. What difference could it make?" Lambert's eyes opened wide. "Are you suggesting Gibbons came to the courtroom and poisoned Melville to stop you from looking into it? That's ridiculous. How? Why didn't we see him? And how would he know about you anyway? What would you have done about it if you had found something? You would hardly have ruined some other young woman just for the sake of it. It wouldn't have helped Melville's cause." His contempt for the idea was plain.

So was Monk's, he had to admit. If it was this incident, then it was to do with Zillah.

The same thought must have occurred to Lambert. He rose to his feet.

"We'll ask my wife and get the whole thing disposed of. Come."

Monk followed obediently, catching up with him at the withdrawing room door. "Would you rather not discuss it with Sacheverall present?" he asked.