Anne Perry - Death Of A Stranger

Rathbone tightened his lips for a second, then with an effort forbore from making any comment on Monk’s gullibility. Perhaps if he considered it, he knew as little about some of his own clients. “Well then, the first thing you can do is find out everything else you can about her, and as rapidly as possible,” he said bleakly. “Go wherever it takes you, but report to me every day.” He knew he did not need to emphasize that.

Monk stood up. Rathbone had been light in his condemnation, saying nothing of criticism or blame, but Monk knew him well enough to be aware of his thoughts. He felt as crushed by the mere fact of them as if they all had been put into speech.

Rathbone handed him the funds he would need.

“Thank you,” Monk accepted, hating it. Whether Rathbone would get any of it back from Dalgarno was still an open question, but Monk could not afford to refuse. He had no idea where his search would take him. Not only would Dalgarno’s life depend on it, but his own conscience, his identity, and if things came to the worst, his life too. If it seemed Dalgarno would be convicted, then he would have to tell the court of the paper he had found at Katrina’s rooms, and destroyed, and show them that the coat button was his. Then how could even Rathbone save him from the rope?

And yet he was innocent. Perhaps Dalgarno was also.

“I need to start with Dalgarno himself,” he said aloud. “Get me an interview with him.”

The clock had struck nine by the time Monk stood in the Newgate cell, Rathbone sitting to the side in the only chair. Dalgarno, pale and unshaven, paced back and forth restlessly, his face already haggard from the shock of realization that ahead of him lay the possibility of the gallows.

“I didn’t kill her!” he said desperately, his voice rising, close to breaking.

Monk kept his own emotions icily under control. It was the only way to approach thinking with any clarity.

“Then someone else did, Mr. Dalgarno,” he replied. “No jury will acquit you unless you provide them with an alternative.”

“I don’t know who did, for God’s sake!” Dalgarno cried out wildly. “Do you think I’d be standing here in prison if I did?” He stared at Monk as if he were a complete fool.

Monk felt a pity for him, and a guilt for his own part in it, but he also could not like the man. He had treated Katrina Harcus badly, whether he had killed her or not.

“Hysteria won’t help,” he said with chill. “Logic is the only thing that may. What do you know about her? And please tell me everything, and the truth, whether it is flattering to you or not. Your life may depend upon it. It is no time for protecting your reputation or your vanity.”

Dalgarno glared at him, then at Rathbone.

Rathbone nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I met her at a garden party,” Dalgarno began, his tone now subdued. “She was charming, full of life. I thought she was the most interesting woman I had ever seen. But I knew nothing of her social background, except that she was obviously well-bred and had sufficient means to dress in the height of fashion.”

“Who were her friends?” Monk asked.

Dalgarno rattled off half a dozen names. They meant nothing to Monk, but he saw Rathbone register recognition.

“Maybe one of them killed her,” Dalgarno said desperately. “I can’t think why, but God knows I didn’t. Why would I? I didn’t want to marry her, and she seems to think I did.” He colored faintly. “But there was no fraud-I swear!” He waved his hands jerkily. “We may have shaved a little here and there, but everyone does.”

Monk did not comment on that. It was irrelevant now. “That is precisely why I need to know more about her, Mr. Dalgarno. Someone killed her. Where did she come from? What about her family?”

“I don’t know!” Dalgarno said impatiently. “We didn’t discuss it.”

“But you were intending to marry her,” Monk pointed out. “As an ambitious young man, surely you enquired?”

Dalgarno blushed. “I… I believe she came originally from the Liverpool area. She said both her parents were dead.”

It made excellent sense. The fraud she had accused Dalgarno of practicing was almost an exact copy of the one for which Dundas had been convicted. Had she grown up in the Liverpool area she could have heard of it, and of the crash she had told Monk about with such horror.

He asked other questions, but for a man who had claimed to be in love, Dalgarno knew surprisingly little about her. But then Monk recalled with brutal honesty how little he had known, or cared, about some of the young women with whom he had thought himself in love.

Perhaps it was because he had known Hester since the first months after the accident, and she had crowded all others out of anything but the surface of his mind. She was real; they were only idealizations he had thought he wanted.

Had Dalgarno been like that with Katrina Harcus? If he had, Monk could not blame him for it. There was little point in asking Dalgarno about their relationship; he would say what he wanted them to believe, and there was nothing against which to check it.

“What about your own family, Mr. Dalgarno?” he asked. “Did you introduce Miss Harcus to them? Surely your mother enquired? Perhaps she would know more about her?”

Dalgarno looked away. “My family are in Bristol. My father is in poor health, unable to travel, and my mother does not leave him.”

“But you and Miss Harcus could travel,” Monk argued.

Dalgarno swiveled around, his eyes angry. “I did not ask Miss Harcus to marry me!” he snapped. “She may have imagined I was going to, but women do that!”

“Especially if you give them cause to,” Monk said equally sharply.

Dalgarno opened his mouth as if to deny it, then closed it again in a thin line.

Monk could learn nothing more of use. In the end he left the overpoweringly oppressive air of the prison and walked side by side with Rathbone along Newgate Street. Neither of them mentioned a like or dislike for Dalgarno, or the fact that he had shown no pity for Katrina Harcus, no remorse that he had used her badly.

“Liverpool,” Rathbone said succinctly. “If it has anything to do with her past it will begin there. The police will be looking into everything in London, so don’t waste your time with that. Honestly, Monk, I don’t know what you are looking for.”

Monk did not answer. He did not know either, but to admit it seemed like a surrender he could not afford.

When Monk reached Fitzroy Street, the house was empty, but he had been there not more than ten or fifteen minutes when Hester came in in a whirl of excitement. Her face lit when she saw him, and she dropped her parcel of shopping on the table and went straight to him as if she had no flicker of hesitation that he would take her in his arms.

He could not help himself from doing so, clinging onto her hard, feeling the strength of her answering embrace.

She pulled away and looked up at him. “William, I have solved the murder of Nolan Baltimore, at least in part. I don’t know exactly who did it, but I know why.”

He could not help smiling. “We all know that, my darling. We always knew. Ask any bootboy or peddler. He didn’t pay his bills. Some pimp took exception and there was a fight.”

“Not quite,” she said like a displeased governess. “That is only an assumption. I told you there is a brothel where one partner hands money to respectable young women who have got into debt for one reason or another…”

“Yes, you did. What has that to do with it?”

“He was the partner!” she said. Then, seeing the disgust in his face. “I thought you’d think so. He lent the money, and Squeaky Robinson ran the brothel. But Baltimore was a client as well! That was why he was killed, for taking his tastes too far. One of the girls rebelled, and pushed him out of a top-floor window. Squeaky had the body moved to Abel Smith’s place.”