Anne Perry - Funeral in Blue

Then it struck her. The poster was different. The one on the wall now was for a singer in a red shirt. She hardly dared put words to it. Her heart was hammering inside her chest.

“When did they change the poster?” she asked.

The soldier’s eyes widened. “That’s it!” he said with a long sigh. “You’ve got it. That one was up the night you’re talking about-not the juggler they’ve got here. You can check at the music hall, check with anyone, they’ll tell you. This wasn’t made that night!” He poked his finger at the drawing. “He was here, all right, but not then.”

His face shone with triumph. “That help you?”

“Yes!” she said, smiling at him so widely it was a grin. “Yes, it does! Thank you very much. Now, let me get you a cider, and maybe something to eat. I could certainly do with a pie. Then I’ll go and make sure the music hall will swear to it, if necessary.”

“Thank you,” he accepted graciously. “I’ll have a mutton pie with mine, if you please. You’d like that, too. Real tasty, they are. Fill you up.”

She left the Bull and Half Moon and was startled as she stepped out into the street to see how the fog had surrounded everything with a dark shroud so thick she could barely see five or six yards in front of her. She had intended to go to the music hall and check to be absolutely certain about the dates of the juggler and the singer, and that they had actually changed the bill, but in this murk that had blown up from the river it would be almost impossible. She could not even see the other side of the street. Where was the carriage? It was not where she had left it, but the driver would not have been able to wait there. No doubt he was in the next side street.

She started to walk, and was aware of footsteps behind her, or was it an echo of her own? Fog distorted sound. But it muffled rather than magnified.

She whirled around, and saw a figure darkening the white vapor that islanded her in every direction. She stepped back, but he came forward. She went back again until she was under the street lamp and the light filtered down pale and patchy as the mist moved, and she saw Argo Allardyce’s ashen face and black hair. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she choked with blind terror. There was no point whatever in trying to deny what she had been doing. He must have followed her from the Bull and Half Moon, though she hadn’t seen him there. She still had the picture with her. Where was the carriage? How far away? Could she turn and run? Was she even going in the right direction?

She took another step back, and another. The fog thickened, then a gust of cold air blew it away again and he looked only feet from her. He must see in her face that she knew he had lied.

“Who are you?” he demanded, his voice hard and angry, or was it frightened because in a way he, too, was cornered? “Why are you asking questions about me? I didn’t kill Elissa or Sarah!”

“You lied!” she accused. “You said you were here that night, but you weren’t. If you didn’t kill them, why didn’t you tell the truth?” She was still moving away from him, and he was following.

“Because I was afraid they’d blame me anyway!” His voice was sharp and brittle. “I was in Acton Street at the gambling house, and one of the women I drew was furious about it. Her husband made a terrible scene and they knocked him senseless. She followed me out and practically tore the pictures of her away from me.”

With a wild mixture of misery and elation, Hester realized he was talking about Charles and Imogen. It wasn’t proof of his innocence, but that much at least was honest.

She gulped. “What was she like, the woman?”

He was incredulous. “What?”

“What was she like?” she all but shouted at him.

The cold mist swirled around in heavier wreaths, and the boom of a foghorn drifted up from the river, followed almost immediately by another.

“Dark,” he said. “Pretty. Soft features.”

It was enough. Imogen. “Then where did you go?” she demanded, taking another step back. Now she was in the gloom and he was under the light. She could see the droplets of moisture clinging to his hair and skin.

“Not to Acton Street!” he shouted back at her. “I got a hansom and went all the way to Canning Town. I never came back until morning.”

“If you can prove that, why did you lie?” she charged him. He was still coming towards her. Were all his words only a distraction, and when he was close enough and she was off guard, would he lunge for her, and with a swift movement, a wrenching pain, a crack, her neck would be broken, too? She wheeled around, picked up her skirts, and ran as fast as she could in the blind, clinging fog, her heart beating so violently it almost stopped her breathing, the sound of her footsteps muffled. She had no idea where she was going. She tripped over the curb of the cross street and lurched forward, almost losing her balance, flinging her arms wide to stop from pitching over.

There was a snort beside her, a blowing of air, and she stifled a scream. She shot forward and ran straight into the side of a horse. It jerked up and backwards, and the next moment a man’s voice called out angrily.

“Albert!” she yelled as loudly as she could.

“Yes, Miss! Where are you?”

“Here! I’m here!” she sobbed, scrambling back past the horse to feel for the dark bulk of the carriage and fumble to open the door. “Drive me home! If you can see your way, get me back to Grafton Street, but hurry out of here, please!”

“Yes, Miss, don’t worry,” he said calmly. “It’ll not be this bad once we’re away from the river.”

She collapsed inside the coach and slammed the door shut.

They were over the bridge and climbing into clearer air before she thought to tell the coachman to go past the police station so she could leave a message for Runcorn, and return the picture with an abject apology.

In Vienna, Monk took his leave of Ferdi over a very early breakfast, thanking him for the inestimable help he had been not only in practical terms but also for his friendship.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Ferdi said quite casually, but his eyes never left Monk’s face, and there was a deep flush in his fair cheeks. “It was all rather important, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Monk agreed. “Very important indeed.”

“Will you. . will you write and tell me what happens to Dr. Beck?” Ferdi asked. “I. . I’d like to know.”

“Yes, I will,” Monk promised, fearing already that it would be hard news, and he would have to struggle to find a way of wording it so it would not wound the boy more than it had to.

Ferdi smiled. “Thank you. I don’t have a card, but I borrowed one of my father’s. The name is the same, so you could get in touch with me here. If you come to Vienna again. .” He left it, suddenly self-conscious.

“I shall write you, of course,” Monk finished for him. “And most certainly I shall call.”

“Oh. . good.” A smile lit Ferdi’s face, and he shot out his hand to clasp Monk’s, and then as suddenly let it go and bowed very formally, clicking his heels. “Auf Wiedersehen,” he said, looking at Monk through his lashes.

“ Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Gerhardt,” Monk replied. “Now I must hurry, or I shall miss the train!”

Monk met Max Niemann at the railway station as arranged; half an hour later they were settled on the train as it pulled out. He was impatient to be home and to tell Hester what he had found. It was not the absolute solution he had hoped for, one which would save Beck, but it was as much as he could find, and he had run out of places to look.

Suddenly the burden of it was almost insupportable. Elissa had betrayed another woman to her death. Max Niemann had not known it, nor had Kristian. Assuredly, Fuller Pendreigh would not have, either. The truth he brought with him would shatter all of them.