A Breach of Promise - Anne Perry [134]
At least Monk imagined it had!
Was that why Keelin Melville had killed herself? Guilt?
Over what? The injury she had done to Zillah Lambert could very easily be explained. It was error, private social clumsiness possibly. Certainly nothing that warranted suicide.
Anyway, wasn’t genius rather more self-protective than that? He tried to think back on what he knew of the lives of the great creative people. Many of them had hurt others, been eccentric, selfish, single-minded, impossible to live with happily, sometimes even to live with at all. But it was those around them they injured, not themselves. They were too fired by their passion to make, to build, to create, paint, dance or whatever it was that formed their gift to the world. Sometimes they burned themselves out; sometimes illness or accident consumed them. Many died young.
But he could think of no example of one who had killed himself over guilt regarding his abuse of women. The very idea was almost a contradiction within itself.
Was Melville so different simply because she was a woman?
He doubted it.
Then what?
The rain was streaming down the window now, distorting the lamps of carriages passing in the street below, reflecting in the puddles.
The more he thought about the buildings full of light, the clean lines soaring into the air, the sense of comfort and peace he had felt inside them, the less could he believe Melville would have taken her own life.
Was it conceivable that somewhere, in some way he had yet even to imagine, somebody else had killed her?
Why? Why would anybody want to? What else had happened that day, or the day before, to make her dangerous to anyone? If she had known anything about Zillah that was not to her credit, surely she would have said so before this, long before Isaac Wolff was tarnished by the whole affair, even put in jeopardy of imprisonment, for a crime which now was ludicrous, in light of the truth.
He pushed his hands into his pockets. Below him in the street it was raining harder. The gutters were swirling over their edges. A footman standing at the side of a carriage was soaking wet. His figure in the riding lights was expressive of his utter dejection. A stray dog was splashing about happily.
A man strode by with an umbrella which was ineffectual.
Monk turned away, back to the room and the firelight. What had been the result of Melville’s death? The case had been concluded. There was nothing more to say, nothing to pursue. It did not matter anymore whether Zillah Lambert was as innocent as she appeared.
But Monk had already done all he could to uncover any fault in her, past or present, and found nothing. Besides, he really did not believe she would willingly have harmed Melville, far less killed her, even if there was a way to have accomplished it.
Nor had anybody, for that matter. Melville had neither eaten nor drunk anything, by another’s hand or by her own.
Was there some other way in which the poison could have been administered? No. The surgeon would not be wrong about whether it was eaten or injected into the blood.
Except that he thought it was suicide, and therefore it had hardly mattered.
But why murder? What threat was Keelin Melville to anyone, except possibly Wolff? If the case had continued as it was, only Keelin herself, and Wolff, would suffer.
Why hadn’t Wolff simply told the court she was a woman? The most cursory medical examination would have proved him right, and he of all men knew that! Keelin would not have refused.
The fire was going out. He had neglected it. He bent down and with the tongs picked up half a dozen pieces of coal and put them on one by one. The fire looked like it was being smothered. Damn! It was getting cold and he was not ready to go to bed yet. Also he was angry with his own carelessness. He dropped the tongs and picked up the bellows, blowing gently, sending up a cloud of white ash. He swore again, and