A sudden, fearful death - Anne Perry [93]
“Hester?” He frowned at her.
Hester stared straight ahead and began walking again.
“She might have been,” she replied briskly. “Perhaps she valued people for their worth—their humor, or courage, integrity, their intelligence, compassion, good companionship, imagination, honor, any of a dozen things that don’t suddenly cease the day you turn thirty.”
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t be so idiotic,” he said in amazement, striding along beside her. “We’re not talking about worth. We’re talking about Nanette Cuthbertson being in love and wanting to marry Geoffrey Taunton and have a family. That’s got nothing to do with intelligence or courage or humor. What’s the matter with you? Stop walking so fast or you’ll fall over something! She wants children—not a halo. She’s a perfectly ordinary woman. I would have thought Prudence would have had sufficient wit to see that. But talking to you—perhaps she wouldn’t. You don’t seem to have.”
Hester opened her mouth to argue, but there was no logical answer, and she found herself at a loss for words.
He strode on in silence, still swiping occasionally at the odd stone on the path.
“Is that all you’ve done?” she said finally.
“What?”
“Discover that Nanette had a good motive, but no means, so far as you can find out.”
“No of course it isn’t.” He hit another stone. “I’ve looked into Prudence’s past, her nursing skills, her war record, anything I can think of. It’s all very interesting, very admirable, but none of it suggests a specific motive for murdering her—or anyone who might have wished to. I am somewhat hampered by not having any authority.”
“Well whose fault is that?” she said sharply, then immediately wished she had not, but was damned if she was going to apologize.
They walked for a further hundred yards in silence until they were back at Doughty Street, where she excused herself, pointing out that she’d had very little sleep and would be required to sit up all night with Mr. Prendergast again. They parted coolly, she back to the hospital, he she knew not where.
7
EVERYTHING THAT MONK had learned about Prudence Barrymore showed a passionate, intelligent, single-minded woman bent on caring for the sick to the exclusion of all else. While exciting his admiration, she had almost certainly not been an easy woman to know, either as a friend or as a member of one’s family. No one had mentioned whether or not she had the least sense of humor. Humor was at times Hester’s saving grace. No, that was not entirely true: he would never forget her courage, her will to fight for him, even when it seemed the battle was pointless and he not worth anyone’s effort. But she could still be insufferable to spend time with.
He was walking along the street under a leaden, gray sky. Any moment there would be a summer downpour. It would drench the pedestrians, bounce off the busy thoroughfare, washing horse droppings into the gutter and sending the water swirling in huge puddles across the street. Even the wind smelled heavy and wet.
He was in the Gray’s Inn Road going toward the hospital with the intention of seeing Evan again to ask him more about Prudence Barrymore’s character, if he were willing to share any information. And in conscience, he might not be. Monk disliked having to ask him. In Jeavis’s place he would not have told anyone else, and would verbally have flayed a junior who did.
And yet he did not think Jeavis’s ability equal to this case, which was an opinion for which he had no grounds. He knew his own successes since the accident, and some of them were precarious enough and owed much to the help of others, especially Hester. As to cases before the accident, he had only written records on which to rely. They all pointed