Dark Assassin - Anne Perry [140]
“No,” she replied. “But why aren’t you?”
“ ’Cos I can’t.” He inched a fraction closer to her. “Is Mr. Monk gonna put it right?”
Should she lie to comfort him? If he found out, it would break the frail trust he was building. She might never mend the damage. Wasn’t truth better than the loneliness of that, no matter how harsh? That’s what she would do if he were a man. But was a child different? How much should she protect him, and from what?
“Is ’e?” Scuff repeated.
He was not touching her, and yet she knew his body was stiff.
“He’ll try,” she answered. “Nobody wins all the time. This could be a mistake we can’t mend. I don’t know.”
He let out his breath in a sigh and relaxed, inching another tiny fraction closer to her.
“Mr. ’Avilland were right about their machines, weren’t ’e?”
“I’m afraid he was,” she agreed. “At least partly. He was also right about going ahead too quickly without making sure where all the streams were.”
“Mr. Sixsmith were the boss down there. Yer’d think as ’e’d ’a told Mr. Argyll, wouldn’t yer?” he whispered.
“He must have,” she agreed.
As she said it she realized with a chill, in spite of the blankets over her, that it was not necessarily true. But it made no sense.
“Wot’s the matter?” Scuff demanded.
“At least, I suppose he’d have told Mr. Argyll,” she answered.
He put his hand on her shoulder, so lightly she barely felt it, only its warmth. “There’s summink as don’t make no sense, in’t there? Is Mr. Monk gonna be all right? I should ’a bin there to look arter ’im. I think mebbe that Sixsmith’s real bad.”
“But what does Sixsmith want?” she said as much to herself as to him.
“Money? Power? Love? Escape from something?” She turned a little towards him. “Do you suppose it was because of Mrs. Argyll? She’s in love with him, I think. And her husband is a cold man. She must feel terribly alone.”
“Weren’t Mr. ’Avilland ’er pa, too?” he asked.
“Yes. I don’t believe she knew the assassin was going to kill her father. And afterwards she thought it was her husband who had done it. Maybe she still doesn’t know it was Sixsmith, and we can’t prove it!”
“But ’e knows,” Scuff pointed out. “So ’e din’t do it for ’er! If yer love someone, yer din’t kill ’er pa.”
“No.” She stared up at the ceiling, the faintest of lights coming through the curtains from the streetlamps outside. “Maybe he doesn’t love her so much as just want her. It isn’t the same.”
“Mebbe ’e just ’ates Mr. Argyll,” Scuff said thoughtfully. “Yer gotta ’member ’e made it look like it were Mr. Argyll wot paid the assassin. An’ it were Mr. Argyll’s company wot caused the cave-in, and Mr. Argyll wot’s goin’ ter prisin, or mebbe the rope, eh?”
“That’s an awful lot of hate,” she said quietly, shivering again in spite of herself. “Why would anyone hate that much?”
“I dunno,” he answered. “Must ’a bin summink bad.”
“It must have been,” she agreed, but her mind was beginning to wonder what Jenny had felt. Did she believe that when her husband was imprisoned, or even hanged, she would be rescued from her boredom and emotional desert by Sixsmith? Was she so in love with him that she had thought no further than that?
What would happen when Argyll was shown to be innocent and Sixsmith guilty? Jenny had lied about who told her to write the letter; that was what had turned the tide against Argyll. Sixsmith knew that! What sort of future awaited her, then? Had she used Sixsmith to get rid of Argyll, so that her children would inherit the company, since Toby was also dead? And they would get whatever James Havilland had possessed also, since Mary was gone as well. Did she imagine that this would hold Sixsmith to her, and was that what she wanted? Surely if she had any sense she would fear for her own life.
Or did she believe he truly loved her?
“Yer’ve thought of summink, ’aven’t yer?” Scuff whispered beside her.
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “I need to go and see Mrs. Argyll. She lied in court, and she needs to know what that could cost her. I’ll send a letter first thing to ask Margaret Ballinger to come to sit with you until I get back.