Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [129]
“Why would anyone else falsify the surveys?” Monk pressed.
Colman frowned, weighing his answer before he gave it, and then his words were picked with great care. “The railway cut through the middle of my church, and that was all I could think of at the time.” His eyes filled with sudden tears. “And then the crash . . . the children . . .” He stopped. There was no way to express it, and perhaps he saw some recognition of horror in Monk, and words became unnecessary.
Monk’s recollection of him was growing sharper. He had wanted to like him before; it was his testimony against Dundas that had made it impossible. Now all that had receded into history for both of them and there was no issue to be fought anymore.
Colman blinked and smiled in apology. “I am afraid I am not much help in gaining the evidence you need to prove Dalgarno’s guilt for murdering the young woman, or whether Baltimore was the one practicing the fraud. But if I understood you correctly, he was already dead himself by the time she was killed.”
“Yes, by two or three weeks,” Monk agreed.
“Then possibly Dalgarno was in the fraud with Baltimore, and once Baltimore was dead he would take all the profits to himself?” Colman suggested.
“Or share them with the son, Jarvis Baltimore,” Monk amended. “It seems likely, especially since Dalgarno is now courting the daughter, Livia, according to my wife’s observation.”
Colman’s eyes widened. “Your wife is acquainted with the Baltimores?”
Monk did not bother to hide his smile, or the bubble of pride springing up inside him, high and bright, and with a pain like a dagger for what he could lose. “No. She is running a house of refuge and medical treatment for prostitutes in Coldbath Square, and Livia Baltimore went to her for help, and in considerable anger and distress, after her father’s murder. Hester learned some information and went to call on her. She nursed in the Crimea. There is not much that deters her once she is convinced she is right.”
Colman shook his head, but his eyes were shining. “I hope she does not have to enlighten Miss Baltimore as to the true nature of her father,” he said. “I think he may well have tried the same fraud a second time. But I don’t know how you will prove it to a jury without evidence of profit. He escaped the first time because it was plain he had no financial gain from it, and Dundas did.”
“Dundas died with very little,” Monk pointed out, old sadness and anger washing over him in a tidal wave.
Colman became suddenly very solemn also. “I heard that, although it was extraordinary. He was an excellent banker, quite brilliant. But you can’t have forgotten that, surely?”
“I had. But not now. Where did the money go?”
Colman stared at Monk somberly.
“I have no idea. No one had. And shortly after that the crash put all such things out of everyone’s thoughts.” Suddenly his face was pinched and the color went from his cheeks again. “It was the closest thing to hell I think this life could offer. I shall remember the screams as long as I live. The smell of burnt hair still brings me out in a sweat and I feel sick. But you know that. You were there.”
He looked ill. Monk lowered his eyes. He knew what Colman meant. He had tasted something of it in his own nightmare. It was strange, an almost irrelevant reality, to hear Colman say that Monk had been there; he knew it far more urgently and terribly from the nightmare of his hidden mind.
“What caused it?” he said aloud.
Colman looked up slowly. “They never found out. But it wasn’t the new track. That was perfectly good. At least . . . as far as anyone could tell.” The last vestige of blood drained out of his face and his body stiffened. “Oh, no! You don’t think it’s going to happen again? Please God—no! Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“It is what Katrina Harcus was afraid of,” Monk replied. “But I’ve searched everything I can; I’ve walked the track myself and I can’t see anything wrong with it at all. Tell me, Mr. Colman—how can I prove this fraud? It