Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [132]
Rathbone was so moved by his own imagination of the horror of it that for a moment or two he did not speak. “I see,” he said at last, his voice low enough to be almost inaudible. “And did it have anything to do with the fraud?”
“Not that I could tell. It was attributed to human error—possibly both driver and brakeman.”
“Proof?” Rathbone raised his eyebrows very slightly.
“None. No one ever knew for certain. But navvies have never been known to build a faulty track. There are too many checks, too many skilled people involved.”
“I see. And was Dundas guilty of the fraud, or was it someone still alive now? Dalgarno?”
“Not Dalgarno, he would have been a schoolboy sixteen years ago. I don’t know whether Dundas was guilty. I was certain he was innocent at the time . . . at least I think I was.” His eyes did not leave Rathbone’s. “I fought to get him acquitted . . . and I can remember the grief and the sense of helplessness when he wasn’t.”
“But . . .” Rathbone probed gently, like a surgeon with a knife, and like a knife, it hurt.
“But I can’t remember. I feel guilty about something. I don’t know whether it was because I couldn’t help. In Liverpool just now I looked into his financial affairs as far as I could with no authority. He was very wealthy while I knew him, and up until the time of the trial. He was supposed to have made a profit out of the land deal. . . .”
Rathbone nodded. “Naturally. One presumes that was part of the evidence of fraud. What about it?”
“He died with very little.” This time Monk did not look at Rathbone as he said it. “He sold his large house and his widow lived extremely modestly in a far less salubrious area. When she died she left nothing. She had lived on an annuity which ended with her death.”
“And you don’t know where the money went?”
Monk looked up. “No, I don’t. I’ve done everything I can to remember, been to the places again, read the newspapers, and it still won’t come.”
“What are you afraid of?” Rathbone spared him nothing. Perhaps that was as necessary as a doctor pushing to see where it hurt most.
Could he lie? At least about this? What was the point? He had to tell Rathbone that he had burnt the letters which implicated him—falsely. And there could be others saying that.
“That I did know at the time,” he replied. “I was executor of his will. He must have trusted me.”
Rathbone did not stay his hand at all, although the reluctance, the hurt at having to do it was in his voice. “Could you have taken this money yourself?”
“I don’t know! I suppose so. I can’t remember.” Monk sat forward, staring at the floor. “All I can see clearly in my mind is her face, his widow, telling me he was dead. We were in a very ordinary house, small and neat. I didn’t have the money, but I don’t know if I did something with it. I’ve racked my mind, but I just don’t remember!”
“I see,” Rathbone said gently. “And if Dundas were innocent, as you thought at the time, then was the truth that there was no fraud or that someone else was guilty?”
“I think that’s the difference,” Monk said, straightening up slowly and meeting Rathbone’s eyes. “Sixteen years ago there was definitely fraud. The grid references on the survey map were altered. If it wasn’t Dundas, then it was someone else, possibly Nolan Baltimore—”
“Why?” Rathbone interrupted. “If Dundas profited personally, why would Baltimore have forged a survey report?”
“I don’t know. It makes no sense that I can see,” Monk admitted, defeated again. It closed in on him on every side. “But I don’t believe there was fraud this time. The track was rerouted, but Dalgarno didn’t own the land. If there was illegal profit, then it was bribery in order to change the route and not divide farms or estates. And placed as they are, anyone could have done that out of a sense of preservation of the land, without being bribed to.”
Rathbone stared at him,