Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [108]
Evan’s laughter died completely, replaced by a complexity of expression which Monk knew was an attempt to hide his sympathy. It was ridiculous, and sensitive, and admirable. And from anyone else Monk would have loathed it.
“I’ll find all the cases that answer these criteria,” Evan promised. “I can’t bring the files, but I’ll write down the details that matter and tell you the outline.”
“When?”
“Monday evening. That will be my first chance. Can’t tell you what time. This chop is very good.” He grinned. “You can give me dinner here again, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“I’m obliged,” Monk said with a very faint trace of sarcasm, but he meant it more than it was easy for him to say.
“There’s the first,” Evan said the following Monday evening, passing a folded piece of paper across the table to Monk. They were sitting in the cheerful hubbub of the chop-house with waiters, diners and steaming food all around them. “Margery Worth, accused of murdering her husband by poison in order to run off with a younger man.” Evan pulled a face. “I’m afraid I don’t know what the result of the trial was. Our records only show that the evidence you collected was pretty good, but not conclusive. I’m sorry.”
“You said the first.” Monk took the paper. “There are others?”
“Two more. I only had the time to copy one of them, and that is only the bare outline, you know. Phyllis Dexter. She was accused of killing her husband with a carving knife.” He shrugged expressively. “She claimed it was self-defense. From what you have in your notes there is no way of telling whether it was or not, nor what you thought of it. Your feelings are plain enough; you sympathized with her and thought he deserved all he got. But that doesn’t mean that she told the truth.”
“Any notes on the verdict?” Monk tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. This sounded as if it could be the case about which he cared so much, if only by reading his notes from the file Evan could sense the emotion through it. “What happened to her? How long ago was it?”
“No idea what happened to her,” Evan replied with a rueful smile. “Your notes didn’t say, and I didn’t dare ask anyone in case they realized what I was doing. I had no reason to know.”
“Of course. But when did it happen? It must have been dated.”
“1853.”
“And the other one, Margery Worth?”
“1854.” Evan passed over the second piece of paper. “There is everything in there I could copy in the time. All the places and principal people you interviewed.”
“Thank you.” Monk meant it and did not know how to say it without being clumsy, and embarrassing Evan. “I …”
“Good,” Evan said quickly with a grin. “So you should. What about getting me another mug of cider?”
The next morning, with an unusual mixture of excitement and fear, Monk set off on the train for Suffolk and the village of Yoxford. It was a brilliant day, sky with white towers of cloud in the sunlight, fields rolling in green waves from the carriage windows, hedges burgeoning with drifts of hawthorn blossoms. He wished he could be out to walk among it and smell the wild, sweet odor of it, instead of in this steaming, belching, clanking monster roaring through the countryside on a late spring morning.
But he was driven by a compulsion, and the only thatched village nestling against the folded downs or half hidden by its trees which held any interest for him was the one which might yield up his past, and the woman who haunted him.
He had read Evan’s notes as soon as he got to his rooms the previous evening. He tried this one first simply because it was the closer of the two. The second lay in Shrewsbury, and would be a full day’s journey away, and since Shrewsbury was a far larger town, might be harder to trace now it was three years old.
The notes on Margery Worth told a simple story. She was a handsome young woman, married some eight years to a man nearly twice her age. One October morning she had reported to the local doctor that her husband