Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [166]
He read the first page still standing. The case was not especially complex. Hermione Ward had been married to a wealthy and neglectful husband, some years older than herself. She was his second wife and it seemed he had treated her with coolness, keeping her short of funds, giving her very little social life and expecting her to manage his house and care for the two children of his first wife.
The house had been broken into during the night, and Albert Ward had apparently heard the burglar and gone downstairs to confront him. There had been a struggle and he had been struck on the head and died of the wound.
Monk pulled around a chair and sat down. He continued with the second page.
The local police in Guildford had investigated, and found several circumstances which roused their suspicions. The glass from the broken window was outside, not in, where one might have expected it to fall. The widow could name nothing which had been stolen, nor did she ever amend her opinion in the cooler light of the following week. Nothing was found in pawnshops or sold to any of the usual dealers known to the police. The resident servants, of whom there were six, heard nothing in the night, no sound, no disturbance. No footprints or any other marks of intruders were seen.
The police arrested Hermione Ward and charged her with having murdered her husband. Scotland Yard was sent for. Runcorn dispatched Monk to Guildford. The rest of the record presumably lay with the Guildford police.
The only way he could find out would be to go there. It was a short journey and easily made by train. But this was Saturday. It might be awkward. Perhaps the officer he needed would not be there. And the Carlyon trial would be resumed on Monday, and he must be present. What could he do in two days? Maybe not enough.
They were excuses because he was afraid to find out.
He despised cowardice; it was the root of all the weaknesses he hated most. Anger he could understand, thoughtlessness, impatience, greed, even though they were ugly enough—but without courage what was there to fire or to preserve any virtue, honor or integrity? Without the courage to sustain it, not even love was safe.
He moved over to the window again and stared at the buildings opposite and the roofs shining in the sun. There was not even any point in evading it. It would hurt him until he found out what had happened, who she was and why he had felt so passionately, and yet walked away from it, and from her. Why were there no mementos in his room that reminded him of her, no pictures, no letters, nothing at all? Presumably the idea of her was one thing too painful to wish to remember. The reality was quite different. This would go on hurting. He would wake in the night with scalding disillusion—and terrible loneliness. For once he could easily, terribly easily, understand those who ran away.
And yet it was also too important to forget, because his mind would not let him bury it. Echoes kept tugging at him, half glimpses of her face, a gesture, a color she wore, the way she walked, the softness of her hair, her perfume, the rustle of silk. For heaven’s sake, why not her name? Why not all her face?
There was nothing he could do here over the weekend. The trial was adjourned and he had nowhere else to search for the third man. It was up to Rathbone now.
He turned from the window and strode over to the coat stand, snatching a jacket and his hat and going out of the door, only just saving it from slamming behind him.
“I’m going to Guildford,” he informed his landlady, Mrs. Worley. “I may not be back until tomorrow.”
“But you’ll be back