Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [82]
“I will, thank you, Mr. Hagger. You have been most obliging,” Monk accepted. Then as soon as Hagger had departed and closed the door, he turned to the maid.
“Go on with what you are doing,” he requested. “I shall be some time.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what I can tell you,” Ginny said, obediently continuing to brush the cape. “She was always a very good mistress to me.”
“In what way good?”
She looked surprised. “Well … considerate, like. She apologized if she got anything extra dirty, or if she kept me up extra late. She gave me things as she didn’t want no more, and always asked after me family, and the like.”
“You were fond of her?”
“Very fond of’er, Mr.—”
“Monk.”
“Mr. Monk, can you ’elp ’er now? I mean, after she said as she done it?” Her face was puckered with anxiety.
“I don’t know,” Monk admitted. “If there were some reason why, that people could understand, it might help.”
“What would anybody understand, as why a lady should kill ’er ’usband?” Ginny put away the cape and brought out a gown of a most unusual deep mulberry shade. She shook it and a perfume came from its folds that caught Monk with a jolt of memory so violent he saw a whole scene of a woman in pink, standing with her back to him, weeping softly. He had no idea what her face was like, except he found it beautiful, and he recalled none of her words. But the feeling was intense, an emotion that shook him and filled his being, an urgency amounting to passion that he must find the truth, and free her from a terrible danger, one that would destroy her life and her reputation.
But who was she? Surely she had nothing to do with Walbrook? No—one thing seemed to resolve in his mind. When Walbrook was ruined, and Monk’s own career in commerce came to an end, he had not at that point even thought of becoming a policeman. That was what had decided him—his total inability to either help Walbrook and his wife, or even to avenge them and put his enemy out of business.
The woman in pink had turned to him because he was a policeman. It was his job to find the truth.
But he could not bring her face to mind, nor anything to do with the case, except that she was suspected of murder—murdering her husband—like Alexandra Carlyon.
Had he succeeded? He did not even know that. Or for that matter, if she was innocent or guilty. And why had he cared with such personal anguish? What had been their relationship? Had she cared for him as deeply, or was she simply turning to him because she was desperate and terrified?
“Sir?” Ginny was staring at him. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Oh—oh yes, thank you. What did you say?”
“What would folks reckon was a reason why it might be all right for a lady to kill ’er ’usband? I don’t know of none.”
“Why do you think she did it?” Monk asked baldly, his wits still too scattered to be subtle. “Was she jealous of Mrs. Furnival?”
“Oh no sir.” Ginny dismissed it out of hand. “I don’t like to speak ill of me betters, but Mrs. Furnival weren’t the kind o’ person to—well, sir, I don’t rightly know ’ow to put it—”
“Simply.” Monk’s attention was entirely on her now, the memory dismissed for the time being. “Just in your own words. Don’t worry if it sounds ill—you can always take it back, if you want.”
“Thank you, sir, I’m sure.”
“Mrs. Furnival.”
“Well, sir, she’s what my granny used to call a flighty piece, sir, beggin’ yer pardon, all smiles and nods and eyes all over the place. Likes the taste o’ power, but not one to fall what you’d call in love, not to care for anyone.”
“But the general might have cared for her? Was he a good judge of women?”
“Lord, sir, he didn’t hardly know one kind o’ woman from another, if you take my meaning. He wasn’t no ladies’ man.”
“Isn’t that just the sort that gets taken in by the likes of anyone such as Mrs. Furnival?”
“No sir, because ’e weren’t susceptible like. I seen ’er when she was ’ere to dinner, and he weren’t interested ’ceptin’ business and casual talking like to a friend. And Mrs. Carlyon, she knew that, sir. There weren’t no cause for ’er to be jealous, and she never