The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [265]
“I see,” Monk said very quietly. “Thank you, Martha. You have been a great help to me. I shall try to be as much help to you. Don’t give up hope.”
A fraction of her old dignity returned, but there was no life in her smile.
“There’s nothing to hope for, sir. Nobody’d marry me. I never see anyone except people that haven’t a farthing of their own, or they’d not be here. And nobody looks for servants in a workhouse, and I wouldn’t leave Emmie anyway. And even if she doesn’t live, no one takes on a maid without a character, and my looks have gone too.”
“They’ll come back. Just please—don’t give up,” he urged her.
“Thank you, sir, but you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes I do.”
She smiled patiently at his ignorance and took her leave, going back to the labor yard to scrub and mend.
Monk thanked the workhouse master and left also, not to the police station to tell Runcorn he had a better suspect than Percival. That could wait. First he would go to Callandra Daviot.
8
MONK’S SENSE OF ELATION was short-lived. When he returned to Queen Anne Street the next day he was greeted in the kitchen by Mrs. Boden, looking grim and anxious, her face very pink and her hair poking in wild angles out of her white cap.
“Good morning, Mr. Monk. I am glad you’ve come!”
“What is it, Mrs. Boden?” His heart sank, although he could think of nothing specific he feared. “What has happened?”
“One of my big kitchen carving knives is missing, Mr. Monk.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I could have sworn I had it last time we had a roast o’ beef, but Sal says she thinks as it was the other one I used, the old one, an’ now I reckon she must be right.” She poked her hair back under her cap and wiped her face agitatedly. “No one else can remember, and May gets sick at the thought. I admit it fair turns my stomach when I think it could’ve been the one that stabbed poor Miss Octavia.”
Monk was cautious. “When did this thought come to you, Mrs. Boden?” he asked guardedly.
“Yesterday, in the evening.” She sniffed. “Miss Araminta sent down for a little thin-cut beef for Sir Basil. He’d come in late and wanted a bite to eat.” Her voice was rising and there was a note of hysteria in it. “I went to get my best knife, an’ it weren’t there. That’s when I started to look for it, thinking as it had been misplaced. And it in’t here—not anywhere.”
“And you haven’t seen it since Mrs. Haslett’s death?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Monk!” Her hands jerked up in the air. “I thought I ’ad, but Sal and May tell me as they ’aven’t, and when I last cut beef I did it with the old one. I was so upset I can’t recall what I did, and that’s the truth.”
“Then I suppose we’d better see if we can find it,” Monk agreed. “I’ll get Sergeant Evan to organize a search. Who else knows about this?”
Her face was blank; she understood no implication.
“Who else, Mrs. Boden?” he repeated calmly.
“Well I don’t know, Mr. Monk. I don’t know who I might have asked. I looked for it, naturally, and asked everyone if they’d seen it.”
“Who do you mean by ‘everyone,’ Mrs. Boden? Who else apart from the kitchen staff?”
“Well—I’m sure I can’t think.” She was beginning to panic because she could see the urgency in him and she did not understand. “Dinah. I asked Dinah because sometimes things get moved through to the pantry. And I may have mentioned it to ’Arold. Why? They don’t know where it is, or they’d ’ave said.”
“Someone wouldn’t have,” he pointed out.
It was several seconds before she grasped what he meant, then her hand flew to her mouth and she let out a stifled shriek.
“I had better inform Sir Basil.” That was a euphemism for asking Sir Basil’s permission for the search. Without a warrant he