The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [268]
Monk replaced the things he had been looking through in the cupboard and stood up straight, hands in his pockets.
“But why would he leave it here?” he said slowly. “It’s damning!”
Evan frowned. “Well, I suppose he didn’t want to leave the knife in her room, and he couldn’t risk carrying it openly, with blood on it, in case he met someone—”
“Who, for heaven’s sake?”
Evan’s fair face was intensely troubled, his eyes dark, his lips pulled in distaste that was far deeper than anything physical.
“I don’t know! Anyone else on the landing in the night—”
“How would he explain his presence—with or without a knife?” Monk demanded.
“I don’t know!” Evan shook his head. “What do footmen do? Maybe he’d say he heard a noise—intruders—the front door—I don’t know. But it would be better if he didn’t have a knife in his hands—especially a bloodstained one.”
“Better still if he had left it there in her room,” Monk argued.
“Perhaps he took it out without thinking.” He looked up and met Monk’s eyes. “Just had it in his hand and kept hold of it? Panicked? Then when he got outside and halfway along the corridor he didn’t dare go back?”
“Then why the peignoir?” Monk said. “He wrapped it in that to take it, by the look of it. That’s not the kind of panic you’re talking about. Now why on earth should he want the knife? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Not to us,” Evan agreed slowly, staring at the crumpled silk in his hand. “But it must have to him—there it is!”
“And he never had the opportunity to get rid of it between then and now?” Monk screwed up his face. “He couldn’t possibly have forgotten it!”
“What other explanation is there?” Evan looked helpless. “It’s here!”
“Yes—but was Percival the one who put it here? And why didn’t we find it when we looked for the jewelry?”
Evan blushed. “Well I didn’t pull out drawers and look under them for anything. I daresay the constable didn’t either. Honestly I was pretty sure we wouldn’t find it anyway—and the silver vase wouldn’t have fitted.” He looked uncomfortable.
Monk pulled a face. “Even if we had, it might not have been there then—I suppose. I don’t know, Evan. It just seems so … stupid! And Percival is arrogant, abrasive, contemptuous of other people, especially women, and he’s got a hell of a lot of money from somewhere, to judge from his wardrobe, but he’s not stupid. Why should he leave something as damning as this hidden in his room?”
“Arrogance?” Evan suggested tentatively. “Maybe he just thinks we are not efficient enough for him to be afraid of? Up until today he was right.”
“But he was afraid,” Monk insisted, remembering Percival’s white face and the sweat on his skin. “I had him in the housekeeper’s room and I could see the fear in him, smell it! He fought to get out of it, spreading blame everywhere else he could—on the laundrymaid, and Kellard—even Araminta.”
“I don’t know!” Evan shook his head, his eyes puzzled. “But Mrs. Boden will tell us if this is her knife—and Mrs. Kellard will tell us if that is her sister’s—what did you call it?”
“Peignoir,” Monk replied. “Dressing robe.”
“Right—peignoir. I suppose we had better tell Sir Basil we’ve found it!”
“Yes.” Monk picked up the knife, folding the silk over the blade, and carried it out of the room, Evan coming after him.
“Are you going to arrest him?” Evan asked, coming down the stairs a step behind.
Monk hesitated. “I’m not happy it’s enough,” he said thoughtfully. “Anyone could have put these in his room—and only a fool would leave them there.”
“They were fairly well hidden.”
“But why keep them?” Monk insisted. “It’s stupid—Percival’s far too sly for that.”
“Then what?” Evan was not argumentative so much as puzzled and disturbed by a series of ugly discoveries in which he saw no sense. “The laundrymaid? Is she really jealous enough to murder Octavia and hide the weapon and the gown in Percival’s room?”
They had reached the main landing, where Maggie and Annie were standing together,