The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [274]
Monk smiled sourly. “No, I’m not going to say anything to make anyone faint. I merely want to ask her opinion about something. Will you send for her please?”
“Yes sir. I—yes sir.” And he withdrew in haste, glad to be out of a situation beyond him.
“Sir Basil won’t be pleased,” Evan said dryly.
“No, I imagine not,” Monk agreed. “Nor will anyone else. They all seemed keen that poor Percival should be arrested and the matter dealt with, and us out of the way.”
“And someone who will be even angrier,” Evan pulled a face, “will be Runcorn.”
“Yes,” Monk said slowly with some satisfaction. “Yes—he will, won’t he!”
Evan sat down on the arm of one of Mrs. Willis’s best chairs, swinging his legs a little. “I wonder if your not arresting Percival will prompt whoever it is to try something more dramatic?”
Monk grunted and smiled very slightly. “That’s a very comfortable thought.”
There was a knock on the door and as Evan opened it Hester came in, looking puzzled and curious.
Evan closed the door and leaned against it.
Monk told her briefly what had happened, adding his own feelings and Evan’s in explanation.
“One of the family,” she said quietly.
“What makes you say that?”
She lifted her shoulders very slightly, not quite a shrug, and her brow wrinkled in thought. “Lady Moidore is afraid of something, not something that has happened, but something she is afraid may yet happen. Arresting a footman wouldn’t trouble her; it would be a relief.” Her gray eyes were very direct. “Then you would go away, the public and the newspapers would forget about it, and they could begin to recover. They would stop suspecting one another and trying to pretend they are not.”
“Myles Kellard?” he asked.
She frowned, finding words slowly. “If he did, I think it would be in panic. He doesn’t seem to me to have the nerve to cover for himself as coolly as this. I mean keeping the knife and the peignoir and hiding it in Percival’s room.” She hesitated. “I think if he killed her, then someone else is hiding it for him—perhaps Araminta? Maybe that is why he is afraid of her—and I think he is.”
“And Lady Moidore knows this—or suspects it?”
“Perhaps.”
“Or Araminta killed her sister when she found her husband in her room?” Evan suggested suddenly. “That is something that might happen. Perhaps she went along in the night and found them together and killed her sister and left her husband to take the blame?”
Monk looked at him with considerable respect. It was a solution he had not yet thought of himself, and now it was there in words. “Eminently possible,” he said aloud. “Far more likely than Percival going to her room, being rejected and knifing her. For one thing, he would hardly go for a seduction armed with a kitchen knife, and unless she was expecting him, neither would she.” He leaned comfortably against one of Mrs. Willis’s chairs. “And if she were expecting him,” he went on, “surely there were better ways of defending herself, simply by informing her father that the footman had overstepped himself and should be dismissed. Basil had already proved himself more than willing to dismiss a servant who was innocently involved with one of the family, how much more easily one who was not innocent.”
He saw their immediate comprehension.
“Are you going to tell Sir Basil?” Evan asked.
“I have no choice. He’s expecting me to arrest Percival.”
“And Runcorn?” Evan persisted.
“I’ll have to tell him too. Sir Basil will—”
Evan smiled, but no answer was necessary.
Monk turned to Hester. “Be careful,” he warned. “Whoever it is wants us to arrest Percival. They will be upset that we haven’t and may do something rash.”
“I will,” she said quite calmly.
Her composure irritated him. “You don’t appear to understand the risk.” His voice was sharp. “There would be a physical danger to you.”
“I am acquainted with physical danger.” She met his eyes levelly with a glint of amusement. “I have seen a great deal more death than you have, and been closer to my own than I am ever likely to be in London.”
His reply was futile, and he forbore from making it. This time