The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [316]
In a gray wind laden with sleet, and with ice on the footpaths, she walked to Harley Street and took a cab, requesting the driver take her to the War Office. There she paid him and alighted with all the aplomb of one who knows precisely where she is going, and that she will be admitted with pleasure, which was not at all the case. She intended to learn all she could about Captain Harry Haslett, without any clear idea of where it might lead, but he was the only member of the family about whom she had known almost nothing until yesterday. Septimus’s account had brought him so sharply to life, and made him so likable and of such deep and abiding importance to Octavia, that Hester understood why two years after his death she still grieved with the same sharp and unendurable loneliness. Hester wished to know of his career.
Suddenly Octavia had become more than just the victim of the crime, a face Hester had never seen and therefore for whom she felt no sense of personality. Since listening to Septimus, Octavia’s emotions had become real, her feelings those Hester might so easily have had herself, had she loved and been loved by any of the young officers she had known.
She climbed the steps of the War Office and addressed the man at the door with all the courtesy and charm she could muster, plus, of course, the due deference from a woman to a man of the military, and just a touch of her own authority, which was the least difficult, since it came to her quite naturally.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she began with an inclination of her head and a smile of friendly openness. “I wonder if I might be permitted to speak with Major Geoffrey Tallis? If you would give him my name I believe he will know it. I was one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses”—she was not above using that magic name if it would help—“and I had occasion to tend Major Tallis in Scutari when he was injured. It concerns the death of a widow of a former officer of distinction, and there is a matter to which Major Tallis may be able to assist—with information that would considerably ease the family’s distress. Would you be good enough to have that message conveyed to him?”
It was apparently the right mixture of supplication, good reasoning, feminine appeal, and the authority of a nurse which draws from most well-bred men an automatic obedience.
“I will certainly have that message delivered to him, ma’am,” he agreed, standing a trifle straighter. “What name shall I give?”
“Hester Latterly,” she answered. “I regret seeking him at such short notice, but I am still nursing a gentleman late of active service, and he is not well enough that I should leave him for above a few hours.” That was a very elastic version of the truth, but not quite a downright lie.
“Of course.” His respect increased. He wrote down the name “Hester Latterly” and added a note as to her occupation and the urgency of her call, summoned an orderly and dispatched him with the message to Major Tallis.
Hester was quite happy to wait in silence, but the doorman seemed disposed to converse, so she answered his questions on the battles she had witnessed and found they had both been present at the battle of Inkermann. They were deep in reminiscences when the orderly returned to say Major Tallis would receive Miss Latterly in ten minutes, if she would care to wait upon him in his office.
She accepted with a trifle more haste than she had meant to; it was a definite subtraction from the dignity she had tried to establish, but she thanked the doorman for his courtesy. Then she walked very uprightly behind the orderly inside the entrance hall, up the wide staircase and into the endless corridors until she was shown into a waiting room with several chairs, and left.
It was rather more than ten minutes before Major Tallis opened the inner door. A dapper lieutenant walked out past Hester, apparently without seeing her, and she was shown in.
Geoffrey Tallis was a handsome man in his late thirties, an ex-cavalry officer who had been given an administrative post after a serious injury,