The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [388]
“One of the servants?” he said incredulously. “Whatever for?”
“I don’t know. Some old military matter?”
He looked doubtful.
“Well, I shall pursue it!” she said firmly. “Now, have you had tea yet? What about supper? What would you care for for supper?”
TWo days later she took an afternoon off, at Major Tiplady’s insistence, and went to visit Lady Callandra Daviot in order to enlist her help in learning more of General Carlyon’s military career. Callandra had helped her with both counsel and friendship when she first returned from the Crimea, and it was with her good offices that she had obtained her hospital post. It was extremely gracious of Callandra not to have been a good deal harsher in her comments when Hester had then lost it through overstepping the bounds of her authority.
Callandra’s late husband, Colonel Daviot, had been an army surgeon of some distinction; a quick-tempered, charming, stubborn, witty and somewhat arbitrary man. He had had a vast acquaintance and might well have known something of General Carlyon. Callandra, still with connections to the Army Medical Corps, might be able either to recall hearing of the general, or to institute discreet enquiries and learn something of his career and, more importantly, of his reputation. She might be able to find information about the unofficial events which just might lead to another motive for murder, either someone seeking revenge for a wrong, a betrayal on the field, or a promotion obtained unfairly—or imagined to be so, or even some scandal exposed or too harshly pursued. The possibilities were considerable.
They were sitting in Callandra’s room, which could hardly be called a withdrawing room, since she would have received no formal visitors there. It was full of bright sunlight, desperately unfashionable, cluttered with books and papers, cushions thrown about for comfort, two discarded shawls and a sleeping cat which should have been white but was liberally dusted with soot.
Callandra herself, well into middle age, gray hair flying all over the place as if she were struggling against a high wind, her curious intelligent face long-nosed, full of humor, and quite out of fashion also, was sitting in the sunlight, which if it were habit might account for her indelicate complexion. She regarded Hester with amusement.
“My dear girl, do you not imagine Monk has already told me of the case? That was our bargain, if you recall. And quite naturally I have made considerable efforts to learn what I can of General Carlyon. And of his father. One may learn much of a man by knowing something of his parents—or of a woman, of course.” She scowled ferociously. “Really, that cat is quite perverse. God intended him to be white, so what does he do but climb up chimneys! It quite sets my teeth on edge when I think that sooner or later he will lick all that out of his coat. I feel as if my own mouth were full of soot. But I can hardly bathe him, although I have thought of it—and told him so.”
“I should think a great deal of it will come off on your furniture,” Hester said without disquiet. She was used to Callandra, and she had quite an affection for the animal anyway.
“Probably,” Callandra agreed. “He is a refugee from the kitchen at the moment, and I must give the poor beast asylum.”
“Why? I thought his job was in the kitchen, to keep the mice down.”
“It is—but he is overfond of eggs.”
“Can the cook not spare him an egg now and again?”
“Of course. But when she doesn’t he is apt to help himself. He has just looped his paw ’round half a dozen this morning and sent them all to the floor, where quite naturally they broke, and he was able to eat his fill. We shall not now be having soufflé for dinner.” She rearranged herself rather more comfortably and the cat moved itself gently in its sleep and began to purr. “I presume you wish to know what I have heard about General Carlyon?” Callandra asked.
“Of course.”
“It is not very interesting. Indeed he was a remarkably uninteresting man, correct to a degree which amounts to complete boredom—for me. His father purchased