The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [390]
And on that note, their conversation became more general, and they spent a most agreeable afternoon together until Hester rose to take her leave and return to Major Tiplady and her duties.
At the same time as Hester was dining with the Carlyon family, Monk was paying his first visit to Dr. Charies Hargrave, both as someone unrelated to the Carlyon family who had attended the party that evening and as the medical officer who had first seen the body of the general.
He had made an appointment in order not to find the doctor out on a call when he came, and therefore he approached with confidence, even at the unsuitable hour of half past eight in the evening. He was admitted by the maid and shown immediately to a pleasant and conventional study where he was received by Hargrave, an unusually tall man, lean and elegant of build, broad shouldered, and yet not athletic in manner. His coloring was nondescript fair, his eyes a little hooded and greenish blue in shade, his nose long and pointed, but not quite straight, as if at some time it had been broken and ill set. His mouth was small, his teeth when he smiled very regular. It was a highly individual face, and he seemed a man very much at his ease.
“Good evening, Mr. Monk. I doubt I can be of any assistance, but of course I shall do everything I can, although I have already spoken to the police—naturally.”
“Thank you, sir,” Monk accepted. “That is most generous of you.”
“Not at all. A wretched business.” Hargrave waved towards one of the large leather-covered chairs beside the fireplace, and as Monk sat in one, he sat in the other. “What can I tell you? I assume you already know the course of events that evening.”
“I have several accounts, none seriously at variance with another,” Monk replied. “But there remain some unanswered questions. For example, do you know what so distressed Mrs. Erskine?”
Hargrave smiled suddenly, a charming and candid gesture. “No idea at all. Quarrel with Louisa, I should think, but I haven’t the faintest notion about what. Although it did seem to me she was quite uncharacteristically beastly to poor Maxim. Sorry not to be more helpful. And before you ask, neither do I know why Thaddeus and Alexandra quarreled.”
“Could that also have been about Mrs. Furnival?” Monk asked.
Hargrave considered for a moment or two before replying, placing his fingers together in a steeple and looking at Monk over the point of them.
“I thought at first that it was unlikely, but on consideration perhaps it is not. Rivalry is a strange thing. People may fight passionately over something, not so much because they desire it for itself but because they wish to win the struggle, and be seen to win it—or at least not to lose.” He regarded Monk closely, searching his face, his expression grave. “ What I was going to say is that although Alexandra was not deeply in love with the general, it may be that her pride was very precious to her, and to have her friends and family see him giving his attention to someone else may have been more than she was prepared to endure.” He saw Monk’s doubt, or imagined it. “I realize murder is a very extreme reaction to that.” He frowned, biting his lips. “And solves nothing at all. But then it is absurd to imagine it would solve anything else either—but the general was undoubtedly murdered.”
“Was he?” Monk did not ask the question with skepticism so much as enquiry for clarification. “You examined the body; you did not perceive it as murder immediately, did you?”
Haigrave smiled wryly. “No,” he admitted. “I would not have said anything that evening, whatever I had thought. I confess, I was considerably shaken when Maxim came back and said Thaddeus had had an accident, and then of course when I saw him I knew immediately that he was dead. It was a very nasty wound. My first thoughts, after it was obvious I could do nothing for him, were to break