The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [401]
“One of the servants was involved?” Hester said slowly. There was no real hope in her face, because of his warning that the news was not good. “I wondered that before, if one of them had a military experience, or was related to someone who had. The motive might be quite different, something in his professional life and nothing personal at all …” She looked at Monk.
There was a flicker in Monk’s face, and Rathbone knew in that instant that he had not thought of that himself. Why not? Inefficiency—or had he reached some unarguable conclusion before he got that far?
“No.” Monk glanced at him, then away again. “They did not question the movements of the servants closely enough. The butler said they had all been about their duties and noticed nothing at all, and since their duties were in the kitchen and servants’ quarters, it was not surprising they had not heard the suit of armor fall. But on questioning him more closely, he admitted one footman tidied the dining room, which was not in the time period we are interested in. He was told to fill the coal scuttles for the rest of the house, including the morning room and the library, which are off the front hall.”
Hester turned her head to watch him. Rathbone sat up a little straighter.
Monk continued impassively, only the faintest of smiles touching the corners of his mouth.
“The footman’s observations as to the armor, and he could hardly have missed it had it been lying on the floor in pieces with the body of the general across it and the halberd sticking six feet out of his chest like a flagpole—”
“We take your point,” Rathbone said sharply. “That reduces the opportunities of the suspects. I assume that is what you are eventually going to tell us?”
A flush of annoyance crossed Monk’s face, then vanished and was replaced by satisfaction, not at the outcome, but at his own competence in proving it.
“That, and the romantic inclinations of the upstairs maid, and the fact that the footman had a lazy streak, and preferred to carry the scuttles up the front stairs instead of the back, for Mrs. Furnival’s bedroom, make it impossible that anyone but Alexandra could have killed him. I’m sorry.”
“Not Sabella?” Hester asked with a frown, leaning a little forward in her seat.
“No.” He turned to her, his face softening for an instant. “The upstairs maid was waiting around the stair head to catch the footman, and when she realized she had missed him, and heard someone coming, she darted into the room where Sabella was resting, just off the first landing, on the pretext that she thought she had heard her call. And when she came out again the people had passed, and she went on back up to the servants’ back stairs, and her own room. The people who passed her must have been Alexandra and the general, because after the footman had finished, he went down the back stairs, just in time to meet the news that General Carlyon had had an accident, and the butler had been told to keep the hall clear, and to send for the police.”
Rathbone let out his breath in a sigh. He did not ask Monk if he were sure; he knew he would not have said it if there were the slightest doubt.
Monk bit his lip, glanced at Hester, who looked crushed, then back at Rathbone.
“The third element is motive,” he said.
Rathbone’s attention jerked back. Suddenly there was hope again. If not, why would Monk have bothered to mention it?
Damn the man for his theatricality! It was too late to pretend he was indifferent, Monk had seen his change of expression. To affect a casual air now would make himself ridiculous.
“I presume your discovery there is more useful to us?” he said aloud.
Monk’s satisfaction evaporated.
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “One could speculate all sorts of motives for the others, but for her there seems only jealousy—and yet that was not the reason.”
Rathbone and Hester stared at him. There was no sound in the quiet room but a leaf tapping against the window in the spring breeze.
Monk pulled a dubious