Twisted Root - Anne Perry [98]
But where had the croquet mallet come from? One did not keep such things in a bedroom. Whoever had killed Verona Stourbridge had brought it, and it could only be as a weapon.
The murder was premeditated. He said as much aloud.
"I know," Robb admitted. "I know. But she still seems the most likely one. We’ll have to go farther back than I thought. I’ll start again with the servants. It’s here, whatever it is, the reason, the jealousy or the fear, or the rage. It’s in this house. It has to be."
They worked all night, asking, probing, going back over detail after detail. They were so tired the whole house seemed to be a maze going around and around itself, like a symbol of the confusion within. Monk’s throat was dry, and he felt as if there were sand in his eyes. The cook brought them a tray of tea at three o’clock in the morning, and another at a quarter to five, this time with roast beef sandwiches.
They again questioned Mrs. Stourbridge’s maid. The woman looked exhausted and terrified, but she spoke quite coherently.
"I don’t know nothing to her discredit, not really," she said when Robb asked her about Miriam. "She’s always bin very civil, far as I know."
Monk seized on the hesitation, reading the indecision in her face.
"You must be frank," he said gravely. "You owe Mrs. Stourbridge that. What do you mean ’not really’? What were you thinking about when you said that?"
Still, she was reluctant.
Monk looked at her grimly until she flushed and finally answered.
"Well ... I was thinking of that time I brought back Mrs. Stourbridge’s clean petticoats, to hang them up, like, an’ I found Mrs. Gardiner sitting at Mrs. Stourbridge’s dressing table ... and she had one of Mrs. Stourbridge’s necklaces on. She said as Mrs. Stourbridge had said she could borrow it — but she never said nothing to me as anyone could. And ... and Mrs. Stourbridge’s diary was lying open on her bed, an’ that’s a thing I’ve never seen before."
"Did she explain that, too?"
"No ... I never asked."
"I see."
She looked wretched, and seemed glad to escape when they excused her.
It was half past five. Robb stood facing the window and the brilliant sunlight as the first noises of awakening came in from the street. A horse and cart rolled by. Somewhere on the farther side of the road there were footsteps on the pavement. A door opened and closed. He turned back to the room. His face was pale and he looked exhausted and miserable.
"I’ve got to arrest her," he said flatly. "Seems she couldn’t wait to get her hands on the pretty things ... or to pry into Mrs. Stourbridge’s affairs. I wish that wasn’t so. Money does strange things to some people."
"She didn’t have to hurt Verona Stourbridge to have that," Monk pointed out. "No one objected to the marriage."
"Perhaps she did," Robb said, his back stiff, his head high. He was determined to stand up to Monk on the issue, because he believed it. It was a testing ground between them, and he was going to prove his own authority. "Perhaps Mrs. Stourbridge knew whatever it was Treadwell knew, or even that Miriam killed him."
Monk drew in his breath to argue, but each protest died on his lips. They were empty, and he knew it. No one else had any reason or motive to harm Verona Stourbridge, and there was no physical evidence to implicate any of them. Miriam was already deeply involved in the murder of James Treadwell. And strangely enough, she had not defended herself in any coherent way. Any jury would find it easy enough to believe that she had set out deliberately to charm Lucius, a wealthy and naive young man. He was handsome and intelligent enough, but not worldly wise, and might be easily duped by a woman older than he and well practiced in the ways of pleasing.
Then she had seen the luxury of the life she could expect, but through an unforeseeable misfortune, the coachman