William Monk 02 - A Dangerous Mourning

with gracious facades, high windows and imposing entrances. They alighted, Evan paid the cabby, and they presented themselves at the servants’ door of Number 10. It rankled to go climbing down the areaway steps rather than up and in through the front portico, but it was far less humiliating than going to the front and being turned away by a liveried footman, looking down his nose, and dispatched to the back to ask again.
    “Yes?” the bootboy said soberly, his face pasty white and his apron crooked.
    “Inspector Monk and Sergeant Evan, to see Lord Moidore,” Monk replied quietly. Whatever his feeling for Runcorn, or his general intolerance of fools, he had a deep pity for bereavement and the confusion and shock of sudden death.
    “Oh—” The bootboy looked startled, as if their presence had turned a nightmare into truth. “Oh—yes. Yer’d better come in.” He pulled the door wide and stepped back, turning into the kitchen to call for help, his voice plaintive and desperate. “Mr. Phillips! Mr. Phillips—the p’lice is ’ere!”
    The butler appeared from the far end of the huge kitchen. He was lean and a trifle stooped, but he had the autocratic face of a man used to command—and receiving obedience without question. He regarded Monk with both anxiety and distaste, and some surprise at Monk’s well-cut suit, carefully laundered shirt, and polished, fine leather boots. Monk’s appearance did not coincide with his idea of a policeman’s social position, which was beneath that of a peddler or a costermonger. Then he looked at Evan, with his long, curved nose and imaginativeeyes and mouth, and felt no better. It made him uncomfortable when people did not fit into their prescribed niches in the order of things. It was confusing.
    “Sir Basil will see you in the library,” he said stiffly. “If you will come this way.” And without waiting to see if they did, he walked very uprightly out of the kitchen, ignoring the cook seated in a wooden rocking chair. They continued into the passageway beyond, past the cellar door, his own pantry, the still room, the outer door to the laundry, the housekeeper’s sitting room, and then through the green baize door into the main house.
    The hall floor was wood parquet, scattered with magnificent Persian carpets, and the walls were half paneled and hung with excellent landscapes. Monk had a flicker of memory from some distant time, perhaps a burglary detail, and the word
Flemish
came to mind. There was still so much that was closed in that part of him before the accident, and only flashes came back, like movement caught out of the corner of the eye, when one turns just too late to see.
    But now he must follow the butler, and train all his attention on learning the facts of this case. He must succeed, and without allowing anyone else to realize how much he was stumbling, guessing, piecing together from fragments out of what they thought was his store of knowledge. They must not guess he was working with the underworld connections any good detective has. His reputation was high; people expected brilliance from him. He could see that in their eyes, hear it in their words, the casual praise given as if they were merely remarking the obvious. He also knew he had made too many enemies to afford mistakes. He heard it between the words and in the inflections of a comment, the barb and then the nervousness, the look away. Only gradually was he discovering what he had done in the years before to earn their fear, their envy or their dislike. A piece at a time he found evidence of his own extraordinary skill, the instinct, the relentless pursuit of truth, the long hours, the driving ambition, the intolerance of laziness, weakness in others, failure in himself. And of course, in spite of all his disadvantages since the accident, he had solved the extremely difficult Grey case.
    They were at the library. Phillips opened the door and announced them, then stepped back to allow them in.
    The room was traditional, lined with shelves. One large bay window let in the light, and green carpet and furnishings made it restful, almost gave an impression of a garden.
    But there was no time now to examine it. Basil Moidore stood in the center of the floor. He was a tall man, loose boned, unathletic, but not yet running to fat, and he held himself very erect. He could never have been handsome; his features were too mobile, his mouth too large, the lines around it deeply etched and reflecting