Slaves of Obsession (47 page)

“Shearer!” Trace said distinctly, waving his other arm, with the lantern, in the direction of one of the corpses.

Shearer. Of course! This abomination was why no one had seen Walter Shearer since the night of Alberton’s death. He had been loyal to Alberton after all. He had followed the barge down here, and been shot with these other two. Were they the ones who had actually committed the murders? Why? On whose orders?

He made a sign of acknowledgment, then turned and
blundered out of the fearful cabin and stopped abruptly as his air hose tightened and almost broke. Terror stifled his breath. He was covered in cold sweat. Trace! Of course! He would die down here in this filthy water, alone with his murderer. He would never see light again, breathe air, hold Hester in his arms or look at her eyes.

When Monk left home that afternoon, Hester had tried, at first, to busy herself with domestic tasks. Mrs. Patrick arrived at exactly two o’clock, the agreed time. She was a small, thin woman with crisp white hair full of natural curl, and very blue eyes. Hester judged her to be about fifty years old. She had a strong face, albeit a little gaunt, and a brisk manner. She spoke with a slight Scottish burr. Hester could not place it, but she knew it was not Edinburgh. She had too many memories of that city to mistake its tones.

Mrs. Patrick, neat in a white, starched apron, began to clear up the kitchen and consider what other tasks needed doing: clean and black the small stove, put on the laundry, scrub the kitchen floor, clean out the larder and make a note of what needed restocking, take out the rugs, sweep the floors, beat the rugs and return them, hang the laundry out, and do the ironing from the previous day. And of course prepare the dinner.

“What time will Mr. Monk be home?” she enquired while Hester was sitting in the office out of the way, stitching on a shirt button.

“I don’t know,” Hester replied honestly. “He’s gone diving.”

Mrs. Patrick’s eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

“He’s gone diving,” Hester explained. “In the river. I’m not sure what he expects to find.”

“Water and mud,” Mrs. Patrick said tartly. “For heaven’s sake, why would he be doing such a thing?” She looked at Hester narrowly, as if she suspected she had been lied to regarding the nature of Monk’s employment.

Hester was very keen to keep Mrs. Patrick’s services. Life had been altogether much easier since her advent. “He is
still trying to find out who killed Mr. Alberton in the Tooley Street murder,” she said tentatively.

Mrs. Patrick’s eyebrows were still raised and a trifle crooked, her mouth twisted into profound skepticism.

“There are other guns,” Hester went on, not sure if she was making matters better or worse. “Something went down the river on the barge from Hayes Dock. It might have been to pay the blackmailers.”

Mrs. Patrick had not intended to admit that she had been following the case. She disapproved of reading about such things, but the words were out of her mouth before she realized their implication. “That was why they asked for Mr. Monk in the first place, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” Hester admitted.

“If you ask me, they don’t exist.” Mrs. Patrick smoothed her apron over her narrow hips. “I reckon as Mr. Alberton did that himself … probably sold the guns to the pirates anyway!”

“That wouldn’t make any sense,” Hester argued. “If there were no blackmailer then he could sell them anywhere he wanted.”

“Highest bidder,” Mrs. Patrick said darkly. “Money, mark my words, that’s what’ll be at the bottom of it … the love of money is at the root of all evil.” And with that she turned and went back to the kitchen and her duties.

Hester sat for another fifteen minutes turning it over in her mind, then she went through to the kitchen herself and informed Mrs. Patrick that she was going out and had very little idea when she would be back.

“You’re not going along the river?” Mrs. Patrick asked in some alarm.

“No, I’m not,” Hester assured her. “I’m going to consider the question of blackmail again, more carefully.”

Mrs. Patrick grunted and returned her attention to the sink, but her square, stiff shoulders were eloquent of her mixed satisfaction and disapproval. She was obviously not at all certain that the position she had accepted was a wise
one, but it was undoubtedly interesting, and she would not leave just yet, unless it seriously threatened either her personal safety or her reputation.

Hester went again to see Robert Casbolt. She hoped to find him at home. If not she would have to seek an appointment with him in his offices, or wait there for him to return from whatever business had taken him away.

Fortunately he was at home, apparently reading. An ancient manservant informed her Mr. Casbolt would be happy to see her, and led her, not into the golden room in which they had talked before, but to an upstairs room which was, if anything, even more beautiful. French doors opened onto a balcony which overlooked the garden, at the moment full of flowers and quiet in the sun. The room was done entirely in soft earth colors and creams, extraordinarily restful, and Hester felt immediately comfortable in it.

Casbolt welcomed her, inviting her to be seated in one of the chairs facing the garden, a little to the left of a magnificent Italian bronze lion.

“It’s beautiful!” she said, moved by something more than mere admiration. There was a tenderness in the room, as if it were a place apart from ordinary life.

He was pleased. “You like it?”

“More than that,” she said honestly. “It’s … unique.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed simply. “I spend time here alone. When I am out it is locked. I am glad you see its quality.”

Hester hoped even more profoundly that it was not as Mrs. Patrick suggested, but she must face the truth. If Alberton had intended to deal with the pirates in any manner at all, or had given them to believe he would, then perhaps his death had nothing to do with the American civil war but was a matter of money, or perhaps after all those years, an old vengeance for Judith’s brother’s death. Since Casbolt was her cousin, and obviously cared for her deeply, perhaps he even knew that, or had guessed it since. If it were either of these two answers, she longed for it to be the latter. A vengeance would be understandable. Any man might well
have hungered to exact some kind of justice in the circumstances, and reached where the law could not.

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Monk?” Casbolt asked graciously. “I feel we owe you so much, believe me, you would have only to name your favor.”

“We still do not know who was responsible for the crimes.” She chose evasive words and she spoke softly. Somehow in this lovely room it would seem coarse to use words like
murder
when euphemisms would be understood.

He looked down at his hands for a moment. He had fine hands, strong and smooth. Then he raised his eyes.

“No, and I fear we may not,” he answered. “I had believed it was Breeland himself, or Shearer at his instigation. I am delighted that Rathbone proved it was not Merrit, and not learning who it was is a small price to pay for that.”

“It is not necessarily a trade, Mr. Casbolt,” she argued. “Merrit is perfectly safe now. I have considered the matter quite carefully, and I have wondered if it does not stem back to the original letter of blackmail over which you first consulted my husband. After all, they asked for guns as a payment for their silence. And they have been silent.”

He frowned, uncertainty in his face. He hesitated for several moments before replying.

“I’m not sure what it is you believe, Mrs. Monk. Do you think they killed Daniel and stole the guns, because he would not yield to their demands? Was Breeland simply caught up in it by an unfortunate accident of timing? Is that what you are suggesting?”

It was not as simple as that, but she was reluctant to tell him what she feared. Daniel Alberton had been his closest friend, and any slur against him would reflect on Judith, and on Merrit. Did the truth matter now, the detailed truth as to why, as long as they knew who?

“Is it possible?” Hester said evasively.

Again Casbolt sat silently for several moments, his brows drawn down in thought.

As she waited, she realized how unlikely it would be. If
guns could be so simply stolen, why would they have bothered with the sophistication of blackmail in the first place?

He was watching her.

“You don’t believe that, do you?” he said softly. “You are afraid Daniel yielded to them, aren’t you? You know he was in the yard that night … it must have been to meet someone.”

“Yes,” she said unhappily. She loathed having to do this, but the truth lay between them, huge and inevitable. There was no possibility of avoiding it now.

“Daniel would not sell guns to pirates,” Casbolt said, shaking his head, denying it to himself.

“The guns missing from Breeland’s shipment were exactly the amount asked for in the blackmail letter,” she pointed out.

“He still wouldn’t do that. Not to pirates!” But his voice was losing its conviction. He was talking to persuade himself, and the unhappiness in his eyes betrayed his knowledge that she could see it.

“Perhaps he had little choice,” she said.

“The blackmail? We would have fought it through! I believe your husband might well have discovered who it was. It had to be someone in London. How could a Mediterranean pirate know about Gilmer?”

“How would anyone?” she said so quietly he leaned forward to hear her. She could feel the heat in her face and yet her hands were cold.

He stared at her. “Are you … are you saying what I think …” He stumbled over the words. “No! He would not do that!”

Just as Breeland could not be guilty because of the times of events, Casbolt could not either. She hated hurting him, but he was the one person she could trust, and who would be in a position to find the truth, and maybe to keep it silent.

“Perhaps he needed the money?”

His eyes widened. “The money? I don’t understand. I am quite familiar with the company books, Mrs. Monk. The finances are more than adequate.”

At last Hester spoke aloud the ugly thought that she had been trying to suppress or deny all day. “What if he invested privately as well, and lost money?”

He looked startled, as if the thought rattled him. It took him a moment to regain his composure.

“In stocks, you mean?” he asked. “Or something of that sort? I don’t think it is likely. He was not a gambler in even the mildest way. And believe me, I have known him long enough that I would be aware of it.” He spoke very gravely, still leaning forward, his hands locked together, knuckles white.

Hester had to pursue it, explain to him what she meant. “Not stocks or shares, and I had never thought of gambling, Mr. Casbolt. I was thinking of something which seemed at the time a certain business deal, with no risk attached.”

He gazed at her, his eyes clouded, waiting for her to continue.

“Like selling guns to the Chinese,” she answered.

His face was unreadable, his emotions too profound to measure.

It was at that moment that she believed he knew. He had concealed it to protect Alberton, and possibly even more to protect Judith. She realized with a jolt how much this whole room spoke of his love for her, and why it was special. Perhaps there would be no need to tell anyone. They did not have to know any more than they did now. Mystery, unanswered questions, would be better than the truth.

“The Third Chinese War,” she finished the thought. “If he invested in guns to sell to the Chinese, shipped them out, and then they refused to pay because a war had broken out between us and them that was completely unforeseeable by anyone, then he would have sustained a heavy loss … wouldn’t he?”

His lips tightened, but his eyes did not waver from hers.

“Yes …”

“Is that not possible?”

“Of course it is possible. But what are you suggesting
happened the night he was killed? I still don’t understand how a loss to the Chinese would bring that about.”

“Yes, you do,” she said softly. “What if Breeland were telling not only what he thought was the truth, but what actually was the truth? Alberton could have taken Philo Trace’s money, given in good faith, then sold the guns to Breeland, using Shearer to deliver them to the Euston Square station. He would then have had two separate amounts of money which would come to an excellent profit … more than sufficient to make up for the Chinese losses.”

He did not argue. His face had a bruised, almost beaten look. “Then who killed him? And why?”

“Whoever represented the pirates,” she answered.

“I … suppose so.”

“Or else there was a confrontation,” she added, her voice lifting with hope in spite of herself. “Perhaps he knew who they were, and he may have said he would deal with them because he planned to exact some kind of justice for Judith’s family.” She chose the word
justice
deliberately, instead of
revenge
.

He considered it. It was apparent in his face that he was weighing all the possibilities. He seemed to make a decision at last.

“If your suggestion about Daniel having lost private money on the Chinese war is correct, and that he did indeed sell the guns to Breeland just as Breeland said, and kept Philo Trace’s money … then when Trace discovered that, would he not be the one to exact revenge—or, from his point of view, justice? And the method of … murder … was a peculiarly American one, remember. Do you not think it more likely that Trace went to Tooley Street to face Daniel about it, and there was a furious quarrel, and Trace killed them? Whether he went there alone or not we may never know. Perhaps he had help. He will have had allies here ready to move the guns when he bought them, just as Breeland had. Possibly one man could have made the guards tie each other, at gunpoint, and he could have tied the last himself … I imagine.”

He looked pale, very strained. “Trace seems a gentle man, full of charm, but he is a gun buyer for the Confederate army, fighting to preserve the way of life of the South, and the right to keep slaves. Underneath the easy manner there is a very desperate and determined man whose people are at war for their own survival.”