“Really . . . Boyd!” Courtney growled. “I don’t think this is the sort of thing to discuss in front of ladies!”
“If Mrs. Monk has been an army nurse, and now works in the Coldbath area, James, I doubt I can tell her anything that she does not already know better than I,” Boyd pointed out with more humor than annoyance.
“I was thinking of my sister-in-law!” Courtney said a trifle waspishly, his eye flickering to Marielle and back again, as if in actuality responding to her rather than his own thoughts. “And my wife,” he added, perhaps unaware of the implied insult to Hester.
Boyd looked at him coldly for a moment, and noticed him color, then he turned to Margaret. “I apologize if I have distressed you, Miss Ballinger,” he said with a slight smile, but a question in his eye.
“I shall require an apology, Mr. Boyd, if you think me less able to face the truth than Mrs. Monk!” Margaret replied with heat. “You have answered us very frankly, and for that I am grateful. Please do not spoil your respect for our sincerity by equivocating now.”
Boyd ignored both Courtney and Marielle as if they had not been present.
“Then I must tell you, Miss Ballinger,” he replied, “that I think Nolan Baltimore was as likely to have gone to Leather Lane for the reasons generally supposed as for any business purpose, honorable or otherwise. The quality of his living, the cost of his clothes, his carriages, his food and wine, did not suggest a company with any need to seek finance.” He waved Courtney’s proposed interruption away impatiently, and without taking his eyes from Margaret’s, he continued. “Since I have seen him in the City he has never restricted himself. Rumor has it that his company is on the verge of a great achievement. Perhaps he has borrowed against his expectations, or else he had a backer with very deep pockets. But before you ask me who it might be, I have no idea whatever. Not even an educated guess. I am sorry.”
An extraordinary thought occurred to Hester, only a flutter of darkness to begin with, but less and less absurd as the seconds ticked by. “Please don’t apologize, Mr. Boyd,” she said with sincerity. “You have been most helpful.” She ignored Margaret’s look of surprise, and Marielle’s clear disapproval.
Boyd smiled at her, curiosity and satisfaction in his face.
“How fortunate,” Marielle said coolly, indicating that the subject was closed. “Have you seen the new exhibition at the British Museum yet, Margaret? Mr. Boyd was just telling us how fascinating it is. Egypt is a country I have always wished to visit. The past must seem so immediate there. It would give one quite a different perspective upon time, don’t you think?”
“Unfortunately, it would not give me any more of it,” Margaret said, trying to sound casual and less embarrassed than she was at such an obvious ploy. She looked at Boyd. “Thank you for your candor, Mr. Boyd. I hope you will excuse us leaving so abruptly, but there is no one to take our places should any injured be brought into the house in Coldbath Square.” She looked at her sister. “Thank you for being so generous, Marielle. I am extremely grateful to you.”
“You really must stay longer next time,” Marielle said resentfully. “You must come to dinner, or to the theater. There are many excellent plays on at the moment. You are allowing your interests to become too narrow, Margaret. It cannot be good for you!”
Margaret ignored her, bade everyone good-bye, and a few moments later she and Hester were outside in the cool air of the street, walking toward the corner where they might find a hansom easily.
“What did he say that was helpful?” Margaret demanded. “I don’t see what any of it means that is really any use.”
“Mr. Boyd hinted that Baltimore had other income, apart from the railway company,” Hester said a little tentatively.
“He went to Leather Lane on business?” Margaret was uncertain. “Does that help? We have no idea what business, or with whom. And actually didn’t you say his death wasn’t in Leather Lane anyway?”
“Yes, I did. I said it might very well have been in Portpool Lane.”
Margaret stopped walking abruptly and swung around to face Hester. “You mean . . . in the brothel that is run by the usurer?”
“Yes—I do mean that.”
“His tastes were . . . to humiliate young women who used to be respectable?” Disgust and anger were very clear in Margaret’s face.
“Possibly,” Hester agreed. “But what if that was his other source of income? His family would not know of it, nor would any gatherer of taxes or anything else. It would explain very nicely why he had more funds to spend on his pleasures than Baltimore and Sons could supply. And his death coincides just about exactly with Squeaky Robinson’s panic. Maybe the question has nothing to do with railways. Maybe the question is—was he killed as a client who went too far, or as a usurer who got too greedy?”
Margaret was tense, but her eyes did not waver even though her voice did. “So what must we do? How can we find out?”
“I don’t have any plan yet,” Hester replied. “But I will certainly make one.”
She saw a hansom and stepped off the curb, raising her hand in the air.
Margaret followed after her with equal determination.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Monk arrived at the station in London exhausted. His head ached so fiercely all he wanted to do was go home, take as hot a bath as he was able to, then have several cups of tea and go to bed to sleep properly, lying flat and between clean sheets. It would be best of all if Hester were beside him, understanding everything and holding no criticism or blame, and that would be impossible. To do that she would have to be without moral judgment. And what use would she be then, what real person at all? Or that she would be unaware of any of the fears that tangled in his mind, simply there, a gentle presence in the darkness.
Except that, of course, she would know what he was feeling: the fear of truth, of finding in himself a greed and a cowardice he would despise, a betrayal for which there was no excuse. Greater than his wrong to Dundas was his wrong to himself, to all that he had made and built out of his life since the accident. If she did not know that, then in what sense was she actually there at all? None that mattered. She might as well be in another place. They would speak, touch, even make love with each other, and the heart would remain utterly alone. It would be a worse loneliness than to have stayed apart, because it was a negation of what had been real, and mattered infinitely.
So he would go to a public bath, and simply buy a new shirt. He would visit a barber to make himself look fit to go this afternoon and meet Katrina Harcus, and tell her that there was no reason whatever to suspect Michael Dalgarno of anything that was not usual practice among businessmen. There was no record of his having bought or sold any land in his own name, or of having made any profit other than for the company for which he acted.
Monk would also report that he had investigated the crash in which Baltimore and Sons had been peripherally involved sixteen years ago, and the land fraud proved against one of its bankers had no connection whatever with it. The cause of that tragedy was not known, but the track had been repaired and was still in use. It had been examined minutely, and no flaws or inadequacies had been found in it.