Monk was gathering an increasingly sharp picture of Joscelin Grey: a dashing young officer, easy mannered, perhaps a trifle callow; then through experience of war with its blood and pain, and for him an entirely new kind of responsibility, returning home determined to resume as much of the old life as possible; a youngest son with little money but great charm, and a degree of courage.
He had not seemed like a man to make enemies through wronging anyone-but it did not need a leap of imagination to conceive that he might have earned a jealousy powerful enough to have ended in murder. All that was needed for that might lie within this lovely room with its tapestries and its view of the parkland.
"Thank you, Lady Shelburne," he said formally. "You have given me a much clearer picture of him than I had. I am most grateful." He turned to Lovel. "Thank you, my lord. If I might speak with Mr. Menard Grey-"
"He is out," Lovel replied flatly. "He went to see one of the tenant farmers, and I don't know which so there is no point in your traipsing around looking. Anyway, you are looking for who murdered Joscelin, not writing an obituary!"
"I don't think the obituary is finished until it contains the answer," Monk replied, meeting his eyes with a straight, challenging stare.
"Then get on with it!" Lovel snapped. "Don't stand here in the sun-get out and do something useful."
Monk left without speaking and closed the withdrawing room door behind him. In the hall a footman was awaiting discreetly to show him out-or perhaps to make sure that he left without pocketing the silver card tray on the hall table, or the ivory-handled letter opener.
The weather had changed dramatically; from nowhere a swift overcast had brought a squall, the first heavy drops beginning even as he left.
He was outside, walking towards the main drive through the clearing rain, when quite by chance he met the last member of the family. He saw her coming towards him briskly, whisking her skirts out of the way of a stray bramble trailing onto the narrower path. She was reminiscent of Fabia Shelburne in age and dress, but without the brittle glamour. This woman's nose was longer, her hair wilder, and she could never have been a beauty, even forty years ago.
"Good afternoon." He lifted his hat in a small gesture of politeness.
She stopped in her stride and looked at him curiously. "Good afternoon. You are a stranger. What are you doing here? Are you lost?"
"No, thank you ma'am. I am from the Metropolitan Police. I came to report our progress on the murder of Major Grey."
Her eyes narrowed and he was not sure whether it was amusement or something else.
"You look a well-set-up young man to be carrying messages. I suppose you came to see Fabia?"
He had no idea who she was, and for a moment he was at a loss for a civil reply.
She understood instantly.
"I'm Callandra Daviot; the late Lord Shelburne was my brother."
"Then Major Grey was your nephew, Lady Callandra?" He spoke her correct title without thinking, and only realized it afterwards, and wondered what experience or interest had taught him. Now he was only concerned for another opinion of Joscelin Grey.
"Naturally," she agreed. "How can that help you?"
"You must have known him."
Her rather wild eyebrows rose slightly.
"Of course. Possibly a little better than Fabia. Why?"
"You were very close to him?" he said quickly.
"On the contrary, I was some distance removed." Now he was quite certain there was a dry humor in her eyes.
"And saw the clearer for it?" He finished her implication.
"I believe so. Do you require to stand here under the trees, young man? I am being steadily dripped on."
He shook his head, and turned to accompany her back along the way he had come.
"It is unfortunate that Joscelin was murdered," she continued. "It would have been much better if he could have died at Sebastopol-better for Fabia anyway. What do you want of me? I was not especially fond of Joscelin, nor he of me. I knew none of his business, and have no useful ideas as to who might have wished him such intense harm."
"You were not fond of him yourself?" Monk said curiously. "Everyone says he was charming."
"So he was," she agreed, walking with large strides not towards the main entrance of the house but along a graveled path in the direction of the stables, and he had no choice but to go also or be left behind. "I do not care a great deal for charm." She looked directly at him, and he found himself wanning to her dry honesty. "Perhaps because I never possessed it," she continued. "But it always seems chameleon to me, and I cannot be sure what color the animal underneath might be really. Now will you please either return to the house, or go wherever it is you are going. I have no inclination to get any wetter than I already am, and it is going to rain again. I do not intend to stand in the stable yard talking polite nonsense that cannot possibly assist you."
He smiled broadly and bowed his head in a small salute. Lady Callandra was the only person in Shelburne he liked instinctively.
"Of course, ma'am; thank you for your…"He hesitated, not wanting to be so obvious as to say "honesty." "… time. I wish you a good day."
She looked at him wryly and with a little nod and strode past and into the harness room calling loudly for the head groom.
Monk walked back along the driveway again-as she had surmised, through a considerable shower-and out past the gates. He followed the road for the three miles to the village. Newly washed by rain, in the brilliant bursts of sun it was so lovely it caught a longing in him as if once it was out of his sight he would never recall it clearly enough. Here and there a coppice showed dark green, billowing over the sweep of grass and mounded against the sky, and beyond the distant stone walls wheat fields shone dark gold with the wind rippling like waves through their heavy heads.
It took him a little short of an hour and he found the peace of it turning his mind from the temporary matter of who murdered Joscelin Grey to the deeper question as to what manner of man he himself was. Here no one knew him; at least for tonight he would be able to start anew, no previous act could mar it, or help. Perhaps he would learn something of the inner man, unfiltered by expectations. What did he believe, what did he truly value? What drove him from day to day-except ambition, and personal vanity?
He stayed overnight in the village public hostelry, and asked some discreet questions of certain locals in the morning, without significantly adding to his picture of Jos-celin Grey, but he found a very considerable respect for both Grey's brothers, in their different ways. They were not liked-that was too close a relationship with men whose lives and stations were so different-but they were trusted. They fitted into expectations of their kind, small courtesies were observed, a mutual code was kept.
Of Joscelin it was different. Affection was possible. Everyone had found him more than civil, remembering as many of the generosities as were consistent with his position as a son of the house. If some had thought or felt otherwise they were not saying so to an outsider like Monk. And he had been a soldier; a certain honor was due the dead.
Monk enjoyed being polite, even gracious. No one was afraid of him-guarded certainly, he was still a Peeler- but there was no personal awe, and they were as keen as he to find who had murdered their hero.
He took luncheon in the taproom with several local worthies and contrived to fall into conversation. By the door with the sunlight streaming in, with cider, apple pie and cheese, opinions began to flow fast and free. Monk became involved, and before long his tongue got the better of him, clear, sarcastic and funny. It was only afterwards as he was walking away that he realized that it was also at times unkind.