"Seen a good bit o’ battle herself, she has," the old man said with a smile. "Told me about that. Calm and quiet as you like, but I could see in her eyes what she really felt. You can, you know. People who’ve really seen it don’t talk that much. Just sometimes you need to, an’ I could see it in her."
Was that true? Hester needed to speak of her experiences in the Crimea, even now. She shared it with this old man she barely knew rather than with him, or even Callandra. But then, they had not seen war. They could not understand, and this man could. Most of the time horror was best forgotten. Occasionally, it broke the surface of the mind and had to be faced. He knew that himself, sensing the ghosts of his past who were no more than shadows to him.
"She must have come several times," he said aloud.
The old man nodded. "Drops by every day, maybe just for half an hour or so, to see how I am. Not many people care about the old and the sick if they’re not their own."
"No," Monk agreed with a strangely sinking knowledge that that was true. It had not been said in self-pity but as a simple statement. He could imagine Hester’s anger and her pity, not just for John Robb but for all the untold thousands he represented. When he spoke it was from instinct. "Did she ask you about other sailors and soldiers?"
"You mean old men like me? Yes, she did. Didn’t she tell you?"
"I’m afraid I wasn’t paying as much attention as perhaps I should have been."
Robb smiled and nodded. He, too, had not always listened to women. He understood.
"She would care," Monk continued, hating himself for the thoughts of missing medicines and blackmail that were in his mind and that he could not ignore. "She’s a good nurse. Puts her patients before herself, like a good soldier, duty first."
"That’s right." The old man nodded, his eyes bright and soft. "She’s a real good woman. I seen a few good nurses. Come around now and again to see how you are."
Monk was aware of what he was doing, but he had to do it.
"And bring medicines?"
"Of course," Robb agreed. "Can’t go an’ get ’em myself, and young Michael here wouldn’t know what I needed, would he!"
He was unaware of anything wrong. He was speaking of kindness he had received. The darkness was all in Monk’s mind.
Michael finished cleaning and tidying everything so he would have as little as possible to do if he managed to slip home in the middle of the day. He left a cup of water where the old man could reach it, and a further slice of bread, and checked once more that he was as comfortable as he could make him. Then he turned to Monk.
"I must go to the police station. I’ll consider what you said. There could have been somebody else there when Treadwell was killed, but there’s no evidence of it or of who it was. And why did Miriam Gardiner run? Why doesn’t she tell us the truth now?"
Monk could think of several answers, but they were none of them convincing, nor did they disprove her guilt. The fear that was forming in his own mind he liked even less, but he could no longer evade it. He rose and took his leave of the old man, wishing him well and feeling a hypocrite, then followed Michael Robb out into the sunny, noisy street.
A hundred yards along they parted, Robb to the left, Monk to the right towards the hospital. He was now almost convinced he knew the cause of Hester’s anxiety and why she could not share it with him. Medicines had been disappearing from the hospital. When medicines disappeared in this way they were often stolen either to feed the addiction of the thief or to sell. Hester had been to John Robb’s house several times and must have observed the medicine cupboard. The old man had been quite candid in saying that the medicines were brought to him by a nurse. It was so easy from that to conclude that the thefts were not selfishly motivated, far from it. Someone was taking medicines to treat the old and the sick who were too poor to purchase them for themselves.
John Robb had no idea. Apart from the guilt and the danger involved, his pride would never have allowed him to accept help at such a risk. He accepted it because he believed it was already paid for.
Hester had been very precise about the words she used in denying knowledge of a crime—"not morally." Legally, it most certainly was.
The question was, could Treadwell have known?
Why not? He came to Hampstead on most of his days off. His body had been found on the path to the house of a nurse—Cleo Anderson. Monk remembered her vividly, her defense of Miriam and her denial of knowing where she was after her flight from Cleveland Square. He hated having to pursue this, but the conclusion was inescapable. It was Cleo Anderson whom Treadwell had been blackmailing, and it was anything but chance that he had been found on her path. Perhaps he had crawled there deliberately, knowing he was dying, determined to the last to incriminate her and find some kind of both justice for himself and revenge. His body would inevitably lead the police to her.
Perhaps, after all, Miriam had had nothing to do with the murder, but knowing why Cleo had stolen the medicines, and owing her a debt of gratitude for her past kindness, she could not earn her own release at the cost of Cleo’s implication. That would explain her silence. The debt was too great.
Monk found himself increasing his pace, dodging between pedestrians out strolling in the warm midmorning; peddlers offering sandwiches, toffee apples and peppermint drinks; and traders haggling over a good bargain. He barely saw them. The noise muted into an indistinguishable buzz. He wanted to get this over with.
He walked up the hospital steps and in at the wide, front entrance. Almost immediately he was greeted by a young man in a waistcoat and rolled-up shirtsleeves stained with blood.
"Good morning, sir!" he said briskly. "Is it a physician or a surgeon you require? What can we do for you, sir?"
Monk felt a wave of panic and quashed it with a violent effort. Thank God he had need of neither. The stoicism of those whose pain brought them here earned his overwhelming admiration.
"I am in good health, thank you," he said quickly. "I should like to see Lady Callandra Daviot, if she is here."
"I beg your pardon?" The young man looked nonplussed. It had obviously never occurred to him that anyone should wish to see a woman, any woman, rather than a qualified medical man.
"I should like to see Lady Callandra Daviot," Monk repeated very distinctly. "Or, if she is not here, then Mrs. Monk. Where may I wait?" He hated the place. The gray corridors smelled of vinegar and lye and reminded him of other hospitals, the one where he had awoken after the accident, not knowing who he was. The panic of that had long since receded, but it was too easily imagined again.
"Oh, try that way." The young man waved airily in the general direction of the physicians’ waiting room, then turned on his heel and continued the way he had been going.
Monk went to the waiting room, where half a dozen people sat around, tense with apprehension, too ill or too anxious to speak to one another. Mercifully, Callandra appeared after only a few moments.
"William! What are you doing here? I presume you wish to see Hester? I am afraid she is out. She has gone"—she hesitated—"to see a patient."
"Old and ill and poor, I imagine," he replied dryly.
She knew him too well. She caught the edge of deeper meaning in his voice. "What is it, William?" she demanded. Although he had naturally risen to his feet, and he was some eight inches taller than she, she still managed to make him feel as if he should respond promptly and truthfully.
"I believe you have been missing certain medicines from the apothecary’s rooms." It was a statement.
"Hester never called you in on the matter?" She was amazed and openly disbelieving.
"No, of course not. Why? Have you solved the problem?"
"I don’t think you need to concern yourself with it," she answered severely. "At least certainly not yet."