She swallowed. "It?"
"The stolen medicines," he answered. "Who took them and why, and where did they go? It’s a far more obvious cause for blackmail."
She tried not to understand, pushing the realization away from her. "The medicines couldn’t have anything to do with Miriam Gardiner."
"Not directly, but one leads to the other." His eyes did not waver, and she knew that he was quite certain of what he said.
"What? What connection?" she asked. "What’s happened?" There was no purpose in suggesting he sit down or rest in any fashion until he had told her, and neither of them pretended.
"Cleo Anderson stole the medicines to treat the old and the sick," he answered her softly. "Somehow Treadwell knew of it, and he was blackmailing her. Perhaps he followed Miriam. Maybe she unintentionally let something slip, and he pieced together the rest."
"Cleo’s involved? Do you know that?" She was confused, her mind whirling. "If Treadwell was blackmailing Cleo Anderson, then why would Miriam kill him? To protect her? It doesn’t explain why she left Cleveland Square. What about Lucius Stourbridge? Why didn’t she go back to him and explain? Something ..." She trailed off. None of it really made sense.
"Miriam didn’t kill Treadwell," he told her. "The police let her go. She was defending Cleo because of old loyalties, and probably because she believed in her cause as well."
"That isn’t enough," she protested. "Why did she leave Cleveland Square in the middle of the party? Why wouldn’t she allow Lucius to know where she was?"
"I don’t know," he admitted. "She was released into his care, and she looked as if she were going to an execution. She begged not to be, but they wouldn’t listen to her." A frown creased his face and there was pain etched more deeply than the weariness. "For a moment I thought she was going to ask me to help her, but then she changed her mind. They all but carried her out."
She heard the edge of pity in his voice. She felt it herself, and she was angered that the police authorities should consider that Miriam needed to be released into anybody’s care. She should have been permitted the dignity of going wherever she wished, and with whomever. She was no longer charged with anything.
But far more immediate, and closer to her own emotions, was her concern for Cleo Anderson.
"What are we to do to help her?" She took for granted that he would.
Monk was still standing in the middle of the room, hot, tired, dusty and with aching feet. Remarkably, he kept his temper.
"Nothing. It is a private matter between them now."
"I mean Cleo!" she said. "Miriam has other people to care for her. Anyway, she is not accused of a crime."
"Yes, she is: complicity in concealing Treadwell’s murder. Even though she says she did not know he was dead. She is almost certainly a witness to the attack. The police want her to testify."
She waved her hand impatiently. She did not know Miriam Gardiner, but she did know Cleo and what she had done for old John Robb and others like him.
"So she’ll have to testify. It won’t be pleasant, but she’ll survive it. If she’s worth anything at all, her first concern will be for Cleo, and ours must be, too. What can we do? Where should we begin?"
His face tightened. "There’s nothing we can do," he replied briefly, moving away from her and sitting down in one of the chairs. The way his body sank, the sudden release at the last moment, betrayed his utter weariness. "I found Miriam Gardiner, and she is returned to her fiancé. I wish it were not Cleo Anderson who is guilty, but it is. The best I could do was stop short of finding any proof of it, but Robb will. He’s a good policeman. And his father’s involved." He was angry with himself for his emotions, and it showed in his face and the sharp edge to his voice.
She stood in the center of the floor, cool and fresh in a printed cotton dress with wide skirts and a small, white collar. It was pretty, and it all seemed terribly irrelevant. It was almost a sin to be comfortable and so happy when Cleo Anderson was in prison and facing ... the long drop into darkness at the end of a rope.
"There must be something...." She knew she should not argue with him, especially now, when he was exhausted and probably very nearly as distressed about this as she was. But her self-control did not extend to sitting patiently and waiting until a better time. "I don’t know what... but if we look ... Maybe he threatened her. Perhaps there was some degree of self-defense." She cast about wildly for a better thought. "Maybe he tried to coerce her into committing some sort of crime. That could be justified...."
"So she committed murder instead?" he said sarcastically.
She blushed hotly. She wanted to swear at him, use some of the language she had heard in the barracks in Sebastopol, but it would be profoundly unladylike. She would despise herself afterwards, and more important, he would never look at her in the same way again. He would hear her words in his ears every time he looked at her face. Even in moments of tenderness, when she most fiercely desired his respect, the ugliness would intrude.
"All right, it wasn’t a very good idea," she conceded. "But it isn’t the only one ! "
He looked up at her in some surprise, not for her words in themselves but for the meekness of them.
She knew what was in his mind, and blushed the more hotly. This was ridiculous and most irritating.
"I wish I could help her," he said gently. "But I know of no way, and neither do you. Leave it alone, Hester. Don’t meddle."
She regarded him steadily, trying to judge how surely he meant what he said. Was it advice or a command?
There was no anger in his face, but neither was there any hint that he would change his mind. It was the first time he had forbidden her anything that mattered to her. She had never before found it other than slightly amusing that he should exercise a certain amount of authority, and she had been quite willing to indulge him. This was different. She could not abandon Cleo, even to please Monk. Or if it came to the worst, and it might, even to avoid a serious quarrel with him. To do so would make it impossible to live with herself. All happiness would be contaminated, and if for her, then for him also. How would she explain that to him? It was the first real difficulty between them, the first gulf which could not be bridged by laughter or a physical closeness.
She saw the shadow in his face. He understood, if not in detail, then at least in essence.
"Perhaps you could enquire," he suggested cautiously. "But you will have to be extremely careful or you will make things worse. I don’t imagine the hospital authorities will look on her kindly."
It was retreat, made gracefully and so discreetly it was barely perceptible, but very definitely a retreat all the same. The rush of gratitude inside her was so fierce she felt dizzy. A darkness had been avoided. She wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him, feel the warmth and the strength of his body next to hers, the touch of his skin. She almost did, until intelligence warned her that it would be clumsy. It would draw attention to his retreat and that would be small gratitude for it. Instead she lowered her eyes.
"Oh, yes," she said gravely. "I shall have to be very careful indeed-should I make any enquiry. Actually, at the moment I can’t think of anything to ask. I shall merely listen and observe... for the time being."
He smiled with the beginning of satisfaction. He was aware of her gratitude to him, and she knew he was. It was even a sense of obligation for the immense weight lifted, and he knew that also. She could either be annoyed or see the funny aspect of it. She chose the latter, and looked at him, smiling.
He smiled back, but only for a moment. It was still delicate ground.
She prepared dinner: cold ham and vegetables, and hot apple pie with cream. Sitting at the table and sharing it with considerable pleasure, she asked him a little more about Miriam and the Stourbridge family.