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into during the night, and Albert Ward had apparently heard the burglar and gone downstairs to confront him. There had been a struggle and he had been struck on the head and died of the wound.

Monk pulled around a chair and sat down. He continued with the second page.

The local police in Guildford had investigated, and found several circumstances which roused their suspicions. The glass from the broken window was outside, not in, where one might have expected it to fall. The widow could name nothing which had been stolen, nor did she ever amend her opinion in the cooler light of the following week. Nothing was found in pawnshops or sold to any of the usual dealers known to the police. The resident servants, of whom there were six, heard nothing in the night, no sound, no disturbance. No footprints or any other marks of intruders were seen.

The police arrested Hermione Ward and charged her with having murdered her husband. Scotland Yard was sent for. Runcorn dispatched Monk to Guildford. The rest of the record presumably lay with the Guildford police.

The only way he could find out would be to go there. It was a short journey and easily made by train. But this was Saturday. It might be awkward. Perhaps the officer he needed would not be there. And the Carlyon trial would be resumed on Monday, and he must be present. What could he do in two days? Maybe not enough.

They were excuses because he was afraid to find out.

He despised cowardice; it was the root of all the weaknesses he hated most. Anger he could understand, thoughtlessness, impatience, greed, even though they were ugly enough - but without courage what was there to fire or to preserve any virtue, honor or integrity? Without the courage to sustain it, not even love was safe.

He moved over to the window again and stared at the buildings opposite and the roofs shining in the sun. There was not even any point in evading it. It would hurt him until he found out what had happened, who she was and why he had felt so passionately, and yet walked away from it, and from her. Why were mere no mementos in his room that reminded him of her, no pictures, no letters, nothing at all? Presumably the idea of her was one thing too painful to wish to remember. The reality was quite different. This would go on hurting. He would wake in the night with scalding disillusion - and terrible loneliness. For once he could easily, terribly easily, understand those who ran away.

And yet it was also too important to forget, because his mind would not let him bury it. Echoes kept tugging at him, half glimpses of her face, a gesture, a color she wore, the way she walked, the softness of her hair, her perfume, the rustle of silk. For heaven's sake, why not her name? Why not all her face?

There was nothing he could do here over the weekend. The trial was adjourned and he had nowhere else to search for the third man. It was up to Rathbone now.

He turned from the window and strode over to the coat stand, snatching a jacket and his hat and going out of the door, only just saving it from slamming behind him.

"I'm going to Guildford," he informed his landlady, Mrs. Worley. "I may not be back until tomorrow."

"But you'll be back then?" she said firmly, wiping her hands on her apron. She was an ample woman, friendly and businesslike. "You'll be at the trial of that woman again?"

He was surprised. He had not thought she knew.

"Yes - I will."

She shook her head. "I don't know what you want to be on cases like that for, I'm sure. You've come a long way down, Mr. Monk, since you was in the police. Then you'd 'a bin chasin' after people like that, not tryin" to 'elp them."

"You'd have killed him too, in her place, if you'd had the courage, Mrs. Worley," he said bitingly. "So would any woman who gave a damn."

"I would not," she retorted fiercely. "Love o' no man's ever goin' to make me into a murderess!"

"You know nothing about it. It wasn't love of a man."

"You watch your tongue, Mr. Monk," she said briskly. "I know what I read in die newspapers as comes 'round the vegetables, and they're plain enough."

"They know nothing, either," he replied. "And fancy you reading the newspapers, Mrs. Worley. What would

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