their way past tenements, houses and factories, hospitals, churches, public halls and offices, gradually thinning, more interspersed with stretches of green, until at last the city fell away and Monk stared with genuine pleasure at the beauty of soft countryside spread wide in the lushness of full summer. Huge boughs clouded green over fields heavy with ripening crops and thick hedgerows starred with late wild roses. Coppices of trees huddled in folds of the slow hills, and villages were easily marked by the tapering spires of churches, or the occasional squarer Norman tower.
Shelburne came too quickly, while he was still drinking in the loveliness of it. He grabbed his valise oif the rack and opened the door hastily, excusing himself past the fet woman in the bombazine and incurring her silent displeasure. On the platform he inquired of the lone attendant where Shelburne Hall lay, and was told it was less than a mile. The man waved his arm to indicate the direction, then sniffed and added, "But the village be two mile in t'opposite way, and doubtless that be w'ere you're a-goin'."
"No thank you," Monk replied. "I have business at the hall."
The man shrugged. "If'n you say so, sir. Then you'd best take the road left an' keep walking."
Monk thanked him again and set out.
It took him only fifteen minutes to walk from the station entrance to the drive gates. It was a truly magnificent estate, an early Georgian mansion three stories high, with a handsome frontage, now covered in places by vines and creepers, and approached by a sweeping carriageway under beech trees and cedars that dotted a parkland which seemed to stretch towards distant fields, and presumably the home farm.
Monk stood in the gateway and looked for several minutes. The grace of proportion, the way it ornamented rather than intruded upon the landscape, were all not only extremely pleasing but also perhaps indicative of something in the nature of the people who had been born here and grown up in such a place.
Finally he began walking up the considerable distance to the house itself, a further third of a mile, and went around past the outhouses and stables to the servants' entrance. He was received by a rather impatient footman.
"We don't buy at the door," he said coldly, looking at Monk's case.
"I don't sell," Monk replied with more tartness than he had intended. "I am from the Metropolitan Police. Lady Shelburne wished a report on the progress we have made in investigating the death of Major Grey. I have come to give that report."
The footman's eyebrows went up.
"Indeed? That would be the Dowager Lady Shelburne. Is she expecting you?"
"Not that I know of. Perhaps you would tell her I am here."
"I suppose you'd better come in." He opened the door somewhat reluctantly. Monk stepped in, then without further explanation the man disappeared, leaving Monk in the back hallway. It was a smaller, barer and more utilitarian version of the front hall, only without pictures, having only the functional furniture necessary for servants' use. Presumably he had gone to consult some higher authority, perhaps even that autocrat of below-stairs-and sometimes above-the butler. It was several minutes before he returned, and motioned Monk to go with him.
"Lady Shelburne will see you in half an hour." He left Monk in a small parlor adjacent to the housekeeper's room, a suitable place for such persons as policemen; not precisely servants or tradesmen, and most certainly not to be considered as of quality.
Monk walked slowly around the room after the footman had gone, looking at the worn furniture, brown upholstered chairs with bow legs and an oak sideboard and table. The walls were papered and fading, the pictures anonymous and rather puritan reminders of rank and the virtues of duty. He preferred the wet grass and heavy trees sloping down to ornamental water beyond the window.
He wondered what manner of woman she was who could control her curiosity for thirty long minutes rather than let her dignity falter in front of a social inferior. Lamb had said nothing about her. Was it likely he had not even seen her? The more he considered it, the more certain he became. Lady Shelburne would not direct her inquiries through a mere employee, and there had been no cause to question her in anything.
But Monk wanted to question her; if Grey had been killed by a man who hated him, not a maniac in the sense of someone without reason, only insofar as he had