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,