The Twisted Root Page 0,116

gasping breath. "I can't! God help me, there is nothing - nothing I can do. Now go away and leave me at least to solitude, if not to peace."

Other questions beat in his mind, but his fury and his despair robbed him of the words. He longed to be able to help her, not to increase his own reputation or to defend his honor, but simply to ease the pain he could see, and even feel, as he watched her. She was only a yard away from him, and yet an abyss existed between what she experienced and what he understood. He had no idea at all how he could cross that space. They could have been in separate countries. He did not even know what else he felt: anger; fear that she was guilty; fear that she was not and he would fail her and she would be destroyed by the wheels of the law he was supposed to guide or by pity; even a kind of admiration, because quite without reason, he believed there was something noble in her, something beautiful and strong.

He left, walking out ofthe cells blind to the heat of the late afternoon and the passersby, the chatter of voices, wheels, hooves, all the clamor of everyday living. He hailed a cab and gave the driver Monk's address in Fitzroy Street. He barely spared thought to how little he wanted to go into the house that Hester shared with Monk. It seemed secondary now, a wound to deal with at another time.

"I pleaded with her," he said, pacing back and forth in the front room where Monk received clients. Monk was standing by the mantelpiece even though the fire was unlit, the evening being far too mild to require one. Hester was sitting upright on the edge ofthe big armchair, staring at him, her face furrowed in concentration. "But she knows she will hang, and still refuses to tell me who killed Treadwell!" He threw his arms wide, almost banging against the high back ofthe other chair.

"Lucius Stourbridge," Monk said unhappily. "He is the only one she would hang for - apart from Cleo."

"No, it isn't," Rathbone said quickly. "I assumed that also. She denied it with fury - at me, not at whoever did kill Treadwell. She said she would willingly hang him herself if she could, but no one would believe her, and she would not tell me any more."

Monk stared at him in bewilderment. Rathbone wanted an answer above all things, at this moment, but it was a very small satisfaction to see Monk just as confused as he was.

They both looked at Hester.

"That leaves either Harry Stourbridge or Aiden Campbell," she said thoughtfully. "I suppose Treadwell could have been blackmailing Harry Stourbridge. He had been in the house for several years. He drove the carriage. Maybe Major Stourbridge went somewhere or did something he would pay to hide?"

"What about the brother, Campbell?" Rathbone asked.

Monk shook his head. "Unlikely. He lives in Wiltshire somewhere. Only came up for the engagement party. I did check, and as far as the other servants knew, he barely saw Treadwell. He had his own carriage and driver, and no one ever saw him go anywhere near the mews while he was staying there. And Treadwell never went to Wiltshire in his life. And as for Campbell's killing Mrs. Stourbridge, they were very close, everyone agreed on that, had been ever since they were children."

"Even close siblings can quarrel," Rathbone pointed out.

"Of course," Monk agreed a touch sharply, staring down at the polished fender where his foot was resting. "But no one with enough cold-blooded nerve to murder rather than pay blackmail is going to kill the sister who is his only link with a fortune the size of the Stourbridges'. Now she is dead, he has no claim at all. He is not especially close to either Harry or Lucius. They are friendly enough, but they will not continue Verona's generosity."

Another blind alley.

Hester bit her lip. "Then we must find out if it was Major Stourbridge. However unpleasant, if that is the truth, we should know it."

"It would make sense," Rathbone admitted, pushing his hands into his pockets and taking them out again immediately. He had been taught not to put his hands in his pockets in boyhood, because it looked casual and pulled his clothes out of shape. He turned to Monk.

"Yes," Monk agreed, not to the likelihood but to accepting the task before Rathbone