The Twisted Root Page 0,73
to do with the murder, but knowing why Cleo had stolen the medicines, and owing her a debt of gratitude for her past kindness, she could not earn her own release at the cost of Cleo's implication. That would explain her silence. The debt was too great.
Monk found himself increasing his pace, dodging between pedestrians out strolling in the warm midmorning; peddlers offering sandwiches, toffee apples and peppermint drinks; and traders haggling over a good bargain. He barely saw them. The noise muted into an indistinguishable buzz. He wanted to get this over with.
He walked up the hospital steps and in at the wide, front entrance. Almost immediately he was greeted by a young man in a waistcoat and rolled-up shirtsleeves stained with blood.
"Good morning, sir!" he said briskly. "Is it a physician or a surgeon you require? What can we do for you, sir?"
Monk felt a wave of panic and quashed it with a violent effort. Thank God he had need of neither. The stoicism of those whose pain brought them here earned his overwhelming admiration.
"I am in good health, thank you," he said quickly. "I should like to see Lady Callandra Daviot, if she is here."
"I beg your pardon?" The young man looked nonplussed. It had obviously never occurred to him that anyone should wish to see a woman, any woman, rather than a qualified medical man.
"I should like to see Lady Callandra Daviot," Monk repeated very distinctly. "Or, if she is not here, then Mrs. Monk. Where may I wait?" He hated the place. The gray corridors smelled of vinegar and lye and reminded him of other hospitals, the one where he had awoken after the accident, not knowing who he was. The panic of that had long since receded, but it was too easily imagined again.
"Oh, try that way." The young man waved airily in the general direction of the physicians' waiting room, then turned on his heel and continued the way he had been going.
Monk went to the waiting room, where half a dozen people sat around, tense with apprehension, too ill or too anxious to speak to one another. Mercifully, Callandra appeared after only a few moments.
"William! What are you doing here? I presume you wish to see Hester? I am afraid she is out. She has gone" - she hesitated - "to see a patient."
"Old and ill and poor, I imagine," he replied dryly.
She knew him too well. She caught the edge of deeper meaning in his voice. "What is it, William?" she demanded. Although he had naturally risen to his feet, and he was some eight inches taller than she, she still managed to make him feel as if he should respond promptly and truthfully.
"I believe you have been missing certain medicines from the apothecary's rooms." It was a statement.
"Hester never called you in on the matter?" She was amazed and openly disbelieving.
"No, of course not. Why? Have you solved the problem?"
"I don't think you need to concern yourself with it," she answered severely. "At least certainly not yet."
"Why? Because it is a nurse who has taken them?" That was only half intended to be a challenge, but it sounded like one.
"We do not know who it is," she replied. "And since you agree that Hester did not ask you to investigate for us, why are we discussing the matter? You can have no interest in it."
"You are wrong. Unfortunately, I do have." His voice dipped, the previous moment's confrontation suddenly changed to sorrow. "I wish I could leave it alone. It is not the fact that you are missing them that concerns me, it is the chance that whoever took them may have been blackmailed over the thefts, even though I believe she put them to the best possible use."
"Blackmail!" Callandra stared at him in dismay. "Yes... and murder. I'm sorry."
She said nothing, but the gravity in her face showed her fear, and he felt that it also betrayed her guess as to what else lay beyond the thefts, to the steady draining away of supplies over months, perhaps years, to help those she perceived to be in need. It was a judgment no individual had the right to make, and yet if no one did, who would care and who would break the rules in order to show that they should be changed?
"Do you know who it is?" he asked. She looked him straight in the eye. "I have not the slightest idea," she replied. They both understood it was