The Twisted Root Page 0,76

the weariness. "For a moment I thought she was going to ask me to help her, but then she changed her mind. They all but carried her out."

She heard the edge of pity in his voice. She felt it herself, and she was angered that the police authorities should consider that Miriam needed to be released into anybody's care. She should have been permitted the dignity of going wherever she wished, and with whomever. She was no longer charged with anything.

But far more immediate, and closer to her own emotions, was her concern for Cleo Anderson.

"What are we to do to help her?" She took for granted that he would.

Monk was still standing in the middle of the room, hot, tired, dusty and with aching feet. Remarkably, he kept his temper.

"Nothing. It is a private matter between them now."

"I mean Cleo!" she said. "Miriam has other people to care for her. Anyway, she is not accused of a crime."

"Yes, she is: complicity in concealing Treadwell's murder. Even though she says she did not know he was dead. She is almost certainly a witness to the attack. The police want her to testify."

She waved her hand impatiently. She did not know Miriam Gardiner, but she did know Cleo and what she had done for old John Robb and others like him.

"So she'll have to testify. It won't be pleasant, but she'll survive it. If she's worth anything at all, her first concern will be for Cleo, and ours must be, too. What can we do? Where should we begin?"

His face tightened. "There's nothing we can do," he replied briefly, moving away from her and sitting down in one of the chairs. The way his body sank, the sudden release at the last moment, betrayed his utter weariness. "I found Miriam Gardiner, and she is returned to her fiance. I wish it were not Cleo Anderson who is guilty, but it is. The best I could do was stop short of finding any proof of it, but Robb will. He's a good policeman. And his father's involved." He was angry with himself for his emotions, and it showed in his face and the sharp edge to his voice.

She stood in the center of the floor, cool and fresh in a printed cotton dress with wide skirts and a small, white collar. It was pretty, and it all seemed terribly irrelevant. It was almost a sin to be comfortable and so happy when Cleo Anderson was in prison and facing ... the long drop into darkness at the end of a rope.

"There must be something...." She knew she should not argue with him, especially now, when he was exhausted and probably very nearly as distressed about this as she was. But her self-control did not extend to sitting patiently and waiting until a better time. "I don't know what... but if we look... Maybe he threatened her. Perhaps there was some degree of self-defense." She cast about wildly for a better thought.

"Maybe he tried to coerce her into committing some sort of crime. That could be justified...."

"So she committed murder instead?" he said sarcastically.

She blushed hotly. She wanted to swear at him, use some of the language she had heard in the barracks in Sebastopol, but it would be profoundly unladylike. She would despise herself afterwards, and more important, he would never look at her in the same way again. He would hear her words in his ears every time he looked at her face. Even in moments of tenderness, when she most fiercely desired his respect, the ugliness would intrude.

"All right, it wasn't a very good idea," she conceded. "But it isn't the only one!"

He looked up at her in some surprise, not for her words in themselves but for the meekness of them.

She knew what was in his mind, and blushed the more hotly. This was ridiculous and most irritating.

"I wish I could help her," he said gently. "But I know of no way, and neither do you. Leave it alone, Hester. Don't meddle."

She regarded him steadily, trying to judge how surely he meant what he said. Was it advice or a command?

There was no anger in his face, but neither was there any hint that he would change his mind. It was the first time he had forbidden her anything that mattered to her. She had never before found it other than slightly amusing that he should exercise a certain amount of authority, and she had been quite willing to