He began to walk restlessly back and forth across the room.
Zillah Lambert was less than half his age, a child of financial privilege and complete innocence as to the ways of the world. As far as he knew, this was the first misfortune ever to strike her. How could he begin to understand her life?
He would have welcomed Hester's advice, and perhaps even more, Callandra's. But Callandra was still in Scotland and it was too soon to call on Hester again, although she remained curiously sharp in his mind.
His contacts in the underworld of crime and poverty on the borders of the law were of no use to him. Zillah Lambert lived the closed life of girls just turning into women, leaving the schoolroom and preparing for marriage, seeking husbands- and love, if possible. Perhaps they dreamed of glamour, romance, teeming emotions before the steadier years ahead of domesticity and children, of making their mark in society, and eventually of settling with a mature resignation and exercise of power-and, one hoped, serene prosperity. It was a life unimaginable to him, totally feminine, and of a dependency not in the least attractive. But it was apparently what most women wished.
He did not need gossip, but something tangible enough to make Lambert withdraw his case. It was an ugly thing to seek. Monk's sympathies were largely with Zillah Lambert, because however you looked at it, Melville had behaved like a fool. And so had Rathbone for taking the case and allowing it to come to trial. He could not win. He should have settled long before this.
Unless, of course, there really was something about Zillah which Melville had discovered when it was too late, but out of regard for her or for her father, who had been his patron and friend, or even possibly because he could not prove it, he had felt unable to marry her.
Monk owed him at least that possibility.
He stopped pacing the floor, collected his hat and coat and set out to find someone who frequented the same circles as the Lamberts and might give him a word, a remark let slip, anything he could follow which might unravel into whatever it was Melville had learned. He had only a hazy idea who, but certainly they would not come to him while he was sitting in Fitzroy Street.
He was crossing Tottenham Court Road, only half watching the traffic, when a better idea came to him. It should have been obvious from the beginning. If Melville had discovered this blemish, whatever it was, then he should follow Melville's path, not Zillah Lambert's. And that would necessarily be far easier. He changed direction abruptly and strode south towards Oxford Street, passing fashionable ladies, men about business and a steadily thickening stream of traffic. He had a definite goal.
By late afternoon he knew far more of Killian Melville's daily habits, his working hours, which were extraordinarily long, his very restricted social life, and his solitary recreation, which seemed only an extension of his work, by walks taken alone and apparently deep in thought. Melville spent hours in art galleries and museums, but always on his own, except for rare encounters with a dark and slightly eccentric man named Isaac Wolff, who was apparently also an intellectual of some sort, given to study of some artistic work, but of a more literary nature.
His flash of inspiration had not worked. If Melville had learned something about Zillah Lambert, it had been by chance and not in the course of his usual day.
Monk returned home tired and with sore feet and a filthy temper, also a determination not to be beaten. If ordinary intelligence failed, then he had little left to lose. He would resort to bravado and what amounted in effect to lies.
When he had had more money from a regular salary in the police force, even if not a generous salary, he had spent a great deal of it on clothes. From his days as a banker, he still had silk shirts he had cared for, beautifully cut boots and dancing shoes which he seldom wore, two suits of cutaway jacket and tails, several very good gold studs and cuff links. He was too vain to have allowed himself to grow out of clothes he could not now afford to replace.
He dressed with the utmost care, gritted his teeth against the humiliation of possible rejection, and set out for a long and testing evening.
He had no idea where parties such as he required might be held on this particular night. He took a hansom and ordered the driver up and down the streets of Mayfair and Belgravia until he saw a large number of carriages stopping outside a well-lit home and elegant men and women alighting and going up the steps and inside.
He stopped the driver, paid him and alighted also. He was inviting disaster, but he had little alternative left, except to report failure, and he was not going to do that. He hesitated, pretending to look for something in his pocket, until he could walk in with half a dozen people, four of them women, and appear to be part of their group. Indeed, one of the younger ladies seemed to find the idea appealing and he capitalized on it without a second thought.
Inside the main reception hall was already thronged with people, at least a hundred, and more were arriving all the time. It appeared to be a ball, and if he was fortunate the hostess would be only too happy to have another single and presentable man of good height who could and would dance. He traded upon it.
It was nearly midnight, amid a whirl of music, chatter, high-pitched laughter and the clink of glasses when he scraped into conversation with a middle-aged lady in blue who knew Delphine Lambert well and was happy to gossip about her.
"Charming," she said, looking straight at Monk.
Monk had no shame at all.
"How very generous of you," he said, smiling back at her. "If even in your company she seemed so, then she must indeed be exceptional."
The orchestra was playing and the music danced in his head. He restrained himself with an effort.
"You flatter me, Mr. Monk," she responded, clearly pleased.
"Not at all," he denied, as he had to. "I see you in front of me, while Mrs. Lambert is merely a name. She has no grace, no humor, no spark of wit or warmth of character for me to comment on." He looked so directly at her she must take his implication to be that she did.
This was the most gracious attention she had received in a long time. She was not about to let it go. She was quite aware of her friends a few yards away watching her with amazement and envy. She would talk about Delphine for as long as this delightful and rather intriguing man wished her to.
A pretty girl in pale pink swirled by, laughing up at her partner, flirting outrageously for the brief moment she was out of her mother's reach.
A gendeman with ginger hair bumped into a waiter.
"It is not really wit or humor she has," she elaborated, prepared to go into any degree of detail. "Not that she is without it, of course," she amended. "But her charm lies rather in her extraordinary delicacy and beauty. It is not…" She thought for a moment "It is not the beauty of amazing coloring or exquisite hair, although she does have a beautiful brow. Her figure is comely enough, but she is not very tall." She herself was only three or four inches less than Monk's own height. "It is the beauty of perfection," she continued. "Of even the tiniest detail being flawless. She never makes a mistake. Oh…" She gave a little laugh. "I daresay it is the sort of thing only another woman would notice. A man might only know there was something less attractive but not be able to put his finger upon what it might be. But Delphine… Mrs. Lambert… always rises above the little things that trip the rest of us."
The waltz was ended and replaced by a very slow pavane, or something of the sort. The temptation to dance was removed temporarily.
"How interesting," he said, watching her intently as if there were no one else in the room. "You are extraordinarily observant, Mrs. Waterson. You have a keen eye."
"Thank you, Mr. Monk." She blushed faintly.
"And a gift with words," he added for good measure.