The Dark Assassin (34 page)

It took Rathbone
half an hour to arrange the meeting in a room off the corridor leading away
from the court itself. Sixsmith looked somehow smaller than he had in the
tunnel when Monk had seen him before.

Dressed in an
ordinary suit, he was broad-shouldered and solid, but not so tall. His hair was
neatly barbered, his shirt white, his hands clean. His nails were
unbroken-remarkably so, considering the surroundings in which he usually
worked.

He sat in the
chair opposite Monk, putting his hands on the table between them. His skin was
pale, and he had cut himself shaving. A tiny muscle twitched in his temple on
the left side. "What is it?" he said bluntly. "Haven't you done
enough?"

There was no
time for Monk to soften any of what he must say, however harsh it sounded.
"Sir Oliver Rathbone can tie every detail of the money all the way from
Argyll's bank to you passing it to the man who murdered Havilland."

"If you
think I'm going to plead guilty, you are wasting your time," Sixsmith said
angrily. "And more to the point, you're wasting mine as well. I never
denied that I paid the money! I thought it was to bribe a bunch of ruffians to
see off some of the toshers who were giving us a hard time and spreading rumors
about uncharted underground rivers and scaring the hell out of some of the navvies."

"Then say
so!" Monk challenged him.

Sixsmith's heavy
lip curled. "Admit to bribing thugs to knock around a few men who are no
more than a nuisance? They'll have me in jail so fast, I'll barely see the
ground. Are you a fool?"

"No, but
you are!" Monk responded. "Rathbone will prove it anyway. If you want
to come out of this alive, you'll admit to the attempt to bribe. It didn't
work, so there was no crime actually committed-"

"There was
murder!" Sixsmith said savagely, his face dark with emotion. "If
that's not a crime, what in God's name is?"

"Did you
know it was going to be murder?"

"No, of
course I didn't!" Sixsmith's voice was harsh, desperate. "I know
beating the toshers was illegal, though. But what the hell do the men in
Parliament know about the real world? Would they bend their backs to a day's
labor hacking and piling earth and rocks, winching them up to the surface? Or
living all the daylight hours in some stinking, dripping, rat-infested hole,
burrowing like a damn rat yourself, so the sewers can run clean?" He took
a deep breath, his chest heaving. "We've got to get rid of the toshers who
are spreading fear just to keep their old beats in the sewers that are left. Do
you know what a toshers beat is worth?"

"Yes,"
Monk said tartly. "And I know they hate change. So tell the court that!
Tell them that Argyll knew it, too, and couldn't afford to let it go on."

Sixsmith looked
exhausted, as if he had been battling the same arguments in his head for weeks.

Monk felt an
intense pity for him. "I'm sorry," he said gently. "To be
betrayed by someone you trusted is one of the worst pains a man can know. But
you have no time now to dwell on it. You must save yourself by telling not just
the truth, but all of it."

Sixsmith raised
his head and gave him a smile that was more a baring of the teeth. "Argyll
will simply say that he gave me the money to buy off the toshers so they would
leave the navvies alone, and I am the one who used it to have Havilland
killed."

"Why would
you do that?"

Sixsmith
hesitated a moment.

"Why?"
Monk repeated. "It's Argyll's company, not yours. Your reputation is
excellent. If he went under, you could find a new position in days."

"You know
my reputation?" Sixsmith sounded surprised.

"Of course.
Argyll couldn't afford to have Havilland sabotage his tunnel. He must have
contacted the assassin, but got you to hand the money to him. Why would he do
that, except to incriminate you if anyone ever discovered Havilland's death was
murder? It was deliberate!"

Sixsmith blinked
rapidly, his face a mask of pain, still fighting not to believe it.

"Were you
the first to speak to the assassin?" Monk pressed. He hated forcing
Sixsmith to see it, but his life could depend on it. "Or did Argyll set up
the meeting, give you the money, and tell you to pass it over?"

"Of course
he did," Sixsmith said in a whisper.

"Do you
know who the assassin was? Do you know where to find him now? Or anything about
him at all?" Monk asked.

"No."
Sixsmith stared at him. "No ... I don't."

"Who asked
Mrs. Argyll to write to her father and have him go out and wait in the stables
at midnight?"

"You
believe there really was a letter?" Sixsmith's eyes widened. "Did
anyone see it?"

"Yes, I
believe there was," Monk answered. "She admitted it, but we can't
force her to testify against her husband."

Sixsmith dropped
his head in his hands, as if someone had offered him hope, then dashed it from
his lips.

"We can try
to persuade her." Monk wanted passionately to help him, to give him the
strength to go on. "For your own sake," he said urgently, "tell
the truth about the money! Tell Dobie everything."

"He can't
help," Sixsmith whispered. "He thinks he can, but he's young and
imagines he'll always win. He won't this time. Argyll's surrounded himself with
too many people who are innocent. There's Jenny, poor Mary Havilland, the
navvies who carried out his orders to fight the toshers now and then. The poor
devils don't have a choice! It's work or starve. And we have to meet the
deadline in the contract or we won't get another."

He looked at
Monk as if trying to discern if he understood. "And there's the M.P.,
Morgan Applegate, who gave us the contracts for those sites. He could be
implicated in bribes and profit. Argyll knows all that; he arranged it that
way. I haven't a chance, Mr. Monk. I'd best go down for bribing someone to
murder a man, and not take all those others with me. I'll go anyway; he's seen
to that." He faced Monk with haunted eyes, still clinging to a hope beyond
reason, and on the edge of losing it.

Monk did
something he had sworn he would not do. "Rathbone doesn't want to convict
you," he said quietly. "It's Argyll he's after. He knows as well as
you do that he's the man behind it. Tell the truth, fight for your life, and
he'll help you."

Sixsmith stared
at him, aching to believe him. The struggle was naked in his eyes, in the
bruised planes of his face and the twist of his mouth. At last, very slowly, he
nodded.

Hester had been
to see Rose Applegate more than once since developing their mutual plan to do
what they could to clear Mary Havilland's name from the stigma of suicide. Two
days before the trial they had gone together to a charity afternoon reception
organized to raise money for orphans to give them a decent education so that
they might be of use both to themselves and to society. It was the sort of
obviously worthy cause that even a woman in mourning, such as Jenny Argyll,
might still feel free to attend.

"Are you
sure she will be there?" Hester had asked anxiously.

"Certainly
she will," Rose had assured her. "Lady Dalrymple specifically invited
the Argylls, and she is at just the level of society one dare not disappoint.
She is sufficiently nouveau riche to notice and take offense if one declined,
unless you positively had a contagious disease. Anyway, Mrs. Argyll has spent
the entire winter season in mourning, so she is desperate to get out before she
dies of boredom and everyone who is anyone has forgotten who she is!"

So Hester and
Rose had set out to join the worthy women attending the event, and had
contrived to spend quite a good amount of time in Jenny Argyll's company. They
had managed to fall with apparent ease into the subject of bereavement and the
whole ghastliness of the upcoming trial of Aston Sixsmith.

"She knows
something," Rose said to Hester when they met the following day, on the
eve of the trial.

They were alone
in Rose's withdrawing room, sitting beside the fire. Outside, the February rain
lashed the windows, streaming down the glass until it was impossible to even
see the traffic passing in the street beyond.

"I am quite
sure she will refuse to see us again unless she has absolutely no
alternative," Rose said miserably. "And how would we possibly run
into her? With Sixsmith on trial for arranging the murder of her father, and
she herself in mourning for both her father and her sister, she is hardly going
to attend any public functions! Lady Dalrymple's ghastly affair for the
betterment of orphans isn't going to happen again for years."

"Isn't
there any sort of other function she might go to?" Hester asked.
"Even if just to show a certain bravado. There must be something suitably
somber, and-"

"Of
course!" Rose said, her face alight with glee. "The perfect thing!
They are holding a memorial service for Sir Edwin Roscastle the day after
tomorrow."

Hester was at a
loss. "Who was he? And would she go?"

Rose's
expression was comical with distaste.

"A
frightful old humbug, but very influential because he made such a parade of
being good. Could flatter all the right people, and it got him no end of
appreciation," she replied. "Everybody likes to be seen praising the
virtuous dead. Makes them feel good by association." She sniffed.
"Morgan doesn't have anything to do with it because he couldn't stand Roscastle
and didn't pretend his feelings were otherwise. But I know Lord Montague, who
will be arranging it, and I can persuade him to ask Argyll for a donation, and
to become a patron of the memorial fund. He'd never refuse that-it's far too
useful in business."

"Are you
sure?"

"Of course
I am! It's at eight o'clock tomorrow evening, and we can both go."

Hester was
alarmed. It was a superb idea, far too good to miss, but it was years since she
had been to such a function, and she most certainly had nothing suitable to
wear. "Rose, I. .." It was embarrassing to admit, and it might even
look as if she had lost her nerve and were making excuses.

Rose looked at
her, then suddenly understood. "Short notice to get a gown," she said
tactfully. "Borrow one of mine. I'm taller than you are, but my maid can
take it up this afternoon. We must make a plan of action."

Thus it was that
Hester accompanied Rose Applegate to the memorial service for the late Sir
Edwin Roscastle. It was an extremely formal affair with a large number of
people attending, including the cream of society. They arrived at the church
and alighted from their carriages in magnificent blacks, purples, grays, and
lavenders, according to the degree of mourning they wished to display and the
color they believed most became them. Some were deeply mistaken as to the
latter, as Rose observed to Hester in a whisper as she pointed out who they
were. Rose herself was wearing lavender and dark gray. With her fair hair and
pale skin, she cut an extremely elegant figure.

"There she
is!" Hester interrupted as she saw Jenny Argyll walking up the steps,
clothed in highly fashionable black. She moved with grace and a complete
disregard for the biting easterly wind, although she did take care to keep to
the leeward of her husband.

Rose shivered convulsively.
"We can go in now. Why on earth do they always seem to hold these things
at the bitterest time of the year? Why can't people die with some
consideration, in the summer?"

"It will be
warmer at the reception afterwards," Hester replied. "I hope to
heaven the Argylls stay for it!"

"Of course
they will!" Rose assured her. "That is where one can curry favor,
make useful acquaintances, and generally show off. Which, of course, is what
everyone is here for."

"Isn't
anyone here to remember Sir Edwin?"

Rose gave her a
startled glance. "Certainly not!" she retorted. "He was awful!
The sooner he can be forgotten, the better. Dying was the best thing he did,
and he did that far too slowly."

Hester thought
the judgment rather harsh, but she liked Rose too much to say so. And by the
time they had sat through the eulogies and she heard what kind of people
admired the deceased and why, she was inclined to take a similar view.

The reception
afterwards was a different matter. Everyone else seemed to be just as physically
cold and emotionally bored as she and Rose were. They walked rapidly up the
hundred yards or so of dark and windy street to the hall where sausages, pies,
and delicate hot pastries awaited them, along with various wines. Hester
accepted a mulled claret with gratitude. She was surprised when Rose took a
lemonade instead, but she made no comment.

They began to
move among the other guests, intent upon approaching Jenny Argyll as soon as it
could be done without appearing too obvious, and of course when Argyll himself
wasn't too close to her.