"I know." Rathbone did not argue his own guilt. It was academic. Lambert's greater guilt did not absolve anyone else. "Now, if you will excuse me, Mr. Lambert, I have people I desire to inform, and regrettably, other cases." He left Lambert standing staring after him and hurried towards the doors, pushing past people, ignoring them. There was no purpose to be served anymore, but he wanted to tell Monk personally rather than leave him to read it in the newspapers.

Monk was shattered by the news, although he too felt that he should at least have considered the possibility, but it had never occurred to him. He made no trite or critical comments to Rathbone, who was apparently already castigating himself too fiercely. And for once Monk felt a sharp compassion for him. He understood guilt very well; it was a familiar emotion since rediscovering himself after the accident. It is a uniquely distressing experience to see yourself only through the eyes of others, too often those you have injured in some way, to know irrefutably what you have done but not why you did it, not the mitigating circumstances, the beliefs you held at the time which made your actions seem reasonable then.

After Rathbone had gone, he took a hansom to Tavistock Square to tell Hester and—if he was interested—Gabriel Sheldon the outcome.

He was welcomed at the door by the maid, Martha Jackson, and immediately remembered the impossible job he had promised her he would do. It was not the fruitless work that he dreaded, or even the waste of time he could have spent earning very necessary money, but the fact that anything he discovered, even supposing he was able to, would be distressing. Then he would have to make the decision what to tell her and what to tell Hester, who would be less easily deceived.

"Good evening, Miss Jackson," he said with forced cheerfulness. "The case of Mr. Melville"—he did not need to explain the truth here on the doorstep; it was simpler to say "Mr."—"has concluded very tragically, and in a way we could not have guessed. I should like to tell Miss Latterly—and Lieutenant Sheldon, if he cares to know."

She looked surprisingly harassed, and less than interested herself. She stood in the doorway, hesitating as to how she should answer.

"Is something wrong, Miss Jackson?" He felt a sudden wave of apprehension and realized with surprise how much Melville's death had disturbed him. The whole story left him with a sense of loss he did not know how to dispel.