"You wrote a letter to your father and had it hand-delivered the night of his death, Mrs. Argyll." He saw her start and draw in her breath with a little gasp. "Please don't embarrass us all with a denial. The letter was seen, and your father kept the envelope. I have it."

She was ashen, and she turned to face him angrily. "Then what do you want from me?" Her voice was so stifled in her throat that it was barely audible. Her eyes burned hot with hatred of them for the shame they were inflicting on her.

"I want to know what was in the letter, Mrs. Argyll. You arranged for your father to go to the stables-alone-after the middle of the night. He did so, and was killed."

"He killed himself!" she burst out, her tone rising dangerously. "For the love of heaven, why can't you leave it alone? He was mad! He had delusions! He was terrified of closed spaces, and at last he couldn't face it anymore. What else do you need to know? Do you hate us so much that you gain some kind of pleasure from seeing us suffer? Do you have to open the wounds again, and again, and again?" She was almost out of control, her voice shrill and loud.

"Sit down, Mrs.-" Monk started.

"I will not sit down!" she snapped back. "Do not patronize me in my own home, you ..." She gasped in a breath again, lost for a word she might dare use.

There was nothing for Monk to do but tell her the truth before she became hysterical and either fainted or left the room and refused to see them again. He had little enough authority to be here. Farnham would not back him up.

"A man was seen leaving the mews just after your father was shot, Mrs. Argyll. He smelled of gunsmoke. He was a stranger in the area and left immediately, traveling in several cabs back to the East End. Do you know who that man was?"

She stared at him incredulously. "Of course I don't! What are you saying-that he shot my father?"

"I believe so."

She put her hands up to her mouth and sank rather too quickly into the chair, as if she had lost her power to remain standing. She stared at Monk as if he had risen out of the carpet in a cloud of sulfur.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it more than he had thought he could. "What did you write in your letter that sent your father out into the stable at midnight, Mrs. Argyll?"

"I... I..."

He waited.

She mastered herself with intense difficulty. The struggle was naked and painful in her face. "I asked him to meet my husband to allow a proper discussion of the tunnels they were building, without Mary knowing and interrupting. She was very excitable."

"At midnight?" Monk said with surprise. "Why not in the offices in the morning?"