He remembered Sixsmith's face in the witness box as he told it. "He said he had not known what the man looked like, and he sat waiting for him. The man recognized him immediately and came over. He was fairly tall, lean, with long black hair onto his collar, and . . ." He stopped. The room swayed around him, and his limbs suddenly felt far away and cold, as if they belonged to someone else. Sixsmith had described the assassin as he had been when he was killed! Not when Melisande Ewart had seen him on the night of Havilland's death, or two days before.

"What is it? William, what's wrong?" It was Hester's voice calling from a great distance, fuzzy at the edges. She sounded frightened. Scuff was pressed up next to her, his eyes wide, picking up her emotion.

When Monk spoke, his mouth was dry. "Sixsmith said his hair was long. He swore he saw him only once, two days before Havilland's death. But in fact his hair was shorter then, much shorter. Mrs. Ewart said only a little longer than most men's. But it was over his collar when I found him dead."

Hester stared at him, horror slowly filling his eyes. "You mean Sixsmith saw him ... just before he was killed? Then ..." She stopped, unable to finish the thought.

"He killed him." Monk said it for her. "Argyll was telling the truth. He probably gave Sixsmith the money to bribe the toshers, exactly as he told us. It was Sixsmith who gave the order to kill Havilland, and possibly Mary as well."

"But Argyll couldn't be innocent," Hester argued. "It was he who had Jenny write ..." She tailed off. "Or perhaps it wasn't? Perhaps she lied, and it was Sixsmith who told her to. But why?"

Scuff was looking at her anxiously, his mouth twisted down at the corners. He might be only nine or ten, but he had lived on the streets. He had seen violence, beatings, revenge. "She 'ate 'im that much?" he asked wonderingly. "That's daft! Less 'e knocked 'er 'alf senseless."

"So she would lie to incriminate her husband and get Sixsmith free?" Hester said with awe and disgust. "Argyll might be cold, and bore her to death, but could she really be in love with Sixsmith to that degree, knowing what he did? Oh, William! He murdered her father and her sister! Has she lost her wits completely? Or . . ." Her voice dropped. "Or is she now too afraid of him to do anything else?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I... I don't know." His mind raced to the memory of Jenny Argyll's eyes in court, the power in Sixsmith, and the way she had looked at him. It had not felt like fear then; more like hunger.