She jerked up her head, staring at him with terrified eyes, her face white. She was totally oblivious of the people around her, of their curiosity or alarm. “You think it was to do with the railway?” She breathed out the words in horror, putting her hand up to cover her mouth, as if that could stifle the truth.

He knew the worst fear that had to be in her mind, and he hurt for her pain, but it was senseless to evade it now. It would not drive it away.

“Yes,” he answered gently. “If you are correct, and there really is such a great deal of money involved, then if he knew of this scheme, he may have been murdered to assure his silence.”

Now she was so white he was afraid she was going to faint. Instinctively, he reached for her arms to stop her from falling.

She allowed him to hold her for no more than seconds, then she pulled away with a jerk so sharp he all but tore the fine muslin of her sleeves.

“No!” There was horror in her face, and she spoke with such pent-up, choking emotion that several people nearby actually turned and looked at them both, then in embarrassment at being caught staring, turned away again.

“Miss Harcus!” he urged. “Please!”

“No,” she repeated, but less fiercely. “I . . . I can’t think that . . .” She did not finish.

They both knew what it was that tormented her. The possibility was too clear. If the fraud were as great as she feared, the profit as high, then Nolan Baltimore could easily have been murdered to silence him. It could have been because he knew and he and his murderer quarreled. He wanted too large a share, or he threatened the plans in any other way, or because he had not known but had discovered, and had to be silenced before he betrayed them. Michael Dalgarno was the obvious man to suspect. As far as Katrina knew, only Dalgarno and Jarvis Baltimore were involved.

Monk ached for her. He knew with hideous familiarity what it was like to live with the dread of learning the truth, and yet be compelled to seek it. All the denial in the world changed nothing, and yet the knowledge, final and irrefutable, would destroy all that mattered most.

For her it would mean that the man she loved in a sense had never really existed. Even before he had gone to Leather Lane that night, before anything was irrevocable, he had had the seed of it within him, the cruelty and the greed, the arrogance that placed his own gain before another man’s life. He had betrayed himself long before he had betrayed Katrina, or his mentor and employer.