Monk did not bother to hide his smile, or the bubble of pride springing up inside him, high and bright, and with a pain like a dagger for what he could lose. “No. She is running a house of refuge and medical treatment for prostitutes in Coldbath Square, and Livia Baltimore went to her for help, and in considerable anger and distress, after her father’s murder. Hester learned some information and went to call on her. She nursed in the Crimea. There is not much that deters her once she is convinced she is right.”

Colman shook his head, but his eyes were shining. “I hope she does not have to enlighten Miss Baltimore as to the true nature of her father,” he said. “I think he may well have tried the same fraud a second time. But I don’t know how you will prove it to a jury without evidence of profit. He escaped the first time because it was plain he had no financial gain from it, and Dundas did.”

“Dundas died with very little,” Monk pointed out, old sadness and anger washing over him in a tidal wave.

Colman became suddenly very solemn also. “I heard that, although it was extraordinary. He was an excellent banker, quite brilliant. But you can’t have forgotten that, surely?”

“I had. But not now. Where did the money go?”

Colman stared at Monk somberly.

“I have no idea. No one had. And shortly after that the crash put all such things out of everyone’s thoughts.” Suddenly his face was pinched and the color went from his cheeks again. “It was the closest thing to hell I think this life could offer. I shall remember the screams as long as I live. The smell of burnt hair still brings me out in a sweat and I feel sick. But you know that. You were there.”

He looked ill. Monk lowered his eyes. He knew what Colman meant. He had tasted something of it in his own nightmare. It was strange, an almost irrelevant reality, to hear Colman say that Monk had been there; he knew it far more urgently and terribly from the nightmare of his hidden mind.

“What caused it?” he said aloud.

Colman looked up slowly. “They never found out. But it wasn’t the new track. That was perfectly good. At least . . . as far as anyone could tell.” The last vestige of blood drained out of his face and his body stiffened. “Oh, no! You don’t think it’s going to happen again? Please God—no! Is that what you’re afraid of?”

“It is what Katrina Harcus was afraid of,” Monk replied. “But I’ve searched everything I can; I’ve walked the track myself and I can’t see anything wrong with it at all. Tell me, Mr. Colman—how can I prove this fraud? It’s happened again—and I still can’t see it!”