“I have not told you everything, Mr. Monk. I had hoped not to have to speak of this. I feel ashamed of having stopped on the landing and overheard a conversation below me in the hall. I tread very lightly, and I am not always heard. It is not intentional, simply a habit from childhood which my mother instilled in me: ’Ladies should move silently and with grace.’ “ She took a deep breath, and he saw that she blinked rapidly, as if to control tears.

“What did you overhear, Miss Harcus?” he asked gently, wishing he could offer her more comfort, even reach the unnamed grief inside her which was easy to guess. “I am sorry to insist, but I need to know if I am to look in the right places for the dishonesty you fear.”

She kept her eyes averted. “I overheard Jarvis Baltimore say to Michael that as long as no one discovered what they had done,” she said quietly, “then they would both be rich men, and there would be no accident this time to mar the profits, or if there were, no one would make the connection.” She swung back to face him, her skin white, her eyes brilliant, demanding. “Can it matter where an accident is? It is still human life, still people crushed beyond any kind of help. Please, Mr. Monk, if you have any skill or wit at all which can prevent this happening, do so, not just for my sake, or for Michael Dalgarno’s, whom God knows I would save from harm, but for the sake of those people who might be riding the train when it happens!”

He was cold inside, imagination of mangled bodies too vivid in his mind.

“I don’t see how land fraud could cause an accident, but I promise I will do everything I can to find out if there has been any theft or dishonesty of any kind in Baltimore and Sons,” he promised. He would have to for his own sake as much as hers. The knowledge of the Liverpool crash and the memory of Arrol Dundas were too violent to ignore. No one knew the cause of that carnage. Perhaps if he learned more about surveying, land purchase, the movement of money, he would see the connection. “I will tell you all I know,” he went on. “But do not expect an answer sooner than three or four days.”

She smiled at him, relief flooding her expression like sunlight. “Thank you,” she said with sudden gentleness, a warmth that seemed to reach out to him. “You are all I trusted you would be. I shall be here every afternoon from three days hence, awaiting your news.” And with a slight touch of his arm again, she turned away and walked back along the path past two elderly ladies talking to each other, nodding graciously to them, and on out of the gate without looking back.