Her hands were limp, and there was nothing in either of them. She was wearing a robe over her nightgown. It looked like silk, and when Monk bent to touch it he knew instantly that it was: soft, expensive and beautiful. He wondered if he would ever be able to buy Hester anything like that. This one would be thrown away after the case was closed. No one would ever want to wear it again.

He stood up and turned to Robb.

"Member of the family?" Robb said hoarsely.

"Yes," Monk agreed.

"Why?" Robb was bewildered. "Why would any of them kill her? Her husband, do you think? Or Lucius?" He took a deep breath. "Or Miriam Gardiner? But why would she?"

"We’ll look for the reason afterwards," Monk answered. "Let’s go and speak to Major Stourbridge."

Robb turned reluctantly and allowed Monk to lead the way.

Harry Stourbridge met them in the library. He was fully dressed in a dark suit. His fair hair was poking up in tufts, and his eyes were sunken into the bones of his head as if the flesh no longer had life or firmness. He did not speak, but looked from Robb to Monk and then back again.

"Please sit down, Major Stourbridge," Robb said awkwardly. He did not know whether the man was a bereaved husband with whom he should sympathize, or a suspect who deserved his hostility and contempt.

Stourbridge obeyed. His legs seemed to fold under him, and he hit the seat rather too hard.

Robb sat opposite him, and Monk took the third chair in the group.

In a low, husky voice, Stourbridge retold the story of the forgotten message, of leaving his own room and going along the corridor, seeing and hearing no one else, of knocking on his wife’s door and going in.

Monk stopped him. "Was the light on, sir?"

"No ... not the main light, just the bracket on the wall." He turned to look at him with a lift of interest. "Does that mean something? She sleeps with it like that. Doesn’t like the dark. Just enough to see by, a glow, no more."

"But enough if she were speaking with someone?" Monk persisted.

"Yes, I suppose so. If it were ... someone she knew well. One would not receive—" He stopped, uncertainty filling his face again.

"We have already ascertained that it was not any of the servants," Robb said quietly. "That leaves only the family and Mrs. Gardiner."

Stourbridge looked as if he had been struck again.

"That is not p-possible," he stammered. "No one would—" He stopped. He was a man experienced in war, the violence and pain of battle and the horror of its aftermath. There was little that could shock or astound him, but this had cut deep into his emotion in a way the honesty of battle never could. He turned to Monk.

There was nothing Monk could alter, but he could ease the manner of dealing with it. Reality was a kind of healing—and the beginning of exerting some control over the chaos.