Slowly, Robb’s shoulders relaxed. He still regarded Monk carefully, but the hostility faded from his eyes as the fear loosened its grip on him. He licked his lips. "I’m sorry— perhaps I underestimated your ability." That was as far as he would go towards an apology.

It was not ability Monk cared about, it was honor, but there was no point pursuing that now. This was all he was going to get. The question was how to remain within sight of the house so he could follow Mrs. Whitbread when she left, and yet at the same time elude Robb so he did not follow them both. And, of course, that only mattered if the maid at the door did not give Robb the same information she had given to Monk, albeit unwittingly.

He looked at Robb a moment longer, then smiled steadily, bade him farewell, and turned and walked away, in the opposite direction from the house. He would have to circle around and come back, extremely carefully.

Mrs. Whitbread left at a quarter to five. Robb was nowhere to be seen. As Monk followed her at a discreet distance, he felt his weariness suddenly vanish, his senses become keen and a bubble of hope form inside him.

They had not gone far, perhaps a mile and a quarter, before Mrs. Whitbread, a thin, spare woman with a gentle face, turned in at a small house on Kemplay Road and opened the front door with a key.

Monk waited a few moments, looking both ways and seeing no one, then he crossed and went to the door. He knocked.

After a minute or two the door was opened cautiously by Mrs. Whitbread. "Yes?"

He had given much consideration to what he was going to say. It was already apparent Miriam did not wish to be found either by the police or by Lucius Stourbridge. If she had trusted Lucius in this matter she would have contacted him long before. Either she was afraid he would betray her to the police or she wanted to protect him.

"Good evening, Mrs. Whitbread," he said firmly. "I have an urgent message from Mrs. Anderson—for Miriam. I need to see her immediately." Cleo Anderson was the one name both women might trust.

She hesitated only a moment, then pulled the door wider.

"You’d better come in," she said quickly. "You never know who’s watching. I had the rozzers ’round where I work just today."

He stepped inside and she closed the door. "I know. It was I who sent them to you. You didn’t tell them anything?"

" ’Course not," she replied, giving him a withering look. "Wouldn’t trust them an inch. Can’t afford to."

He said nothing, but followed her down the passage and around the corner into the kitchen. Standing at the stove, facing them, eyes wide, was the woman he had come to find. He knew immediately it was Miriam Gardiner. She was just as Lucius had described, barely average height, softly rounded figure, a beautifully proportioned, gentle face but with an underlying strength. At first glance she might have seemed a sweet-natured woman, given to obedience and pleasing those she loved, but there was an innate dignity to her that spoke of something far deeper than mere agreeableness, something untouchable by anything except love. Even in those few moments Monk understood why Lucius Stourbridge was prepared to spend so much heartache searching for her, regardless of the truth of James Treadwell’s death.