There followed several days of routine, excessively polite interviews in which he struggled, to provoke some comments deeper than fulsome professional praise, carefully expressed disbelief that Sir Herbert could have done such a thing, and rather nervous agreement to testify on his behalf-if it were stricdy necessary. The hospital governors were transparently nervous of becoming involved in something which they feared might prove to be very ugly before it was finished. It was painfully apparent in their faces that they did not know whether he was guilty or not, or where they should nail their colors to avoid sinking with a lost cause.

From Mrs. Flaherty he got tight-lipped silence and a total refusal to offer any opinion at all or to testify in court should she be asked. She was frightened, and like many who feel themselves defenseless, she froze. Monk was surprised to find he understood her with more patience than he had expected of himself. Even as he stood in the bleak hospital corridor and saw her pinched face with its pale skin and bright spots of color on the cheekbones, he realized her vulnerability and her confusion.

Berenice Ross Gilbert was entirely different. She received him in the room where the Board of Governors normally met, a wide gracious chamber with a long mahogany table set around with chairs, sporting prints on the walls and brocade curtains at the windows. She was dressed in deepest teal green trimmed with turquoise. It was expensive, and remarkably flattering to her auburn coloring. Its huge skirts swept around her, but she moved them elegantly without effort.

She regarded Monk with amusement, looking over his features, his strong nose, high cheekbones, and level unflinching eyes. He saw the spark of interest light in her face and the smile curve her lips. It was a look he had seen many times before, and he understood its meaning with satisfaction.

"Poor Sir Herbert." She raised her arched brows. "A perfectly fearful thing. I wish I knew what to say to help, but what can I do?" She shrugged graceful shoulders. "I have no idea what the man's personal weaknesses may have been. I always found him courteous, highly professional, and correct at all times. But then"-she smiled at Monk, meeting his eyes-"if he were seeking an illicit romance, he would not have chosen me with whom to have it" The smile widened. He knew she was telling both the truth and a lie. She expected him to decipher its double meanings. She was no trivial pastime to be picked up and put down; but on the other hand, she was a sophisticated and elegant woman, almost beautiful in her own way, perhaps better than beautiful-full of character. She had thought Prudence prim, naive, and immeasurably inferior to herself in all aspects of charm and allure.

Monk had no specific memories, and yet he knew he had stood in this position many times before, facing a wealthy, well-read woman who had found him exciting and was happy to forget his office and his purpose.

He smiled back at her very slightly, enough to be civil, not enough to betray any interest himself.

"I am sure it was part of your duties as a governor of the hospital, Lady Ross Gilbert, to be aware of the morals and failings of members of the staff. And I imagine you are an acute judge of human nature, particularly in that area." He saw her eyes glisten with amusement. "What is Sir Herbert's reputation? Please be honest-euphemisms will serve neither his interest nor the hospital's."

"I seldom deal in euphemisms, Mr. Monk," she said, still with the curl of a smile on her lips. She stood very elegantly, leaning a little against one of the chairs. "I wish I could tell you something more interesting, but I have never heard a word of scandal about Sir Herbert." She pulled a sad, mocking little face. "Rather to the contrary, he appears to be a brilliant surgeon but personally a boringly correct man, rather pompous, self-opinionated, socially, politically, and religiously orthodox."

She was watching Monk all the time. "I doubt if he ever had an original idea except in medicine, in which he is both innovative and courageous. It seems as if that has drained all his creative energies and attentions, and what is left is tedious to a degree." The laughter in her eyes was sharp and the interest in them more and more open, betraying that she did not believe for an instant that he fell into that category.

"Do you know him personally, Lady Ross Gilbert?" he asked, watching her face.

Again she shrugged, one shoulder a fraction higher than the other. "Only as business required, which is very little.

I have met Lady Stanhope socially, but not often." Her voice altered subtly, a very delicately implied contempt. "She is a very retiring person. She prefers to spend her time at home with her children-seven, I believe. But she always seemed most agreeable-not fashionable, you understand, but quite comely, very feminine, not in the least a strident or awkward creature." Her heavy eyelids lowered almost imperceptibly. "I daresay she is in every way an excellent wife. I have no reason to doubt it."

"And what of Nurse Barrymore?" he asked, again watching her face, but he saw no flicker in her expression, nothing to betray any emotion or knowledge that troubled her.

"I knew of her only the little I observed myself or what was reported to me by others. I have to confess, I never heard anything to her discredit." Her eyes searched his face. "I think, frankly, that she was just as tedious as he is. They were well matched."

"An interesting use of words, ma'am."

She laughed quite openly. "Unintentional, Mr. Monk. I had no deeper meaning in my mind."

"Do you believe she nourished daydreams about him?" he asked.

She looked up at the ceiling. "Heaven knows. I would have thought she would place them more interestingly-Dr. Beck, for a start. He is a man of feeling and humor, a little vain, and I would have thought of a more natural appetite." She gave a little laugh. "But then perhaps that was not what she wanted." She looked back at him again. "No, to be candid, Mr. Monk, I think she admired Sir Herbert intensely, as do we all, but on an impersonal level. To hear that it was a romantic vision surprises me. But then life is constantly surprising, don't you find?" Again the light was in her eyes and the lift, the sparkle that was almost an invitation, although whether to do more than admire her was not certain.

And that was all that he could learn from her. Not much use to Oliver Rathbone, but he reported it just the same.

With Kristian Beck he fared not much better, although the interview was completely different. He met him in his own home, by choice. Mrs. Beck was little in evidence, but her cold, precise nature was stamped on the unimaginative furnishings of her house, the rigidly correct placement of everything, the sterile bookshelves where nothing was out of place, either in the rows of books themselves or in their orthodox contents. Even the flowers in the vases were carefully arranged in formal proportions and stood stiffly to attention. The whole impression was clean, orderly, and forbidding. Monk never met the woman (apparently she was out performing some good work or other), but he could imagine her as keenly as if he had. She would have hair drawn back from an exactly central parting, eyebrows without flight or imagination, flat cheekbones, and careful passionless lips.

Whatever had made Beck choose such a woman? He was exactly the opposite; his face was full of humor and emotion and as sensuous a mouth as Monk had ever seen, and yet there was nothing coarse about it, nothing self-indulgent, rather the opposite. What mischance had brought these two together? That was almost certainly something he would never know. He thought with bitter self-mockery that perhaps Beck was as poor a judge of women as he himself. Maybe he had mistaken her passionless face for one of purity and refinement, her humorlessness for intelligence, even piety.