The Dark Assassin Read Online Free PDF Page B

crookedly. She was carrying a broom in her hand but she dropped it as soon as
she saw him, and rushed forward. She drew in breath, perhaps to say that he was
late, then changed her mind. She studied his face and read the emotion in it.
    "What
happened?" she asked.
    He knew what she
was afraid of. She had understood why he had to accept the job in Durban's
place, both morally and financially. With Callandra gone to Vienna they could
not afford the freedom or the uncertainty of taking on only private cases.
Sometimes the rewards were excellent, but too often they were meager. Some
cases could not be solved, or if they were, then the clients had the means to
reward him only modestly. They could never plan ahead, and there was no one to
whom they could turn to in a bad month, as they had before. Nor, it must be
said honestly, at their ages should they need to. It was time to provide, not
be provided for.
    "What is
it? What's wrong?" she asked when he did not answer.
    "A suicide
off Waterloo Bridge," he replied. "In fact, two, in a way. A young
man and woman went off together, but we don't know if it was partly accidental
or not."
    Relief flashed
across her face, then instantly pity. "I'm sorry. Were you called to
it?"
    "No, we
were actually there. Saw it happen."
    She smiled
gently and touched his face with the back of her fingers, perhaps aware her
hands were dusty. Had she been still occupied with housework this late in the
evening to keep her mind from worrying about him?
    "That's
horrible," she said bleakly. "They must have been very desperate to
jump into the river at this time of the year."
    "They'd die
whatever time it was," he replied. "The tide is very strong, and the
river's filthy." To another woman he would have moderated his answer, avoided
the facts of death, but she had seen more people dying and dead than he had.
Police work, no matter how grim at times, hardly compared with the battlefield
or the losses afterwards to gangrene and fever.
    "Yes, I
know that," she answered him. "But do you suppose they knew before
they jumped?"
    Suddenly it was
immediate and painfully, agonizingly real. Mary Havilland had been a woman like
Hester, warm and full of emotions, capable of laughter and pain; now she was
just an empty shell with the soul fled. Nobody anymore. He put his hands on
Hester's shoulders and pulled her towards him, holding her tightly, feeling her
slender body yield almost as if she could soften the awkward bones and shape
herself to him.
    "I don't
know if she meant to jump and he tried to stop her," he whispered into her
hair, "or if he pushed her over and she clung on to him and took him with
her, or even if she meant to. I don't know how I'm going to find out, but I
will."
    She held on to him
for a few minutes longer, silently, then she pulled back and looked at him.
"You're frozen," she said, suddenly practical. "And I don't
suppose you've eaten. The kitchen is still not really finished, but I have hot
soup and fresh bread, and apple pie, if you'd like it."
    She was right:
He was still cold from the long ride and the even colder river crossing
afterwards. The butler's sandwich seemed a long time ago. He accepted. Between
mouthfuls, he asked her about her day, and her progress in redecorating the
house. Then he sat back, realizing how warm he was in all the ways that
mattered.
    "Who was
she?" Hester asked.
    "Mary
Havilland," he replied. "Her father took his own life a couple of
months ago." He saw the shadow of grief in Hester's eyes, and the tightening
of her mouth. "Her sister believes that she did not recover from it,"
he added. "I'm sorry."
    She looked away.
"It's over," she said quietly. She was referring to her own father,
not Havilland's. "Why did he do it?" she asked. "Was it debt,
too?"
    "Apparently
not," he replied. "He believed there was some danger of an accident
in the tunnels. They're building some of the new sewers."
    "And not
before