In the past, Monk had inquired into matters solely at her behest, when she felt that an injustice was threatened or had been done.

To begin with, he caught a cab to see Mrs. Stonefield in her own home, as he had said he would. It would give him a clearer impression of her, of the family's well-being, both financial and social, and-if he were perceptive enoughalso of the relationships beneath the surface of what she had told him.

The house was on Upper George Street, on the corner of Seymour Place just east of the Edgware Road. It took him more than an hour in heavy traffic and a hard, soaking rain, from the far side of the river to arrive at the other side of Mayfair, alight, and pay the driver. It was nearly four o'clock, and the lamplighters were already out in the thickening dusk. He turned his coat collar up and crossed the footpath to knock on the front door. At this hour any formal callers would have been and gone, if indeed she were receiving callers.

He shivered and turned to look back at the street. It was quiet and eminently respectable. Rows of similar windows looked out onto neat front gardens. Areaways were swept clean. Behind closed back gates would be cellar chutes for coal, dustbins, scrubbed scullery steps and back door en- trances for tradesmen and deliveries.

Was this what Angus Stonefield wanted? Or had he become suffocated by its predictability and discretion? Had his soul yearned for something wilder, more exhilarating, something that challenged the mind and disturbed the heart? And had he been prepared to sacrifice safety, the warmth of family, as its price? Had he grown to loathe being known by his neighbors, relied upon by his dependents; every day, every year mapped out before him to a decent and uneventful old age?