Page 76 of Cain His Brother (William Monk 6)

But there were none whose names suggested any connection, however tenuous, with Drusilla Wyndham.

“Is this all?” he asked the clerk who was hovering anxiously. “Is there any way one might have been missed? Perhaps I had better look further back than ten years.”

“Of course, sir, if you think it will help,” the clerk agreed. “If you could be a little more precise as to what it is you are searching for, perhaps I could be of some assistance.” He adjusted his spectacles and sneezed. “I do beg your pardon.”

“I’m looking for a clergyman who died in Buckinghamshire, probably within the last ten years,” Monk replied, feeling foolish and desperate. “But I have been given the wrong name.”

“Then I don’t know how you can find it, sir,” the clerk said, shaking his head unhappily. “Do you know anything else about him?”

“No …”

“Do you not have even the least idea what his name is? Not even what it may have sounded like?” The man appeared to be pressing the issue simply for something to say. He looked most uncomfortable.

“It may have sounded like Wyndham,” Monk replied, also only for civility’s sake.

“Oh, dear. I am afraid I can think of nothing. Of course, there was the Reverend Buckingham, who died in Norfolk.” The clerk gave a jerky, bitter laugh, and sneezed again. “In a place called Wymondham, which of course is pronounced ‘Wyndham,’ at least locally. But that is hardly of use to you—”

He stopped, startled because Monk had risen to his feet and clapped him on the back so sharply his spectacles flew off his nose and landed on the floor.

“You are brilliant, sir!” Monk said enthusiastically. “Quite brilliant! Why did I not think of that myself? Once you see it, it is as obvious as daylight. Thank God for one man with brains.”

The clerk blushed furiously and was quite unable to frame any reply.

“What can you tell me about him?” Monk demanded, picking up the spectacles, polishing them and handing them back. “Where was he living? What was the cause of his death? How old a man was he? What family had he? What, precisely, was his position?”

“Good gracious!” The clerk blinked at him like an owl, his spectacles in his hand. “Well … well, I can certainly find out for you, sir. Yes, yes indeed. May I inquire why it is you must know? Is he perhaps a relative?”

“I believe he may be a relative of someone of the utmost importance to me,” Monk replied truthfully, if deviously. “Someone who holds my very life in their hands. Yes, please tell me everything you can about the late Reverend Buckingham, and his family. I shall wait here.”

“Ah—well—I may be … yes, of course.” He sneezed again and apologized. “To be sure.” And he scurried off about his task.

Monk paced the floor until the clerk returned some twenty-five minutes later, pink-faced and brimming with triumph.

“He died some eight years ago, sir, on the twenty-eighth of March, 1851.” He frowned. “The cause of death was listed as chill, rather unspecific. He was not an elderly man, indeed only in his fifty-sixth year, and apparently had been in good health until that time.”

“His family!” Monk said urgently. “Did he have children?”

“Why yes, yes he did. And he left a widow, a Mary Ann.”

“Names of the children!” Monk demanded. “What were their names? What were their ages?”

“My goodness, sir, don’t distress yourself so! Yes, there were children, indeed there were. One son named Octavian, which is curious, since apparently he was the eldest—”

“Curious?”

“Yes sir. Clergymen often have large families, and Octavian means eighth, you know.…”

“Daughters! Did he have daughters?”

“Yes, yes he did. Eldest named Julia, second named Septima. Poor man really cannot count! Quite amusing … yes! Yes! I am coming to the rest. Another son named Marcus … all very Roman. Perhaps it was an interest of his, a hobby. Yes! And a last daughter named Drusilla—ah!” This last gasp was because Monk had again clapped him on the back and driven the air out of his lungs. “I take it that is the lady whom you are seeking?”

“Yes, yes. I think it is. Now—the living. What was his position, and where?”

“Wymondham, sir. It is only a small village.”

“Was he simply the parson?” It did not seem to fit what he had seen of Drusilla. Could it be no more than an extraordinary coincidence, and after all, have no meaning?

“No sir,” the clerk replied with growing enthusiasm himself. “I believe he had an attachment to the Norwich Cathedral, or he had had in the recent past. A distinguished scholar, so my informant tells me.”