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father had tears on his cheeks. It was the
only time I ever saw him weep."
    Her face was alight with the wonder
of it still, all the myriad lines subtly altered by the innocence and the emotions
of youth.
    " 'Nelson is dead,' my father
said very gravely. 'Have we lost the war?' my mother asked. 'Shall we be
invaded by Napoleon?' 'No,' my father answered. 'We won. The French fleet is
all sunk. No one will land on England's shores again.' " She stopped and
stared up at Monk, watching to see if he caught the magnitude of it.
    He met her eyes and she perceived
that he had caught her vision.
    "I danced all night before
Waterloo," she went on enthusiastically, and Monk imagined the colors,
the music, and the swirling skirts she could still see in her mind. "I was
in Brussels with my husband. I danced with the Iron Duke himself." All the
laughter vanished from her expression. "And then, of course, the next day
there was the battle." Her voice was suddenly husky and she blinked
several times. "And all that night we heard news and more news of the
dead. The war was over, the Emperor beaten forever. It was the greatest victory
in Europe, but dear God, how many young men died! I don't think I knew anyone
who had not lost somebody, either dead or so injured as never to be the same
again."
    Monk had seen the carnage left by
the Crimean War and he knew what she meant; even though that conflict had been
so much smaller, the spirit and the pain were the same. In a sense it was
worse, because there was no perceivable purpose to it. England was under no
threat, as it had been from Napoleon.
    She saw the emotion and the anger
in his face. Suddenly her own sorrow vanished. "And of course I knew Lord
Byron," she went on with sudden animation. "What a man! There was a
poet for you. So handsome." She gave a little laugh. "So beautifully
romantic and dangerous. What wonderful scandal there was then. Such burning
ideals, and men did something about them then." She gave a little gasp of
fury, her ancient hands clenched into fists on her lap. "And what have we
today? Tennyson."
    She groaned and then looked at Monk
with a sweet smile. "I suppose you want to see the gardener about your
Peeping Tom? Well, you had better go and do so, with my blessing."
    He smiled back at her with genuine
regard. It would have been much pleasanter to remain and listen to her reminiscences,
but he had undertaken a duty.
    He rose to his feet. "Thank
you, ma'am. Courtesy compels me, or I should not leave so readily."
    "Ha! Very nicely said, young man."
She nodded. "I think from your face there is more to you than chasing
trivia, but that is your affair. Good day to you."
    He bowed his head and took his
leave of her. However, neither the gardener nor the scullery maid could tell
him anything of use whatever. They had not seen any stranger in the area. There
was no access to the garden of number fourteen except if someone chose to climb
the wall, and the flower beds on either side had not been damaged or disturbed.
A Peeping Tom, if indeed there had been such a person, must have come some
other way.
    The occupant of number twelve was
of no assistance either. He was a fussy man with gray hair, which was sparse
in front, and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. No, he had seen no one in the area who
was not known to him and of excellent character. No, he had suffered no
breakages in his cold frames. He was sorry, but he could be of no help, and
since he was extremely busy, would Mr. Monk be so good as to excuse him.
    The residents of the house whose
garden abutted number fourteen at the end were considerably more lively. There
were at least seven children whom Monk counted, three of them boys, so he
abandoned the broken cold frames and returned to the Peeping Tom.
    "Oh dear," Mrs. Hylton
said with a frown. "What a foolish thing. Men with too little to occupy
themselves, no doubt. Everyone ought to be busy." She poked a strand of
hair back