by Anne Perry
“I’m not doing it in the name of truth,” he said, his face screwed up with irritation and pain at the thought. “I want, in the name of truth, to find out what happened to him.”
“He went to the East End to see his twin brother, who in a fit of violence, which he is prone to, killed him! Ask the people of Limehouse—they are terrified of him!” she went on urgently. “I’ve seen two of his victims myself, a boy and a woman. Angus crossed him one time too many, and Caleb killed him—either by accident or on purpose. You have to prove it, for the sake of justice, and so Genevieve can know what happened and find some peace of heart—and know what to do next.”
“I know what I have to do,” he said curtly. “It is a great deal harder to know how. Can you be as quick to tell me that?”
She would have loved to reply succinctly and brilliantly, but nothing came to her mind, and before she had time to consider the matter for long, there was a sharp, light rap on the door.
Monk looked surprised, but he went straight over to answer it, and returned a moment later accompanied by a woman who was beautifully dressed and quite charming. Everything about her was feminine in a casual and unaffected way, from her soft, honey-colored hair, under her bonnet, to her small, gloved hands and dainty boots. Her face was beautiful. Her large hazel eyes under winged brows looked at Monk with pleasure, and at Hester with surprise.
“Am I intruding upon you with a client?” she said apologetically. “I am so sorry. I can quite easily wait.”
Somehow the suggestion was painful. Why had the woman automatically assumed that Hester could not be a friend?
“No, I am not a client,” Hester said more sharply than she would have wished the moment she heard her own voice. “I called to give Mr. Monk some information I thought might be of assistance.”
“How kind of you, Miss …?”
“Latterly,” Hester supplied.
“Drusilla Wyndham.” The woman introduced herself before Monk had the opportunity. “How do you do.”
Hester stared at her. She seemed very composed and her attitude made it apparent that in spite of the fact that this was Monk’s office, her call was social. Monk had never mentioned her before, but there was no question that he knew her, and every evidence he also liked her. It was there in his expression. The way he stood with his shoulders straight, the very slight smile on his lips, unlike the hard-eyed look of the moment before she came.
Perhaps he had known her in the past? She seemed extraordinarily comfortable with him. Hester felt a sudden, awful sinking in her stomach, as if there were nothing inside her. Of course, he must have known women in the past, probably loved them. For heaven’s sake. It was not impossible he had been married! Could a man forget such a thing? If he had really loved …?
But would Monk really love anybody? Had he that capacity in him to love utterly and totally, sharing all of himself?
Yes. For a few moments in that closed room in Edinburgh he had. It was precious, like a brilliant star inside her memory. And yet it hurt, because she could not forget or dismiss it. She could never think of him as she had before that, never completely believe the anger or the coldness, and never tell herself with any honesty that there was nothing in him she really wanted.
Drusilla Wyndham stopped talking to Monk, and had swung around to look at Hester again, her lovely eyes wide and inquiring.
“Would you care for me to wait somewhere else while you conclude your business, Miss Latterly?” she asked politely. “I do not wish to intrude, or to hold you from what else you plan for this evening. I am sure you must have friends to call upon, or family awaiting you.” It was a remark, not a question. It was also a very plain dismissal.
Hester felt her neck and shoulders tighten in anger and a bitter resentment. How dare this woman take charge like this, as if in some way she owned Monk? Hester knew him far better than she ever could. She had shared desperate battles with him, hope and courage, pity and fear, victory and defeat. They had stood beside each other when both honor and life were threatened. Drusilla Wyndham knew nothing of that!
But she might know all manner of other things. Perhaps she could even tell Monk his lost past? And if Hester loved him—no, that was absurd! If she was a true friend, an honorable person, she could not wish to deny him that.
“Of course,” she said coldly. “But there is no need to retire, Miss Wyndham. All that is confidential has already been said.” She must let her know that there were confidential things. “I wish you a pleasant evening.” She turned to Monk and saw amusement in his face, which infuriated her and sent the color burning up her cheeks.
Drusilla smiled. Perhaps she too had read Hester more accurately than she wished. She felt horribly naked.
“Good night, Mr. Monk,” she said with a forced smile in return. “I hope you have more success in the future than you have found so far.” And she went to the door and opened it before he could get there and do it for her. She stepped out into the cold street, and left him to close the door after her.
As soon as Hester had gone, Drusilla turned to Monk.
“I do hope my calling was not inopportune? I did not mean to embarrass her. The poor creature looked quite disconcerted. She said it was not a personal matter, but was she simply being polite?” Her words were concerned, but there was a sparkle in her eyes that looked close to laughter, and a glow in her face.
“Not at all,” Monk said firmly, although he knew Hester had been upset. It was quite extraordinary. He would never have suspected her of being vulnerable to such a feminine emotion as jealousy. He was angry on her behalf. It was such a gap in her armor it was uncharacteristic. And yet he was also undeniably pleased. “She had given me the information,” he said to Drusilla, stepping back so she could come closer to the fire. “She had no call, and no desire to remain. She was about to leave when you arrived.” He did not add that he was delighted to see her, but it was plain in his manner, and he meant it to be.
“Are you working on another case, beside the one you told me of?” she inquired.
“No. May I offer you some refreshment? A cup of tea? Or a cup of hot chocolate? It is a cold evening.”
“Thank you,” she accepted. “That would be most welcome. I admit I became very chilled in the hansom. It was a rash thing to do to come here, when I did not even know if you would be at home, let alone prepared to receive company. I blushed for myself, when it was rather late, and I was already halfway here. Thank you.” She handed him her cape and took off her bonnet, running her fingers delicately through the soft curls at the edge of her brow. “I admit to being interested, in a most unladylike fashion, in the story you told me of your investigation of the unfortunate man who has been missing.” She looked at him with a smile. “I have asked among the few acquaintances I have in the Geographical Society, and also in a musical society I know and a debating association, but I learned nothing, except that Mr. Stonefield attended the Geographical Society once, as a guest, and seemed a quiet and charming man who claimed too many family and business obligations on his time to attend more often.” Her glance strayed around the room, taking in the gracious but well-worn furnishings, the polished wood, the rich dark colors of the eastern carpet, the absolute lack of any photographs or personal mementos.
“The others did not know him at all,” she continued. “Except by repute, and as a most honorable man, very upright, given to charitable donations of a modest sort, a regular attender at church, and in every way a pillar of the community.” There was a vividness in her eyes and a faint flush in her cheeks. “It is very strange, is it not? I fear greatly that his poor wife is correct, and he has met with some harm.”
“Yes,” Monk agreed gravely. He stood by the mantelshelf, close to the fire. She sat in the chair opposite, her wide skirts almost touching the fender. Almost absently he rang the bell for his landlady. “Yes, I am afraid it looks more and more as if that is so.”
“What are you going to do next?” she asked, looking up at him. �
��Surely you will try to prove it? How else can any sort of justice be done?”
“Yes, of course I will.”
There was a sharp knock on the door and his landlady appeared. She was a cheerful soul who had overcome her scruples at having an agent of inquiry in the establishment, and now took a certain kind of pride in it, suggesting all kinds of intrigue and glamour to other less fortunate keepers of similar establishments in the neighborhood whose lodgers followed more pedestrian callings.
“Yes, Mr. Monk. And what can I do for you?” She eyed Drusilla with interest. A lady of such beauty must either be in a marvelous distress or be a very wicked woman and highly dangerous. Either way, it was of the utmost interest. Not that she would repeat a word of it, of course, should she chance to overhear anything.
“Two cups of hot chocolate, if you please, Mrs. Mundy,” he replied. “It is a very inclement evening.”
“Indeed it is that,” Mrs. Mundy agreed. “Only one in dire need would be out at this hour of a winter’s evening. Two cups of hot chocolate it is, Mr. Monk.” And she withdrew to set about preparing them, her imagination whirling.
“What are you going to do next?” Drusilla asked the moment the door was closed. “How will you set about finding where he went, and finding Caleb Stone? That surely must be the answer, mustn’t it?”
“I think so,” he agreed, amused by her eagerness and, in spite of himself, somewhat flattered. She was attracted to him, no matter how modest he might want to be, that much was apparent. He found himself responding because he too found her everything which appealed to him in a woman: charming, intelligent, confident, amusing and feminine with just the hint of vulnerability which complimented him. It was not a completely unfamiliar feeling. He had no specific memory, but he responded by instinct, with assurance and quite definite pleasure.
“So you will go to the East End?” she urged, her eyes shining.
“Yes,” he said, looking at her with amusement, baiting her gently. He knew she was bored, looking for adventure, something utterly different from anything her friends could boast. She had courage, that he did not doubt, and possibly even a desire to broaden her experience and to help someone for whom she felt a certain pity. He knew what she was going to say.
“I’ll help you,” she offered. “I am a very good judge of whether someone is lying or telling the truth, and together we can speak to twice as many people as you could alone.”
“You can’t come dressed like that.” He looked her up and down with open appreciation. She was delightful to the eye, a perfect blend of spirit and good taste, enough beauty displayed to hold any man’s attention, and yet sufficiently modest and with that measure of dignity and self-possession to make it plain she was her own person and there was immeasurably more concealed than any man could learn unless he gave a great deal of himself in return. He found he most definitely wanted her to come, whether she was of the slightest use or not. Her company would be delightful.
“I shall borrow my maid’s clothing,” she promised. “When may we begin?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he answered with no more than a hint of a smile, his eyebrows raised. “Is eight o’clock too early for you?”
“Not in the slightest,” she rejoined, her chin high. “I shall be here at eight o’clock, on the dot.”
He grinned. “Excellent!”
Mrs. Mundy knocked on the door and brought in the hot chocolate. Monk accepted it as if it were champagne.
5
IN BLOOMSBURY, where they set off the next morning, it was a still, cold morning, but as they went east, and drew nearer to the river, they came into fog. It grew thick in the throat and sour with the smell of smoke from house and factory chimneys. Eventually, short of the Isle of Dogs they could go at no greater pace than a careful walk. The hansom stopped in Three Colt Street. Monk paid the cabby and held out his hand to help Drusilla down. As she had promised, she was dressed in her maid’s clothes: a dark-colored skirt and pale undistinguished blouse under a jacket top and a cloak which could have been either brown or gray. In the thin half-light of the fog it was impossible to tell. She had put a shawl over her bright hair and even one or two smuts and smears on her cheeks, but nothing could mask her natural beauty, or the white evenness of her teeth when she smiled.
The cab moved off into the gloom, and with a little shiver she linked her arm in his and they began the long task. At first she stood well back as Monk spoke to peddlers, a running patterer and a rag-and-bone man, and learned nothing of use. He was not surprised that she found them alien and frightening. Their accents must have been hard for her to follow, and their faces, matted under the grime, were haunted by a permanent wariness, a mixture of anger and fear.
Within a hundred yards a troop of children now joined them, thin-faced, wide-eyed, several of them barefoot, even in the bitter cold of the wet cobbles. They were inquisitive, and eager for any odd halfpenny or farthing that might be given. Dirty little hands plucked at Monk’s sleeves and at Drusilla’s skirts, which were less than half the size of her usual crinoline.
Gradually they moved eastward. In Rope-Makers’ Field Monk tried several shopkeepers. Drusilla even plucked up courage to make several suggestions herself. But still they met with nothing useful. There were references to Caleb Stone, few of them flattering, many of them spoken with overt fear.
Emmett Street was the same. The fog from the river was even denser here, hanging in thick curtains, blocking out the light. There was no color to drain from the drab streets with their high, narrow walls, sooty and damp-stained, the chimneys dribbling out thin wreaths of smoke. Middens ran out into the gutters and the smell was choking. The fog deadened sound; even other footsteps on the wet stones were hardly audible. Now and then the wail of a foghorn came from the river a street away.
Several times Drusilla looked at Monk, question and horror in her eyes.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked, knowing the pity and the dismay she must feel, a woman who had never seen or imagined such things before. It said much for her courage that she had come this far.
“We haven’t learned anything yet,” she said doggedly, gritting her teeth. “Thank you, but I can continue.”
He smiled at her with a warmth he had no need to affect. He held her arm a little closer as they went on past the West India Docks towards the Isle of Dogs.
On West Ferry Road Monk stopped a woman with a large bosom and short, very bowed legs. She was carrying a bundle of rags and was about to go through a doorway which emitted a smell of burned fat and blocked drains.
“Hey!” Monk called out.
The woman stopped and turned, too tired for curiosity. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for someone,” Monk began, as he had so many times before. “It’s worth something to me to find him.”
“Oh yeah?” There was a slight flicker across the impassivity of the woman’s face. “ ’Oo yer lookin’ fer, then?”
Drusilla passed her Enid’s drawing of Angus. She peered at it in the gray light. Then her face tightened and she thrust the drawing back at Monk, anger harsh in her voice.
“If yer wants Caleb Stone, yer’ll find ’im wivaht my ’elp! Stuff yer money. In’t no use ter mie in me grave!”
“It isn’t Caleb Stone,” Monk said quickly.
“Yeah ’tis!” The woman thrust the picture back at him. “Wotcha take me fer? I know Caleb Stone w’en I sees ’im!”
“It isn’t Caleb,” Drusilla said urgently, stepping forward for the first time. “He is related to him, that’s why there is such a resemblance. But look more closely.” She took the picture back from Monk and passed it to the woman. “Look at his face again. Look at his expression. Does he appear the sort of man Caleb Stone is?”
The woman screwed up her face in concentration. “Looks like Caleb Stone ter me. All got up like a toff, but got them same eyes, an’ nose.”
“But he isn’t the same,” Drusilla insisted. “This is his brother.”
�
�Garn! ’E in’t got no bruvver.”
“Yes, he has.”
“Well …” the woman said dubiously. “Mebbe ’e do look a bit different, abaht the marf, partic’lar. But I in’t seen ’im!”
“He’d be well-dressed and well-spoken,” Drusilla added.
“I tol’jer, I in’t seen ’im, an’ wot’s more, I don’ wanter!” She shoved the picture back.
But before Drusilla could take it the door swung open and a lean man with a swarthy, unshaven face poked his head out.
“In’t yer ever goin’ ter stop yer yappin’, yer fat cow? w’ere’s me dinner? I don’ work me guts aht ter come ’ome an’ listen ter yer yap, yap, yap in the street wi’ some tart! Get in ’ere!”
“Shut yer face an’ come an’ look at this pikcher, will yer?” the woman yelled back, no particular venom in her voice at being thus spoken to.
“Still worf money ter yer?” she asked Monk.
“Yes,” Monk agreed.
The man came out reluctantly, his face creased with suspicion. He glared at Drusilla, looked at Monk narrowly, then finally at the picture.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I seen ’im. So wot’s it ter yer? ’Ad a pint down the Artichoke, then went dahn towards the river. W’y?”
“It wasn’t Caleb Stone you saw?” Monk said doubtfully.
“No, it wasn’t Caleb Stone I saw.” The man mimicked his voice viciously. “I know the difference ’atween Caleb Stone an’ some geezer wi’ fancy manners an’ dressed like a toff.”
“When was this?” Monk asked.
“ ’Ow do I know?” the man said irritably. “Las’ week, or week afore.”
Monk put both hands harder into his pockets.