Cain His Brother

by Anne Perry

  Finally he picked up the clothes, jacket first, and examined it in the cold daylight near the window. It was made of a fine woolen cloth with a distinctive weave, beautifully cut in a conservative manner, with no concessions to fashion, simply quality. The tailor’s name was stitched in the seam. More importantly as evidence, the sides were ripped as if someone had slashed it with a knife. There was a bloodstain about four inches across and some ten inches down on the left shoulder, roughly over where a man’s heart would be, except it was at the back. There was also a small tear in the right elbow, no more than an inch long, and a scraping on the right forearm where several threads had been caught and pulled. Whoever had been wearing it had been involved in a serious fight, possibly even a fatal one.

  And as he had observed the night before, the trousers matched the jacket. One knee was torn out, threads were pulled on both legs and there were stains of mud. The waist at the back was heavily soaked in blood.

  He had only one choice. He must show them to Genevieve Stonefield. Without her identification of them, they were useless as evidence. The thought of subjecting her to such an ordeal was repellant, but there was no alternative. He could not protect her from it. And if anyone found the body, he would not be able to protect her from that either.

  No one should face such an ordeal alone. There should be someone to offer her support, at least to care for her physically. There could be no comfort that would temper the cruelty of the truth.

  But who? Hester was too busy with the typhoid outbreak, similarly Callandra. Enid Ravensbrook was still far too ill. Lord Ravensbrook she did not care for, or perhaps she was simply afraid of him. Arbuthnot was an employee, and one whom she would in due course have to instruct in what remained of the business.

  There was only Titus Niven. Monk had suspected ill of him at one time, but he knew nothing to his discredit. The man was gentle, discreet, and too familiar with pain himself to treat it unkindly. Titus Niven it must be. And if he were party to Angus’s death, then the fine irony of this was only one more element to compound the tragedy.

  Monk wrapped the clothes in a bundle, put them in a soft-sided traveling bag and set out.

  Niven was at home and received him with courtesy, but did not conceal his surprise. He was dressed in the same elegantly cut but slightly shabby clothes, and there was no fire in the grate. The room was bitterly cold. He looked embarrassed, but did not apologize for the temperature. He offered hot coffee, which Monk knew he could ill afford—either the coffee itself or the gas to heat it.

  “Thank you, but I have only lately finished breakfast,” Monk declined. “Besides, I have come on some business which would rob the pleasure of any refreshment at all. I would be most obliged if you could help me to break it to Mrs. Stonefield with as much gentleness as possible, and to be with her to offer any comfort you may.”

  Niven’s face paled. “You have found Angus’s body?”

  “No, but I have found what I think may well be his clothes. I need her to identify them.”

  “Is that necessary?” Niven’s voice was choked in his throat and his eyes pleaded with Monk.

  “I wouldn’t ask it if it were not,” Monk said gently. “I think they are his, but I cannot pursue the matter with the police until I am certain beyond doubt. She is the only one whose word they would accept.”

  “The valet?” Niven asked thinly, then bit his lip. Perhaps he already knew Genevieve had dismissed all the servants but the children’s nurse and the housemaid, so sure was she in her heart that Angus would never return. “Yes … yes, I suppose you are right,” he agreed. “Do you wish me to come with you now?”

  “If you please. She should not be told when she is alone.”

  “May I see them? I knew Angus well. Unless they are very new, I may be familiar with them. I do at least know his taste and style.”

  “And the name of his tailor?” Monk asked.

  “Yes. Mr. Wicklow, of Wicklow and Harper.”

  It was the name in the suit Monk had worn back from the East India Dock Road. A dead man’s clothes. He nodded, tightening his lips, and unrolled the package out of his bag.

  Niven’s face was ashen. He saw the blood, the stains of mud and water and the torn and slashed fabric. He swallowed with a convulsive movement of his throat, and nodded his head. He looked up at Monk, his blue eyes steady and filled with horror.

  “I’ll get my coat.” And he turned away. Monk noticed that his hands were shaking very slightly and his shoulders were rigidly straight, as if he were making a deliberate effort to control himself and stand almost at attention.

  They took a hansom and rode in silence. There was nothing to say, and neither of them made the pretense of conversation. Monk found himself hoping, so profoundly that it was almost a prayer, that Niven had had no part in Angus’s death. The more he saw of the man, the more he both liked and admired him.

  They alighted at Genevieve’s home, but told the cab to wait. She might be at Ravensbrook House, and they might need to follow her there and very possibly bring her home immediately.

  However, that proved not to be necessary. The housemaid who answered the door informed them that Mrs. Stonefield was at home, and when she recognized Niven, she had no hesitation in letting them in.

  Monk paid the cab and dismissed it, following Niven within moments.

  “What is it, Mr. Monk?” Genevieve asked immediately, dismissing the nursemaid and sending the two children with her. One look at Niven’s face had told her the news was extremely serious. “You’ve found Angus.…”

  “No.” He would tell her as quickly as possible. Drawing it out only added another dimension to the suffering. “I have found some clothes which I believe may be his. If they are, and you have no doubt, it may be sufficient to cause the police to act.”

  “I see.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Allow me to see them.”

  Niven moved closer to her. Even at this anguished time, Monk noticed that he was not embarrassed. He had no self-consciousness. Perhaps it was because his thoughts were entirely upon her that he spared no part of his mind for himself. It was curiously comforting, a moment’s warmth in the icy cold.

  Monk opened his bag and took out the jacket. There was no need for her to see the trousers as well, and the blood soaking them. He unrolled it and held it up. He kept the shoulder towards himself, away from her, showing her only the inside and the tailor’s mark.

  She drew in her breath sharply and her hands flew to her mouth.

  “Is it his?” Monk asked, although he knew the answer.

  She was incapable of speech, but she nodded her head, her eyes filled with tears. She struggled against them, and failed.

  Without a word, Niven put his arms around her, and she turned and buried her head in his shoulder.

  There was nothing for Monk to say or do. He repacked the jacket, closed the bag and left without saying anything further, not troubling the maid to open or close the door for him.

  This time the police did not argue. The sergeant regarded the jacket and trousers with a kind of vicious satisfaction, a slow smile spreading across his thin features.

  “Got ’im,” he said quietly. He regarded the bloodstain on the jacket with a shake of his head. “Poor sod!” He pushed them to one side of the desk and turned his head. “Robinson!” he shouted. “Robinson! Come ’ere! We’re goin’ to get a party together an’ go after Caleb Stone. I want ’alf a dozen men wot knows the river, quick on their feet an’ ready for a fight. Got that?”

  From somewhere out of sight there was an answer in the affirmative.

  The sergeant looked back at Monk.

  “I’m obliged,” he said with a nod. “We’ll get ’im this time. Can’t say as we’ll make it stick, but we’ll scare the ’ell out of ’im.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Monk stated.

  The sergeant sucked in his breath, then changed his mind. Perhaps an extra man would be useful, especially one with such a marked interest in succes
s. And also, perhaps Monk deserved it.

  “Right y’are then,” he agreed. “We’ll be off in”—he consulted his pocket watch, a handsome silver piece of considerable size—“fifteen minutes.”

  Half an hour later Monk was walking down Wharf Road beside a Constable Benyon, a lean young man with an eager face and a long, straight nose. The wind, smelling of smoke, damp and sewage, blew in their faces. They had begun on the east side of the Isle of Dogs, where the Greenwich Reach moves towards the Blackwall Reach, with instructions to follow the river downstream on the north shore. Two others were taking Limehouse, two more Greenwich and the south shore. The sergeant himself was coordinating their efforts from a hansom, moving from east to west. A further constable was detailed to cross the river and meet the team from Greenwich at the Crown and Sceptre Tavern at two o’clock, unless they were hot on the trail, in which case a message would be left.

  “Reckon ’e’ll be downriver, meself,” Benyon said thoughtfully. “More like Blackwall, or the East India Docks. Else ’e’ll be on t’other side. I’d a’ taken ter the marshes, if I’d a bin ’im.”

  “He doesn’t think we can touch him,” Monk replied, hunching his shoulders against the chill coming up off the water. “Told me himself we’d never find the body.”

  “Mebbe we won’t need one,” Benyon said, willing himself to believe it.

  They turned off Barque Street onto Manchester Road, passing a group of dockers going down towards the ferry. On the corner a one-legged sailor was selling matches. A running patterer jogged towards Ship Street corner, turned and disappeared.

  “Wastin’ our time ’ere.” Benyon pulled a face. “I’ll ask at the Cubitt Town pier. That’s about the best place ter start.”

  They walked in silence past the Rice Mill and the Seysall Asphalt Company and made an acute right down to the pier. The cry of the gulls above the water came clearly over the rattle of wheels and the shouts of dockers handling bales of goods, bargees calling to one another, and the endless hiss and slap of the tide.

  Monk hung back, not to intrude into Benyon’s questioning. This was his area and he knew the people and what to say, what to avoid.

  Benyon came back after several minutes.

  “Not bin ’ere terday,” he said, as if it proved his point.

  Monk was not surprised. He nodded, and together they proceeded along Manchester Road past the Millwall Wharf, Plough Wharf, as far as Davis Street, then turned right and then left into Samuda Street. They stopped for a pint of ale at the Folly Tavern, and there at last heard news of Caleb Stone. No one admitted to having seen him at any specific time lately, but one little rat of a man with a long nose and a walleye followed them out and discreetly, at a price, told Benyon that Caleb had a friend in a tenement house on Quixley Street, off the East India Dock Wall Road, about three quarters of a mile away.

  Benyon passed over half a crown and the man almost immediately disappeared across the alley and into the Samuda Yard with its piles of timber.

  “Is that worth anything?” Monk asked dubiously.

  “Oh yeah,” Benyon replied with conviction. “Sammy ’as one or two ’ostages ter fortune. ’E won’t lie ter me. We’d better find the sergeant. This’ll need at least ’alf a dozen of us. If you’d seen Quixley Street yer’d not doubt that.”

  It took them over an hour and a half to find the pair from Limehouse and for all five of them, including the sergeant, to get to Quixley Street, which was a narrow through way hardly a hundred yards long backing into the Great Northern Railway goods depot, just short of the first East India Dock. Two men were sent to Harrap Street at the back, and Benyon to Scamber Street at the side. The sergeant took Monk in at the front.

  It was a large building, four stories high with narrow, dirty windows, several of them cracked or broken. The dark brick was stained with damp and soot but only one of the tall chimney stacks smoked, dribbling a fine gray-black trail into the cold air.

  Monk felt a shiver of excitement, in spite of the filth and misery of the place. If Caleb Stone really was here, within a matter of minutes they would have him. He wanted to see him face-to-face, to watch those extraordinary green eyes when he knew he was beaten.

  There was a man lying in the doorway, either drunk or asleep. His face had several days’ growth of beard on it, and he breathed with difficulty. The sergeant stepped over him and Monk followed behind.

  Inside the air smelled of mold and unemptied slops. The sergeant pushed open the door of the first room. Inside three women sat unraveling ropes. Their fingers were callused and swollen, some red with sores. Half a dozen children in various stages of undress played on the floor. A girl of about five was unpicking the stitching on a length of cloth which presumably had been a garment a short while ago. The window was boarded up. One candle relieved the shadows. It was bitterly cold. Obviously Caleb Stone was not here.

  The next room was similarly occupied.

  Monk glanced at the sergeant, but the grim look on his face silenced his doubts.

  The third and fourth rooms were no more help. They climbed the rickety stairs, testing each stone before allowing their full weight on it. The steps rocked alarmingly, and the sergeant swore under his breath.

  The first room on the next floor held two men, both in drunken sleep, but neither was Caleb Stone. The second room was occupied by a prostitute and a bargee, who hurled lurid abuse at them as they withdrew. An old man lay dying in the third, a woman keening gently beside him, rocking back and forth.

  The third floor up was crammed with women sewing shirts, their heads bent, eyes straining to see, fingers flying with needle, thread weaving in and out. A man with pince-nez glasses balanced on his nose glared at the sergeant and hissed his irritation, wagging his finger like a schoolmistress. Monk longed to hit him for his meticulous cruelty, but he knew it would have done no good. One piece of paltry violence would not relieve anyone’s poverty. And he was after Caleb Stone, not one wretched sweatshop profiteer.

  The first room on the top floor up was occupied by a one-armed man, carefully measuring powder into a scale. In the next room three men played cards. One of them had thin gray hair and a stomach which bulged out over his trousers. The second was bald and had a red mustache. The third was Caleb Stone.

  They looked up as the sergeant opened the door. For a moment there was silence, prickling cold. The fat man belched.

  The sergeant took a step forward, and in that instant Caleb Stone saw Monk behind him. Perhaps it was some look of victory in Monk’s face, maybe he recognized the sergeant. He climbed to his feet and lunged towards the window, throwing himself out of it with a shattering of glass.

  The fat man rolled over onto all fours and charged at Monk. Monk raised his knee and caught him in the jaw, sending him reeling backwards, spitting blood. The other man was locked in a struggle with the sergeant, swinging backwards and forwards together like a parody of a dance.

  Monk ran over to the window and smashed the rest of the glass out of the frame, then leaned out, half expecting to see the figure of Caleb broken on the pavement four stories below.

  But he had forgotten the twists and turns of the stairs. They were facing the back of the building, and beneath him was the roof of a high wooden shed, not more than twelve feet away. Caleb was running across it, agile as an animal, making for the opposite side and a half-open window.

  Monk scrambled over the sill and leaped, landing with a jar that shocked his bones. Within a moment he was on his feet and racing after Caleb, the shed roof rattling under his weight.

  Caleb swung around once, his wide mouth grinning, then he jumped for the window and disappeared inside.

  Monk went in after him, finding himself in another cold, suffocating room just like those he had left. Three old men sat with bottles in their hands around a potbellied stove smelling of soot.

  Caleb flung the door open and charged across the landing and Monk heard his footsteps hard on the stairs. He dived after him, tripped on the f
ourth or fifth step, which was broken, and fell the remaining half dozen, landing bruisingly and only just missing cracking his head on the newel post. He heard Caleb’s laughter as he clattered on down, a floor below him.

  Monk clambered to his feet, furious with pain and frustration, and went down the rest of the stairs as fast as he could. He was just in time to see Caleb’s back as he went out the door into Prestage Street and turned towards Brunswick Street, which ran all the way down to the river, Ashton’s Wharf and the Blackwall Stairs.

  Where the devil were the other constables? Monk yelled as loudly as his lungs would bear.

  “Benyon! Brunswick Street!”

  His elbow and shoulder were sore where he had hit them on the wall as he fell, and one ankle throbbed, but he charged along the footpath, barging into an old woman with a bag of clothes who was determined not to step aside for him. He knocked her against the wall, unintentionally, having been sure she would move. Her body felt heavy and soft, like a sack of porridge. She swore at him with a string of oaths he would have expected from a bargee.

  Caleb had vanished.

  Monk got into his stride again. Someone else was running along Harrap Street, coattails billowing. It must be one of the constables.

  He swung around the corner and saw Caleb running easily, almost dancing as he turned around and waved, his face laughing, then scampered on towards the river.

  Monk extended his pace, his lungs gasping, his blood pounding. It had been too long since he had been obliged to chase a man on foot. This was a hard way to discover it.

  The constable caught up with him and forged ahead. Caleb was still twenty yards beyond them, and running easily, every now and then leaping, as if in mockery. They had passed the turning to Leicester Street and were approaching Norfolk Street. Where was Caleb making for?

  Caleb passed the corner of Russell Street and there was nothing ahead of him but the dock and the stairs! A wild thought crossed Monk’s mind that he was going to jump into the river. Suicide? Many a man would think it better than the hangman’s rope. Monk would himself.