by Anne Perry
“Recovering well,” he replied. “Can I make you a cup of tea while you dress?”
Orme stared at him. “I’ll make it, sir. If you just like—”
“I’ll do it,” Monk insisted. “I’m not asking for instructions, just permission.”
“Yes…sir. The tea’s in the caddy up there.” He pointed to an Indian-style tin at the back of the tidy kitchen shelf. “The kettle’s beside the stove, and there’s milk in the pantry cupboard. Water’s already pumped for the morning. But—”
“Thank you,” Monk interrupted him again. “Just dress. There’s no need to shave. We’re going down into the sewers.”
Orme obeyed. Monk moved around the small, immaculately tidy kitchen while Runcorn riddled the last ash from the stove and piled it delicately with new coal to make it burn up again, warm the kitchen, and boil the water in the kettle. Rathbone merely sat and watched, as his skills would be required later.
Seven minutes later Orme was back down, dressed for going onto the river. Then over hot, strong tea, they discussed the exact tactics of how they would hunt down the evidence they needed to hang Aston Sixsmith.
“What do we need, sir?” Orme looked at Rathbone.
Rathbone had obviously been considering it. “We have on Sixsmith’s own admission that he knew this assassin.” He frowned. “I wish we could find a name for the man! We need unarguable evidence that Sixsmith knew him, with the credible assumption that he also knew his occupation. It seems obvious enough that Sixsmith told Argyll of the trouble toshers and other men were causing, and that they needed to be bought off. You might see if that’s actually true. How much trouble were the toshers? Because the money went to the assassin, and yet the work is still apparently going on.” He looked at them in turn.
“What about the cave-in?” Runcorn asked. “Do we know exactly what caused that, and if it was foreseeable? Was it what James Havilland was afraid of? Has it anything to do with Sixsmith?”
“And what about Mary?” Monk added.
“And what connection was there between Sixsmith and Toby Argyll?” Rathbone asked. “In short, Alan Argyll may be technically innocent of having hired the assassin, but is he innocent of everything? Is this one man, or a conspiracy?”
Orme looked at Monk. “Questions, sir. We gotta find people ’oo’ve seen Sixsmith an’ the man wi’ the teeth, afore ’Avilland were shot, an’ prove as they know each other. We gotta find navvies an’ toshers an’ the like ’oo know if Sixsmith knew about the dangers o’ movin’ that machine too fast an’ cuttin’ wi’out askin’ enough about streams an’ wells an’ the like.”
Rathbone’s eyes widened. “Exactly,” he agreed. “Very well summed up, Mr. Orme.” He gave a very slight smile. “Perhaps you don’t really need my presence?”
Monk gave him a wry look and then smiled back. “We couldn’t possibly manage without you, Rathbone,” he replied.
They spent some further time apportioning duties and planning where and how often to meet in order to compare notes and keep each other informed. They had an hour’s sleep sitting in the chairs in the kitchen, then another hot cup of tea and several slices of thick toast. By half past four, they were on their way towards the main road, where they caught a hansom and started the journey to the tunnel.
They stopped to pick up Crow. He was a sleepy and startled recruit, but willing enough when he heard the truth of the events. He sent a messenger to find Sutton and tell him where they were going, and that it was extremely urgent that he join them. They did not wait for the ratcatcher, but arranged a rendezvous.
The wind was gusting hard and carried the smell of rain as they made their way down the muddy slope to the bottom of the tunnel. The walls oozed water in the lantern light, and on the bottom it was running slowly in between the broken bricks and pebbles. The wooden planks were slimy underfoot. When Monk held his lantern up, the beam shone on the mist of fine rain, lighting the wet walls and the planks that held them back, but barely reaching the higher beams that forced them apart, crisscrossing upwards to an invisible sky. The air smelled of earth, water, and old wood.
Monk wrinkled his nose, not knowing if he really smelled the sour odor of sewers or if it was just conjured by memory and imagination. He had to make a greater effort than he had expected in order to force himself to walk calmly under the brick facing of the tunnel and the vast weight of earth on top of him. Their feet echoed on the boards and the water sloshed around the wood and up over the soles of his boots. It was bitterly cold.
He heard Rathbone gasp behind him, and wondered if the darkness suffocated him as much, if it brought out the sweat on his skin and made him strain his eyes and ears for anything that would give him a sense of proportion, direction, any of the things one takes for granted aboveground.
A thousand yards on they separated, in order to cover as much ground as possible. For safety’s sake they went in pairs: Runcorn and Orme, Rathbone and Crow, with Monk to wait at the appointed place for Sutton.
“Don’t go by yerself, sir!” Orme warned, his voice sharp with anxiety.
“One slip an’ yer finished. ’It yer ’ead an’ the rats’ll get yer. It in’t a nice way ter go.”
Monk saw Rathbone’s sensitive mouth twist in revulsion, and he smiled. “I won’t, Sergeant, I promise you.”
Orme nodded and disappeared into the darkness behind Runcorn, their lights swallowed up in moments.
Rathbone took a deep breath and, body rigid, followed after Crow without once looking backwards. Perhaps he was afraid that if he did he would lose his nerve to proceed.
Sutton arrived twenty-five minutes later, accompanied as always by the little dog. “It’s a bad business, Mr. Monk,” he said grimly. “W’ere d’ yer wanna start?”
The decision had already been made. “The other four are looking to find out if Sixsmith was ever seen with the assassin, and if so, when and by whom. I want to find out more about the dangers of cave-in that Havilland was so worried about, and how much Sixsmith actually knew of it.”
“Yer mean could ’e ’ave stopped it?” Sutton asked. He frowned.
“Don’t make no sense, Mr. Monk. Why couldn’t ’e ’ave gone careful, if ’e’d really understood? Cave-in don’t do ’im no good.”
“When I thought Sixsmith was innocent,” Monk explained, beginning to walk deeper into the tunnel, “I assumed Argyll was giving the orders and he had little choice. I took it for granted that whatever he feared, he would have told Argyll, and been ignored. But maybe that’s not true. Is he callous, a villain, or just incompetent?”
“Why’d ’e ’ave ’Avilland killed?” Sutton asked curiously, following on Monk’s heels. “It ’ad ter be ter keep ’im quiet about the dangers, ’adn’t it?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t mean he believed him. He might have thought Havilland was just scare-mongering.”
Sutton grunted. “Mebbe.”
The first thing they did was to find navvies at the excavation face and question them. They moved with speed. After the ordeal of the trial they did not expect Sixsmith back at the site that day, but it was not impossible that he would be there. He was a man accused wrongly, according to the law, and found innocent by his peers. If they seemed to others to be harassing him now, their position would be unpleasant, to say the least. He might even claim they were exceeding their office. Monk’s career could be jeopardized, and possibly Orme’s and Runcorn’s as well. Rathbone’s reputation would not profit from his expedition into the sewers to pursue a man he had prosecuted and failed to convict. He would appear to be losing with neither dignity nor honor.
The navvies told them nothing, and after an hour or so Monk realized he was wasting his time. Instead he took Sutton’s advice and sought out a couple of toshers. They were father and son, amazingly alike: both blunt-faced, with a cheerful and sarcastic disposition.
“Sixsmith?” the father said with a twist of his mouth. “Strong feller, not scared o’ nobody. Yeh, I knowed ’im. Why?”
“An’ I’m the queen o’ the fairies!” the father said witheringly.
“Yer sayin’ as yer never took no money?” Sutton asked, his voice almost expressionless.
“Weren’t nothin’ ter take!”
“Sixsmith’s a bleedin’ liar!” the son added angrily. “We weren’t makin’ no trouble, an’ wot’s more, Mr. Sutton, just ’cos yer catches rats fer the gentry, it don’t give yer no right ter say as we were. Yer know that, yer scurvy bastard!”
“I know yer din’t used ter,” Sutton agreed. “ ’Ow about others? Wot about Big Jem, or Lanky, or any o’ them?”
“We in’t stupid,” the father retorted. “Gettin’ meself in jail won’t ’elp no one.”
“Did Mr. Sixsmith know that?” Monk asked, speaking for the first time.
“Course ’e did!” The father looked at him, his face screwed up in disgust like a gargoyle in the lantern light. “ ’E’s a fly sod, an’ all.”
“Not fly enough to avoid a cave-in,” Monk observed.
“Course ’e were!” the father said intently. “ ’E knew as much about streams and wells and clay stretches as any of us. ’E just don’t give a toss.”
They asked other toshers, but nothing they could elicit contradicted the belief that there was no more trouble than usual, just the odd quarrel or fight. There had been no deliberate sabotage, and the accidents were rather fewer than average for the heavy and dangerous work in progress.
The thing that struck Monk most forcibly, and which he told the others when they went up in the middle of the day, was that in everyone’s opinion Sixsmith was an extremely clever and able man who was very well aware of all the risks and advantages of everything he did.
“So he knew about the streams and wells?” Rathbone said grimly. He looked strained. His nostrils flared with the stench he had been unable to avoid. His clothes were spattered with mud and clay, and his boots were sodden. Even the bottoms of his trousers were wet.
“Yes,” Monk agreed, knowing what the inevitable conclusion must be.
“It seems he did not care about the cave-in.”
“Or he may even have wanted it!” Rathbone added. “But why? What is it that we don’t know, Monk? What’s missing to make sense of this?” He turned to Runcorn and Orme.
“ ’E knew the assassin,” Orme said, his face tight. “ ’Aven’t got a witness as yer could bring inter court yet, but they’re there. ’E knew ’is way around, did Sixsmith.”
“Don’t put him in the past.” Runcorn looked at them each in turn.
“He’s still very much here! We’ve got to hurry, before he covers his tracks—or us!”
Monk found himself shivering. Rathbone’s face was bleak and angry. No one argued. Briefly they conferred on the next step, then set out again, cold, tired, and determined.
Hester slept poorly after Monk had gone. The shock of defeat, just as they were savoring what she imagined to be one of their sweetest victories, had left her momentarily numb. She cleared away the supper dishes and tidied the house automatically, then went upstairs to see if there was anything more she could do for Scuff. She might have stayed up were it not for him, but she knew he could not rest if she did not do so as well.
She was lying awake at about five o’clock, wondering how they could have been so bitterly wrong, when Scuff spoke to her in a whisper.
“Yer in’t asleep, are yer.” It was not a question. He must have known from her breathing.
“No,” she replied. “But why aren’t you?”
“ ’Cos I can’t.” He inched a fraction closer to her. “Is Mr. Monk gonna put it right?”
Should she lie to comfort him? If he found out, it would break the frail trust he was building. She might never mend the damage. Wasn’t truth better than the loneliness of that, no matter how harsh? That’s what she would do if he were a man. But was a child different? How much should she protect him, and from what?
“Is ’e?” Scuff repeated.
He was not touching her, and yet she knew his body was stiff.
“He’ll try,” she answered. “Nobody wins all the time. This could be a mistake we can’t mend. I don’t know.”
He let out his breath in a sigh and relaxed, inching another tiny fraction closer to her.
“Mr. ’Avilland were right about their machines, weren’t ’e?”
“I’m afraid he was,” she agreed. “At least partly. He was also right about going ahead too quickly without making sure where all the streams were.”
“Mr. Sixsmith were the boss down there. Yer’d think as ’e’d ’a told Mr. Argyll, wouldn’t yer?” he whispered.
“He must have,” she agreed.
As she said it she realized with a chill, in spite of the blankets over her, that it was not necessarily true. But it made no sense.
“Wot’s the matter?” Scuff demanded.
“At least, I suppose he’d have told Mr. Argyll,” she answered.
He put his hand on her shoulder, so lightly she barely felt it, only its warmth. “There’s summink as don’t make no sense, in’t there? Is Mr. Monk gonna be all right? I should ’a bin there to look arter ’im. I think mebbe that Sixsmith’s real bad.”
“But what does Sixsmith want?” she said as much to herself as to him.
“Money? Power? Love? Escape from something?” She turned a little towards him. “Do you suppose it was because of Mrs. Argyll? She’s in love with him, I think. And her husband is a cold man. She must feel terribly alone.”
“Weren’t Mr. ’Avilland ’er pa, too?” he asked.
“Yes. I don’t believe she knew the assassin was going to kill her father. And afterwards she thought it was her husband who had done it. Maybe she still doesn’t know it was Sixsmith, and we can’t prove it!”
“But ’e knows,” Scuff pointed out. “So ’e din’t do it for ’er! If yer love someone, yer din’t kill ’er pa.”
“No.” She stared up at the ceiling, the faintest of lights coming through the curtains from the streetlamps outside. “Maybe he doesn’t love her so much as just want her. It isn’t the same.”
“Mebbe ’e just ’ates Mr. Argyll,” Scuff said thoughtfully. “Yer gotta ’member ’e made it look like it were Mr. Argyll wot paid the assassin. An’ it were Mr. Argyll’s company wot caused the cave-in, and Mr. Argyll wot’s goin’ ter prisin, or mebbe the rope, eh?”
“That’s an awful lot of hate,” she said quietly, shivering again in spite of herself. “Why would anyone hate that much?”
“I dunno,” he answered. “Must ’a bin summink bad.”
“It must have been,” she agreed, but her mind was beginning to wonder what Jenny had felt. Did she believe that when her husband was imprisoned, or even hanged, she would be rescued from her boredom and emotional desert by Sixsmith? Was she so in love with him that she had thought no further than that?
What would happen when Argyll was shown to be innocent and Sixsmith guilty? Jenny had lied about who told her to write the letter; that was what had turned the tide against Argyll. Sixsmith knew that! What sort of future awaited her, then? Had she used Sixsmith to get rid of Argyll, so that her children would inherit the company, since Toby was also dead? And they would get whatever James Havilland had possessed also, since Mary was gone as well. Did she imagine that this would hold Sixsmith to her, and was that what she wanted? Surely if she had any sense she would fear for her own life.
Or did she believe he truly loved her?
“Yer’ve thought of summink, ’aven’t yer?” Scuff whispered beside her.
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “I need to go and see Mrs. Argyll. She lied in court, and she needs to know what that could cost her. I’ll send a letter first thing to ask Margaret Ballinger to come to sit with y
ou until I get back.”
“I don’ need no one,” he said instantly. “I’m almost better.”
“No, you aren’t,” she retorted. “And whether you need anyone or not, I need there to be someone here, so I can stop worrying about you and keep my mind on what I’m doing. Don’t argue with me! I’ve made up my mind. And you’ll like Margaret, I expect.”
“Mr. Monk said yer as stubborn as an army mule.”
“Did he indeed! Well, Mr. Monk wouldn’t know an army mule if it kicked him!”
Scuff giggled. Obviously the idea entertained him.
“But I would!” she added, before he got any ideas of insubordination.
“Yer’d kick it back,” he said with immense satisfaction, and moved the last couple of inches until he was next to her. She put an arm around him, very lightly. In five minutes he was asleep.
In the morning she sent one of the local boys to take a message to Margaret, wait for her answer, and return with it. She gave him fare for a hansom both ways, and something for himself. It was extravagant, but she judged it necessary, not only for her own peace of mind but for Monk’s also. She had not misread the affection in his face for Scuff, no matter how carefully he tried to mask it.
She arrived at the Argyll house a little after ten o’clock. It was strange to realize that the rest of the world still believed Argyll guilty and Sixsmith innocent. For a moment terror overtook her as she walked across the pavement to the steps up to the front door. What if Sixsmith was there already? If he and Jenny were lovers, they might have celebrated their victory together.
No, that would be foolish, even if Argyll had already been arrested. It might arouse suspicions. In order to preserve any dignity or belief in her, Jenny Argyll would have to play the shocked and grieving wife rescued in time by the innocent man. They would be two victims together of Argyll’s wickedness.
Hester straightened her shoulders and mounted the steps to the front door, head high.
The bell was answered by a red-eyed parlor maid, and Hester told her that she was here to see Mrs. Argyll on a matter of great importance and urgency. Hester guessed from the girl’s appearance that Argyll had already been arrested.