Slaves of Obsession wm-11

by Anne Perry

  He was startled. “Shearer? Why …” He stared at her intently. “Yes, it could, Mrs. Monk. It is a very disagreeable thought, but it is not at all impossible. Shearer acting as intermediary for pirates, and when that did not work, then for Breeland!” His voice rose. “And if Breeland himself cannot have killed poor Daniel, then perhaps Shearer did? Certainly he seems to have left London since Daniel’s death. I have not seen him since a day or two before. That would explain a great deal … and best of all, it would account for Merrit’s belief that Breeland is innocent.”

  The quiet room seemed to glow around them. A bowl of golden midseason roses shone amber and apricot, reflected in the polished surface of the table beneath. The grace of a Targ horse filled an alcove.

  “Poor Daniel,” he said quietly. “He trusted Shearer. He was ambitious, always looking for the advantage, driving the hardest bargain for shipping of any man on the river, and believe me, that is saying a great deal. But Daniel thought he was loyal, and I confess, so did I.” His lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “But then I suppose the greatest betrayals are from where they are least expected.”

  Another thought occurred to Hester, one she would far rather not have entertained, but it would not be dismissed.

  “Do you have any control over who buys the guns, Mr. Casbolt?”

  “Not legally, but I suppose effectively I do. If Daniel had done something I found intolerable I could have overridden it. Why do you ask? He never did, or anything even questionable.”

  “Would you have sold them to the pirates?”

  “No.” Again he was meeting her eyes with candor and a fierce intensity. “And if you are thinking that Daniel would, then you are mistaken. Judith would never have borne it, after what happened to her brother. Nor would I. And Daniel would not have done it even if she had never known. Believe me, he hated the pirates as much as we did.” He looked down for a moment. “I’m sorry if I sound harsh, Mrs. Monk, but you did not know Daniel or you would not have asked. What they did to her brother was monstrous. Daniel would not give them air to breathe, let alone guns to continue their crimes. Nor would I have allowed it, whatever the threat or the price.”

  Hester believed him, but she could not help wondering if perhaps Daniel Alberton had needed the sale sufficiently to connive at it, and hope Judith would never know. With the American war, guns appeared to be scarce, and at a premium. She did not wish to believe it. She had liked Alberton. But she knew people would do desperate things if faced with ruin, not even so much for the loss of material goods as for the shame of failure.

  “Thank you, Mr. Casbolt, you have been very kind in giving me so much of your time.”

  “Mrs. Monk, please do not pursue this idea any further. I knew Daniel Alberton better than any man, in some ways even better than his wife did. Nothing in the world would have persuaded him to sell guns to any pirate on earth, and least of all to those in the Mediterranean. You have met Judith. You must have some sense of what a remarkable woman she is, how … how …” It was obvious in his face that he could find no words adequate to name the qualities he saw in her. “Daniel adored her!” he said fiercely, his voice thick with emotion. “He would have lived out his days in debtors’ prison rather than break her trust by doing such a thing. He was a most honorable man, and … and she loved him for it. He … this is difficult for me to say, Mrs. Monk.” He shook his head very slightly, as if to dismiss some cloud around him. “He did not have great passion or wit, great imagination … but he was a man you could trust with anything and everything you possessed. Could you not sense that for yourself, even in the brief time you knew him?” His smile was twisted with pain. The agony in him seemed to fill the room. “Or am I thinking you could see in a few hours what I saw in half a lifetime?”

  She was embarrassed for her thoughts, and ashamed of having allowed him to see them.

  “I imagine it will prove as absurd as you say.” She made it half an apology, in tone if not in words. “Perhaps if we could find Mr. Shearer it would give us the solution.”

  A strange bitterness filled his face for a moment, then vanished.

  “I have no doubt that that is true. Who knows what hungers drive a man to the betrayal of those who trust him? Please just do what you can to save Merrit, Mrs. Monk, for Judith’s sake. It is something I cannot do.” He swallowed. “I don’t have the skill. I can care for her in many other ways, ways of business affairs and seeing that she is provided for and that she always has the respect of society. But …”

  “Of course,” she promised quickly, rising to her feet. “I shall do it for Merrit’s sake also. We worked side by side for a little while on the battlefield. I know her courage. And I like her.”

  He relaxed a little. “Thank you,” he said quietly, standing also. “Please God that Monk will find Shearer, or at least proof of his part in this.”

  When she spoke of her thoughts to Monk he found the idea of Alberton’s having connived to sell guns to the pirates repellent, but he was obliged to consider the possibility. She saw the wince of pain in his face as they sat over Mrs. Patrick’s excellent supper, which included a rhubarb pie whose pastry melted in the mouth.

  She saw the darkness in his face. It had been there the previous evening also, and she wondered if the same fear had occurred to him then, and he had been unwilling to say so. He had liked Alberton instinctively, more than most clients, and his death had left a sense of loss as well as anger. But there was no way to blunt the thought. Only the truth could banish it … perhaps.

  “What did Casbolt say?” he asked her.

  “He denied that it was possible. He said Alberton adored Judith and would rather have gone to debtors’ prison than deal with pirates.” She hesitated.

  “But …” he prompted.

  “But he was Alberton’s closest friend and he could not bear to think he would betray Judith like that. Or that he was … so much less than they all believed him. He’s very loyal. And …” She smiled very faintly at the memory of Casbolt’s face in the beautiful, glowing room, the intensity of the emotion filling his body as he sat on the edge of his seat. “And he is pretty devoted to Judith himself. He would do anything to protect her from further hurt.”

  “Including lying to hide Alberton’s guilt?” he pressed.

  “I should think so,” she answered frankly, weighing her words and aware that she believed them true. “It would also be a matter of protecting the reputation of a dead friend, for Judith’s sake too. I can understand that, even if I don’t know whether I would do it myself or not.”

  His eyes widened. “At the expense of the truth? You!”

  She looked back at him, trying to read his expression, but not with any intent to moderate how she answered.

  “I don’t know. Not all truths need to be told. Some shouldn’t. I just don’t know which they are.”

  “Yes, you do.” There was a black shadow in his face. “They are those which cause the innocent to suffer, and create a divide between people because of lies … even lies of silence.”

  She did not understand the depth of feeling behind his words. It was as if he were angry with her, as he had been when they had first known each other and he had thought her hypocritical, even cold. Perhaps then there had been parts of her that were locked away, too quick to condemn what she did not understand and was afraid of, but not now!

  She did not know how to break through the barrier. She could not find it, touch it, but she knew absolutely that it was there. What had she said that had created it? Why did he not know her better than to misunderstand? Or love her enough to break it himself?

  “I don’t know what the truth is,” she said quietly, looking down at the table. “I think it more likely it had to do with Shearer, whether he meant to sell the guns to the pirates, or Trace, or Breeland, or just anyone who wanted them.”

  “I can’t find Shearer.” His voice was flat. “No one has seen him since before the murders.”

  “Doesn’t that say a
great deal in itself?” she asked. “If he were not involved somehow, wouldn’t he still be here? Wouldn’t he be doing all he could to help, and perhaps improve his own position in the business? He might even hope to be some sort of manager.”

  He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up, moving about the small room restlessly.

  “It isn’t enough,” he said grimly. “You can see it, and I can, but we can’t rely on a jury. Breeland had the guns. He was involved. He might have persuaded Shearer actually to commit the murders, probably for the price of the guns, which could be enough to corrupt many men. I admit, I don’t care if Breeland hangs for it. To corrupt another man to betrayal and murder is an even deeper sin than doing it yourself. But it won’t help Merrit because it doesn’t prove she had no knowledge of it.”

  “But …” She started to protest, then realized with a crushing weight that he was right. Not only would the jury be less likely to believe it because of her closeness to Breeland, and the fact that she had gone willingly with him, dropping her watch in the warehouse yard, but she herself, in her misguided loyalty to him, would not deny it.

  “There are dark places in everybody,” he said in the silence. “People you believe you know have violence and ugliness it is hard to accept, and impossible to understand.” There was anger in his voice and a pain she heard only too clearly. She wished to ask what he had discovered that he had not told her, but she knew from the angle of his body, the part of his face she could see, half turned away from her as it was, that he would not tell her.

  She stood up to clear away the dishes and carry them through to the kitchen. She would not mention it again, at least not tonight.

  Monk went to bed early. He was tired, but far more than that he wished to avoid speaking with Hester. He had shut himself out, and he did not know how to deal with it.

  In the morning he woke early and left Hester still asleep. At least he thought she was. He was not certain. He wrote a hasty note telling her he had gone to the river again to pursue the matter of the guns, the money, and anything he could learn about the company who dealt with the pirates, then he left. He would find something to eat, if he felt like it, somewhere on the road. There were plenty of peddlers around with sandwiches and pies. The general mass of working people had no facilities to cook, and ate in the street. He did not want to risk Hester’s waking and finding him in the kitchen, because he would have to give some explanation, or openly avoid it, and he was not ready to face so much inward pain.

  From the very moment he awoke in the hospital his past had been an unknown land which carried too many areas of darkness, too many ugly surprises. He should have had the sense, the self-restraint, to have guarded his feelings more. He had known then that marriage was not for him. Love and its vulnerabilities were for those with uncomplicated lives, who knew themselves and whose darkest recesses of the soul were only the ordinary envies and petty acts of retreat that affected everyone.

  He had not been prepared for someone like Hester, who forced from him emotions he could not stifle or control, and in the end could not even deny.

  He should have found the strength to! Or at least the sense of self-preservation.

  Too late now. The wound was there, wide open.

  He went out of the house, closing the front door softly, and walked as quickly as he could along Fitzroy Street and into Tottenham Court Road. He had no choice but to examine the blackmail issue more closely. His revulsion against the idea was no excuse; in fact, it impelled him to do all he could to test it against the facts, and if possible disprove it.

  It was too early to obtain permission to examine Alberton’s finances. Rathbone would not be at his offices in Vere Street at this hour. However, Monk could write a note asking for the necessary authority, and leave it for him.

  Then he would pursue Baskin and Company, who had been named as the intermediary for the pirates’ guns.

  The river was busy in the early morning. Tides waited on no man’s convenience, and already dockers, ferrymen, bargees and stokers were busy. He saw coal backers, bent double under their heavy sacks, keeping a precarious balance as they climbed out of the deep holds. Men shouted to one another, and the cries of gulls circling low in hope of fish, the clatter of chains and metal on metal, were loud in the air above the ever-present surge and slap of water.

  “Never ’eard of it, guv,” the first man answered cheerfully when Monk asked for the company. “In’t now’ere ’round ’ere. Eh! Jim! Yer ever ’eard o’ Baskin and Company?”

  “Not ’round ’ere,” Jim replied. “Sorry, mate!”

  And so it continued down as far as Limehouse and around the curve of the Isle of Dogs, and again across the river at Rotherhithe. He had been certain the ferrymen would know if anyone did, but even the three he asked had never heard either name.

  By midafternoon he gave up and went back to Vere Street to see if Rathbone had obtained the necessary permission to go through Daniel Alberton’s accounts.

  “There’s no difficulty,” Rathbone said with a frown. He received Monk in his office, looking cool and immaculate as always. Monk, who had been traipsing up and down the dockside all day, was aware of the contrast between them. Rathbone had no shadows in his past that mattered. His smooth, almost arrogant manner came from the fact that he knew himself, better than most men. He was so supremely confident in who he was he felt no need to impress others. It was a quality Monk admired and envied. He had come to understand himself well enough to know that his own moments of cruelty came from self-doubt, his need to show others his importance.

  He recalled himself to the present. “Good!”

  “What do you expect to find?” Rathbone was looking curious and a trifle anxious.

  “Nothing,” Monk replied. “But I need to be certain.”

  Rathbone leaned back in his chair. “Why didn’t you ask me to look?”

  Monk smiled thinly. “Because you may not want to know the answer.”

  Humor flashed for an instant in Rathbone’s eyes. “Oh! Then you had better go alone. Just don’t leave me walking into an ambush in court.”

  “I won’t,” Monk promised. “I still think Shearer is the one who actually committed the murders.”

  Rathbone’s eyebrows rose. “Alone?”

  “No. I think it would have taken more than one, even holding a gun. They were tied up before they were shot. But he could have hired help anywhere. He certainly lived and worked where he would be able to find plenty of men willing to kill a man, for a reasonable price. The price of those guns would be enough to buy nine decent-sized houses. A small percent of the profit would give him sufficient to obtain all kinds of assistance.”

  Rathbone’s fastidious face expressed his distaste.

  “And I suppose we have no idea where Shearer is now?”

  “None at all. Could be anywhere, here or in Europe. Or America, for that matter, except it’s not the best place to be, unless he has designs on making more money in the armaments business.” He debated with himself whether to mention the whole blackmail affair, and his failure to find any trace of Baskin and Company, and decided against it for the moment. It might be easier for Rathbone if he did not know.

  “He could well do that,” Rathbone said thoughtfully, leaning back and placing his fingertips together, elbows on the arms of his chair. “He might have bought more guns somewhere with the money from Breeland, if what Breeland says is true. There’s a very murky area in arms dealing, and he would be in a position to know more about it than most.”

  It was a thought which had not occurred to Monk; he was annoyed with himself for it. His preoccupation with the past, and its destruction into the present, was costing him the sharp edge of his skill. But it was second nature to conceal it from Rathbone.

  “That’s another reason I need to see Alberton’s books,” he said.

  Rathbone frowned. “I don’t like this, Monk. I think perhaps I had better know what you find. I can’t afford to be taken by surpr
ise, however much I may dislike what it shows. No one has accused Alberton of anything yet, but I know the prosecution is going to use Horatio Deverill. He’s an ambitious bounder, and they didn’t nickname him ’Devil’ for nothing. He’s unpredictable, no loyalties, few prejudices.”

  “Doesn’t his ambition curb his indiscretion?” Monk asked skeptically.

  Rathbone’s mouth turned down at the corners. “No. He’s got no chance of a seat in the Lords, and he knows it. His hunger is for fame, to shock, to be noticed. He’s good-looking, and a certain kind of woman finds him attractive.” A quiver of humor touched his lips. “The sort whose lives are comfortable and a trifle boring,” he continued. “And who think danger would give them the excitement their rank and money shield them from. I imagine you are familiar with the type?”

  “Do you?” Then, like a wave of heat inside him, Monk knew why Rathbone had smiled. Monk himself carried that sort of danger, and he knew it and had used it often enough. It was a hint of the reckless, the unknown, even a suggestion of pain, another reality they wanted to touch but not be trapped in. Boredom held its own kind of destruction.

  He stood up. “Then we had better know everything we can, good or bad,” he said tersely. “If I see anything I don’t understand, I’ll send you a message, and you can find me an accounts clerk.”

  “Monk …”

  “Only if I need one,” Monk said from the door. He did not intend to tell Rathbone about his merchant banking days, and that he knew very well how to read a balance sheet, and what to look for if he suspected embezzlement or any other kind of dishonesty. He wanted to block the whole of the past, most especially to do with Arrol Dundas, from his mind.

  Monk examined the books of Alberton’s business far into the night. Alberton and Casbolt had dealt in a number of commodities, mostly to considerable profit. Casbolt had been extremely knowledgeable as to where to obtain goods at the best price, and Alberton had known where to sell them to the best advantage. They had left a good deal of the shipping to Shearer, and had paid him well for his services. Read in detail, the movement of money showed a trust among the three men stretching back nearly twenty years.