Slaves of Obsession

by Anne Perry

  “That is hardly a comparison, Merrit—”

  “Yes, it is! The Rebels keep slaves!” She was shaking with emotion. “They buy men and women, and children, and use them like animals! How could you sell guns to people like that? Have you no morality at all? Is it just money? Is that it?” Almost unconsciously she was moving even closer to Breeland, who was watching with an almost impassive face.

  “Merrit—” Alberton began.

  But she cut him off. “There’s no argument can justify what you are doing! I am so ashamed of you I can hardly bear it!”

  He made a gesture of helplessness. “Merrit, it is not so simple as—”

  Again she refused to listen. She still seemed unaware of Monk’s presence. Her voice rose even more shrilly as her outrage drove her on. “Yes, it is! You are selling guns to people who keep slaves, and they are at war with their countrymen who want to prevent that and set the slaves free.” She flung her arm out furiously. “Money! It’s all about money, and it’s pure evil! I don’t know how you, my own father, can even try to justify it, let alone be part of it. You are selling death to people who will use it in the worst possible cause!”

  Breeland moved as if to put his hand on her arm.

  At last Alberton’s temper gave way. “Merrit, be quiet! You don’t know what you are talking about! Leave us alone.…”

  “I won’t! I can’t,” she protested. “I do know what I am talking about. Lyman has told me. And so do you, that’s the worst of it! You know, and still you are prepared to do it!” She took a step towards him, ignoring Monk and Breeland, her face crumpled, brows drawn down. “Please, Papa! Please, for the sake of all the enslaved, for the sake of justice and freedom, above all for your own sake, sell the guns to the Union, not to the Rebels! Just say you can’t support slavery. You won’t even lose any money … Lyman can pay you the whole amount.”

  “It’s not about money.” Alberton’s voice was also louder now, and sharp with hurt. “For God’s sake, Merrit, you know me better than that!” He ignored Breeland as if he had not been present. “I gave my word to Trace and I won’t break it. I don’t agree with slavery any more than you do, but I don’t agree with the Union’s forcing the South to remain part of it under their government either, if they don’t want to! There are lots of different kinds of freedom. There’s freedom from hunger and the bondage of poverty as well as the sort of slavery you’re talking about. There’s—”

  “Sophistry!” she said, her face flooding with color. “You’re happy enough to live here and make your own way. You aren’t standing for Parliament to try to change our lives to stop hunger and oppression. You’re a hypocrite!” It was the worst word she could think of, and the bitterness of it was in her eyes and her voice.

  Breeland stared coldly at Alberton. It seemed at last he understood that he would not change his mind. If all that Merrit had said did not affect him, there was nothing else for him to add.

  “I am sorry that you have seen fit to act against us, sir,” he said stiffly. “But we shall prevail, nevertheless. We shall obtain what we need in order to win, whatever sacrifice it requires of us and whatever the cost.” And with only a glance at Merrit, as if knowing she would understand, he turned on his heel and strode out. They heard his footsteps move sharply across the wooden floor of the hall.

  Merrit stared at her father, her eyes hot and wretched. “I hate everything you stand for!” she said furiously. “I despise it so much I am ashamed that I live under your roof or that you paid for the food in my mouth and the clothes on my back!” And she too ran out, her feet light and rapid, heels clattering across the floor and up the stairs.

  Alberton looked at Monk.

  “I am profoundly sorry, Monk,” he said miserably. “I had no idea you would be subjected to such unpleasantness. I can only apologize.”

  Before he could add anything further, Judith Alberton appeared at the door. She looked a little pale, and quite obviously she had overheard at least the last part of the argument. She glanced at Monk, embarrassed, then at her husband.

  “I am afraid she is in love with Mr. Breeland,” she said awkwardly. “Or she thinks she is.” She watched Alberton with anxiety. “It may take a little while, Daniel, but she will think better of this. She’ll be sorry she spoke so …” She faltered, uncertain what word she could use.

  Monk took the opportunity to excuse himself. He had said all he had meant to about his enquiry. The Albertons should be permitted privacy in which to resolve their difficulties.

  “I shall keep you informed of everything else I hear,” he promised.

  “Thank you,” Alberton said warmly, holding out his hand. “I … I am very sorry for this unpleasantness. I am afraid emotions run very high in this American affair. I think we have barely seen the beginning of it.”

  Monk feared he was correct, but he said no more, wishing them good night and allowing the butler to show him out.

  He woke confused, wondering for a moment where he was, struggling to separate the persistent noise from the last shreds of his dream. He sat up quickly. It was daylight, but shadowy and thin. The noise continued.

  Hester was awake. “Who can it be?” she asked anxiously, sitting upright, her hair falling around her shoulders. “It’s quarter to four!”

  Monk climbed out of bed and grasped his dressing gown. He put it on hastily and went through to the front of the house, where the knocking was now louder and more persistent. He had not bothered with boots or trousers. Whoever it was seemed so desperate they were determined to wake someone even if it meant disturbing the entire neighborhood.

  Monk fumbled for a moment with the lock and then opened the door.

  Robert Casbolt stood on the step in the thin dawn light, his face unshaven, his hair rumpled.

  “Come in.” Monk stepped back, holding the door wide.

  Casbolt obeyed without hesitation, and began speaking even before he was over the threshold.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you in such a frantic manner, but I’m terribly afraid something irreparable may have happened.” His words stumbled as if he could barely control his tongue. “Judith—Mrs. Alberton sent me a note. She is beside herself with worry. Daniel left shortly after you did and he has not returned. She said Breeland was there yesterday evening and was very angry indeed … even threatening. She is terrified that … I’m sorry.” He brushed his hand across his face as if to clear his vision and steady himself. “What is worse is that Merrit has disappeared too.” He stared at Monk with horror in his eyes. “She seems to have gone straight up to her room after the quarrel with her father. Judith assumed she would stay there, in temper, and probably not come down until morning.”

  Monk did not interrupt.

  “But when she was unable to sleep with anxiety over Daniel,” Casbolt went on, “she went to Merrit’s room—and found her gone. She was nowhere in the house, and her maid looked and said a bag and some of her clothes were gone … a costume and at least two blouses. And her hairbrush and combs. For God’s sake, Monk, help me look for them, please.”

  Monk tried to collect his thoughts and form some clear plan as to what to do first. Casbolt seemed close to the edge of hysteria. His voice was erratic and his body so tense his hands clenched and unclenched as if stillness were unbearable.

  “Has Mrs. Alberton called the police?” Monk asked.

  Casbolt shook his head very slightly.

  “No. That was the first thing I suggested, but she was afraid if Merrit has gone to Breeland that she would be involved in scandal and it would ruin her. She …” He took a deep breath. “Honestly, Monk, I think she is afraid Breeland has done Daniel some harm. Apparently when he left the house he was in a terrible rage, and said that he would win one way or another.”

  “That is true,” Monk agreed. “I was there when he said it.” He remembered with a chill the passion in Breeland’s voice. It was the fire of the artist who creates from nothing a great vision for the world, the explorer who ventures i
nto the unknown and opens the way for lesser men, the inventor, the thinker, the martyr who dies rather than deny the light he has seen … and the fanatic who sees any act justified by the cause he serves.

  Casbolt was right to be afraid of Breeland; so was Judith Alberton.

  “Yes, of course I’ll come with you,” he answered. “I’ll go and dress, and tell my wife. I’ll be five minutes, or less.”

  “Thank you! Thank you very much.”

  Monk nodded, then went hastily back to the bedroom.

  Hester was sitting up with a shawl around her.

  “Who is it?” she asked before he had closed the door.

  “Casbolt,” he answered, taking off his dressing gown and putting on his shirt. “Alberton went out shortly after I left and hasn’t come home, and Merrit is missing. It looks as if she might have gone after Breeland. Stupid child!”

  “Can I help?”

  “No! Thank you.” He fastened his shirt with clumsy fingers, moving too hastily, then reached for his trousers.

  “Be careful what you say to her,” Hester warned.

  He would have been delighted to put Merrit Alberton over his knee and spank her until she was obliged to eat off the mantelpiece for a week. It must have shown in his face, because Hester stood up quickly and came to him.

  “William, she is young and full of ideals. The harder you argue with her, the more stubborn she will be. Fight with her, and she’ll do the last thing she really wants to rather than be seen to give in. Plead for her help, her understanding, earn her mercy, and she’ll be reasonable.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was sixteen once,” she said a trifle tartly.

  He grinned. “And in love?”

  “It is a natural state of affairs.”

  “Was he a gun buyer for a foreign army?” He put his jacket on. There was no time to shave.

  “No, actually he was a vicar,” she replied.

  “A vicar? You … in love with a vicar?”

  “I was sixteen!” There was warm color in her cheeks.

  He smiled and kissed her quickly, feeling her respond after only an instant’s hesitation.

  “Be careful,” she whispered. “Breeland may be …”

  “I know.” And before she could add anything further he went out and back to where Casbolt was standing near the door impatiently.

  Casbolt’s carriage was waiting outside in the street, and he climbed in ahead of Monk, shouting at the driver sitting huddled on the box. The summer dawn was hardly cold, but too chilly to wait in, and the man had been woken barely halfway through his sleep.

  The carriage lurched forward and reached a good speed within moments. It was altogether fourteen minutes since Casbolt had interrupted Monk’s dream.

  “Where are we going?” Monk asked as they rolled over the cobbles and were flung together by the swerve around a corner.

  “Breeland’s rooms,” Casbolt answered breathlessly. “I nearly went straight there without you, but for the cost of a street or so out of my way, I could have you with me. I don’t know what we should find there. It may need more than one of us, and I formed the opinion you are a good man to have beside me in a scrap—if it should come to that. God knows what is in Merrit’s mind. She must have lost all sense of … everything. She hardly knows the man! He …” He gasped as they were bumped again and the carriage swerved the other way, this time throwing him half on top of Monk.

  “He could be anything!” he went on. “The man’s a fanatic, prepared to sacrifice everything and everybody to his damned cause! He’s madder than any of our own military men, and God help us, they are insane enough.” His voice was rising with a wild note in it. “Look at some of their antics in the Crimea. Any price to be a hero—glory of victory, blood and bodies all over the place, and for what? Fame, an idea … medals and a footnote in history.”

  They were clattering through a leafy square, the trees making a temporary darkness.

  “Damn Breeland and his idiotic ideals!” he said in an explosion of fury. “He has no business preaching to a sixteen-year-old girl who thinks everyone else is as noble and as uncomplicated as she is.” There was a startling venom in his voice, a passion so deep it broke through his control and was raw in the air in the broadening light as they careered through the dawn streets.

  Monk wished there were some help he could offer, but he knew that what Casbolt said was true. He deplored fatuous words, so he remained silent.

  Suddenly the carriage drew up, Casbolt glanced out to make sure it was not a crossroads, apparently recognized where he was, and all but threw himself out.

  Monk followed after him as he strode across the pavement to a doorway, opened it abruptly, and went inside. It was merely the outer entrance to a set of apartments, and the night doorman was sitting comfortably half asleep in a chair in the hallway.

  “Breeland’s rooms!” Casbolt said loudly as the man started awake.

  “Yes, sir.” He scrambled to his feet, fishing for his cap and setting it crookedly on his head. “But Mr. Breeland in’t ’ere. ’E’s gorn, sir.”

  “Gone?” Casbolt looked staggered. “He was here last night. What do you mean ‘gone’? Where to? When will he be back?”

  “ ’E won’t be back, sir.” The doorman shook his head. “ ’E’s gorn for good. Paid up an’ took ’is bags. Not that ’e ’ad but the one.”

  “When?” Casbolt demanded. “What time did he go? Was he alone?”

  The doorman squinted. “I dunno, sir. ’Bout ’alf-past eleven, or summink like that. Were before midnight, anyway.”

  “Was he alone?” Casbolt persisted. His body was shaking and his face was white, a fine sweat on his brow.

  “No, sir.” The doorman was definitely frightened now. “There were a young lady wif ’im. Very pretty. Fair ’air, much as I could see of it. She ’ad a bag wif ’er as well.” He swallowed. “Was they elopin’?” His breath caught in his throat and he coughed convulsively.

  “Probably,” Casbolt replied, the pain naked in his voice.

  The doorman controlled his coughing. “Are you ’er father? I din’t know, I swear ter Gawd!”

  “Godfather,” Casbolt replied. “Her father may have come looking for her as well. Was there anyone else here?”

  The doorman screwed up his face. “There were a message for Mr. Breeland, but it just come wi’ a reg’lar lad. Took it up ter Mr. Breeland, personal, an’ went orff again. An’ there were someone after that too, but I only just saw the back of ’im as ’e went up.”

  “What time was the message?” Casbolt said, desperation rising in his voice.

  “Jus’ afore ’e went orff.” The doorman was now thoroughly alarmed. “I gave Mr. Breeland a knock an’ ’e answered the door. The lad give ’im the message. Wouldn’t trust me ter do it. Sounds as ’e’d bin paid ter give it personal, like I said, an’ wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “About half-past eleven?” Monk interrupted.

  “Yeah, or a bit later. Anyway, Mr. Breeland came out jus’ minutes arter that, wi’ ’is things in ’is bag and the young lady arter ’im, and paid me wot ’e owes, for me ter give the landlord, an’ orff ’e goes. An ’er wif ’im.”

  “May we see his rooms?” Casbolt asked. “It may tell us something, although I have little hope.”

  “Course, if yer want.” The doorman was more than amenable and started leading the way.

  “Have you any idea what was in the note?” Monk asked, keeping pace with him. “Any idea at all? How did he look when he read it? Pleased, surprised, angry, distressed?”

  “Pleased!” the doorman said immediately. “Oh ’e were right pleased. ’Is face lit up an’ ’e thanked the lad, give ’im sixpence!” He was clear the extravagance spoke volumes about his pleasure. “An’ in a terrible ’urry ter be gorn, ’e were.”

  “But did he give you any idea where to?” Casbolt urged, so agitated he moved his weight from one foot to the other, unable to keep still.r />
  “No. Jus’ said as ’e ’ad ter ’urry, be very quick, an’ ’e were. Out in ten minutes, ’e were.” He came to the door of Breeland’s room and opened it, stepping back to allow them in.

  Casbolt went straight past him and turned around slowly, staring.

  Monk followed. The room seemed stripped of all personal belongings. He saw only a little crockery, a bowl for water, a ewer and a pile of towels. There was a Bible and a few scraps of waste paper on the dressing table. There was nothing left to indicate who had occupied the room only a few hours before.

  Casbolt went straight to the dressing table, rifling through, then around pulling out the drawers. He yanked the bedclothes back right to the mattress, his actions growing wilder as he found not a thing beyond the landlord’s few furnishings.

  “There’s nothing here,” Monk said quietly.

  Casbolt swore, fury and desperation sharp-pitched in his voice.

  “There’s no point in staying,” Monk cut across him. “Where else can we look? If Breeland’s gone, and Merrit is with him, perhaps Alberton went after them both? Where would they be most likely to head?”

  Casbolt put his hands up to cover his face. Then his body stiffened and he stared at Monk wide-eyed. “The note! Merrit was with him, so it couldn’t have been from her. He was pleased by it—very pleased. The only thing he cares about is the damned guns! It must be to do with them.” He was moving towards the door already.

  “Where?” Monk went after him out into the hallway.

  “If he’s held Merrit to ransom, then the warehouse. That’s where the guns are,” Casbolt called, racing to the front door and out into the street. “It’s on Tooley Street!” he shouted to the driver, and pulled the door open, scrambling in a stride ahead of Monk. The carriage lurched forward and picked up speed, throwing Monk hard on the seat. It was moments before he was upright and had regained his balance.

  They rode in silence, each consumed by fear of what they would find. It was clear daylight now and a few laborers were on their way to work. They passed wagons going to the vegetable market at Covent Garden, or others like it. It was all a familiar blur.