A Breach of Promise

chapter 11
The inquest on Keelin Melville was a very quiet affair, held in a small courtroom allowing only the barest attendance by the general public. This time the newspapers showed little interest. As far as they, or anyone else, were concerned, the verdict was already known. This was only a formality, the due process which made it legal, and able to be filed away as one more tragedy and then forgotten.

The coroner was a youthful-looking man with smooth skin and fair hair through which a little gray showed when he turned and his head caught the light. There were only the finest of lines at the sides of his eyes and mouth. Rathbone had seen him a number of times before and knew he had no liking for displays of emotion and loathed sensationalism. The real tragedy of sudden and violent death, and above all suicide, was too stark for him to tolerate exhibitions of false emotion.

He began the proceedings without preamble, calling first the doctor who had certified Melville as dead. Nothing was offered beyond the clinical and factual, and nothing was asked.

Rathbone looked around the room. He saw Barton Lambert sitting between his wife and daughter, and yet looking oddly alone. He was staring straight ahead and seemed to be unaware of anyone near him. Even Zillah's obvious distress did not seem to reach him. He did not move to touch her or offer her any comfort even by a glance.

Delphine, on the other hand, was quite composed, and even as Rathbone watched her, she leaned forward, smiled and said something to Zillah. A slight flicker of expression crossed Zillah's face, but it was impossible to tell what she was feeling. It could have been an effort to be brave and hide her grief; it could have been tension waiting for the pronouncement of the verdict expected by all of them. It could even have been suppressed anger.

Rathbone was feeling almost suffocating rage himself, partly directed towards the court, towards Sacheverall, who was sitting far away from the Lamberts and carefully avoiding looking towards them. But most painfully, Rathbone's anger was towards himself. He had failed Keelin Melville. Had he not, they would not now be here questioning her death.

He did not even now know how he should have acted to prevent the tragedy from playing itself out. He could think of no place or time when he could have done something differently, but taken altogether the result was a failure, complete and tragic. He had failed to win her trust. That was his shortcoming. He might not have saved her reputation or professional standing in England, but he would certainly have saved her legal condemnation and, without question, her life.

Why had she not trusted him? What had he said, or not said, so that she had taken this terrible step rather than tell him the truth? Had she thought him ruthless, dishonorable, without compassion or understanding? Why? He was not any of those things. No one had ever accused him... except of being a little pompous, possibly; ambitious; even at times cold-which was quite unjustified. He was not cold, simply not overimpulsive. He was not prejudiced-not in the slightest. Even Hester, with all her ideas, had never said he was prejudiced. And heaven knows, she would have said it had it crossed her mind!

The doctor's evidence was finished. It informed them of nothing new.

The police told of being called over the matter, as was necessary. Melville had apparently been alone all evening. There was no sign whatsoever of anyone else's having entered her rooms.

"Was there any evidence of Miss Melville's having eaten or drunk anything since returning home that evening?" the coroner asked.

"We saw nothing, sir," the policeman replied unhappily. "It seemed the young lady had no resident servant. There was nothing out of place. No food had been prepared and there was no crockery or glasses showing as been used."

"Did you search for any container for pills or powders, Sergeant?" the coroner pressed.

"Yes sir, an' we found nothing except a paper for a headache powder screwed up in the wastepaper basket in the bedroom. We looked very careful, sir. Fair turned the place inside out."

"I see. Thank you. You also looked for bottles, I presume? Even clean ones which might have been used and then washed out?"

"Yes sir. No empty packets, bottles, vials, papers, nothing. And we took away and had tested what was still in use. All harmless domestic stuff as you'd find in most people's homes."

"Very diligent. Have you any idea where Miss Melville obtained the poison which killed her, or where she administered it to herself?"

"No, sir, we have not."

"Thank you. That is all. You may step down."

Rathbone looked around again as the sergeant left and the police surgeon was called. Monk sat lost in gloom. He looked about as miserable and angry as Rathbone felt. There was a certain companionship in their silence. Neither of them had the slightest desire to try to express his thoughts in words. It was a vague comfort for Rathbone to know that he was not alone in his struggle to find meaning in this, in his profound unhappi-ness and sense of having been helpless and inadequate all the way along.

The police surgeon gave evidence as to his surprise at discovering the deceased was a woman and not a man as she had at first appeared. But she was in every physical way quite normal-indeed, dressed appropriately she would have been a handsome woman, even beautiful, in her own way. He said it quietly and with great sadness.

There was a hush in the room as he spoke. Someone coughed. Someone else stifled a nervous giggle and was instantly glared at. People seemed to be both embarrassed and moved by a deep sense of loss and the finality of death.

"And the cause of Miss Melville's death?" the coroner asked.

"Belladonna poisoning, sir," the surgeon answered without hesitation.

"Can you be certain of that?"

"Absolutely. I found traces of belladonna in the deceased's internal organs. And on examination of the body, every sign led me to consider it as a probable cause of death."

"What were the signs?"

"Widely dilated pupils, exceedingly dry skin, great dryness in the mouth, redness in the face. On examination of the body in autopsy I also found retention of urine and, of course, failure of the heart consistent with the effects of belladonna." There was an uncomfortable shifting in the court as people imagined the distress and the fear; the immediate physicality of it made it so much more real.

"The symptoms before death include increased heart rate," the doctor continued. "Very loud, audible even at a distance from the patient. Often the patient becomes aggressive, disoriented and suffers hallucinations. The police informed me they found one or two items knocked over, consistent with blurred vision."

Rathbone sat rigidly, his shoulders hunched, his fists tight. His mind was drenched with misery as he thought of Keelin Melville frightened, half blinded, knowing she was dying, hearing her own heart pound until it burst.

"Yes... yes. I do not argue with your conclusion, Doctor." The coroner shook his head, his voice cutting across Rathbone's thoughts. "If you found belladonna within the body then that is sufficient. How long before death would it have been consumed? I take it it was consumed? It was not injected, or absorbed through the skin, or breathed in?"

"No sir, it was swallowed. Death can take anything from a tew hours to a few days, depending on the dose."

"And this dose?"

There was complete silence in the courtroom. Rathbone did not look around, but he could imagine everyone waiting. Why? To know what piece of evidence, what revelation or event had finally been more than Melville could take? Did they need the moment of decision?

"A heavy dose," the doctor replied, pursing his lips. "Sometime during the afternoon."

"Are you sure? Could it not have been after Miss Melville returned home?"

"No. It doesn't work that quickly."

"Or in the morning, before she came to court?"

Rathbone found he could hear his own pulse beating. Could it have been that early? Was it over Wolff's disgrace? Perhaps there had even been a quarrel with him?

"No sir," the doctor said with certainty. There was not even a shadow of doubt in his face or his voice. "If she had taken that much before she came to court in the morning, she would have been showing unmistakable symptoms by midday at the latest. No one could have mistaken it. She would have been dead by the afternoon."

"Are you quite sure about that?" the coroner persisted, his face wrinkled with concern.

"Quite," the doctor assured him.

"Can you tell us whether the belladonna was taken in liquid or powder form, or a tablet? Or if it was taken with food?"

"I cannot tell you whether it was liquid or powder, but it was not taken with food. There was very little food in the stomach. The poison probably acted as effectively as it did for that reason."

"How might one obtain belladonna?"

The doctor shrugged.

"The plant grows wild in all manner of places. Anyone could obtain it. All parts of it are poisonous. Various medical powders can be made from it for the treatment of several conditions." He shrugged very slightly. "Even for enhancing the beauty of the eyes. It enlarges the pupils. Hence the name- 'beautiful woman'-belladonna."

"Thank you." The coroner nodded. "I have no more to ask you, except whether you can tell us if there is any evidence to show whether the deceased took this by her own hand or not."

"I have no way of knowing. That is a police matter. I can only say I know of no way in which it could be accidental."

The coroner pursed his lips, nodding again slowly. He dismissed the doctor with thanks and sipped a glass of cold water before calling Rathbone to the stand. Even when he sat back facing the court again, it was obvious he was disturbed more than usual by the details and the reality of death.

"Sir Oliver," he began slowly, "you were Keelin Melville's counsel during the case for breach of promise brought by Barton Lambert on behalf of his daughter, Miss Zillah Lambert." It was made as a statement, but he waited as if for a reply.

"Yes sir. I was," Rathbone agreed.

"When did you become aware that Miss Melville was indeed a woman, and not a man, Sir Oliver?"

"After her death, at the same time as we all did," Rathbone answered. He could feel the eyes of everyone in the small public gallery upon him and the heat burned up his cheeks at the realization that they must think him a fool. It was not his reputation that bothered him, but the fear that they were right.

"You have no confidence towards your client now, except that of the truth," the coroner said quietly. "What reason did Melville give you for breaking her betrothal to Miss Lambert?"

"She swore that she had never intended to become betrothed to her," Rathbone answered, looking directly at the coroner and avoiding catching the eye of anyone else in the room. "She said it had happened by misunderstanding, which I had difficulty in believing at the time, but now it seems very readily explainable. I think she was genuinely very fond of Miss Lambert, in a manner of friendship, as one woman may be to another. She must have been extremely lonely." He found it difficult to say, and was not even sure if he wanted to expose such private grief to the stare of others. He doubted himself even as he spoke. "Isaac Wolff was the only person she could trust. Perhaps with Miss Lambert she was able to come closer to the pretty and feminine things she would like to have been able to share in herself but knew she never could. She might have allowed her guard to slip, and without being aware of it have given the wrong impression."

There was a soft murmur from the public section. He did not turn to look, although he could imagine Zillah's face. It might be some comfort to her that the deceit was not meant.

The coroner nodded, still watching Rathbone, waiting for him to go on.

"She was horrified when she knew," he resumed, remembering with painful vividness the look in her eyes. It had been close to panic. He had been impatient with it then.

"But she did not explain?" The coroner's face also was touched with deep sadness.

"No."

"I presume you asked?"

"Of course. I pleaded with her to tell me, in total confidence, if she knew anything to Miss Lambert's discredit or if there was anything in her own life which prevented her marrying..."

He heard the faint rustle in the courtroom, but no one laughed.

"She told me there was not." He took a breath. "I did not accept her word. I employed an agent of enquiry to research into both Miss Lambert's past and hers. He found nothing." He owed Monk something better than a bare statement. "If there had been longer, I daresay he would have learned the truth, but events overtook us. It appeared Melville's affair with Mr. Wolff was reason enough. Of course, we now know it was... a love between man and woman, not illegal, not abnormal." He had nearly said "not scandalous," but perhaps since they were not married, there would be those who would consider it so. "Such as is usual enough," he said instead.

"What was her frame of mind, as far as you could judge, when Mr. Sacheverall brought Isaac Wolff to the stand and accused him of a homosexual relationship with Melville?" There was a chill in the coroner's voice, and he did not look towards where Sacheverall was sitting.

"She was deeply distressed," Rathbone answered truthfully. "Very deeply. But she denied it to me."

"Did you believe her?"

"I... I don't know. I neither believed nor disbelieved. I was concerned with trying to rescue what I could from the situation. I hoped I might persuade Miss Lambert to settle for a small amount of damages, so at least Melville might not be financially ruined, as well as socially and professionally." He found the words difficult to say. They still hurt. The failure was deep and twisting inside him.

"Did you tell Miss Melville your hopes?"

"Of course."

"Do you know of anything that occurred that afternoon t which would so alter the circumstances as to make her despair and take her own life?"

"Sacheverall had called a prostitute to the stand in the morning who had sworn that the affair she had observed was of a sexual nature," Rathbone said bitterly, "not the friendship both Wolff and Melville had insisted. But if that was the final incident, then I would have expected her to have taken the poison during the luncheon adjournment, and according to the surgeon she did not."

"Did Miss Melville at any time speak of taking her life, or I say anything which led you, even in hindsight, to suppose she was thinking of it?"

"No." Rathbone's voice sank. "Perhaps I should have realized how desperate she was, but I had formed the belief that her art was so precious to her she would have lived to practice it regardless of anything else. I... in hindsight, I even wondered if she had been murdered... but I know of no way in which anyone else could have administered the poison to her, nor any reason why they should."

"I see. Thank you, Sir Oliver. I have nothing further to ask you."

Rathbone remained where he was. He wanted to say something else, something about the whole ridiculous situation which had brought about a needless tragedy and destroyed one of the most luminous talents he had ever known, not to mention a vibrant, intelligent human being capable of suffering and laughter and dreams.

"It need not have happened!" he said angrily, leaning forward a little over the slender rails of the witness stand, his hands gripping them. "If any of us had behaved with a little more sense, a little more charity, it would all have been avoided. Keelin Melville could be alive now, still creating beauty for us and for our heirs in this city, this country."

There was a murmur of shock in the gallery, and then something which could even have been approval.

He leaned over farther. "For God's sake, why can't we allow women to use whatever talents they have without hounding and denying them until they are reduced to pretending to be men in order to be taken at their true value?"

There was a shifting of weight on the public benches, and a rustle and creak of fabric. People were uncomfortable.

"Why can't we allow people to break a betrothal if they realize it was a mistake," he went on passionately, "without assuming there must be some fearful sin on the part of one or the other of them? Why do we care so much if a woman is pretty or not? If all we want is something lovely to look at, we can buy a picture and hang it on the wall. We do this!" He flung out his arms. "We create a society where people go to law instead of saying to each other the simple truth. And now instead of a broken romance-which, God knows, hurts enough, but we all experience it-we have scandal, disgrace, shame, and worst of all, we have destroyed one of the brightest talents of our generation. And over what? A misunderstanding."

There was definite movement in the gallery now, a whispering, a buzz. Even the jurors were muttering.

Sacheverall rose to his feet, his face red.

"Sir Oliver is being disingenuous, sir, and I cannot sit here in silence and allow it. He knows as well as I do that a young woman's reputation is precious to her. A man who robs another person of reputation steals one of his, or her, most priceless possessions... one that can never be got back again." He glanced at the jurors; he did not care about the public. "That is not a false value. It is a very real one."

His expression twisted to undisguised contempt, and he was moving forward from his seat. "Sir Oliver would be one of the first to complain if his good name was compromised. In fact, he may discover after the loss of this case just how painful it can be when people no longer think of you as well as they once did." He was now out in front of the court, not more than a couple of yards from where Rathbone stood. He was a large man and seemed to crowd the area. He moved his hands around, taking up even more space. Everyone was watching him, but the expressions Rathbone could see were very varied, and not all of respect.

"It is natural enough to resent losing a case, especially as dramatically as he lost this one." Sacheverall smiled fleetingly towards Rathbone. "But that was his error of judgment in accepting it and choosing to fight it in the first place. Now he is blaming all the rest of us"-he swung his arms wide to embrace everyone present-"for Melville's misfortune. That is manifestly preposterous. We are not at fault in any way. Keelin Melville chose to behave unnaturally, to deny her womanhood and attempt to follow a masculine profession from which she would, of course, have been excluded had she not practiced such a deception."

There was a rumble from the body of the room, but he ignored it. He also ignored the growing darkness in the coroner's face, the tight pull of his lips and the drawing down of his brows.

"She also deceived Barton Lambert, her friend and benefactor, who had from the very beginning shown her only kindness and a trust she did not honor and did not return." He gestured contemptuously towards Rathbone. "For Sir Oliver to complain now, and accuse society at large, is to show his own shallowness of character and to demonstrate that, far from learning by his error of judgment, he is determined to compound it."

The coroner was so furious he scarcely knew where to begin.

"Mr. Sacheverall," he said loudly and very clearly, "I believe Sir Oliver included himself in his castigation of society. Perhaps your own involvement in these events did not allow you to listen to what he said with the attention which I think was its due. I have heard what has been said here today up to this point, and unless there is evidence yet to come which contradicts it, I cannot help but agree that the death of Keelin Melville was a tragedy which need not have happened. And for you to suggest that she was depraved, that she deceived Mr. Lambert willfully, I find unjustified and most distasteful."

Sacheverall's face reddened, but it was as much in anger as shame. There was no shred of retreat in his attitude, and his chin jerked up, not down.

"Unless you have something to say which is germane to the issue, Mr. Sacheverall," the coroner continued, "you will return to your seat and keep from any further interruption to our proceedings." He raised his eyebrows. "Do you have any information we should know as to when Keelin Melville took the poison which killed her, where she obtained it, or when?"

"No-I..."

"Did you observe anything which you have not told the police?"

"No-I..."

"Have you anything useful whatever to add?"

"I..."

"Then please resume your seat-and do not interrupt us again!"

Sacheverall retreated in ill-concealed fury. There might have been sympathy for him among his peers, or his friends in society. There was none in the courtroom. Whatever the people there had thought of Keelin Melville in her lifetime, now they had nothing but a sense of pity and an uncomfortable suspicion that they were in some way, no matter how small a way, to blame for her death.

The coroner called Isaac Wolff to the stand. He was obviously in a state of deep grief. His face was almost bloodlessly pale, his eyes had the hollow look of a man who is suffering a prolonged illness, and he spoke quietly and without any lift or timbre in his voice.

The coroner treated him with the greatest courtesy, asking him only those facts which were necessary to corroborate or enlarge upon what was already known.

Wolff answered as briefly as possible, and his bare hands grasped the rail as if he needed it in order to keep his balance. The room was full, for the most part, of ordinary people, and they were too sensible of the presence of loss not to share in it. There was not a sound among them as he spoke. No one fidgeted or turned away. No one whispered to their neighbors.

Rathbone found himself watching Barton Lambert. He too was sunk in a weight of grief. Looking at him now it was naked in his face how fond of Melville he had been-as a friend, as an artist, as a colleague in creating lasting, individual and innovative beauty. It was also clear that his sorrow was touched with an acute awareness of how large his own part had been in this tragedy. His shoulders slumped forward. He did not look to either side of him, as if he preferred to remain islanded away from even those closest to him.

Delphine, on the contrary, sat upright, her eyes wide, her attention sharp and clear. It could not be supposed she was comfortable, but she was enduring the temporary embarrassment with stoicism, knowing the important victory was hers. This was merely part of the price. And there were other battles ahead. Her glance, when it strayed towards Sacheverall, was venomous in the extreme. Rathbone would not be surprised if in due course stories and whispers began to circulate not entirely to Sacheverall's credit. Nothing specific would be said, only looks, intonations of the voice, a question in the eyes. Neither, actually, would he be sorry, in fact, he thought of it with some satisfaction.

After Wolff had finished the coroner called Monk, but only to assure himself that Monk could add nothing. Monk corroborated what he had heard and stepped down again.

The coroner did not retire to consider. There was no need.

"I have listened to all that has been said today." He frowned as he spoke. "It is a case which disturbs me greatly for the loss of a young and brilliant life which had already been an ornament to our culture and would undoubtedly have been more so in the future, had she lived. I have not been satisfied as to exactly how it happened, nor precisely what particular incident turned the balance from discouragement to despair, but there is no other conclusion possible except that Keelin Melville took her own life by swallowing the poison of belladonna while in the courthouse during the case against her for breach of promise." He breathed in and out slowly. "One may only presume that the ruin which the suit brought to her life and career, and to the life of the man she loved, was a pain more than she felt able to bear. We must all live with our own responsibility for our individual parts in that." He picked up his gavel and touched it lightly to its stand. "This court is adjourned."

Monk left after only the briefest word with Rathbone. There really was nothing to say. They both knew before they went in what the verdict would be, and the pain of it would only be made worse by standing around talking about it. They had done their best, and it had not been good enough. Of course, they never expected to win every case. No one did. But losing did not grow easier.

He came down the steps into the street and hailed the first hansom he saw, directing the driver to Tavistock Square. He should tell Hester what had happened in person rather than allow her to read it or hear about it. Anyway, now that it was no longer a cause celebre it would only be a small item on a back page. She might not even see it.

And he wanted to share the burden of his feelings about it with someone to whom it needed no explanation and who would understand without his needing to tell anything but the bare facts.

He was welcomed as usual and shown into the withdrawing room. He asked to see Hester, and this time there was no wailing. She came after barely five minutes, and a glance at his face told her why he had come.

"It's over?" She came in and closed the door behind her. There was a small fire burning and the room looked gentle and very domestic, shabby enough to feel at ease.

"Yes... it's over. Suicide."

She looked at him closely, studying his eyes, his face. For several moments she did not say anything more, simply sharing in silence the complex unhappiness of the knowledge. All sorts of questions and ideas went through his mind as to whether they could have done differently, what he had expected, but none of them were worth putting into words. He knew what her answer would be, and that very fact was comfortable.

"How is Oliver?" she said at last.

He laughed very slightly, abruptly. "Extraordinary... quite out of character," he answered, then wondered immediately if that was so. Perhaps Rathbone had instead found a truer part of himself. "He told the court, and the public, what he thought of their general prejudice and of the value of women for their prettiness and docility, and led the way for the coroner to express his highly unflattering opinion of Sacheverall." He remembered it with surprising pleasure as he said it.

She smiled, a slow, sad smile, but with a gentleness he realized he had seen in her often.

"Poor Oliver. He is not used to feeling so violently. I think he cared about Melville more than most of his cases. I've never seen him so angry."

"You admire that, don't you?" he observed. He made it a question, but he knew it was true. If she had denied it he would not have believed her. He admired it too. He had no regard for someone incapable of anger at injustice.

He had thought Rathbone cold, a creature of his intellect, of superb and total control of his emotions. To find he was not so increased Monk's liking for him. He was not sure that he wished to like Rathbone, but even with all its complications, it was a sweeter feeling than contempt or indifference.

"Do you want to tell Gabriel?" she asked, cutting across his thoughts.

"Yes... yes, I will. How is he?" He asked because he liked Gabriel; it was not a matter of courtesy.

"Better," she replied, meeting his eyes. "I think the pain is about the same. It will be for a while. But he is sleeping with fewer nightmares now."

"Perdita?" he guessed.

She smiled. "Yes. Slowly..."

He smiled also, remembering Athol Sheldon and the look on his face when Perdita had spoken to him the last time Monk had been there. It was a battle she would not win easily, but at least she was prepared to fight it.

Hester led the way from the withdrawing room across the hall and upstairs to Gabriel's room. She knocked on the door.

It was opened by Perdita. She was dressed in soft pink trimmed with wine and she looked very serious and demure in spite of the flattering color. She stared past Hester to Monk.

"Is it more about Martha's nieces?" she asked very quietly, in case Martha should be close and overhear her.

"No, Mrs. Sheldon, it is about the inquest on Keelin Melville."

"Oh." She hesitated only a moment. The old habit of trying to protect Gabriel did not die easily. She had to make a conscious effort to realize what she was doing. She opened the door wider and they followed her in.

Gabriel was sitting up on the bed, but he was fully dressed. It was only the second time Monk had seen him other than under the covers. He realized with a sense of shock how thin Gabriel was. Quite apart from the empty sleeve of his shirt, neatly tucked up and fastened, in the warm room with the sunlight streaming in, the thin cotton fabric showed how his body had wasted even on the other side. Heat, hunger and pain had taken a fearful toll on him. It would be half a year at least before he regained the health he had had before Cawnpore. Monk became acutely curious of his own body with its lean muscles and ease of movement, his energy, the power he did not even have to think of. So much was a matter of fortune. He could have been in the army instead of the police. He might have been in India. He could have been in Gabriel Sheldon's place, and Gabriel in his. Except he would not have had Perdita to care for him and to be responsible for. But he could have! She was just the sort of gentle, charming woman he had fallen in love with so many times.

Gabriel was looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Keelin Melville?" he said at last, when Monk was still silent.

"Yes," Monk replied, coming in. "They held the inquest this morning."

Gabriel's face was unreadable. It flew to Monk's mind that Gabriel must have thought of suicide himself in the early days of his maiming and disfigurement. How often had he lain on his back in agonizing pain and helplessness and wished he were dead? Melville could at least have escaped most of her difficulties. She could have left England and started again in a dozen different places. She was young, healthy; she had sufficient means to travel and no unbreakable ties. Wolff could have gone with her, had he wished to. She was whole of body and had her health and very considerable good looks. In Italy or France she could even have lived openly as a woman and married Wolff. Perhaps she would have had to practice her profession through him, give him credit for her creation or her technical skill... but was that not still infinitely better than dying?

Why had she given up?

"What is it?" Gabriel asked, watching him.

How honest should he be? There was a difference between the candor of respect and the tactlessness of acting without thought or compassion.

"Suicide," Monk replied. "They brought in a verdict of suicide, although they couldn't decide what actually turned the balance between misery and despair or, for that matter, how or precisely when she took the poison."

Perdita gave a little sigh.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said quietly. "She must have found it beyond bearing." He looked for a moment as if he was going to say something more, then changed his mind.

"Do you understand it?" Monk asked, then could have bitten his tongue. It was exactly what he had determined not to do. He was aware of Hester just behind him near the door.

Gabriel smiled, lighting the good side of his face and twisting the scarred flesh of the other.

"No. But if there is anything I've learned in all this, it is that we don't understand what makes the breaking point, or what we find we can endure beyond anything we thought we could-for ourselves or for anyone else." He was speaking quietly, the look in his eyes far away. "The damnedest people endure things that seem impossible, and sometimes do it without even complaining. I've seen men I used to think were ordinary, not very special in any way, a bit crude." He smiled ruefully. "A bit stupid even, put up with terrifying injury without crying out. Or walk for miles with their feet ripped raw and squelching blood, and make silly jokes about it." Hester and Perdita had been close together, motionless up to this point. Now Perdita came forward and sat by the bed near Gabriel, sliding her hand over his.

Gabriel tightened his fingers to grasp hers, then went on. "I've seen men I thought were callous and insensitive stay by a dying man they scarcely knew, and sit up all night telling him stories about anything and everything so he wasn't alone, and then when they were so tired they could hardly see straight, get up and dig a hole deep enough to bury him. I' ve heard illiterate men say prayers that would wrench your heart, and the next minute use language you wouldn't let your father hear, let alone your mother." He laughed, but it was a jerky sound, charged with emotion. "And I've seen men I thought had all the courage in the world lie down and die of a wound that wouldn't have slowed up someone else. I don't know why Melville killed herself. You don't either?"

"No, No, I don't. It..." Monk sighed and sat down on the chair at the foot of the bed. "It leaves a feeling of being unfinished, as if there were something else I should know, but I can't think what it is."

"Don't torture yourself," Gabriel said gently. "You may never know. There are lots of things about other people we'll never understand. It doesn't matter. You don't have any particular right to know-or need, except for your own curiosity."

Perdita turned to Monk.

"Thank you for coming," Perdita said with a tiny smile. "I would far rather you told us than we heard it from Athol." She flinched minutely as she spoke his name, more of remembered pain than dislike. She had known him too long not to understand at least part of the prejudices which drove him. "What will happen to Mr. Wolff?" she asked very quietly. "They can't hurt him, can they?"

Gabriel was watching Monk as well, a shadow of concern in his eyes. Odd how beautiful and clear they were above his disfigured face. Monk found himself no longer surprised or horrified by it. Of course, he had never known him before, and that must make a shattering difference. If he had loved a beautiful woman, how would he feel if she were scarred like that? Would he still be in love with her, or only care as a friend?

Hester was not beautiful... except for her eyes, and her mouth when she was thinking, and when she smiled, and her hands. She had the loveliest hands he had ever seen, not soft and white as fashion admired, but slender, delicate and very strong, perfectly balanced.

Perdita was waiting.

"No..." he said abruptly. "No, it's not a crime to allow someone to masquerade as a man while being a woman. Unless it is for the purpose of fraud, of course."

"But this wasn't!" Perdita said quickly. "She was selling her designs to Mr. Lambert, and it shouldn't matter whether she was a man or a woman for that!"

"Mr. Lambert won't take the matter any further," Monk said with a smile. "Unless he can blame someone for her death- then he will."

Gabriel was surprised. "Can he?"

Monk shrugged. "I doubt it. I thought for a little while it might somehow be murder, but that doesn't make sense, either for motive or opportunity."

"I suppose we should be pleased... I think." Hester came farther into the room at last She met Monk's eyes, searching, behind her words, to see what he felt. "I don't know if I am. I hate to think of her... so..." She did not finish the sentence.

Gabriel shot a glance at her over Perdita's head, but Perdita turned also.

"I know what you mean," she agreed. "But we cannot help. If you wish to see Mr. Monk alone for a little while, I shall stay and keep Gabriel company." She smiled self-consciously. "For once we were not talking about India. I have plans to alter the garden a little and I was telling him about it. I shall draw it out, once he agrees. Perhaps I shall even paint it."

Monk bade them good-bye, and Hester took him to the withdrawing room, where the parlormaid served them with tea and hot buttered crumpets. Monk was surprised how much he enjoyed them. He had been too angry and disturbed to think of luncheon.

"So there's really nothing more you can do for Keelin Melville, is there?" Hester asked, biting into her crumpet and trying very carefully not to drop butter down herself.

"No, it seems to be finished," he agreed. "Gabriel is correct: there are some things we'll never know, and we don't have any right to." He took a second crumpet.

"What are you going to tell Mr. Lambert?"

He looked at her across the tea tray. What did she expect of him? There was nothing to follow, nothing else to pursue.

She was waiting, as though his answer mattered.

"Nothing!" he said a little sharply.

"What other cases have you?" She looked interested, holding the crumpet up regardless of the butter dripping onto the plate.

"Nothing of any interest," he said ruefully. "Trivial things which won't mean anything, people looking for fault when there is only error or inarticulateness." The prospect was tedious but unavoidable. It was part of the daily routine between the larger cases, and it paid his way so well that he relied very little on Callandra Daviot's kindness now. Their original agreement-that he would include her in all the cases of complexity or unusual interest as reciprocation for her assistance in times of hardship-had worked extremely well, to both their advantage.

"Oh, good." Hester smiled and put the rest of the crumpet into her mouth before it lost all its butter. "Then you will have time to look a little further for Martha's nieces."

He should have known she was leading to that. He should have foreseen it and avoided it. How naive of him.

The smile was still on her face, but less certain, and her eyes were very direct.

"Please?" She did not use his name or stretch out her hand to touch him. It would have been easier to refuse if she had. She presumed intolerably upon friendship by not presuming on it at all.

"There is hardly any chance of success," he argued. "Do you realize what you are asking?"

"I think I do." Now she looked apologetic without actually saying so. "It will be very difficult indeed. No one will blame you if you can't find them. Please just look..."

"They're probably dead!"

"If she knew that, then she could mourn them and stop worrying that they are alive somewhere, suffering and alone, and she was doing nothing to help."

"Hester!" he said exasperatedly.

"What?" She regarded him as if she had no idea what he was going to say.

There was no point in arguing with her. She was not going to give up. He might as well agree now as in half an hour, or tomorrow, or the day after.

"I'll try," he said warningly. "It won't do any good."

"Thank you..." Her eyes were soft and bright, and she looked at him with a kind of trust he would never have believed could be so fiercely, uniquely precious.

Monk started out early the next morning without any hope of success. He might trace them from Putney if he was diligent-and lucky. He might even follow the first few years of their unfortunate lives. Would it really help Martha Jackson to know how they were treated, and when and where they died, from what cause? Perhaps it would. Perhaps Hester was right in that it would at least allow her to know there was nothing she could do, so she could begin to leave the worst of the distress behind her.

He packed a small, soft-sided bag with a change of clothes and paid a week's rent in advance, then left Fitzroy Street to travel south and west. He no longer wore his usual smartly cut jacket and elegant trousers. In the places he knew he would be going they would mark him out as a stranger, a target for cut-purses and possibly even garroters. He loathed the feeling of being unshaven, but it helped him to blend less noticeably into the background of those who lived in the borders of the underworld. He wanted to seem a man who should not be crossed, a dangerous man who was too familiar with the territory to be lied to. He also armed himself with a small, sharp knife and as much money as he could spare for food and accommodation, and for such bribes as should prove necessary.

The beginning would be the hardest. It was going to be very difficult indeed to find anyone who knew what had happened to two ugly, slow-witted little girls fifteen years ago. He turned the problem over and over in his mind as he rode in the omnibus along the riverbank and then across the Putney Bridge. The only person who would know would be the landlord who had passed them on, sold them, or whatever arrangement it had been. It would be a waste of his time to bargain with anyone else. Please heaven he was still alive!

It took him all morning and into the early afternoon to track him. He had bought almost a dozen pints of beer or cider for the information.

Mr. Reilly turned out to be a huge man with white hair like a mop head, unkempt and falling over his ears. It also fell over his brow and eyes, but that did not matter because apparently he was completely blind. He welcomed Monk cheerfully. He was sitting in a tattered chair beside the hearth, a mug of ale at his hand where he could reach it without having to fumble. A small black-and-white dog of some terrier breed lay beside his feet and watched Monk carefully.

"What yer be wantin' ter know, then?" Reilly asked cautiously. He was lonely these days, and companionship was precious.

Monk traded on it. "A few tales about the Coopers Arms, when it was yours," he replied, settling into the rickety chair opposite, afraid to let his full weight fall on the back of it in case it collapsed. "What was it like?"

Reilly did not need asking a second time. He launched into one tale after another, and it was the best part of three hours before Monk could steer him towards the two deformed kitchen maids he had sold to a man from Rotherhithe who kept a big public house down by the river and could use some rough help where it wouldn't be seen and no one would mind the twisted lips and the crooked eyes.

"Ugly little beggars, they were," he said, staring sightlessly at Monk. "An' slow with it. Could tell 'em 'alf a dozen times ter do summink, and they still wouldn't. Jus' ignore yer."

"Deaf," Monk said before he thought to stop himself. He was not supposed to know them, or care.

"What?" Reilly frowned at him, taking another long draft of his ale.

"Perhaps they were deaf?" Monk suggested, trying to keep the anger he felt out of his voice, not very successfully.

"Yeah, p'raps." Reilly did not care. He set the mug down with a clunk. "Anyway, I couldn't keep 'em. Upset me customers, and not much bloody use."

"So you sold them to a man from Rotherhithe. That was clever of you." Monk tried to force some appreciation into his tone. Reilly could not see the contempt on his face. "Wonder what he thought when he got them home?"

"Never 'eard," Reilly said, chuckling. " 'E din't come back, that's all I know."

"You never went after him to find out?" Monk barely made it a question.

"Me? Ter Rother'ithe? Not on yer life! Common place. Full o' all sorts. Dangerous too. Nah! I likes Putney. Nice an' respectable." Reilly reached again for his ale mug, which Monk had refilled several times. "What else'd yer like ter 'ear abaht?"

Monk listened another ten minutes, then excused himself after one more attempt to learn the name of the public house in Rotherhithe.

"Elephant an' summink... but you won't like it," Reilly warned.

It was late afternoon and the mournful sound of ships' foghorns drifted up the Thames on the incoming tide as Monk got off the omnibus in Rotherhithe Street, right on the river's edge. He could not afford to ride in hansom cabs on a job like this. Martha Jackson's pocket would not stretch to meet his legitimate expenses, never mind his comfort.

It was a gray, late-spring day with the water slurping against the stones a few yards away and the smells of salt and fish and tar sharp in the air. He was many miles nearer the estuary here than in Putney. The Pool of London lay in front of him, Wapping on the farther side. To his left he could just make out the vast bulk of the Tower of London in the mist, gray and white. Beyond it lay Whitechapel, and ahead of him Mile End.

The pool itself stretched out silver in the light between the snips coming and going laden with cargoes from all over the earth. Every kind of thing that could be loaded on board a vessel came in and out of this port. It was the center of the seagoing world. A clipper from the China Seas, probably in the tea trade, rocked gently on the swell, its masts drawing circles against the sky. A few gulls rode the wind, crying harshly. Barges worked their way upstream, tied together in long queues like the carriages of a train, their decks laden with bales and boxes tied down and covered with canvas.

Downriver on the farther side lay the Surrey Docks, Lime-house and then the Isle of Dogs. He stirred with memories of that, and of the fever hospital where Hester had worked with Callandra during the typhoid outbreak. He would never forget the smell of that, the mixture of effluent, sweat, vinegar and lime. He had been sick with fear for her, that she would catch it herself and be too exhausted to right it.

Even standing there with the cool wind in his face off the water, he broke out in a sweat at the memory.

He turned away, back to the matter in hand. He must find a public house called the Elephant and something.

He stopped a laborer pushing a barrow along the cobbles.

"Elephant an' summink?" The man looked puzzled. "Never 'eard of it. 'Round 'ere, is it?"

"Rotherhithe," Monk answered, a sinking feeling gripping him that the man did not know. Rotherhithe was not so large. A man such as this would surely know all the public houses along the water's edge, by repute if not personally.

They were passed by another group of longshoremen.

"You sure?" The man squinted at Monk skeptically, looking him up and down. "Were yer from? Not 'round 'ere, are yer!"

"No. Other side of the river."

"Oh." He nodded as if that explained everything. "Well, all I knows abaht 'ere is the Red Bull in Paradise Street an' the Crown an' Anchor in Elephant Lane-that's just up from the Elephant Stair... which you can see up there beyond Princes' Stair. Them two are real close."

"Elephant Stair?" Monk repeated with a surge of hope. "Thank you very much. I'm obliged to you. I'll try the Crown and Anchor." And he walked briskly along the river's edge to the Elephant Stair, where the shallow stone steps led down into the creeping tide, salt-sharp and slapping against the walls, crunching and pulling on the shingle. He turned right and went up Elephant Lane.

He went into the crowded, noisy, steamy barroom and ordered and ate a good meal of pie with excellent pastry. He dechned to imagine what the filling might be, judging that he preferred not to know. He followed it with a treacle suet pudding and a glass of stout, then began his enquiries.

He was glad he had eaten first; he needed the strength of a full stomach and a rested body to hear what was told him. It seemed the landlord had paid more attention to the low price than to the goods he was purchasing. When he had got the girls back to Rotherhithe he had put them to work in the sculleries washing glasses and dishes and scrubbing the floors. They had worked from before dawn until the public house closed at night. They had eaten what they could scavenge, and slept on the kitchen floor in a pile of sacking by the hearth, curled up together like cats or dogs.

They were willing enough to work, but they were slow, hampered by partial deafness and by being undersized and frequently ill. After a few months he had come to the conclusion that they were a bad bargain and cost him more than they were worth. He had been offered the chance to sell them to a gin mill in St. Giles, and seized the opportunity. It was a few shillings' return on his investment.

Where was the gin mill?

The publican had no idea.

Would a little money help him to recall?

It might. How much money?

A guinea?

Not enough.

The anger exploded inside Monk. He wanted to hurt the man, to wipe the greedy smile from his face and make him feel for a few minutes the misery and fear those children must have known.

"There are two possible ways of encouraging people to tell you what you need to know," he said very quietly. "By offering a reward..." He let the suggestion hang in the air.

The man looked at Monk's face, at his eyes. He was slow to see the rage there. He felt no more than a short shiver of warning. He was still working out how much money he could squeeze.

"Or by threat of something very nasty happening to them," Monk finished. His voice was still polite, still soft, but there was an edge of viciousness in it a sensitive ear would have caught.

"Oh, yeah?" the man said with more bravado than assurance. "You got something nasty in mind, then, 'ave yer?"

"Very," Monk answered between his teeth. He had the perfect excuse. He knew all the details. He had helped pull the body out of the river before he had quarreled with his superior and left the police force. "Do you remember Big Jake Hillyard?"

The man stiffened. He swallowed with a jerk of his throat.

Monk smiled, showing his teeth. "Do you remember what happened to him?"

"Anybody could say they done that!" the man protested. "They never got the bloke who done it."

"I know they didn't," Monk agreed. "But would anybody else be able to tell you exactly what they did to him? I can. Would you like to learn? Would you like to hear about his eyes?"

" 'E 'ad no eyes... w'en they found Mm!" the man squeaked.

"I know that!" Monk snapped. "I know precisely what he had... and what he hadn't! Where in St. Giles did you send those two little girls? I am asking you very nicely, because I should like to know. Do you understand me... clearly understand me?"

The man's face was white, sweating a little across the lips.

"Yeah! Yeah, I do. It were ter Jimmy Struther, in Coots Alley, be'ind the brickyard."

Monk grinned at him. "Thank you. For the sake of your eyesight, that had better be the truth."

"It is! It is!"

Monk had no doubt from the man's expression that indeed it was. He let the man go, then turned on his heel and left.

St. Giles turned out to be only another stop along the way. According to the woman he questioned there, the girls had remained for several years. She was not certain how many, seven or eight at least. Many of the patrons were too drunk or too desperate to care what a serving girl looked like, and the work was simple and repetitive. Little was asked of them, but then little indeed was given. Such affection or companionship as they ever received was from each other. And apparently each was quick to defend the other, even at the cost of a beating. The elder had once had her nose and two ribs broken in a brawl to protect her younger sister from the temper of one of the yard men.

Monk listened to the stories, and a picture emerged of two girls growing up totally untutored and unhelped, learning what little they did by trial and error-sometimes acutely painful error-able to speak only poorly, words muffled by crooked lips, heard by partially deaf ears. They were sometimes mocked for their afflictions, feared for their appearance, as if the disfigurement might be contagious, like a pox.

One woman said that she had heard them laugh, and on two or three occasions seen them play games with one another. They had a pet dog for a while. She had no idea what had become of it.

"Where did they go from here?" Monk asked, fearing this would be the end of his pursuit. No one would know. They were too weary, too sodden in drink to remember anything, or to care. The next bottle was all that mattered.

One woman shrugged and spat.

A second laughed at him.

The third swore, then mentioned the name of a whorehouse in the Devil's Acre, the teeming slum almost under the shadow of St. Paul's.

That was all he could get from them and he knew it. He had already lost their attention. He rose and left.

It took him two days of bribery, questioning, trickery and threats, and several abortive attempts, before he traced the girls to a brothel off a smith's yard in the Devil's Acre. It was a filthy place awash from overflowing drains and piles of refuse. Rats scuttled along the curbs above the gutters and people, almost undistinguishable from the heaps of rags, lay huddled in doorways.

Monk had been there before, but it still made him sick every time. He was hunched up with a cold that seemed to reach through his flesh to the bones. It knotted his stomach and made him shake till he clenched his teeth together to keep them from rattling. It was partly the wind turning and whistling through the alleys and cracks between the walls, partly the damp which rotted and seeped everywhere. Only when it froze did the incessant sound of dripping stop. And partly it was the smell. It gagged in the throat and churned the stomach.

He was too late. They had been there, scrubbing floors, carrying water from the standpipes four streets away, emptying slops in the midden and bringing back the buckets. They had gone the day before.

Gone...! Where? Why?

One answer to that leaped out at him; because he had been pursuing them. He had asked questions, threatened. He had made his intense interest only too apparent. Someone was frightened, with or without reason. Before he began to look for them they were simply two unwanted girls shunted from one place to another, tolerated as long as some use could be made of them. His persistence and ruthlessness had made them important. He had driven someone to try to get rid of them.

Where do you get rid of people you don't want to be found? Kill them-if you dare. If you are sure you can dispose of the bodies. The thought almost suffocated him. His heart seemed to rise in his throat and drive the breath out of him. He grasped the man by the front of his clothes and jerked him off his feet.

"If you've killed them, I shall personally deliver you to the hangman! Do you understand me? If you don't believe me, then I had better see to it myself. You will have a hideous accident! A fatal one-precisely as fatal as whatever you did to those girls."

"That in't fair!" the man squawked, his eyes rolling.

"Of course it isn't!" Monk agreed, not loosening his grip in spite of the man's gasping and struggling. "There are two of them-and there's only one of you!" He grinned at the man savagely, as if a suddenly brilliant idea had occurred to him. "I've got it! I'll string you up, and then when you're nearly gone-when your lungs are bursting and your face is blue and you're almost on fire-I'll cut you down, throw a bucket of water over you, give you a glass of brandy, wait till you're all right... then do it again! Once for each girl. Is that fairer?"

"I din't do nuffink!" The man saw death in Monk's face and was nearly sick with fright. "They're fine! They're alive and well, I swear ter Gawd!"

"Don't swear. Show me!"

"They in't 'ere! I sold 'em... passed 'em on like. I give 'em a chance ter better theirselves. Get out o' Lunnon and go somewhere better for their 'ealth."

"Where, precisely?" Monk snarled.

"East! Across the water. Honest ter Gawd!"

Monk jerked him up again harshly, hearing his teeth clatter. "Where?"

"France! They're gorn ter France!"

Monk knew what that would be for. From there they would be snipped to God knows where: the white slave trade.

"When?" He slammed the man back against the wall. He regretted it instantly. He could have knocked him senseless, even broken his neck; but then he would be able to tell him nothing. "When did they leave?"

"Yest'y! They went down to the docks... Surrey Docks... yest'y night." He thought he was staring death in the face. "They'll go out on the afternoon tide terday."

"Ship?" Monk demanded. "What ship? Tell me you don't know and I'll send your teeth out through the back of your neck!"

"The S-Summer Rose" the man stammered. "So 'elp me Gawd!"

Monk dropped him and he slid to the floor, lying there sobbing for breath. Monk turned and ran from the room, out across the dripping yard and along the alley overhung with creaking boards and sagging half roofs onto the wider, crooked street He had about an hour and a half before the tide. He would like to have gone home and changed into respectable clothes and collected some more money, but there was no time.

He stopped on the narrow pavement. It was beginning to rain. Should he go right or left? Where was the nearest thoroughfare where he might find a hansom? Would he even get one in the rain? He had very little money left. Not enough to bribe anyone. It was a good three miles to the docks, even as the crow flies, farther on foot with all the twists and bends of streets. He had not time to go on foot, even if he ran, not and still search the docks for one ship, and that ship for two frightened girls, possibly kept below decks and bound.

He turned towards the river and ran down the next alley and into another broader street. There were drays and carts in it, and one closed carriage. No hansoms.

He started to swear, then saved his breath for running.

Perhaps along Upper Thames Street, the closest one to the water, there would be cabs. It was too far! He needed to hurry. They would have to make a detour around the Tower of London.

He stood on the curb waving and shouting. No one stopped. They all splashed by in the harder and harder rain, going complacently on their way. He started to run eastwards. Queenhithe Dock was a little ahead of him. Stew Lane Stairs were to the right.

A long string of barges was pushing downriver, making slow way. The tide had not turned yet, but it would be slack water soon.

Barges! On the river!

He charged across the street, colliding with a costermonger's cart, extricating himself with difficulty amid an array of curses from several passersby. He yelled an apology over his shoulder and sprinted down Dowgate Hill and along the narrow cut down to the stairs just as the last barge drew level. He yelled, waving both his arms, signaling the barge to slow down.

The bargee must have thought it was some kind of warning. He eased a little, dropping back all the weight that his ships would allow. It was enough for Monk to run and leap. He barely made it. Without the bargee's frantic help he would have fallen back into the icy water. As it was, he was soaked from the waist down and had to be hauled sodden and shaking onto the deck.

"Wot the 'ell's the matter?" the bargee demanded.

"Got to get to the S-Surrey D-Dock!" Monk stuttered, shaking with cold. "Before the tide..."

"Missed yer ship, 'ave yer?" the bargee said with a laugh. "Yer'll be lucky if they 'ave yer. Were yer bin? Some 'ore'ouse up Devil's Acre? Gaw' lummy, yer look like 'ell! Wot ship d'yer want, mate?"

"S-Summer R-Rose!" Monk found he could not control the shaking.

"That ol' bucket! Yer'd be better missin' it, believe me." The bargee bent his back and pushed harder on his heavy pole, steering with almost absentminded skill.

Monk debated for a few moments whether to tell the man the truth or not. He might help... he might not give a damn. He might even make his own extra money in the trade.

They were passing under London Bridge.

He was weary of lying. He hated being tired and cold and filthy, and pretending he was something he was not.

"They've taken two girls to sell in France, or wherever they send them after that."

The bargee looked at him curiously, trying to read his face.

"Oh, yeah? What are they ter you, those two girls, then?"

"Their father died and their mother discarded them. They are disfigured, and deaf. Their father's sister is a friend of mine. She's been looking for them for years." It was a slight bending of the truth-in fact, but not in essence.

"Left it a bit late, 'aven't yer?" The bargee looked sympathetic, almost believing.

"They're shipping them out because they know I'm after them," Monk explained. "It's my fault!" he added bitterly.

The bargee regarded the comment critically. "Yer'd be better on something a bit faster'n me," he said with feeling.

"I know that!" Monk retorted. "But you're all I've got."

The bargee grinned and turned to look upstream. He stayed balanced for several moments while they drifted gradually past the bridge and towards the looming mass of the Tower of London, gray turreted against the sky.

Monk was so tense with the passion of frustration he could have screamed, punched something with all his strength as they seemed to move even more and more slowly.

A small, light fishing boat was coming up behind them, skimming rapidly almost over the surface of the water.

The bargee put his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle.

A figure on the fishing boat cocked his head.

The bargee whistled again, waving his arms in what seemed to be some signal language.

The fishing boat changed course to come closer, then closer again.

"Go on!" the bargee shouted at Monk. "Tell 'em wot yer toP me-an' good luck to yer!"

"Thank you!" Monk said with profound sincerity, and took a flying leap for the fishing boat.

It was farther than he thought, and again he barely made it, being caught by strong hands and amid a good deal of ribald laughter. He told the men on the small boat his need, and they were willing enough to help, even eager. They put up more sail and tacked and veered dangerously through the current and across the bows of other ships, and were at the Surrey Docks half an hour before slack water and the turn of the tide.

They even helped him look for the Summer Rose.

It turned out to be a filthy two-masted schooner, low in the water but seaworthy enough to cross the Channel-as long as the weather was easy. He would not have backed her across the Bay of Biscay.

Two of the fishermen came with him, armed with boat hooks and spikes.

Monk led them, facing the captain squarely as they were challenged on deck. He stood arms akimbo, a boat hook held crossways in front of him like a staff.

"You've got two girls on board. I want them. They're taken illegally. Ten guineas reward for you if you give them up... a spike in your gut if you don't."

The captain resented the force, but he looked at Monk's eyes, and the size and weight of the men behind him, and decided ten guineas was sufficient to save his honor.

"I'll bring 'em up, no need to be nasty about it. Ten guineas, yer said?"

"That's right."

"Before I sail? I'm goin' on the tide."

"After. You'll be back."

"How do I know you'll be back, eh?"

"I'll pledge it to the harbormaster. I'll leave it with him." Monk lifted the staff a little, and behind him one of the fishermen fingered his spike.

The captain shrugged. He would not have got much for the girls anyway; they were as ugly as sin, and stupider than cows.

He came back less than four minutes later half struggling with two girls of about twenty years of age or a little more. They were matted with filth, clothed in little more than rags, and obviously terrified. They both had mouths with twisted lips drawn back from their teeth in something close to a snarl or a sneer, but their eyes were wide and, even through the filth, clear and lovely. Above the twisted mouths their bones were delicate, with winged brows and soft, exquisite hairlines.

Monk stared at them in shattering, overwhelming disbelief. He was almost choked by it, his heart beating in his throat. He was looking at faces which were caricatures of Delphine Lambert's. Robbed of speech, almost of coherent thought, he simply held out his hands and let the staff fall.

"Come..." he croaked. "I've come to take you home... Leda... Phemie!"