Cain His Brother

chapter 7
Monk woke the next morning and memory returned like a cold tide, almost choking him. He gasped for breath, and sat up, his body shaking. The evening had been wonderful, full of laughter and companionship. Then sud- denly, without the slightest warning whatever, Drusilla had changed from the caring, intimate friend she had been, and became a screaming accuser, her face contorted with hate. He could remember it with fearful clarity, as if it were still in front of him, the lips drawn back, the ugliness in mouth and eyes, the triumph.

But why? He hardly knew her, and everything they had shared had been of the greatest pleasure. She was a sophisticated, delightful woman of society, dabbling in a few hours' amusement rather more daring than usual. She was bored with her own circle. She had chosen Monk to take her out of it briefly. And she had chosen him! Her interest had been perfectly plain from the moment they had met on the Geographical Society steps. Looking back on it now, she had bumped into him every bit as much as he into her. Perhaps he should have wondered then why she was so willing to court his company.

Most women would have been more cautious, more circumspect. But he had assumed that she was bored with the restrictions society placed on her and longed for the freedom he represented.

Was she mad? Her behavior was more than unstable, it was unbalanced. This charge would ruin him, but if she insisted that he attempted to force his attentions on her, which she could not possibly believe, then she stood to be at best the subject of speculation as well as sympathy, and at worst the butt of less than charitable gossip. Perhaps she had escaped from Bedlam, or some other asylum for the insane.

He lay on his back staring at the ceiling.

No, that was stupid. If she were demented, then it would be a private matter, cared for by her family. That must be it. She had temporarily escaped her keepers. When she was found again, it would all be explained.

They would understand. Quite probably she had behaved wildly before. Per- haps she had even done the same thing to some other unfortunate man. He rose, washed and shaved. It was while he was staring at his face in the glass, its lean planes, the level gray eyes hard and clever, the wide lips with the faint scar beneath, that he remembered seeing the same face when he first came back from hospital. He had not known it then, not found it even faintly familiar. He had searched it then as he might a stranger's, looking for character, the weaknesses and the strengths, the marks of appetite, the signs of gentleness or humor or pity.

The next question was obvious. Was Drusilla Wyndham mad, or had she known him before, and hated him? Had he done her some injury which she could never forgive, and this was her revenge?

He did not know!

Slowly he cleaned his shaving things and put them away, his hands moving automatically.

But if he had known her, then she must surely have expected him also to know her now? How had she dared approach him as if they were strangers? Had she changed so much she had assumed he would never recognize her?

That was ridiculous. She was a remarkable woman, not merely beautiful but most unusual. Her carriage, her dignity, and her wit were unique. How could she expect any man to see her and then forget her so completely that in meeting again, seeing her repeatedly, speaking with her, hearing her laugh, he would still not remember?

He walked over to the window and stared out at the gray morning, carriages passing below with lamps still lit.

She must know of the loss of his memory.

But how? Who could have told her? No one knew except his personal friends: Hester, Callandra, Oliver Rathbone, and of course John Evan, the young policeman who had been so loyal during that first terrible case after the accident.

Why did she hate him enough to do this? It was no sudden impulse. She had lied and connived from the beginning, sought him out, charmed him, and deliberately placed him where he could be accused and had no defense. They were alone. Her reputation was intact, it was a situation in which it was quite justifiable to be. He could imaginably have assaulted her, and she had witnesses, at least to her distress and escape.

Who would believe his account?

No one. It made no sense at all. He could hardly believe it himself. He dressed, and forced himself to eat the breakfast his landlady brought. "You don't look well, Mr. Monk," she said with a shake of her head. "Do 'ope as yer not coming down wi' summink. 'Ot mustard poultice, me ma always used to say. Swear by it, she did. Any'ow, tell me if yer needs one, an' I'll make it for yer."

"Thank you," he said absently. "Think I'm just tired. Don't worry."

"Well, you mind yerself, then." She nodded. "Gets yerself ter some funny parts, you do. Wouldn't be surprised if yer picked up summink nasty." He mumbled a noncommittal reply, and she busied herself clearing away. There was a knock on the outside door and Monk rose to answer it. The blast of cold air chilled him. The daylight was damp and gray.

"Letter for you, mister," a small boy said, smiling at him from beneath an oversized cap. "Fer Mr. Monk. That's you, innit? I knows yer. I seen yer abaht."

"Who gave it to you?" Monk demanded as a glance at the writing showed it unfamiliar. It was elegant, feminine, and not Hester's, Callandra's or Genevieve Stonefield's.

"Lady in a carriage, guv. Dunno her name. Give me threepence ter give it yer."

His stomach leaped. Perhaps this was some explanation? It would all make sense. It was a mistake.

"Lady with fair hair and brown eyes?" he demanded.

"Fair 'air, dunno about eyes." The boy shook his head. "Thank you." Monk tore the letter open. It was dated that morning.

Mr. William Monk,

I had never assumed you to be a gentleman of my own station, but I had imagined you to have the rudiments of decency, or I should never have consented to spend a moment's time in your company, other than as ordinary courtesy demanded. I found your differences entertaining, no more. I am bored with the narrow confines of my own place in society, stifled by the rules and conventions. You offered a stimulating view of another level of life.

I cannot believe you so misunderstood my courtesy that you imagined I was willing to allow our acquaintance to be more. The only explanation for your behaviour lies in your disregard for the feelings of others, and your willingness to use people to achieve your own satisfactions, regardless of the cost to them.

I can never forgive you for what you have done to me, and I shall do all in my power to see that you pay to the uttermost farthing. I shall pursue this through the law, by word of mouth, and through the civil courts if need be. You shall know with every breath you take that I am your enemy, and you will rue the day you chose to use me as you have. Such betrayal will always find its punishment.

Drusilla Wyndham

He read it again. His hands were shaking. It was incredible.

But on second reading it was exactly the same.

"Y' all right, mister?" the boy said anxiously.

"Yes," Monk lied. "Yes, thank you." He fished in his pocket and took out threepence. He would not have her pay more than he.

The boy took it with thanks, then changed his mind, painfully.

"She already gimme."

"I know." Monk breathed in, trying to steady himself. "Keep it."

"Fank yer, guv." And before his good fortune could vanish, the boy turned and ran down the street, his boots clattering on the cold pavement. Monk closed the door and went back to his inner room. His landlady had gone. He sat down, the letter still in his hand, although he did not look at it anymore.

It could not possibly refer to last night, or any other time over the last week. She could only mean some acquaintance they had had in the past. It always came back to the past, and that great void in his memory, the darkness where anything might exist.

She had used the word betrayal. That implied trust. Was he really a man to do such a thing? He had never betrayed anyone since the accident. Honor was one virtue he possessed. He had never broken his word. He would not let himself down by such an act.

Could he have changed so much? Had the blow to his head not only obliterated all the past from his mind, but also altered his nature? Was that possible?

He paced the floor back and forth, trying to think of all the things he had pieced together about himself from before the accident, the fragments that had come back to him, the flashes from his childhood in the north, glimpses of the sea, its violence and its beauty. He recalled his eagerness to learn, fleeting impressions; a face, a sense of injustice and desperation, the man who had been his mentor, and who had been deceived and ruined, and Monk had been unable to help. Nothing he could do had saved him.

That was when he had abandoned commerce and dedicated himself to the police.

That was not a man who would betray!

In the police he had risen quickly. He knew from a dozen minor evidences, people's faces when he met them again, remarks half heard. He had been cruel of tongue, critical, at times ruthless. Runcorn, his old superior, had hated him, and little by little Monk had learned it was not without cause. Monk had contributed to Runcorn's failures and inadequacies, he had undermined him steadily, even if Runcorn had at least in part brought it upon himself with his petty hatreds and his personal ambitions, which he was prepared to achieve on the backs of others.

Was that a kind of betrayal?

No. It was cruelty, but it was not dishonest. Betrayal was always eventually a kind of deceit.

He knew almost nothing about his relationships with women. The only one of whom he had any recollection was Hermione, whom he had thought he loved, and in that he was the loser. If anyone was betrayed it was he. It was Hermione who had been so much less than she promised, she who had been too shallow to grasp at love, who had preferred the comfortable, the unchallenging, the safe. He could still feel the hollowness of loss when he had found her again, so full of hope, and then the disillusion, the utter emptiness.

But he must have known Drusilla! That hatred on her face had some terrible reason, some foundation in a relationship where she felt so wronged she had been prepared to do even this to be revenged.

He had already read through all the letters and the bills he could find when he first returned home from the accident, trying then to reconstruct some framework to his life. There was little enough. He was careful with money, but extravagant as far as personal appearance was concerned. His tailor's bills were high, as were his shirtmaker's and bootmaker's, even his barber's.

There had been no personal letters except from his sister, Beth, and he had obviously been remiss in writing back to her. Now he searched through them again, but there was nothing in the same hand as Drusilla's letter.

Admittedly there was nothing else personal.

He put them all back. It was a sparse record for a lifetime. There was no sense of identity in it, no feeling for the nature and personality of a man. There must be so much that he did not know, and probably never would.

There must have been loves and hates, generosities, injuries, hopes, humiliations and triumphs. They were all wiped out as if they had never happened.

Except that for everyone else they were still there, sharp and real, still carrying all their emotion and pain.

How could he have known a woman like Drusilla, with her vitality, beauty, wit and charm, and simply have forgotten her so totally that even on seeing her again, being so happy with her, he still had no hint of memory? Nothing was familiar. Rack his brain as he might, there was no chord, no flash of even momentary recollection.

He stared out of the window at the street. It was still gray, but the carriage lamps were no longer lit.

It would be a delusion to think she would not proceed. Of course she could prove nothing. Nothing had happened. But that was immaterial. She could make the charge, and it would be sufficient to ruin him. His livelihood depended on his reputation, on trust.

He had no other skills. Perhaps she knew that?

What had he done to her? What manner of man was he-had he been?

Hester was still taking her turn nursing Enid Ravensbrook, who was now beginning the long, slow journey to recovery but still needed constant attention, or she could slip into relapse.

The same morning that Monk received his letter from Drusilla, Hester returned from the makeshift hospital to Ravensbrook House, tired and thoroughly miserable. She ached from lack of sleep, her eyes stung as if she had grit or dust in them, and she was heartsick of the sights and sounds and smells of distress. So many people had died. The bare few who had recovered gave it all meaning, but it was small in the sight of so much loss. And no matter how hard Kristian tried, what arguments he put up in the local government council, nothing was done. They were frightened of the disease, frightened of the cost of new sewers, frightened of innovation or change, of new inventions which might not work, of old ones which had already failed, and of blame no matter what they did. It was an exhausting struggle, and almost certainly doomed to failure. But neither he nor Callandra could give up.

Hester had watched them day after day marshaling new arguments and returning to battle. Each evening they had retired defeated. The only good to come of it was the tenderness they shared with each other, and even that was fraught with pain. After the fever they would part again, to see each other only occasionally, formally, perhaps in meetings of the board of governors of the hospital where Kristian worked and Callandra gave her help voluntarily. These meetings would be in front of all the other governors, or if they were fortunate, perhaps a chance encounter in a corridor with the constant expectation of interruption. They would speak of anything and everything but themselves. In all probability it would always be so. Hester was welcomed in by the parlormaid and told that a supper was prepared if she wished it, after she had seen Lady Ravensbrook and Mrs. Stonefield.

She thanked the girl and went upstairs.

Enid was propped up in bed, leaning against a pile of pillows. She looked gaunt, as if she had not eaten or slept in days. There were bruised hollows around her eyes and her skin looked discolored and paper-fragile. Her hair hung in lank strings around her shoulders and she was so thin the bones seemed in danger of hurting the flesh stretched across them. But she smiled as soon as she saw Hester.

"How are they?" she asked, her voice still weak, only lifted by the eagerness inside her. "Is it easing at all? How about Callandra? Is she all right? And Mary? And Kristian?"

Hester felt some of the tension slip away from her. The room was warm and comfortable. There was a fire in the hearth. It was a different world from the coldness and the dirt of the hospital, the guttering candles and the smell of too many people unwashed, close together in their pain.

Hester sat on the edge of the bed.

"Callandra and Mary are still well, though very tired," she replied. "And Kristian is still fighting the council, but I don't think he has won a yard of ground. And yes, I think the fever is lessening a little. Certainly there are fewer deaths. We sent two people home today, both well enough to leave."

"Who are they? Did I know them?"

"Yes," Hester said with a broad smile. "One is the little boy you were so fond of, the one you thought could never survive..."

"He's all right?" Enid said in amazement, her eyes lighting. "He's recovered?"

"Yes. He went home today. I don't know what gave him the strength, but he survived."

Enid leaned back against her pillows, a great sweetness in her face, almost a radiance. "And the other?" she asked.

"A woman with four children," Hester answered. "She went home to them today as well. But how are you? That's what I came to know."

It was a question only of friendship. She would make her own determination.

The improvement in Enid was great. Her eyes were clearer, her temperature down to normal, but the fever had wasted her and she looked at the very end of her strength.

Enid smiled. "Very impatient to feel better," she confessed. "I hate feeling so weak. I can barely lift my hands to feed myself, much less comb my hair. It's absurd. I lie here uselessly. There is so much to do, and I am spending three quarters of my life asleep."

"It is the best thing," Hester assured her. "Don't fight against it. It is nature's way of healing you. You will be better the faster if you submit to it."

Enid clenched her teeth. "I hate to surrender!"

"Military tactics." Hester leaned forward conspiratorially. "Never fight when you know your enemy has the advantage. Pick a time, don't let him do it for you. Retreat now, and return when the advantage is yours."

"Ever thought of being a soldier?" Enid asked with a giggle which turned into a cough.

"Frequently," Hester replied. "I think I could make a better fist of it than many who do it now. Certainly I could barely do worse."

"Don't let my husband hear you say that!" Enid warned happily.

Hester's reply was cut off by Genevieve's appearance. She looked less harassed than when Hester had seen her last, although she must have been tired, and Hester knew from Monk's remark that there had been no good news.

She greeted her, and after an exchange of necessary information regarding Enid, they both left to partake of the meal which had been set for them in the housekeeper's sitting room.

"The fever is definitely abating in Limehouse," Hester said conversationally. "I only wish we could do something to prevent it coming back again."

"What could anyone do?" Genevieve asked with a frown. "The way people live, it is bound to arise every so often."

"Change the way they live," Hester replied.

Genevieve smiled, bitterness and a kind of revulsion in it, not untouched by both anger and pity.

"You'd have more luck trying to stop the tide from turning." She speared a piece of meat in her steak and kidney pudding and put it in her mouth, then spoke again the moment after she had swallowed it. "You can't change people. Oh, one or two, maybe, but never thousands. They've lived like that for generations, never enough to eat, the bread's full of alum, the milk's half water." She gave a sharp laugh. "Even the tea is better for poisoning the rats than for humans drinking. Only working men get things like pigs' trotters or kippers, the rest of the family does without. Nobody has fruit or vegetables. Everybody in the street, in two streets, has to queue with pails for water from the wells, and half of them are contaminated by sewers, cesspits or middens. Even if they didn't use the one pail for everything!" Her voice was angry, bitter and racked with emotion. "They're born with disease, and they die with it. A few sewage pipes aren't going to change that!"

"Yes they can," Hester said slowly, her mind dizzy with the force of Genevieve's passion, bewildered by its suddenness and ringing sincerity.

"It's the drains and the middens where the problem lies."

Genevieve's lip curled. "It's the same thing!"

"No it isn't!" Hester argued, leaning forward across the table. "If there were proper water-carrying sewers built, then-"

"Water?" Genevieve looked amazed and horrified. "Then it would go everywhere!"

"No it wouldn't-"

"Yes it would! I've seen that, when the tide turns, or there's a heavy rain, it all backs up, the middens overflow, the gutters run sewage! Even when it goes down again what it leaves behind sits in piles on the pavements! You can shovel it off!"

"Where?" Hester said slowly, an incredible idea taking form in her mind, something so ludicrous it could even be true, wild and absurd as it seemed.

"What?" Genevieve's face colored painfully. She fumbled for words and found none. "Well-perhaps I haven't seen. I should have said I had heard..."

She bent as if to resume eating her food, but only toyed with it, pushing it around with her fork.

"Caleb lives in Limehouse, doesn't he?" Rester remembered.

"I believe so." Genevieve's body tensed and her hands stopped moving her fork. "Why? I certainly haven't heard it from him. I only met him once or twice. I barely even knew him!" The fear and the horror were sharp in her face, and a loathing too great for words.

Hester felt ashamed for having brought up the name of the man who had taken so much from her. Instinctively she put out her hand and touched Genevieve's where it lay on the table.

"I'm sorry. I wish I had not spoken of him. There must be pleasant things for us to discuss. I met Mr. Niven in the hall yesterday as I was leaving.

He seems a very gentle man, and a good friend to you."

Genevieve flushed. "Yes, he is," she admitted. "He was very fond of Angus, in spite of the... the business misfortunes which befell him because of Angus's greater skill. He really is quite able, you know. He has learned from his incautious judgments."

"I'm glad," Hester said sincerely. She had liked Niven's face, and she certainly liked Genevieve. "Perhaps he will yet find a position where he can mend his situation." Genevieve looked down. There was an awkwardness in her, but her short chin was set in determination, and there was tenderness and grief in her wide mouth.

"I... I am considering offering him the management of my business..

. that is... that is, of course, if I am permitted to." She gazed at Hester. "You must think me very cold. No one has yet proved what happened to my husband, although I know in my heart. And here I am discussing who I will put in his place." She leaned forward, pushing her unfinished plate out of the way. "I cannot help Angus anymore. I tried everything I knew to persuade him not to go to Caleb, but he wouldn't listen to me. Now I have to think of my children and what will happen to them. The world won't wait while I grieve." Her eyes were steady, and, gazing back at her, Hester realized some of the strength in her, the power of the resolve which had made her what she was and which now drove her on to rein in her own pain, guard and control it, for the sake of her children.

Perhaps some of her admiration was plain in her expression, because the defensiveness eased out of Genevieve and she smiled ruefully, a little at herself.

Genevieve seemed such a formal name for such a woman, almost an earthy woman, one with such a vivid reality. In the lamplight Hester could see the shadow her lashes cast on her cheek and the very faint down on the skin.

Had Angus called her Genny?

Genny... Ginny?

Was that where it all came from, the explanation for her acutely observed understanding of the people of Limehouse and their like, and the terror of poverty? Was it a dreadful familiarity which set her determination, that at almost any cost she would not allow her children ever to be cold, hungry, frightened and ashamed as she had been? The squalor and despair of the Limehouse slums was huge in her memory, and no present comfort would ever expunge it. Perhaps she was the girl Mary had spoken of, who had escaped Limehouse to marriage?

"Yes," Hester said quietly. "Yes, I see. I am sure Monk will do everything he can to prove Angus's death. And he is extremely clever. If he cannot do it one way, he will find another. Don't despair."

Genevieve looked at her, hope in her eyes, and curiosity. "Do you know him well?"

Hester hesitated. What was the answer to that? She was not sure she even knew it herself, much less that she was prepared to share it. What did she know of him? The areas she did not know were vast, cavernous; perhaps they were even areas he did not know himself?

"Only professionally," she replied with a tight smile, leaning back in her chair, away from Genevieve and the quick perception in her face. Her mind was filled suddenly with the memory of those few moments in the closed room in Edinburgh, of the feel of his arms around her and that one passionate, sublime kiss. "I have seen him work in other cases," she hurried on, knowing her face was hot. Could Genevieve see how she was lying? She thought so. "Do cling onto hope." She was talking too much, trying to turn the subject. "At least it seems he has learned the truth. He will find a way to prove it, sufficient for the authorities to-" She stopped.

Genevieve was smiling. She said nothing, but her silence was eloquent and full of pleasure.

Hester felt trapped, not by Genevieve but by herself.

"You came from Limehouse, didn't you?" she said quietly, as a matter of confidence, not accusation. Half of her knew it was an attack to defend herself.

Genevieve flushed, but her eyes did not evade Hester's, nor was there anger in them.

"Yes. It seems like another life now, it was so different, and so many years ago." She moved a little and the lamp light changed on the planes of her face, throwing the strength into relief. "But I won't let anything drive me back. My children will not grow up there! And I won't have Lord Ravensbrook feed them and clothe them, and dictate what manner of people they shall be. I won't let him hug them, to fill Angus's place."

"Would he do that?" Hester said slowly, picturing Ravensbrook's dark, patrician face in her mind with its arrogance and charm.

"I don't know," Genevieve confessed. "But I'm afraid of it. I feel terribly alone without Angus. You see, he understood me. He knew where I came from, and he didn't mind my occasional mistakes..."

A whole vision of fear and humiliation opened up in front of Hester. With a breathtaking vividness she perceived what it would be like for Genevieve at Ravensbrook House night and day, watched at every meal, observed and quite soon criticized. Not only would Ravensbrook himself notice all the tiny errors in even the most carefully produced etiquette or grammar, but perhaps even worse, so would the staff, the careful butler, the supercilious housekeeper, the giggling maids. Only possibly Enid would not care.

"Of course," she said with intense feeling. "You must keep your own home.

Mr.-' She was interrupted by a brisk knock at the door and the housekeeper walking in, her face grim, the keys at her belt jangling.

"There is a person to see you, Miss Latterly," she announced. "You had better use the butler's pantry. Mr. Dolman says as he doesn't mind. Begging your pardon, Mrs. Stonefield."

"What kind of a person?" Hester asked.

The housekeeper's face did not change in the slightest, not a flicker of her expression moved.

"A male person, Miss Latterly. More than that you will have to find out for yourself. Please be advised we do not allow the female staff to have followers, and that also applies to you while you are resident here, whatever your purpose.' Hester was stunned.

But Genevieve felt no such restrictions.

"Miss Latterly is not a servant, Mrs. Gibbons," she said smartly. "She is a professional person who has given her time freely out of regard for Lady Ravensbrook, who might well have died if it had not been for her treatment!"

"If you can call nursing a profession," Mrs. Gibbons retorted with a sniff.

"And it is the good Lord who heals the sick, not any of us, Mrs.

Stonefield. As a Christian woman, I'm sure you know that."

Thoughts flashed across Hester's mind about the virtues of Christian women, beginning with charity, but this was not the time to enter into an argument she could not win.

"Thank you for bringing me the message, Mrs. Gibbons," she said, baring her teeth in a gesture that bore little resemblance to a smile. "How kind of you." And with a nod to Genevieve, she rose to her feet and left the room.

The butler's pantry was two doors along the passage, and she went in without knocking.

She was startled to see Monk standing there looking almost haggard. His face was pale and there were lines of strain unlike anything she had seen in him since the Grey case.

"What is it?" she asked, closing the door behind her, her stomach sinking with dread. "It can't be Stonefield, can it? It... it's not Callandra."

Pain almost dizzied her. "Has something happened to Callandra?"

"No!" His voice was strident. He controlled it with an effort. "No," he repeated more calmly. His face was full of emotion and he was obviously finding it extremely difficult to frame the words to tell her.

She forced back her impatience. She had seen both shock and fear before and she knew the signs. To have affected Monk this way it must be something very dreadful indeed.

"Sit down and tell me," she said gently. "What has happened?"

Temper flared in his eyes, then died away, replaced by the fear again. The very fact that he did not retaliate chilled her even more. She sat down on the drab, overstuffed chair and folded her hands in her lap, under her apron, where he could not see that they were clenched together.

"I have been accused of assault." He said the words between his teeth, not looking at her.

"And are you guilty?" she asked levelly, knowing his rage and his physical strength. She had not forgotten the body in Mecklenburg Square, beaten to death, and that Monk had once feared he had done it himself.

His eyes widened, glaring at her, his features twisted with outrage.

"No!" he shouted. "God in heaven, no! How can you even ask?" The words choked him. He looked as if he could never forgive her for the question. He was shaking with fury, his body so tensed he was even now at the edge of violence, simply to release what was becoming unbearable.

"Because I know you," she answered, feeling increasingly that perhaps she did not. "If someone angered you enough, you might-"

"A woman!" The cry strangled in his throat. "Assault a woman? Force myself on her?"

She was stunned. It was so absurd it was almost funny.

Except that he was obviously serious, and profoundly frightened. Such a charge would ruin him, she knew that only too well. Her own professional existence also rested on reputation, and she knew how nearly she had once lost that. It had been Monk who had fought for her, worked night and day to prove her innocence.

"That's ridiculous," she said gravely. "Obviously she cannot prove it to be so, but equally obviously you cannot prove it not to be, or you would not be here. Who is she, and what happened? Is she someone you rejected?

Or has she some other reason for such a charge? Do you suppose she is with child, and needs to blame someone for it to claim her own innocence in the matter?"

"I don't know." At last he sat down as well, staring at the patched carpet on the floor. "I don't know why she has done it, except that it was deliberate. We were in a hansom, going home after an evening"-he hesitated, still looking down= "an evening of mild entertainment, a pleasant din ner. She suddenly tore open the bodice of her dress, then glared at me with the most violent hatred, screamed, and threw herself out of the carriage with it under way, in front of a score of guests leaving a party in North Audley Street!"

She felt a chill of fear touch her also. Such behavior held an element of madness. The woman had risked not only Monk's reputation but a good deal of her own as well. However innocent she claimed to be, there would be talk, speculation, tongues willing to be unkind.

"Who is she?" she asked again.

"Drusilla Wyndham," he said very quietly, still not looking at her. She said nothing. A curious mix of emotions filled her mind: relief that after all he could not now love Drusilla, that Drusilla had failed him in every way, and her own hatred of Drusilla of a quite different nature from before, because now the woman threatened him. There was also fear for the injury Drusilla would do him, and anger for the injustice of it. She did not even think of curiosity as to why.

"Who is she?" she asked. "I mean socially. Where does she come from?" He looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time.

"I don't know more than I could judge from her manner and her speech, which was enough. But what does it matter? Whoever she is, she can ruin me by the suggestion. She doesn't have to be related to anyone important." His voice rose again with impatience that she did not understand the point. "Any woman making the charge, except perhaps a servant or a prostitute-" "I know that." She cut across him just as sharply, jerking her hand to dismiss the notion. "I'm not thinking of that, I'm thinking how to fight her. Know your enemy!"

"I can't fight her!" His voice rose in fury and desperation. "If she takes it to court I can deny it, but not if she simply does it by whisper and innuendo. What do you suggest? That I sue her for slander? Don't be absurd! Even if I could, which I couldn't, my reputation would still be ruined. In fact, the very act of calling her a liar would make it worse." He looked like a man on the edge of an abyss, staring destruction in the face.

"Of course not," she said quietly. "Who's your adviser? Lord Cardigan?"

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"The charge of the Light Brigade," she answered bitterly.

She saw a glimmer of comprehension in his face.

"So what do you suggest?" he said, but without hope.

"I'm not sure," she replied, rising to her feet and walking to the one small window. "But certainly not a head-on charge at the enemy's guns. If they are dug into the high ground with breached cannons pointing at us, then we must either move them out of it or come at them by some other means."

"Stop playing soldiers," he said quietly. "Just because you nursed in the Crimea doesn't mean you know the first damn thing about warfare."

"Yes it does!" she said, swinging around. "The first damn thing about warfare is that soldiers get killed. Ask anyone who's been there! Except the bloody incompetent generals, of course."

He smiled in spite of himself, but there was only the humor of the grave in it.

"What a charming woman you are. What do you suggest in this particular battle? Shall I shoot her, besiege her, poison her water, or wait for the winter to freeze her out? Or hope that she contracts the typhoid?" "Call on another woman," she answered, wishing the moment she had said it that she had not. She had no plans, no ideas, only a boiling determination to win.

He looked nonplussed. "Another woman? Whatever for? Who?"

"Me, of course, you fool!" she retorted. "You haven't the slightest understanding of women or how they think. You never have had. Obviously she hates you. How did you meet her?"

"I bumped into her on the steps of the Geographical Society. Or perhaps she bumped into me."

"You think she contrived it?" she said without great surprise. Women did such things far more often than most men realized.

"I do now. I didn't then." A bitter amusement lit his eyes for a moment.

"She must have been surprised when I did not recognize her. She held me in conversation for several minutes. She must have been waiting for me to remember, and then realized that I didn't."

"You don't remember anything at all?" she pressed. "Not even an impression?"

"No! Of course I don't, or I would have said so. I have been through everything I can think of, but I can't remember anything about her. It's a complete blank."

She had a glimpse of his utter helplessness, the shadows and glimpses of cruelty within his memory, and the fears that would always be part of him.

Then it evaporated. All she felt was tenderness and the determination to protect him whatever the cost.

"It doesn't matter anyway," she said, moving over and touching his head gently, just her fingers on his hair for a moment. "It is who she is now that matters. I'll think of a way to fight back. Don't worry. Just don't go anywhere near her again. Keep on looking for Angus Stonefield."

"At least I'm not likely to run into any outraged high society face down in the mud 'round the Isle of Dogs!" he said savagely. "A little rape might add to my credibility with the locals."

"I would mention it only if you intend to remain there," she replied tartly, turning to the door. "In the meantime, keep your powder dry."

He saluted sarcastically. "Yes, general, sir!"

But when he left Ravensbrook House, Monk did feel marginally better. The anger was scalding inside him, and the fear was just as real. Nothing had changed. Yet now he no longer stood alone. That took the despair away, the very worst of the pain.

He strode along the footpath, ignoring those he passed by, all but bumping into them. Even the smut-laden rain driving in his face was hardly heeded.

He would find where Caleb had murdered his brother. He might not find the body, but he would prove his death, and he would see Caleb hanged for it.

Somewhere there was a piece of evidence, a witness, a chain of events which would damn him. It was up to Monk to persist until he did. Wherever it was, whoever knew it, whatever it took to uncover it.

It was midday by the time he got to the Isle of Dogs and went again to the house in Manilla Street to speak to Selina. At first she refused to see him. She looked frightened, and he guessed it was not long since Caleb had been there. Her silence was a mixture of loyalty and fear. The fear at least was probably well grounded.

He stood in front of her in the small, cold, well-kept room.

"He killed Angus, and I'm going to prove it," he said viciously. "One way or another, I'll see him swing for it. Whether you prove it with me, or swing with him, is up to you."

She said nothing. She faced him defiantly, her head held cockily, as if she were sure of herself, one hip jutting out. But he saw her knuckles whiten, and heard the terror beneath her voice.

"You think he's a dangerous swine," he said grimly. "Cross me, and you'll think he's a model of the civilized man."

"It's his life," she retorted with contempt, looking him up and down, seeing the beautifully cut coat and the polished boots. "You don't even know what dangerous is."

"Believe me, I have little left to lose either," he said passionately. She stared at him, looked into his eyes, and slowly her face changed. She saw something of the rage and despair in him, and the contempt died. "I don't know where he is," she said quietly.

"I didn't expect you to. I want to know where he met Angus, every place you know of that they went together, or might have gone. He murdered Angus.

Somebody somewhere knows about it."

"They won't tell you!" Her chin lifted again in defiance and a kind of pride.

"Yes they will." He laughed bitterly. "Whatever Caleb can do to them, the long wait of the last night, the eight o'clock walk in the morning to the hangman's rope, is worse."

She swore at him, and the hatred in her eyes reminded him of Drusilla. It robbed him of the pity he might have felt for her.

"Where did they meet?" he said again.

Silence.

"Have you seen a corpse after it's been hanged?" He looked at her slender throat.

"At the Artichoke, along by the Blackwall Stairs. But it won't do yer no good. They won't tell yer nothin'. I 'ope yer rot in 'ell. I 'ope they drown yer in a cesspool and feed yer body ter the rats."

"Is that what he did with Angus?"

"Gawd, I dunno." But beneath the paint her face was white and there was horror in her eyes. "Nah gits aht!"

Monk went back along Manilla Street in the rain, and turned east.

The landlord of the Artichoke served him a slice of eel pie and a glass of ale, but eyed him with suspicion. Men dressed as Monk presently was did not frequent such taverns, but money was money, and he took it readily enough.

After Monk had eaten he began his questions, civilly at first, but quickly gaining an undertone of menace. He learned only one piece of information which, if true, might prove of worth, and that was given as an incidental to an insult. But that had many times been the way. An angry man betrayed more than he knew. The landlord let slip that Caleb had several friends, whether by choice or mutual advantage, and one of them, another dangerous and greedy man, had a yard off Coldharbour, hard by the Cattle Wharf. Apparently he was a good friend, one whom Caleb could trust and who would, according to the landlord, avenge any wrong done Caleb by the likes of Monk.

Fifteen minutes later found Monk west again at Coldharbour, right on the bank of the river. It was now running hard and gray, carrying ships, barges and all manner of detritus on the outgoing tide. A dead rat floated by, and half a dozen rotted timbers. The smell of sewage clogged the nostrils. A clipper, half-rigged, was making its way majestically down from the Pool of London towards the open sea and the world beyond.

It was not hard to find the yard, but it served only as a starting point.

If Caleb had intended from the beginning to murder his brother, he would have chosen a private place to do it. He would certainly not have risked a witness. There were far too many people up and down the river who would be only too happy to have the power to ruin Caleb Stone.

And if the act had arisen out of a quarrel which got out of control, then he would equally have needed somewhere out of sight to think what to do with the body. Simply to tip it into the river was too much of a risk, especially if it had been daylight. It would have to be weighted and set in nudstream. Better still to take it to Limehouse and bury it as a typhoid victim. And all that took time.

There would be little purpose in being direct. He yanked the collar of his coat even higher and strode past the yard. He found all manner of laborers, derelicts, the hungry, cold, idle or sick, huddled in doorways, sheltering under sacking or canvas. He questioned them all. He walked from one end of Coldharbour to the other, and then across the bridge over the Blackwall Basin towards the stairs to the sibilant water.

He moved downriver slowly, picking his way over slippery stones and wet timbers, across patches of rotting shingle, through loading and unloading yards. He passed piles of merchandise, hauls of fish, lengths of rope and canvas. He climbed up and down steps and across gangways over dark, still water into a dozen larger or smaller slipways and docks. Always the stench was there, the sound of dripping and slurping, the creak of timber and straining ropes.

By dusk he was exhausted, angry and cold to the bone, but he refused to give up. Somewhere near here Caleb had killed Angus. Someone had seen or heard them quarreling, shouting voices, a cry of fury or pain, and then Caleb carrying the body. Perhaps there had been blood or a weapon. They were the same size, the same build. If it had come to a battle they must have been fairly evenly matched, even allowing for their different lives.

What Angus lacked in physical exercise and the practice of fighting, perhaps he would at least partially compensate for with better nourishment and health.

Monk ate supper in a different tavern and set out into the dark. The rain had stopped and it was even colder. A mist was rising off the river, hanging in thin wreaths across the streets and dimming the few lights. The foghorns of barges drifted across the water, disembodied and mournful. On the corner of Robinhood Lane and the East India Dock Road two men were warming themselves by a brazier of roasting chestnuts.

Monk was drawn towards it because it was a refuge from the biting cold. It was human company and a light in the enveloping darkness, the endless sound of the creeping tide and the fine beads of moisture that gathered on everything and fell with myriad tiny sounds as if the night were alive. As he drew closer he saw that one of the men was wearing an old seaman's jacket, too narrow across the shoulders for him, but at least waterproof. The other had on what at a glance he would have taken to be a tailored wool coat, had such a thing not been absurd in this place. And as his eyes followed the line of it down the man's body, he saw that it hung loosely, even shapelessly. When he moved his arm to poke the brazier, it was obvious the coat was so badly torn it was open at the sides, and there was a patch beneath one shoulder much darker. It was probably wet. Poor devil. Monk was cold enough in his fine broadcloth overcoat.

"Twopence for some chestnuts," he offered bluntly. He did not want to stand out as too obviously a stranger.

The man in the coat held out his hand wordlessly.

Monk put twopence in it.

The man picked out a dozen chestnuts expertly and left them in the ashes at the side to cool. His coat was of beautiful cut. The lapels set perfectly, the rim of the collar had been stitched by a tailor who knew his job. And Monk was a connoisseur of such things. The coat had been made for a man of Monk's height and breadth of shoulder.

Angus Stonefield?

He looked down at the man's trousers. In the light of the brazier's glow it was hard to see, but he judged they matched.

A wild idea came into his mind. It was a desperate throw. "I'll swap clothes with you for a guinea!"

"What?" The man stared at him as if he could not believe what he had heard.

On the face of it, it was ridiculous. Monk had not changed since he left Ravensbrook House. His coat had cost him several pounds. He could not afford to replace it. But then if Drusilla went ahead with her intentions, he could end up no better off than this wretched man anyway. At least he would have the satisfaction of having caught Caleb Stone first. That would be one case of justice served!

"My coat for your jacket and trousers," he repeated.

The man weighed up his chances. "An' yer 'at," he bargained.

"The coat or nothing!" Monk snapped.

"What'll I do wi' no trouser?" the man demanded. "In't decent!"

"My jacket and trousers for yours, and I'll keep the coat," Monk offered.

"And the hat." It was a better deal anyway. He had other suits.

"Le's see." The man was not going to take goods blindly.

Monk opened his coat so the man could judge his suit.

"Done!" he said instantly. "Yer daft, yer are, but a deal's a deal."

Solemnly, in the fog-shrouded darkness beside the brazier, they exchanged clothes, Monk holding very firmly to his coat, just in case the man had any ideas of theft.

"Daft," the man repeated again as he pulled Monk's warm jacket around him.

It was too big, but it was a great deal better than the ripped one he had parted with.

Monk replaced his coat, nodded to the other man, who had watched the whole procedure with incredulity as if it had been some kind of drunken illusion, then he turned and walked away back along the East India Dock Road, to somewhere where he could find a hansom and go home.

Monk woke the following morning with his head reeling and his body feeling stiff and chilled, but also with a sense of anticipation, as if some long- sought success had finally been achieved. Then as he got out of bed and sneezed, he remembered Drusilla, and the joy drained out of him as if he had slit a vein.

He washed, shaved and dressed before bothering to look at the clothes he had acquired the previous night. His landlady brought breakfast and he ate it without tasting it. Five minutes afterwards he could not even remember what it had been.

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

And as he had observed the night before, the trousers matched the jacket.

One knee was torn out, threads were pulled on both legs and there were stains of mud. The waist at the back was heavily soaked in blood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thank you, but I have only lately finished breakfast," Monk declined.

"Besides, I have come on some business which would rob the pleasure of any refreshment at all. I would be most obliged if you could help me to break it to Mrs. Stonefield with as much gentleness as possible, and to be with her to offer any comfort you may."

Niven's face paled. "You have found Angus's body?"

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

"Is that necessary?" Niven's voice was choked in his throat and his eyes pleaded with Monk.

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

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

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

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

"And the name of his tailor?" Monk asked.

"Yes. Mr. Wicklow, of Wicklow and Harper."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monk paid the cab and dismissed it, following Niven within moments. "What is it, Mr. Monk?" Genevieve asked immediately, dismissing the nursemaid and sending the two children with her. One look at Niven's face had told her the news was extremely serious. "You've found Angus...

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

"I See." imvcuraly-hiSt.ner_ þ _A_ll_nw me to  -  Her voice waS a.y u. see them."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From somewhere out of sight there was an answer in the affirmative. The sergeant looked back at Monk.

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

"I'm coming with you," Monk stated.

The sergeant sucked in his breath, then changed his mind. Perhaps an extra man would be useful, especially one with such a marked interest in success.

And also, perhaps Monk deserved it.

"Right y'are then," he agreed. "We'll be off in"-he consulted his pocket watch, a handsome silver piece of considerable size-"fifteen minutes."

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

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

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

"Mebbe we won't need one," Benyon said, willing himself to believe it.

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

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

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

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

Benyon came back after several minutes.

"Not bin 'ere terday," he said, as if it proved his point.

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

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

"Is that worth anything?" Monk asked dubiously.

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

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

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

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

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

Inside the air smelled of mold and unemptied slops. The sergeant pushed open the door of the first room. Inside three women sat unraveling ropes.

Their fingers were callused and swollen, some red with sores. Half a dozen children in various stages of undress played on the floor. A girl of about five was unpicking the stitching on a length of cloth which presumably had been a garment a short while ago. The window was boarded up. One candle relieved the shadows. It was bitterly cold. Obviously Caleb Stone was not here.

The next room was similarly occupied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Caleb flung the door open and charged across the landing and Monk heard his footsteps hard on the stairs. He dived after him, tripped on the fourth or fifth step, which was broken, and fell the remaining half dozen, landing bruisingly and only just missing cracking his head on the newel post. He heard Caleb's laughter as he clattered on down, a floor below him. Monk clambered to his feet, furious with pain and frustration, and went down the rest of the stairs as fast as he could. He was just in time to see Caleb's back as he went out the door into Prestage Street and turned towards Brunswick Street, which ran all the way down to the river, Ashton's Wharf and the Blackwall Stairs.

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

"Benyon! Brunswick Street!"

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

Caleb had vanished.

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

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

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

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

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

Then he would make for the wharf, not the stairs.

It was already mid-afternoon and the light was failing. A grayness crept up from the river and robbed everything of what little color there was. The mist deadened Caleb's flying footsteps as he raced across the stones to the edge of the water and the flight of steps downward. The constable was only a couple of yards behind him.

Monk's breath labored in his lungs but his ankle was easing.

Caleb disappeared down the stairs and the constable after him. Then there was a yell and a heavy splash, then a scream of fear, choked off almost instantly.

Monk reached the edge of the wall just as a second constable came behind him.

Caleb was on the steps, feet wide apart, balanced, laughing, his head thrown back. The constable was thrashing around in the water, sinking, dragged down by his boots and his heavy clothing.

"He'll drown!" Caleb shouted, looking at Monk. "You'd better pull him out!

You can't leave him, Mr. Righteous!"

There was a barge about ten yards out, the first of a string moving slowly upriver with the incoming tide, low in the water, heavy with bales covered over with dark canvas. The bargee in the stern looked at the man in the water and threw his hands wide. He could not stop the impetus of his vessel. There were another dozen behind him, like railway carriages. Monk hesitated only a moment. The constable was drowning. His face was white with terror. He had not the faintest idea how to swim and his own panic was killing him. There was a piece of timber lying on the edge. Monk threw it in and waited long enough to see it float.

The instant was enough. Caleb charged up the steps again, thrusting past him and onto the river wall, racing upstream towards the Artichoke Tavern fifty yards away.

The second constable arrived, swerving to go after Caleb and leave Monk to rescue the man in the water.

"Get him!" Monk shouted, jabbing his arm down the steps towards the water, and spun on his heel to run after Caleb.

The constable gasped, saw his colleague struggling, clasping for the wood, and swung around, plunging down the steps after him.

Monk sprinted along the hard pavement behind Caleb, who seemed to be veering away from the edge as if he would go around to the front of the tavern and the door. Why? Had he friends there? Reinforcements? He could hardly hope to hold off half a dozen police! There was no escape through the back-it fell sheer into the rising tide.

Monk was only fifteen yards behind him.

Then suddenly Caleb swerved again, turned on his foot and picked up speed, running straight towards the river. He was going to kill himself after all.

He ran even faster and at the dock made an almighty leap. Only then did Monk realize what he meant to do. The barge was only twenty feet from the shore. He landed awkwardly, sprawled across the canvas, and all but pitched off the far side, but he was on it and already it was carrying him away.

With more rage than judgment, Monk backed off to give himself a launching distance, then in desperation leaped as well.

He landed with a numbing crash on the third barge. The breath was knocked out of him, and it was several seconds before he could even think to rise.

When he did his hands were grazed and he found it hard to expand his lungs and gasp in the damp, darkening air. He could see the dim shape of the bargee, but he was barely aware of the sergeant on the river wall shouting and gesticulating, he was swearing wildly, his face contorted with fury.

Certainly he did not even try to understand what he was saying. There was only one thought in his mind-get Caleb.

He straightened up and started to make his way forward, moving with his arms wide, keeping his foothold on the wet canvas with difficulty. The barges were close, but there were still several feet of dark, filthy river water between the bow of one and the stern of another. If he fell he would be between the two, and would be crushed long before he could be drowned.

Caleb was on the lead barge, facing him, leaping up and down on the spot in mockery. He put his hands to his mouth to cup the sound.

"Come on!" he yelled. "Come and get me! Come on, Mr. Policeman! I killed Angus, didn't I? I destroyed him! He's gone forever! Finished! No more smart clothes, no more virtuous wife by the fireside! No more church on Sunday and `Yes Sir,' `No sir,' `Aren't I a good boy, sir'!" He folded his anus across his chest, flat, hands down, then flung them wide. "Dead!" he cried. "Gone forever! You'll never find him. Nobody'll find him, ever!

Ever!"

Monk started off towards him, floundering on the canvas piles, stumbling and regaining his balance, taking a wild leap across the dark water to the barge ahead, landing splayed and bruised on his hands and knees. He scrambled forward again, oblivious of pain or danger.

The bargee was yelling something but he ignored it.

They had passed the Blackwall entrance to the South Dock. Ahead of them was the Cubitt Town pier, then the curve of the river around the Isle of Dogs.

He could no longer see the lights of Greenwich on the far side. The fog and darkness were closing in. The marshes to the left were a dim outline. There were other boats, but he saw them only from the corner of his eye. He leaped to the front barge just in time to see Caleb apparently overbalance, land on his knees, then disappear over the side. Then he heard his laughter coming up from the water and just as he reached the edge himself, a rowing boat pulled away, one man heaving on the oars, another crouching in the stern, seemingly terrified.

Monk swore savagely. He swung around to the bargee, although even as he did, he knew it was pointless. The man had no way on earth of changing course. The heavily laden barges were tied together and going upstream on the tide.

"Monk!"

Where was the voice coming from?

"Monk! Jump, man!"

Then he saw the second rowing boat with the sergeant and another constable in it. Without a second's hesitation he jumped, landing in it and sending it rocking so violently it all but overturned. The constable at the oars let out an oath. The sergeant grabbed him roughly and forced him down on the duckboards at the bottom, and the boat righted itself and plowed forward again.

"After 'im!" the sergeant shouted unnecessarily.

They sat in silence, Monk still half crouched. The constable at the oars dug them into the water with all the strength he possessed, hurling his weight against them so violently that for several strokes the boat veered and bounced, then he settled down to an even pace and picked up speed.

There was hardly any light now. The late afternoon had drawn in and the overcast sky had robbed what little there was and the rising river mist distorted shapes. Foghorns sounded eerily. The lights of a clipper appeared, shadowed spars towering above them, drifting like giant trees in the sky. They rocked roughly in its wake.

"Where is the bastard?" the sergeant said between his teeth, peering forward through the gloom. "I'll get that swine if it's the last thing I do!"

"Bugsby's marshes," Monk answered, straightening his legs to sit up properly. "I'll wager he's going downriver again."

"Why?"

"He'll know we have men in Greenwich, and people who would say where he went. But he knows the marshes and we don't. We'll never get him once he's ashore there in the dark."

The sergeant swore.

The constable pulled harder on the oars, his back straining, hands rubbed to blisters. The boat sped over the misty, dark-running tide.

The shore loomed up before they were prepared. There were no lights, only the mud banks catching the last of the daylight in thin, shining strips, and the soft, seeping sound of the rising water in the marsh reeds.

Monk scrambled forward and jumped out into mud up to his calves. It took a surprising effort to pull himself loose from its ice-cold, sucking grip.

But twenty yards downstream he could see another figure on a firmer stretch, and the black shape of a boat pulling away, as if it had landed the devil himself and would flee for salvation.

The constable was out behind him, cursing at the mud. Together they squelched and struggled over the slime onto firmer shore, floundering towards Caleb, who was already trying to run.

No one shouted again. They all three plunged wildly through the deepening mist as the rising wind blew wraiths of it around them, then away again.

The sergeant brought up the rear, dogged and determined, swinging inland a little, driving Caleb towards the point, cutting off his retreat back towards Greenwich.

It was another fifteen minutes of exhausting, heartpounding, leg-aching pursuit before at last they cornered Caleb with his back to the river and nowhere else to turn.

He held his gloved hands up, open wide. They could no longer see his face, but Monk could imagine his expression from his voice in the darkness. "All right! Take me!" he yelled. "Take me to your petty little courtroom, and your charade of a trial! What will you convict me of? There's no corpse!

No corpse!" And he threw his head back and roared with laughter. The sound of it echoed across the dark water and was swallowed in the mist. "You'll never find a corpse-you fools!"