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“Mary. Good. The poor soul has worked herself to dropping. Have you any more? If not, I’ll share this one.”
“Yes, I have.” He proffered the rolled-up newspaper. “There are another four in there.”
Callandra took them with a quick smile and carried them back up the dim room to pass them to figures Monk could recognize only with difficulty. The thin, very upright one with the square shoulders and uplifted chin was Hester. He would have known her outline anywhere. No one else held her head at quite that angle. The masculine one had to be Kristian Beck, barely average height, slim-shouldered and strong. The third looked reminiscent of someone he had seen only lately, but in the poor light and the smoke from the stoves and the smell stinging his eyes, he did not know whom.
Callandra returned, eating her own pie before it got cold. She led him into a small room to the side which presumably had once been an office when the building was used for its original purpose. Now it boasted a table piled with blankets, four bottles of gin, three unopened and one half empty, several casks of vinegar, a flagon of Hungarian wine and a candle. Two very rickety chairs were also piled with blankets. Callandra cleared them off and offered him a seat.
“What’s the gin for?” he asked. “Desperation?”
“It wouldn’t be sitting there unopened if it were,” she replied grimly. “Tell me about your case.”
He hesitated, uncertain how much to say about Genevieve. Perhaps he should give Callandra only facts and omit his own impressions.
“To clean things with,” she answered his question. “Alcohol is better than water, especially from the wells around here. Not the floors, of course. The vinegar’s for that. I mean plates and spoons.”
He acknowledged the explanation.
“The case …” she prompted, sitting heavily on one of the chairs, which rocked, tilted and righted itself at an angle.
He sat on the other gingerly, but it supported his weight, albeit with an alarming creak.
“A man has disappeared, a businessman, comfortably off and eminently respectable,” he began. “He seems happily married, with five children. It was his wife who came to me.”
Callandra was watching him, so far without interest.
“His wife says he has a twin brother,” Monk continued with a ghost of a smile, “who is in every way opposite. He is violent, ruthless, and lives alone, somewhere in this area.”
“Limehouse?” Callandra said in surprise. “Why here?”
“Apparently choice. He lives by his wits, and occasional gifts from Angus, the missing brother. In spite of their differences, Angus insisted on keeping in touch, although his wife says he was afraid of Caleb.”
“And it is Angus who has disappeared?”
The candle on the table flickered for a moment. It was stuck in the top of an empty bottle and the tallow ran down the side.
“Yes. His wife is deeply afraid that Caleb has murdered him. In fact, I think she is convinced of it.”
She frowned. “Did you say Caleb?” She reached out absently and righted the candle.
“Yes. Why?” he asked.
“It’s an unusual name,” she replied. “Not unknown, but not common. I heard only a few hours ago of a brutal man in this area named Caleb Stone. He
injured a youth and slashed the face of a woman.”
“The same man!” he said quickly, leaning forward a little. “The brother is Angus Stonefield, but Caleb may well have dropped the second half of his name. It fits with what Genevieve said of him.” He realized as he spoke how he had been hoping inside himself that it was not true, that perhaps her view of Caleb was exaggerated. Now in a sentence that was ended.
Callandra shook her head. “I am afraid if that is so, then you have not only a greater task ahead of you but perhaps an exceedingly difficult one. Caleb Stone may be guilty, but it will be very hard to prove. There is little love lost for him around here, but fear may hold people silent. I assume you have already inquired into the more usual explanations for the brother’s absence?”
“How delicately put,” he said with a sharp edge to his voice. He was not angry with her, only with the circumstances and his own helplessness. “You mean debt, theft or another woman?”
“Something like that …”
“I haven’t proved them impossible, simply unlikely. I traced him the last day he was seen. He came as far as Union Road, about a mile from here.”
“Oh—”
Before he could add anything further he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see Hester standing in the doorway. Even though he had already seen her dimly in the main room, it had not prepared him for meeting her face-to-face. He had thought a dozen times exactly what he was going to say, how casual he was going to be, as if nothing had changed between them since the conclusion of the trial in Edinburgh. On reflection, that was about the best time to go back to. They could hardly pretend that had not occurred. If she referred to the Farralines, that was acceptable, although the subject might be sensitive to her, and he would respect that.
