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She let out her breath. “Well in’t nuffin’ I can do, even if I were minded to.” She was struggling to convince him, and herself. She put too much certainty into it, torn by loyalties.
“You already have,” he replied. “I knew Angus was last seen here, going towards Blackwall Reach. No one ever saw him after that.”
“I’ll deny it!”
“Of course you will. Caleb’s your man. Even if he weren’t, you wouldn’t dare say it if he didn’t want you to.”
“I ’int afraid o’ Caleb,” she said defiantly. “ ’E wouldn’t ’urt me.”
He did not bother to argue. It was another thing they both knew was a lie.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Good-bye … for the moment.”
She did not answer. On the stove the kettle started to steam.
Monk left Manilla Street and went east through the West India Docks, the way Angus Stonefield must have gone, and spent all afternoon combing the docks and slums along the Isle of Dogs and the Blackwall Reach. Caleb Stone was known well enough, but no one was willing to say where he was. Most of them would not even commit themselves to when they had last seen him.
A knife grinder admitted to having spoken with him two days before, a chandler to having sold him rope a week ago, the keeper of the Folly House Tavern to seeing him regularly, but none of them knew where he was to be found at any specific time, and all spoke his name carefully, not necessarily with fear, but not lightly. Monk had no doubt whose side they would be on if there were ever a necessity to choose.
He left Blackwall at dusk, and was pleased to get back to Fitzroy Street to wash and change into his more customary attire. He would go to Ravensbrook House to report to Genevieve. After all, he had something to say this time. Then he had a dinner engagement with Drusilla Wyndham. The very thought of it made him smile. It was like a sweet smell after the dirt and stench of the Isle of Dogs, like laughter and bright colors after the gray misery.
He wore his very best jacket, perhaps partly because of the memory of Selina and her opi
nion of him, but mostly it was the mood he felt every time he thought of Drusilla. He could see her face in his mind’s eye: the wide hazel eyes, the delicate brows, the soft mass of honey-shaded hair, the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. She had grace and charm, assurance, wit. She took nothing too seriously. She was a joy to the eye and to the ear, to the mind and the emotions. She seemed to have the perfect judgment of exactly what to say, and even when to remain silent.
He looked at himself in the glass, adjusting his cravat to perfection. Then, taking his overcoat and his hat, he went out of the door and walked smartly to find a hansom, humming a little tune to himself.
Of course Hester was likely to be at Ravensbrook House, but that was something he could not avoid. He would almost certainly not run into her. She would be in the sickroom, where he would not be permitted, even had he wished to go, which he certainly did not.
He tipped his hat to a woman he passed in the arc of the street lamp. The knowledge that he would not see Hester was an instant relief. He was in no mood to have his present happiness spoiled by her criticism, her constant reminder of the pain and injustices of life. She was so one-sided about everything. She had no sense of proportion. It was a fault possessed by many women. They took everything both literally and personally. Those like Drusilla, who could see the realities and yet had the courage to laugh and carry herself with consummate grace, were rare indeed. He was extraordinarily fortunate that she was so obviously enjoying his company every bit as much as he did hers.
Unconsciously he increased his pace, striding out over the wet pavement. He was quite aware that women found him attractive. He did not have to work at it; there was an element in his nature which drew their fascination. Perhaps it was a sense of danger, of emotions suppressed beneath the surface. It was of no importance. He simply realized it was there, and from time to time had taken some slight advantage of it. To use it fully would be stupid. The last thing he wanted was some woman pursuing him, thinking of romance, even marriage.
He could marry no one. He had no idea what lay in his past beyond the last couple of years, and perhaps even more frightening than that, what lay in his character. He had very nearly killed one man in a blinding rage. That he knew beyond question. Memories of those awful moments were still there, buried in his mind, sometimes troubling his dreams.
The fact that the man was one of the worst blackguards he had ever known was immaterial. It was not the evil in the man he feared. He was dead now, killed by another hand. It was the darkness within himself.
But Drusilla knew nothing of that, which was part of her allure.
Hester did, of course. But then he did not want the thought of Hester in his mind, especially tonight, or of the typhoid fever, its anguish or its bitter realities. He would tell Genevieve Stonefield he had made a considerable stride forward today, then he would leave and spend a bright, witty and elegant evening with Drusilla.
He stepped off the curb and hailed a hansom cab, his voice bright with anticipation.
6
THE NEXT MORNING, Monk woke with a smile and arose early. The February morning was dark and windy and there was a hard frost in the sheltered hollows of the streets, but he set out before eight for the East End again, and the Blackwall Reach. He meant to find Caleb Stone, and he would not cease until he did, today, tomorrow, or the day after. If the man were alive, he was too angry, too distinctive and too well known to disappear.
By nine he was standing in thin daylight on the banks of the Blackwall Reach on the Isle of Dogs. This time he did not bother with pawnbrokers or street peddlers, but went straight to the places where Caleb might have eaten or slept. He tried hot pie sellers, alehouses and taverns, other vagrants who slept rough in old packing cases and discarded sails or awnings, piles of rotting rope, with timbers rigged to make some kind of shelter.
Yes, one old man had seen him the night before last, striding down Coldharbour towards the Blackwall Stairs. He had been wearing a huge coat, and the tails of it had flapped wide around his legs, like broken wings.
Was he sure it was Caleb?
The answer was a hollow laugh.
He did not ask anyone else if they were sure. Their faces told it for them. A young woman, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, simply ran away. A one-legged man sitting awkwardly, splicing ropes with horny hands, said he had seen him yesterday going toward the Folly House Tavern. He was walking rapidly against the wind, and looked pleased with himself.
Monk took himself to the Folly House Tavern, a surprisingly clean establishment full of dark oak paneling and the smell of tallow candles whose flickering lights reflected in a mirror over the bar. Even at this hour of the morning there were a dozen people about, either drinking ale or busy with some chore of fetching or cleaning.
