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The gardener looked puzzled.
"The coachman seems to have stolen the coach and horses," Monk explained.
The gardener’s eyes widened. "Arrr." He sighed, shaking his head. "Never heard that. What a thing. What’s the world coming to?" He lifted his hand, trowel extended. "Went ’round that corner there. I never saw’d ’im after that. Road goes north. If ’e’d wanted to go to town, ’e’d ’a gone t’other way. Less traffic. Weren’t nobody after ’im. Got clean away, I s’pose."
Monk agreed, thanked him, and followed the way he had indicated, walking smartly to see if he could find the next sighting.
He had to cast around several times, and walked miles in the dusty heat, but eventually, footsore and exhausted, he got as far as Hampstead Heath, and then the trail petered out. By this time it was dusk and he was more than ready to find a hansom and go home. The idea held more charm than it had a month or two ago, when it would have been merely a matter of taking his boots off his aching feet and waiting for his landlady to bring his supper. Now the hansom could not move rapidly enough for him, and he sat upright watching the streets and traffic pass.
The next morning, Monk went early to the Hampstead police station. When he had been a policeman himself he could have demanded assistance as a matter of course. Now he had to ask for favors. It was a hard difference to stomach. Perhaps he had not always used authority well. That was a conclusion he had been forced to reach when his loss of memory had shown him snatches of his life through the eyes of others. It was unpleasant, and unexpectedly wounding, to discover how many people had been afraid of him, partly because of his superior skills, but far too often due to his cutting tongue. Anything he was given today would be a courtesy. He was a member of the public, no more.
Except, of course, if he had had occasion to come here in the past and they remembered him with unkindness. That thought made him hesitate in his step as he turned the corner of the street for the last hundred yards to the station doors. He had no idea whether they would know him or not. He felt the same stab of anxiety, guilt and anticipation that he had had ever since the accident and his realization of the kind of man he had been, and still was very often. Something in him had softened, but the hard tongue was still there, the sharp wit, the anger at stupidity, laziness, cowardice—above all, at hypocrisy.
He took a deep
breath and went up the steps and in through the door.
The duty sergeant looked up, pleased to see someone to break his morning. He hated writing ledgers, though it was better than idleness—just.
" ’Mornin’, sir. Lovely day, in’t it? Wot can I do for you?"
"Good morning, Sergeant," Monk replied, searching the man’s pleasant face for recognition and feeling a tentative hope when it was not there. He had already decided how he was going to approach the subject. "I am looking into a matter for a friend who is young, and at the present too distressed to take it up himself."
"I’m sorry, sir. What matter would that be? Robbery, is it?" the sergeant enquired helpfully, leaning forward a little over the counter.
"Yes," Monk agreed with a rueful smile and a slight shrug. "But not what you might expect. Rather more to it than that— something of a mystery." He lowered his voice. "And I fear a possible tragedy as well, although I am hoping that it is not so."
The sergeant was intrigued. This promised to occupy his whole day, maybe longer.
"Oh, yes sir. What, exactly, was stolen?"
"A coach and horses," Monk answered. "Good pair to drive, a bay and a brown, very well matched for height and pace. And the coach was excellent, too."
The sergeant looked puzzled. "You sure as it’s stole, sir? Not mebbe a member o’ the family got a bit irresponsible, like, and took it out? Young men will race, sir, bad as it is— an’ dangerous, too."
"Quite sure." Monk nodded. "I am afraid it was five days ago now and it is still missing. Not only that, but the driver who took it has not come back, and neither has the young lady who was betrothed to my friend. Naturally, we fear some harm has befallen her, or she would have contacted a member of the family."
The sergeant’s face was full of foreboding. "Oh, dear. That don’t sound good, sir, I must say."
Monk wondered if he was thinking that Miriam had run off with Treadwell. It was not impossible. Monk would have formed a better judgment on that if he had seen either of them, but from the description he had of Treadwell from the other Stourbridge servants, the coachman did not seem a man likely to have attracted a charming and gentle widow who had the prospect of marrying into an excellent family and becoming the wife of a man with whom, by all accounts, she was deeply in love. Certainly, Lucius Stourbridge loved her.
"No, it doesn’t," Monk said aloud. "I have traced the carriage as far as the edge of Hampstead Heath, but then I lost it. If it has been seen anywhere around this area, it would help me greatly to know it."
" ’Course," the sergeant agreed, nodding. "We got a good ’ospital ’ere. Mebbe she was took ill sudden, like. They’d ’a taken ’er in. Very charitable, they are. Or mebbe she ’ad a sudden breakdown in ’er mind, like young women can ’ave, sometimes?"
"I shall certainly enquire at the hospital," Monk agreed, although the sergeant had to be speaking about the hospital where Hester was, and he had already asked her if there had been any such young woman either seen or admitted. In either case, unless she were unconscious, why had she not made some effort to contact the Stourbridge family? "But I must also look further for the coach," he went on. "That may lead me to where she is. And in truth, the theft of the coach is the only aspect of the matter which breaches the law."
" ’Course," the sergeant said sagely. " ’Course. Sergeant Robb is very busy at the moment. Got a murder, ’e ’as. Poor feller beaten over the ’ead and left on the path outside some woman’s ’ouse. But ’e in’t gorn out yet today. I know that for a fact. An’ I’m sure as ’e’ll spare yer a few minutes, like."
"Thank you very much," Monk accepted. "I shan’t hold him up for long."
"You wait there, sir, an’ I’ll tell ’im as yer ’ere." And the sergeant lumbered dutifully out of sight. He returned, followed by a slender young man with a good-humored face and dark, intelligent eyes. He looked harassed, and it was obvious he was sparing Monk time only to be civil and because the desk sergeant had committed him to it. Little of his mind was on the subject.
"Good morning, sir," he said pleasantly. "Sergeant Trebbins says you are acting on behalf of a friend who has had a coach stolen, seemingly by his fiancée. I am afraid if they have chosen to... elope... it is probably ill advised, and certainly less than honorable, but it is not a crime. The matter of stealing a coach and pair, of course, we can look into, if you have reason to believe they came this way."
"I do. I have followed the sightings of the coach as far as the edge of the Heath."
"Was that yesterday, sir?"
