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Barges were passing them all the time on the water. Men called to each other. The cry of gulls mixed with the rattle of chains and creak of winches.
“How many men did you see?” Lanyon persisted.
“Dunno. Two, I reckon. Look, I were tryin’ ter get a spot o’ kip … a little peace. I din’t look at ’em. If folks wanna shift stuff around ’alf the night in’t none o’ my business-”
“Did you hear them say anything at all?” Monk interrupted.
“Like wot?” The coal backer looked at him with surprise. “I said they didn’t talk. Said nuffin’.”
“Nothing at all?” Monk insisted.
The man’s face tightened and Monk knew he would now stick to his story, true or not.
“Did you notice what height they were?” he asked instead.
The man thought for a moment or two, making Monk and Lanyon wait.
“Yeah … one of ’em were shortish, the other were taller, an’ thin. Very straight ’e stood, like ’e ’ad a crick in ’is back, but worked real ’ard … the bit I saw,” he amended. “Made enough noise, clankin’ around.”
Lanyon thanked him and turned to walk back towards the road along the river edge. Monk kept level with him.
“Are you sure it was the wagon from the warehouse?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lanyon said without hesitation. “Not many people about in the middle of the night, but a few. And I sent men in other directions as well. Searched around in other yards, just in case they moved them only a short way. Not likely, but don’t want to overlook anything.” He stepped off the curb to avoid a pile of ropes. They passed Horsleydown New Stairs, and ahead of them, close together, were four more wharfs before they had to bear almost a quarter of a mile inland to go around St. Saviour’s Dock, then back to the river’s edge and Bermondsey Wall, and more wharfs.
The Tower of London was sharp gray-white on the far bank, a little behind them. The sun was bright in patches on the water, thin films of mist and smoke clouding here and there. Ahead of them lay the Pool of London, thick with forests of masts. Strings of barges moved slowly with the tide, so heavy laden the water seemed to lap at their gunwales.
Behind them were the dark, disease-infested, crumbling buildings of Jacob’s Island, a misnamed slum which had suffered two major outbreaks of cholera in the last decade, in which thousands had died. The smell of sewage and rotting wood filled the air.
“What do you know about Breeland?” Lanyon asked, increasing his stride a little as if he could escape the oppression of the place, even though they were following the curve of the river into Rotherhithe and what lay ahead was no better.
“Very little,” Monk answered. “I saw him twice, both times at Alberton’s house. He seemed to be obsessed with the Union cause, but I hadn’t thought of him as a man to resort to this kind of violence.”
“Did he mention anyone else, any friends or allies?”
“No, no one at all.” Monk had been trying to remember that himself. “I thought he was here alone, simply to arrange purchase-as was the man from the Confederacy, Philo Trace.”
“But Alberton had already promised the guns to Trace?”
“Yes. And Trace had paid a half deposit. That was why Alberton said he couldn’t go back on the deal.”
“But Breeland kept trying?”
“Yes. He didn’t seem to be able to accept the idea that for Alberton it was also a matter of honor. He was something of a fanatic.” Should he have been able to foresee that Breeland was so closely poised to violence that a final refusal would break his frail links with decency, even perhaps sanity? Had preventing this been his moral task, even though it was not the one for which he had been hired?
Lanyon seemed to be deep in thought, his narrow face tight with concentration. They walked quickly. It was half a mile around the dock, and they had to avoid bales and crates, piles of rope, chains, rusty tin, men heaving loads from the towering wharf buildings across to where barges lay, riding the slurping water, bumping and scraping sides as the wash of a passing boat caught them.
The dockers were men of all ages and types. It was labor anyone could do if his strength permitted it. It surprised Monk that he knew that. Somewhere in the past he had been to places like this. He knew the different sorts of men as he saw them: the bankrupt master butchers or bakers, grocers or publicans; lawyers or government clerks who had been suspended or discharged; servants without references, pensioners, almsmen, old soldiers or sailors, gentlemen on hard times, refugees from Poland and other mid-European countries; and the usual fair share of thieves.
“It must have been very well planned,” Lanyon interrupted his thoughts. “Everything worked to time. The question is, did he stage the quarrel just to keep himself informed about Alberton’s movements and whether or not the guns had already gone? Did he know perfectly well that Alberton wouldn’t change his mind?”
That had not even occurred to Monk. He had assumed the quarrels were as spontaneous as they had seemed. Breeland’s indignation had sounded entirely genuine. Could any man act so superbly? Breeland had not struck him as a man with sufficient imagination to simulate anything.
Lanyon was waiting for an answer, looking sideways at Monk curiously.
“It was certainly planned,” Monk admitted reluctantly. “He must have had men ready to help, with a wagon. They must have known the river and where to hire a barge. Perhaps that was the message he received which made him leave his lodgings and go that night. I had wondered where Merrit Alberton fitted in, if it was her leaving home that precipitated it.”
Lanyon grunted. “I’d like to know her part in it too. How much idea had she as to the kind of man Breeland really is? What is she now-lover or hostage?”
