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“She’s sixteen,” Monk replied, not knowing really what he meant.
Lanyon did not answer. They were back at the water’s edge. On both sides of the river tall chimneys spewed out black smoke which drifted upwards, staining the air. Massive sheds had wheels vaulting up through their roofs like the paddles of unimaginably huge steamers. Monk remembered from somewhere in the past that the London docks could take about five hundred ships. The tobacco warehouses alone covered five acres. He could smell the tobacco now, along with tar, sulfur, the saltiness of the tide, the stench of hides, the fragrance of coffee.
All around were the noises of labor and trade, shouts, clanging of metal on metal, scrape of wood on stone, the slap of water and whine of wind.
A man passed them, his face dyed blue with the indigo he unloaded. Behind him was a black man with a fancy waistcoat, such as a ship’s mate might wear. A fat man with long gray hair curling on his collar carried a brass-tipped rule, dripping spirit. There was a stack of casks a dozen yards away. He had been probing them to test their content. He was a gauger-that was his work.
A whiff of spice was sharp and sweet for a moment, then Monk and Lanyon were negotiating their way around a stack of cork, then yellow bins of sulfur, and lead-c
olored copper ore.
Somewhere twenty yards away, sailors were singing as they worked, keeping time.
Lanyon stopped a brass-buttoned customs officer and explained who he was, without reference to Monk.
“Yes, sir,” the customs man said helpfully. “Wot was it about, then?”
“A triple murder and robbery from a warehouse in Tooley Street last night,” Lanyon said succinctly. “We think the goods were loaded onto a barge and sent downriver. Probably got this far about one or two in the morning.”
The customs man bit his lip dubiously. “Dunno, meself, but yer best chance’d be to ask the watermen, or mebbe even river finders. They often work by night as well, lookin’ fer bodies an’ the like. Never tell what the river’ll fetch up. Not lookin’ fer bodies too, are yer?”
“No,” Lanyon said grimly. “We have all the bodies we need. I was going to try the watermen and river finders. I thought you would know of any ships bound for America from the Pool, especially any that might have gone this morning.” There was a wry expression on his lugubrious face, as if he were aware of the irony of it.
The customs man shrugged. “Well, if there was, I reckon your murderer and thief is long gone with it!”
“I know,” Lanyon agreed. “It’ll do me no good. I just have to be sure. He may have accomplices here. It took more than one man to do what was done last night. If any Englishman helped him, I want to catch the swine and see him hang for it. The American might be able to find some justification, although not in my book, but not our men. They’ll have done it for money.”
“Well, come with me into my office, an’ I’ll see,” the customs man offered. “I think the Princess Maude might have gone on the early tide, and she was bound that way, but I’d ’ave ter check.”
Lanyon and Monk followed obediently, and found that two ships had left, bound for New York, that morning. It took them until early afternoon to question the dockers, sackmakers, and ballast heavers before being satisfied that Alberton’s guns had not gone on either vessel.
With a feeling of heavy disappointment they went to the Ship Aground for a late lunch.
“What in hell’s name did he do with them, then?” Lanyon said angrily. “He must intend to ship them home. There’s no other use he would have for them!”
“He must have taken them further down,” Monk said, biting into a thick slice of beef and onion pie. “Not a freighter, something fast and light, especially for this.”
“Where? There’s no decent mooring along Limehouse or the Isle of Dogs, not for something to sail the Atlantic with a load of guns! Greenwich maybe? Blackwall, Gravesend, anywhere down the estuary, for that matter?”
Monk frowned. “Would he take a barge that far? I know it’s late June, but we can still get rough weather. I think he’d get it into a decent ship and up anchor as soon as possible. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” Lanyon agreed, taking a long draft from his ale. The room around them was packed with dockers and river men of one sort or another, all eating, drinking and talking. The heat was oppressive and the smells thick in the throat. “I suppose that leaves us nothing to do but try the watermen and the finders. Watermen first. Anyone working last night might have seen something. There’ll have been someone around; there always is. It’s just a matter of finding him. Like looking for a needle in a haystack. Customs man had a good point. Why bother?”
“Because Breeland didn’t do it alone,” Monk replied, finishing the last of his pie. “And he certainly didn’t bring a barge over from Washington!”
Lanyon shot him a wry glance, humor in his thin face. He finished his meal as well, and they stood up to leave.
It took them the rest of that afternoon and into the evening to work their way as far as Deptford, to the south of the river, and the Isle of Dogs, to the north, going back and forth in the small ferryboats used by the watermen, questioning all the time.
The following morning they started again, and finally crossed from the West India Port Basin in Blackhurst, just beyond the Isle of Dogs, over the Blackwall Reach to Bugsby’s Marshes, on the bend of the river beyond Greenwich.
“Ain’t nuffin’ ’ere, gents,” the waterman said dolefully, shaking his head as he pulled on the oars. “Yer must ’a bin mistook. Jus’ marsh, bog, an’ the like.” He fixed Monk with a critical, sorrowful eye, having already examined his well-cut jacket, clean hands and boots that fit him perfectly. “Yer in’t from ’round ’ere. ’Oo tol’ yer there was anyfink worth yer goin’ ter the Bugsby fer?”
“I’m from right around here,” Lanyon said sharply. “Born and raised in Lewisham.”
“Then yer oughter ’ave more sense!” the waterman said unequivocally. “I’ll wait for yer an’ take yer back. Less yer wanter change yer mind right now? ’Alf fare?”
Lanyon smiled. “Were you out on the river the night before last?”
