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“Exception,” Monk finished for him. “I know.” He pretended to begin rising to his feet, his eyes fixed on the ivory on the wall.
“I did get some more stuff from a feller about a year or so past. Couple o’ dozen o’ them earrings. Some was real big. ’Andsome feller. But ’e wasn’t Yorkshire no more’n I am. American, ’e were, but with a touch now an’ then of Irish. Just a touch, mind, like ’e were a long time from the Old Svelde!”
“Describe him,” Monk ordered.
“Tall, graceful, very ’andsome, an’ ’e knew it.”
“Clean-shaven?” Monk asked.
“No…mustache.” Velvet touched his own upper lip.
“Dark?”
“Not really.”
“Name?”
He shook his head. “I don’t ask no names. You know better than that, Mr. Monk. They was real. That’s all I care about.”
Gillander? Not Piers Astley. Monk stayed only a short time further, but as he was leaving, his mind was not on which man it might have been, but on the clarity with which he could remember the carved animals. How did he know?
—
A SECOND DAY LOOKING, AND he had found nothing definitive about Piers Astley. However, he had definitely learned more about the dead man, Blount, and the other two men who had escaped earlier: the safecracker, Seager, and the chemist, Applewood.
“Worst mistake we ever made,” one policeman said ruefully, when Monk visited the station in Bethnal Green where Applewood had been arrested. The man’s face colored with embarrassment. “Looked so ordinary, could ’ave been your postman or a bank clerk behind the counter. Sort of…shortsighted, harmless. Kind o’ man who could trip over ’is own bootlaces. But clever. ’E were like a weasel, always thinking. Knew what everything was made of. Even knew what smells they were. Wore them dark glasses, an’ when ’e took them off, ’is eyes were enough ter give yer nightmares.”
According to the sergeant in nearby Hoxton, where Seager had lived, he was a different matter altogether. He seemed merely a quiet man who was obsessive about his fingers. He always wore gloves to protect them, even in the summer, and would never shake hands with anyone. Curiously, he liked to play the piano, and did it well.
Blount, it seemed from the customs man Worth, was less individual, but nevertheless highly thought of in his profession, if you could call it such. He would be hard to replace. Was that what was holding up the robbery of Aaron Clive? Or was the victim someone else, and perhaps it was already begun? It was time, Monk thought, that he reported to McNab, before McNab came to him.
Should he be honest? He could not afford to be seen as dishonest. He might well have to justify himself if the robbery, whatever it was, succeeded.
McNab looked up when Monk went up the stairs from Worth’s room to McNab’s. Monk was not used to such easy access. McNab was almost civil.
“Ah! Morning, Monk,” McNab said with something lik
e cordiality. He nodded his thanks to the man who had shown Monk in, and gave him permission to leave them.
Monk sat down in the chair opposite the tidy, polished desk and gave McNab an edited version of Miriam Clive’s assertions about Piers Astley. “If he’s alive and he’s here, then he’s keeping well low,” he finished. “But I found an opulent receiver who bought some American Indian art from a man answering Gillander’s description, over a year ago.”
“Not our gold baron, Mr. Clive?”
“No. Besides, I don’t see Aaron Clive importing bits and pieces and selling them through a receiver, opulent or not. No, this was someone who wished to make a nice sum of money, but quickly, without drawing any attention to himself.”
“Interesting,” McNab agreed, nodding his head slowly. Then his face grew more earnest. “Fits with what I learned. Looks more and more like Clive is the target. Can’t wonder at that. He’s a very rich man indeed. Daresay he got himself a few enemies out there in San Francisco. Can’t get that rich without treading on people now and then. Might be as honest as the day now, but was he always that way?”
“I don’t think we can find out in time for it to be any use to us,” Monk replied. “It can take months to get to California, and the same back. Otherwise one can either sail to New York, or Panama, and then go overland, but that’s both hard and dangerous. Or sail round the Horn and up the other side of the country all the way north again to San Francisco. And that’s long and dangerous, too.”
McNab looked doubtful. “Too long,” he agreed. “But safer. Stay on your ship, just wait…”
“Ever been around the Horn?” Monk said sharply. McNab’s ignorance and contempt angered him. “The South Atlantic has seas a hundred feet high, and more, in bad weather.”
McNab looked at him with fascination, his eyes wide, suddenly the color in them clear hazel. “Really?” His voice lifted with interest.
“Yes!” Monk replied with the force of memory.
“Been there, have you?” McNab showed his teeth in a rare, wide smile.
