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Slowly the rage eased out of Marbury’s face and he obeyed. He was a good waterman and, with Hooper’s help, they got the barges into sheltered water and cast anchor. Then they took the thieves back to the shore, minus the one who was dead and the one who had been lost in the river.
It took an hour to hand over the thieves and get the dead man ashore and to the police surgeon. Hooper attended to that before Monk faced Marbury, who was standing under a streetlamp on the dockside.
Marbury turned to leave.
“Marbury!” Monk called out sharply.
Marbury turned and looked at him. In the gaslight, his face was haggard, huge shadows around his eyes.
“What was that man to you?” Monk asked.
Marbury frowned.
“You’d have killed him if I hadn’t stopped you. Don’t lie. Who is he?”
“He lived down the street from me once,” Marbury said, and his voice cracked. “We fought over some stupid thing, and I won. He beat my dog to death. And you’re right. I would have killed him.”
Monk looked at Marbury, who was standing with his shoulders bowed but his head up. He was wet, filthy, exhausted, and probably bruised all over, but it was the grief that consumed him. Monk could see that, almost feel it himself. “Then you’d better do it where I can’t see you,” he said quietly. “Don’t want to have to take you in for it.”
Marbury’s face softened, his eyes shone with tears, and he turned and walked away, as if he needed to be alone.
Monk understood.
* * *
—
AT THE WAPPING POLICE Station they formally charged the thieves. Monk thought they were finished and could at last go home when Hooper came to him, his step brisk. He stopped in front of Monk’s desk.
“Sir, one of those men has an interesting story…to trade.”
“Trade?” Monk said with little interest. “For what? We have them.”
“He knows something about the kidnapping of Mrs. Exeter. He says he actually took part in it.”
“What?” Suddenly Monk was wide awake. “What part did he take? Are you sure?”
“He described Mrs. Exeter and Miss Darwin,” Hooper replied. “He saw them, all right. He wasn’t going to tell me anything apart from that. And none of it was in the newspapers. He was there.”
Monk pushed his chair back and stood up, his joints and back stiff from the fight on Jacob’s Island, and then this evening.
Hooper turned and Monk followed him to where one of the men from the barge was sitting. He looked up at Monk, ignoring Hooper.
Monk stopped in front of him. “All right. What have you got to offer, and what do you want for it?” he asked tersely.
The man studied Monk’s face. He was perhaps thirty, fair-haired, quite pleasant-looking, if he was to smile. “I want to get out of here, with no charge,” he answered.
“And what have you got, other than taking part in a kidnap and murder, for which you will be hanged?” Monk countered.
The man stiffened, but he did not yield. “I had no part in what ’appened to ’er,” he said a little unsteadily. “I just rowed the boat. I took the one what took ’er in. I rowed ’im downriver to Jacob’s Island, and that’s where ’e took ’er, an’ paid me. ’E told me it were a prank. Get even with ’er ’usband. She were alive when ’e went. And I ain’t telling you no more till I get suffink from you. I row—that’s all I do. Don’t steal nothing, don’t kill nobody.”
Monk looked at the man steadily. Was it worth letting him go to get the name and description of the man who took Kate? What guarantee was there that it was the truth?
“Describe the woman,” he said.
“Young one, tall, dark hair, very ’andsome, she was. Wearing a dress with flowers on, green, mostly. She had a little mark on ’er face, ’ere.” He pointed to his cheek. Monk remembered it on what was left untouched of Kate’s dead face.
