offered him a seat.
“What's the gin for?” he asked. “Desperation?”
“It wouldn't be sitting there unopened if it were,” she replied grimly.
“Tell me about your case.”
He hesitated, uncertain how much to say about Genevieve. Perhaps he should give Callandra only facts and omit his own impressions.
“To clean things with,” she answered his question. “Alcohol is better than water, especially from the wells around here. Not the floors, of course.
The vinegar's for that. I mean plates and spoons.”
He acknowledged the explanation.
“The case…” she prompted, sitting heavily on one of the chairs, which rocked, tilted and righted itself at an angle.
He sat on the other gingerly, but it supported his weight, albeit with an alarming creak.
“A man has disappeared, a businessman, comfortably off and eminently respectable,” he began. “He seems happily married, with five children. It was his wife who came to me.”
Callandra was watching him, so far without interest.
“His wife says he has a twin brother,” Monk continued with a ghost of a smile, “who is in every way opposite. He is violent, ruthless, and lives alone, somewhere in this area.”
“Limehouse?” Callandra said in surprise. “Why here?”
“Apparently choice. He lives by his wits, and occasional gifts from Angus, the missing brother. In spite of their differences, Angus insisted on keeping in touch, although his wife says he was afraid of Caleb.”
“And it is Angus who has disappeared?”
The candle on the table flickered for a moment. It was stuck in the top of an empty bottle and the tallow ran down the side.
“Yes. His wife is deeply afraid that Caleb has murdered him. In fact, I think she is convinced of it.”
She frowned. “Did you say Caleb?” She reached out absently and righted the candle.
“Yes. Why?” he asked.
“It's an unusual name,” she replied. “Not unknown, but not common. I heard only a few hours ago of a brutal man in this area named Caleb Stone. He injured a youth and slashed the face of a woman.”
“The same man!” he said quickly, leaning forward a little. “The brother is Angus Stonefield, but Caleb may well have dropped the second half of his name. It fits with what Genevieve said of him.” He realized as he spoke how he had been hoping inside himself that it was not true, that perhaps her view of Caleb was exaggerated. Now in a sentence that was ended.
Callandra shook her head. “I am afraid if that is so, then you have not only a greater task ahead of you but perhaps an exceedingly difficult one.
Caleb Stone may be guilty, but it will be very hard to prove. There is little love lost for him around here, but fear may hold people silent. I assume you have already inquired into the more usual explanations for the brother's absence?”
“How delicately put,” he said with a sharp edge to his voice. He was not angry with her, only with the circumstances and his own helplessness. “You mean debt, theft or another woman?”
“Something like that…”
“i haven't proved them impossible, simply unlikely. I traced him the last day he was seen. He came as far as Union Road, about a mile from here.”
Before he could add anything further he caught a movement out of the comer of his eye, and turned to see Hester standing in the doorway. Even though he had already seen her dimly in the main room, it had not prepared him for meeting her face-to-face. He had thought a dozen times exactly what he was going to say, how casual he was going to be, as if nothing had changed between them since the conclusion of the trial in Edinburgh. On reflection, that was about the best time to go back to. They could hardly pretend that had not occurred. If she referred to the Farralines, that was acceptable, although the subject might be sensitive to her, and he would respect that.
She would not mention the small room in which they had been trapped, or anything that had happened between them there. That would be so indelicate as to be inexcusable. She knew it had been occasioned by what had seemed the knowledge of certain death, and not an emotion which could be carried into their succeeding lives. To refer to it would be both clumsy and painful.
But women were peculiar where emotions were concerned, especially emotions that had anything to do with love. They were unpredictable and illogical.
How did he know that? Was that some submerged memory, or simply assumption?
Not that Hester was very feminine. He would find her more appealing if she were. She had no art to charm, or the kind of subtle flattery that is only a selection and amplification of the truth. She was much too direct…
almost to the point of challenge. She had no idea when to keep her own counsel and defer to others. Intellectual women were remarkably unattractive. It was not a pleasing quality to be right all the time, most particularly in matters of logic, judgment and military history. She was at once very clever and remarkably stupid.
“Is something wrong?” Her voice interrupted his thoughts. She looked from Callandra to Monk and back again.
“Does something have to be wrong for me to come here?” he said defensively, rising to his feet.
“Here?” Her eyebrows rose. “Yes.”
“Then you've answered your own question, haven't you,” he said tardy. She was quite right. No one would come to a pesthouse in the East End without a desperate reason. Apart from the physical unpleasantness of the smell, the cold, the drab, damp surroundings and the sounds of pain, it was the best way in the world to contract the disease yourself. He looked at her face. She must be exhausted. She was so pale her skin was almost gray, her hair was filthy and her clothes too thin for the barely heated room. She would not have the strength to resist illness.
She bit her lip in irritation. It always annoyed her to be verbally outmaneuvered.
“You've come for Callandra's help.” Her tone was waspish. “Or mine?” He knew that was meant sarcastically. He was also aware how often she had helped him; sometimes, as in the first occasion they had met, when he was truly desperate and his life hung in the balance. He had never been able to forget how it was her courage and her belief in him which had given him the strength to fight.
Several answers flashed through his head, most of them offensive. In the end, largely for Callandra's sake, he settled for the truth, or close to it.
“I have a case which seems to fade out two streets away,” he said, looking at her coldly. “But since the man I am trying to trace was the brother of a well-known local character, and presumably on his way to see him, I thought you might be of assistance.”
Whatever other thoughts were in her mind-and she looked both irritable and unhappy beneath the wearinessshe chose to acknowledge the interest. “Who is the local character? We haven't had much time for conversation, but we could ask.” She sat down on the chair he had vacated, not bothering to rearrange her skirts.
“Caleb Stone, or Stonefield. I don't suppose-” He stopped. He had been about to say that she would know nothing of him, but the changed expression in her face made it perfectly obvious that she did know, and that it was ill. “What?” he demanded.
“Only that he is violent,” she replied. “Callandra will already have told you that. We were discussing it last night. Who are you looking for?”
“Angus Stonefield, who is his brother.”
“Why?? “Because he's disappeared,” he said tartly. It was absurd to allow her to make him feel so uncomfortable, almost guilty, as if he were denying part of himself. And it was not so. He liked and admired many of her qualities, but there were others which he deplored and which were a constant source of annoyance to him. And he had always been perfectly frank about it, as indeed so had she. There were certain debts of honor between them, on both sides, but that was all. And for heaven's sake, that was all she wished also. But perhaps part of that obligation was to tell her of the dangers she faced spending her time in a pesthouse like this.
