acquaintances I have in the Geographical Society, and also in a musical society I know and a debating association, but I learned nothing, except that Mr. Stonefield attended the Geographical Society once, as a guest, and seemed a quiet and charming man who claimed too many family and business obligations on his time to attend more often.” Her glance strayed around the room, taking in the gracious but well-worn furnishings, the polished wood, the rich dark colors of the eastern carpet, the absolute lack of any photographs or personal mementos.
“The others did not know him at all,” she continued. “Except by repute, and as a most honorable man, very upright, given to charitable donations of a modest sort, a regular attender at church, and in every way a pillar of the community.” There was a vividness in her eyes and a faint flush in her cheeks. “It is very strange, is it not? I fear greatly that his poor wife is correct, and he has met with some harm.”
“Yes,” Monk agreed gravely. He stood by the mantelshelf, close to the fire.
She sat in the chair opposite, her wide skirts almost touching the fender.
Almost absently he rang the bell for his landlady. “Yes, I am afraid it looks more and more as if that is so.”
“What are you going to do next?” she asked, looking up at him. “Surely you will try to prove it? How else can any sort of justice be done?”
“Yes, of course I will.”
There was a sharp knock on the door and his landlady appeared. She was a cheerful soul who had overcome her scruples at having an agent of inquiry in the establishment, and now took a certain kind of pride in it, suggesting all kinds of intrigue and glamour to other less fortunate keep- ers of similar establishments in the neighborhood whose lodgers followed more pedestrian callings.
“Yes, Mr. Monk. And what can I do for you?” She eyed Drusilla with interest. A lady of such beauty must either be in a marvelous distress or be a very wicked woman and highly dangerous. Either way, it was of the utmost interest. Not that she would repeat a word of it, of course, should she chance to overhear anything.
“Two cups of hot chocolate, if you please, Mrs. Mundy,” he replied. “It is a very inclement evening.”
“Indeed it is that,” Mrs. Mundy agreed. “Only one in dire need would be out at this hour of a winter's evening. Two cups of hot chocolate it is, Mr.
Monk.” And she withdrew to set about preparing them, her imagination whirling.
“What are you going to do next?” Drusilla asked the moment the door was closed. “How will you set about finding where he went, and finding Caleb Stone? That surely must be the answer, mustn't it?”
“I think so,” he agreed, amused by her eagerness and, in spite of himself, somewhat flattered. She was attracted to him, no matter how modest he might want to be, that much was apparent. He found himself responding because he too found her everything which appealed to him in a woman: charming, intelligent, confident, amusing and feminine with just the hint of vulnerability which complimented him. It was not a completely unfamiliar feeling. He had no specific memory, but he responded by instinct, with assurance and quite definite pleasure.
“So you will go to the East End?” she urged, her eyes shining.
“Yes,” he said, looking at her with amusement, baiting her gently. He knew she was bored, looking for adventure, something utterly different from anything her friends could boast. She had courage, that he did not doubt, and possibly even a desire to broaden her experience and to help someone for whom she felt a certain pity. He knew what she was going to say. “I'll help you,” she offered. “I am a very good judge of whether someone is lying or telling the truth, and together we can speak to twice as many people as you could alone.”
“You can't come dressed like that.” He looked her up and down with open appreciation. She was delightful to the eye, a perfect blend of spirit and good taste, enough beauty displayed to hold any man's attention, and yet sufficiently modest and with that measure of dignity and self-possession to make it plain she was her own person and there was immeasurably more concealed than any man could learn unless he gave a great deal of himself in return. He found he most definitely wanted her to come, whether she was of the slightest use or not. Her company would be delightful.
“I shall borrow my maid's clothing,” she promised. “When may we begin?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he answered with no more than a hint of a smile, his eyebrows raised. “Is eight o'clock too early for you?”
“Not in the slightest,” she rejoined, her chin high. “I shall be here at eight o'clock, on the dot.”
He grinned. “Excellent!”
Mrs. Mundy knocked on the door and brought in the hot chocolate. Monk accepted it as if it were champagne.
Chapter 5
In Bloomsbury where they set off the next morning, it was a still, cold morning, but as they went east, and drew nearer to the river, they came into fog. It grew thick in the throat and sour with the smell of smoke from house and factory chimneys. Eventually, short of the Isle of Dogs they could go at no greater pace than a careful walk. The hansom stopped in Three Colt Street. Monk paid the cabby and held out his hand to help Drusilla down. As she had promised, she was dressed in her maid's clothes: a darkcolored skirt and pale undistinguished blouse under a jacket top and a cloak which could have been either brown or gray. In the thin half-light of the fog it was impossible to tell. She had put a shawl over her bright hair and even one or two smuts and smears on her cheeks, but nothing could mask her natural beauty, or the white evenness of her teeth when she smiled.
The cab moved off into the gloom, and with a little shiver she linked her arm in his and they began the long task. At first she stood well back as Monk spoke to peddlers, a running patterer and a rag-and-bone man, and learned nothing of use. He was not surprised that she found them alien and frightening. Their accents must have been hard for her to follow, and their faces, matted under the grime, were haunted by a permanent wariness, a mixture of anger and fear.
Within a hundred yards a troop of children now joined them, thin-faced, wide-eyed, several of them barefoot, even in the bitter cold of the wet cobbles. They were inquisitive, and eager for any odd halfpenny or farthing that might be given. Dirty little hands plucked at Monk's sleeves and at Drusilla's skirts, which were less than half the size of her usual crinoline.
Gradually they moved eastward. In Rope-Makers' Field Monk tried several shopkeepers. Drusilla even plucked up courage to make several suggestions herself. But still they met with nothing useful. There were references to Caleb Stone, few of them flattering, many of them spoken with overt fear.
Emmett Street was the same. The fog from the river was even denser here, hanging in thick curtains, blocking out the light. There was no color to drain from the drab streets with their high, narrow walls, sooty and damp- stained, the chimneys dribbling out thin wreaths of smoke. Middens ran out into the gutters and the smell was choking. The fog deadened sound; even other footsteps on the wet stones were hardly audible. Now and then the wail of a foghorn came from the river a street away.
Several times Drusilla looked at Monk, question and horror in her eyes.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked, knowing the pity and the dismay she must feel, a woman who had never seen or imagined such things before. It said much for her courage that she had come this far.
“We haven't learned anything yet,” she said doggedly, gritting her teeth.
“Thank you, but I can continue.”
He smiled at her with a warmth he had no need to affect. He held her arm a little closer as they went on past the West India Docks towards the Isle of Dogs.
On West Ferry Road Monk stopped a woman with a large bosom and short, very bowed legs. She was carrying a bundle of rags and was about to go through a doorway which emitted a smell of burned fat and blocked drains.
“Hey!” Monk called out.
The woman stopped and turned, too tired for curiosity. “Yeah?”
“I'm looking for someone,” Monk began, as he had so many times before.
“It's worth something to me to find him.”
“Oh yeah?” There was a slight flicker across the impassivity of the woman's face. “'Oo yer lookin' fer,
