Angus Stonefield was a well-respected man.”
“I realize why you wish it, William.” She rose to her feet heavily. “I may have spent the last week nursing the sick, but I have not lost my wits. I shall send Hester to you. She has spent more time with the people than I have, especially with Mary. I have been fighting with the frightened, bitter men at the local council, and all that they have said at enormous length and with enough words to fill a library, providing every book were the same, amounts to nothing whatever of the slightest use to man or beast.” And before he could argue, she sailed out and he was left alone sitting on the bench in the light of one tallow candle, looking at the water-stained walls and waiting for Hester.
She was several minutes in coming, and by the time she did he was thoroughly uncomfortable.
She arrived and closed the door.
He stood up automatically, until she seated herself in the chair. She began straightaway, so obviously Callandra had explained his purpose.
“Everyone seems afraid of Caleb,” she said gravely. “He seems to inhabit an area stretching from the East India Dock Road to the river-”
“The Isle of Dogs,” he interrupted. “I know that much.”
“On both sides,” she continued, ignoring him. “And the Greenwich marshes as far as Bugsby's Reach. A great deal of the time no one knows precisely where he is. He sleeps in the dockyards, on barges, and sometimes with Selina Herries, which you already know.”
“Yes, I do,” he said impatiently. “I need to prove he was with Angus on the day he was last seen, and when and where.”
“I know what you want.” She was unruffled. “But you won't prove anything unless you can persuade someone to speak to you. I don't think anyone is going to betray Caleb unless they can be sure he won't take his revenge on them for it. And Selina won't, regardless. She may be frightened, but she loves him, in her own way.”
There was a sound of buckets clanging on the far side of the door, but no one opened it.
He leaned forward. “How do you know? Do you know her?” It was foolish to get excited by the thought, but it would be the last chance, if he could find a way to gain her trust. “She may only be afraid as well.”
Hester smiled. It lit her face, not removing the tiredness but overriding it.
“I don't doubt she is afraid of him,” she agreed. “And I don't doubt she has cause, now and then. But by all accounts she also loves him, in her way, and is rather proud of him.”
“Proud of him! In God's name, what for? The man's a failure in every way.”
As soon as he had said it, he wished he had not put it in such words. It was a damnation, and Caleb's vivid face with its rage and its intelligence was sharp in his mind. He could have been so much more. He could have been everything that Angus was. Instead jealousy had corroded his soul until in a passion of hatred he had committed murder and destroyed not only his brother but what was left of himself. The pity in Monk was tight and painful, fraught with loathing. And yet he knew rage himself. It was the grace of God that he had not killed. Could Angus conceivably have been a hypocrite too, a charming, predatory blackguard too clever for anyone to catch?
Hester did not interrupt his thoughts. He wished she would. Instead she simply sat staring at him, waiting. She knew him too intimately. It was uncomfortable.
“Well?” he demanded. “What could she be proud of him for?”
“Because no one cheats him or abuses him,” she answered, her voice suggesting that it was obvious. “He's strong. Everyone knows his name. The fact that he chooses her makes her important. People don't dare to take advantage of her either.”
He stood up and turned away, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “And that's the height of her ambition? To be owned by the most hated and feared man in the Isle of Dogs! God, what a life!” He remembered Selina's beautifully boned face with its wide mouth and bold eyes, the proud swaying way she walked. She was worth more than that. “It's better than most women, around here,” Hester said quietly. “She isn't often cold or hungry, and no one knocks her around.”
“Except Caleb!” he said.
“That's something,” she replied calmly. “It's many people's dream to escape, but few ever do, except to the whorehouses up in the Haymarket, or worse.”
He winced-at her language, not at the truth.
“Mary says one pretty girl did, Ginny something,” she went on, though he was not interested. “Got married, she thought; but that's probably more a hope than a fact. Gentlemen don't marry girls they pick up in Limehouse.”
It was a bare reality, and if he had said it himself he would have said it was simply the truth. From her lips it had a coarseness and a finality he resented.
“Do you know anything useful?” he said abruptly. “That Selina won't betray him doesn't help me.”
“You asked me,” she pointed out. “But I can tell you the names of a few of his enemies who would be delighted to see his downfall, if they can do it safely.”
“Can you?” He could not hide his eagerness. He had not managed to turn up anything so definite himself. Of course, she was trusted in a way he never could be. She was living and working among these people, risking her life daily to tend to them in their extremity. He pushed that thought away.
“Who? Where do I find them?”
She gave him a list of five names-one man, three women and a youth-and in all cases where he could find them.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “That is excellent. If any one of them can tell me something, we may yet help Mrs. Stonefield. I shall begin immediately.”
But he did not. That evening he had arranged to see Drusilla, and it was a pleasure he longed for. Not even to help Genevieve Stonefield could he forgo it and creep around the slums and rookeries of Limehouse in the dark and the cold. It could wait until tomorrow, when it would be both easier and safer. Caleb had to be aware Monk was still pursuing him. He was not a man to wait idly to be caught.
The weather had cleared and it was a dry, chilly evening with only the ever-present pall of smoke hiding the stars.
Half past seven found Monk superbly dressed, stepping out of a hansom cab to meet Drusilla on the steps of the British Archaeological Association in Sackville Street. She had requested that he meet her there because she had said she had promised to accompany a friend for dinner, which was a great bore. She had cancelled the arrangement, but in order to avoid lengthy and unnecessarily dishonest explanations, she could not be at home.
She appeared at exactly half past, as she had said she would. She wore a wide-skirted gown of silk the color of candlelight through brandy, and it complimented her marvelously. She seemed to glow in golds and tawny bronzes and her skin had a delicacy and a warmth unlike any he had seen before.
“Is something amiss?” she said laughingly. “You look terribly serious, William!”
The sound of his name from her lips was acutely pleasing. He collected his attention with an effort.
“No, nothing at all. I even have news which may help me eventually to find where poor Angus Stonefield met his death.”
“Have you?” she said eagerly, taking his arm and falling into step as he matched his pace to hers. “It does seem terribly tragic. Did he do it merely from jealousy, do you suppose? Why now? He must have been jealous of him for years.” She gave a little shiver. “I wonder what happened which suddenly made such a difference? I don't suppose it really matters, but don't you long to know?” She turned to look at him curiously. “Don't you think it is one of the most interesting subjects in the world, why people do what they do?”
“Yes, of course it is.” She could not know the nerve her question had struck in him, how many of his own acts he had learned from the evidences left of his life, and yet could not remember, so did not know why he had done them. So much can be understood, even excused, when one understands.
“You look sad.” She was searching his face with her wide hazel eyes. “Where shall we go, so I can cheer you up? Do you still think the widow is innocent? Do you think she may have known Caleb, recently?”
The idea was funny. He could not imagine the socially correct, money-careful, domestic Genevieve having the slightest thing in common with the violent, lonely Caleb, who lived from hand to mouth, never knowing what he would eat next or where he would sleep.
“No, I don't!”
