'We were wrong,' he said simply. 'Monk has just pointed out that Sixsmith must have shot the assassin, and more essentially, that we have accused the wrong man. To save him, we must at the very least prove Sixsmith's guilt of the assassin's death, and if possible convict him of it.'
Margaret turned to Monk to verify from his face if that could possibly be true. She needed only an instant to see that it was. 'Then we must do it,' she said quietly. 'But how? The trial is finished. Would taking his testimony to anyone be sufficient?'
'No,' Monk said with certainty. 'We must prove the whole line of connection, the fact that he knew the man all the way through.' He saw in her face that she did not understand. 'If we charged Sixsmith now,' he explained, 'on the strength of his description of the assassin, he could say he heard it from Argyll, or anyone else. He might slip away again.' He smiled bleakly. 'We must be right this time.'
'I see.' Her answer was simple. She was not a beautiful woman, her looks being rather more individual, but at this moment there was a true beauty in her face as she turned back to Rathbone. 'We'll celebrate when we have it right,' she said calmly. 'I shall explain to Mama and Papa, and we can finish dinner quite pleasantly, and then go home. Please do what is necessary. It cannot wait. Whatever time it takes, however difficult it is, it must be accomplished before Argyll is charged and tried. They would hang him for James Havilland's death. Perhaps for Mary's as well, although I suppose it could have been Toby who was to blame for that. Do you suppose Toby did that for Sixsmith?'
Rathbone was thoughtful, but he did not take his eyes from her face. 'Possibly, but he might not have realized all the implications. Sixsmith could have asked him to speak to her, try to persuade her that her father's death was suicide after all, and that she was only making it worse by continuing to probe it. Almost certainly he would try to persuade her that there was no danger in the tunnels.'
'Was that what James Havilland was afraid of, uncharted underground rivers?' She turned to Monk.
'Yes, I think so. Toby seems to have spoken to toshers a lot, too, but that could have been to try to stop them from interfering with the work. That's what I thought to begin with. I don't think we'll ever know if he meant to kill Mary. Probably not. Not unless there was far more between him and Sixsmith than we know.' He tried to visualize again what he had seen on the bridge. 'I think it was an accident. She was frightened of him. Perhaps she thought Alan Argyll was behind her father's death and that Toby was going to kill her, too. She tried to get away from him, and whether she meant to or not, she took him with her.' As he said it, he was not sure if that was what he really believed. Could Sixsmith deliberately have corrupted Toby Argyll? He remembered Alan Argyll's grief when he had heard of his brother's death. Grief, or guilt?
'We won't know, will we?' Margaret said sadly.
'Probably not,' he admitted.
'And Mrs. Argyll?' she persisted. 'She swore it was her husband who told her to write the letter.'
'I know,' Rathbone answered her. 'There are a lot of things we still have to learn, and to prove. But we can't afford to wait. I'm sorry.'
'I understand.' She gave him a smile that was intimate and a little sad, but only for the moment missed, no more. She excused herself and left.
Rathbone looked at Monk. For the first time since Rathbone had realized he was in love with Hester, there was no envy in his eyes, only a deep happiness. He smiled at Monk.
Monk smiled back at him, surprised how pleased he was. 'I'm sorry,' he said again.
'Where are we going to start?' Rathbone asked him.
Monk looked Rathbone's elegant figure up and down. 'With rather older clothes, I think. We need to find and prove the connection between Sixsmith and the assassin.'
Rathbone's eyes widened. 'For God's sake, Monk! How? Sixsmith worked in the sewer excavations. He could have been anywhere when he was out on bail. It was only a bribery charge! And no one has the faintest idea where the assassin was. We don't even have a name for him!'
'You've summed it up perfectly,' Monk said with a smile that was more like a baring of teeth. 'I plan on enlisting all the help I can. I'll start with Runcorn, Orme, and as many of my own men as I can spare, then the doctor, Crow. He'll be happy to help because the assassin shot Scuff. Then I'll get as many navvies as'll help. Toshers, gangers, and watermen, too. And I'll try to get Sutton, the ratcatcher. He knows the hidden rivers and wells that very few other people do, all the hiding places. People who won't speak to us will speak to him.'
There was horror, disgust, and self-mockery in Rathbone's face. 'And what is it you imagine I can do in this… this pursuit of the unspeakable?'
Monk grinned now. 'Oh, you are in command,' he assured him. 'You will tell us what is proof and what is not.'
Rathbone gave him a dark, twisted look and excused himself to change his clothes.
They went first to Runcorn, as a matter of geographical simplicity. He was horrified, as they had known he would be. Even more than that, he was angry with himself for not having seen the difference in the two descriptions of the assassin.
'No one did,' Monk assured him honestly. 'It was only when I was telling Hester about it and repeating it myself that I realized. That one detail too much was his only slip.'
Runcorn's face was hard and bleak. 'I'll trace each step of that bastard's way,' he promised, 'if I have to climb or crawl through every sewer in London and question the bloody rats!'
At the thought, Mark's face pulled tight, his mouth in a downward turn, but he did not argue.
Next they got Orme out of his bed with an apology for the hour, as he could just barely have gone to sleep after a hard day. He made no complaints, not even by change of expression on his face. Monk hoped profoundly that it was not because he did not dare to. Orme had earned the right to respect and consideration for his feelings, his well-being, and the fact that he might have other cares and occupations in life than serving the demands of the River Police in general, or Monk in particular.
'I can't do it without you,' Monk said frankly.
'That's all right, sir. 'Ow's the boy?' Orme replied, dashing cold water on his face to wake himself up. They were standing in the kitchen of his small home, where Monk had never before been. He was uncomfortably aware that not only had he intruded, uninvited, on the one place where Orme had privacy, mastery, but also he had brought others who were strangers in all but name.
'Recovering well,' he replied. 'Can I make you a cup of tea while you dress?'
Orme stared at him. 'I'll make it, sir. If you just like-'
'I'll do it,' Monk insisted. 'I'm not asking for instructions, just permission.'
'Yes… sir. The tea's in the caddy up there.' He pointed to an Indian-style tin at the back of the tidy kitchen shelf. 'The kettles beside the stove, and there's milk in the pantry cupboard. Water's already pumped for the morning. But-'
'Thank you,' Monk interrupted him again. 'Just dress. There's no need to shave. We're going down into the sewers.'
Orme obeyed. Monk moved around the small, immaculately tidy kitchen while Runcorn riddled the last ash from the stove and piled it delicately with new coal to make it burn up again, warm the kitchen, and boil the water in the kettle. Rathbone merely sat and watched, as his skills would be required later.
Seven minutes later Orme was back down, dressed for going onto the river. Then over hot, strong tea, they discussed the exact tactics of how they would hunt down the evidence they needed to hang Aston Sixsmith.
'What do we need, sir?' Orme looked at Rathbone.
Rathbone had obviously been considering it. 'We have on Sixsmith's own admission that he knew this assassin.' He frowned. 'I wish we could find a name for the man! We need unarguable evidence that Sixsmith knew him, with the credible assumption that he also knew his occupation. It seems obvious enough that Sixsmith told Argyll of the trouble toshers and other men were causing, and that they needed to be bought off. You might see if that's actually true. How much trouble were the toshers? Because the money went to the assassin, and yet the work is still apparently going on.' He looked at them in turn.
'What about the cave-in?' Runcorn asked. 'Do we knew exactly what caused that, and if it was foreseeable? Was it what James Havilland was afraid of? Has it anything to do with Sixsmith?'
'And what about Mary?' Monk added.
'And what connection was there between Sixsmith and Toby Argyll?' Rathbone asked. 'In short, Alan Argyll may be technically innocent of having hired the assassin, but is he innocent of everything? Is this one man, or a
