“I’ll do whatever you want, Mrs. Alberton,” he promised. “But now I’d like to go with the police and see what’s happening in their investigation. That is the first thing to know.”
“Yes …” Again the hope flashed in her eyes. “Maybe … Merrit …” She did not dare to put it into words.
It was plain in Casbolt’s face that he held no such illusion, but he could not bring himself to tell her so.
“Yes,” he added, nodding to Monk. “I’ll stay here. You should see what Lanyon has found. Go with him. Please consider yourself still on retainer to do that. Help us in any way you can. Make your own judgments … anything at all. Just keep us informed … please?”
“Of course.” Monk rose to his feet and excused himself. He was immensely relieved to escape the house of tragedy. Judith’s grief was painful to be so close to, even though he would carry the knowledge of it with him wherever he went. Even so, to involve himself in some physical action was a kind of relief, and he strode towards Gower Street, where he could find a hansom and go back to the warehouse. From there he would start to look for Lanyon.
He began in Tooley Street with the constable who had been posted outside the warehouse gates and was perfectly willing to tell him that Lanyon had questioned people closely. Then he set off in the direction of Hayes Dock, which was the closest point on the river with a crane at hand from which they could transfer the guns to barges.
Of course it was possible they could have gone instead to the railway terminus, or across London Bridge back to the north side of the river. But movement by water seemed the obvious choice, and Monk followed the policeman’s directions to the dock, although he did not expect to find Lanyon still there.
The place bustled with life now, teeming with carts and wagons laden with all kinds of goods. The shops were open for business and men and women carried bundles in and out. They seemed to be of every possible nature, groceries, ships’ supplies, ropes, candles, clothes for all weather, both on land and at sea.
He walked quickly along the waterfront, traveling south, downriver. Gulls wheeled and circled, their harsh cries clear above the sound of the incoming tide against the stones, the wash of passing barges, lighters and the occasional heavier ship, and the shouts of men to each other as they worked at loading and hauling. The smells of salt, fish and tar were thick in his nostrils and with them came sudden memory of the distant past, of being a boy on the quayside in Northumberland. There he was by the sea, not a river, looking out at an endless horizon, a small stone pier, and hearing the lilt of country voices.
Then it was gone again, and he was at Hayes Dock, and the tall, thin figure of Lanyon was unmistakable, his straight, fairish hair standing up like a brush in the wind. He was talking to a heavyset man with a dark, grimy face and hands almost black. Monk knew without asking that he was a coal backer, carrying sacks up the twenty-foot ladders from the holds of ships, across as many as half a dozen barges to the shore, and up or down more ladders, depending on the tide and the loading of the ship. It was a backbreaking job. Usually a man was past doing it anymore by the time he was forty. Often injury had taken its toll long before that. Monk could not remember how he knew. It was another of the many things lost in the past.
But that was irrelevant now.
Lanyon saw him and beckoned him over, then resumed his questioning of the coal backer.
“You finished at nine yesterday evening, and you slept on the deck of that barge there, under the awning?” He smiled as if he were repeating the words to clarify them.
“S’right,” the coal backer agreed. “Drunk, I was, an’ me ol’ woman gave me an ’ard time of it. Always goin’ on, she is. Never gives it a rest. an’ the kids screamin’ an’ wailin’. I jus’ kipped down ’ere. But I weren’t so tired I din’ ’ear them comin’ in an’ loadin’ them boxes, an’ the like. Dozens of ’em, there were. Went on fer an hour or more. Crate arter crate, there was. An’ nobody said a bleedin’ word. Not like normal folks, wot talks ter each other. Jus’ back an’ for’ard, back an’ for’ard with them damn great crates. Must ’a bin lead in ’em, by the way they staggered around.” He shook his head gloomily.
“Any idea what time that was?” Lanyon pressed.
“Nah … ’ceptin’ it were black dark, so this time o’ the year, reckon it were between midnight an’ about four.”
Lanyon glanced at Monk to make sure he was listening.
“W’y?” the coal backer asked, running a filthy hand across his cheek and sniffing. “Was they stolen?”
“Probably,” Lanyon conceded.
“Well, they’re long gorn nah,” the man said flatly. “Be t’other side o’ the river past the Isle o’ Dogs, be now. Yer’ve no chance o’ getting ’em back. Wot was they? Damn ’eavy, wotever they was.”
“Did the barge go up the river or down?” Lanyon asked.
The man looked at him as if he were half-witted. “Down, o’ course! Ter the Pool, mos’ like, or could ’a bin farver. Ter Souf’end fer all I knows.”
Barges were passing them all the time on the water. Men called to each other. The cry of gulls mixed with the rattle of chains and creak of winches.
“How many men did you see?” Lanyon persisted.
“Dunno. Two, I reckon. Look, I were tryin’ ter get a spot o’ kip … a little peace. I din’t look at ’em. If folks wanna shift stuff around ’alf the night in’t none o’ my business—”
“Did you hear them say anything at all?” Monk interrupted.
“Like wot?” The coal backer looked at him with surprise. “I said they didn’t talk. Said nuffin’.”
“Nothing at all?” Monk insisted.
The man’s face tightened and Monk knew he would now stick to his story, true or not.
“Did you notice what height they were?” he asked instead.
The man thought for a moment or two, making Monk and Lanyon wait.
“Yeah … one of ’em were shortish, the other were taller, an’ thin. Very straight ’e stood, like ’e ’ad a crick in ’is
