The Dark Assassin (2 page)

But Durban had
wanted Monk, and Monk needed the work. During his independent years, Hester's friend
Lady Callandra Daviot had had the money and the interest to involve herself in
his cases, and support them in the leaner months. Now Callandra had gone to
live in Vienna, and the grim choice was either for Monk to obtain regular and
reliable employment or for Hester to return to private nursing, which would
mean most often living in the houses of such patients as she could acquire. One
could not nurse except by being there all the time. For Monk to see her as
little as that was a choice of final desperation. So here he was sitting in the
thwart of a boat throwing his weight against the oar as they passed under
London Bridge heading south towards the Tower and Wapping Stairs. He was still
bone-achingly cold and wet to the shoulders, and two dead bodies lay at his
feet.

Finally they
reached the steps up to the police station. Carefully, a little stiffly, he
shipped his oar, stood up, and helped carry the limp, water-soaked bodies up
the stairs, across the quay, and into the shelter of the station house.

There at least
it was warm. The black iron stove was burning, giving the whole room a
pleasant, smoky smell, and there was hot tea, stewed almost black, waiting for
them. None of the men really knew Monk yet, and they were still grieving for
Durban. They treated Monk with civility; if he wanted anything more, he would
have to earn it. The river was a dangerous place with its shifting tides and
currents, occasional sunken obstacles, fast-moving traffic, and sudden changes
of weather. It demanded courage, skill, and even more loyalty between men than
did the same profession on land. However, human decency dictated they offer
Monk tea laced with rum, as they would to any man, probably even to a stray dog
at this time of the year. Indeed, Humphrey, the station cat, a large white
animal with a ginger tail, was provided with a basket by the stove and as much
milk as he could drink. Mice were his own affair to catch for himself, which he
did whenever he could be bothered, or nobody had fed him with other titbits.

"Thank
you." Monk drank the tea and felt some resemblance of life return to his
body, warmth working slowly from the inside outwards.

"Accident?"
Sergeant Palmer asked, looking at the bodies now lying on the floor, faces
decently covered with spare coats.

"Don't know
yet," Monk replied. "Came off Waterloo Bridge right in front of us,
but we can't be sure how it happened."

Palmer frowned,
puzzled. He had his doubts about Monk's competence anyway, and this indecision
went towards confirming them.

Orme finished his
tea. "Went off together," he said, looking at Palmer
expressionlessly. " 'Ard to tell if 'e were trying to save 'er, or
could've pushed 'er. Know what killed 'em all right, poor souls. 'It the water
'ard, like they always do. But I daresay as we'll never know for certain
why."

Palmer waited
for Monk to say something. The room was suddenly silent. The other two men from
the boat, Jones and Butterworth, stood watching, turning from one to the other,
to see what Monk would do. It was a test again. Would he match up to Durban?

"Get the
surgeon to look at them, just in case there's something else," Monk
answered. "Probably isn't, but we don't want to risk looking stupid."

"Drownded,"
Palmer said sourly, turning away. "Come orff one o' the bridges, yer
always are. Anybody knows that. Water shocks yer an' so yer breathes it in.
Kills yer. Quick's almost the only good thing to it."

"And how
stupid will we look if we say she's a suicide, and it turns out she was knifed
or strangled, but we didn't notice it?" Monk asked quietly. "I just
want to make sure. Or with child, and we didn't see that, either? Look at the
quality of her clothes. She's not a street woman. She has a decent address and
she may have family. We owe them the truth."

Palmer colored
unhappily. "It won't make them feel no better if she's with child,"
he observed without looking back at Monk.

"We don't
look for the answers that make people feel better," Monk told him.
"We have to deal with the ones we find closest to the truth. We know who
they are and where they lived. Orme and I are going to tell their families. You
get the police surgeon to look at them."

"Yes,
sir," Palmer said stiffly. "You'll be goin' 'ome to put dry clothes
on, no doubt?" He raised his eyebrows.

Monk had already
learned that lesson. "I've got a dry shirt and coat in the cupboard.
They'll do fine."

Orme turned
away, but not before Monk had seen his smile.

Monk and Orme
took a hansom from Wapping, westward along High Street. The lights
intermittently flickered from the river and the hard wind whipped the smell of
salt and weed up the alleys between the waterfront houses. They went around the
looming mass of the Tower of London, then back down to the water again along
Lower Thames Street. They finally crossed the river at the Southwark Bridge and
passed through the more elegant residential areas until they came to the
six-way crossing at St. George s Circus. From there it was not far to the
Westminster Bridge Road and Walnut Tree Walk.

Informing the families
of the dead was the part of any investigation that every policeman hated, and
it was the duty of the senior man. It would be both cowardly and the worst
discourtesy to the bereaved to delegate it.

Monk paid the
driver and let him go. He had no idea how long it would take them to break the
news, or what they might find.

The house where
Toby Argyll had lived was gracious but obviously was let in a series of rooms,
as suited single men rather than families. A landlady in a dark dress and
wearing an apron opened the door, immediately nervous on seeing two men unknown
to her standing on the step. Orme was of average height with pleasant, ordinary
features, but he wore a river policeman's uniform. Monk was taller and had the
grace of a man conscious of his own magnetism. There was power in his face,
lean-boned with a high-bridged, broad nose and unflinching eyes. It was a face
of intelligence, even sensitivity, but few people found it comfortable.

"Good
evening, ma'am," he said gently. His voice was excellent, his diction
beautiful. He had worked hard to lose the Northumbrian accent that marked his
origins. He had wanted passionately to be a gentleman. That desire was long
past, but the music in his voice remained.

"Evenin',
sir," she replied warily.

"My name is
Monk, and this is Sergeant Orme, of the Thames River Police. Is this the home
of Mr. Toby Argyll?"

She swallowed.
"Yes, sir. Never say there's bin an accident in one o' them
tunnels.'" Her hand flew to her mouth as if to stifle a cry. "I can't
'elp yer, sir. Mr. Argyll's not at ome."

"No, ma'am,
there hasn't been, so far as I know," Monk replied. "But I'm afraid
there has been a tragedy. I'm extremely sorry. Does Mr. Argyll live alone
here?"

She stared at
him, her round face paler now as she began to understand that they had come
with the worst possible news.

"Would you
like to go in and sit down?" Monk asked.

She nodded and
backed away from him, allowing them to follow her along the passage to the
kitchen. It was full of the aroma of dinner cooking, and he realized absently
how long it was since he had eaten. She sank down on one of the hard-backed
wooden chairs, putting her elbows on the table and her hands up to her face.
There were pans steaming on the top of the huge black range, and the savory aroma
of meat pie came from the oven beneath it. Copper warming pans glimmered on the
wall in the gaslight, and strings of onions hung from the ceiling.

There was no
point in delaying what she must already know was coming.

"I'm sorry
to tell you that Mr. Argyll fell off the Waterloo Bridge," Monk told her.
"Mrs ?"

She looked at
him, face blanched, eyes wide. "Porter," she supplied. "I looked
after Mr. Argyll since 'e first come 'ere. 'Ow could 'e 'ave fallen orff the
bridge? It don't make no sense! There's railings! Yer don't fall orff! Are yer
sayin' 'e was the worse for wear an' went climbin', or summink daft?" She
was shivering now, angry. "I don't believe yer.' 'E weren't like that.'
Very sober, 'ard-workin' young gentleman, 'e were! Yer in't got the right person.
Yer made a mistake, that's wot yer done!" She lifted her chin and stared
at him. "Yer oughter be more careful, scarin' folks all wrong."

"There's no
reason to suppose he was drunk, Mrs. Porter." Monk did not prevaricate.
"The young man we found had cards saying he was Toby Argyll, of this
address. He was about my height, or perhaps a little less, fair-haired,
clean-shaven except for a mustache." He stopped. He could see by her wide,
fixed eyes and the pinched look of her mouth that he had described Argyll.
"I'm sorry," he said again.

Her lips
trembled. "Wot 'appened? If 'e weren't drunk, 'ow'd 'e come ter fall in
the river? Yer ain't makin' no sense!" It was still a challenge; she was
clinging to the last shred of hope as if disbelieving could keep it from being
true.

"He was
with a young lady," he told her. "They seemed to be having a rather
heated discussion. They grasped hold of each other and swayed a little, then
she fell back against the rail. They struggled a little more-"

"Wot d'yer
mean?" she demanded. "Yer sayin' as they was fightin', or
summink?"

This was worse
than he had expected. What had they been doing? What had he seen, exactly? He
tried to clear his mind of all the ideas since then, the attempts to understand
and interpret, and recall exactly what had happened. The two figures had been
on the bridge, the woman closer to the railing. Or had she? Yes, she had. The
wind had been behind them and Monk had seen the billowing skirts poking between
the uprights of the balustrade. The woman had waved her arms and then put her
hands on the man's shoulders. A caress? Or pushing him away? He had moved his
arm, back and up. Pulling away from her? Or making a motion to strike her? He
had grasped hold of her. To save her, or to push her?

Mrs. Porter was
waiting, hugging herself, still shivering in the warm kitchen with its
dinnertime smells.

"I don't
know," he said slowly. "They were above us, outlined against the
light, and almost two hundred feet away."

She turned to
Orme. "Was you there too, sir?"

"Yes,
ma'am," Orme replied, standing upright in the middle of the scrubbed
floor. "An Mr. Monk's right. The more I think on it, the less certain I am
as to what I saw, exact. It was in that sort of darkening time just before the
lamps are lit. You think you can see, but you make mistakes."

" 'Oo were
she?" she asked. "The woman wot went over with 'im."

"Was there
someone you might expect it to be?" Monk parried. "If they were
quarrelling?"

She was clearly
unhappy. "Well... I don't like ter say...." Her voice trailed off.

"We know
who it was, Mrs. Porter," Monk told her. "We need to know what
happened, so we don't allow anyone to be blamed for something they didn't
do."

"Yer can't
'urt 'em now," she responded, the tears trickling unheeded down her
cheeks. "They're dead, poor souls."

"But
they'll have family who care," he pointed out. "And burial in
hallowed ground, or not."

She gasped and
gave a convulsive shudder.

"Mrs.
Porter?"

"Were it
Miss 'Avilland?" she asked hoarsely.

"What can
you tell me about her?"

"It were
'er? Course, it would be. 'E din't never look at no one else, not ever since 'e
met 'er."

"He was in
love with her?" Of course, that could mean many things, from the true
giving of the heart, unselfishly, through generosity, need, all the way to
domination and obsession. And rejection could mean anything from resignation
through misery to anger or rage and the need for revenge, perhaps even
destruction.

She hesitated.

"Mrs.
Porter?"

"Yes,"
she said quickly. "They was betrothed, at least 'e seemed to take it they
was, then she broke it orff. Not that it were formal, like. There weren't no
announcement."

"Do you
know why?"

She was
surprised.

"Me? Course
I don't."

"Was there
another person?"

"Not for
'im, an' I don't think for 'er neither. Least that's wot I 'eard 'im say."
She gave a long sniff and gulped. "This is terrible. I never 'eard o' such
a thing, not wi' quality folk. Wot would they want ter go jumpin' orff bridges
for? Mr. Argyll'll be broke ter pieces when 'e 'ears, poor man."

"Mr.
Argyll? His father?" Monk asked.

"No, 'is
brother. Quite a bit older, 'e is. Least I should say so." She sniffed
again and fished in her apron pocket for a handkerchief. "I only seen 'im
five or six times, when 'e came 'ere fer Mr. Toby, like. Very wealthy
gentleman, 'e is. Owns them big machines an' things wot's diggin' the new
sewers Mr. Bazalgette drew ter clean up London, so we don't get no more typhoid
an' cholera an' the like. Took poor Prince Albert ter die of it, an' the poor
Queen's 'eart broke before they do it. Wicked, I say!"