The Twisted Root

afternoon and took a hansom straight to Primrose Hill. He did not expect his father to offer any answers; he went simply for the peace of the quiet garden in which to ease the wounds of a disastrous week, and to prepare his strength for the week to come, which promised to be even worse.

11
    WHILE RATHBONE WAS SITTING helplessly in the courtroom, Monk began his further investigations into the details of Treadwell’s life. He had already asked exhaustively at the Stourbridges’ house and generally in the area around Cleveland Square. No one had told him anything remotely helpful. Treadwell had been tediously ordinary.
    He began instead in Kentish Town, where Treadwell had grown up. It was a long task, and he held little hope of its proving successful. In time he began to fear that Miriam Gardiner was guilty as charged and that poor Cleo Anderson had been drawn into it because of her love for the girl she had rescued. She had refused to recognize that beneath the charm and apparent vulnerability, Miriam had grown into a greedy and conniving woman who would not stop even at murder in order to get what she wanted. Love could be very blind. No mother wanted to see evil in her child, and the fact that Cleo had not borne Miriam would make no difference to her.
    His earlier pity for Miriam hardened to anger when he thought of the grief it would bring to Cleo when she was faced with facts she could no longer deny to herself. Miriam may not have asked to be loved, or to be believed in, but she had accepted it. It carried a moral responsibility, and she had failed it as badly as anyone could. The deception was worse than the violence.
    He walked the streets of Kentish Town, going from one public house to another asking questions as discreetly as the desperately short time allowed. Twice he was too open, too hasty, and earned a sharp rebuff. He left and began again farther along, more carefully.
    By sundown he was exhausted, his feet hurt merely to the touch. He took an omnibus home. Monk would earn no further money in this case, but he simply cared passionately to learn the truth. Lucius Stourbridge would have continued to pay him; indeed, he had still implored Monk to help only a week earlier. But Monk had refused to take anything further from him for something he was all but certain he could not accomplish. The young man had lost so much already; to have given him hope he could not justify would be a cruelty for which he would despise himself.
    Hester looked at his face as he came in and did not ask what he had learned. Her tact was so uncharacteristic it told him more of his own disappointment, and how visible it was, than he would have admitted.
    On the second day he gained considerably more knowledge. He came closer to Hampstead and discovered a public house where they knew Treadwell rather well. From there he was able to trace a man to whom Treadwell had lost at gambling. Since Treadwell was dead, the debt could not be collected.
    "Someone ought to be responsible!" the man said angrily, his round eyes sharp and a little bloodshot. "In’t there no law? You shouldn’t be able to get out of money you owe just bydyin’."
    Monk looked knowledgeable. "Well, usually you would go to a man’s heirs," he said gravely. "But I don’t know if Treadwell had any... ?" He left it hanging as a question.
    "Nah!" the man said in disgust. "Answer to nob’dy, that one."
    "Have a drink?" Monk offered. He might be wasting his time, but he had no better avenue to follow.
    "Ta. Don’t mind if I do," the man accepted. "Reece." He held out a hand after rubbing it on his trouser leg.
    Monk took a moment to realize it was an introduction, then he grasped the hand and shook it. "Monk," he responded.
    " ’Ow do," Reece said cheerfully. "I’ll ’ave a pint o’ mild, ta."
    When the pints had been ordered and bought, Monk pursued the conversation. "Did he owe you a lot?"
    "I’ll say!" Reece took a long draft of his ale before he continued. "Near ten pound."
    Monk was startled. It was as much as a housemaid earned in six months.
    "That choked yer, eh?" Reece observed with satisfaction. " ’E played big, did Treadwell."
    "And lost big," Monk agreed. "He can’t have lost like that often. Did he win as well?"
    "Sometimes. Liked ter live ’igh on the ’og, ’e did. Wine, women and the ’orses. Must ’a won sometimes, I suppose. But w’ere am I gonna get ten quid, you tell me that?"
    "What I’d like to know is where Treadwell got it,"