The Twisted Root

at last, straightening up and looking at him.
    "I’m not sure," he replied. "Do you want a cup of tea?"
    "Yes." She went towards the kitchen, but he moved ahead of her.
    "I’ll bring it." He smiled. "I wasn’t asking you to fetch one for me—even though I’ve probably walked as far as you have, and to as little purpose."
    She sat down and took off her boots as well. It was a particular luxury, something she would only do at home. And it was still very sweet to realize this was her home, she belonged there, and so did he.
    When he returned with the tea and she had taken a few sips, she asked him again what he had learned.
    "A lot of Treadwell’s time is unaccounted for," he replied, trying his own tea and finding it a trifle too hot. "He had a few unusual friends. One of his gambling partners was even an undertaker, and Treadwell did a few odd tasks for him."
    "Enough to earn him the kind of money we’re looking for?" She did not know whether she wanted the answer to be yes or no.
    "Not remotely," he replied. "Just driving a wagon, presumably because he was good with horses, and perhaps knew the roads. He probably did it as a favor because of their friendship. This young man seems to have given him entry to cock-fights and dog races when he wouldn’t have been allowed in otherwise. They even had a brothel or two in common."
    Hester shrugged. "It doesn’t get us any further, does it?" She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
    Monk frowned thoughtfully. "I was wondering how Treadwell ever discovered about Cleo and the medicines in the first place."
    She was about to dismiss it as something that hardly mattered now when she realized what he meant.
    "Well, not from Miriam," she said with conviction.
    "From any of Cleo’s patients?" he asked. "How could Treadwell, coachman to Major Stourbridge in Bayswater, and gambler and womanizer in Kentish Town, come to know of thefts of morphine and other medicines from a hospital on Hampstead Heath?"
    She stared at him steadily, a first, tiny stirring of excitement inside her. "Because somewhere along the chain of events he crossed it. It has to be—but where?" She held up her fingers, ticking off each step. "Patients fall ill and go to the hospital, where Cleo gets to know of them because she works there as a nurse."
    "Which has nothing to do with Treadwell," he answered. "Unless one of them was related to him or to someone he knew well."
    "They are all old and live within walking distance of the hospital," she pointed out. "Most of them are alone, the lucky few with a son or daughter, or grandchild, like old John Robb."
    "Treadwell’s family was all in Kentish Town," Monk said. "That much I ascertained. His father is dead and his mother remarried a man from Hoxton."
    "And none of them have anything to do with Miriam Gardiner," she went on. "So he didn’t meet them driving her." She held up the next finger. "Cleo visits them in their homes and knows what they need. She steals it from the hospital. By the way, I’m sure the apothecary knew but turned a blind eye. He’s a good man, and very fond of her." She smiled slightly. "Very fond indeed. He regards her as something of a saint. I think she is the only person who really impresses Phillips. Fermin Thorpe certainly doesn’t." She recalled the scene in the morgue. "He even teased the new young morgue attendant that Thorpe was buying his cadavers for the medical students from resurrectionists! Poor boy was horrified until he realized Phillips was teasing him."
    "Resurrectionists?" Monk said slowly.
    "Yes—grave robbers who dig up corpses and sell them to medical establishments for..."
    "I know what resurrectionists are," he said quickly, leaning forward, his eyes bright. "Are you sure it was a joke?"
    "Well, it’s not very funny," she agreed with a frown. "But Phillips is like that—a bit... wry. I like him—actually, I like him very much. He’s one of the few people in the hospital I would trust—" Then suddenly she realized what Monk was thinking. "You mean... Oh, William! You think he really was buying them from resurrectionists? He was the other person Treadwell was blackmailing. But how could Treadwell know that?"
    "Not necessarily that he was blackmailing him," he said, grasping her hand in his urgency. "Treadwell was friendly with this undertaker. What could be simpler than to sell a few bodies? That could have been the extra driving he was doing: delivering corpses for Fermin Thorpe—at a