The Twisted Root

the end of the street by the Heath. The smell of the air over the stretch of grass was clean and sweet. Somebody was playing a barrel organ.
    The morgue was a handsome building, as if the architect had intended it as some kind of memorial to the dead, however temporarily there.
    Robb tensed his shoulders and increased his pace, as if determined not to show any distaste for it or hesitation in his duty. Monk followed him up the steps and in through the door. The familiar odor caught in his throat. Every morgue smelled like this, cloyingly sweet with an underlying sourness, leaving a taste at the back of the mouth. No amount of scrubbing in the world removed the knowledge of death.
    The attendant came out and asked politely if he could help them. He spoke with a slight lisp, and peered at Robb for a moment before he recognized him.
    "You’ll be for your coachman again," he said with a shake of his head. "Can’t tell you any more."
    They followed him into the tiled room, which echoed their footsteps. It held a dampness from running water, and the sting of disinfectant. Beyond was the icehouse where it was necessary to keep the bodies they could not bury within a day or two. It had been five days since this particular one had been found.
    "No need to bring him out," Robb said abruptly. "We’ll see him in there. It’s just that this gentleman might be able to tell us who he is."
    The icehouse was extremely cold. The chill of it made them gasp involuntarily, but neither complained. Monk was glad of it. He had known less efficient morgues than this.
    He lifted the sheet. The body was that of a well-fed man in his thirties. He was muscular, especially in the upper torso and across his shoulders. His skin was very white until it came to his hands and neck and face, which had been darkened by sun and wind. He had brownish hair, sharp features, and was blemished by a huge bruise covering his right temple, as if someone who hated him had struck him extremely hard, just once.
    Monk looked at him carefully for several minutes, but he could find no other marks at all, except one old scar on the leg, long since healed over, and a number of minor cuts and scrapes on his hands, some as old as the scar on the leg. It was what he would expect from a man who worked with horses and drove a coach for his living. There were fresh bruises and breaks on the skin on his knees and on the palms of his hands.
    He studied the face last, but with the eyes closed and the animation gone in death, it was hard to make any judgment of what he had looked like beyond the mere physical facts. His features were strong, a trifle sharp, his lips narrow, his brow wide. Intelligence and charm could have made him attractive; ill temper or a streak of greed or cruelty could equally have made him ugly. So much lay in the expression, now gone.
    Was this James Treadwell? Only someone from the Stourbridge household could tell him beyond doubt.
    "Do you want to see the clothes?" Robb asked, watching his face.
    "Please."
    But they told him no more than Robb himself had. There was only one likely conclusion: the man had been standing upright when someone had hit him a powerful blow which had sent him forward onto his knees, possibly even stunned him senseless for a while. The knees of his breeches were stained and torn, as if he had crawled a considerable distance. It was difficult to be certain of anything about the person who had delivered the blow. The weapon had not been found, but it must have been long, heavy and rounded, and swung with great force.
    "Could a woman have done that, do you think?" Monk asked, then immediately wished he had not. He should not look for Robb to offer him the comfort that it could not have been Miriam. Why should she do such a thing? She could be a victim, too. They simply had not found her yet.
    But if she was alive, where was she? If she was free to come forward, and was innocent, surely she would have?
    And why had she left the Stourbridge house in the first place?
    "May I see the coat?" he requested, looking at Robb before he answered.
    "Of course," Robb replied. He did not answer as to whether he thought a woman could have dealt the blow. It was a foolish question, and Monk knew it. A strong woman, angry or frightened enough, with a heavy object at hand could certainly have hit a man sufficiently hard to kill him, especially with a blow as accurate as this one.
    They left the morgue and went out into the sun again, walking