The Twisted Root

woman, and well used to all manner of tragedy.
    "That’s true," she agreed quietly. "And she was the nearest thing to a child I ever had, too. And nobody could want better."
    "So you must have been happy when she married a good man like Mr. Gardiner," he concluded.
    "O’ course. An’ ’e were a good man! Bit older than Miriam, but loved ’er, ’e did. An’ she were proper fond o’ ’im."
    "It must have been very pleasant for you to have had her living so close."
    She smiled. "O’ course. But I don’ mind where she lives if she’s ’appy. An’ she loved Mr. Lucius like nothin’ I ever seen. ’Er ’ole face lit up when she jus’ spoke ’is name." This time the tears spilled down her cheeks, and it was beyond her power to control them.
    "What happened, Mrs. Anderson?" he said, almost in a whisper.
    "I dunno."
    He had not really expected anything else. This was a woman protecting the only child she had nurtured and loved.
    "But you must have seen Treadwell, even in the distance, when Miriam came back to visit you while she was staying in Bayswater," he insisted.
    She hesitated only a moment. "I seen a coachman, but that’s all."
    That might be true. Perhaps Treadwell had crawled here because he had heard Miriam say Cleo was a nurse. It was conceivable it was no more than that. But was it likely?
    Who had killed Treadwell ... and why? Why here?
    "What did you tell Sergeant Robb?" he asked.
    She relaxed a fraction. Her shoulders eased under the dark fabric of her dress, a plain, almost uniform dress such as he had seen Hester wear on duty. He was surprised at the stab of familiarity it caused inside him.
    "Same as I’m tellin’ you," she answered. "I ’aven’t seen Miriam since she went off to stay with Mr. Lucius an’ ’is family. I don’t know where she is now, an’ I’ve no idea what happened to the coachman, or ’ow ’e got killed, nor why— except I’ve known Miriam since she were a girl, an’ I’ve never known ’er to lose ’er temper nor lash out at anyone, an’ I’d stake my life on that."
    Monk believed her, at least for the last part. He accepted that she thought Miriam innocent. He very much doubted that she had no idea where Miriam was. If all were well with Miriam she would unquestionably not have fled from the Stourbridge house as she had, nor have remained out of touch with Lucius. If she were in trouble, whatever its nature, surely she would have turned to Cleo Anderson, the person who had rescued her, cared for her and loved her since that first time?
    "I hope you won’t have to do anything so extreme," he said gravely, then he bade her good-night without asking anything further. He knew she would not answer, at least not with the truth.
    He bought a sandwich from a peddler about a block away, making conversation with him as he ate it. Then he took an omnibus back towards Fitzroy Street, and was glad to sit down, cramped and lurching as the conveyance was.
    He let his thoughts wander. Where could Miriam go? She was frightened. She trusted no one, except perhaps Cleo. Certainly, she did not trust Lucius Stourbridge. She would not want to be in unfamiliar territory, yet she would have to avoid those who were known to be her friends.
    A fat woman next to him was perspiring freely. She mopped her face with a large handkerchief. A small boy blew a pennywhistle piercingly, and his mother showed sharp disapproval, to no effect. An elderly man in a bowler hat sucked air through a gap in his teeth. Monk glared at the boy with the whistle, and he stopped in midblow. The man with the gap in his teeth smiled in relief.
    Miriam would go to someone she could trust, someone Cleo could trust, perhaps, who owed her a favor for past kindness. Cleo was a nurse. If she was even remotely like Hester, she could count on the trust, and the unquestioning discretion also, of a good many people. That was where to begin, with those Cleo Anderson had nursed. He sat back and relaxed, keeping his eye on the child in case he thought to blow his whistle again.
    It was already warm and still by five minutes before nine, when Monk began the next day. The rag and bone man’s voice echoed as he drove slowly away from the Heath towards the south. The dew was still deep in the shade of the larger trees, but the open grass was dusty and the dawn chorus of the birds had been over for hours.
    Monk did not bother to pursue those patients with large families and, naturally, those whose illness had ended in