William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

by day. Monk had seen more than a few victims of such practice and he hated moneylenders with a cold and unremitting passion.
    Stonefield might have made some enemy he had good reason to fear, or be the victim of blackmail for an indiscretion or even a crime. He might be fleeing the law for some misappropriation not yet uncovered, or any other offense, an accident or a sudden violence not so far traced to him.
    He might have suffered an accident and be lying in hospital or in a workhouse somewhere, too ill to have sent his family word.
    It was even conceivable that, like Monk himself, he had been struck on the head with a blow which had obliterated his memory. He broke out in a prickle of sweat which a moment after was cold on his skin as he remembered waking up two years before in what he had taken to be a workhouse without the slightest idea who or where he was. His past had been an utter blank to him. Even his face in the glass had been unrecognizable.
    Slowly he had pieced together fragments here and there, scenes of his youth, his journey south from Northumberland to London, probably when he was nineteen or twenty—roughly about the time of the accession of Queen Victoria, although he could not remember it. The coronation he knew only from pictures and other people’s descriptions.
    Even this much was deduced, because he supposed himself to be now in his early forties, and it was January 1859.
    Of course, it was absurd to suppose Angus Stonefield was in a similar situation. Such things must happen exceedingly rarely. But then murder was fortunately not so commoneither. It was far more probably some sad but ordinary domestic circumstance or a financial disaster.
    He always disliked having to tell a woman such a thing. In this case it would be harder than usual because already he had formed a certain respect for her. There was a femininity to her which was charming, and yet a defiant courage, and in all she had told him, in spite of her grief and thinly concealed desperation, there was no self-pity. She had asked for his professional services, not begged his compassion. If Angus Stonefield had left her for another woman, he was a man whose taste Monk did not understand, or share.
    Still turning the matter over in his mind, he rose, stoked the fire and set up the guard, then put on his coat and hat and took a hansom cab south from his rooms in Fitzroy Street, down Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road, then the Strand, right at Wellington Street and across Waterloo Bridge to the business address on the card Mrs. Stonefield had given him. He alighted, paid the driver and dismissed him. He turned to look at the building. The outside appeared prosperous, in a discreet fashion, either from old money so well known it had no need to advertise or money newly earned but with the tact to remain unostentatious.
    He pushed the front door, which was open to the public, and was greeted in the room inside by a smart young clerk dressed in stiff wing collar, cutaway jacket and shining boots.
    “Yes sir?” he inquired, summing up Monk’s sartorial elegance and concluding he was a gentleman. “May I be of service?”
    Monk was too proud to introduce himself as an agent of inquiry. It equated him with the policeman he had been until his irreparable quarrel with his superior, only now he had not the authority.
    “Good morning,” he replied. “Mrs. Stonefield has requested me to be of what assistance I may in contacting herhusband since he left last Tuesday morning.” He allowed the ghost of a smile to cross his face. “I hope she is mistaken, but she fears some harm may have come to him.” As he spoke he produced the letter of authority.
    The clerk accepted it, read it at a glance, and returned it to him. The anxiety which he had been holding in check now flooded his face and he looked at Monk almost pleadingly. “I wish we could help you, sir. Indeed, I wish with all my heart we knew where he was. We require him for the business. His presence is essential.” His voice was rising in earnestness. “There are decisions to be made for which Mr. Arbuthnot and myself have neither the legal power nor the professional knowledge.” He glanced around to make sure none of the three young ledger clerks were within earshot, and moved a step closer. “We are at our wits’ end to know what to do next, or how to put people off any longer without their guessing that something is most seriously amiss. Business is most