William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

“Why would ’e be dead?”
    “Ask Caleb!”
    “Caleb?” Her eyes widened and she gulped hard. “That’s wot yer ’ere fer!” Her voice rose shrilly. “You fink as Caleb murdered ’im! ’E never! Why? Why’d ’e kill ’im arter all these years? It don’t make no sense.” But her mouth was dry and there was terror in her eyes. She stared at him, searching for some argument to convince him, but even as she did so, the hope faded and disappeared. She knew from his face that he had seen the knowledge in her. Caleb could very easily have killed his brother, and they both knew it—she from knowing Caleb, he from her eyes.
    The kettle started to jiggle from the heat of the stove.
    “Yer’ll never get ’im!” she said desperately, fear and protection equal in her now. “Yer’ll never take Caleb Stone.”
    “Perhaps not. I’m more interested in proving Angus is dead.”
    “Why?” she demanded. “That won’t prove it were Caleb, an’ it sure as ’ellfire won’t catch ’im … or ’ang ’im.” Herface was stricken and her voice had a thickness of emotion in it.
    “So his wife can be treated like a widow,” he replied. “And his children be fed.”
    She let out her breath. “Well in’t nuffin’ I can do, even if I were minded to.” She was struggling to convince him, and herself. She put too much certainty into it, torn by loyalties.
    “You already have,” he replied. “I knew Angus was last seen here, going towards Blackwall Reach. No one ever saw him after that.”
    “I’ll deny it!”
    “Of course you will. Caleb’s your man. Even if he weren’t, you wouldn’t dare say it if he didn’t want you to.”
    “I ’int afraid o’ Caleb,” she said defiantly. “ ’E wouldn’t ’urt me.”
    He did not bother to argue. It was another thing they both knew was a lie.
    “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Good-bye … for the moment.”
    She did not answer. On the stove the kettle started to steam.
    Monk left Manilla Street and went east through the West India Docks, the way Angus Stonefield must have gone, and spent all afternoon combing the docks and slums along the Isle of Dogs and the Blackwall Reach. Caleb Stone was known well enough, but no one was willing to say where he was. Most of them would not even commit themselves to when they had last seen him.
    A knife grinder admitted to having spoken with him two days before, a chandler to having sold him rope a week ago, the keeper of the Folly House Tavern to seeing him regularly, but none of them knew where he was to be found at any specific time, and all spoke his name carefully, not necessarily with fear, but not lightly. Monk had no doubtwhose side they would be on if there were ever a necessity to choose.
    He left Blackwall at dusk, and was pleased to get back to Fitzroy Street to wash and change into his more customary attire. He would go to Ravensbrook House to report to Genevieve. After all, he had something to say this time. Then he had a dinner engagement with Drusilla Wyndham. The very thought of it made him smile. It was like a sweet smell after the dirt and stench of the Isle of Dogs, like laughter and bright colors after the gray misery.
    He wore his very best jacket, perhaps partly because of the memory of Selina and her opinion of him, but mostly it was the mood he felt every time he thought of Drusilla. He could see her face in his mind’s eye: the wide hazel eyes, the delicate brows, the soft mass of honey-shaded hair, the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. She had grace and charm, assurance, wit. She took nothing too seriously. She was a joy to the eye and to the ear, to the mind and the emotions. She seemed to have the perfect judgment of exactly what to say, and even when to remain silent.
    He looked at himself in the glass, adjusting his cravat to perfection. Then, taking his overcoat and his hat, he went out of the door and walked smartly to find a hansom, humming a little tune to himself.
    Of course Hester was likely to be at Ravensbrook House, but that was something he could not avoid. He would almost certainly not run into her. She would be in the sickroom, where he would not be permitted, even had he wished to go, which he certainly did not.
    He tipped his hat to a woman he passed in the arc of the street lamp. The knowledge that he would not see Hester was an instant relief. He was in no mood to have his present happiness spoiled by her criticism, her constant reminder of the pain and