William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

Caleb’s vivid face with its rage and its intelligence was sharp in his mind. He could have been so much more. He could have been everything that Angus was. Instead jealousy had corroded his soul until in a passion of hatred he had committed murder and destroyed not only his brother but what was left of himself. The pity in Monk was tight and painful, fraught with loathing. And yet he knew rage himself. It was the grace of God that he had not killed. Could Angus conceivably have been a hypocrite too, a charming, predatory blackguard too clever for anyone to catch?
    Hester did not interrupt his thoughts. He wished she would. Instead she simply sat staring at him, waiting. She knew him too intimately. It was uncomfortable.
    “Well?” he demanded. “What could she be proud of him for?”
    “Because no one cheats him or abuses him,” she answered, her voice suggesting that it was obvious. “He’s strong. Everyone knows his name. The fact that he chooses her makes her important. People don’t dare to take advantage of her either.”
    He stood up and turned away, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
    “And that’s the height of her ambition? To be owned bythe most hated and feared man in the Isle of Dogs! God, what a life!” He remembered Selina’s beautifully boned face with its wide mouth and bold eyes, the proud swaying way she walked. She was worth more than that.
    “It’s better than most women, around here,” Hester said quietly. “She isn’t often cold or hungry, and no one knocks her around.”
    “Except Caleb!” he said.
    “That’s something,” she replied calmly. “It’s many people’s dream to escape, but few ever do, except to the whorehouses up in the Haymarket, or worse.”
    He winced—at her language, not at the truth.
    “Mary says one pretty girl did, Ginny something,” she went on, though he was not interested. “Got married, she thought; but that’s probably more a hope than a fact. Gentlemen don’t marry girls they pick up in Limehouse.”
    It was a bare reality, and if he had said it himself he would have said it was simply the truth. From her lips it had a coarseness and a finality he resented.
    “Do you know anything useful?” he said abruptly. “That Selina won’t betray him doesn’t help me.”
    “You asked me,” she pointed out. “But I can tell you the names of a few of his enemies who would be delighted to see his downfall, if they can do it safely.”
    “Can you?” He could not hide his eagerness. He had not managed to turn up anything so definite himself. Of course, she was trusted in a way he never could be. She was living and working among these people, risking her life daily to tend to them in their extremity. He pushed that thought away. “Who? Where do I find them?”
    She gave him a list of five names—one man, three women and a youth—and in all cases where he could find them.
    “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “That is excellent. If any one of them can tell me something, we may yet help Mrs.
    Stonefield. I shall begin immediately.”
    *  *  *
    But he did not. That evening he had arranged to see Drusilla, and it was a pleasure he longed for. Not even to help Genevieve Stonefield could he forgo it and creep around the slums and rookeries of Limehouse in the dark and the cold. It could wait until tomorrow, when it would be both easier and safer. Caleb had to be aware Monk was still pursuing him. He was not a man to wait idly to be caught.
    The weather had cleared and it was a dry, chilly evening with only the ever-present pall of smoke hiding the stars.
    Half past seven found Monk superbly dressed, stepping out of a hansom cab to meet Drusilla on the steps of the British Archaeological Association in Sackville Street. She had requested that he meet her there because she had said she had promised to accompany a friend for dinner, which was a great bore. She had cancelled the arrangement, but in order to avoid lengthy and unnecessarily dishonest explanations, she could not be at home.
    She appeared at exactly half past, as she had said she would. She wore a wide-skirted gown of silk the color of candlelight through brandy, and it complimented her marvelously. She seemed to glow in golds and tawny bronzes and her skin had a delicacy and a warmth unlike any he had seen before.
    “Is something amiss?” she said laughingly. “You look terribly serious, William!”
    The sound of his name from her lips was acutely pleasing. He collected his