William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

fanatic.” Should he have been able to foresee that Breeland was so closely poised to violence that a final refusal would break his frail links with decency, even perhaps sanity? Had preventing this been his moral task, even though it was not the one for which he had been hired?
    Lanyon seemed to be deep in thought, his narrow face tight with concentration. They walked quickly. It was half a mile around the dock, and they had to avoid bales and crates, piles of rope, chains, rusty tin, men heaving loads from the towering wharf buildings across to where barges lay, riding the slurping water, bumping and scraping sides as the wash of a passing boat caught them.
    The dockers were men of all ages and types. It was labor anyone could do if his strength permitted it. It surprised Monk that he knew that. Somewhere in the past he had been to places like this. He knew the different sorts of men as he saw them: the bankrupt master butchers or bakers, grocers or publicans; lawyers or government clerks who had been suspended or discharged; servants without references, pensioners, almsmen, old soldiers or sailors, gentlemen on hard times, refugees from Poland and other mid-European countries; and the usual fair share of thieves.
    “It must have been very well planned,” Lanyon interrupted his thoughts. “Everything worked to time. The question is, did he stage the quarrel just to keep himself informed aboutAlberton’s movements and whether or not the guns had already gone? Did he know perfectly well that Alberton wouldn’t change his mind?”
    That had not even occurred to Monk. He had assumed the quarrels were as spontaneous as they had seemed. Breeland’s indignation had sounded entirely genuine. Could any man act so superbly? Breeland had not struck him as a man with sufficient imagination to simulate anything.
    Lanyon was waiting for an answer, looking sideways at Monk curiously.
    “It was certainly planned,” Monk admitted reluctantly. “He must have had men ready to help, with a wagon. They must have known the river and where to hire a barge. Perhaps that was the message he received which made him leave his lodgings and go that night. I had wondered where Merrit Alberton fitted in, if it was her leaving home that precipitated it.”
    Lanyon grunted. “I’d like to know her part in it too. How much idea had she as to the kind of man Breeland really is? What is she now—lover or hostage?”
    “She’s sixteen,” Monk replied, not knowing really what he meant.
    Lanyon did not answer. They were back at the water’s edge. On both sides of the river tall chimneys spewed out black smoke which drifted upwards, staining the air. Massive sheds had wheels vaulting up through their roofs like the paddles of unimaginably huge steamers. Monk remembered from somewhere in the past that the London docks could take about five hundred ships. The tobacco warehouses alone covered five acres. He could smell the tobacco now, along with tar, sulfur, the saltiness of the tide, the stench of hides, the fragrance of coffee.
    All around were the noises of labor and trade, shouts, clanging of metal on metal, scrape of wood on stone, the slap of water and whine of wind.
    A man passed them, his face dyed blue with the indigo he unloaded. Behind him was a black man with a fancy waistcoat, such as a ship’s mate might wear. A fat man with longgray hair curling on his collar carried a brass-tipped rule, dripping spirit. There was a stack of casks a dozen yards away. He had been probing them to test their content. He was a gauger—that was his work.
    A whiff of spice was sharp and sweet for a moment, then Monk and Lanyon were negotiating their way around a stack of cork, then yellow bins of sulfur, and lead-colored copper ore.
    Somewhere twenty yards away, sailors were singing as they worked, keeping time.
    Lanyon stopped a brass-buttoned customs officer and explained who he was, without reference to Monk.
    “Yes, sir,” the customs man said helpfully. “Wot was it about, then?”
    “A triple murder and robbery from a warehouse in Tooley Street last night,” Lanyon said succinctly. “We think the goods were loaded onto a barge and sent downriver. Probably got this far about one or two in the morning.”
    The customs man bit his lip dubiously. “Dunno, meself, but yer best chance’d be to ask the watermen, or mebbe even river finders. They often work by night as well, lookin’ fer bodies an’ the like. Never tell what the