William Monk 13 - Death of a Stranger

few pence worth of brandy balls.”
    “Sure an’ how many pence worth would that be, now?” she asked, taking the two shillings from him.
    “Four,” he said unhesitatingly.
    She grinned and poured him a generous four pence worth.
    “Thank you. Keep the change. I’m most obliged.”
    She put the clay pipe back in her mouth and drew on it with profound satisfaction. She had had a pleasant conversation, gained one and eight pence for nothing, and perhaps helped the cause of justice to get the rozzers off the backs of the poor cows who worked down the Farringdon Road way. Not bad for less than half an hour’s work.
    Monk took until the next day to find Josiah Wardrup, but with only a moderate amount of pressure the cabbie admitted that he had picked up Nolan Baltimore on that corner at least once a week for the last two or three years and taken him to the corner of Theobald’s Road and Gray’s Inn Road, which was a mere stone’s throw from Leather Lane.
    Monk was not sure if it was what he wanted to hear. It looked extraordinarily like a regular indulgence, but then insofar as it was regular, it would have been simple enough for anyone wishing him harm to have learned his pattern and followed him.
    But if Wardrup had seen anyone else he was not saying so. He looked at Monk with blank innocence and demanded his suitable appreciation. And no, he had no idea where Mr. Baltimore went from the corner. He always stood there and waited until Wardrup had left, which caused him some wry amusement. What did anyone imagine a gentleman did in such an area?
    The only fact Monk would glean of any interest was that on every occasion it had been the same corner. The times varied, the nights of the week, but never the place.
    And yet the brothel in Leather Lane where his body was found denied all knowledge of him. They said that not only had he not been there for business that night, he had never been.
    Monk was alternately cajoling and threatening, but not one woman changed her words, and in spite of general opinion of their honesty, and the fact that Baltimore had undoubtedly been found there, he found to his surprise that he believed them. Of course he was also aware that he was far from the first person to have asked, and they had had more than enough time to compare stories with each other and determine a united front.
    Still, Abel Smith’s dubious and far from attractive establishment was not the sort of place one expected a man of Baltimore’s wealth to frequent. But tastes were individual; some men liked dirt, others danger. Yet he knew of none who liked disease—except of course those already infected.
    At the end of two days he was little wiser.
    He turned his attention to Dalgarno, surprised how much he dreaded what he would find. And the search itself was not easy. Dalgarno was a man who seemed to do a great many things alone. It was not difficult to establish what time he had left the offices of Baltimore and Sons. A few enquiries of the desk elicited that information, but it was of little use. Dalgarno had left at six o’clock, five hours before Baltimore had been picked up by a hansom and taken to the corner of the Gray’s Inn Road.
    A newsboy had seen someone who was almost certainly Dalgarno go into the Baltimore house, and half an hour later Jarvis Baltimore go in also, but he had left the street before eight, and no one that Monk could question knew anything further. The Baltimore servants would know, but he had no authority to speak to them and could think of no excuse. Even if he could have, Baltimore could have been killed at any time after midnight and before dawn. No enquiry showed one way or the other whether Dalgarno had been in his rooms all night. Exit and entry were easy, and there was no postman or other servant to see.
    He spoke to the gingerbread seller on the corner fifty yards away, a small, spare man who looked as if he could profit from a thick slice of his own wares and a hot cup of tea. He had seen Dalgarno returning home at about half past nine in the evening of Baltimore’s death. Dalgarno had been walking rapidly, his face set in a mask of fury, his hat jammed hard on his head, and he had passed without a word. However, the gingerbread seller had packed up shortly after that and gone home, so he had no idea whether Dalgarno had gone out again or not.
    The constable on night duty might know. He patrolled this way now and then. But he gave Monk a lopsided grin and half a wink. He