William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

but somewhere in the distance. “Shortly after engaging me, Louvain took a woman to the clinic in Portpool Lane. I don’t know whether he knew of Hester from me, or if he knew of the clinic before, and possibly that was why he hired me rather than someone else. Don’t interrupt me! He said the woman was the cast-off mistress of a friend, which may or may not be true.” He ran his hand over his face. “Three days ago, in the evening, a rat catcher called Sutton came to me at home with a message from Hester.” At last he looked up at Rathbone and the pain in his eyes was frightening. “The woman, Ruth Clark, had died, and in dressing her for the undertaker, Hester discovered buboes in her armpits and groin.”
    Rathbone had no idea what he was talking about. “Buboes?” he said.
    “Black swellings,” Monk answered, his voice cracking. “They’re called buboes—that’s where we get the word
bubonic
.” He stopped abruptly.
    The silence was as dense as fog while very slowly the meaning of what he had said sank into Rathbone and filled him with indescribable horror.
    Monk was staring at him.
    “Bubonic?” Rathbone whispered. “You don’t . . . mean . . .” He could not say it.
    Monk nodded almost imperceptibly.
    “But . . . but that’s . . . medieval . . . it’s . . .” Rathbone stopped again, refusing to believe it. He could not get his breath; his heart was hammering and the room was swaying around him, the edges of his vision blurred. He reached out his hands to grasp the desk as he overbalanced sideways and sat down hard and awkwardly, oblivious of bruising himself. “You can’t have that . . . now! This is 1863! What do we do? How do they treat it? Who do we tell?”
    “No one!” Monk said violently. He was between Rathbone and the door, and he looked as if he would physically prevent him from leaving, with force if necessary. “For God’s sake, Rathbone; Hester’s in there! If anyone got even an idea of it they’d mob the place and set fire to it! They’d be burned alive!”
    “But we have to tell someone!” Rathbone protested. “The authorities. Doctors. We can’t treat it if no one knows!”
    Monk leaned forward; his voice was shaking. “There is no treatment. Either they survive it or they don’t. All we can do is raise money to buy food, coal, and medicines for them. We have to contain it, at any cost at all. If we don’t, if even one person gets out carrying it, it will spread throughout London, throughout England, then the world. In the Middle Ages, before the Indian Empire or the opening up of America, it killed twenty-five million people in Europe alone. Imagine what it would do now! Do you see why we must tell no one?”
    It was impossible, too hideous for the mind to grasp.
    “No one!” Monk repeated. “They have men with pit bulls patrolling day and night, and anyone attempting to leave will be torn to pieces. Now do you see why I have to find out if the disease came in on the
Maude Idris
, and if Hodge died of the plague, and his head was beaten in so no one would think to look for any other cause of death? He was buried straightaway. I don’t know whether Louvain knew about him or the Clark woman or not. I have to find the source. I can’t let Gould be hanged for something he didn’t do, but not ever, even to save his life, can I tell what I know. Do you see?”
    Rathbone found it almost impossible to move or speak. The room seemed to be far away from him, as if he were dreaming rather than seeing it. Monk’s face was the only steady thing in his sight, at once familiar and dreadful. Seconds ticked by in which he expected at any instant to wake up in a sweat and a tangle of bedclothes.
    It did not happen. He heard hooves in the street outside, and the hiss of carriage wheels in the rain. Someone shouted. It was all real. There was no rescue, no escape.
    “Do you see?” Monk repeated.
    “Yes,” Rathbone replied at last. He was beginning to. There was no one to help; no one could. He frowned. “Nothing they can do? Doctors? Even now?”
    “No.”
    “What do you want from me?” He refused to visualize it; the reality was more than he could endure. He needed to be busy. It would excuse him from knowing anything else; he would be doing what he could. “Did you say the man’s name was Gould—the thief, I mean?”
    “Yes. He’s held at Wapping. The man in charge is called Durban. He knows the truth.”
    Rathbone was jolted. “The truth? You mean he