William Monk 15 - Dark Assassin

man’s shoulders. A caress? Or pushing him away? He had moved his arm, back and up. Pulling away from her? Or making a motion to strike her? He had grasped hold of her. To save her, or to push her?
    Mrs. Porter was waiting, hugging herself, still shivering in the warm kitchen with its dinnertime smells.
    “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “They were above us, outlined against the light, and almost two hundred feet away.”
    She turned to Orme. “Was you there too, sir?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Orme replied, standing upright in the middle of the scrubbed floor. “An’ Mr. Monk’s right. The more I think on it, the less certain I am as to what I saw, exact. It was in that sort of darkening time just before the lamps are lit. You think you can see, but you make mistakes.”
    “ ’Oo were she?” she asked. “The woman wot went over with ’im.”
    “Was there someone you might expect it to be?” Monk parried. “If they were quarrelling?”
    She was clearly unhappy. “Well…I don’t like ter say….” Her voicetrailed off.
    “We know who it was, Mrs. Porter,” Monk told her. “We need to know what happened, so we don’t allow anyone to be blamed for something they didn’t do.”
    “Yer can’t ’urt ’em now,” she responded, the tears trickling unheeded down her cheeks. “They’re dead, poor souls.”
    “But they’ll have family who care,” he pointed out. “And burial in hallowed ground, or not.”
    She gasped and gave a convulsive shudder.
    “Mrs. Porter?”
    “Were it Miss ’Avilland?” she asked hoarsely.
    “What can you tell me about her?”
    “It were ’er? Course, it would be. ’E din’t never look at no one else, not ever since ’e met ’er.”
    “He was in love with her?” Of course, that could mean many things, from the true giving of the heart, unselfishly, through generosity, need, all the way to domination and obsession. And rejection could mean anything from resignation through misery to anger or rage and the need for revenge, perhaps even destruction.
    She hesitated.
    “Mrs. Porter?”
    “Yes,” she said quickly. “They was betrothed, at least ’e seemed to take it they was, then she broke it orff. Not that it were formal, like. There weren’t no announcement.”
    “Do you know why?”
    She was surprised.
    “Me? Course I don’t.”
    “Was there another person?”
    “Not for ’im, an’ I don’t think for ’er neither. Least that’s wot I ’eard ’im say.” She gave a long sniff and gulped. “This is terrible. I never ’eard o’ such a thing, not wi’ quality folk. Wot would they want ter go jumpin’ orff bridges for? Mr. Argyll’ll be broke ter pieces when ’e ’ears, poor man.”
    “Mr. Argyll? His father?” Monk asked.
    “No, ’is brother. Quite a bit older, ’e is. Least I should say so.” She sniffed again and fished in her apron pocket for a handkerchief. “I only seen ’im five or six times, when ’e came ’ere fer Mr. Toby, like. Very wealthy gentleman, ’e is. Owns them big machines an’ things wot’s diggin’ the new sewers Mr. Bazalgette drew ter clean up London, so we don’t get no more typhoid an’ cholera an’ the like. Took poor Prince Albert ter die of it, an’ the poor Queen’s ’eart broke before they do it. Wicked, I say!”
    Monk could remember the Great Stink of ’58 very clearly, when the overflow of effluent had been so serious the entire city of London became like a vast open sewer. The Thames had smelled so vile it choked the throat and caused nausea simply to come within a mile of it.
    The new sewer system was to be the most advanced in Europe. It would cost a fortune and provide work, and wealth, for thousands, tens of thousands if one considered all the navvies, brick makers, and railwaymen involved, the builders, carpenters, and suppliers of one sort or another. Most of the sewers were to be built by the open cut-and-cover method, but a few were deep enough to require tunneling.
    “So Mr. Argyll was a wealthy young man?”
    “Oh, yes.” She straightened up a little. “This is a very nice class o’ place, Mr. Monk. Don’t live ’ere cheap, yer know.”
    “And Miss Havilland?” he asked.
    “Oh, she were quality, too, poor creature,” she responded immediately. “A real lady she were, even with ’er opinions. I never disagreed wi’ airin’ opinions, meself, fer all as some might say it weren’t proper for a young lady.”
    Having married a woman with passionate opinions