William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

with, looking for the more discreet business, not the idlers but the people who were familiar with the place and had come for a specific purpose. Those were the ones who might have the information he was looking for.
    Everyone he saw was drinking, showing off, always with a roving eye looking for more and greater pleasure. When Monk demanded their attention, they were annoyed and disinclined to look at the drawing for more than a second or two before denying having seen such a cravat before.
    Monk’s temper began to fray. He was still not sure he wanted to find whoever had wrapped this beautiful piece of silk around Parfitt’s neck and tightened it until he was dead. If the law had done it with an ordinary piece of hempen rope, they would have called it justice.
    What he wanted was the man who’d put up the money to buy and furnish the boat, who befriended those with weaknesses. It was he who had brought men to that dark place on the river, where they could feel the excitement of danger, where the lazy blood suddenlypumped harder with horror, the scent of pain, and the knowledge that they were flirting with ruin. He had carefully photographed the obscenity. Then, when the blood was cold, clogging again in the veins with familiar safety, he would tell them that there was an indelible record of what they had done, and their own private dabbling in hell would cost them money—for the rest of their lives.
    Monk followed a winding gravel pathway to a graceful pavilion under the trees, and stood watching men and women parade by, their faces garish for a moment under the lights. A short man with a black mustache linked arms with a girl half his age. Her ample flesh strained at her bodice. Her laughter sounded vaguely tinny, as if it were forced through her throat. Many of those women were paid for what they did.
    Another couple strolled past; his hat was askew, her red skirts swaying. The men were buying pleasures they could not win at home. Perhaps they were clumsy, greedy, or inadequate? Perhaps the sanctity of the home prevented the passion they had been taught a lady did not enjoy? It was more likely that love of any kind was the last thing in their hearts. They might need pain, danger, or simply endless variety.
    They were all around him, laughing too loudly, the women too brightly colored.
    In all of it Monk could sense a pervasive loneliness, a compulsion, not an enjoyment.
    He approached a man selling tickets to one of the dance floors.
    “I want to be discreet,” he said with a very slight smile. “There are gentlemen here who would rather not have it known that they take their pleasures in such a place. Or should I say, they perhaps prefer the darkness, if you understand me?”
    “Yes, sir,” the man said guardedly. “Can’t say as I can do anything about that.”
    “Yes, you can. I am from the Thames River Police. I can come back here in uniform, with a lot of assistance, also in uniform, if you make that necessary. I’m hoping to find a little cooperation that will very quietly embarrass a few, rather than more publicly embarrass many.”
    “I see, sir,” the man said quickly. “Which ‘few’ did you ’ave in mind? I’m sure as I can ’elp yer.”
    “I thought you might.” Monk pulled out the drawing of the cravat. “Specifically, whoever wears a tie like this one.”
    The man regarded it with disinterest. Then something in it struck a chord of memory. Monk saw it in his face. The man flushed, weighing the chances of lying and getting away with it. He looked at Monk’s eyes, and made his decision. “Looks like the young man wot comes with Mr. Bledsoe, sir. Not that I could say for sure, like.”
    “Describe him,” Monk said curtly.
    “Tall, fair ’air. ’Andsome. Full o’ charm. But, then, them gents is. Born to it. I guess it comes on the silver spoon they got in their gobs.”
    “I imagine so. Tell me about Mr. Bledsoe. How do you know his name?”
    “ ’Cos I ’eard ’im called by it, o’ course! D’yer think I’m a bleedin’ mind reader?”
    Monk ignored the challenge. “What does he look like?” he asked curiously.
    “Shorter. Dark ’air. Eyes a bit close tergether. Always wears a top ’at. S’pose it makes ’im a bit taller.” He snickered at the idea. “Big ’ands. I noticed as ’e ’ad great big ’ands.”
    Monk thanked him and left.
    It did not take him long the next day to look up the Bledsoe family, and make a few inquiries at police stations in