The Twisted Root Page 7

  The sergeant’s face was full of foreboding. "Oh, dear. That don’t sound good, sir, I must say."

  Monk wondered if he was thinking that Miriam had run off with Treadwell. It was not impossible. Monk would have formed a better judgment on that if he had seen either of them, but from the description he had of Treadwell from the other Stourbridge servants, the coachman did not seem a man likely to have attracted a charming and gentle widow who had the prospect of marrying into an excellent family and becoming the wife of a man with whom, by all accounts, she was deeply in love. Certainly, Lucius Stourbridge loved her.

  "No, it doesn’t," Monk said aloud. "I have traced the carriage as far as the edge of Hampstead Heath, but then I lost it. If it has been seen anywhere around this area, it would help me greatly to know it."

  " ’Course," the sergeant agreed, nodding. "We got a good ’ospital ’ere. Mebbe she was took ill sudden, like. They’d ’a taken ’er in. Very charitable, they are. Or mebbe she ’ad a sudden breakdown in ’er mind, like young women can ’ave, sometimes?"

  "I shall certainly enquire at the hospital," Monk agreed, although the sergeant had to be speaking about the hospital where Hester was, and he had already asked her if there had been any such young woman either seen or admitted. In either case, unless she were unconscious, why had she not made some effort to contact the Stourbridge family? "But I must also look further for the coach," he went on. "That may lead me to where she is. And in truth, the theft of the coach is the only aspect of the matter which breaches the law."

  " ’Course," the sergeant said sagely. " ’Course. Sergeant Robb is very busy at the moment. Got a murder, ’e ’as. Poor feller beaten over the ’ead and left on the path outside some woman’s ’ouse. But ’e in’t gorn out yet today. I know that for a fact. An’ I’m sure as ’e’ll spare yer a few minutes, like."

  "Thank you very much," Monk accepted. "I shan’t hold him up for long."

  "You wait there, sir, an’ I’ll tell ’im as yer ’ere." And the sergeant lumbered dutifully out of sight. He returned, followed by a slender young man with a good-humored face and dark, intelligent eyes. He looked harassed, and it was obvious he was sparing Monk time only to be civil and because the desk sergeant had committed him to it. Little of his mind was on the subject.

  "Good morning, sir," he said pleasantly. "Sergeant Trebbins says you are acting on behalf of a friend who has had a coach stolen, seemingly by his fiancée. I am afraid if they have chosen to... elope... it is probably ill advised, and certainly less than honorable, but it is not a crime. The matter of stealing a coach and pair, of course, we can look into, if you have reason to believe they came this way."

  "I do. I have followed the sightings of the coach as far as the edge of the Heath."

  "Was that yesterday, sir?"

  "No. I’m afraid it was five days ago." Monk felt foolish as he said it, and he was ready for disinterest, and even contempt, in the young man’s eyes. Instead he saw his whole body stiffen and heard a sharp intake of breath.

  "Could you describe the driver of this coach, sir, and the coach itself? Possibly the horses, even?"

  Monk’s pulse quickened. "You’ve seen them?" Then instantly he regretted the unprofessionalism of such a betrayal of emotion. But it was too late to withdraw it. Comment would only make it more obvious.

  Robb’s face was guarded. "I don’t know, sir. Could you describe them for me?" He could not keep the edge from his voice, the sharpness of needing to know.

  Monk told him every detail of the coach: the color, style, dimensions, maker’s name. He said that the horses were a brown and a bay, no white markings, fifteen hands and fifteen-one, respectively, and seven and nine years old.

  Robb looked very grave. "And the driver?" he said softly.

  The knot tightened in Monk’s stomach. "Average height, brown hair, blue eyes, muscular build. At the time he was last seen he was wearing livery." He knew even before he had finished speaking that Robb knew much about it, and none of it was good.

  Robb pressed his lips together hard a moment before speaking.

  "I’m sorry, sir, but I think I may have found your coach and horses ... and your driver. I don’t know anything about the young lady. Would you come inside with me, sir?"

  The desk sergeant’s face fell as he realized he was going to be excluded from the rest of the story.

  Monk remembered to thank him, something he would not have done even a short while ago. The man nodded, but Monk’s gesture did not solve his disappointment.

  Robb led Monk to a tiny office piled with papers. Monk felt a jolt of familiarity, as if he had been carried back in time to the early days of his own career. He still did not know how long ago that was.

  Robb took a pile of books off the guest chair and dropped them on the floor. There was no room on the already precariously piled table.

  "Sit down, sir," he offered. He had not yet asked Monk’s name. He sat in the other chair. He was a young man in whom good manners were so schooled they came without thought.

  "William Monk," Monk introduced himself, and was idiotically relieved to see no sign of recognition in the other man’s face. The name meant nothing to him.

  "I’m sorry, Mr. Monk," Robb apologized. "But at the moment I am investigating a murder of a man who answers fairly well to the description you have just given me. What is worse, I’m afraid, is that about half a mile away we found a coach and two horses which are almost certainly the ones you are missing. The coach is exactly as you say, and the horses are a brown and a bay, well matched, about fifteen hands or so." He tightened his lips again. "And the dead man was dressed in livery."

  Monk swallowed. "When did you find him?"

  "Five days ago," Robb replied, meeting Monk’s eyes gravely. "I’m sorry."

  "And he was murdered? You are sure?"

  "Yes. The police surgeon can’t see any way he could have come by those injuries by accident."

  "Fallen off the box?" Monk suggested. Treadwell would certainly not have been the first coachman to be a little drunk or careless and topple off the driving seat, striking his head against an uneven cobblestone or the edge of the curb. Many a man had fallen under his own wheels, and even been trampled by vehicles behind him unable to stop in time.

  Robb shook his head, his eyes not leaving Monk’s face. "If he’d fallen off the box his clothes would show it. You can’t land on the road hard enough for injuries like that and leave no mark on the shoulders and back of your coat, no threads torn or pulled, no stains of mud or manure. Even though the streets are pretty dry now, there’s always something. Even his breeches would have been scuffed differently if he’d rolled."

  "Differently?" Monk said quickly. "What do you mean? In what way were they scuffed?"

  "All on the knees, as if he’d crawled quite a distance some time before he died."

  "Trying to escape?" Monk asked.

  Robb chewed his lip. "Don’t know. It wasn’t a fight. He was only struck the one blow."

  Monk was startled. "One blow killed him? Then he crawled before he was struck? Why?"

  "Not necessarily." Robb shook his head again. "Doctor says he bled inside his head. Could have been alive for quite a while and crawled a distance, knowing he was hurt but not how bad, and that he was dying."

  "Then could he have fallen forward and caught himself one severe blow on an angle of the box? Or even been down and kicked by one of the horses?"

  "Doctor said he was struck from behind." Robb swung his arms out to his right and brought them sideways and forward hard. "Like that... when he was standing up. Caught him on the side of the head. Not a lot of blood—but lethal."

  "Couldn’t have been a kick?" Monk clung to the last hope.

  "No. Indentation was nothing like a horse’s hoof. A long, rounded object like a crowbar or pole. Wasn’t a corner of the box, either."

  "I see." Monk took a deep breath. "Have you any idea who it was that killed him? Or why?" He added the last as an afterthought.r />
  "Not yet," Robb admitted. He looked totally puzzled, and Monk had a swift impression that he was finding the case overwhelming. Already the fear of failure loomed in his sight. "He was hardly worth robbing. The only thing of value he had was the coach and horses, and they didn’t take them."

  "A personal enemy," Monk concluded. The thought troubled him even more, for reasons Robb could not know. Where was Miriam Gardiner? Had she been there at the time of the murder? If so, she was either a witness or an accomplice—or else she, too, was dead. If she had not been there, then where had Treadwell left her, and why? At her will, or not?

  How much should he tell Robb? If he were to serve Miriam’s interests, perhaps nothing at all—not yet, anyway.

  "May I see the body?" he asked.

  "Of course." Robb rose to his feet. Identification might help. At the least it would make him feel as if he were achieving something. He would know who his victim was.

  Monk thanked him and followed as he went out of his tiny office, back down the stairs and into the street, where there was a stir of air in the hot day, even if it smelled of horses and household smoke and dry gutters. The morgue was close enough to walk to, and Robb strode out, leading the way. He jammed his hands into his pockets and stared downwards, not speaking. It was not possible to know his thoughts. Monk judged him to be still in his late twenties. Perhaps he had not seen many deaths. This could be his first murder. He would be overawed by it, afraid of failure, disturbed by the immediacy of violence which was suddenly and uniquely his responsibility to deal with, an injustice he must resolve.

  Monk walked beside him, keeping pace for pace, but he did not interrupt the silence. Carriages passed them moving swiftly, harnesses bright in the sun, horses’ hooves loud. The breeze was very light, only whispering through the leaves of the trees at the end of the street by the Heath. The smell of the air over the stretch of grass was clean and sweet. Somebody was playing a barrel organ.

  The morgue was a handsome building, as if the architect had intended it as some kind of memorial to the dead, however temporarily there.

  Robb tensed his shoulders and increased his pace, as if determined not to show any distaste for it or hesitation in his duty. Monk followed him up the steps and in through the door. The familiar odor caught in his throat. Every morgue smelled like this, cloyingly sweet with an underlying sourness, leaving a taste at the back of the mouth. No amount of scrubbing in the world removed the knowledge of death.

  The attendant came out and asked politely if he could help them. He spoke with a slight lisp, and peered at Robb for a moment before he recognized him.

  "You’ll be for your coachman again," he said with a shake of his head. "Can’t tell you any more."

  They followed him into the tiled room, which echoed their footsteps. It held a dampness from running water, and the sting of disinfectant. Beyond was the icehouse where it was necessary to keep the bodies they could not bury within a day or two. It had been five days since this particular one had been found.

  "No need to bring him out," Robb said abruptly. "We’ll see him in there. It’s just that this gentleman might be able to tell us who he is."

  The icehouse was extremely cold. The chill of it made them gasp involuntarily, but neither complained. Monk was glad of it. He had known less efficient morgues than this.

  He lifted the sheet. The body was that of a well-fed man in his thirties. He was muscular, especially in the upper torso and across his shoulders. His skin was very white until it came to his hands and neck and face, which had been darkened by sun and wind. He had brownish hair, sharp features, and was blemished by a huge bruise covering his right temple, as if someone who hated him had struck him extremely hard, just once.

  Monk looked at him carefully for several minutes, but he could find no other marks at all, except one old scar on the leg, long since healed over, and a number of minor cuts and scrapes on his hands, some as old as the scar on the leg. It was what he would expect from a man who worked with horses and drove a coach for his living. There were fresh bruises and breaks on the skin on his knees and on the palms of his hands.

  He studied the face last, but with the eyes closed and the animation gone in death, it was hard to make any judgment of what he had looked like beyond the mere physical facts. His features were strong, a trifle sharp, his lips narrow, his brow wide. Intelligence and charm could have made him attractive; ill temper or a streak of greed or cruelty could equally have made him ugly. So much lay in the expression, now gone.

  Was this James Treadwell? Only someone from the Stourbridge household could tell him beyond doubt.

  "Do you want to see the clothes?" Robb asked, watching his face.

  "Please."

  But they told him no more than Robb himself had. There was only one likely conclusion: the man had been standing upright when someone had hit him a powerful blow which had sent him forward onto his knees, possibly even stunned him senseless for a while. The knees of his breeches were stained and torn, as if he had crawled a considerable distance. It was difficult to be certain of anything about the person who had delivered the blow. The weapon had not been found, but it must have been long, heavy and rounded, and swung with great force.

  "Could a woman have done that, do you think?" Monk asked, then immediately wished he had not. He should not look for Robb to offer him the comfort that it could not have been Miriam. Why should she do such a thing? She could be a victim, too. They simply had not found her yet.

  But if she was alive, where was she? If she was free to come forward, and was innocent, surely she would have?

  And why had she left the Stourbridge house in the first place?

  "May I see the coat?" he requested, looking at Robb before he answered.

  "Of course," Robb replied. He did not answer as to whether he thought a woman could have dealt the blow. It was a foolish question, and Monk knew it. A strong woman, angry or frightened enough, with a heavy object at hand could certainly have hit a man sufficiently hard to kill him, especially with a blow as accurate as this one.

  They left the morgue and went out into the sun again, walking briskly along the pavement. Robb seemed to be in a hurry, glancing once or twice at his watch. It was apparently more than a simple desire to be away from the presence of death which urged him on.

  Monk would have freed Robb from the necessity of showing him the carriage and horses if he felt he could overlook them, but they were the deciding factor whether to bring Harry or Lucius Stourbridge all the way to Hampstead and distress them with identifying the body. It would certainly cause them additional anguish.

  Robb was going at such a pace he stepped out into the street almost under the wheels of a hansom, and Monk had to grasp him by the arm to stop him.

  Robb flushed and apologized.

  "Have you an appointment?" Monk enquired. "This is only a courtesy you are doing me. I can wait."

  "The horses are in a stable about a mile away," Robb answered, watching the traffic for a break so they could cross. "It’s not exactly an appointment..." The subject seemed to embarrass him.

  A coach and four went by, ladies inside looking out, a flash of pastels and lace. It was followed by a brewer’s dray, drawn by shire horses with braided manes and feathered feet, their flanks gleaming. They tossed their heads as if they knew how beautiful they were.

  Monk and Robb seized the chance to cross behind them. On the farther side Robb drew in breath, looking straight ahead of him. "My grandfather is ill. I drop in to see him every so often, just to help. He’s getting a little ..." His features tightened and still he did not look at Monk. Strictly speaking, he was taking police time to go home in the middle of the day.

  Monk smiled grimly. He had no happy memories of the police hierarchy. He knew his juniors had been afraid of him with just cause, which was painful to him now. He had seen it in their nervousness in his presence, the expectation of criticism, just or not, the not-well-enough-concealed dislike.

  H
is own superior had been another matter. Runcorn was the only one he could recall, and between them there had been friendship once, long ago. But for years before the final quarrel which had led to Monk’s dismissal there had been nothing but rivalry and bitterness.

  He felt his own body tighten, but he could not help it.

  "We’d better go and see him," he answered. "I’ll get a pie or a sandwich and eat it while you do whatever you have to do for him. I’ll tell you what I know about Treadwell. If this is him, it’ll help."

  Robb considered it only for a second before he accepted.

  The old man lived in two rooms in a house about five minutes’ swift walk from the police station. Inside, the house was shabby but clean, and Robb deliberately made no apology. What Monk thought did not matter to him. All his emotions and his attention were on the old man who sat hunched up in the one comfortable chair. His shoulders were wide but thin now, and bowed over as if his chest hurt when he breathed. His white hair was carefully combed, and he was shaved, but his face had no color and it cost him a great effort that his grandson should have brought a stranger into his sanctuary.

  "How do you do, sir," Monk said gravely. "Thank you for permitting me to eat my pie in your house while I speak with Sergeant Robb about the case we are working on. It is very civil of you."

  "Not at all," the old man said huskily, obliged to clear his throat even for so few words. "You are welcome." He looked at Robb anxiously.

  Monk sat down and busied himself with the pie he had bought from a barrow on the way, keeping his eyes on it so as to not appear to be aware of Robb helping the old man through to the privy and back again, washing his hands for him and heating some soup on the stove in the corner which seemed to be burning even in the heat of midsummer, as if the old man felt cold all the time.

  Monk began to talk, to mask the sounds of the old man’s struggle to breathe and his difficulty swallowing the soup and the slices of bread Robb had buttered for him and was giving to him a little at a time. He had already thought clearly how much he would say of Lucius’s request. For the time being he would leave out references to Miriam. It was a great deal less than the truth. He would be deliberately misleading Robb, but until he knew more himself, to speak of her would have set Robb on her trail instantly, and that would not be in her interest—yet.