The Twisted Root (11 page)

4

IN THE MORNING, Monk left home to continue his search for Miriam Gardiner, only now there was the added difficulty that he must do so without at the same time leading Robb to her. He did not underestimate Robb’s intelligence. He had already had the chastening experience of being out-thought in conversation, and the memory still stung.

Horses were intelligent animals, and very much creatures of habit. If Treadwell had driven them to Hampstead before then, they were likely to have returned to the same place.

Accordingly, the still, summer morning at seven o’clock found Monk standing in the sun on Lyndhurst Road, studying its tidy house fronts with their neat gardens and whitened steps.

He knew Miriam’s address from Lucius Stourbridge. Naturally, it was the first place he had enquired, but all his questions had elicited only blank ignorance and then growing alarm. That might still be where Robb would begin.

Monk stood with the lazy sun warming his shoulders and the early-morning sounds of kitchen doors opening and closing, the occasional whack of a broom handle beating a carpet. Errand boys’ feet were loud on the cobbles, as was the uneven step of one of them who was carrying a heavy bucket of coal. The only thought crowding his mind was where had Miriam been when James Treadwell was murdered. Had she been present? If she had, had anyone else, or had she killed him herself? The surgeon had said it seemed a single, extremely heavy blow, but not impossible to have been inflicted by a woman, given that she had used the right weapon. And Treadwell had not died straightaway but crawled from wherever it had happened, presumably looking for help. Neither Robb nor the police surgeon had offered any suggestion as to where the crime had taken place, but it could not have been far away.

Had Miriam struck him once and then fled? Had she taken the coach, driving it herself? If so, why had she abandoned it in the street so close by?

Perhaps she had panicked and simply run, as the blind, instinctive thing to do. Possibly she was unused to horses and did not know how to drive.

Or had there been a third person there? Had Miriam witnessed the murder and fled, perhaps for her own survival? Or had she not been there at all?

He would learn nothing standing in the sun while the world woke up and busied itself around him. He walked forward and up the step to the nearest door. He knocked on it and the maid answered, looking startled and ready to tell any errant tradesman where his appropriate entrance was and not to be so impertinent as to come to the front. Then she saw Monk’s face, and her eyes traveled down his smart coat to his polished boots, and she changed her mind.

"Yes sir?" she said curiously, absentmindedly pushing her hand through her hair to tidy it out of her eyes. "Master’s not up yet, I’m afraid." Then she realized that was a little too revealing. "I mean, ’e in’t ’ad ’is breakfast yet."

Monk made himself smile at the girl. "I’m sure you can help me without disturbing the household. I’m afraid I am lost. I don’t know the area very well. I am looking for a Mrs. Miriam Gardiner. I believe she lives somewhere near here." He knew perfectly well that she lived about five houses along, but he wanted to learn all he could from someone who almost certainly would have noticed her and heard all the below-stairs gossip. If indeed there had been some relationship between her and Treadwell, then they might have been less guarded here, away from Cleveland Square.

"Mrs. Gardiner? Oh, yeah," she said cheerfully. She came farther out onto the step and swung around, pointing. "Four doors up that way she lives. Or mebbe it’s five, number eight. Just along there, any’ow. Yer can’t miss it."

"Would you know if she is at home now?" he asked without moving.

"Cor luv yer, no I wouldn’t. I in’t seen ’er fer a week ner more. I ’eard as she were gettin’ married again, an’ good for ’er, I says."

"Would that be an elderly gentleman who lives about a mile from here?" Monk assumed an ingenuous air.

"Dunno, I’m sure," the girl replied. "Shouldn’t ’a thought so, though. Comes in a right smart carriage, ’e does. Matched pair like nobody’s business. Step fer step they goes, like they was machines."

"Same color?" Monk asked with interest.

"Color don’t matter," she replied with ill-concealed impatience. "Size an’ pace is wot makes ’em ride well."

"Know something about horses?" he observed.

"Me pa were a coachman," she said. "None better, if I says so as shouldn’t."

He smiled at her quite genuinely. Something in her pride in her father pleased him. It was simple and without self-consciousness. "Seen them about quite often, I suppose? Was that coachman much good?"

"Fair," she replied with careful judgment. "Not near as good as me pa. Too ’eavy-’anded."

"Have you seen him lately? I’d like a word with him." He thought he had better give some reason for all the questions.

"I in’t seen ’im fer a few days now." She shook her head as if it puzzled her. "But ’e’s around ’ere often enough. I seen ’im in the High Street. I recognize them ’orses. Goin’ towards the ’Eath."

"You mean not to Mrs. Gardiner’s house?" he said with surprise. "To a public house, perhaps?"

"In’t none up that way," she replied. " ’E must ’a know’d someone."

"Thank you! Thank you very much." He stepped back. "Good day."

She stood on the path smiling as he walked away, then went back into the house to continue with her far less interesting duties.

He was speaking to a gardener busy pulling weeds when he saw Robb turn the corner of the street and come towards him, frowning, deep in thought. His hands were in his pockets, and from the concentration in his face, Monk surmised he was mulling over something that caused him concern.

It was as well for Monk that he was, otherwise Robb would almost certainly have recognized him, and that was something he did not wish. Robb had to be searching for Miriam just as diligently as he was. Monk must find her first, even if only to give her time to prepare what she would say.

He thanked the gardener, turned on his heel and strode away as fast as he could without drawing undue attention to himself. He went down the first side street he came to.

Robb did not pass him. Damn! He must have stopped to speak to the same gardener. It was the obvious thing to do. Then the man would also tell him of seeing the carriage drive by regularly over the last year or more. And Robb would ask who it was that had just been talking to him, and the gardener would say that he had given him the same information. Even if Robb had not recognized the well-cut jacket and the square set of his shoulders, Robb would know it was Monk. Who else would it be?

What had James Treadwell been doing here other than collecting and returning Miriam to her home after visiting with Lucius Stourbridge? Had he relatives here? Was there a woman, or more than one? Or some form of business? Had it anything to do with Miriam, or not?

A vehicle like that would be remembered by anyone who knew horses. This was not an area with many stables or mews where they could be kept out of sight. Most people here used public transport, hansoms, or even omnibuses. Short journeys would be made on foot.

He spent the next three hours combing the neighborhood asking boot boys, errand boys, and a scullery maid about the houses. He stopped a man delivering coal for kitchen fires, which were kept burning to cook on, even on such a hot summer day, his face black, sweat trickling through the coal dust that caked his skin.

Twice more he only narrowly avoided running into Robb. He spoke to a boy selling newspapers and a man with a tray of ham sandwiches, from whom he purchased what was going to have to serve him for a late luncheon. Most of them were happy to admit they knew Miriam Gardiner, at least by sight, and smiled when they said it, as if the memory were pleasant.

But they knew that Treadwell had been murdered, and none of them wished to be associated with that, however loosely. Yes, they had seen him in the past, but no, not lately, certainly not on the night he had met his death. They gazed back at Monk with blank eyes and complete denial. He could only hope Robb met with the same.

The only thing left to do was move closer to where the body had been found and try again. It was a matter of searching for the kind of person who was in a position to observe the comings and goings, and who might feel free to speak of them without involving himself in something which could only be unpleasant. Servants caught gossiping were invariably in trouble. The advantage he had over Robb was that he was not police. But being a civilian also held disadvantages. He could only persuade; he could oblige nothing.

He walked slowly along the pavement in the sun. It was a pleasant neighborhood, with rows of small, respectable houses. Inside, the front parlors would be neat and stuffy, seldom used, filled with paintings and samplers with God-fearing messages on them, possibly a picture of the family posed self-consciously in their Sunday best. Life would be conducted mostly in the kitchen and bedrooms. Prayers would be said every morning and night. The generations would be listed in the family Bible, which was probably opened once a week. Sunday morning would be very sober indeed, although Saturday night might get a little tipsy—for the men anyway.

He tried to think what Treadwell would do when he got to Hampstead. Did he meet friends, perhaps a woman? Why not? It would certainly be very foolish for him to form a friendship with a woman in the Stourbridge house, or close enough for others to become aware of it. Backstairs gossip had ruined more than a few men in service.

Had he come to buy or to pay for something, or to settle or collect an old debt? Or had it been simply to escape his daily life of obedience to someone else? Here, for an hour or two, he would have been his own master.

Monk crossed the street, still strolling gently because he had reached no decision. A young woman passed him. She was wearing the starched uniform and simple dress of a nursemaid, and she had a little girl by the hand. Every now and again the child took a little skip, the ribbon in her hair bobbing, and the young woman smiled at her. Far away in the distance, probably on the Heath, a barrel organ played.

If Treadwell had come here he would not have left the carriage and horses standing unattended. Even if he had merely stopped for a drink, he would have had to leave them in some suitable place, such as an ostler’s yard.

There was a shop across the road ahead of him. He was not more than a quarter of a mile from Miriam Gardiner’s house. This would be an excellent place to start. He increased his pace. Now he had a specific purpose.

He opened the door, and a bell clanked rustily somewhere inside. An elderly gentleman appeared from behind a curtain and looked at Monk hopefully.

"Yes sir. Lovely day, in’t it? What can I get for you, sir? Tea, candles, half a pound of mint humbugs perhaps?" He waved a hand at the general clutter around him which apparently held all these things and more. "Or a penny postcard? Ball of string, maybe you need, or sealing wax?"

"Ball of string and sealing wax sounds very useful," Monk agreed. "And the humbugs would be excellent on such a warm day. Thank you."

The man nodded several times, satisfied, and began to find the articles named.

"Mrs. Gardiner said you would have almost anything I might want," Monk remarked, watching the man carefully.

"Oh, did she?" the man replied without looking up. "Now, there’s a nice lady, if you like! Happy to see her marry again, and that’s not a lie. Widowed too young, she was. Oh! There’s the sealing wax." He held it up triumphantly. "It’s a nice color, that is. Not too orange. Don’t like it to be too orange. Red’s better."

"I suppose you’ve known her a long time," Monk remarked casually, nodding back in approval of the shade of the wax.

"Bless you, only since she first came here as a girl, and that’s not a lie," the man agreed. "Poor little thing!"

Monk stiffened. What should he say to encourage more confidences without showing his own ignorance or curiosity?

The man found the string and came up from his bending with a ball in each hand.

"There you are, sir," he said triumphantly, his face shining. "Which would you prefer? This is good string for parcels and the like, and the other’s softer, better for tying up plants. Don’t cut into the stems, you see?"

"I’ll take both," Monk answered, his mind racing. "And two sticks of the sealing wax. As you say, it’s a good color."

"Good! Good! And the mint humbugs. Never forget the mint humbugs!" He laid the string on the counter and disappeared below it again, presumably searching for more sealing wax. Monk hoped it was not the humbugs down in the dusty recesses.

"I hadn’t realized she was so young when it happened," Monk observed, hoping he sounded more casual than he felt.

"Bless you, no more than twelve or thirteen, and that’s not a lie," the man answered from his hands and knees where he was searching in the cupboards under the counter. He pulled out a huge box full of envelopes and linen paper. "Poor little creature. Terrible small she was. Not a soul in the world, so it seemed. Not then. But of course our Cleo took her in." He pulled out another box of assorted papers. Monk did not care in the slightest about the sealing wax, but he did not want to interrupt the flow. "Good woman, Cleo Anderson. Heart of gold, whatever anybody says," the man continued vehemently.

"Please don’t go to trouble." Monk was abashed by the work he was causing, and he had what he wanted. "I don’t need more wax, I merely liked the color."

"Mustn’t be beaten," the shopkeeper mumbled from the depth of the cupboard. "That’s what they said at Trafalgar— and Waterloo, no doubt. Can’t have a customer leaving dissatisfied."

"I suppose you know Mr. Treadwell also?" Monk tried the last question.

"Not as I recall. Ah! Here it is! I knew I had some more somewhere. Half a box of it." He backed out and stood up, his shoulders covered in dust, a lidless cardboard box in one hand. He beamed at Monk. "Here you are, sir. How much would you like?"