The Silent Cry

He had a sudden acutely unpleasant feeling of loneliness, as if the ground had given way beneath him and old certainties had vanished without anything to replace them. All around him was grey poverty, people whose lives were bounded by hunger, cold and danger. They were so used to it they could eat and sleep in its midst, laugh and beget children, bury their dead, steal from each other, and practise their trades and their crafts, legal or otherwise. Illegality was probably the least of their problems, except in so much as it trespassed certain safeguards. The cardinal principle was to survive. If he had spoken to them of his father's notion of a just God, one who loved them, he would have been greeted with utter incomprehension. Even good fairy stories had some relevance to fact, some meaning that a person could understand.

They entered an alley too narrow to walk abreast, and Shotts went first, Evan behind him. It was a short cut back to the main thoroughfare. They crossed a ta

Evan increased his stride and caught up with Shotts.

"Why did you lie to me?" he said bluntly.

Shotts tripped on the kerb stone then regained his balance and stood still.

"Sir?”

Evan stopped also. "Why did you lie to me?" he repeated, his voice mild, no accusation in it, simply puzzlement and curiosity.

Shotts swallowed. "About what, sir?”

"Lots of things: where you were last Friday when you told me you were questioning Hattie Burrows. You weren't, because I learned afterwards where she was, and it was not with you. About Seven Dials and the ru

"That…" Shotts began. "That was a… mistake…" He did not look at Evan as he was speaking.

"Have you a bad memory?" Evan enquired politely, in the same tone as he would have asked if Shotts liked sausages.

Shotts was caught. To say he had would make him an unsuitable policeman. Above all a policeman needed keen observation and an excellent memory. He had already demonstrated these qualities very effectively.

"Well… pretty good… most of the time… sir," he compromised rather well.

"You need to have a perfect memory to be a good liar," Evan resumed walking at a level pace, and Shotts kept up, but not looking at him.

"Better than yours. Why, Shotts? Do you know something about this murder that you don't want to tell me? Or is it something else altogether that you are hiding?”

Shotts blushed scarlet. He must have felt the heat flush up his face, because he surrendered.

"It's nothing agin' the law, sir, I swear it! I would never do nothing agin' the law!”

"I'm listening," Evan kept his eyes straight ahead.

"It's a girl, sir, a woman. I were seein' 'er well I shouldn't 'ave.

It's me only chance, yer see, wi' all the extra duty I been pullin', withe murder. I was… I was tryin' ter keeper fam'ly out o' it. Not that they're in it…”

Evan attempted to hide his smile, and only partially succeeded.

"Oh! Why the secrecy?”

"Mr. Runcorn wouldn't approve, sir. I mean ter marry 'er, but I 'aven't saved enough money yet, an' I can't afford ter lose me job.”

"Then be a little more efficient with your lying, and Mr. Runcorn won't need to find out. At least be wholehearted in your inventions!”

Shotts stared at him.

Evan kept on walking, coming to the crossroads and aft era brief glance to left and right, striding out, leaving Shotts on the kerb as a rag and bone cart lumbered between them. Now he was smiling widely.

When Evan reached the police station there was a message that Monk wanted to see him, and had information to impart relevant to the Leighton Duff case of a nature which would bring to a conclusion the initial part of the enquiry. That was very strong language for Monk, who never exaggerated, and Evan went out again immediately and took a hansom to Grafton Street, and knocked on the door of Monk's rooms.

It was some time since he had been there, and he was surprised to see how comfortable they were, in fact even inviting. He was too intent on his purpose for calling to notice more than peripherally, but he was aware of personal touches. It was not something he would have associated with Monk, it was too restful. There were antimacassars on the chair backs and a palm tree of some sort in a large, brass pot. The fire was hot, as if it had been lit for some time. He found he was relaxing, in spite of himself.

"What is it?" he asked as soon as his coat was off and even before he sat in the chair opposite Monk's. "What have you found out? Have you proof?”

"I have witnesses," Monk replied, crossing his legs and leaning back, his eyes on Evan's face. "I have several people who saw Rhys Duff in St. Giles at the time leading up to the murder including a prostitute he used there on several occasions. It was definitely him. She identified him from the picture you gave me, and she knew him by name, also Arthur and Duke Kynaston. I even have the last victim of rape, attacked just before the murder, only a few yards from Water Lane.”

"She identifies Rhys Duff?" Evan said incredulously. It was almost too good to be true! How had he and Shotts missed that? Were they really so inferior to Monk? Was his skill, and his ruthlessness, so much greater? He looked across at where Monk sat, the firelight red on his lean cheeks, and casting shadows across his eyes. It was a strong, clever face, but not insensitive, not without imagination or the possibility of compassion. There was a certain darkness in it now, as if this victory destroyed as well as created. There was so much in him Evan did not understand, but it did not stop him caring. He had never been afraid to commit his friendship.

"No," Monk answered. "She described three men, one tall and fairly slight, one shorter and leaner built, and one of average height and thin. She did not see or remember their faces.”

"That could be Rhys Duff, and Duke and Arthur Kynaston, but it's not proof," Evan argued. "A decent defence lawyer would tear that apart.”

Monk linked his fingers together in a steeple and stared at Evan. "When this defence lawyer you have in mind asks why on earth Rhys Duff should murder his father," he said. "He was a decent, well-bred young man who, like any other of his age and class, occasionally took his pleasures with a prostitute. Simply because his father was a trifle straight-laced about such things, even a little pompous perhaps, is not cause for anything beyond a quarrel, and perhaps a reduction in his allowance. This provides their answer: because Leighton Duff interrupted his son and his friends raping and beating a young woman.

He was horrified and appalled. He would not accept it as part of any young man's natural appetites. Therefore he had to be silenced.”

Evan followed the reasoning perfectly. A possible motive had been the one thing lacking before. A quarrel was easy to understand, even a few blows struck. But a fight to the death over the issue of using a prostitute was absurd. The issue of a series of rapes of increasing violence, by three of them together, and caught red-handed, was another matter entirely. It was repellent, and it was criminal. It was also escalating to the degree when sooner or later it would become murder.

To imagine three young men, fresh from the victory of violence against a terrified victim, beating to death the one man who threatened their exposure, was sickening but not difficult to believe.

"Yes, I see," he agreed with a sudden sadness. They were hideous crimes, so ugly he should have been overwhelmed with revulsion and a towering anger against the young men who had committed them. Yet what filled his mind was the picture of Rhys as he had seen him on the cobbles, soaked with blood, insensible, and yet still breathing, still just barely alive.