Gradually they moved eastward. In Rope-Makers' Field Monk tried several shopkeepers. Drusilla even plucked up courage to make several suggestions herself. But still they met with nothing useful. There were references to Caleb Stone, few of them flattering, many of them spoken with overt fear.

Emmett Street was the same. The fog from the river was even denser here, hanging in thick curtains, blocking out the light. There was no color to drain from the drab streets with their high, narrow walls, sooty and damp- stained, the chimneys dribbling out thin wreaths of smoke. Middens ran out into the gutters and the smell was choking. The fog deadened sound; even other footsteps on the wet stones were hardly audible. Now and then the wail of a foghorn came from the river a street away.

Several times Drusilla looked at Monk, question and horror in her eyes.

“Do you want to go back?” he asked, knowing the pity and the dismay she must feel, a woman who had never seen or imagined such things before. It said much for her courage that she had come this far.

“We haven't learned anything yet,” she said doggedly, gritting her teeth.

“Thank you, but I can continue.”

He smiled at her with a warmth he had no need to affect. He held her arm a little closer as they went on past the West India Docks towards the Isle of Dogs.

On West Ferry Road Monk stopped a woman with a large bosom and short, very bowed legs. She was carrying a bundle of rags and was about to go through a doorway which emitted a smell of burned fat and blocked drains.

“Hey!” Monk called out.

The woman stopped and turned, too tired for curiosity. “Yeah?”

“I'm looking for someone,” Monk began, as he had so many times before.

“It's worth something to me to find him.”

“Oh yeah?” There was a slight flicker across the impassivity of the woman's face. “'Oo yer lookin' fer, then?”

Drusilla passed her Enid's drawing of Angus. She peered at it in the gray light. Then her face tightened and she thrust the drawing back at Monk, anger harsh in her voice.

“If yer wants Caleb Stone, yer'll find 'im wivaht my 'elp! Stuff yer money.

In't no use ter mie in me grave!”

“It isn't Caleb Stone,” Monk said quickly.

“Yeah 'tis!” The woman thrust the picture back at him. “Wotcha take me fer?

I know Caleb Stone Wen I sees 'imp>, “It isn't Caleb,” Drusilla said urgently, stepping forward for the first time. “He is related to him, that's why there is such a resemblance. But look more closely.” She took the picture back from Monk and passed it to the woman. “Look at his face again. Look at his expression. Does he appear the sort of man Caleb Stone is?”