"Why would you do that?"

Sixsmith hesitated a moment.

"Why?" Monk repeated. "It's Argyll's company, not yours. Your reputation is excellent. If he went under, you could find a new position in days."

"You know my reputation?" Sixsmith sounded surprised.

"Of course. Argyll couldn't afford to have Havilland sabotage his tunnel. He must have contacted the assassin, but got you to hand the money to him. Why would he do that, except to incriminate you if anyone ever discovered Havilland's death was murder? It was deliberate!"

Sixsmith blinked rapidly, his face a mask of pain, still fighting not to believe it.

"Were you the first to speak to the assassin?" Monk pressed. He hated forcing Sixsmith to see it, but his life could depend on it. "Or did Argyll set up the meeting, give you the money, and tell you to pass it over?"

"Of course he did," Sixsmith said in a whisper.

"Do you know who the assassin was? Do you know where to find him now? Or anything about him at all?" Monk asked.

"No." Sixsmith stared at him. "No ... I don't."

"Who asked Mrs. Argyll to write to her father and have him go out and wait in the stables at midnight?"

"You believe there really was a letter?" Sixsmith's eyes widened. "Did anyone see it?"

"Yes, I believe there was," Monk answered. "She admitted it, but we can't force her to testify against her husband."

Sixsmith dropped his head in his hands, as if someone had offered him hope, then dashed it from his lips.

"We can try to persuade her." Monk wanted passionately to help him, to give him the strength to go on. "For your own sake," he said urgently, "tell the truth about the money! Tell Dobie everything."

"He can't help," Sixsmith whispered. "He thinks he can, but he's young and imagines he'll always win. He won't this time. Argyll's surrounded himself with too many people who are innocent. There's Jenny, poor Mary Havilland, the navvies who carried out his orders to fight the toshers now and then. The poor devils don't have a choice! It's work or starve. And we have to meet the deadline in the contract or we won't get another."

He looked at Monk as if trying to discern if he understood. "And there's the M.P., Morgan Applegate, who gave us the contracts for those sites. He could be implicated in bribes and profit. Argyll knows all that; he arranged it that way. I haven't a chance, Mr. Monk. I'd best go down for bribing someone to murder a man, and not take all those others with me. I'll go anyway; he's seen to that." He faced Monk with haunted eyes, still clinging to a hope beyond reason, and on the edge of losing it.