Slaves of Obsession - Anne Perry [29]
“I see.” Lanyon still regarded Monk closely. “Mr. Casbolt says you used to be in the police yourself, sir. Is that right?”
So Lanyon had never heard of him. He was not sure whether he was pleased or not. It meant they started without preconceptions now. But what about later, if he heard Monk’s reputation?
“Yes. Not for five years,” he said aloud.
For the first time Lanyon gazed around, his eyes ending inevitably on the crumpled bodies twenty yards away.
“Best look at them,” he said quietly. “Surgeon’s on his way. Do you know when Mr. Alberton was last seen alive?”
“Late yesterday evening. His wife says he left home then. It will be easy enough to confirm with the servants.”
They were walking towards the bodies of the two guards. They stopped in front of them and Lanyon bent down. Monk could not avoid looking again. There was a peculiar obscenity in the grotesqueness of their positions. The sun was high enough to shed warmth into the yard. There were one or two small flies buzzing. One settled in the blood.
Monk found himself almost sick with rage.
Lanyon made a little growling sound in his throat. He did not touch anything.
“Very odd,” he said softly. “Looks more like a sort of execution than an ordinary murder, doesn’t it? No man sits like that because he wants to.” He reached out his hand and touched the skin at the side of the nearest man’s neck, half under the collar. Monk knew he was testing the temperature, and that he would come to the same conclusion he had earlier. He also knew he would find the T-shaped incision.
“Well …” Lanyon said with an indrawn breath as he uncovered the cut. “Definitely an execution, of sorts.” He looked up at Monk. “And the guns were all taken, Mr. Casbolt said?”
“That’s right. The warehouse is empty.”
Lanyon stood up, brushing his hands down the sides of his trousers and stamping his feet a little, as if he were cold or cramped. “And they were the best-quality guns—Enfield P1853 rifled muskets—and a good supply of ammunition to go with them. That right?”
“That’s what I was told,” Monk agreed. “I didn’t see them.”
“We’ll check. There’ll be records. And daytime staff. The constable will keep them outside for the moment, and the new watch, if there is one.” He glanced at the bodies again. “The night shift can’t tell us, poor devils.” He led the way over to where Alberton lay. Again he bent down and looked closely.
Monk remained silent. He was aware of the constable and Casbolt in the distance, examining the warehouse itself, the doors, the tracks in the thin film of mud, crisscrossing where the wagons had backed and turned, where they must have loaded the cases of guns.
Lanyon interrupted his thoughts.
“What does T stand for?” he said, biting his lip. “T for thief? T for traitor, perhaps?” He stood up frowning, his long face full of anger and sadness. He was a plain man, but there was something likable in him that dominated one’s impression. “This Mr. Breeland who wanted to buy the guns is American, that right?”
“Yes. From the Union.”
Lanyon scratched his chin. “We heard the Union army executes its soldiers something like this, when it has to. Very nasty. Can’t see the need for it, myself. Ordinary firing squad seems good enough to me. I suppose they have their reasons. Why didn’t Mr. Alberton sell him the guns? Was he a Southern sympathizer, do you know?”
“I don’t think so,” Monk answered. “He’d just committed himself to sell them to the Southern buyer and he wouldn’t go back on his word. I don’t believe for him there is any question of ideological difference between the sides, just his own honor in keeping a promise.” He found that oddly difficult to say. He saw Alberton alive in his mind, and then the crumpled figure on the ground, its face almost