Mr. Monk in Trouble

by Lee Goldberg

  (From the journal of Abigail Guthrie)

  TROUBLE, CALIFORNIA, 1855

  The commerce in Trouble relied almost exclusively on gold dust, which people carried around in leather pokes tied to their belts. A pinch was worth about a dollar and just about everybody, from the clerk at the general store to the sporting women, had a set of scales.

  It was usually the seller who did the pinching and it was common for them to engage in some trickery to gain a few extra grains of gold in the transaction.

  Most of the bartenders, shopkeepers, barbers, and sporting women in town kept their nails long, the better to capture dust in a pinch, and in their spare time, rolled rough pebbles between their thumbs and index fingers to create indentations in their skin to trap more dust.

  The shopkeeper at the general store went a step further. He was known for his abundant, and slickly greased, head of hair, which he smoothed before every transaction and then raked his fingers through afterwards as the customer was leaving. According to Monk, that was because the gold stuck to his greased fingers during the pinch and was wiped off in his hair afterwards. Each night the shopkeeper washed his hair into a gold pan and made more than most prospectors did squatting beside a river.

  But I suppose it all evened out in the end, since many prospectors and miners were known to salt their gold with pyrite and brass filings to give their poke a little more volume.

  Monk didn't bother himself with those petty crimes but he did catch plenty of more ingenious thieves.

  I remember one situation in particular, because it happened in the first few weeks that I was working for him and because it also happened to be the first murder I'd seen him solve.

  It was a warm morning in September and I was indexing samples and updating his assay ledgers in the front office of his large, perfectly square cabin.

  Monk kept a representative sample of the rocks that were brought in for him to test. He placed the sample in a jar and labeled it with the date it was tested and index numbers that corresponded to entries in a ledger that he kept of the various claims, their locations, and the owners. The ledger also contained the results of his assays. It was part of my job to maintain those records.

  The shelves in the front office were neatly organized with sample jars, reference books, maps, and various rock specimens. His prospecting tools were carefully organized according to size, shape, and function. The tools rested on pegs in the wall specifically fitted for the individual implements.

  The cabin was divided into four equal sections--the front office, which doubled as our kitchen and communal living area, the laboratory, Monk's room, and my room.

  Monk spent most of his time in the laboratory, where he worked at an enormous desk that he somehow managed to keep dust free, even though he regularly worked with rocks and dirt. The shelves were filled with the specialized tools, chemicals, crucibles, microscopes, and balances required for his trade.

  The rear of his laboratory was reserved for the crushing of rock samples into dust, which he would then fire in the two-deck, clay furnace in the back as part of some complicated process I don't pretend to understand. All I know is that when it was done, and the pulverized rocks had been melted, poured into cupels, cooled and cleaned and chemicals added, he could separate the gold from everything else and tell you how rich or poor your claim was likely to be.

  Monk was in his lab when a young prospector walked into the front office. I immediately stopped him at the door and led him back outside to the porch.

  "I need to see Mr. Monk," he said.

  "You can't come in here like that," I said.

  "Like what?"

  I could tell he was a greenhorn, fresh off the boat, train, or trail and eager to make it rich in the gold country. He had the same feverish look in his eye that my Hank, and hundreds of other men, had. But it was more than that.

  His wool shirt was still a recognizable shade of red, his trousers weren't patched, but both were covered with dirt. He had the blistered hands and stumbling gait of someone unaccustomed to working with a shovel and pick, or the long hours squatting in the cold river, swishing gravel around in a pan. He was thin from lack of good food and possibly a touch of land scurvy. His whiskers were mangy but not yet obscuring his youthful features and his hair was long but not yet wild and matted.

  "You're too dirty," I said. "Mr. Monk only allows people inside who are freshly washed and dressed in their clean Sunday best."

  "This ain't no church and I don't want to marry him. I just want him to look at my rocks."

  "What is your name, sir?"

  "Nate Klebbin," he said.

  "You can give me your samples, Mr. Klebbin, and I will take them in to Mr. Monk. You may wait here on the porch if you like," I said, motioning to the guest bench. "Or I can fetch you in the saloon when Mr. Monk is finished."

  "I'll wait here." He handed me his sack of rocks and took a seat on the bench.

  I went inside and carried the sack to Monk, who greeted me at the doorway of his laboratory.

  "You have a new client," I said.

  "I know," Monk said. "I could smell him from a hundred yards away."

  "You say that about everybody except me."

  "Because nobody except you in this town bathes and wears fresh clothes each day," Monk said. "And many of them regularly sit astride filthy beasts."

  "You mean horses."

  "That's what I said." Monk took the bag from me and retreated to his laboratory, closing the door behind him.

  "I'd ride a horse if I could afford one," I said.

  Monk never rode horses and believed they should be prohibited from the streets. If he had his way, everybody would have to hitch up their horses in a corral outside of town and clean up after them.

  He emerged again a few hours later, a bewildered look on his face.

  "Is there an animal being slaughtered on our front porch?"

  Monk was referring to Nate Klebbin, who'd fallen asleep the instant after he sat down on the bench and had been snoring loudly ever since.

  "That's the fellow who brought in the sample for you," I said. "He's sleeping on the porch."

  "It sounds like he's being murdered and yet it smells like he died two weeks ago."

  "I'm sure he'll be flattered to hear that," I said.

  Monk opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, where Klebbin was snoring away. "Mr. Klebbin?"

  The man was too deep asleep to be stirred by the mere mention of his name. So Monk reached back into the cabin, grabbed the broom, and poked Klebbin in the side with the handle.

  Klebbin jerked awake. "What are you poking me for?"

  "I'm Artemis Monk, the assayer. I've finished studying your sample."

  Klebbin sat up straight, his eyes flashing with excitement. "Did you find color?"

  "I did," Monk said.

  "A lot of it?"

  "Enough to indicate the possibility of much more to be had with hard labor," Monk said.

  "Yee-haw!" Klebbin said.

  "I wouldn't yee or haw just yet," Monk said. "Where is your claim?"

  Klebbin reached into his shirt for a folded sheet of sweat-stained paper, which he held out to Monk. "It's right here."

  Monk took a step back as if he were being offered a dead rat. "I mean, where is your parcel located?"

  "In a gulch west of Juniper Creek," Klebbin said. "I bought it from Clem Janklow. You know him?"

  Monk knew Clem and so did everybody else in town. Clem was a prospector who scraped by but never struck it rich, and what gold he did find he quickly spent at the saloon. He was always broke and perpetually drunk and relieved his prodigious bladder wherever, and whenever, the urge struck him.

  This, of course, disgusted and infuriated Monk, who demanded that Sheriff Wheeler lock Clem up or throw him out of town. But Wheeler was reluctant to do either.

  "If I lock him up, then he'll just piss all over my jail," Wheeler said. "And if I drive out everybody who pisses in the street, the town
would be deserted. Besides, Clem can't help it. He's got a kidney ailment."

  "The ailment is whiskey," Monk said.

  Clem claimed it was more than that but that he couldn't afford the medicine that would lessen his need for alcohol and relieve his kidney problem. Monk talked to Dr. Sloan, who confirmed Clem's account and recommended an elixir known as Greeley's Cure, which was used to treat syphilis, alcoholism, opium addiction, and digestive troubles.

  So Monk had made a deal with Clem. He'd pay for the medicine himself if Clem agreed to stay out of the saloon and not to relieve himself on the streets.

  Since then, Clem hadn't relieved himself once in public and stayed away from the saloon. The bottles of Greeley's Cure cost Monk several dollars a day, but he figured it was a small price to pay to save a man's life and keep the community clean.

  Now Monk's face was turning beet red with anger.

  "Why did Clem sell you his claim if it was still producing gold, Mr. Klebbin?"

  "Clem told me he's too sick and feeble to work it anymore, but it ain't played out yet," Klebbin said. "He's got some kind of kidney problem from too much rotgut whiskey. It's got so bad, he's pissing day and night all over the place out there. You wouldn't believe the stink, but I don't mind if there's gold."

  Monk shivered. "You've been swindled, Mr. Klebbin, and so have I."

  "But you found gold in them rocks, didn't you?" Klebbin said.

  "Indeed I did," Monk said. "Stay here while I get the sheriff."

  Monk marched away and I hurried after him to Main Street. He kept his head down, watching the planks as he stepped on them.

  "I don't understand the trouble, Mr. Monk. Everything Clem told Mr. Klebbin is true."

  "That's what makes it so infuriating," Monk said. "The audacity of the crime."

  Monk stopped and pointed to a warped plank. I bent down and marked a big "X" on it with a piece of chalk so the wood could be replaced later. I carried the chalk with me at all times for exactly that purpose.

  He took another step and pointed to another plank. This one was cracked.

  "I thought you were in a hurry," I said.

  "I am," Monk said. "But I'm not going to kill myself getting there."

  "You can't die from stepping on a warped board," I said.

  "You can trip and break your neck. Or you could get a splinter in your toe that becomes infected. Next thing you know, Dr. Sloan is chopping off your leg to prevent gangrene, but he's too late. You're already dead."

  I marked the plank and we were hurrying along again when a man rode in, dismounted, and hitched his horse to the post a few yards ahead of us.

  He was a cowhand, not a prospector. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, a calico shirt, a beaten-down charro jacket adorned with silver-threaded brocade, and a pair of chaps. His boots were muddy and his clothes were dusty and stained with splotches of tar.

  The cowboy spit some tobacco into the street and stepped up to the sidewalk in front of the saloon, slapping dust off of himself with his hat.

  "You can sweep that right up again with that hat of yours," Monk said. "We like to keep our town clean."

  The cowboy turned to look at Monk. "What did you say to me?"

  "And when you're done sweeping up your dust, you can pick up that disgusting gob of tobacco you left in our street."

  The cowboy smiled, flashing his yellow teeth, and scratched at some welts on his chest. There was a murderous glint in his eyes. But he was wearing a gun belt and Monk was not, which may have been the only thing that saved Monk from getting gunned down.

  "I'm walking into that saloon and having myself a drink, mister. Maybe you and the pretty lady would like to join me."

  "Not with those muddy boots on, you're not," Monk said. "People eat and drink in there. Why don't you take them off and leave them by the door?"

  "I got to get me some of whatever you've been drinking." The cowboy laughed and went inside.

  Monk was about to go in after him when the horse passed gas and let loose some droppings. He screamed and ran back the way we came, careful to step on the same boards that he had before.

  I caught up with Monk around the corner on Second Street, out of sight of the horse and the droppings. He was breathing with a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

  "How are we going to get to the sheriff now?" he said.

  "Easy," I said. "We walk down the sidewalk to his office."

  "We can't with that in the street."

  "Unless you walk right behind that horse, there's no danger of stepping in the droppings."

  "It's still there," Monk said. "You can see it and you can smell it."

  "So close your eyes and plug your nose."

  "I'll die of asphyxiation," Monk said. "If my skin doesn't rot off first."

  "Why would your skin rot off?"

  "Did you see what's in the street?" Monk said. "What I need is my own telegraph in my cabin that's connected directly to the sheriff's office."

  "I'm sure he'd love that," I said. "But since it may take some time to build a telegraph line, I'd better go fetch Sheriff Wheeler myself."

  I started back towards Main Street but, as it turned out, I didn't have to go far. The sheriff was riding by on horse-back with his deputy, Parley Weaver. I ran into the street and flagged him down.

  The sheriff drew up beside me. He had a bountiful mustache that looked like he'd skinned a raccoon and hung the pelt from his nose. I'd heard he'd been a gunfighter before he settled in Trouble in search of a peaceable life. Most sheriffs had the same story.

  Deputy Weaver was reed-thin and lazy, but moved as fast as a jackrabbit when food, drink, or the attentions of a sporting woman were involved.

  "What's the problem, Mrs. Guthrie?" Wheeler asked me.

  "It's Mr. Monk, Sheriff," I said.

  "You need to arrest Clem Janklow," Monk yelled from where he stood, a safe distance away from the sheriff, Deputy Weaver, and their horses.

  Wheeler groaned. "I got bigger problems than Clem's pissing, Monk. There's been a murder. Somebody killed Bart Spicer and stole his poke."

  "Did it happen at his mine?" Monk asked.

  "As a matter of fact, it did," the sheriff said. "I'm on my way out there now."

  "Why are you going there when the murderer is right here in town?"

  The sheriff raised his eyebrows. "He is?"

  "He's having a drink in Bogg's Saloon," Monk said. "Now can we please go find Clem Janklow?"

  The sheriff and his deputy looked perplexed and I suppose that I did, too. Wheeler asked the question that the three of us were thinking.

  "How can you be sure that Spicer's killer is sitting in Bogg's Saloon when you didn't even know that Spicer was dead until I told you?"

  "Was Spicer killed with a mine timber?" Monk asked impatiently.

  "Someone dropped a timber on his head while he was sleeping," Deputy Weaver said. "How'd you know that? Did somebody tell you?"

  "The murderer did," Monk said.

  "He was bragging about what he done?" Weaver asked.

  "He didn't say a word about it," Monk said. "He didn't have to. He was wearing his confession."

  "What's this feller's name?" Wheeler asked.

  "I don't know," Monk said. "He just rode into town and messed the whole place up."

  Wheeler groaned. "How did he do that?"

  "He spit tobacco in the street, brushed dirt on the sidewalk, walked into the saloon with muddy boots, and his horse did the rest."

  "Because of that, you think he's also got to be a murderer," Wheeler said.

  "I can prove it," Monk said.

  If it was anybody else but Artemis Monk who'd said that, the sheriff would have ignored him and rode on to Spicer's mine. But Monk wasn't anybody else.

  The sheriff turned to his deputy. "Go over to Bogg's and invite the cowboy to join us."

  Weaver rode away. Sheriff Wheeler got off his horse and tied him to a hitching post.

  "We're wasting time, Sheriff," Monk said. "
Clem might be getting away."

  "He's not going anywhere, Monk. And even if he was, he wouldn't be hard to track," Wheeler said, then turned to me. "How are you, Mrs. Guthrie?"

  "I'm getting along fine, Sheriff."

  "Monk hasn't driven you crazy yet?"

  "No, sir," I said, mindful of who paid my wages and gave me room and board.

  "It's early yet," the sheriff said just as Weaver approached with the cowpoke at his side.

  "This here's Bud Lolly," Weaver said.

  Lolly smiled when he saw Monk and me. "You again? Is there a law in this town against spitting?"

  "Not yet, but I'm working on it," Monk said.

  "Believe me, he is," the sheriff said. "But we do have a law here against murder."

  "I ain't killed nobody," Lolly said.

  Monk took a handkerchief from his pocket, squatted down, and removed some mud from Lolly's boot. We all stared at him as he did it.

  "You want to shine my boots, mister, I'll be glad to take 'em off for you," Lolly said.

  "This dirt is from Bart Spicer's property," Monk said. "I recognize the hue, which is indicative of the unusually high silica content."

  "I ain't never heard of no Bart Spicer," Lolly said. "And even if I did, you can't know where I've been from the mud on my boot."

  "Actually, he can," I said. "Mr. Monk is the town assayer. He knows his dirt."

  "The geology and metallurgical content of every piece of property is unique and so is the gold that comes out of it," Monk said. "This mud definitely came from Bart's claim. I can match it to the sample I kept of Bart's rocks. I'm sure if I saw the gold dust in your poke, I'd recognize the color of that, too."

  "That don't prove nothing," Lolly said. "I might have walked across his land without even knowing it. And there's lots of gold dust being passed around in these parts. I got no idea where my gold was before it ended up in my pouch."

  "He's got a point," Wheeler said. "I can't hang a man because he's got mud on his boots and gold in his poke."

  Monk looked Lolly in the eye. "Do you swear that you've never been in Bart Spicer's mine?"

  "I've never been in nobody's mine," Lolly said. "I'm a cowhand, not a gold digger. I earn an honest wage."

  "That's not what your clothes say."