by Lee Goldberg
The Extraordinary Mr. Monk
The Case of the Cutthroat Trail
(From the journal of Abigail Guthrie)
TROUBLE, CALIFORNIA, 1856
I was hanging a sign that read "No Rock Licking Allowed" from a nail on the front porch of Artemis Monk's newly built, perfectly square cabin when Sheriff Wheeler ambled up. It was the sheriff's first visit since we'd moved into the cabin, which also served as Monk's assay office and was in the exact center of the perfectly square lot, each corner of the property marked with a freshly planted sapling.
"Good morning, Mrs. Guthrie," he said, taking off his hat as a courtesy to me.
"Good morning to you, too, Sheriff."
He tipped his head towards my freshly painted sign. "I'm afraid to ask what that means."
"A lot of prospectors gather here on the porch awaiting Mr. Monk's assays," I said.
He frowned. "I still don't get it."
"Then you haven't spent much time around prospectors."
"It's true. I try to stay clear of them," he said. "They don't bathe but once or twice a year."
"Now you sound like Mr. Monk," I said.
"It's one of the few subjects we agree on."
"Well, if you'd seen them gather and parley, you'd know that it's customary for prospectors to offer their rocks for inspection by way of greeting."
Wheeler raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"
"The first thing a prospector will do is lick a rock to remove the dust and make the color sparkle before holding it up to his eye for scrutiny. Not only does Mr. Monk find it a disgusting custom, but he won't handle any rocks that have been drooled upon."
"Monk's got a lot of rules," Sheriff Wheeler said. "I don't know how you remember them all."
"He gave me a list," I said. "It's up to fifty pages."
"How nice for you," he said.
"You'll be getting one of your own," I said. "I'm making you a copy now, but I'm slow with my penmanship."
"Take your time," he said. "Take years, if you want to."
I smiled. "What brings you by today?"
"I need Monk's help," he said.
"You have a rock that needs an assay?"
I led the sheriff inside.
Monk was sitting at my desk in the midst of writing another one of his letters to Samuel Colt, inventor of the six-shooter. I didn't have to read the letter to know what it said:
Your latest firearm is good, sir. An exemplary weapon. But it needs refining. I can't help feeling that in its present form you are still little more than halfway there.
His last four, identical missives imploring Mr. Colt to hurry the manufacture of a ten-shooter had gone unanswered. But Monk was sure that the lack of response had to do with a failure of the postal system and other vagaries and was not a reflection of any disrespect from Mr. Colt. So Monk just kept writing the same letter and sending it off. He was nothing if not persistent, bordering on obsessed.
Monk looked up at the sheriff and set his quill aside. "I'm glad to see you. We have an urgent matter to discuss."
"Your matter will have to wait--"
"It's the scourge of three-card monte," Monk interrupted. "It must be stopped."
"I've told you before, Monk, I can't stop gambling. People don't care that they are getting swindled. They enjoy it."
"If they want to be swindled, that's their own problem," Monk said. "But playing a game with only three cards is a violation of all that is holy and undermines the foundations of human civilization. It can't be tolerated."
"We can talk about that later," Sheriff Wheeler said. "A man has been brutally murdered and a lot of gold has been stolen. I have no idea who is responsible for the crime."
"What does that have to do with me?" Monk said.
"You solved Bart Spicer's murder without even seeing the body or going out to his mine," he said. "I figure you might be able to solve this one, too."
"Why should I?"
"For the good of the community and your fellow man," the sheriff said.
"That's why we need to stop three-card games of chance in this town," Monk said. "It's a matter of basic human decency."
Wheeler sighed. "I'll make you a deal, Monk. If you solve the murder, four-card monte will be the only monte played in Trouble."
Monk smiled and stood up. "Then let's get this over with and bring civilization to this godforsaken town."
The murder took place at a claim shared by four prospectors on Cripple Creek, about two miles outside of Trouble. Sheriff Wheeler filled us in on the particulars of the case as we walked out there.
Once a month, three of the prospectors went into town for a night of fun while the fourth man stayed at the cabin to guard their gold. They each took turns being the man on guard duty.
When the three prospectors returned to their camp this morning, they discovered their partner dead and all their gold gone.
They immediately sent a man back to town for the sheriff, who went out to investigate with Deputy Weaver.
"Anybody could have done the killing and whoever it was is probably long gone by now," Wheeler said. "I've got no way of knowing. I'm a lawman, not a detective. Keeping the peace is my specialty because it doesn't involve much thinking."
"You're being too hard on yourself, Sheriff," I said. "Establishing authority, earning the respect of the community, mediating disputes, and enforcing the law isn't easy. Few men are capable of it."
"All it takes are quick fists, a fast draw, and a short temper," he said. "I'm best when I've got no time to think."
"But you can track a man," Monk said.
Wheeler nodded. "I can follow a trail that's laid out in front of me."
"That's detecting," Monk said. "There's an order to everything. You know the way things are supposed to be. You can see what's missing, what's been left behind, and what's been disturbed. You can see the mess. That's the trail."
"A murder doesn't leave a trail," Wheeler said.
"Everything leaves a trail, Sheriff," Monk said. "People can't do anything without leaving behind a mess. That's what will tell us who the murderer is and where we can find him."
I could see why Monk liked rocks. There's an order to the natural elements that doesn't change. They're solid, dependable, and organized. Gold is gold, coal is coal. He could find comfort in their immutability when everything else around him was in chaos.
Rocks had never ridiculed him, failed his expectations, or broken his heart. I had a feeling that his experiences with people were a different story and a tragic one at that.
I didn't know much about prospecting, and knew even less about the claim at Cripple Creek. But I could reckon how prosperous a man's claim was, and how willing he was to stay and work it, by his lodgings.
Most prospectors started with a bedroll, then a dugout, a lean-to, or a tent. From there it was on to huts, log cabins, and milled-wood houses with gables, glass windows, and such. And then, if you really struck it rich, you moved to mansions in San Francisco to count your money while others did your digging, and maybe went out to visit your mine now and then on the Golden Rail Express.
The three prospectors were moping around outside their log cabin. Judging by that sturdy dwelling, their elaborate network of sluices and rockers, the massive pile of gravel leavings, and the deep trenches they'd dug to channel the water away from the creek bed, they'd been working their claim hard and getting well rewarded for their labors.
But now that reward was gone, along with one of their partners.
Two of the three men could've been brothers. They both had big, bushy beards, hair like prairie grass, and shirts that might've been red once but were now a washed-out purple, their pants held up with frayed cotton suspenders. The only thing that really told the two men apart were the holes in their hats and their colorful scarves. They certainly weren't spending their gold on clothes. My guess was that most of their earnings were going to the saloons. They had the bloodshot eyes and sickly pallor of men who'd only just sobe
red up. I suppose there isn't anything much more sobering than finding a bloody corpse and going broke all at once.
Their partner, on the other hand, was all feathered up, squatting underneath the shade tree. His clothes were just as ratty as theirs were but his hair and beard were neatly trimmed and he smelled of lilac water. He must have doused himself with it since I was a few feet downwind of him and the scent was still quite strong. Despite his floral scent, he looked as sickly as his partners, but I think his was a malady of disposition due to the grim situation and not rotgut whiskey.
Deputy Weaver was with them and looked just as miserable, even though he hadn't lost a friend or a fortune. He got up off of the stump he was sitting on and approached the sheriff.
"I sure am glad to see you," Weaver said. "That body smells something awful. I don't understand why you didn't let us give him a decent burial before he became rank."
"I wanted Monk to see everything as we found it," Wheeler said.
"Pete isn't a pile of rocks," the feathered-up prospector said, rising to his feet. "What good is Monk going to do? We should be organizing a posse."
"Who am I supposed to go after with this posse, Pug?" Wheeler asked. "The only trail I see here is from the three of you. Whoever did this crept in without leaving a trace."
"Maybe it was Injuns," one of the other prospectors said. "They creep and they're good with knives. They can scalp a man whilst he's blinking."
"There aren't any Indians around here, Elmore," his look-alike replied. "There are plenty of them Mexicans, though, and them shifty Chinese. I never met an honest Chinaman."
"I saw a Chinaman in town," Elmore said. "It could've been him that done it. Arrest the Chinaman, Sheriff."
"I'm not arresting anybody, Alvie, until I've got some evidence," Wheeler said.
"I still don't see what we need an assayer for," Pug said.
"To assay the situation," Wheeler said and then glanced at Monk. "These men here are Pug Purdum, Elmore Portis, and Alvie Bartell. The dead man in the cabin is Pete Cooley."
The sheriff pointed the men out to Monk as he spoke.
"Somebody cut Pete's throat and took all our dust," Alvie said. "Pete never got a shot off."
"Where was your dust hidden?" Monk asked.
"Wasn't in no hidey-hole," Elmore said. "We kept it in cans on the shelf."
"Right out in the open?" I said.
"No reason not to," Pug said, leaning against the tree. "All of us are usually here working the claim. And if we need to go somewhere, we always leave a man or two behind. We're watchful."
"Did the three of you leave camp together last night?" Monk asked. They all nodded. "Did you come back together, too?"
"I was the first one back," Alvie said. "Then Pug and Elmore."
"I met up with Elmore on Main Street this morning," Pug said. "We weren't halfway back before we ran into Alvie, who was pitching a fit."
"I was on my way into town to fetch them and the sheriff," Alvie explained.
"What did you do last night?" Monk asked him.
"I drank my weight in whiskey," Alvie said with a lopsided grin. "And yours, too. I played some cards and drank some more until my poke was empty."
"Where did you sleep?"
"On my barstool," he said. "Until I fell off of it; then I slept on the floor."
Monk nodded, frowning with disapproval and then shifted his gaze to Elmore. "And you?"
"About the same, except I paid my last pinch of dust to sleep in Lippy's stable," Elmore said. "I was too drunk to make it back to camp."
Monk looked at Pug. "What did you do for fun last night?"
"What I do every month," Pug said. "I went to the barber for a hot bath, a haircut, and a trim, then I went to the hotel for good meal."
"Where did you spend the night?"
Pug shifted his weight uncomfortably between his feet and tried not to look in my direction. "With a lady friend."
"Of the sporting variety?" Sheriff Wheeler asked.
"Ain't but two or three grown, unmarried women in town that aren't," Pug said, then faced Monk. "And a man's got his manly needs, you know what I mean?"
If Monk did, he never showed any indication of it to me. He was the one man in town who'd never glanced at me with lustful eyes. Even Sheriff Wheeler had given me that look a time or two, but I didn't hold it against him. It wasn't his fault he had yearnings. He was flesh and blood like everybody else.
Except Monk. He was almost priestlike in his ability to avoid vice and temptation. By that I don't mean he was a cold man. He needed companionship, which was probably the big reason why he'd hired me. He was lonely.
And he was hungry for affection, but for him it wasn't expressed with physical intimacy. I believe that he felt it in the behavior of others, in how attentive and accepting they were of his peculiarities and protective of his feelings. And in that regard, I would say that Sheriff Wheeler and I showed our genuine affection for him every day.
"I would've saved the bath for last," Deputy Weaver said. "Some of those sporting women are uglier than a hog."
"We aren't interested in what you would have done," Sheriff Wheeler said.
"I would've skipped the bath and bought another drink," Alvie said. "I can wash in the river."
"You can drink in one, too," Pug said.
"Water doesn't have the same kick," Elmore said. "You don't know how to have fun, Pug."
"I've still got dust in my poke," Pug said. "How about you?"
Elmore shrugged. "There's always more where that came from. The ground is full of it. No point in working if you can't do some living."
I knew that Monk was probably in agreement with Pug. Any man who bathed regularly had Monk's respect. And I'm sure the woman Pug was with for the night appreciated having a clean, flowery-smelling customer for a change.
Monk took a deep breath and headed over to the cabin. I followed him.
I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I didn't want to see a dead man, particularly a brutally murdered one, but I was Monk's assistant and he might need assisting.
But that's not the real reason I went along with him to the cabin. I was curious to see how he would solve the crime, assuming it was even possible.
Monk opened the door to the cabin and stepped inside. I stood in the doorway, repulsed by the smell and what I saw.
Pete Cooley was on his side on the dirt floor in a puddle of dried blood. There was also blood on the wall in front of him. His neck mawed opened like a second mouth in a gruesome mockery of an ear-to-ear grin.
He was a sallow-faced man with sunken, sad eyes. Or maybe it was just death, or the horrid manner of his, that gave Pete that look. Maybe in life he was rosy-cheeked and jolly, but I'd never know now.
There was a sheathed knife on Pete's belt and a broken whiskey bottle on the floor by his outstretched hand.
Monk squatted beside the body. I expected him to be squeamish around so much blood, but he was quite the contrary. He studied the corpse the way he would a rock sample. He even sniffed the man's hair.
Sheriff Wheeler stood at my side and together we silently observed Monk as he moved through the cabin, doing that odd dance of his.
Monk held his hands out in front of him, palms out, framing what he was seeing. In that way, I was able to tell when his attentions moved from the iron stove to the empty tin cans on the floor, from the prospecting tools in the corner to the benches around the table, and from the rifles on peg racks to the four bunks where the men slept.
He lowered his hands, rolled his shoulders, and shifted his head from side to side, then looked over his shoulder out the window, which was just an opening cut in the wood. He could see the shade tree and the men waiting outside for him to come out.
There were some rocks on the table. Monk picked two of them up, examined them, and came to us at the door. There was a peaceful, contented look on his face the likes of which I'd only seen once before, on the one morning when we didn't find a single warped, c
racked, or missing plank on the sidewalks of Main Street.
And in that instant, I knew with absolute certainty that Artemis Monk had solved the murder.
"I'll be damned," Wheeler muttered, his words practically muffled under his enormous mustache.
We stepped aside and let Monk walk between us out to face Deputy Weaver and the three prospectors.
"I was just examining these rocks on your table," Monk said, and tossed one to Alvie, who caught it with his right hand and the other to Pug, who caught it with his left. "Are they from your latest dig?"
"Yes," Alvie said, licking the rock and holding it up to his eye. "We're getting closer and closer to the big pay streak."
"Arrest that man," Monk said to Sheriff Wheeler.
"Alvie killed Pete Cooley?" Wheeler said.
"No, but did you see him lick that rock?" Monk said. "He's disgusting. God only knows what else he licks. Locking him up will serve as a warning to everybody to keep their tongues in their mouths where they belong."
"I'm more interested in locking up the murderers," Wheeler said.
"Rock licking is how it starts," Monk said. "Just ask Pug Purdum."
"What would I know about it?" Pug asked.
"You murdered Pete Cooley," Monk said.
"You're crazy," Pug said. "I didn't kill him."
"I knew it was one of the three of you when Sheriff Wheeler said he didn't see any other tracks here but yours," Monk said. "And if I didn't know it then, I would have known it as soon as I went inside the cabin. It was obvious."
"Not to me," Sheriff Wheeler said.
"Pete never went for his knife or for a gun," Monk said. "That's because the person who came in was someone Pete trusted. Pete wouldn't have turned his back on him otherwise. The killer grabbed him by the hair with his right hand and slit his throat with his left."
"How do you know which hand the killer used?" Sheriff Wheeler asked.
"I followed the trail, in this case the wound across Pete Cooley's throat. The wound begins high and shallow on the right side of the neck and deepens as it angles slightly to the left. It's got to do with how the arm works." Monk picked up a stick and came up behind me, simulating a knife attack. "May I?"
