Monk sat back on the bench. "Anything to indicate who she was?" he asked.

Orme shook his head.

"If she 'ad one of 'em little bags ladies carry, it's gone, but there's a letter in 'er pocket addressed to Miss Mary 'Avilland o' Charles Street. It's postmarked already, like it's bin sent and received, so could be it's 'er."

Monk leaned forward and systematically went through the pockets of the dead man, keeping his balance with less ease than Orme as the boat began the journey downstream, back towards Wapping. There was no point in putting a man ashore to look for witnesses to the quarrel, if that was what it had been. They could not identify the traffic that had been on the bridge, and on the water they themselves had seen as much as anyone. Two people quarrelling-or kissing and parting-who lost their balance and fell. There was nothing anyone could add.

Actually, as far as Monk could remember, there had been no one passing at exactly that moment. It was the hour when the dusk is not drawn in sufficiently for the lamps to be lit, but the light wanes and the grayness of the air seems to delude the eye. Things are half seen; the imagination fills in the rest, sometimes inaccurately.

Monk turned to the man's pockets and found a leather wallet with a little money and a case carrying cards. He was apparently Toby Argyll, of Walnut Tree Walk, Lambeth. That was also south of the river, not far from the girl's address on Charles Street off the Westminster Bridge Road. Monk read the information aloud for Orme.

The boat was moving slowly, as only two men were rowing. Orme squatted on the boards near Argyll's body. On the shore the lamps were beginning to come on, yellow moons in the deepening haze. The wind had the breath of ice in it. It was time to trim their own riding lights, or they would be struck by barges-or the ferries going crosscurrent- carrying passengers from one bank to the other.