Mr. Monk in Trouble by Lee Goldberg

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