The Face of a Stranger (34 page)

Runcorn glared at the table top, and Monk waited.

"So what are you suggesting then?" Runcorn said at last.
"Somebody wanted it. Or do you say it was just a casual thief, trying his
luck?" His contempt for the idea was heavy in his voice and it curled his
lip.

Monk avoided the question.

"I intend to find out what it is," he replied, pushing back
his chair and rising. "It may be something we haven't even thought
of."

"You'll have to be a damn good detective to do that!" The
triumph came back into Runcorn's eyes.

Monk straightened and looked levelly back at him.

"I am," he said without a nicker. "Did you think that had
changed?"

* * * * *

When he left Runcorn's office Monk had had no idea even how to begin. He
had forgotten all his contacts; now a fence or an informer could pass him in
the street and he would not recognize him. He could not ask any of his
colleagues. If Runcorn hated him, it was more than likely many of them did too
and he had no idea which; and to show such vulnerability would invite a coup de
grace. Runcorn knew he had lost his memory, of that he was perfectly sure now,
although nothing had been said completely beyond ambiguity. There was a
chance, a good chance he could fend off one man until he had regained at least
enough mixture of memory and skill to do his job well enough to defy them all.
If he solved the Grey case

he would be unassailable; then let Runcorn say what he pleased.

But it was an unpleasant knowledge that he was so deeply and
consistently hated, and with what he increasingly realized was good reason.

And was he fighting for survival? Or was there also an instinct in him
to attack Runcorn; not only to find the truth, to be right, but also
to
be
there before Runcorn was and make sure he knew it? Perhaps if he had been an
onlooker at this, watching two other men, at least some of his sympathy would
have been with Runcorn. There was a cruelty in himself he was seeing for the
first time, a pleasure in winning that he did not admire.

Had he always been like this—or was it born of his fear?

How to start finding the thieves? Much as he liked Evan—and he did like
him increasingly every day; the man had enthusiasm and gentleness, humor, and a
purity of intention Monk envied—even so, he dare not place himself in Evan's
hands by telling him the truth. And if he were honest (there was a little
vanity in it also), Evan was the only person, apart from Beth, who seemed unaffectedly
to think well of him, even to like him. He could not bear to forfeit that.

So he could not ask Evan to tell him the names of informers and fences.
He would just have to find them for himself. But if he had been as good a
detective as everything indicated, he must know many. They would recognize him.

He was late and Evan had been waiting for him. He apologized, somewhat
to Evan's surprise, and only afterward realized that as a superior it was not
expected of him. He must be more careful, especially if he were to conceal his
purpose, and his inability, from Evan. He wanted to go to an underworld eating
house for luncheon, and hoped that if he left word with the potman someone
would approach him. He would have to do it in several places, but within three
or four days at most he should find a beginning.

He could not bring back to memory any names or faces, but the smell of
the back taverns was sharply familiar. Without thinking, he knew how to behave;
to alter color like a chameleon, to drop his shoulders, loosen his gait, keep
his eyes down and wary. It is not clothes that make the man; a cardsharp, a
dragsman, a superior pickpocket or a thief from the Swell Mob could dress as
well as most— indeed the nurse at the hospital had taken him for one of the
Swell Mob himself.

Evan, with his fair face and wide, humorous eyes, looked too clean to be
dishonest. There was none of the wiliness of a survivor in him; yet some of the
best survivors of all were those most skilled in deception and the most
innocent of face. The underworld was big enough for any variation of lie and
fraud, and no weakness was left unexploited.

They began a little to the west of Mecklenburg Square, going to the
King's Cross Road. When the first tavern produced nothing immediate, they moved
north to the Pen-tonville Road, then south and east again into Clerkenwell.

In spite of all that logic could tell him, by the following day Monk was
beginning to feel as if he were on a fool's errand, and Runcorn would have the
last laugh. Then, in a congested public house by the name of the Grinning Rat,
a scruffy little man, smiling, showing yellow teeth, slid into the seat beside
them, looking warily at Evan. The room was full of noise, the strong smell of
ale, sweat, the dirt of clothes and bodies long unwashed, and the heavy steam
of food. The floor was covered with sawdust and there was a constant chink of
glass.

" 'Ello, Mr. Monk; I hain't seen you for a long time. Were yer
bin?"

Monk felt a leap of excitement and studied hard to hide it.

"Had an accident," he answered, keeping his voice level.

The man looked him up and down critically and grunted, dismissing it.

"I 'ears as yer after som'un as'll blow a little?"

"That's right," Monk agreed. He must not be too precipitate,
or the price would be high, and he could not afford the time to bargain; he
must be right first time, or he would appear green. He knew from the air, the
smell of it, that haggling was part of the game.

"Worf anyfink?" the man asked.

"Could be."

"Well," the man said, thinking it over. "Yer always bin
fair, that's why I comes to yer 'stead o' some 'o them other jacks. Proper
mean, some o' them; yer'd be right ashamed if yer knew." He shook his head
and sniffed hard, pulling a face of disgust.

Monk smiled.

"Wotcher want, then?" the man asked.

"Several things." Monk lowered his voice even further, still
looking across the table and not at the man. "Some stolen goods—a fence,
and a good screever."

The man also looked at the table, studying the stain ring marks of mugs.

"Plenty o' fences, guv; and a fair few screevers. Special goods,
these?"

"Not very."

"W'y yer want 'em ven? Som'one done over bad?"

"Yes."

"O'right, so wot are vey ven?"

Monk began to describe them as well as he could; he had only memory to
go on.

"Table silver—"

The man looked at him witheringly.

Monk abandoned the silver. "A jade ornament," he continued.
"About six inches high, of a dancing lady with her arms up in front of
her, bent at die elbows. It was pinky-colored jade—"

"Aw, nar vat's better." The man's voice lifted; Monk avoided
looking at his face. "Hain't a lot o' pink jade abaht," he went on.
"Anyfink else?"

"A silver scuttle, about four or five inches, I think, and a couple
of inlaid snuffboxes."

"Wot kind o' snuffboxes, guv: siller, gold, enamel? Yer gotta give
me mor'n vat!"

"I can't remember."

"Yer wot? Don't ve geezer wot lorst 'em know?" His face
darkened with suspicion and for the first time he looked at Monk. " 'Ere!
'E croaked, or suffink?"

"Yes," Monk said levelly, still staring at the wall. "But
no reason to suppose the thief did it. He was dead long before the robbery.''

"Yer sure o' vat? 'Ow d'yer know 'e were gorn afore?"

"He was dead two months before." Monk smiled acidly.
"Even I couldn't mistake that. His empty house was robbed."

The man thought this over for several minutes before delivering his
opinion.

Somewhere over near the bar there was a roar of laughter.

"Robbin' a deadlurk?" he said with heavy condescension.
"Bit chancy to find anyfink, in' it? Wot did yer say abaht a screever? Wot
yer want a screever fer ven?"

"Because the thieves used forged police papers to get in,"
Monk replied.

The man's face lit up with delight and he chuckled richly.

"A proper downy geezer, vat one. I like it!" He wiped the back
of his hand across his mouth and laughed again. "It'd be a sin ter shop a
feller wiv vat kind o' class."

Monk took a gold half sovereign out of his pocket and put it on the
table. The man's eyes fastened onto it as if it mesmerized him.

"I want the screever who made those fakements for them," Monk
repeated. He put out his hand and took the gold coin back again. He put it into
his inside pocket. The man's eyes followed it. "And no sly faking,"
Monk warned. "I'll feel your hands in my pockets, and you remember that,
unless you fancy picking oakum for a while. Not do your sensitive fingers any
good, picking oakum!" He winced inwardly as a flash of memory returned of
men's fingers bleeding from the endless unraveling of rope ends, day in, day
out, while years of their lives slid by.

The man flinched. "Now vat ain't nice, Mr. Monk. I never took
nuffink from yer in me life." He crossed himself hastily and Monk was not
sure whether it was a surety of truth or a penance for the lie. "I s'pose
yer tried all ve jollyshops?" the man continued, screwing up his face.
"Couldn't christen that jade lady."

Evan looked vaguely confused, although Monk was not sure by what.

"Pawnshops," he translated for him. "Naturally thieves
remove any identification from most articles, but nothing much you can do to
jade without spoiling its value." He took five shillings out of his pocket
and gave them to the man.”Come back in two days, and if you've got anything,
you'll have earned the half sovereign."

"Right, guv, but not 'ere; vere's a slap bang called ve Purple Duck
dahn on Plumber's Row—orf ve Whitechapel Road. Yer go vere." He looked
Monk up and down with distaste. "An' come out o' twig, eh; not all square
rigged like a prater! And bring the gold, 'cos I'll 'ave suffink. Yer 'ealf,
guv, an' yers." He glanced sideways at Evan, then slid off the seat and
disappeared into the crowd. Monk felt elated, suddenly singing inside. Even the
fest-cooling plum duff was bearable. He smiled broadly across at Evan.

"Come in disguise," he explained. "Not soberly dressed
like a fake preacher."

"Oh." Evan relaxed and began to enjoy himself also. "I
see." He stared around at the throng of faces, seeing mystery behind the
dirt, his imagination painting them with nameless color.

* * * * *

Two days later Monk obediently dressed himself in suitable secondhand
clothes; "translators" the informer would have called them. He wished
he could remember the man's

name, but for all his efibrts it remained completely beyond recall,
bidden like almost everything else after the age of about seventeen. He had had
glimpses of the years up to then, even including his first year or two in
London, but although he lay awake, staring into the darkness, letting his mind
wander, going over and over all he knew in the hope his brain would jerk into
life again and continue forward, nothing more returned.

Now he and Evan were sitting in the saloon in the Purple Duck, Evan's
delicate face registering both his distaste and his efforts to conceal it.
Looking at him, Monk wondered how often he himself must have been here to be
so unoffended by it. It must have become habit, the noise, the smell, the
uninhibited closeness, things his subconscious remembered even if his mind did
not.

They had to wait nearly an hour before the informer turned up, but he
was grinning again, and slid into the seat beside Monk without a word.

Monk was not going to jeopardize the price by seeming too eager.

"Drink?" he offered.

"Nah, just ve guinea," the man replied. "Don' want ter
draw attention to meself drinkin' wiv ve likes o' you, if yer'll pardon me. But
potmen 'as sharp mem'ries an' loose tongues."

"Quite," Monk agreed. "But you'll earn the guinea before
you get it."

"Aw, nah Mr. Monk." He pulled a face of deep offense. "
'Ave I ever shorted yer? Now 'ave I?"

Monk had no idea.

"Did you find my screever?" he asked instead.

"I carsn't find yer jade, nor fer sure, like."

"Did you find the screever?"

"You know Tommy, the shofulman?"

For a moment Monk felt a touch of panic. Evan was watching him,
fascinated by the bargaining. Ought he to know Tommy? He knew what a shofulman
was, someone who passed forged money.

"Tommy?" he blinked.

"Yeah!" the man said impatiently. "Blind Ibmmy, least 'e
pretends 'e's blind. I reckon as 'e 'alf is."

"Where do I find him?" If he could avoid admitting anything,
perhaps he could bluff his way through. He must not either show an ignorance of
something he would be expected to know or on the other hand collect so little
information as to be left helpless.

"You find 'im?" The man smiled condescendingly at the idea.
"Yer'll never find 'im on yer own; wouldn't be safe anyhow. 'E's in ve
rookeries, an' yer'd get a shiv in yer gizzard sure as 'ell's on fire if yer
went in vere on yer tod. I'll take yer."