The Face of a Stranger (46 page)

Without realizing it he had walked to the door of an eating house. He
pushed it open and the fresh smell of sawdust and apple cider engulfed him.
Automatically he made his way to the counter. He did not want ale, but fresh
bread and sharp, homemade pickle. He could smell them, pungent and a little
sweet.

The potman smiled at him and fetched the crusty bread, crumbling
Wensleydale cheese, and juicy onions. He passed over the plate.

" 'Aven't seen yer for a w'ile, sir," he said cheerfully.
"I s'pose you was too late to find that fellow you was looking for?"

Monk took the plate in stiff hands, awkwardly. He could

not draw his eyes from the man's face. Memory was coming back; he knew
he knew him.

"Fellow?" he said huskily.

"Yes." The potman smiled. "Major Grey; you was looking
for 'im last time you was 'ere. It was the same night 'e was murdered, so I
don't s'pose you ever found •im."

Something was just beyond Monk's memory, the last piece, tantalizing,
the shape of it almost recognizable at last.

"You knew him?" he said slowly, still holding the plate in his
hands.

"Bless you, 'course I knew 'im, sir. I told you that." He
frowned. " 'Ere, don't you remember?"

"No." Monk shook his head. It was too late now to lie. "I
had an accident that night. I don't remember what you said. I'm sorry. Can you
tell me again?"

The man shook his head and continued wiping a glass. "Too late now,
sir. Major Grey was murdered that night. You'll not see 'im now. Don't you read
the newspapers?"

"But you knew him," Monk repeated. "Where? In the army?
You called him 'Major'!"

"That's right. Served in the army with 'im, I did, till I got
invalided out.''

"Tell me about him! Tell me everything you told me that
night!"

"I'm busy right now, sir. I got to serve or I'll not make me
livin'," the man protested. "Come back later, eh?"

Monk fished in his pocket and brought out all the money he had, every
last coin. He put it on the counter.

"No, I need it now."

The man looked at the money, shining in the light. He met Monk's eyes,
saw the urgency in them, understood something of importance. He slid his hand
over the money and put it rapidly in the pocket under his apron before picking
up the cloth again.

"You asked me what I knew of Major Grey, sir. I told you when I
first met 'im and where—in the army in the

Crimea. 12 were a major, and I were just a private o' course. But I
served under 'im for a long time. 'E were a good enough officer, not specially
good nor specially bad; just like most. 'E were brave enough, as fair as most
to 'is men. Good to 'is 'orses, but then most well-bred gents is."

The man blinked. "You didn't seem terribly interested in
that," he went on, still absently working on the glass. "You listened,
but it didn't seem to weigh much with you. Then you asked me about the Battle
o' the Alma, where some Lieutenant Latterly 'ad died; an' I told you as we
wasn't at the Battle o' the Alma, so I couldn't tell you about this Lieutenant
Latterly—"

"But Major Grey spent the last night before the battle with
Lieutenant Latterly." Monk grabbed at his arm. "He lent him his
watch. Latterly was afraid; it was a lucky piece, a talisman. It had belonged
to his grandfather at Waterloo."

"No sir, I can't say about any Lieutenant Latterly, but Major Grey
weren't nowhere near the Battle o' the Alma, and 'e never 'ad no special
watch."

"Are you sure?" Monk was gripping the man's wrist, unaware of
hurting him.

"O' course I'm sure, sir." The man eased his hand. "I was
there. An' 'is watch were an ordinary gold plate one, and as new as 'is
uniform. It weren't no more at Waterloo than 'e were."

"And an officer called Dawlish?"

The potman frowned, rubbing his wrist. "Dawlish? I don't remember
you asking me about 'im."

"I probably didn't. But do you remember him?"

"No sir, I don't recall an officer o' that name."

"But you are sure of the Battle of the Alma?"

"Yes sir, I'd swear before God positive. If you'd been in the
Crimea, sir, you'd not forget what battle you was at, and what you wasn't. I
reckon that's about the worst war there's ever been, for cold and muck and men
dyin'."

"Thank you."

"Don't you want your bread an' cheese, sir? That pickle's 'omemade
special. You should eat it. You look right peaked, you do."

Monk took it, thanked him automatically, and sat down at one of the
tables. He ate without tasting and then walked out into the first spots of
rain. He could remember doing this before, remember the slow building anger. It
had all been a lie, a brutal and carefully calculated lie to earn first
acceptance from the Latterlys, then their friendship, and finally to deceive
them into a sufficient sense of obligation, over the lost watch, to repay him
by supporting his business scheme. Grey had used his skill to play like an instrument
first their grief, then their debt. Perhaps he had even done the same with the
Dawlishes.

The rage was gathering up inside him again. It was coming back exactly
as it had before. He was walking faster and faster, the rain beating in his face
now. He "was unaware of it. He splashed through the swimming gutters into
the street to hail a cab. He gave the address in Mecklenburg Square, as he
knew he had done before.

When he got out he went into the building. Grimwade handed him the key
this time; the first time there had been no one there.

He went upstairs. It seemed new, strange, as if he were reliving the
first time when it was unknown to him. He got to the top and hesitated at the
door. Then he had knocked. Now he slipped the key into the lock. It swung open
quite easily and he went in. Before Joscelin Grey had come to the door, dressed
in pale dove, his fair face handsome, smiling, just a little surprised. He
could see it now as if it had been only a few minutes ago.

Grey had asked him in, quite casually, unperturbed. He had put his stick
in the hall stand, his mahogany stick with the brass chain embossed in the
handle. It was still there. Then he had followed Grey into the main room. Grey
had been very composed, a slight smile on his face. Monk had told him what he
had come for: about the tobacco business, the failure, Latterly's death, the
fact that Grey had

lied, that he had never known George Latterly, and there had been no
watch.

He could see Grey now as he had turned from the sideboard, holding out
a drink for Monk, taking one himself. He had smiled again, more widely.

"My dear fellow, a harmless little lie." His voice had been
light, very easy, very calm. "I told them what an excellent fellow poor
George was, how brave, how charming, how well loved. It was what they wanted
to hear. What does it matter whether it was true or not?"

"It was a lie," Monk had shouted back. "You didn't even
know George Latterly. You did it purely for money."

Grey had grinned.

"So I did, and what's more, I shall do it again, and again. I have
an endless stream of gold watches, or whatever; and there's not a thing you
can do about it, policeman. I shall go on as long as anyone is left who
remembers the Crimea—which will be a hell of a long time—and shall damned well
never run out of the dead!''

Monk had stared at him, helpless, anger raging inside him till he could
have wept like an impotent child.

"I didn't know Latterly," Grey had gone on. "I got his
name from the casualty lists. They're absolutely full of names, you've no idea.
Although actually I got some of the better ones from the poor devils
themselves—saw them die in Scutari, riddled with disease, bleeding and spewing
all over the place. I wrote their last letters for them. Poor George might have
been a raving coward, for all I know. But what good does it do to tell his
family that? IVe no idea what he was like, but it doesn't take much wit to work
out what they wanted to hear! Poor little Imogen adored him, and who can blame
her? Charles is a hell of a bore; reminds me a bit of my eldest brother,
another pompous fool." His fair face had become momentarily ugly with
envy. A look of malice and pleasure had slid into it. He looked at Monk up and
down knowingly.

"And who wouldn't have told the lovely Imogen whatever she would
listen to? I told her all about that extraordinary creature, Florence
Nightingale. I painted up the heroism a bit, certainly, gave her all the glory
of 'angels of mercy' holding lamps by the dying through the night. You should
have seen her face." He had laughed; then seeing something in Monk, a
vulnerability, perhaps a memory or a dream, and understanding its depth in a
flash: "Ah yes, Imogen." He sighed. "Got to know her very
well." His smile was half a leer. "Love the way she walks, all eager,
full of promise, and hope." He had looked at Monk and the slow smile
spread to his eyes till the light in them was as old as appetite and knowledge
itself. He had tittered slightly. "I do believe you're taken with Imogen
yourself.

"You clod, she'd no more touch you than carry out her own refuse.

"She's in love with Florence Nightingale and the glory of the
Crimea!" His eyes met Monk's, glittering bright. "I could have had
her any time, all eager and quivering." His lip curled and he had almost
laughed as he looked at Monk. "I'm a soldier; IVe seen reality, blood and
passion, fought for Queen and country. I've seen the Charge of the Light
Brigade, lain in hospital at Scutari among the dying. What do you imagine she
thinks of grubby little London policemen who spend their time sniffing about in
human filth after the beggars and the degenerate? You're a scavenger, a cleaner
up of other people's dirt—one of life's necessities, like the drains." He
took a long gulp of his brandy and looked at Monk over the top of the glass.

"Perhaps when they've got over that old idiot getting hysterical
and shooting himself, I shall go back and do just that. Can't remember when
I've fancied a woman more."

It had been then, with that leer on his mouth, that Monk had taken his
own glass and thrown the brandy across Grey's face. He could remember the
blinding anger as if it were a dream he had only just woken from. He could
still taste die heat and the gall of it on his tongue.

The liquid had hit Grey in his open eyes and bumed

him, seared his pride beyond bearing. He was a gentleman, one already
robbed by birth of fortune, and now this oaf of a policeman, jumped above
himself, had insulted him in his own house. His features had altered into a
snarl of fury and he had picked up his own heavy stick and struck Monk across
the shoulders with it. He had aimed at his head, but Monk had almost felt it
before it came, and moved.

They had closed in a struggle. It should have been self-defense, but it
was far more than that. Monk had been glad of it—he had wanted to smash that
leering face, beat it in, undo all that he had said, wipe from him the thoughts
he had had of Imogen, expunge some of the wrong to her family. But above all
towering in his head and burning in his soul, he wanted to beat him so hard he
would never feed on the gullible and the bereaved again, telling them lies of
invented debt and robbing the dead of the only heritage they had left, the
truth of memory in those who had loved them.

Grey had fought back; for a man invalided out of the army he had been
surprisingly strong. They had been locked together struggling for the stick,
crashing into furniture, upsetting chairs. The very violence of it was a catharsis,
and all the pent-up fear, the nightmare of rage and the agonizing pity poured
forth and he barely felt the pain of blows, even the breaking of his ribs when
Grey caught him a tremendous crack on the chest with his stick.

But Monk's weight and strength told, and perhaps his rage was even
stronger than Grey's fear and all his held-in anger of years of being slighted
and passed over.

Monk could remember quite clearly now the moment when he had wrested the
heavy stick out of Grey's hands and struck at him with it, trying to destroy
the hideous-ness, the blasphemy he saw, the obscenity the law was helpless to
curb.

Then he had stopped, breathless and terrified by his own violence and
the storm of his hatred. Grey was splayed out on the floor, swearing like a
trooper.

Monk had turned and gone out, leaving the door swinging behind him,
blundering down the stairs, turning his coat collar up and pulling his scarf up
to hide the abrasion on his face where Grey had hit him. He had passed
Grim-wade in the hall. He remembered a bell ringing and Grim-wade leaving his position
and starting upstairs.

Outside the weather was fearful. As soon as he had opened the door the
wind had blown it against him so hard it had knocked him backwards. He had put
his head down and plunged out, the rain engulfing him, beating in his face cold
and hard. He had his back to the light, going into the darkness between one
lamp and the next.

There was a man coming towards him, towards the light and the door still
open in the wind—for a moment he saw his face before he turned and went in. It
was Menard Grey.