The Face of a Stranger (15 page)

"Oh." She looked down. It seemed for a moment as if she could
not think of anything else to say, then she lifted her head again and met his
eyes very squarely. He could only think how dark they were—not brown, but a
multitude of shadows. "You may tell me the truth, Mr. Monk, whatever it
is. Even if he killed himself, and for whatever reason, I would rather know.''

"It is the truth," he said simply. "I had an accident
about seven weeks ago. I was in a cab that overturned and I broke my arm and
ribs and cracked my head. I can't even remember it. I was in hospital for
nearly a month, and then went north to my sister's to regain my strength. I'm
afraid I haven't done anything about it since then."

"Oh dear." Her face was tight with concern. "I am sorry.
Are you all right now? Are you sure you are better?"

She sounded as if it mattered to her. He found himself wanned
ridiculously by it. He forced from his mind the idea that she was merely
compassionate, or well-mannered.

"Yes, yes thank you; although there are blanks in my memory."
Why had he told her that? To explain his behavior—in case it hurt her? He was
taking too much upon himself. Why should she care, more than courtesy required?
He remembered Sunday now; she had worn black then too, but expensive black,
silk and fashionable. The man accompanying her had been dressed as Monk could
not afford to be. Her husband? The thought was acutely depressing, even
painful. He did not even think of the other woman.

"Oh." Again she was lost for words.

He was fumbling, trying to find a clue, sharply conscious of her
presence; even faintly, although she was several feet away, of her perfume. Or
was it imagination?

"What was the last thing I told you?" he asked. "I
mean—" He did not know what he meant.

But she answered with only the merest hesitation.

"Not a great deal. You said Papa had certainly discovered that the
business was fraudulent but you did not know yet whether he had faced the other
partners with it or not. You had seen someone, although you did not name him,
but a certain Mr. Robinson disappeared every time you went after him." Her
face tightened. "You did not know whether Papa could have been murdered by
them, to keep his silence, or if he took his own life, for shame. Perhaps I was
wrong to ask you to discover. It just seemed so dreadful that he should choose
that way rather than fight them, show them for what they are. It's no crime to
be deceived!" There was a spark of anger in her now, as though she were
fighting to keep control of herself. "I wanted to believe he would have
stayed alive, and fought them, faced his friends, even those who lost money,
rather than—" She stopped, otherwise she would have wept. She stood quite
still, swallowing hard.

"I'm sorry," he said very quietly. He wanted to touch her, but
he was hurtfully aware of the difference between them. It would be a
familiarity and would break the moment's trust, the illusion of closeness.

She waited a moment longer, as if for something which did not come; then
she abandoned it.

"Thank you. I am sure you have done everything you could. Perhaps I
saw what I wished to see."

There was a movement up the aisle, towards the door of the church, and
the vicar came down, looking vague, and behind him the same woman with the
highly individual face whom Monk had seen on the first occasion in the church.
She also was dressed in dark, plain clothes, and her thick hair with a very
slight wave was pulled back in a manner that owed more to expediency than
fashion.

"Mrs. Latterly, is that you?" the vicar asked uncertainly,
peering forward. "Why my dear, what are you doing here all by yourself?
You mustn't brood, you know. Oh!" He saw Monk. "I beg your pardon. I
did not realize you had company."

"This is Mr. Monk," she said, explaining him. "From the
police. He was kind enough to help us when Papa . . . died."

The vicar looked at Monk with disapproval.

"Indeed. I do think, my dear child, that it would be wiser for all
of us if you were to let the matter rest. Observe mourning, of course, but let
your poor father-in-law rest in peace." He crossed the air absently.
"Yes—in peace."

Monk stood up. Mrs. Latterly; so she was married—or a widow? He was
being absurd.

"If I learn anything more, Mrs. Latterly"—his voice was tight,
almost choking—"do you wish me to inform you?" He did not want to
lose her, to have her disappear into the past with everything else. He might
not discover anything, but he must know where she was, have a reason to see
her.

She looked at him for a long moment, undecided, fighting with herself.
Then she spoke carefully.

"Yes please, if you will be so kind, but please remember your
promise! Good night." She swiveled around, her skirts brushing Monk's
feet. "Good night, Vicar. Come, Hester, it is time we returned home;
Charles will be expecting us for dinner." And she walked slowly up
towards

the door. Monk watched her go arm in arm with the other woman as if she
had taken the light away with her.

* * * * *

Outside in the sharper evening air Hester Latterly turned to her
sister-in-law.

"I think it is past time you explained yourself, Imogen," she
said quietly, but with an edge of urgency in her voice. "Just who is that
man?"

"He is with the police," Imogen replied, walking briskly
towards their carriage, which was waiting at the curbside. The coachman climbed
down, opened the door and handed them in, Imogen first, then Hester. Both took
his courtesy for granted and Hester arranged her skirts merely sufficiently to
be comfortable, Imogen to avoid crushing the fabric.

"What do you mean, 'with'?" Hester demanded as the carriage
moved forward. "One does not accompany the police; you make it sound like
a social event! 'Miss Smith is with Mr. Jones this evening.' "

"Don't be pedantic," Imogen criticized. "Actually you can
say it of a maid as well—'Tilly is with the Robinsons at present'!"

Hester's eyebrows shot up. "Indeed! And is that man presently
playing footman to the police?"

Imogen remained silent.

"Ifri sorry," Hester said at length. "But I know there is
something distressing you, and I feel so helpless because I don't know what it
is."

Imogen put out her hand and held Hester's tightly.

"Nothing," she said in a voice so low it could only just be
heard above the rattle of the carriage and the dull thud of hooves and the
noises of the street. "It is only Papa's death, and all that followed.
None of us are over the shock of it yet, and I do appreciate your leaving
everything and coming home as you did."

"I never thought of doing less," Hester said honestly,
although her work in the Crimean hospitals had changed her beyond anything
Imogen or Charles could begin to

understand. It had been a hard duty to leave the nursing service and the
white-hot spirit to improve, reform and heal that had moved not only Miss
Nightingale but so many other women as well. But the death of first her father,
then within a few short weeks her mother also, had made it an undeniable duty
that she should return home and be there to mourn, and to assist her brother
and his wife in all the affairs that there were to be attended to. Naturally
Charles had seen to all the business and the finances, but there had been the
house to close up, servants to dismiss, endless letters to write, clothes to dispose
of to the poor, bequests of a personal nature to be remembered, and the endless
social facade to be kept up. It would have been desperately unfair to expect
Imogen to bear the burden and that responsibility alone. Hester had given no
second thought as to whether she should come, simply excused herself, packed
her few belongings and embarked.

It had been an extraordinary contrast after the desperate years in the
Crimea with the unspeakable suffering she had seen, the agony of wounds, bodies
torn by shot and sword; and to her even more harrowing, those wasted by
disease, the racking pain and nausea of cholera, typhus and dysentery, the
cold and the starvation; and driving her almost beyond herself with fury, the
staggering incompetence.

She, like the other handful of women, had worked herself close to
exhaustion, cleaning up human waste where there were no sanitary facilities,
excrement from the helpless running on the floor and dripping through to the
packed and wretched huddled in the cellars below. She had nursed men delirious
with fever, gangrenous from amputations of limbs lost to everything from
musket shot, cannon shot, sword thrust, even frostbite on the exposed and
fearful bivouacs of the winter encampments where men and horses had perished by
the thousands. She had delivered babies of the hungry and neglected army wives,
buried many of them, then comforted the bereaved.

And when she could bear the pity no longer she had expended her last
energy in fury, fighting the endless, idiotic inadequacy of the command, who
seemed to her not to have the faintest grasp of ordinary sense, let alone management
ability.

She had lost a brother, and many friends, chief among them Alan Russell,
a brilliant war correspondent who had written home to the newspapers some of
the unpalatable truths about one of the bravest and foolhardiest campaigns ever
fought. He had shared many of them with her, allowing «her to read them before
they were posted.

Indeed in the weakness of fever he had dictated his last letter to her
and she had sent it. When he died in the hospital at Scutari she had in a rash
moment of deep emotion written a dispatch herself, and signed his name to it
as if he were still alive.

It had been accepted and printed. From knowledge gleaned from other
injured and feverish men she had learned their accounts of battle, siege and
trench warfare, crazy charges and long weeks of boredom, and other dispatches
had followed, all with Alan's name on them. In the general confusion no one
realized.

Now she was home in the orderly, dignified, very sober grief of her
brother's household mourning both her parents, wearing black as if this were
the only loss and there were nothing else to do but conduct a gentle life of embroidery,
letter writing and discreet good works with local charities. And of course obey
Charles's continuous and rather pompous orders as to what must be done, and
how, and when. It was almost beyond bearing. It was as if she were in suspended
animation. She had grown used to having authority, making decisions and being
in the heart of emotion, even if overtired, bitterly frustrated, full of anger
and pity, desperately needed.

Now Charles was driven frantic because he could not understand her or
comprehend the change in her from the brooding, intellectual girl he knew
before, nor could he foresee any respectable man offering for her in marriage.
He found the thought of having her living under his roof for the rest of her
life well nigh insufferable.

The prospect did not please Hester either, but then she had no intention
of allowing it to come to pass. As long as Imogen needed her she would remain,
then she would consider her future and its possibilities.

However, as she sat in the carriage beside Imogen while they rattled
through the dusk streets she had a powerful conviction that there was much
troubling her sister-in-law and it was something that, for whatever reasons,
Imogen was keeping secret, telling neither Charles nor Hester, and bearing the
weight of it alone. It was more than grief, it was something that lay not only
in the past but in the future also.

5

Monk
and Evan saw Grimwade only briefly, then went straight up to visit Yeats. It
was a little after eight in the morning and they hoped to catch him at breakfast,
or possibly even before.

Yeats opened the door himself; he was a small man of about forty, a
trifle plump, with a mild face and thinning hair which fell forward over his
brow. He was startled and there was still a piece of toast and orange preserve
in his hand. He stared at Monk with some alarm.

"Good morning, Mr. Yeats," Monk said firmly. "We are from
the police; we would like to speak to you about the murder of Major Joscelin
Grey. May we come in please?" He did not step forward, but his height
seemed to press over Yeats and vaguely threaten him, and he used it
deliberately.

"Y-yes, y-yes of course," Yeats stuttered, backing away, still
clutching the toast. "But I assure you I d-don't know anything I haven't
already t-told you. Not you—at least—a Mr. Lamb who was—a—"

"Yes
I know." Monk followed him in. He knew he was being oppressive, but he
could not afford to be gentle.

Yeats must have seen the murderer face-to-face, possibly even been in
collusion with him, willingly or unwillingly.

"But we have learned quite a few new facts," he went on,
"since Mr. Lamb was taken ill and I have been put on the case."

"Oh?" Yeats dropped the toast and bent to pick it up, ignoring
the preserve on the carpet. It was a smaller room than Joscelin Grey's and
overpoweringly furnished in heavy oak covered in photographs and embroidered
linen. There were antimacassars on both the chairs.

"Have you—" Yeats said nervously. "Have you? I still
don't think I can—er—could—"