The Face of a Stranger (31 page)

"You knew Joscelin Grey?" It was as if another person spoke
for him and he was still distant, watching strangers, removed from him, on the
other side of a glass.

Imogen frowned a little, confused by his apparent unreason; there was a
deep color in her face and she lowered

her eyes the moment after she had spoken, avoiding everyone else's,
especially her husband's.

"For the love of heaven!" Charles's temper snapped. "Are
you completely incompetent, man?"

Monk had no idea what to say. What on earth had Grey to do with it? Had
he known him?

What were they thinking of him? How could he possibly make sense of it
now? They could only conclude he was mad, or was playing some disgusting joke.
It was the worst possible taste—life was not sacred to them, but death most
certainly was. He could feel the embarrassment burning in his face, and was as
conscious of Imogen as if she were touching him, and of Hester's eyes filled
with unutterable contempt.

Again it was Imogen who rescued him.

"Mr. Monk never met Joscelin, Charles," she said quietly.
"It is very easy to forget a name when you do not know the person to whom
it belongs."

Hester stared from one to the other of them, her clear, intelligent eyes
filled with a growing perception that something was profoundly wrong.

"Of course," Imogen said more briskly, covering her feelings.
"Mr. Monk did not come until after Papa was dead; there was no
occasion." She did not look at her husband, but she was obviously speaking
to him. "And if you recall, Joscelin did not return after that."

"You can hardly blame him." Charles's voice contained a
sharpening of criticism, an implication that Imogen was somehow being unfair.
"He was as distressed as we were. He wrote me a very civil letter,
expressing his condolences." He put his hands in his pocket, hard, and
hunched his shoulders. "Naturally, he felt it unsuitable to call, in the
circumstances. He quite understood our association must end; very delicate of
him, I thought." He looked at Imogen with impatience, and ignored Hester
altogether.

"That was like him, so very sensitive." Imogen was looking far
away. "I do miss him."

Charles swiveled to look at her beside him. He seemed

about to say something, and then changed his mind and bit it off.
Instead he took his hand out of his pocket and put it around her arm. "So
you didn't meet him?" he said to Monk.

Monk was still floundering.

"No." It was the only answer he had left himself room to make.
"He was out of town." Surely that at least could have been true?

"Poor Joscelin." Imogen appeared unaware of her husband, or
his fingers tightening on her shoulder. "He must have felt dreadful,"
she went on. "Of course he was not responsible, he was as deceived as any
of us, but he was the sort of person who would take it on himself." Her
voice was sad, gentle and utterly without criticism.

Monk could only guess, he dared not ask: Grey must somehow have been
involved in the business venture in which Latterly Senior lost money, and so
ill advised his friends. And it would seem Joscelin had lost money himself,
which he could hardly afford; hence perhaps the request to the family estate
for an increased allowance? The date on the letter from the solicitor was about
right, shortly after Latterly's death. Possibly it was that financial disaster
that had prompted Joscelin Grey to gamble rashly, or to descend to blackmail.
If he had lost enough in the business he might have been desperate, with creditors
pressing, social disgrace imminent. Charm was his only stock in trade; his
entertainment value was his passport to hospitality in other people's houses
the year round, and his only path to the heiress who might ultimately make him
independent no longer begging from his mother and the brother he scarcely
loved.

But who? Who among his acquaintances was vulnerable enough to pay for
silence; and desperate, murderous enough to kill for it?

Whose houses had he stayed in? All sorts of indiscretions were committed
on long weekends away from the city. Scandal was not a matter of what was done
but of

what was known to have been done. Had Joscelin stumbled on some
well-kept secret adultery?

But adultery was hardly worth killing over, unless there was a child to
inherit, or some other domestic crisis, a suit for divorce with all its
scandal, and the complete social ostracism that followed. To kill would need a
secret far worse, like incest, perversion or impotence. The shame of impotence
was mortal, God knew why, but it was the most abhorred of afflictions,
something not even whispered of.

Runcorn was right, even to speak of such a possibility would be enough
to have him reported to the highest authorities, his career blocked forever,
if he were not dismissed out of hand. He could never be forgiven for exposing
a man to the ruin which must follow such an abominable scandal.

They were all staring at him. Charles was making no secret of his
impatience. Hester was exasperated almost beyond endurance; her fingers were
fiddling with the plain cambric handkerchief and her foot tapped rapidly and silently
on the floor. Her opinion was in every line of her remarkable face.

"What is it you think you may know, Mr. Monk?" Charles said
sharply. "If there is nothing, I would ask that you do not distress us
again by raking over what can only be to us a tragedy. Whether my father took
his own life or it was an accident while his mind was distracted with distress
cannot be proved, and we should be obliged if you allowed those who are
charitable enough to allow that it might have been an accident to prevail! My
mother died of a broken heart. One of our past friends has been brutally
murdered. If we cannot be of assistance to you, I would prefer that you permit
us to come to terms with our grief in our own way, and do our best to resume
the pattern of our lives again. My wife was quite wrong to have persisted in
her hope for some more pleasant alternative, but women are tenderhearted by
nature, and she finds it hard to accept a bitter truth."

“All she wished of me was to ascertain that it was indeed the
truth," Monk said quickly, instinctively angry that Imogen should be
criticized. "I cannot believe that mistaken." He stared with chill,
level eyes at Charles.

"That is courteous of you, Mr. Monk." Charles glanced at
Imogen condescendingly, to imply that Monk had been humoring her. "But I
have no doubt she will come to the same conclusion, in time. Thank you for
calling; I am sure you have done what you believed to be your duty.''

Monk accepted the dismissal and was in the hall before he realized what
he had done. He had been thinking of Imogen, and of Hester's scalding disdain,
and he had allowed himself to be awed by the house, by Charles Lat-terly's
self-assurance, his arrogance, and his very natural attempts to conceal a
family tragedy and mask it in something less shameful.

He turned on his heel and faced the closed door again. He wanted to ask
them about Grey, and he had the excuse for it, indeed he had no excuse not to. He
took a step forward, and then felt foolish. He could hardly go back and knock
like a servant asking entry. But he could not walk out of the house, knowing
they had had a relationship with Joscelin Grey, that Imogen at least had cared
for him, and not ask more. He stretched out his hand, then withdrew it again.

The door opened and Imogen came out. She stopped in surprise, a foot
from him, her back against the panels. The color came up her face.

"I'm sorry." She took a breath. "I—I did not realize you
were still here."

He did not know what to say either; he was idiotically speechless.
Seconds ticked by. Eventually it was she who spoke.

"Was there something else, Mr. Monk? Have you found
something?" Her voice lifted, all eagerness, hope in her eyes; and he felt
sure now that she had come to him alone, trusted him with something she had not
confided to her husband or Hester.

"I'm working on the Joscelin Grey case." It was the only thing
he could think of to say. He was floundering in a morass of ignorance. If only
he could remember!

Her eyes dropped. "Indeed. So that is why you came to see us. I'm
sorry, I misunderstood. You—you wish to know something about Major Grey?"

It was far from the truth.

"I—" He drew a deep breath. "I dislike having to disturb
you, so soon after—"

Her head came up, her eyes angry. He had no idea why. She was so lovely,
so gentle; she woke yearnings in him for something his memory could not grasp:
some old sweetness, a time of laughter and trust. How could he be stupid enough
to feel this torrent of emotion for a woman who had simply come to him for help
because of family tragedy, and almost certainly regarded him in the same light
as she would the plumber or the fireman?

“Sorrows do not wait for one another.'' She was talking to him in a
stiff little voice. "I know what the newspapers are saying. What do you
wish to know about Major Grey? If we knew anything that was likely to be of
help, we should have told you ourselves."

"Yes." He was withered by her anger, confusingly and painfully
hurt by it. “Of course you would. I—I was just wondering if there was anything
else I should have asked. I don't think there is. Good night, Mrs.
Latterly."

"Good night, Mr. Monk." She lifted her head a little higher
and he was not quite sure whether he saw her blink to disguise tears. But that
was ridiculous—why should she weep now? Disappointment? Frustration?
Disillusion in him, because she had hoped and expected better? If only he could
remember!

"Parkin, will you show Mr. Monk to the door." And without
looking at him again, or waiting for the maid, she walked away, leaving him
alone.

9

Monk
was obliged to
go back to the Grey case, although both Imogen Latterly, with her haunting
eyes, and Hester, with her anger and intelligence, intruded into his thoughts.
Concentration was almost beyond him, and he had to drive himself even to think
of its details and try to make patterns from the amorphous mass of facts and
suppositions they had so far.

He sat in his office with Evan, reviewing the growing amount of it, but
it was all inconclusive of any fact, negative and not positive. No one had
broken in, therefore Grey had admitted his murderer himself; and if he had
admitted him, then he had been unaware of any reason to fear him. It was not
likely he would invite in a stranger at that time in the evening, so it was
more probably someone he knew, and who hated him with an intense but secret
violence.

Or did Grey know of the hatred, but feel himself safe from it? Did he
believe that person powerless to injure, either for an emotional reason, or a
physical? Even that answer was still beyond him.

The description both Yeats and Grimwade had given of the only visitor
unaccounted for did not fit Lovel Grey, but it was so indistinct that it hardly
mattered. If Rosamond Grey's child was Joscelin's, and not Lovel's, that could
be reason enough for murder; especially if Joscelin himself knew it and perhaps
had not been averse to keeping Lovel reminded. It would not be the first time
a cruel tongue, the mockery at pain or impotence had ended in an uncontrolled
rage.

Evan broke into his thoughts, almost as if he had read them.

"Do you suppose Shelburne killed Joscelin himself?" He was
frowning, his face anxious, his wide eyes clouded. He had no need to fear for
his own career—the establishment, even the Shelburnes, would not blame him for
a scandal. Was he afraid for Monk? It was a warm thought.

Monk looked up at him.

"Perhaps not. But if he paid someone else, they would have been
cleaner and more efficient about it, and less violent. Professionals don't beat
a man to death; they usually either stab him or garrote him, and not in his
own house."

Evan's delicate mouth turned down at the corners. "You mean an
attack in the street, follow him to a quiet spot— and all over in a
moment?"

"Probably; and leave the body in an alley where it won't be found
too soon, preferably out of his own area. That way there would be less to
connect them with the victim, and less of a risk of their being
recognized."

"Perhaps he was in a hurry?" Evan suggested. "Couldn't
wait for the right time and place?" He leaned back a little in his chair
and tilted the legs.

"What hurry?" Monk shrugged. "No hurry if it was
Shelburne, not if it were over Rosamond anyway. Couldn't matter a few days, or
even a few weeks."

"No." Evan looked gloomy. He allowed the front legs of the
chair to settle again. "I don't know how we begin to prove anything, or
even where to look."

"Find out where Shelburne was at the time Grey was killed,"
Monk answered. "I should have done that before."

"Oh, I asked the servants, in a roundabout way." Evan's face
was surprised, and there was a touch of satisfaction in it he could not
conceal.

"And?" Monk asked quickly. He would not spoil Evan's pleasure.

“He was away from Shelburne; they were told he came to town for dinner.
I followed it up. He was at the dinner all right, and spent the night at his
club, off Tavistock Place. It would have been difficult for him to have been in
Mecklenburg Square at the right time, because he might easily have been missed,
but not at all impossible. If he'd gone along Compton Street, right down Hunter
Street, 'round Brunswick Square and Lansdowne Place, past the Foundling
Hospital, up Caroline Place—and he was there. Ten minutes at the outside,
probably less. He'd have been gone at least three quarters of an hour, counting
the fight with Grey—and returning. But he could have done it on
foot—easily."