The Face of a Stranger (36 page)

Only afterwards, when the plate was empty, did he lean back in the chair
and think of the case.

A moneylender made sense. Joscelin Grey might well have borrowed money
when he lost his small possessions in the affair with Latterly, and his family
would not help. Had the moneylender meant to injure him a little, to frighten
repayment from him, and warn other tardy borrowers, and when Grey had fought
back it had gone too far? It was possible. And Yeats's visitor had been a moneylender's
ruffian. Yeats and Grimwade had both said he was a big man, lean and strong, as
far as they could tell under his clothes.

What a baptism for Evan. He had said nothing about it afterwards. He had
not even asked if Monk would really have arrested people he knew to be innocent
and then spread the word the screever had betrayed them.

Monk flinched as he remembered what he had said; but it had simply been
what instinct directed. It was a streak of ruthlessness in himself he had been
unaware of; and it would have shocked him in anyone else. Was that really what
he was like? Surely it was only a threat, and he would never have carried it
out? Or would he? He remembered the anger that had welled up inside him at the
mention of moneylenders, parasites of the desperate poor who clung to
respectability, to a few precious standards. Sometimes a man's honesty was his
only real possession, his only source of pride and identity in the anonymous,
wretched, teeming multitude.

What had Evan thought of him? He cared; it was a miserable thought that
Evan would be disillusioned, finding

his methods as ugly as the crime he fought, not understanding he was
using words, only words.

Or did Evan know him better than he knew himself? Evan would know his
past. Perhaps in the past the words had been a warning, and reality had
followed.

And what would Imogen Latterly have felt? It was a preposterous dream.
The rookeries were as foreign to her as the planets in the sky. She would be
sick, disgusted even to see them, let alone to have passed through them and
dealt with their occupants. If she had seen him threaten the screever, standing
in the filthy room, she would not permit him to enter her house again.

He sat staring up at the ceiling, full of anger and pain. It was cold
comfort to him that tomorrow he would find the usurer who might have killed
Joscelin Grey. He hated the world he had to deal with; he wanted to belong to
the clean, gracious world where he could speak as an equal with people like the
Latterlys; Charles would not patronize him, he could converse with Imogen
Latterly as a friend, and quarrel with Hester without the hindrance of social
inferiority. That would be a delicate pleasure. He would dearly like to put
that opinionated young woman in her place.

But purely because he hated the rookeries so fiercely, he could not
ignore them. He had seen them, known their squalor and their desperation, and
they would not go away.

Well at least he could turn his anger to some purpose; he would find the
violent, greedy man who had paid to have Joscelin Grey beaten to death. Then he
could face Grey in peace in his imagination—and Runcorn would be defeated.

10

Monk
sent Evan to try pawnshops for the pink jade, and then himself went to look for
Josiah Wigtight. He had no trouble finding the address. It was half a mile east
of Whitechapel off the Mile End Road. The building was narrow and almost lost
between a seedy lawyer's office and a sweatshop where in dim light and heavy,
breathless air women worked eighteen hours a day sewing shirts for a handful
of pence. Some felt driven to walk the street at night also, for the extra
dreadfully and easily earned silver coins that meant food and rent. A few were
wives or daughters of the poor, the drunken or the inadequate; many were women
who had in the past been in domestic service, and had lost their
"character" one way or another—for impertinence, dishonesty, loose
morals, or because a mistress found them "uppity," or a master had
taken advantage of them and been discovered, and in a number of cases they had
become with child, and thus not only unemployable but a disgrace and an
affront.

Inside, the office was dim behind drawn blinds and smelled of polish,
dust and ancient leather. A black-dressed clerk sat at a high stool in the
first room. He looked up as Monk came in.

"Good morning, sir; may we be of assistance to you?"

His voice was soft, like mud. "Perhaps you have a little
problem?" He rubbed his hands together as though the cold bothered him,
although it was summer. "A temporary problem, of course?" He smiled
at his own hypocrisy.

"I hope so." Monk smiled back.

The man was skilled at his job. He regarded Monk with caution. His
expression had not the nervousness he was accustomed to; if anything it was a
little wolfish. Monk realized he had been clumsy. Surely in the past he must
have been more skilled, more attuned to the nuances of judgment?

"That rather depends on you," he added to encourage the man,
and allay any suspicion he might unwittingly have aroused.

"Indeed," the clerk agreed. "That's what we're in
business for: to help gentlemen with a temporary embarrassment of funds. Of
course there are conditions, you understand?" He fished out a clean sheet
of paper and held his pen ready. "If I could just have the details,
sir?"

"My problem is not a shortage of funds," Monk replied with
the faintest smile. He hated moneylenders; he hated the relish with which they
plied their revolting trade. "At least not pressing enough to come to you.
I have a matter of business to discuss with Mr. Wigtight."

"Quite." The man nodded with a smirk of understanding.
"Quite so. All matters of business are referred to Mr. Wigtight,
ultimately, Mr.—er?" He raised his eyebrows.

“I do not want to borrow any money,'' Monk said rather more tartly.
"Tell Mr. Wigtight it is about something he has mislaid, and very badly
wishes to have returned to him."

"Mislaid?" The man screwed up his pallid face. "Mislaid?
What are you talking about, sir? Mr. Wigtight does not mislay things." He
snifled in offended disapproval.

Monk leaned forward and put both hands on the counter, and the man was
obliged to face him.

"Are you going to show me to Mr. Wigtight?" Monk

said very clearly. "Or do I take my information elsewhere?"
He did not want to tell the man who he was, or Wigtight would be forewarned,
and he needed the slight advantage of surprise.

"Ah—" The man made up his mind rapidly. "Ah— yes; yes
sir. I'll take you to Mr. Wigtight, sir. If you'll come this way." He
closed his ledger with a snap and slid it into a drawer. With one eye still on
Monk he took a key from his waistcoat pocket and locked the drawer, then
straightened up. "Yes sir, this way."

The inner office of Josiah Wigtight was quite a different affair from
the drab attempt at anonymous respectability of the entrance. It was frankly
lush, everything chosen for comfort, almost hedonism. The big armchairs were
covered in velvet and the cushions were deep in both color and texture; the
carpet muffled sound and the gas lamps hissing softly on the walls were mantled
in rose-colored glass which shed a glow over the room, obscuring outlines and
dulling glare. The curtains were heavy and drawn in folds to keep out the
intrusion and the reality of daylight. It was not a matter of taste, not even
of vulgarity, but purely the uses of pleasure. After a moment or two the effect
was curiously soporific. Immediately Monk's respect for Wigtight rose. It was
clever.

"Ah." Wigtight breathed out deeply. He was a portly man,
swelling out like a giant toad behind his desk, wide mouth split into a smile
that died long before it reached his bulbous eyes. "Ah," he repeated.
"A matter of business somewhat delicate, Mr.—er?"

"Somewhat," Monk agreed. He decided not to sit down in the
soft, dark chair; he was almost afraid it would swallow him, like a mire,
smother his judgment. He felt he would be at a disadvantage in it and not able
to move if he should need to.

"Sit down, sit down!" Wigtight waved. "Let us talk about
it. I'm sure some accommodation can be arrived at."

"I hope so." Monk perched on the arm of the chair. It

was uncomfortable, but in this room he preferred to be uncomfortable.

"You are temporarily embarrassed?" Wigtight began. "You
wish to take advantage of an excellent investment? You have expectations of a
relative, in poor health, who favors you—"

"Thank you, I have employment which is quite sufficient for my
needs."

"You are a fortunate man." There was no belief in his smooth,
expressionless voice; he had heard every lie and excuse human ingenuity could
come up with.

"More fortunate than Joscelin Grey!" Monk said baldly.

Wigtight's face changed in only the minutest of ways— a shadow, no more.
Had Monk not been watching for it he would have missed it altogether.

"Joscelin Grey?" Wigtight repeated. Monk could see in his face
the indecision whether to deny knowing him or admit it as a matter of common
knowledge. He decided the wrong way.

"I know no such person, sir."

"YouVe never heard of him?" Monk tried not to press too hard.
He hated moneylenders with far more anger than reason could tell him of. He
meant to trap this soft, fat man in his own words, trap him and watch the
bloated body struggle.

But Wigtight sensed a pitfall.

"I hear so many names," he added cautiously.

"Then you had better look in your books," Monk suggested.
"And see if his is there, since you don't remember."

"I don't keep books, after debts are paid." Wigtight's wide,
pale eyes assumed a blandness. "Matter of discretion, you know. People
don't like to be reminded of their hard times."

"How civil of you," Monk said sarcastically. "How about
looking through the lists of those who didn't repay you?"

"Mr. Grey is not among them."

"So he paid you." Monk allowed only a little of his triumph to
creep through.

"I have not said I lent him anything."

"Then if you lent him nothing, why did you hire two men to deceive
their way into his flat and ransack it? And incidentally, to steal his silver
and small ornaments?" He saw with delight that Wigtight flinched.
"Clumsy, that, Mr. Wigtight. You're hiring a very poor class of ruffian
these days. A good man would never have helped himself on the side like that.
Dangerous; brings, another charge into it—and those goods are so easy to
trace."

"You're police!" Wigtight's understanding was sudden and
venomous.

"That's right."

"I don't hire thieves." Now Wigtight was hedging, trying to
gain time to think, and Monk knew it.

"You hire collectors, who turned out to be thieves as well,"
Monk said immediately. "The law doesn't see any difference."

"I hire people to do my collecting, of-course," Wigtight
agreed. "Can't go out into the streets after everybody myself."

"How many do you call on with forged police papers, two months
after you've murdered them?"

Every vestige of color drained out of Wigtight's face, leaving it gray,
like a cold fish skin. Monk thought for a moment he was having some kind of a
fit, and he felt no concern at all.

It was long seconds before Wigtight could speak, and Monk merely waited.

"Murdered!" The word when it came was hollow. "I swear on
my mother's grave, I never had anything to do with that. Why should I? Why
should I do that? It's insane. You're crazed."

"Because you're a usurer," Monk said bitterly, a well of anger
and scalding contempt opening up inside him.

"And usurers don't allow people not to pay their debts, with all
the interest when they're due.'' He leaned forward toward the man, threatening
by his movement when Wig-tight was motionless in the chair. "Bad for
business if you let them get away with it," he said almost between his
teeth. "Encourages other people to do the same. Where would you be if
everyone refused to pay you back? Bleed themselves white to satisfy your
interest. Better one goose dead than the whole wretched flock running around
free and fat, eh?"

"I never killed him!" Wigtight was frightened, not only by the
facts, but by Monk's hatred. He knew unreason when he saw it; and Monk enjoyed
his fear.

"But you sent someone—it comes to the same thing," Monk
pursued.

"No! It wouldn't make sense!" Wigtight's voice was growing
higher, a new, sharp note on it. The panic was sweet to Monk's ear. "All
right." Wigtight raised his hands, soft and fat. "I sent them to see
if Grey had kept any record of borrowing from me. I knew he'd been murdered
and I thought he might have kept the cancelled IOU. I didn't want to have
anything to do with him. That's all, I swear!" There was sweat on his face
now, glistening in the gaslight. "He paid me back. Mother of God, it was
only fifty pounds anyway! Do you think I'd send out men to murder a debtor for
fifty pounds? It would be mad, insane. They'd have a hold over me for the rest
of my life. They'd bleed me dry—or see me to the gibbet."