The Face of a Stranger (38 page)

From the periphery of his vision Monk could see Hester smile and was
distinctly pleased.

Charles grunted.

"We do really wish to help you," Imogen said in the silence.
"My husband is only trying to protect us from unpleasantness, which is
most delicate of him. But we were exceedingly fond of Joscelin, and we are
quite strong enough to tell you anything we can."

" 'Exceedingly fond' is overstating it, my dear," Charles said
uncomfortably. "We liked him, and of course we felt an extra affection for
him for George's sake."

"George?" Monk frowned, he had not heard George mentioned
before.

"My younger brother," Charles supplied.

"He knew Major Grey?" Monk asked keenly. "Then may I
speak with him also?"

"I am afraid not. But yes, he knew Grey quite well. I believe they
were very close, for a while."

"For a while? Did they have some disagreement?"

"No, George is dead."

"Oh." Monk hesitated, abashed. "I am sorry."

"Thank you." Charles coughed and cleared his throat. "We
were fond of Grey, but to say we were extremely so is too much. My wife is, I
think, quite naturally transferring some of our affection for George to
George's friend."

"I see." Monk was not sure what to say. Had Imogen seen in
Joscelin only her dead brother-in-law's friend, or had Joscelin himself charmed
her with his wit and talent to please? There had been a keenness in her face
when she had spoken of him. It reminded him of Rosamond Shelburne: there was
the same gentleness in it, the same echo of remembered times of happiness,
shared laughter and grace. Had Charles been too blind to see it—or too
conceited to understand it for what it was?

An ugly, dangerous thought came to his mind and refused to be ignored.
Was the woman not Rosamond, but Imogen Latterly? He wanted intensely to
disprove it. But how? If Charles had been somewhere else at the time, provably
so, then the whole question was over, dismissed forever.

He stared at Charles's smooth face. He looked irritable, but totally
unconscious of any guilt. Monk tried frantically to think of an oblique way to
ask him. His brain was like glue, heavy and congealing. Why in God's name did
Charles have to be Imogen's husband?

Was there another way? If only he could remember what he knew of them. Was
this fear unreasonable, the result of an imagination free of the sanity of
memory? Or was it memory slowly returning, hi bits and pieces, that woke that
very fear?

The stick in Joscelin Grey's hall stand. The image of it was so clear in
his head. If only he could enlarge it, see the hand and the arm, the man who
held it. That was the knowledge that lay like a sickness in his stomach; he
knew the owner of the stick, and he knew with certainty that Lovel Grey was a
complete stranger to him. When he had been to Shelbume not one member of the
household had greeted him with the slightest flicker of recognition. And why
should they pretend? In fact to do so would in itself have been suspicious,
since they had no idea he had lost his memory. Lovel Grey could not be the
owner of that stick with the brass chain embossed around the top.

But it could be Charles Latterly.

"Have you ever been to Major Grey's flat, Mr. Latterly?" The
question was out before he realized it. It was like a die cast, and he did not
now want to know the answer. Once begun, he would have to pursue it; even if
only for himself he would have to know, always hoping he was wrong, seeking the
one more fact to prove himself so.

Charles looked slightly surprised.

"No. Why? Surely you have been there yourself? I cannot tell you
anything about it!"

"You have never been there?"

"No, I have told you so. I had no occasion."

"Nor, I take it, have any of your family?" He did not look at
either of the women. He knew the question would be regarded as indelicate, if
not outrightly impertinent.

"Of course not!" Charles controlled his temper with some
difficulty. He seemed about to add something when Imogen interrupted.

"Would you care for us to account for our whereabouts on the day
Joscelin was killed, Mr. Monk?"

He looked carefully, but he could see no sarcasm in her. She regarded
him with deep, steady eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Charles snapped with mounting fury.
"If you cannot treat this matter with proper seriousness, Imogen, then
you had better leave us and return to your room."

"I am being perfectly serious," she replied, turning away from
Monk. “If it was one of Joscelin's friends who killed him, then there is no
reason why we should not be

suspected.
Surely, Charles, it would be better to
clear ourselves by the simple fact of having been elsewhere at the time than
it would be to have Mr. Monk satisfy himself we had no reason to, by
investigating our affairs?"

Charles paled visibly and looked at Imogen as if she were some venomous
creature that had come out of the carpeting and bitten him. Monk felt the
tightness in his stomach grip harder.

"I was at dinner with friends," Charles said thinly.

Considering he had just supplied what seemed to be an alibi, he looked
peculiarly wretched. Monk could not avoid it; he had to press. He stared at
Charles's pale face.

"Where was that, sir?"

"Doughty Street."

Imogen looked at Monk blandly, innocently, but Hester had turned away.

"What number, sir?"

"Can that matter, Mr. Monk?" Imogen asked innocently.

Hester's head came up, waiting.

Monk found himself explaining to her, guilt surprising him.

"Doughty Street leads into Mecklenburg Square, Mrs. Latterly. It is
no more than a two- or three-minute walk from one to the other."

"Oh." Her voice was small and flat. She turned slowly to her
husband.

"Twenty-two," he said, teeth clenched. "But I was there
all evening, and I had no idea Grey lived anywhere near."

Again Monk spoke before he permitted himself to think, or he would have
hesitated.

"I find that hard to believe, sir, since you wrote to him at that
address. We found your letter among his effects."

"God damn it—I—" Charles stopped, frozen.

Monk waited. The silence was so intense he imagined he could hear
horses' hooves in the next street. He did not look at either of the women.

"I mean—" Charles began, and again stopped.

Monk found himself unable to avoid it any longer. He was embarrassed for
them, and desperately sorry. He looked at Imogen, wanting her to know that,
even if it meant nothing to her at all.

She was standing very still. Her eyes were so dark he could see nothing
in mem, but there did not seem to be the hate he feared. For a wild moment he
felt that if only he could have talked to her alone he could have explained,
made her understand the necessity for all this, the compulsion.

"My friends will swear I was there all evening." Charles's
words cut across them. "I'll give you their names. This is ridiculous; I
liked Joscelin, and our misfortunes were as much his. There was no reason
whatever to wish him harm, and you will find none!"

"If I could have their names, Mr. Latterly?"

Charles's head came up sharply.

"You're not going to go 'round asking them to account for me at the
time of a murder, for God's sake! I'll only give you their names—"

"I shall be discreet, sir."

Charles snorted with derision at the idea of so delicate a virtue as
discretion in a policeman.

Monk looked at him patiently.

"It will be easier if you give me their names, sir, than if I have
to discover them for myself.''

"Damn you!" Charles's face was suffused with blood.

"Their names, please sir?"

Charles strode over to one of the small tables and took out a sheet of
paper and a pencil. He wrote for several moments before folding it and handing
it to Monk.

Monk took it without looking and put it in his pocket.

"Thank you, sir."

"Is that all?"

"No, I'm afraid I would still like to ask you anything further you
might know about Major Grey's other friends, • anyone with whom he stayed, and
could have known well

enough to be aware, even accidentally, of some secret damaging to
them."

"Such as what, for God's sake?" Charles looked at him with
extreme distaste.

Monk did not wish to be drawn into speaking of the sort of things his
imagination feared, especially in Imogen's hearing. In spite of the irrevocable
position he was now in, every vestige of good opinion she might keep of him
mattered, like fragments of a broken treasure.

“I don't know, sir; and without strong evidence it would be unseemly to
suggest anything."

"Unseemly," Charles said sarcastically, his voice grating
with the intensity of his emotion. "You mean that matters to you? I'm
surprised you know what the word means."

Imogen turned away in embarrassment, and Hester's face froze. She opened
her mouth as if to speak, then realized she would be wiser to keep silent.

Charles colored faintly in the silence that followed, but he was
incapable of apology.

"He spoke of some people named Dawlish," he said irritably.
"And I believe he stayed with Gerry Fortescue once or twice."

Monk took down such details as they could remember of the Dawlishes, the
Fortescues and others, but it sounded useless, and he was aware of Charles's
heavy disbelief, as if he were humoring an uncaged animal it might be dangerous
to annoy. He stayed only to justify himself, because he had said to them that
it was his reason for having come.

When he left he imagined he could hear the sigh of relief behind him,
and his mind conjured up their quick looks at each other, then the
understanding in their eyes, needing no words, that an intruder had gone at
last, an extreme unpleasantness was over. All the way along the street his
thoughts were in the bright room behind him -and on Imogen. He considered what
she was doing, what she thought of him, if she saw him as a man at all, or only
the inhabiter of an office that had become suddenly more than usually offensive
to her.

And yet she had looked so directly at him. That seemed a timeless
moment, recurring again and again—or was it simply that he dwelt in it? What
had she asked of him originally? What had they said to one another?

What a powerful and ridiculous thing the imagination was—had he not
known it so foolish, he could have believed there must have been deep memories
between them.

* * * * *

When Monk had gone, Hester, Imogen and Charles were left standing in the
withdrawing room, the sun streaming in from the French windows into the small
garden, bright through the leaves in the silence.

Charles drew in his breath as if to speak, looked first at his wife,
then at Hester, and let out a sigh. He said nothing. His face was tight and
unhappy as he walked to the door, excused himself perfunctorily, and went out.

A torrent of thoughts crowded Hester's mind. She disliked Monk, and he
angered her, yet the longer she watched him the less did she think he was as incompetent
as he had first seemed. His questions were erratic, and he appeared to be no
nearer finding Joscelin Grey's killer than he had been when he began; and yet
she was keenly aware both of an intelligence and a tenacity in him. He cared
about it, more than simply for vanity or ambition. For justice sake he wanted
to know and to do something about it.

She would have smiled, did it not wound so deep, but she had also seen
in him a startling softness towards Imogen, an admiration and a desire to
protect—something which he certainly did not feel for Hester. She had seen that
look on several men's faces; Imogen had woken precisely the same emotions in
Charles when they first met, and in many men since. Hester never knew if Imogen
herself was aware of it or not.

Had she stirred Joscelin Grey as well? Had he fallen in

love with her, the gentleness, those luminous eyes, the quality of
innocence which touched everything she did?

Charles was still in love with her. He was quiet, admittedly a trifle
pompous, and he had been anxious and shorter tempered than customarily since
his father's death; but he was honorable, at times generous, and sometimes
fun—at least he had been. Lately he had become more sober, as though a heavy
weight could never be totally forgotten.

Was it conceivable that Imogen had found the witty, charming, gallant
Joscelin Grey more interesting, even if only briefly? If that had been so, then
Charles, for all his seeming self-possession, would have cared deeply, and the
hurt might have been something he could not control.

Imogen was keeping a secret. Hester knew her well enough, and liked her,
to be aware of the small tensions, the silences where before she would have
confided, the placing of a certain guard on her tongue when they were together.
It was not Charles she was afraid might notice and suspect; he was not
perceptive enough, he did not expect to understand any woman—it was Hester. She
was still as affectionate, as generous with small trinkets, the loan of a
kerchief or a silk shawl, a word of praise, gratitude for a courtesy—but she
was careful, she hesitated before she spoke, she told the exact truth and the
impetuosity was gone.