The Face of a Stranger

"Your father died in his study," he began. "In his home in Highgate on June fourteenth." That much Runcorn had said.

"Yes." Charles agreed. "It was early evening, before di

"Most of you?"

"Perhaps I should say 'both of us.' My mother and I were. My wife was late coming in. She had been over to see Mrs. Standing, the vicar's wife, and as it transpired my father was in his study."

The means of death had been a gunshot. The next question was easy.

"And how many of you heard the report?"

"Well, I suppose we all heard it, but my wife was the only one to realize what it was. She was coming in from the back garden entrance and was in the conservatory."

Monk turned to Imogen.

She was looking at him, a slight frown on her face as if she wanted to say something, but dared not. Her eyes were troubled, full of dark hurt.

"Mrs. Latterly?" He forgot what he had intended to ask her. He was conscious of his hands clenched painfully by his sides and had to ease the fingers out deliberately. They were sticky with sweat.

"Yes, Mr. Monk?" she said quietly.

He scrambled for something sensible to say. His brain was blank. What had he said to her the first time? She had come to him; surely she would have told him everything she knew? He must ask her something quickly. They were all waiting, watching him. Charles Latterly cool, disliking the effrontery, Hester exasperated at his incompetence. He already knew what she thought of his abilities. Attack was the only defense his mind could think of.

"Why do you think, Mrs. Latterly, that you suspected a shot, when no one else did?" His voice was loud in the silence, like the sudden chimes of a clock in an empty room. "Were you afraid even then that your father-in-law contemplated taking his life, or that he was in some danger?"

The color came to her face quickly and there was anger in her eyes.

"Of course not, Mr. Monk; or I should not have left him alone." She swallowed, and her next words were softer. "I knew he was distressed, we all knew that; but I did not imagine it was serious enough to think of shooting himself-nor that he was sufficiently out of control of his feelings or his concentration that he would be in danger of having an accident." It was a brave attempt.

"I think if you have discovered something, Mr. Monk," Hester interrupted stiffly, "you had better ascertain what it is, and then come back and tell us. Your present fumbling around is pointless and u

And your suggestion that my sister-in-law knew something that she did not report at the time is offensive." She looked him up and down with some disgust. "Really, is this the best you can do? I don't know how you catch anyone, unless you positively fall over them!"

"Hester!" Imogen spoke quite sharply, although she kept her eyes averted. "It is a question Mr. Monk must ask. It is possible I may have seen or heard something to make me anxious-and only realize it now in retrospect.''

Monk felt a quick, foolish surge of pleasure. He had not deserved defending.

"Thank you, ma'am." He tried to smile at her, and felt his lips grimacing. "Did you at that time know the full extent of your father-in-law's financial misfortune?"

"It was not the money that killed him,'' Imogen replied before Charles could get his own words formed and while Hester was still standing in resigned silence-at least temporarily. "It was the disgrace." She bit her lip on all the distress returned to her. Her voice dropped to little more than a whisper, tight with pity. "You see, he had advised so many of his friends to invest. He had lent his name to it, and they had put in money because they trusted him."

Monk could think of nothing to say, and platitudes offended him in the face of real grief. He longed to be able to comfort her, and knew it was impossible. Was this the emotion that surged through him so intensely-pity? And the desire to protect?

"The whole venture has brought nothing but tragedy," Imogen went on very softly, staring at the ground. "Papa-in-law, then poor Mama, and now Joscelin as well."

For an instant everything seemed suspended, an age between the time she spoke and the moment overwhelming realization of what she had said came to Monk.

"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.