The Face of a Stranger

Monk decided to split hairs.

"Not really," he demurred. "There is no love story, and the public likes romance above all things. There is no woman."

"No love story?" Runcorn's eyebrows went up.

"I never suspected you of cowardice, Monk; and never, ever of stupidity!" His face twitched with an impossible blend of satisfaction and affected concern. "Are you sure you are quite well?" He leaned forward over the desk again to reinforce the effect. "You don't get headaches, by any chance, do you? It was a very severe blow you received, you know. In fact, I daresay you don't recall it now, but when I first saw you in the hospital you didn't even recognize me."

Monk refused to acknowledge the appalling thought that had come to the edge of his mind.

"Romance?" he asked blankly, as if he had heard nothing after that.

"Joscelin Grey and his sister-in-law!" Runcorn was watching him closely, pretending to be hazy, his eyes a little veiled, but Monk saw the sharp pinpoints under his heavy lids.

"Does the public know of that?" Monk equally easily pretended i

The skin across Runcorn's face tightened.

"No of course I didn't tell them yet!" He barely controlled his voice. "But it can only be a matter of time. You ca

For a moment Monk was unable to answer, unable to do anything but absorb the shock. He should have guessed it. He had been overconfident, stupidly blind to the obvious. Of course Runcorn knew he had lost his memory. If he had not known from the begi

Runcorn was watching him, seeing the tide of color in his face. He must control it, find a shield; or better, a weapon. He straightened his body a little more and met Runcorn's eyes.

"A stranger to you perhaps, sir, but not to myself. But then we are few of us as plain as we seem to others. I think I am only less rash than you supposed. And it is as well." He savored the moment, although it had not the sweetness he had expected.

He looked at Runcorn's face squarely. "I came to tell you that Joscelin Grey's flat has been robbed, at least it has been thoroughly searched, even ransacked, by two men posing as police. They seemed to have had quite competently forged papers which they showed to the porter."

Runcorn's face was stiff and there was a mottle of red on his skin. Monk could not resist adding to it.

"Puts a different light on it, doesn't it?" he went on cheerfully, pretending they were both pleased. "I don't see Lord Shelburne hiring an accomplice and posing as a Peeler to search his brother's flat."

A few seconds had given Runcorn time to think.

"Then he must have hired a couple of men. Simple enough!"

But Monk was ready. “If it was something worth such a terrible risk," he countered, "why didn't they get it before? It must have been there two months by now.''

"What terrible risk?" Runcorn's voice dropped a little in mockery of the idea. "They passed it off beautifully. And it would have been easy enough to do: just watch the building a little while to make sure the real police were not there, then go in with their false papers, get what they went for, and leave. I daresay they had a crow out in the street."

"I wasn't referring to the risk of their being caught in the act," Monk said scornfully. "I was thinking of the much greater risk, from his point of view, of placing himself in the hands of possible blackmailers."

He felt a surge of pleasure as Runcorn's face betrayed that he hadn't thought of that.

"Do it anonymously." Runcorn dismissed the idea.

Monk smiled at him. "If it was worth paying thieves, and a first-class screever, in order to get it back, it wouldn't take a very bright thief to work out it would be worth raising the price a little before handing it over. Everyone in London knows there was murder done in that room. If whatever he wanted was worth paying thieves and forgers to get back, it must be damning."

Runcorn glared at the table top, and Monk waited.

"So what are you suggesting then?" Runcorn said at last. "Somebody wanted it. Or do you say it was just a casual thief, trying his luck?" His contempt for the idea was heavy in his voice and it curled his lip.

Monk avoided the question.

"I intend to find out what it is," he replied, pushing back his chair and rising. "It may be something we haven't even thought of."

"You'll have to be a damn good detective to do that!" The triumph came back into Runcorn's eyes.

Monk straightened and looked levelly back at him.

"I am," he said without a nicker. "Did you think that had changed?"

When he left Runcorn's office Monk had had no idea even how to begin. He had forgotten all his contacts; now a fence or an informer could pass him in the street and he would not recognize him. He could not ask any of his colleagues. If Runcorn hated him, it was more than likely many of them did too and he had no idea which; and to show such vulnerability would invite a coup de grace. Runcorn knew he had lost his memory, of that he was perfectly sure now, although nothing had been said completely beyond ambiguity. There was a chance, a good chance he could fend off one man until he had regained at least enough mixture of memory and skill to do his job well enough to defy them all. If he solved the Grey case he would be unassailable; then let Runcorn say what he pleased.

But it was an unpleasant knowledge that he was so deeply and consistently hated, and with what he increasingly realized was good reason.

And was he fighting for survival? Or was there also an instinct in him to attack Runcorn; not only to find the truth, to be right, but also to be there before Runcorn was and make sure he knew it? Perhaps if he had been an onlooker at this, watching two other men, at least some of his sympathy would have been with Runcorn. There was a cruelty in himself he was seeing for the first time, a pleasure in wi

Had he always been like this-or was it born of his fear?

How to start finding the thieves? Much as he liked Evan-and he did like him increasingly every day; the man had enthusiasm and gentleness, humor, and a purity of intention Monk envied-even so, he dare not place himself in Evan's hands by telling him the truth. And if he were honest (there was a little vanity in it also), Evan was the only person, apart from Beth, who seemed unaffectedly to think well of him, even to like him. He could not bear to forfeit that.

So he could not ask Evan to tell him the names of informers and fences. He would just have to find them for himself. But if he had been as good a detective as everything indicated, he must know many. They would recognize him.

He was late and Evan had been waiting for him. He apologized, somewhat to Evan's surprise, and only afterward realized that as a superior it was not expected of him. He must be more careful, especially if he were to conceal his purpose, and his inability, from Evan. He wanted to go to an underworld eating house for luncheon, and hoped that if he left word with the potman someone would approach him. He would have to do it in several places, but within three or four days at most he should find a begi