The Face of a Stranger

11

Monk sat in the armchair in his room staring at the ceiling. The rain had stopped and the air was warm and clammy, but he was still chilled to the bone.

Why?

Why? It was as inconceivably senseless as a nightmare, and as entanglingly, recurringly inescapable.

He had been in Grey's flat that night, and something had happened after which he had gone in such haste he had left his stick in the stand behind him. The cabby had picked him up from Doughty Street, and then barely a few miles away, met with an accident which had robbed him of his life, and Monk of all memory.

But why should he have killed Grey? In what co

So why? Why kill him? One did not follow a complete stranger to his house and then beat him to death for no reason. Unless one were insane?

Could that be it-he was mad? His brain had been damaged even before the accident? He had forgotten what he had done because it was another self which had enacted such a hideousness, and the self he was in now knew nothing of it, was unaware even of its lusts and compulsions, its very existence? And mere had been feeling-inescapable, consuming, and appalling feeling-a passion of hate. Was it possible?

He must think. Thought was the only possible way of dealing with this, making some sense, finding an escape back into reason and an understandable world again, following and examining it, piece by piece-but he could not believe it. But then perhaps no clever, ambitious man truly believes he is mad? He turned that over in his mind too.

Minutes turned into hours, dragging through the night. At first he paced restlessly, back and forth, back and forth, till his legs ached, then he threw himself into the chair and sat motionless, his hands and feet so cold he lost all sensation in them, and still the nightmare was just as real, and just as senseless. He tormented his memory, scrambling after tiny fragments, retelling himself everything he could remember from the schoolroom onward, but there was nothing of Joscelin Grey, not even his face. There was no reason to it, no pattern, no vestige of anger left, no jealousy, no hatred, no fear-only the evidence. He had been there; he must have gone up when Grimwade had taken Bartholomew Stubbs up to see Yeats and been absent for a moment on his other errand.

He had been in Joscelin Grey's flat for three quarters of an hour, and Grimwade had seen him going out and presumed he was Stubbs leaving, whereas in truth Stubbs must have passed him on the stair, as Stubbs left and he arrived. Grimwade had said that the man leaving had seemed heavier, a little taller, and he had especially noticed his eyes. Monk remembered the eyes he had seen staring back at him from the bedroom mirror when he had first come from the hospital. They were unusual, as Grimwade had said, level, dark, clear gray; clever, almost hypnotic eyes. But he had been trying to find the mind beyond, a flash of the memory-the shade was irrelevant. He had made no co

He had been there, inside Grey's flat; it was incontrovertible. But he had not followed Grey; he had gone afterwards, independently, knowing where to find him. So he had known Grey, known where he lived. But why? Why in God's name did he hate him enough to have lost all reason, ignored all his adult life's training and beliefs and beaten the man to death, and gone on beating him when even a madman must have seen he was dead?

He must have known fear before, of the sea when he was young. He could dimly remember its monumental power when the bowels of the deep opened to engulf men, ships, even the shore itself. He could still feel its scream like an echo of all childhood.

And later he must have known fear on the dark streets of London, fear in the rookeries; even now his skin crawled at the memory of the anger and the despair in them, the hunger and the disregard for life in the fight to survive. But he was too proud and too ambitious to be a coward. He had grasped what he wanted without flinching.

But how do you face the unknown darkness, the monstrosity inside your own brain, your own soul?

He had discovered many things in himself he did not like: insensitivity, overpowerful ambition, a ruthlessness. But they were bearable, things for which he could make amends, improve from now on-indeed he had started.

But why should he have murdered Joscelin Grey? The more he struggled with it the less did it make any sense. Why should he have cared enough? There was nothing in his life, no personal relationship that called up such passion.

And he could not believe he was simply mad. Anyway, he had not attacked a stranger in the street, he had deliberately sought out Grey, taken trouble to go to his home; and even madmen have some reason, however distorted.

He must find it, for himself-and he must find the reason before Runcorn found it.

Only it would not be Runcorn, it would be Evan.

The cold inside him grew worse. That was one of the most painful realizations of all, the time when Evan must know that it was he who had killed Grey, he was the murderer who had raised such horror in both of them, such revulsion for the mad appetite, the bestiality. They had looked upon the murderer as being another kind of creature, alien, capable of some darkness beyond their comprehension. To Evan it would still be such a creature, less than quite human-whereas to Monk it was not outward and foreign, where he could sometimes forget it, bar it out, but the deformed and obscene within himself.

Tonight he must sleep; the clock on the mantel said thirteen minutes past four. But tomorrow he would begin a new investigation. To save his own mind, he must discover why he had killed Joscelin Grey; and he must discover it before Evan did.

He was not ready to see Evan when he went into his office in the morning, not prepared; but then he would never be.

"Good morning, sir," Evan said cheerfully.

Monk replied, but kept his face turned away, so Evan could not read his expression. He found lying surprisingly hard; and he must lie all the time, every day in every contact from now on.

"I've been thinking, sir." Evan did not appear to notice anything unusual. "We should look into all these other people before we try to charge Lord Shelburne. You know, Joscelin Grey may well have had affairs with other women. We should try the Dawlishes; they had a daughter. And there's Fortescue's wife, and Charles Latterly may have a wife."

Monk froze. He had forgotten that Evan had seen Charles's letter in Grey's desk. He had been supposing blithely that Evan knew nothing of the Latterlys.

Evan's voice cut across him, low and quite gentle. It sounded as though there were nothing more than concern in it.

"Sir?"

"Yes," Monk agreed quickly. He must keep control, speak sensibly. "Yes I suppose we had better." What a hypocrite he was, sending Evan off to pry the secret hurts out of people in the search for a murderer. What would Evan think, feel, when he discovered that the murderer was Monk?

"Shall I start with Latterly, sir?" Evan was still talking. "We don't know much about him."

"No!"

Evan looked startled.

Monk mastered himself; when he spoke his voice was quite calm again, but still he kept his face away.

"No, I'll try the people here: I want you to go back to Shelburne Hall." He must get Evan out of the city for a while, give himself time. "See if you can learn anything more from the servants," he elaborated. "Become friendly with the upstairs maids, if you can, and the parlor maid. Parlor maids are on in the morning; they observe all sorts of things when people are off their guard. It may be one of the other families, but Shelburne is still the most likely. It can be harder to forgive a brother for cuckolding you than it would be a stranger-it's not just an offense, it's a betrayal-and he's constantly there to remind you of it."