The Face of a Stranger

Grey had asked him in, quite casually, unperturbed. He had put his stick in the hall stand, his mahogany stick with the brass chain embossed in the handle. It was still there. Then he had followed Grey into the main room. Grey had been very composed, a slight smile on his face. Monk had told him what he had come for: about the tobacco business, the failure, Latterly's death, the fact that Grey had lied, that he had never known George Latterly, and there had been no watch.

He could see Grey now as he had turned from the sideboard, holding out a drink for Monk, taking one himself. He had smiled again, more widely.

"My dear fellow, a harmless little lie." His voice had been light, very easy, very calm. "I told them what an excellent fellow poor George was, how brave, how charming, how well loved. It was what they wanted to hear. What does it matter whether it was true or not?"

"It was a lie," Monk had shouted back. "You didn't even know George Latterly. You did it purely for money."

Grey had gri

"So I did, and what's more, I shall do it again, and again. I have an endless stream of gold watches, or whatever; and there's not a thing you can do about it, policeman. I shall go on as long as anyone is left who remembers the Crimea-which will be a hell of a long time-and shall damned well never run out of the dead!''

Monk had stared at him, helpless, anger raging inside him till he could have wept like an impotent child.

"I didn't know Latterly," Grey had gone on. "I got his name from the casualty lists. They're absolutely full of names, you've no idea. Although actually I got some of the better ones from the poor devils themselves-saw them die in Scutari, riddled with disease, bleeding and spewing all over the place. I wrote their last letters for them. Poor George might have been a raving coward, for all I know. But what good does it do to tell his family that? IVe no idea what he was like, but it doesn't take much wit to work out what they wanted to hear! Poor little Imogen adored him, and who can blame her? Charles is a hell of a bore; reminds me a bit of my eldest brother, another pompous fool." His fair face had become momentarily ugly with envy. A look of malice and pleasure had slid into it. He looked at Monk up and down knowingly.

"And who wouldn't have told the lovely Imogen whatever she would listen to? I told her all about that extraordinary creature, Florence Nightingale. I painted up the heroism a bit, certainly, gave her all the glory of 'angels of mercy' holding lamps by the dying through the night. You should have seen her face." He had laughed; then seeing something in Monk, a vulnerability, perhaps a memory or a dream, and understanding its depth in a flash: "Ah yes, Imogen." He sighed. "Got to know her very well." His smile was half a leer. "Love the way she walks, all eager, full of promise, and hope." He had looked at Monk and the slow smile spread to his eyes till the light in them was as old as appetite and knowledge itself. He had tittered slightly. "I do believe you're taken with Imogen yourself.

"You clod, she'd no more touch you than carry out her own refuse.

"She's in love with Florence Nightingale and the glory of the Crimea!" His eyes met Monk's, glittering bright. "I could have had her any time, all eager and quivering." His lip curled and he had almost laughed as he looked at Monk. "I'm a soldier; IVe seen reality, blood and passion, fought for Queen and country. I've seen the Charge of the Light Brigade, lain in hospital at Scutari among the dying. What do you imagine she thinks of grubby little London policemen who spend their time sniffing about in human filth after the beggars and the degenerate? You're a scavenger, a cleaner up of other people's dirt-one of life's necessities, like the drains." He took a long gulp of his brandy and looked at Monk over the top of the glass.

"Perhaps when they've got over that old idiot getting hysterical and shooting himself, I shall go back and do just that. Can't remember when I've fancied a woman more."

It had been then, with that leer on his mouth, that Monk had taken his own glass and thrown the brandy across Grey's face. He could remember the blinding anger as if it were a dream he had only just woken from. He could still taste die heat and the gall of it on his tongue.

The liquid had hit Grey in his open eyes and bumed him, seared his pride beyond bearing. He was a gentleman, one already robbed by birth of fortune, and now this oaf of a policeman, jumped above himself, had insulted him in his own house. His features had altered into a snarl of fury and he had picked up his own heavy stick and struck Monk across the shoulders with it. He had aimed at his head, but Monk had almost felt it before it came, and moved.

They had closed in a struggle. It should have been self-defense, but it was far more than that. Monk had been glad of it-he had wanted to smash that leering face, beat it in, undo all that he had said, wipe from him the thoughts he had had of Imogen, expunge some of the wrong to her family. But above all towering in his head and burning in his soul, he wanted to beat him so hard he would never feed on the gullible and the bereaved again, telling them lies of invented debt and robbing the dead of the only heritage they had left, the truth of memory in those who had loved them.

Grey had fought back; for a man invalided out of the army he had been surprisingly strong. They had been locked together struggling for the stick, crashing into furniture, upsetting chairs. The very violence of it was a catharsis, and all the pent-up fear, the nightmare of rage and the agonizing pity poured forth and he barely felt the pain of blows, even the breaking of his ribs when Grey caught him a tremendous crack on the chest with his stick.

But Monk's weight and strength told, and perhaps his rage was even stronger than Grey's fear and all his held-in anger of years of being slighted and passed over.

Monk could remember quite clearly now the moment when he had wrested the heavy stick out of Grey's hands and struck at him with it, trying to destroy the hideous-ness, the blasphemy he saw, the obscenity the law was helpless to curb.

Then he had stopped, breathless and terrified by his own violence and the storm of his hatred. Grey was splayed out on the floor, swearing like a trooper.

Monk had turned and gone out, leaving the door swinging behind him, blundering down the stairs, turning his coat collar up and pulling his scarf up to hide the abrasion on his face where Grey had hit him. He had passed Grim-wade in the hall. He remembered a bell ringing and Grim-wade leaving his position and starting upstairs.

Outside the weather was fearful. As soon as he had opened the door the wind had blown it against him so hard it had knocked him backwards. He had put his head down and plunged out, the rain engulfing him, beating in his face cold and hard. He had his back to the light, going into the darkness between one lamp and the next.

There was a man coming towards him, towards the light and the door still open in the wind-for a moment he saw his face before he turned and went in. It was Menard Grey.

Now it all made obvious and tragic sense-it was not George Latterly's death, or the abuse of it, which had spurred Joscelin Grey's murder, it was Edward Daw-lish's-and Joscelin's own betrayal of every ideal his brother believed.

And then the joy vanished just as suddenly as it had come, the relief evaporated, leaving him shivering cold. How could he prove it? It was his word against Menard's. Grimwade had been up the stairs answering the bell, and seen nothing. Menard had gone in the door Monk had left open in the gale. There was nothing material, no evidence-only Monk's memory of Menard's face for a moment in the gaslight.

They would hang him. He could imagine the trial now, himself standing in the dock, the ridiculousness of trying to explain what ma