Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

"Yes," Monk said levelly, still staring at the wall. "But no reason to suppose the thief did it. He was dead long before the robbery.''

"Yer sure o' vat? 'Ow d'yer know 'e were gorn afore?"

"He was dead two months before." Monk smiled acidly. "Even I couldn't mistake that. His empty house was robbed."

The man thought this over for several minutes before delivering his opinion.

Somewhere over near the bar there was a roar of laughter.

"Robbin' a deadlurk?" he said with heavy condescension. "Bit chancy to find anyfink, in' it? Wot did yer say abaht a screever? Wot yer want a screever fer ven?"

"Because the thieves used forged police papers to get in," Monk replied.

The man's face lit up with delight and he chuckled richly.

"A proper downy geezer, vat one. I like it!" He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and laughed again. "It'd be a sin ter shop a feller wiv vat kind o' class."

Monk took a gold half sovereign out of his pocket and put it on the table. The man's eyes fastened onto it as if it mesmerized him.

"I want the screever who made those fakements for them," Monk repeated. He put out his hand and took the gold coin back again. He put it into his inside pocket. The man's eyes followed it. "And no sly faking," Monk warned. "I'll feel your hands in my pockets, and you remember that, unless you fancy picking oakum for a while. Not do your sensitive fingers any good, picking oakum!" He winced inwardly as a flash of memory returned of men's fingers bleeding from the endless unraveling of rope ends, day in, day out, while years of their lives slid by.

The man flinched. "Now vat ain't nice, Mr. Monk. I never took nuffink from yer in me life." He crossed himself hastily and Monk was not sure whether it was a surety of truth or a penance for the lie. "I s'pose yer tried all ve jollyshops?" the man continued, screwing up his face. "Couldn't christen that jade lady."

Evan looked vaguely confused, although Monk was not sure by what.

"Pawnshops," he translated for him. "Naturally thieves remove any identification from most articles, but nothing much you can do to jade without spoiling its value." He took five shillings out of his pocket and gave them to the man.”Come back in two days, and if you've got anything, you'll have earned the half sovereign."

"Right, guv, but not 'ere; vere's a slap bang called ve Purple Duck dahn on Plumber's Row-orf ve Whitechapel Road. Yer go vere." He looked Monk up and down with distaste. "An' come out o' twig, eh; not all square rigged like a prater! And bring the gold, 'cos I'll 'ave suffink. Yer 'ealf, guv, an' yers." He glanced sideways at Evan, then slid off the seat and disappeared into the crowd. Monk felt elated, suddenly singing inside. Even the fest-cooling plum duff was bearable. He smiled broadly across at Evan.

"Come in disguise," he explained. "Not soberly dressed like a fake preacher."

"Oh." Evan relaxed and began to enjoy himself also. "I see." He stared around at the throng of faces, seeing mystery behind the dirt, his imagination painting them with nameless color.

Two days later Monk obediently dressed himself in suitable secondhand clothes; "translators" the informer would have called them. He wished he could remember the man's name, but for all his efibrts it remained completely beyond recall, bidden like almost everything else after the age of about seventeen. He had had glimpses of the years up to then, even including his first year or two in London, but although he lay awake, staring into the darkness, letting his mind wander, going over and over all he knew in the hope his brain would jerk into life again and continue forward, nothing more returned.

Now he and Evan were sitting in the saloon in the Purple Duck, Evan's delicate face registering both his distaste and his efforts to conceal it. Looking at him, Monk wondered how often he himself must have been here to be so unoffended by it. It must have become habit, the noise, the smell, the uninhibited closeness, things his subconscious remembered even if his mind did not.

They had to wait nearly an hour before the informer turned up, but he was grinning again, and slid into the seat beside Monk without a word.

Monk was not going to jeopardize the price by seeming too eager.

"Drink?" he offered.

"Nah, just ve guinea," the man replied. "Don' want ter draw attention to meself drinkin' wiv ve likes o' you, if yer'll pardon me. But potmen 'as sharp mem'ries an' loose tongues."

"Quite," Monk agreed. "But you'll earn the guinea before you get it."

"Aw, nah Mr. Monk." He pulled a face of deep offense. " 'Ave I ever shorted yer? Now 'ave I?"

Monk had no idea.

"Did you find my screever?" he asked instead.

"I carsn't find yer jade, nor fer sure, like."

"Did you find the screever?"

"You know Tommy, the shofulman?"

For a moment Monk felt a touch of panic. Evan was watching him, fascinated by the bargaining. Ought he to know Tommy? He knew what a shofulman was, someone who passed forged money.

"Tommy?" he blinked.

"Yeah!" the man said impatiently. "Blind Ibmmy, least 'e pretends 'e's blind. I reckon as 'e 'alf is."

"Where do I find him?" If he could avoid admitting anything, perhaps he could bluff his way through. He must not either show an ignorance of something he would be expected to know or on the other hand collect so little information as to be left helpless.

"You find 'im?" The man smiled condescendingly at the idea. "Yer'll never find 'im on yer own; wouldn't be safe anyhow. 'E's in ve rookeries, an' yer'd get a shiv in yer gizzard sure as 'ell's on fire if yer went in vere on yer tod. I'll take yer."

"Tommy taken up screeving?" Monk concealed his relief by making a general and he hoped meaningless remark.

The little man looked at him with amazement.

" "Course not! 'E can't even write 'is name, let alone a fekement fer some'un else! But 'e knows a right downy geezer wot does. Reckon 'e's the one as writ yer police papers for yer. 'E's known to do vat kind o' fing."

"Good. Now what about the jade-anything at all?"

The man twisted his rubberlike features into the expression of an affronted rodent.

"Bit 'aid, vat, guv. Know one feller wot got a piece, but 'e swears blind it were a snoozer wot brought it-an' you din't say nuffink abaht no snoozer."

"This was no hotel thief," Monk agreed. "That the only one?"

"Only one as I knows fer sure."

Monk knew the man was lying, although he could not have said how-an accumulation of impressions too subtle to be analyzed.

"I don't believe you, Jake; but you've done well with the screever." He fished in his pocket and brought out the promised gold. “And if it leads to the man I want, there'll be another for you. Now take me to Blind Tommy the shofulman."

They all stood up and wormed their way out through the crowd into the street. It was not until they were two hundred yards away that Monk realized, with a shudder of excitement he could not control, that he had called the man by name. It was coming back, more than merely his memory for his own sake, but his skill was returning. He quickened his step and found himself smiling broadly at Evan.

The rookery was monstrous, a rotting pile of tenements crammed one beside the other, piled precariously, timbers awry as the damp warped them and floors and walls were patched and repatched. It was dark even in the late summer afternoon and the humid air was clammy to the skin. It smelled of human waste and the gutters down the overhung alleys ran with filth. The squeaking and slithering of rats was a constant background. Everywhere there were people, huddled in doorways, lying on stones, sometimes six or eight together, some of them alive, some already dead from hunger or disease. Typhoid and pneumonia were endemic in such places and venereal diseases passed from one to another, as did the flies and lice.