Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

But he might well have wanted to be sure there was no trace of the association left, purely to avoid inconvenience.

"Why did you leave it so long?" Monk asked, his voice flat again, without the hunting edge. "Why didn't you go and look for the IOU straightaway?"

Wigtight knew he had won. It was there gleaming in his pallid, globular face, like pond slime on a frog.

"At first there were too many real police about," he answered. "Always going in and out." He spread his hands in reasonableness. Monk would have liked to call him a liar, but he could not, not yet. "Couldn't get anyone prepared to take the risk," Wigtight went on. "Pay a man too much for a job, and immediately he begins to wonder if there's more to it than you've told him. Might start thinking I had something to be afraid of. Your lot was looking for thieves, in the beginning. Now it's different; you're asking about business, money-"

"How do you know?" Monk believed him, he was forced to, but he wanted every last ounce of discomfort he could drag out.

"Word gets about; you asked his tailor, his wine merchant, looking into the paying of his bills-"

Monk remembered he had sent Evan to do these things. It would seem the usurer had eyes and ears everywhere. He realized now it was to be expected: that was how he found his customers, he learned weaknesses, sought out vulnerability. God, how he loathed this man and his kind.

"Oh." In spite of himself his face betrayed his defeat. "I shall have to be more discreet with my inquiries."

Wigtight smiled coldly.

"I shouldn't trouble yourself. It will make no difference." He knew his success; it was a taste he was used to, like a ripe Stilton cheese and port after dinner.

There was nothing more to say, and Monk could not stomach more of Wigtight's satisfaction. He left, going out past the oily clerk in the front office; but he was determined to take the first opportunity to charge Josiah Wigtight with something, preferably something earning a good long spell on the prison treadmill. Perhaps it was hate of usury and all its cancerous agonies eating away the hearts of people, or hate for Wigtight particularly, for his fat belly and cold eyes; but more probably it was the bitterness of disappointment because he knew it was not the moneylender who had killed Joscelin Grey.

All of which brought him back again to facing the only other avenue of investigation. Joscelin Grey's friends, the people whose secrets he might have known. He was back to Shelburne again-and Runcorn's triumph.

But before he began on that course to one of its inevitable conclusions-either the arrest of Shelburne, and his own ruin after it; or else the admission that he could not prove his case and must accept failure; and Runcorn could not lose-Monk would follow all the other leads, however faint, beginning with Charles Latterly.

He called in the late afternoon, when he felt it most likely Imogen would be at home, and he could reasonably ask to see Charles.

He was greeted civilly, but no more than that. The parlor maid was too well trained to show surprise. He was kept waiting only a few minutes before being shown into the withdrawing room and its discreet comfort washed over him again.

Charles was standing next to a small table in the window bay.

"Good afternoon, Mr.-er-Monk," he said with distinct chill. "To what do we owe this further attention?"

Monk felt his stomach sink. It was as if the smell of the rookeries still clung to him. Perhaps it was obvious what manner of man he was, where he worked, what he dealt with; and it had been all the time. He had been too busy with his own feelings to be aware of theirs.

"I am still inquiring into the murder of Joscelin Grey," he replied a little stiltedly. He knew both Imogen and Hester were in the room but he refused to look at them. He bowed very slightly, without raising his eyes. He made a similar acknowledgment in their direction.

"Then it's about time you reached some conclusion, isn't it?" Charles raised his eyebrows. "We are very sorry, naturally, since we knew him; bat we do not require a day-by-day account of your progress, or lack of it."

"It's as well," Monk answered, stirred to tartness m his hurt, and the consciousness that he did not, and would never, belong in this faded and gracious room with its padded furniture and gleaming walnut. "Because I could not afford it. It is because you knew Major Grey that I wish to speak to you again." He swallowed. "We naturally first considered the possibility of his having been attacked by some chance thief, then of its being over a matter of debt, perhaps gambling, or borrowing. We have exhausted these avenues now, and are driven back to what has always, regrettably, seemed the most probable-"

"I thought I had explained it to you, Mr. Monk." Charles's voice was sharper. "We do not wish to know! And quite frankly, I will not have my wife or my sister distressed by hearing of it. Perhaps the women of your-" He searched for the least offensive word. "Your background-are less sensitive to such things: unfortunately they may be more used to violence and the sordid aspects of life. But my sister and my wife are gentlewomen, and do not even know of such things. I must ask you to respect their feelings."

Monk could sense the color burning up his face. He ached to be equally rude in return, but his awareness of Imogen, only a few feet from him, was overwhelming. He did not care in the slightest what Hester thought; in fact it would be a positive pleasure to quarrel with her, like the sting in the face of clean, icy water-invigorating.

"I had no intention of distressing anyone unnecessarily, sir." He forced the words out, muffled between his teeth. "And I have not come for your information, but to ask you some further questions. I was merely trying to give you the reason for them, that you might feel freer to answer."

Charles blinked at him. He was half leaning against the mantel shelf, and he stiffened.

"I know nothing whatsoever about the affair, and naturally neither do my family."

"I am sure we should have helped you if we could," Imogen added. For an instant Monk thought she looked abashed by Charles's so open condescension.

Hester stood up and walked across the room opposite Monk.

"We have not been asked any questions yet," she pointed out to Charles reasonably. "How do we know whether we could answer them or not? And I cannot speak for Imogen, of course, but I am not in the least offended by being asked; indeed if you are capable of considering the murder, then so am I. We surely have a duty."

"My dear Hester, you don't know what you are speaking of." Charles's face was sharp and he put his hand out towards her, but she avoided it. "What unpleasant things may be involved, quite beyond your experience!"

"Balderdash!" she said instantly. "My experience has included a multitude of things you wouldn't have in your nightmares. I've seen men hacked to death by sabers, shot by cannon, frozen, starved, wasted by disease-"

"Hester!" Charles exploded. "For the love of heaven!"

"So don't tell me I cannot survive the drawing room discussion of one wretched murder," she finished.

Charles's face was very pink and he ignored Monk. "Has it not crossed your very unfeminine mind that Imogen has feelings, and has led a considerably more decorous life than you have chosen for yourself?" he demanded. "Really, sometimes you are beyond enduring!''

"Imogen is not nearly as helpless as you seem to imagine," Hester retorted, but there was a faint blush to her cheeks. "Nor, I think, does she wish to conceal truth because it may be unpleasant to discuss. You do her courage little credit."

Monk looked at Charles and was perfectly sure that had they been alone he would have disciplined his sister in whatever manner was open to him-which was probably not a great deal. Personally Monk was very glad it was not his problem.