Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

But it could be Charles Latterly.

"Have you ever been to Major Grey's flat, Mr. Latterly?" The question was out before he realized it. It was like a die cast, and he did not now want to know the answer. Once begun, he would have to pursue it; even if only for himself he would have to know, always hoping he was wrong, seeking the one more fact to prove himself so.

Charles looked slightly surprised.

"No. Why? Surely you have been there yourself? I cannot tell you anything about it!"

"You have never been there?"

"No, I have told you so. I had no occasion."

"Nor, I take it, have any of your family?" He did not look at either of the women. He knew the question would be regarded as indelicate, if not outrightly impertinent.

"Of course not!" Charles controlled his temper with some difficulty. He seemed about to add something when Imogen interrupted.

"Would you care for us to account for our whereabouts on the day Joscelin was killed, Mr. Monk?"

He looked carefully, but he could see no sarcasm in her. She regarded him with deep, steady eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Charles snapped with mounting fury. "If you cannot treat this matter with proper seriousness, Imogen, then you had better leave us and return to your room."

"I am being perfectly serious," she replied, turning away from Monk. “If it was one of Joscelin's friends who killed him, then there is no reason why we should not be suspected. Surely, Charles, it would be better to clear ourselves by the simple fact of having been elsewhere at the time than it would be to have Mr. Monk satisfy himself we had no reason to, by investigating our affairs?"

Charles paled visibly and looked at Imogen as if she were some venomous creature that had come out of the carpeting and bitten him. Monk felt the tightness in his stomach grip harder.

"I was at dinner with friends," Charles said thinly.

Considering he had just supplied what seemed to be an alibi, he looked peculiarly wretched. Monk could not avoid it; he had to press. He stared at Charles's pale face.

"Where was that, sir?"

"Doughty Street."

Imogen looked at Monk blandly, innocently, but Hester had turned away.

"What number, sir?"

"Can that matter, Mr. Monk?" Imogen asked innocently.

Hester's head came up, waiting.

Monk found himself explaining to her, guilt surprising him.

"Doughty Street leads into Mecklenburg Square, Mrs. Latterly. It is no more than a two- or three-minute walk from one to the other."

"Oh." Her voice was small and flat. She turned slowly to her husband.

"Twenty-two," he said, teeth clenched. "But I was there all evening, and I had no idea Grey lived anywhere near."

Again Monk spoke before he permitted himself to think, or he would have hesitated.

"I find that hard to believe, sir, since you wrote to him at that address. We found your letter among his effects."

"God damn it-I-" Charles stopped, frozen.

Monk waited. The silence was so intense he imagined he could hear horses' hooves in the next street. He did not look at either of the women.

"I mean-" Charles began, and again stopped.

Monk found himself unable to avoid it any longer. He was embarrassed for them, and desperately sorry. He looked at Imogen, wanting her to know that, even if it meant nothing to her at all.

She was standing very still. Her eyes were so dark he could see nothing in mem, but there did not seem to be the hate he feared. For a wild moment he felt that if only he could have talked to her alone he could have explained, made her understand the necessity for all this, the compulsion.

"My friends will swear I was there all evening." Charles's words cut across them. "I'll give you their names. This is ridiculous; I liked Joscelin, and our misfortunes were as much his. There was no reason whatever to wish him harm, and you will find none!"

"If I could have their names, Mr. Latterly?"

Charles's head came up sharply.

"You're not going to go 'round asking them to account for me at the time of a murder, for God's sake! I'll only give you their names-"

"I shall be discreet, sir."

Charles snorted with derision at the idea of so delicate a virtue as discretion in a policeman.

Monk looked at him patiently.

"It will be easier if you give me their names, sir, than if I have to discover them for myself.''

"Damn you!" Charles's face was suffused with blood.

"Their names, please sir?"

Charles strode over to one of the small tables and took out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He wrote for several moments before folding it and handing it to Monk.

Monk took it without looking and put it in his pocket.

"Thank you, sir."

"Is that all?"

"No, I'm afraid I would still like to ask you anything further you might know about Major Grey's other friends, • anyone with whom he stayed, and could have known well enough to be aware, even accidentally, of some secret damaging to them."

"Such as what, for God's sake?" Charles looked at him with extreme distaste.

Monk did not wish to be drawn into speaking of the sort of things his imagination feared, especially in Imogen's hearing. In spite of the irrevocable position he was now in, every vestige of good opinion she might keep of him mattered, like fragments of a broken treasure.

“I don't know, sir; and without strong evidence it would be unseemly to suggest anything."

"Unseemly," Charles said sarcastically, his voice grating with the intensity of his emotion. "You mean that matters to you? I'm surprised you know what the word means."

Imogen turned away in embarrassment, and Hester's face froze. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then realized she would be wiser to keep silent.

Charles colored faintly in the silence that followed, but he was incapable of apology.

"He spoke of some people named Dawlish," he said irritably. "And I believe he stayed with Gerry Fortescue once or twice."

Monk took down such details as they could remember of the Dawlishes, the Fortescues and others, but it sounded useless, and he was aware of Charles's heavy disbelief, as if he were humoring an uncaged animal it might be dangerous to annoy. He stayed only to justify himself, because he had said to them that it was his reason for having come.

When he left he imagined he could hear the sigh of relief behind him, and his mind conjured up their quick looks at each other, then the understanding in their eyes, needing no words, that an intruder had gone at last, an extreme unpleasantness was over. All the way along the street his thoughts were in the bright room behind him -and on Imogen. He considered what she was doing, what she thought of him, if she saw him as a man at all, or only the inhabiter of an office that had become suddenly more than usually offensive to her.

And yet she had looked so directly at him. That seemed a timeless moment, recurring again and again-or was it simply that he dwelt in it? What had she asked of him originally? What had they said to one another?

What a powerful and ridiculous thing the imagination was-had he not known it so foolish, he could have believed there must have been deep memories between them.

When Monk had gone, Hester, Imogen and Charles were left standing in the withdrawing room, the sun streaming in from the French windows into the small garden, bright through the leaves in the silence.

Charles drew in his breath as if to speak, looked first at his wife, then at Hester, and let out a sigh. He said nothing. His face was tight and unhappy as he walked to the door, excused himself perfunctorily, and went out.

A torrent of thoughts crowded Hester's mind. She disliked Monk, and he angered her, yet the longer she watched him the less did she think he was as incompetent as he had first seemed. His questions were erratic, and he appeared to be no nearer finding Joscelin Grey's killer than he had been when he began; and yet she was keenly aware both of an intelligence and a tenacity in him. He cared about it, more than simply for vanity or ambition. For justice sake he wanted to know and to do something about it.