Anne Perry - The Face of a Stranger

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 manner of man Joscelin Grey had been, and that it was not Monk, but Joscelin's own brother Menard who had killed him. He could see the disbelief in their faces, and the contempt for a man who would try to escape justice by making such a charge.

Despair closed around him like the blackness of the night, eating away strength, crushing with the sheer weight of it. And he began to be afraid. There would be the few short weeks in the stone cell, the stolid warders, at once pitying and contemptuous, then the last meal, the priest, and the short walk to the scaffold, the smell of rope, the pain, the fighting for breath-and oblivion.

He was still drowned and paralyzed by it when he heard the sound on the stairs. The latch turned and Evan stood in the doorway. It was the Worst moment of all. There was no point in lying, Evan's face was full of knowledge, and pain. And anyway, he did not want to.

"How did you know?" Monk said quietly.

Evan came in and closed the door. "You sent me after Dawlish. I found an officer who'd served with Edward Dawlish. He didn't gamble, and Joscelin Grey never paid any debts for him. Everything he knew about him he learned from Menard. He took a hell of a chance lying to the family like that-but it worked. They'd have backed him financially, if he hadn't died. They blamed Menard for Edward's fall from honor, and forbade him in the house. A nice touch on Joscelin's part."

Monk stared at him. It made perfect sense. And yet it would never even raise a reasonable doubt in a juror's mind.

"I think that is where Grey's money came from-cheating the families of the dead," Evan continued. "You were so concerned about the Latterly case, it wasn't a great leap of the imagination to assume he cheated them too-and that is why Charles Latterly's father shot himself." His eyes were soft and intense with distress. "Did you come this far the first time too-before the accident?"

So he knew about the memory also. Perhaps it was all far more obvious than he believed; the fumbling for words, the unfamiliarity with streets, public houses, old haunts-even Runcorn's hatred of him. It did not matter anymore.

"Yes." Monk spoke very slowly, as if letting the words fall one by one would make them believable. "But I did not kill Joscelin Grey. I fought with him, I probably hurt him-he certainly hurt me-but he was alive and swearing at me when I left." He searched Evan's countenance feature by feature. "I saw Menard Grey go in as I turned in the street. He was facing the light and I was going away from it. The outer door was still open in the wind."

A desperate, painful relief flooded Evan's face, and he looked bony and young, and very tired. "So it was Menard who killed him." It was a statement.

"Yes." A blossom of gratitude opened wide inside Monk, filling him with sweetness. Even without hope, it was to be treasured immeasurably. "But there is no proof."

"But-" Evan began to argue, then the words died on his lips as he realized the truth of it. In all their searches they had found nothing. Menard had motive, but so had Charles Latterly, or Mr. Dawlish, or any other family Jos-celin had cheated, any friend he had dishonored-or Lovel Grey, whom he might have betrayed in the crudest way of all-or Monk himself. And Monk had been there. Now that they knew it, they also knew how easily provable it was, simply find the shop where he had bought that highly distinctive stick-such a piece of vanity. Mrs. Worley would remember it, and its subsequent absence. Lamb would recall seeing it in Grey's flat the moming after the murder. Imogen Latterly would have to admit Monk had been working on the case of her father's death.

The darkness was growing closer, tighter around them, the light guttering.

"We'll have to get Menard to confess," Evan said at last.

Monk laughed harshly. "And how do you propose we should do that? There's no evidence, and he knows it. No one would take my word against his that I saw him, and kept silent about it till now. It will look like a rather shabby and very stupid attempt to shift the blame from myself."

That was true, and Evan racked his mind in vain for a rebuttal. Monk was still sitting in the big chair, limp and exhausted with emotions from terror through joy and back to fear and despair again.

"Go home," Evan said gently. "You can't stay here.

There may be-" Then the idea came to him with a flutter of hope, growing and rising. There was one person who might help. It was a chance, but there was nothing left to lose. "Yes," he repeated. "Go home-I'll be there soon. I've just got an errand. Someone to see-" And he swung on his heel and went out of the door, leaving it ajar behind him.

He ran down the stairs two at a time-he never knew afterwards how he did not break his neck-shot past Grim-wade, and plunged out into the rain. He ran all the way along the pavement of Mecklenburg Square along Doughty Street and accosted a hansom as it passed him, driver's coat collar up around his neck and stovepipe hat jammed forward over his brow.

"I ain't on duty, guv!" the driver said crossly. "Finished, I am. Goin' 'ome terme supper."

Evan ignored him and climbed in, shouting the Latter-lys' address in Thanet Street at him.

"I told you, I ain't goin' nowhere!" the cabby repeated, louder this time. " 'Ceptin 'ome fer me supper. You'll 'ave ter get someone else!"

"You're taking me to Thanet Street!" Evan shouted back at him. "Police! Now get on with it, or I'll have your badge!"

"Bleedin’ rozzers," the cabby muttered sullenly, but he realized he had a madman in the back, and it would be quicker in the long run to do what he said. He lifted the reins and slapped them on the horse's soaking back, and they set off at a brisk trot.

At Thanet Street Evan scrambled out and commanded the cabby to wait, on pain of his livelihood.

Hester was at home when Evan was shown in by a startled maid. He was streaming water everywhere and his extraordinary, ugly, beautiful face was white. His hair was plastered crazily across his brow and he stared at her with anguished eyes.

She had seen hope and despair too often not to recognize both.