The William Monk Mysteries Page 12

  Yeats blinked.

  “I-I really can hardly say, Mr.—Mr.—”

  “Monk—I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing for not having introduced himself. “And my colleague is Mr. Evan. Was he a large man, or small?”

  “Oh large, very large,” Yeats said instantly. “Big as you are, and looked heavy; of course he had a thick coat on, it was a very bad night—wet—terribly.”

  “Yes, yes I remember. Was he taller than I am, do you think?” Monk stood up helpfully.

  Yeats stared up at him. “No, no, I don’t think so. About the same, as well as I can recall. But it was some time ago now.” He shook his head unhappily.

  Monk seated himself again, aware of Evan discreetly taking notes.

  “He really was here only a moment or two,” Yeats protested, still holding the toast, now beginning to break and drop crumbs on his trousers. “He just saw me, asked a question as to my business, then realized I was not the person he sought, and left again. That is really all there was.” He brushed ineffectively at his trousers. “You must believe me, if I could help, I would. Poor Major Grey, such an appalling death.” He shivered. “Such a charming young man. Life plays some dreadful tricks, does it not?”

  Monk felt a quick flicker of excitement inside himself.

  “You knew Major Grey?” He kept his voice almost casual.

  “Oh not very well, no, no!” Yeats protested, shunning any thought of social arrogance—or involvement. “Only to pass the time of day, you understand? But he was very civil, always had a pleasant word, not like some of these young men of fashion. And he didn’t affect to have forgotten one’s name.”

  “And what is your business, Mr. Yeats? I don’t think you said.”

  “Oh perhaps not.” The toast shed more pieces in his hand, but now he was oblivious of it. “I deal in rare stamps and coins.”

  “And this visitor, was he also a dealer?”

  Yeats looked surprised.

  “He did not say, but I should imagine not. It is a small business, you know; one gets to meet most of those who are interested, at one time or another.”

  “He was English then?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He was not a foreigner, whom you would not expect to have known, even had he been in the business?”

  “Oh, I see.” Yeats’s brow cleared. “Yes, yes he was English.”

  “And who was he looking for, if not for you, Mr. Yeats?”

  “I-I-really cannot say.” He waved his hand in the air. “He asked if I were a collector of maps; I told him I was not. He said he had been misinformed, and he left immediately.”

  “I think not, Mr. Yeats. I think he then went to call on Major Grey, and within the next three quarters of an hour, beat him to death.”

  “Oh my dear God!” Yeats’s bones buckled inside him and he slid backwards and down into his chair. Behind Monk, Evan moved as if to help, then changed his mind and sat down again.

  “That surprises you?” Monk inquired.

  Yeats was gasping, beyond speech.

  “Are you sure this man was not known to you?” Monk persisted, giving him no time to regather his thoughts. This was the time to press.

  “Yes, yes I am. Quite unknown.” He covered his face with his hands. “Oh my dear heaven!”

  Monk stared at Yeats. The man was useless now, either reduced to abject horror, or else very skillfully affecting to be. He turned and looked at Evan. Evan’s face was stiff with embarrassment, possibly for their presence and their part in the man’s wretchedness, possibly merely at being witness to it.

  Monk stood up and heard his own voice far away. He knew he was risking a mistake, and that he was doing it because of Evan.

  “Thank you, Mr. Yeats. I’m sorry for distressing you. Just one more thing: was this man carrying a stick?”

  Yeats looked up, his face sickly pale; his voice was no more than a whisper.

  “Yes, quite a handsome one; I noticed it.”

  “Heavy or light?”

  “Oh heavy, quite heavy. Oh no!” He shut his eyes, screwing them up to hide even his imagination.

  “There is no need for you to be frightened, Mr. Yeats,” Evan said from behind. “We believe he was someone who knew Major Grey personally, not a chance lunatic. There is no reason to suppose he would have harmed you. I daresay he was looking for Major Grey in the first place and found the wrong door.”

  It was not until they were outside that Monk realized Evan must have said it purely to comfort the little man. It could not have been true. The visitor had asked for Yeats by name. He looked sideways at Evan, now walking silently beside him in the drizzling rain. He made no remark on it.

  Grimwade had proved no further help. He had not seen the man come down after leaving Yeats’s door, nor seen him go to Joscelin Grey’s. He had taken the opportunity to attend the call of nature, and then had seen the man leave at a quarter past ten, three quarters of an hour later.

  “There’s only one conclusion,” Evan said unhappily, striding along with his head down. “He must have left Yeats’s door and gone straight along the hallway to Grey, spent half an hour or so with him, then killed him, and left when Grimwade saw him go.”

  “Which doesn’t tell us who he was,” Monk said, stepping across a puddle and passing a cripple selling bootlaces. A rag and bone cart trundled by, its driver calling out almost unintelligibly in a singsong voice. “I keep coming back to the one thing,” Monk resumed. “Why did anyone hate Joscelin Grey so much? There was a passion of hate in that room. Someone hated him so uncontrollably he couldn’t stop beating him even after he was dead.”

  Evan shivered and the rain ran off his nose and chin. He pulled his collar up closer around his ears and his face was pale.

  “Mr. Runcorn was right,” he said miserably. “It’s going to be extremely nasty. You have to know someone very well to hate them as much as that.”

  “Or have been mortally wronged,” Monk added. “But you’re probably right; it’ll be in the family, these things usually are. Either that, or a lover somewhere.”

  Evan looked shocked. “You mean Grey was—?”

  “No.” Monk smiled with a sharp downward twist. “That wasn’t what I meant, although I suppose it’s possible; in fact it’s distinctly possible. But I was thinking of a woman, with a husband perhaps.”

  Evan’s faced relaxed a fraction.

  “I suppose it’s too violent for a simple debt, gambling or something?” he said without much hope.

  Monk thought for a moment.

  “Could be blackmail,” he suggested with genuine belief. The idea had only just occurred to him seriously, but he liked it.

  Evan frowned. They were walking south along Grey’s Inn Road.

  “Do you think so?” He looked sideways at Monk. “Doesn’t ring right to me. And we haven’t found any unaccounted income yet. Of course, we haven’t really looked. And blackmail victims can be driven to a very deep hatred indeed, for which I cannot entirely blame them. When a man has been tormented, stripped of all he has, and then is still threatened with ruin, there comes a point when reason breaks.”

  “We’ll have to check on the social company he kept,” Monk replied. “Who might have made mistakes damaging enough to be blackmailed over, to the degree that ended in murder.”

  “Perhaps if he was homosexual?” Evan suggested it with returning distaste, and Monk knew he did not believe his own word. “He might have had a lover who would pay to keep him quiet—and if pushed too far, kill him?”

  “Very nasty.” Monk stared at the wet pavement. “Runcorn was right.” And thought of Runcorn set his mind on a different track.

  He sent Evan to question all the local tradesmen, people at the club Grey had been at the evening he was killed, anything to learn about his associates.

  Evan began at the wine merchant’s whose name they had found on a bill head in Grey’s apartments. He was a fat man with a drooping mustache and an unctuous manner. He express
ed desolation over the loss of Major Grey. What a terrible misfortune. What an ironic stroke of fate that such a fine officer should survive the war, only to be struck down by a madman in his own home. What a tragedy. He did not know what to say—and he said it at considerable length while Evan struggled to get a word in and ask some useful question.

  When at last he did, the answer was what he had guessed it would be. Major Grey—the Honorable Joscelin Grey-was a most valued customer. He had excellent taste—but what else would you expect from such a gentleman? He knew French wine, and he knew German wine. He liked the best. He was provided with it from this establishment. His accounts? No, not always up to date—but paid in due course. The nobility were that way with money—one had to learn to accommodate it. He could add nothing—but nothing at all. Was Mr. Evan interested in wine? He could recommend an excellent Bordeaux.

  No, Mr. Evan, reluctantly, was not interested in wine; he was a country parson’s son, well educated in the gentilities of life, but with a pocket too short to indulge in more than the necessities, and a few good clothes, which would stand him in better stead than even the best of wines. None of which he explained to the merchant.

  Next he tried the local eating establishments, beginning with the chophouse and working down to the public alehouse, which also served an excellent stew with spotted dick pudding, full of currants, as Evan could attest.

  “Major Grey?” the landlord said ruminatively. “Yer mean ’im as was murdered? ’Course I knowed ’im. Come in ’ere reg’lar, ’e did.”

  Evan did not know whether to believe him or not. It could well be true; the food was cheap and filling and the atmosphere not unpleasant to a man who had served in the army, two years of it in the battlefields of the Crimea. On the other hand it could be a boost to his business—already healthy—to say that a famous victim of murder had dined here. There was a grisly curiosity in many people which would give the place an added interest to them.

  “What did he look like?” Evan asked.

  “’Ere!” The landlord looked at him suspiciously. “You on the case—or not, then? Doncher know?”

  “I never met him alive,” Evan replied reasonably. “It makes a lot of difference, you know.”

  The landlord sucked his teeth. “’Course it do—sorry, guv, a daft question. ’E were tall, an’ not far from your build, kind o’ slight—but ’e were real natty wiv it! Looked like a gennelman, even afore ’e opened ’is mouf. Yer can tell. Fair ’air, ’e ’ad; an’ a smile as was summat luv’ly.”

  “Charming,” Evan said, more as an observation than a question.

  “Not ’alf,” the landlord agreed.

  “Popular?” Evan pursued.

  “Yeah. Used ter tell a lot o’ stories. People like that—passes the time.”

  “Generous?” Evan asked.

  “Gen’rous?” The landlord’s eyebrows rose. “No—not gen’rous. More like ’e took more’n ’e gave. Reckon as ’e din’t ’ave that much. An’ folk liked ter treat ’im—like I said, ’e were right entertainin’. Flash sometimes. Come in ’ere of an occasion an’ treat everyone ’andsome—but not often, like—mebbe once a monf.”

  “Regularly?”

  “Wotcher mean?”

  “At a set time in the month?”

  “Oh no—could be any time, twice a monf, or not fer two monfs.”

  Gambler, Evan thought to himself. “Thank you,” he said aloud. “Thank you very much.” And he finished the cider and placed sixpence on the table and left, going out reluctantly into the fading drizzle.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon going to bootmakers, hatters, shirtmakers and tailors, from whom he learned precisely what he expected—nothing that his common sense had not already told him.

  He bought a fresh eel pie from a vendor on Guilford Street outside the Foundling Hospital, then took a hansom all the way to St. James’s, and got out at Boodles, where Joscelin Grey had been a member.

  Here his questions had to be a lot more discreet. It was one of the foremost gentlemen’s clubs in London, and servants did not gossip about members if they wished to retain their very agreeable and lucrative positions. All he acquired in an hour and a half of roundabout questions was confirmation that Major Grey was indeed a member, that he came quite regularly when he was in town, that of course, like other gentlemen, he gambled, and it was possible his debts were settled over a period of time, but most assuredly they were settled. No gentleman welshed on his debts of honor—tradesmen possibly, but never other gentlemen. Such a question did not arise.

  Might Mr. Evan speak with any of Major Grey’s associates?

  Unless Mr. Evan had a warrant such a thing was out of the question. Did Mr. Evan have such a warrant?

  No Mr. Evan did not.

  He returned little wiser, but with several thoughts running through his head.

  When Evan had gone, Monk walked briskly back to the police station and went to his own room. He pulled out the records of all his old cases, and read. It gave him little cause for comfort.

  If his fears for this case proved to be real—a society scandal, sexual perversion, blackmail and murder—then his own path as detective in charge lay between the perils of a very conspicuous and well-publicized failure and the even more dangerous task of probing to uncover the tragedies that had precipitated the final explosion. And a man who would beat to death a lover, turned blackmailer, to keep his secret, would hardly hesitate to ruin a mere policeman. “Nasty” was an understatement.

  Had Runcorn done this on purpose? As he looked through the record of his own career, one success after another, he wondered what the price had been; who else had paid it, apart from himself? He had obviously devoted everything to work, to improving his skill, his knowledge, his manners, his dress and his speech. Looking at it as a stranger might, his ambition was painfully obvious: the long hours, the meticulous attention to detail, the flashes of sheer intuitive brilliance, the judgment of other men and their abilities—and weaknesses, always using the right man for any task, then when it was completed, choosing another. His only loyalty seemed to be the pursuit of justice. Could he have imagined it had all gone unnoticed by Runcorn, who lay in its path?

  His rise from country boy from a Northumbrian fishing village to inspector in the Metropolitan Police had been little short of meteoric. In twelve years he had achieved more than most men in twenty. He was treading hard on Runcorn’s heels; at this present rate of progress he could shortly hope for another promotion, to Runcorn’s place—or better.

  Perhaps it all depended on the Grey case?

  He could not have risen so far, and so fast, without treading on a good many people as he passed. There was a growing fear in him that he might not even have cared. He had read through the cases, very briefly. He had made a god of truth, and—where the law was equivocal, or silent—of what he had believed to be justice. But if there was anything of compassion and genuine feeling for the victims, he had so far failed to find it. His anger was impersonal: against the forces of society that produced poverty and bred helplessness and crime; against the monstrosity of the rookery slums, the sweatshops, extortion, violence, prostitution and infant mortality.

  He admired the man he saw reflected in the records, admired his skill and his brain, his energy and tenacity, even his courage; but he could not like him. There was no warmth, no vulnerability, nothing of human hopes or fears, none of the idiosyncracies that betray the dreams of the heart. The nearest he saw to passion was the ruthlessness with which he pursued injustice; but from the bare written words, it seemed to him that it was the wrong itself he hated, and the wronged were not people but the byproducts of the crime.

  Why was Evan so keen to work with him? To learn? He felt a quick stab of shame at the thought of what he might teach him; and he did not want Evan turned into a copy of himself. People change, all the time; every day one is a little different from yesterday, a little added, a little forgotten. Could he learn something of Evan’s feeling inste
ad and teach him excellence without his accompanying ambition?

  It was easy to believe Runcorn’s feelings for him were ambivalent, at best. What had he done to him, over the years of climbing; what comparisons presented to superiors?

  What small slights made without sensitivity—had he ever even thought of Runcorn as a man rather than an obstacle between him and the next step up the ladder?

  He could hardly blame Runcorn if now he took this perfect opportunity to present him with a case he had to lose; either in failure to solve, or in too much solving, and the uncovering of scandals for which society, and therefore the commissioner of police, would never excuse him.

  Monk stared at the paper files. The man in them was a stranger to him, as one-dimensional as Joscelin Grey; in fact more so, because he had spoken to people who cared for Grey, had found charm in him, with whom he had shared laughter and common memories, who missed him with a hollowness of pain.

  His own memories were gone, even of Beth, except for the one brief snatch of childhood that had flickered for a moment at Shelburne. But surely more would return, if he did not try to force them and simply let them come?

  And the woman in the church, Mrs. Latterly; why had he not remembered her? He had only seen her twice since the accident, and yet her face seemed always at the back of his mind with a sweetness that never quite let him go. Had he spent much time on the case, perhaps questioned her often? It would be ridiculous to have imagined anything personal—the gulf between them was impassable, and if he had entertained ideas, then his ambition was indeed overweening, and indefensible. He blushed hot at the imagination of what he might have betrayed to her in his speech, or his manner. And the vicar had addressed her as “Mrs.”—was she wearing black for her father-in-law, or was she a widow? When he saw her again he must correct it, make it plain he dreamed no such effrontery.

  But before then he had to discover what on earth the case was about, beyond that her father-in-law had died recently.

  He searched all his papers, all the files and everything in his desk, and found nothing with the name Latterly on it. A wretched thought occurred to him, and now an obvious one—the case had been handed on to someone else. Of course it would be, when he had been ill. Runcorn would hardly abandon it, especially if there really was a question of suspicious death involved.