The William Monk Mysteries Read online

  “I see.” Monk hid a brief amusement. “And you saw some woman of that type going into Number Six that evening?” It was probably not worth anything, but every clue must be followed at this stage.

  “No one as don’t go vere reg’lar, guv.”

  “What time?”

  “Jus’ as I were goin’ ’ome.”

  “About half past seven?”

  “S’ right.”

  “How about earlier?”

  “Only wot goes inter Number Six, like?”

  “Yes.”

  He shut his eyes in deep concentration, trying to be obliging; there might be another twopence. “One of ve gennelmen wot lives in Number Six came ’ome wiv another gent, little feller wiv one o’ vem collars wot looks like fur, but all curly.”

  “Astrakhan?” Monk offered.

  “I dunno wot yer calls it. Anyway, ’e went in abaht six, an’ I never sawed ’im come aht. Vat any ’elp to yer, guv?”

  “It might be. Thank you very much.” Monk spoke to him with all seriousness, gave him another penny, to Evan’s surprise, and watched him step blithely off into the thoroughfare, dodging in between traffic, and take up his duties again.

  Evan’s face was brooding, thoughtful, but whether on the boy’s answers or his means of livelihood, Monk did not ask.

  “The ribbon seller’s not here today.” Evan looked up and down the Guilford Street footpath. “Who do you want to try next?”

  Monk thought for a moment. “How do we find the cabby? I presume we have an address for him?”

  “Yes sir, but I doubt he’d be there now.”

  Monk turned to face the drizzling east wind. “Not unless he’s ill,” he agreed. “Good evening for trade. No one will walk in this weather if they can ride.” He was pleased with that—it sounded intelligent, and it was the merest common sense. “We’ll send a message and have him call at the police station. I don’t suppose he can add anything to what he’s already said anyway.” He smiled sarcastically. “Unless, of course, he killed Grey himself!”

  Evan stared at him, his eyes wide, unsure for an instant whether he was joking or not. Then Monk suddenly found he was not sure himself. There was no reason to believe the cabby. Perhaps there had been heated words between them, some stupid quarrel, possibly over nothing more important than the fare. Maybe the man had followed Grey upstairs, carrying a case or a parcel for him, seen the flat, the warmth, the space, the ornaments, and in a fit of envy become abusive. He may even have been drunk; he would not be the first cabby to bolster himself against cold, rain and long hours a little too generously. God help them, enough of them died of bronchitis or consumption anyway.

  Evan was still looking at him, not entirely sure.

  Monk spoke his last thoughts aloud.

  “We must check with the porter that Grey actually entered alone. He might easily have overlooked a cabby carrying baggage, invisible, like a postman; we become so used to them, the eye sees but the mind doesn’t register.”

  “It’s possible.” Belief was strengthening in Evan’s voice. “He could have set up the mark for someone else, noted addresses or wealthy fares, likely-looking victims for someone. Could be a well-paying sideline?”

  “Could indeed.” Monk was getting chilled standing on the curb. “Not as good as a sweep’s boy for scouting the inside of a house, but better for knowing when the victim is out. If that was his idea, he certainly mistook Grey.” He shivered. “Perhaps we’d better call on him rather than send a message; it might make him nervous. It’s late; we’ll have a bit of lunch at the local public house, and see what the gossip is. Then you can go back to the station this afternoon and find out if anything is known about this cabby, what sort of reputation he has—if we know him, for example, and who his associates are. I’ll try the porter again, and if possible some of the neighbors.”

  The local tavern turned out to be a pleasant, noisy place which served them ale and a sandwich with civility, but something of a wary eye, knowing them to be strangers and perhaps guessing from their clothes that they were police. One or two ribald comments were offered, but apparently Grey had not patronized the place and there was no particular sympathy for him, only the communal interest in the macabre that murder always wakens.

  Afterwards Evan went back to the police station, and Monk returned to Mecklenburg Square, and Grimwade. He began at the beginning.

  “Yes sir,” Grimwade said patiently. “Major Grey came in about quarter after six, or a bit before, and ’e looked ’is usual self to me.”

  “He came by cab?” Monk wanted to be sure he had not led the man, suggested the answer he wanted.

  “Yes sir.”

  “How do you know? Did you see the cab?”

  “Yes sir, I did.” Grimwade wavered between nervousness and affront. “Stopped right by the door ’ere; not a night to walk a step as you didn’t ’ave to.”

  “Did you see the cabby?”

  “’Ere, I don’t understand what you’re getting after.” Now the affront was definitely warning.

  “Did you see him?” Monk repeated.

  Grimwade screwed up his face. “Don’t recall as I did,” he conceded.

  “Did he get down off the box, help Major Grey with a parcel, or a case or anything?”

  “Not as I remember; no, ’e didn’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes I am sure. ’E never got through that door.”

  That theory at least was gone. He should have been too old at this to be disappointed, but he had no experience to call on. It seemed to come to him easily enough, but possibly most of it was common sense.

  “He went upstairs alone?” He tried a last time, to remove every vestige of doubt.

  “Yes sir, ’e did.”

  “Did he speak to you?”

  “Nothing special, as I can think of. I don’t remember nothin’, so I reckon it can’t ’ave bin. ’E never said nothin’ about bein’ afraid, or as ’e was expecting anyone.”

  “But there were visitors to the buildings that afternoon and evening?”

  “Nobody as would be a-murderin’ anyone.”

  “Indeed?” Monk raised his eyebrows. “You’re not suggesting Major Grey did that to himself in some kind of bizarre accident, are you? Or of course there is the other alternative—that the murderer was someone already here?”

  Grimwade’s face changed rapidly from resignation through extreme offense to blank horror. He stared at Monk, but no words came to his brain.

  “You have another idea? I thought not—neither have I.” Monk sighed. “So let us think again. You said there were two visitors after Major Grey came in: one woman at about seven o’clock, and a man later on at about quarter to ten. Now, who did the woman come to see, Mr. Grimwade, and what did she look like? And please, no cosmetic alterations for the sake of discretion!”

  “No wot?”

  “Tell me the truth, man!” Monk snapped. “It could become very embarrassing for your tenants if we have to investigate it for ourselves.”

  Grimwade glared at him, but he took the point perfectly.

  “A local lady of pleasure, sir; called Mollie Ruggles,” he said between his teeth. “’Andsome piece, with red ’air. I know where she lives, but I expec’ you understand it would come real gratifyin’ if you could see your way clear to bein’ discreet about ’oo told yer she was ’ere?” His expression was comical in its effort to expunge his dislike and look appealing.

  Monk hid a sour amusement—it would only alienate the man.

  “I will,” he agreed. It would be in his own interest also. Prostitutes could be useful informants, if well treated. “Who did she come to see?”

  “Mr. Taylor, sir; ’e lives in flat number five. She comes to see ’im quite reg’lar.”

  “And it was definitely her?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Did you take her to Mr. Taylor’s door?”

  “Oh no, sir. Reckon as she knows ’er way by now. And Mr. Taylor—wel
l …” He hunched his shoulders. “It wouldn’t be tactful, now would it, sir? Not as I suppose you ’as ter be tactful, in your callin’!” he added meaningfully.

  “No.” Monk smiled slightly. “So you didn’t leave your position when she came?”

  “No sir.”

  “Any other women come, Mr. Grimwade?” He looked at him very directly.

  Grimwade avoided his eyes.

  “Do I have to make my own inquiries?” Monk threatened. “And leave detectives here to follow people?”

  Grimwade was shocked. His head came up sharply.

  “You wouldn’t do that, sir! They’re gentlemen as lives ’ere! They’d leave. They won’t put up with that kind o’ thing!”

  “Then don’t make it necessary.”

  “You’re an ’ard man, Mr. Monk.” But there was a grudging respect behind the grievance in his voice. That was small victory in itself.

  “I want to find the man who killed Major Grey,” Monk answered him. “Someone came into these buildings, found his way upstairs into that flat and beat Major Grey with a stick, over and over until he was dead, and then went on beating him afterwards.” He saw Grimwade wincing, and felt the revulsion himself. He remembered the horror he had felt when actually standing in the room. Did walls retain memory? Could violence or hatred remain in the air after a deed was finished, and touch the sensitive, the imaginative with a shadow of the horror?

  No, that was ridiculous. It was not the imaginative, but the nightmare-ridden who felt such things. He was letting his own fear, the horror of his still occasionally recurring dreams and the hollowness of his past extend into the present and warp his judgment. Let a little more time pass, a little more identity build, learn to know himself, and he would grow firmer memories in reality. His sanity would come back; he would have a past to root himself in, other emotions, and people.

  Or could it be—could it possibly be that it was some sort of mixed, dreamlike, distorted recollection coming back to him? Could he be recalling snatches of the pain and fear he must have felt when the coach turned over on him, throwing him down, imprisoning him, the scream of terror as the horse fell, the cab driver flung headlong, crushed to death on the stones of the street? He must have known violent fear, and in the instant before unconsciousness, have felt sharp, even blinding pain as his bones broke. Was that what he had sensed? Had it been nothing to do with Grey at all, but his own memory returning, just a flash, a sensation, the fierceness of the feeling long before the clarity of actual perception came back?

  He must learn more of himself, what he had been doing that night, where he was going, or had come from. What manner of man had he been, whom had he cared for, whom wronged, or whom owed? What had mattered to him? Every man had relationships, every man had feelings, even hungers; every man who was alive at all stirred some sort of passions in others. There must be people somewhere who had feelings about him—more than professional rivalry and resentment—surely? He could not have been so negative, of so little purpose that his whole life had left no mark on another soul.

  As soon as he was off duty, he must leave Grey, stop building the pattern piece by piece of his life, and take up the few clues to his own, place them together with whatever skill he possessed.

  Grimwade was still waiting for him, watching curiously, knowing that he had temporarily lost his attention.

  Monk looked back at him.

  “Well, Mr. Grimwade?” he said with sudden softness. “What other women?”

  Grimwade mistook the lowering tone for a further threat.

  “One to see Mr. Scarsdale, sir; although ’e paid me ’andsome not to say so.”

  “What time was it?”

  “About eight o’clock.”

  Scarsdale had said he had heard someone at eight. Was it his own visitor he was talking about, trying to play safe, in case someone else had seen her too?

  “Did you go up with her?” He looked at Grimwade.

  “No sir, on account o’ she’d bin ’ere before, an’ knew ’er way, like. An’ I knew as she was expected.” He gave a slight leer, knowingly, as man to man.

  Monk acknowledged it. “And the one at quarter to ten?” he asked. “The visitor for Mr. Yeats, I think you said? Had he been here before too?”

  “No sir. I went up with ’im, ’cos ’e didn’t know Mr. Yeats very well an’ ’adn’t called ’ere before. I said that to Mr. Lamb.”

  “Indeed.” Monk forbore from criticizing him over the omission of Scarsdale’s woman. He would defeat his own purpose if he antagonized him any further. “So you went up with this man?”

  “Yes sir.” Grimwade was firm. “Saw Mr. Yeats open the door to ’im.”

  “What did he look like, this man?”

  Grimwade screwed up his eyes. “Oh, big man, ’e was, solid and—’ere!” His face dropped. “You don’t think it was ’im wot done it, do yer?” He breathed out slowly, his eyes wide. “Gor’—it must ‘a’ bin. When I thinks of it now!”

  “It might have,” Monk agreed cautiously. “It’s possible. Would you know him if you saw him again?”

  Grimwade’s face fell. “Ah, there you ’ave me, sir; I don’t think as I would. Yer see, I didn’t see ’im close, like, when ’e was down ’ere. An’ on the stairs I only looked where I was goin’, it bein’ dark. ’E ’ad one o’ them ’eavy coats on, as it was a rotten night an’ rainin’ somethin’ wicked. A natural night for anyone to ’ave ’is coat turned up an’ ’is ’at drawn down. I reckon ’e were dark, that’s about all I could say fer sure, an’ if ’e ’ad a beard, it weren’t much of a one.”

  “He was probably clean-shaven, and probably dark.” Monk tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He must not let irritation push the man into saying something to please him, something less than true.

  “’E were big, sir,” Grimwade said hopefully. “An’ ’e were tall, must ’ave bin six feet. That lets out a lot o’ people, don’t it?”

  “Yes, yes it does,” Monk agreed. “When did he leave?”

  “I saw ’im out o’ the corner o’ me eye, sir. ’E went past me window at about ’alf past ten, or a little afore.”

  “Out of the corner of your eye? You’re sure it was him?”

  “’Ad ter be; ’e didn’t leave before, ner after, an’ ’e looked the same. Same coat, and ’at, same size, same ’eight. Weren’t no one else like that lives ’ere.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “No, ’e looked like ’e was in a bit of an ’urry. Maybe ’e wanted ter get ’ome. It were a beastly rotten night, like I said, sir; not fit fer man ner beast.”

  “Yes I know. Thank you, Mr. Grimwade. If you remember anything more, tell me, or leave a message for me at the police station. Good day.”

  “Good day, sir,” Grimwade said with intense relief.

  Monk decided to wait for Scarsdale, first to tax him with his lie about the woman, then to try and learn something more about Joscelin Grey. He realized with faint surprise that he knew almost nothing about him, except the manner of his death. Grey’s life was as blank an outline as his own, a shadow man, circumscribed by a few physical facts, without color or substance that could have induced love or hate. And surely there had been hate in whoever had beaten Grey to death, and then gone on hitting and hitting him long after there was any purpose? Was there something in Grey, innocently or knowingly, that had generated such a passion, or was he merely the catalyst of something he knew nothing of—and its victim?

  He went back outside into the square and found a seat from which he could see the entrance of Number 6.

  It was more than an hour before Scarsdale arrived, and already beginning to get darker and colder, but Monk was compelled by the importance it had for him to wait.

  He saw him arrive on foot, and followed a few paces after him, inquiring from Grimwade in the hall if it was indeed Scarsdale.

  “Yes sir,” Grimwade said reluctantly, but Monk was not interested in the porter’s misfortunes.
r />   “D’ yer need me ter take yer up?”

  “No thank you; I’ll find it.” And he took the stairs two at a time and arrived on the landing just as the door was closing. He strode across from the stair head and knocked briskly. There was a second’s hesitation, then the door opened. He explained his identity and his errand tersely.

  Scarsdale was not pleased to see him. He was a small, wiry man whose handsomest feature was his fair mustache, not matched by slightly receding hair and undistinguished features. He was smartly, rather fussily dressed.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t see you this evening,” he said brusquely. “I have to change to go out for dinner. Call again tomorrow, or the next day.”

  Monk was the bigger man, and in no mood to be summarily dismissed.

  “I have other people to call on tomorrow,” he said, placing himself half in Scarsdale’s way. “I need certain information from you now.”

  “Well I haven’t any—” Scarsdale began, retreating as if to close the door.

  Monk stepped forward. “For example, the name of the young woman who visited you the evening Major Grey was killed, and why you lied to us about her.”

  It had the result Monk had wished. Scarsdale stopped dead. He fumbled for words, trying to decide whether to bluff it out or attempt a little late conciliation. Monk watched him with contempt.

  “I—er,” Scarsdale began. “I—think you have misunderstood—er …” He still had not made the decision.

  Monk’s face tightened. “Perhaps you would prefer to discuss it somewhere more discreet than the hallway?” He looked towards the stairs, and the landing where other doorways led off—including Grey’s.

  “Yes—yes I suppose so.” Scarsdale was now acutely uncomfortable, a fine beading of sweat on his brow. “Although I really cannot tell you anything germane to the issue, you know.” He backed into his own entranceway and Monk followed. “The young lady who visited me has no connection with poor Grey, and she neither saw nor heard anyone else!”