The Silent Cry

chapter 9
Monk was obliged to go back to the Grey case, although both Imogen Latterly, with her haunting eyes, and Hester, with her anger and intelligence, intruded into his thoughts. Concentration was almost beyond him, and he had to drive himself even to think of its details and try to make patterns from the amorphous mass of facts and suppositions they had so far.

He sat in his office with Evan, reviewing the growing amount of it, but it was all inconclusive of any fact, negative and not positive. No one had broken in, therefore Grey had admitted his murderer himself; and if he had admitted him, then he had been unaware of any reason to fear him. It was not likely he would invite in a stranger at that time in the evening, so it was more probably someone he knew, and who hated him with an intense but secret violence.

Or did Grey know of the hatred, but feel himself safe from it? Did he believe that person powerless to injure, either for an emotional reason, or a physical? Even that answer was still beyond him.

The description both Yeats and Grimwade had given of the only visitor unaccounted for did not fit Lovel Grey, but it was so indistinct that it hardly mattered. If Rosamond Grey's child was Joscelin's, and not Lovel's, that could be reason enough for murder; especially if Joscelin himself knew it and perhaps had not been averse to keeping Lovel reminded. It would not be the first time a cruel tongue, the mockery at pain or impotence had ended in an uncontrolled rage.

Evan broke into his thoughts, almost as if he had read them.

"Do you suppose Shelburne killed Joscelin himself?" He was frowning, his face anxious, his wide eyes clouded. He had no need to fear for his own career-the establishment, even the Shelburnes, would not blame him for a scandal. Was he afraid for Monk? It was a warm thought.

Monk looked up at him.

"Perhaps not. But if he paid someone else, they would have been cleaner and more efficient about it, and less violent. Professionals don't beat a man to death; they usually either stab him or garrote him, and not in his own house."

Evan's delicate mouth turned down at the corners. "You mean an attack in the street, follow him to a quiet spot- and all over in a moment?"

"Probably; and leave the body in an alley where it won't be found too soon, preferably out of his own area. That way there would be less to connect them with the victim, and less of a risk of their being recognized."

"Perhaps he was in a hurry?" Evan suggested. "Couldn't wait for the right time and place?" He leaned back a little in his chair and tilted the legs.

"What hurry?" Monk shrugged. "No hurry if it was Shelburne, not if it were over Rosamond anyway. Couldn't matter a few days, or even a few weeks."

"No." Evan looked gloomy. He allowed the front legs of the chair to settle again. "I don't know how we begin to prove anything, or even where to look."

"Find out where Shelburne was at the time Grey was killed," Monk answered. "I should have done that before."

"Oh, I asked the servants, in a roundabout way." Evan's face was surprised, and there was a touch of satisfaction in it he could not conceal.

"And?" Monk asked quickly. He would not spoil Evan's pleasure.

"He was away from Shelburne; they were told he came to town for dinner. I followed it up. He was at the dinner all right, and spent the night at his club, off Tavistock Place. It would have been difficult for him to have been in Mecklenburg Square at the right time, because he might easily have been missed, but not at all impossible. If he'd gone along Compton Street, right down Hunter Street, 'round Brunswick Square and Lansdowne Place, past the Foundling Hospital, up Caroline Place-and he was there. Ten minutes at the outside, probably less. He'd have been gone at least three quarters of an hour, counting the fight with Grey-and returning. But he could have done it on foot-easily."

Monk smiled; Evan deserved praise and he was glad to give it.

"Thank you. I ought to have done that myself. It might even have been less time, if the quarrel was an old one-say ten minutes each way, and five minutes for the fight. That's not long for a man to be out of sight at a club."

Evan looked down, a faint color in his face. He was smiling.

"It doesn't get us any further," he pointed out ruefully. "It could have been Shelburne, or it could have been anyone else. I suppose we shall have to investigate every other family he could have blackmailed? That should make us rather less popular than the ratman. Do you think it was Shelburne, sir, and we'll just never prove it?"

Monk stood up.

"I don't know but I'm damned if it'll be for lack of trying." He was thinking of Joscelin Grey in the Crimea, seeing the horror of slow death by starvation, cold and disease, the blinding incompetence of commanders sending men to be blown to bits by enemy guns, the sheer stultifying of it all; feeling fear and physical pain, exhaustion, certainly pity, shown by his brief ministrations to the dying in Scutari-all while Lovel stayed at home in his great hall, marrying Rosamond, adding money to money, comfort to comfort.

Monk strode to the door. Injustice ached in him like a gathering boil, angry and festering. He pulled the handle sharply and jerked it open.

"Sir!" Evan half rose to his feet.

Monk turned.

Evan did not know the words, how to phrase the warning urgent inside him. Monk could see it in his face, the wide hazel eyes, the sensitive mouth.

"Don't look so alarmed," he said quietly, pushing the door to again. "I'm going back to Grey's flat. I remember a photograph of his family there. Shelburne was in it, and Menard Grey. I want to see if Grimwade or Yeats recognize either of them. Do you want to come?"

Evan's face ironed out almost comically with relief. He smiled in spite of himself.

"Yes sir. Yes I would." He reached for his coat and scarf. "Can you do that without letting them know who they are? If they know they were his brothers-I mean-Lord Shelburne-"

Monk looked at him sideways and Evan pulled a small face of apology.

"Yes of course," he muttered, following Monk outside. "Although the Shelburnes will deny it, of course, and they'll still ride us to hell and back if we press a charge!"

Monk knew that, and he had no plan even if anyone in the photograph were recognized, but it was a step forward, and he had to take it.

Grimwade was in his cubbyhole as usual and he greeted them cheerfully.

"Lovely mild day, sir." He squinted towards the street. "Looks as if it could clear up."

"Yes," Monk agreed without thinking. "Very pleasant." He was unaware of being wet. "We're going up to

Mr. Grey's rooms again, want to pick up one or two things."

"Well with all of you on the case, I 'spec' you'll get somewhere one of these days." Grimwade nodded, a faint trace of sarcasm in his rather lugubrious face. "You certainly are a busy lot, I'll give yer that."

Monk was halfway up the stairs with the key before the significance of Grimwade's remark came to him. He stopped sharply and Evan trod on his heel.

"Sorry," Evan apologized.

"What did he mean?" Monk turned, frowning. "All of us? There's only you and me-isn't there?"

Evan's eyes shadowed. "So far as I know! Do you think Runcorn has been here?"

Monk stood stiffly to the spot. "Why should he? He doesn't want to be the one to solve this, especially if it is Shelburne. He doesn't want to have anything to do with it."

"Curiosity?" There were other thoughts mirrored in Evan's face, but he did not speak them.

Monk thought the same thing-perhaps Runcorn wanted some proof it was Shelburne, then he would force Monk to find it, and then to make the charge. For a moment they stared at each other, the knowledge silent and complete between them.

"I'll go and find out." Evan turned around and went slowly down again.

It was several minutes before he came back, and Monk stood on the stair waiting, his mind at first searching for a way out, a way to avoid accusing Shelburne himself. Then he was drawn to wonder more about Runcorn. How old was the enmity between them? Was it simply an older man fearing a rival on the ladder of success, a younger, cleverer rival?

Only younger and cleverer? Or also harder, more ruthless in his ambitions, one who took credit for other people's work, who cared more for acclaim than for justice, who sought the public, colorful cases, the ones well reported; even a man who managed to shelve his failures onto other people, a thief of other men's work?

If that were so, then Runcorn's hatred was well earned, and his revenge had a justice to it.

Monk stared up at the old, carefully plastered ceiling. Above it was the room where Grey had been beaten to death. He did not feel ruthless now-only confused, oppressed by the void where memory should be, afraid of what he might find out about his own nature, anxious that he would fail in his job. Surely the crack on the head, however hard, could not have changed him so much? But even if the injury could not, maybe the fear had? He had woken up lost and alone, knowing nothing, having to find himself clue by clue, in what others could tell him, what they thought of him, but never why. He knew nothing of the motives for his acts, the nice rationalizations and excuses he had made to himself at the time. All the emotions that had driven him and blocked out judgment were in that empty region that yawned before the hospital bed and Runcorn's face.

But he had no time to pursue it further. Evan was back, his features screwed up in anxiety.

"It was Runcorn!" Monk leaped to the conclusion, suddenly frightened, like a man faced with physical violence.

Evan shook his head.

"No. It was two men I don't recognize at all from Grimwade's description. But he said they were from the police, and he saw their papers before he let them in."

"Papers?" Monk repeated. There was no point in asking what the men had looked like; he could not remember the men of his own division, let alone those from any other.

"Yes." Evan was obviously still anxious. "He said they had police identification papers, like ours."

"Did he see if they were from our station?"

"Yes sir, they were." His face puckered. "But I can't think who they could be. Anyway, why on earth would Runcorn send anyone else? What for?"

"I suppose it would be too much to ask that they gave names?"

"I'm afraid Grimwade didn't notice."

Monk turned around and went back up the stairs, more worried than he wished Evan to see. On the landing he put the key Grimwade had given him into the lock and swung Grey's door open. The small hallway was just as before, and it gave him an unpleasant jar of familiarity, a sense of foreboding for what was beyond.

Evan was immediately behind him. His face was pale and his eyes shadowed, but Monk knew that his oppression stemmed from Runcorn, and the two men who had been here before them, not any sensitivity to the violence still lingering in the air.

There was no purpose in hesitating anymore. He opened the second door.

There was a long sigh from behind him almost at his shoulder as Evan let out his breath in amazement.

The room was in wild disorder; the desk had been tipped over and all its contents flung into the far corner-by the look of them, the papers a sheet at a time. The chairs were on their sides, one upside down, the seats had been taken out, the stuffed sofa ripped open with a knife. All the pictures lay on the floor, backs levered out.

"Oh my God." Evan was stupefied.

"Not the police, I think," Monk said quietly.

"But they had papers," Evan protested. "Grimwade actually read them."

"Have you never heard of a good screever?"

"Forged?" Evan said wearily. "I suppose Grimwade wouldn't have known the difference."

"If the screever were good enough, I daresay we wouldn't either." Monk pulled a sour expression. Some forgeries of testimonials, letters, bills of sale were good enough to deceive even those they were purported to come from. At the upper end, it was a highly skilled and lucrative trade, at the lower no more than a makeshift way of buying a little time, or fooling the hasty or illiterate.

"Who were they?" Evan went past Monk and stared around the wreckage. "And what on earth did they want here?"

Monk's eyes went to the shelves where the ornaments had been.

"There was a silver sugar scuttle up there," he said as he pointed. "See if it's on the floor under any of that paper." He turned slowly. "And there were a couple of pieces of jade on that table. There were two snuffboxes in that alcove; one of them had an inlaid lid. And try the sideboard; there should be silver in the second drawer."

"What an incredible memory you have; I never noticed them." Evan was impressed and his admiration was obvious in his luminous eyes before he knelt down and began carefully to look under the mess, not moving it except to raise it sufficiently to explore beneath.

Monk was startled himself. He could not remember having looked in such detail at trivialities. Surely he had gone straight to the marks of the struggle, the bloodstains, the disarranged furniture, the bruised paint and the crooked pictures on the walls? He had no recollection now of even noticing the sideboard drawer, and yet his mind's eye could see silver, laid out neatly in green-baize-lined fittings.

Had it been in some other place? Was he confusing this room with another, an elegant sideboard somewhere in his past, belonging to someone else? Perhaps Imogen Latterly?

But he must dismiss Imogen from his mind-however easily, with whatever bitter fragrance, she returned. She was a dream, a creation of his own memories and hungers. He could never have known her well enough to feel anything but a charm, a sense of her distress, her courage in righting it, the strength of her loyalty.

He forced himself to think of the present; Evan searching in the sideboard, the remark on his memory.

"Training," he replied laconically, although he didn't understand it himself. "You'll develop it. It might not be the second drawer, better look in all of them."

Evan obeyed, and Monk turned back to the pile on the floor and began to pick his way through the mess, looking for something to tell him its purpose, or give any clue as to who could have caused it.

"There's nothing here." Evan closed the drawer, his mouth turned down in a grimace of disgust. "But this is the right place; it's all slotted for them to fit in, and lined with cloth. They went to a lot of trouble for a dozen settings of silver. I suppose they expected to get more. Where did you say the jade was?"

"There." Monk stepped over a pile of papers and cushions to an empty shelf, then wondered with a sense of unease how he knew, when he could have noticed it.

He bent and searched the floor carefully, replacing everything as he found it. Evan was watching him.

"No jade?" he asked.

"No, it's gone." Monk straightened up, his back stiff. "But I find it hard to believe ordinary thieves would go to the trouble, and the expense, of forging police identification papers just for a few pieces of silver and a jade ornament, and I think a couple of snuffboxes." He looked around. "They couldn't take much more without being noticed. Grimwade would certainly have been suspicious if they had taken anything like furniture or pictures."

"Well, I suppose the silver and the jade are worth something?"

"Not much, after the fence has taken his cut." Monk looked at the heap of wreckage on the floor and imagined the frenzy and the noise of such a search. "Hardly worth the risk," he said thoughtfully. "Much easier to have burgled a place in which the police have no interest. No, they wanted something else; the silver and the jade were a bonus. Anyway, what professional thief leaves a chaos like this behind him?"

"You mean it was Shelburne?" Evan's voice was half an octave higher with sheer disbelief.

Monk did not know what he meant.

"I can't think what Shelburne could want," he said, staring around the room again, his mind's eye seeing it as it had been before. "Even if he left something here that belonged to him, there are a dozen reasons he could invent if we'd asked him, with Joscelin dead and not able to argue. He could have left it here, whatever it was, any time, or lent it to Joscelin; or Joscelin could simply have taken it." He stared around the ceiling at the elaborate plaster work of acanthus leaves. "And I can't imagine him employing a couple of men to forge police papers and come here to ransack the place. No, it can't have been Shelburne."

"Then who?"

Monk was frightened because suddenly there was no rationality in it at all. Everything that had seemed to fit ten minutes ago was now senseless, like puzzle parts of two quite different pictures. At the same time he was almost elated-if it were not Shelburne, if it were someone who knew forgers and thieves, then perhaps there was no society scandal or blackmail at all.

"I don't know," he answered Evan with sudden new firmness. "But there's no need to tiptoe in this one to find out. Nobody will lose us our jobs if we ask embarrassing questions of a few screevers, or bribe a nose, or even press a fence a little hard."

Evan's face relaxed into a slow smile and his eyes lit up. Monk guessed that perhaps he had had little taste so far of the color of the underworld, and as yet it still held the glamour of mystery. He would find its tones dark; gray of misery, black of long-used pain and habitual fear; its humor quick and bitter, gallows laughter.

He looked at Evan's keen face, its soft, sensitive lines. He could not explain to him; words are only names for what you already know-and what could Evan know that would prepare him for the hive of human waste that teemed in the shadows of Whitechapel, St. Giles, Bluegate Fields, Seven Dials, or the Devil's Acre? Monk had known hardship himself in childhood; he could remember hunger now-it was coming back to him-and cold, shoes that leaked, clothes that let through the bitter northeast wind, plenty of meals of bread and gravy. He remembered faintly the pain of chilblains, angry itching fire when at last you warmed a little; Beth with chapped lips and white, numb ringers.

But they were not unhappy memories; behind all the small pains there had always been a sense of well-being, a knowledge of eventual safety. They were always clean: clean clothes, however few and however old, clean table, smell of flour and fish, salt wind in the spring and summer when the windows were open.

It was sharper in his mind now; he could recall whole scenes, taste and touch, and always the whine of the wind and the cry of gulls. They had all gone to church on Sundays; he could not bring back everything that had been said, but he could think of snatches of music, solemn and full of the satisfaction of people who believe what they sing, and know they sing it well.

His mother had taught him all his values: honesty, labor and learning. He knew even without her words that she believed it. It was a good memory, and he was more grateful for its return than for any other. It brought with it identity. He could not clearly picture his mother's face; each time he tried it blurred and melted into Beth's, as he had seen her only a few weeks ago, smiling, confident of herself. Perhaps they were not unalike.

Evan was waiting for him, eyes still bright with anticipation of seeing at last the real skill of detection, delving into the heartland of crime.

"Yes." Monk recalled himself. "We shall be free there to pursue as we wish." And no satisfaction for Runcorn, he thought, but he did not add it aloud.

He went back to the door and Evan followed him. There was no point in tidying anything; better to leave it as it was-even that mess might yield a clue, some time.

He was in the hallway, next to the small table, when he noticed the sticks in the stand. He had seen them before, but he had been too preoccupied with the acts of violence in the room beyond to look closely. Anyway, they already had the stick that had been the weapon. Now he saw that there were still four there. Perhaps since Grey had used a stick to walk with, he had become something of a collector. It would not be unnatural; he had been a man to whom appearance mattered: everything about him said as much. Probably he had a stick for morning, another for evening, a casual one, and a rougher one for the country.

Monk's eye was caught by a dark, straight stick, the color of mahogany and with a fine brass band on it embossed like the links of a chain. It was an extraordinary sensation, hot, almost like a dizziness; it prickled hi his skin-he knew with total clarity that he had seen that stick before, and seen it several times.

Evan was beside him, waiting, wondering why he had stopped. Monk tried to clear his head, to broaden the image till it included where and when, till he saw the man who held it. But nothing came, only the vivid tingle of familiarity-and fear.

"Sir?" Evan's voice was doubtful. He could see no reason for the sudden paralysis. They were both standing in the hallway, frozen, and the only reason was in Monk's mind. And try as he might, bending all the force of his will on it, still he could see nothing but the stick, no man, not even a hand holding it.

"Have you thought of something, sir?" Evan's voice intruded into the intensity of his thought.

"No." Monk moved at last. "No." He must think of something sensible to say, to explain himself, a reason for his behavior. He found the words with difficulty. "I was just wondering where to start. You say Grimwade didn't get any names from those papers?"

"No; but then they wouldn't use their own names anyway, would they?"

"No, of course not, but it would have helped to know what name the screever used for them." It was a foolish question to have asked, but he must make sense of it. Evan was listening to his every word, as to a teacher. "There are a vast number of screevers in London." He made his voice go on with authority, as if he knew what he was saying, and it mattered. "And I daresay more than one who has forged police papers in the last few weeks."

"Oh-yes, of course," Evan was instantly satisfied. "No, I did ask, before I knew they were burglars, but he didn't notice. He was more interested in the authorization part."

"Oh well." Monk had control of himself again. He opened the door and went out. "I daresay the name of the station will be enough anyway." Evan came out also and he turned and closed the door behind him, locking it.

But when they reached the street Monk changed his mind. He wanted to see Runcorn's face when he heard of the robbery and realized Monk would not be forced to ferret for scandals as the only way to Grey's murderer. There was suddenly and beautifully a new way open to him, where the worst possibility was simple failure; and there was even a chance now of real success, unqualified.

He sent Evan off on a trivial errand, with instructions to meet him again in an hour, and caught a hansom through sunny, noisy streets back to the station. Runcorn was in, and mere was a glow of satisfaction on his face when Monk came into his office.

"Morning, Monk," he said cheerfully. "No further, I see?"

Monk let the pleasure sink a little deeper into him, as one hesitates exquisitely in a hot bath, inching into it to savor each additional moment.

"It is a most surprising case," he answered meaning-lessly, his eyes meeting Runcorn's, affecting concern.

Runcorn's face clouded, but Monk could feel the pleasure in him as if it were an odor in the room.

"Unfortunately the public does not give us credit for amazement," Runcorn replied, stretching out the anticipation. "Just because they are puzzled that does not, in their view, allow us the same privilege. You're not pressing hard enough, Monk." He frowned very slightly and leaned farther back in his chair, the sunlight in a bar through the window falling in on the side of his head. His voice changed to one of unctuous sympathy. "Are you sure you are fully recovered? You don't seem like your old self. You used not to be so-" He smiled as the word pleased him. "So hesitant. Justice was your first aim, indeed your only aim; I've never known you to balk before, even at the most unpleasant inquiries." There was doubt at the very back of his eyes, and dislike. He was balancing between courage and experience, like a man beginning to ride a bicycle. "You believe that very quality was what raised you so far, and so fast." He stopped, waiting; and Monk had a brief vision of spiders resting in the hearts of their webs, knowing flies would come, sooner or later: the time was a matter of delicacy, but they would come.

He decided to play it out a little longer; he wanted to watch Runcorn himself, let him bring his own feelings into the open, and betray his vulnerability.

"This case is different," he answered hesitantly, still putting the anxiety into his manner. He sat down on the chair opposite the desk. "I can't remember any other like it. One cannot make comparison."

"Murder is murder." Runcorn shook his head a trifle pompously. "Justice does not differentiate; and let me be frank, neither does the public-in fact if anything, they care more about this. It has all the elements the public likes, all the journalists need to whip up passions and make people frightened-and indignant."

Monk decided to split hairs.

"Not really," he demurred. "There is no love story, and the public likes romance above all things. There is no woman."

"No love story?" Runcorn's eyebrows went up.

"I never suspected you of cowardice, Monk; and never, ever of stupidity!" His face twitched with an impossible blend of satisfaction and affected concern. "Are you sure you are quite well?" He leaned forward over the desk again to reinforce the effect. "You don't get headaches, by any chance, do you? It was a very severe blow you received, you know. In fact, I daresay you don't recall it now, but when I first saw you in the hospital you didn't even recognize me."

Monk refused to acknowledge the appalling thought that had come to the edge of his mind.

"Romance?" he asked blankly, as if he had heard nothing after that.

"Joscelin Grey and his sister-in-law!" Runcorn was watching him closely, pretending to be hazy, his eyes a little veiled, but Monk saw the sharp pinpoints under his heavy lids.

"Does the public know of that?" Monk equally easily pretended innocence. "I have not had time to look at newspapers." He pushed out his lip in doubt. "Do you think it was wise to tell them? Lord Shelburne will hardly be pleased!"

The skin across Runcorn's face tightened.

"No of course I didn't tell them yet!" He barely controlled his voice. "But it can only be a matter of time. You cannot put it off forever." There was a hard gleam in his face, almost an appetite. "You have most assuredly changed, Monk. You used to be such a fighter. It is almost as if you were a different person, a stranger to yourself. Have you forgotten how you used to be?"

For a moment Monk was unable to answer, unable to do anything but absorb the shock. He should have guessed it. He had been overconfident, stupidly blind to the obvious. Of course Runcorn knew he had lost his memory. If he had not known from the beginning, then he had surely guessed it in Monk's careful maneuvering, his unaware-ness of their relationship. Runcorn was a professional; he spent his life telling truth from lies, divining motives, uncovering the hidden. What an arrogant fool Monk must have been to imagine he had deceived him. His own stupidity made him flush hot at the embarrassment of it.

Runcorn was watching him, seeing the tide of color in his face. He must control it, find a shield; or better, a weapon. He straightened his body a little more and met Runcorn's eyes.

"A stranger to you perhaps, sir, but not to myself. But then we are few of us as plain as we seem to others. I think I am only less rash than you supposed. And it is as well." He savored the moment, although it had not the sweetness he had expected.

He looked at Runcorn's face squarely. "I came to tell you that Joscelin Grey's flat has been robbed, at least it has been thoroughly searched, even ransacked, by two men posing as police. They seemed to have had quite competently forged papers which they showed to the porter."

Runcorn's face was stiff and there was a mottle of red on his skin. Monk could not resist adding to it.

"Puts a different light on it, doesn't it?" he went on cheerfully, pretending they were both pleased. "I don't see Lord Shelburne hiring an accomplice and posing as a Peeler to search his brother's flat."

A few seconds had given Runcorn time to think.

"Then he must have hired a couple of men. Simple enough!"

But Monk was ready. "If it was something worth such a terrible risk," he countered, "why didn't they get it before? It must have been there two months by now.''

"What terrible risk?" Runcorn's voice dropped a little in mockery of the idea. "They passed it off beautifully. And it would have been easy enough to do: just watch the building a little while to make sure the real police were not there, then go in with their false papers, get what they went for, and leave. I daresay they had a crow out in the street."

"I wasn't referring to the risk of their being caught in the act," Monk said scornfully. "I was thinking of the much greater risk, from his point of view, of placing himself in the hands of possible blackmailers."

He felt a surge of pleasure as Runcorn's face betrayed that he hadn't thought of that.

"Do it anonymously." Runcorn dismissed the idea.

Monk smiled at him. "If it was worth paying thieves, and a first-class screever, in order to get it back, it wouldn't take a very bright thief to work out it would be worth raising the price a little before handing it over. Everyone in London knows there was murder done in that room. If whatever he wanted was worth paying thieves and forgers to get back, it must be damning."

Runcorn glared at the table top, and Monk waited.

"So what are you suggesting then?" Runcorn said at last. "Somebody wanted it. Or do you say it was just a casual thief, trying his luck?" His contempt for the idea was heavy in his voice and it curled his lip.

Monk avoided the question.

"I intend to find out what it is," he replied, pushing back his chair and rising. "It may be something we haven't even thought of."

"You'll have to be a damn good detective to do that!" The triumph came back into Runcorn's eyes.

Monk straightened and looked levelly back at him.

"I am," he said without a nicker. "Did you think that had changed?"

***

When he left Runcorn's office Monk had had no idea even how to begin. He had forgotten all his contacts; now a fence or an informer could pass him in the street and he would not recognize him. He could not ask any of his colleagues. If Runcorn hated him, it was more than likely many of them did too and he had no idea which; and to show such vulnerability would invite a coup de grace. Runcorn knew he had lost his memory, of that he was perfectly sure now, although nothing had been said completely beyond ambiguity. There was a chance, a good chance he could fend off one man until he had regained at least enough mixture of memory and skill to do his job well enough to defy them all. If he solved the Grey case he would be unassailable; then let Runcorn say what he pleased.

But it was an unpleasant knowledge that he was so deeply and consistently hated, and with what he increasingly realized was good reason.

And was he fighting for survival? Or was there also an instinct in him to attack Runcorn; not only to find the truth, to be right, but also to be there before Runcorn was and make sure he knew it? Perhaps if he had been an onlooker at this, watching two other men, at least some of his sympathy would have been with Runcorn. There was a cruelty in himself he was seeing for the first time, a pleasure in winning that he did not admire.

Had he always been like this-or was it born of his fear?

How to start finding the thieves? Much as he liked Evan-and he did like him increasingly every day; the man had enthusiasm and gentleness, humor, and a purity of intention Monk envied-even so, he dare not place himself in Evan's hands by telling him the truth. And if he were honest (there was a little vanity in it also), Evan was the only person, apart from Beth, who seemed unaffectedly to think well of him, even to like him. He could not bear to forfeit that.

So he could not ask Evan to tell him the names of informers and fences. He would just have to find them for himself. But if he had been as good a detective as everything indicated, he must know many. They would recognize him.

He was late and Evan had been waiting for him. He apologized, somewhat to Evan's surprise, and only afterward realized that as a superior it was not expected of him. He must be more careful, especially if he were to conceal his purpose, and his inability, from Evan. He wanted to go to an underworld eating house for luncheon, and hoped that if he left word with the potman someone would approach him. He would have to do it in several places, but within three or four days at most he should find a beginning.

He could not bring back to memory any names or faces, but the smell of the back taverns was sharply familiar. Without thinking, he knew how to behave; to alter color like a chameleon, to drop his shoulders, loosen his gait, keep his eyes down and wary. It is not clothes that make the man; a cardsharp, a dragsman, a superior pickpocket or a thief from the Swell Mob could dress as well as most- indeed the nurse at the hospital had taken him for one of the Swell Mob himself.

Evan, with his fair face and wide, humorous eyes, looked too clean to be dishonest. There was none of the wiliness of a survivor in him; yet some of the best survivors of all were those most skilled in deception and the most innocent of face. The underworld was big enough for any variation of lie and fraud, and no weakness was left unexploited.

They began a little to the west of Mecklenburg Square, going to the King's Cross Road. When the first tavern produced nothing immediate, they moved north to the Pen-tonville Road, then south and east again into Clerkenwell.

In spite of all that logic could tell him, by the following day Monk was beginning to feel as if he were on a fool's errand, and Runcorn would have the last laugh. Then, in a congested public house by the name of the Grinning Rat, a scruffy little man, smiling, showing yellow teeth, slid into the seat beside them, looking warily at Evan. The room was full of noise, the strong smell of ale, sweat, the dirt of clothes and bodies long unwashed, and the heavy steam of food. The floor was covered with sawdust and there was a constant chink of glass.

" 'Ello, Mr. Monk; I hain't seen you for a long time. Were yer bin?"

Monk felt a leap of excitement and studied hard to hide it.

"Had an accident," he answered, keeping his voice level.

The man looked him up and down critically and grunted, dismissing it.

"I 'ears as yer after som'un as'll blow a little?"

"That's right," Monk agreed. He must not be too precipitate, or the price would be high, and he could not afford the time to bargain; he must be right first time, or he would appear green. He knew from the air, the smell of it, that haggling was part of the game.

"Worf anyfink?" the man asked.

"Could be."

"Well," the man said, thinking it over. "Yer always bin fair, that's why I comes to yer 'stead o' some 'o them other jacks. Proper mean, some o' them; yer'd be right ashamed if yer knew." He shook his head and sniffed hard, pulling a face of disgust.

Monk smiled.

"Wotcher want, then?" the man asked.

"Several things." Monk lowered his voice even further, still looking across the table and not at the man. "Some stolen goods-a fence, and a good screever."

The man also looked at the table, studying the stain ring marks of mugs.

"Plenty o' fences, guv; and a fair few screevers. Special goods, these?"

"Not very."

"W'y yer want 'em ven? Som'one done over bad?"

"Yes."

"O'right, so wot are vey ven?"

Monk began to describe them as well as he could; he had only memory to go on.

"Table silver-"

The man looked at him witheringly.

Monk abandoned the silver. "A jade ornament," he continued. "About six inches high, of a dancing lady with her arms up in front of her, bent at die elbows. It was pinky-colored jade-"

"Aw, nar vat's better." The man's voice lifted; Monk avoided looking at his face. "Hain't a lot o' pink jade abaht," he went on. "Anyfink else?"

"A silver scuttle, about four or five inches, I think, and a couple of inlaid snuffboxes."

"Wot kind o' snuffboxes, guv: siller, gold, enamel? Yer gotta give me mor'n vat!"

"I can't remember."

"Yer wot? Don't ve geezer wot lorst 'em know?" His face darkened with suspicion and for the first time he looked at Monk. " 'Ere! 'E croaked, or suffink?"

"Yes," Monk said levelly, still staring at the wall. "But no reason to suppose the thief did it. He was dead long before the robbery.''

"Yer sure o' vat? 'Ow d'yer know 'e were gorn afore?"

"He was dead two months before." Monk smiled acidly. "Even I couldn't mistake that. His empty house was robbed."

The man thought this over for several minutes before delivering his opinion.

Somewhere over near the bar there was a roar of laughter.

"Robbin' a deadlurk?" he said with heavy condescension. "Bit chancy to find anyfink, in' it? Wot did yer say abaht a screever? Wot yer want a screever fer ven?"

"Because the thieves used forged police papers to get in," Monk replied.

The man's face lit up with delight and he chuckled richly.

"A proper downy geezer, vat one. I like it!" He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and laughed again. "It'd be a sin ter shop a feller wiv vat kind o' class."

Monk took a gold half sovereign out of his pocket and put it on the table. The man's eyes fastened onto it as if it mesmerized him.

"I want the screever who made those fakements for them," Monk repeated. He put out his hand and took the gold coin back again. He put it into his inside pocket. The man's eyes followed it. "And no sly faking," Monk warned. "I'll feel your hands in my pockets, and you remember that, unless you fancy picking oakum for a while. Not do your sensitive fingers any good, picking oakum!" He winced inwardly as a flash of memory returned of men's fingers bleeding from the endless unraveling of rope ends, day in, day out, while years of their lives slid by.

The man flinched. "Now vat ain't nice, Mr. Monk. I never took nuffink from yer in me life." He crossed himself hastily and Monk was not sure whether it was a surety of truth or a penance for the lie. "I s'pose yer tried all ve jollyshops?" the man continued, screwing up his face. "Couldn't christen that jade lady."

Evan looked vaguely confused, although Monk was not sure by what.

"Pawnshops," he translated for him. "Naturally thieves remove any identification from most articles, but nothing much you can do to jade without spoiling its value." He took five shillings out of his pocket and gave them to the man."Come back in two days, and if you've got anything, you'll have earned the half sovereign."

"Right, guv, but not 'ere; vere's a slap bang called ve Purple Duck dahn on Plumber's Row-orf ve Whitechapel Road. Yer go vere." He looked Monk up and down with distaste. "An' come out o' twig, eh; not all square rigged like a prater! And bring the gold, 'cos I'll 'ave suffink. Yer 'ealf, guv, an' yers." He glanced sideways at Evan, then slid off the seat and disappeared into the crowd. Monk felt elated, suddenly singing inside. Even the fest-cooling plum duff was bearable. He smiled broadly across at Evan.

"Come in disguise," he explained. "Not soberly dressed like a fake preacher."

"Oh." Evan relaxed and began to enjoy himself also. "I see." He stared around at the throng of faces, seeing mystery behind the dirt, his imagination painting them with nameless color.

***

Two days later Monk obediently dressed himself in suitable secondhand clothes; "translators" the informer would have called them. He wished he could remember the man's name, but for all his efibrts it remained completely beyond recall, bidden like almost everything else after the age of about seventeen. He had had glimpses of the years up to then, even including his first year or two in London, but although he lay awake, staring into the darkness, letting his mind wander, going over and over all he knew in the hope his brain would jerk into life again and continue forward, nothing more returned.

Now he and Evan were sitting in the saloon in the Purple Duck, Evan's delicate face registering both his distaste and his efforts to conceal it. Looking at him, Monk wondered how often he himself must have been here to be so unoffended by it. It must have become habit, the noise, the smell, the uninhibited closeness, things his subconscious remembered even if his mind did not.

They had to wait nearly an hour before the informer turned up, but he was grinning again, and slid into the seat beside Monk without a word.

Monk was not going to jeopardize the price by seeming too eager.

"Drink?" he offered.

"Nah, just ve guinea," the man replied. "Don' want ter draw attention to meself drinkin' wiv ve likes o' you, if yer'll pardon me. But potmen 'as sharp mem'ries an' loose tongues."

"Quite," Monk agreed. "But you'll earn the guinea before you get it."

"Aw, nah Mr. Monk." He pulled a face of deep offense. " 'Ave I ever shorted yer? Now 'ave I?"

Monk had no idea.

"Did you find my screever?" he asked instead.

"I carsn't find yer jade, nor fer sure, like."

"Did you find the screever?"

"You know Tommy, the shofulman?"

For a moment Monk felt a touch of panic. Evan was watching him, fascinated by the bargaining. Ought he to know Tommy? He knew what a shofulman was, someone who passed forged money.

"Tommy?" he blinked.

"Yeah!" the man said impatiently. "Blind Ibmmy, least 'e pretends 'e's blind. I reckon as 'e 'alf is."

"Where do I find him?" If he could avoid admitting anything, perhaps he could bluff his way through. He must not either show an ignorance of something he would be expected to know or on the other hand collect so little information as to be left helpless.

"You find 'im?" The man smiled condescendingly at the idea. "Yer'll never find 'im on yer own; wouldn't be safe anyhow. 'E's in ve rookeries, an' yer'd get a shiv in yer gizzard sure as 'ell's on fire if yer went in vere on yer tod. I'll take yer."

"Tommy taken up screeving?" Monk concealed his relief by making a general and he hoped meaningless remark.

The little man looked at him with amazement.

" "Course not! 'E can't even write 'is name, let alone a fekement fer some'un else! But 'e knows a right downy geezer wot does. Reckon 'e's the one as writ yer police papers for yer. 'E's known to do vat kind o' fing."

"Good. Now what about the jade-anything at all?"

The man twisted his rubberlike features into the expression of an affronted rodent.

"Bit 'aid, vat, guv. Know one feller wot got a piece, but 'e swears blind it were a snoozer wot brought it-an' you din't say nuffink abaht no snoozer."

"This was no hotel thief," Monk agreed. "That the only one?"

"Only one as I knows fer sure."

Monk knew the man was lying, although he could not have said how-an accumulation of impressions too subtle to be analyzed.

"I don't believe you, Jake; but you've done well with the screever." He fished in his pocket and brought out the promised gold. "And if it leads to the man I want, there'll be another for you. Now take me to Blind Tommy the shofulman."

They all stood up and wormed their way out through the crowd into the street. It was not until they were two hundred yards away that Monk realized, with a shudder of excitement he could not control, that he had called the man by name. It was coming back, more than merely his memory for his own sake, but his skill was returning. He quickened his step and found himself smiling broadly at Evan.

The rookery was monstrous, a rotting pile of tenements crammed one beside the other, piled precariously, timbers awry as the damp warped them and floors and walls were patched and repatched. It was dark even in the late summer afternoon and the humid air was clammy to the skin. It smelled of human waste and the gutters down the overhung alleys ran with filth. The squeaking and slithering of rats was a constant background. Everywhere there were people, huddled in doorways, lying on stones, sometimes six or eight together, some of them alive, some already dead from hunger or disease. Typhoid and pneumonia were endemic in such places and venereal diseases passed from one to another, as did the flies and lice.

Monk looked at a child in the gutter as he passed, perhaps five or six years old, its fece gray in the half-light, pinched sharp; it was impossible to tell whether it was male or female. Monk thought with a dull rage that bestial as it was to beat a man to death as Grey had been beaten, it was still a better murder than this child's abject death.

He noticed Evan's face, white in the gloom, eyes like holes in his head. There was nothing he could think of to say-no words that served any purpose. Instead he put out his hand and touched him briefly, an intimacy that came quite naturally in that awful place.

They followed Jake through another alley and then another, up a flight of stairs that threatened to give way beneath them with each step, and at the top at last Jake stopped, his voice hushed as if the despair had reached even him. He spoke as one does in the presence of death.

"One more lot o' steps, Mr. Monk, from 'ere, an' Blind Tommy's be'ind ver door on yer right."

"Thank you. I'll give you your guinea when I've seen him, if he can help.''

Jake's face split in a grin.

"I already got it, Mr. Monk.'' He held up a bright coin. "Fink I fergot 'ow ter do it, did yer? I used ter be a fine wirer, I did, w'en I were younger." He laughed and slipped it into his pocket. "I were taught by the best kids-man in ve business. I'll be seein' yer, Mr. Monk; yer owes me anuvver, if yer gets vem fieves."

Monk smiled in spite of himself. The man was a pickpocket, but he had been taught by one of those who make their own living by teaching children to steal for them, and taking the profits in return for the child's keep. It was an apprenticeship in survival. Perhaps his only alternative had been starvation, like the child they had passed. Only the quick-fingered, the strong and the lucky reached adulthood. Monk could not afford to indulge in judgment, and he was too torn with pity and anger to try.

"It's yours, Jack, if I get them," he promised, then started up the last flight and Evan followed. At the top he opened the door without knocking.

Blind Tommy must have been expecting him. He was a dapper little man, about five feet tall with a sharp, ugly face, and dressed in a manner he himself would have described as "flash." He was apparently no more than shortsighted because he saw Monk immediately and knew who he was.

" 'Evenin', Mr. Monk. I 'ears as yer lookin' fer a screever, a partic'lar one, like?"

"That's right, Tommy. I want one who made some fake-ments for two rampsmen who robbed a house in Mecklenburg Square. Went in pretending to be Peelers."

Tommy's face lit up with amusement.

"I like that," he admitted. "It's a smart lay, vat is."

"Providing you don't get caught."

"Wot's it worf?" Tommy's eyes narrowed.

"It's murder, Tommy. Whoever did it'll be topped, and whoever helps them stands a good chance of getting the boat."

"Oh Gawd!" Tommy's face paled visibly. "I 'an't no fancy for Horstralia. Boats don't suit me at all, vey don't. Men wasn't meant ter go orf all over like vat! In't nat'ral. An' 'orrible stories IVe 'eard about vem parts." He shivered dramatically. "Full o' savages an' creatures wot weren't never made by no Christian Gawd. Fings wif dozens 'o legs, an' fings wi' no legs at all. Ugh!" He rolled his eyes. "Right 'eathen place, it is."

"Then don't run any risk of being sent there," Monk advised without any sympathy. "Find me this screever."

"Are yer sure it's murder?" Tommy was still not entirely convinced. Monk wondered how much it was a matter of loyalties, and how much simply a weighing of one advantage against another.

"Of course I'm sure!" he said with a low, level voice. He knew the threat was implicit in it. "Murder and robbery. Silver and jade stolen. Know anything about a jade dancing lady, pink jade, about six inches high?"

Tommy was defensive, a thin, nasal quality of fear in his tone.

"Fencin's not my life, guv. Don't do none o' vat-don't yer try an'hike vat on me."

"The screever?" Monk said flatly.

"Yeah, well I'll take yer. Anyfink in it fer me?" Hope seldom died. If the fearful reality of the rookery did not kill it, Monk certainly could not.

"If it's the right man," he grunted.

Tommy took them through another labyrinth of alleys and stairways, but Monk wondered how much distance they had actually covered. He had a strong feeling it was more to lose their sense of direction than to travel above a few hundred yards. Eventually they stopped at another large door, and after a sharp knock, Blind Tommy disappeared and the door swung open in front of them.

The room inside was bright and smelled of burning.

Monk stepped in, then looked up involuntarily and saw glass skylights. He saw down the walls where there were large windows as well. Of course-light for a forger's careful pen.

The man inside turned to look at the intruders. He was squat, with powerful shoulders and large spatulate hands. His face was pale-skinned but ingrained with the dirt of years, and his colorless hair stuck to his head in thin spikes.

"Well?" he demanded irritably. When he spoke Monk saw his teeth were short and black; Monk fancied he could smell the stale odor of them, even from where he stood.

"You wrote police identification papers for two men, purporting to come from the Lye Street station." He made a statement, not a question. "I don't want you for it; I want the men. It's a case of murder, so you'd do well to stay on the right side of it."

The man leered, his thin lips stretching wide in some private amusement. "You Monk?"

"And if I am?" He was surprised the man had heard of him. Was his reputation so wide? Apparently it was.

"Your case they walked inter, was it?" The man's mirth bubbled over in a silent chuckle, shaking his mass of flesh.

"It's my case now," Monk replied. He did not want to tell the man the robbery and the murder were separate; the threat of hanging was too useful.

"Wotcher want?" the man asked. His voice was hoarse, as if from too much shouting or laughter, yet it was hard imagining him doing either.

"Who are they?" Monk pressed.

"Now Mr. Monk, 'ow should I know?" His massive shoulders were still twitching. "Do I ask people's names?"

"Probably not, but you know who they are. Don't pretend to be stupid; it doesn't suit you."

"I know some people," he conceded in little more than a whisper. " 'Course I do; but not every muck snipe 'oo tries 'is 'and at thievin'."

"Muck snipe?" Monk looked at him with derision. "Since when did you hand out fekements for nothing? You don't do favors for down-and-outs. They paid you, or someone did. If they didn't pay you themselves, tell me who did; that'll do."

The man's narrow eyes widened a fraction. "Oh clever, Mr. Monk, very clever." He clapped his broad, powerful hands together in soundless applause.

"So who paid you?"

"My business is confidential, Mr. Monk. Lose it all if I starts putting the down on people wot comes ter me. It was a moneylender, that's all I'll tell yer."

"Not much call for a screever in Australia." Monk looked at the man's subtle, sensitive fingers. "Hard labor-bad climate."

"Put me on the boat, would yer?" The man's lip curled. "Yer'd 'ave ter catch me first, and yer know as well as I do yer'd never find me." The smile on his face did not alter even a fraction. "An' yer'd be a fool ter look; 'orrible fings 'appen ter a Peeler as gets caught in ver rookeries, if ve word goes aht."

"And horrible things happen to a screever who informs on his clients-if the word goes out," Monk added immediately. "Horrible things-like broken fingers. And what use is a screever without his fingers?"

The man stared at him, suddenly hatred undisguised in his heavy eyes.

"An' w'y should the word go out, Mr. Monk, seein' as 'ow I aven't told yer nuffink?"

In the doorway Evan moved uncomfortably. Monk ignored him.

"Because I shall put it out," he replied, "that you have."

"But you ain't got no one fer yer robbery." The hoarse whisper was level again, the amusement creeping back.

"I'll find someone."

"Takes time, Mr. Monk; and 'ow are yer goin' ter do it if I don't tell yer?"

"You are leaping to conclusions, screever," Monk said ruthlessly. "It doesn't have to be the right ones; anyone will do. By the time the word gets back I have the wrong people, it'll be too late to save your fingers. Broken fingers heal hard, and they ache for years, so I'm told."

The man called him something obscene.

"Quite." Monk looked at him with disgust. "So who paid you?"

The man glared at him, hate hot in his face.

"Who paid you?" Monk leaned forward a little.

"Josiah Wigtight, moneylender," the man spat out. "Find 'im in Gun Lane, Whitechapel. Now get out!"

"Moneylender. What sort of people does he lend money to?"

"The sort o' people wot can pay 'im back, o' course, fool!"

"Thank you." Monk smiled and straightened up. "Thank you, screever; your business is secure. You have told us nothing."

The screever swore at him again, but Monk was out of the door and hurrying down the rickety stairs, Evan, anxious and doubtful, at his heel, but Monk offered him no explanation, and did not meet his questioning look.

It was too late to try the moneylender that day, and all he could think of was to get out of the rookeries in one piece before someone stabbed one of them for his clothes, poor as they were, or merely because they were strangers.

He said good-night briefly and watched Evan hesitate, then reply in his quiet voice and turn away in the darkness, an elegant figure, oddly young in the gaslight.

Back at Mrs. Worley's, he ate a hot meal, grateful for it, at once savoring each mouthful and hating it because he could not dismiss from his mind all those who would count it victory merely to have survived the day and eaten enough to sustain life.

None of it was strange to him, as it obviously had been to Evan. He must have been to such places many times before. He had behaved instinctively, altering his stance, knowing how to melt into the background, not to look like a stranger, least of all a figure of authority. The beggars, the sick, the hopeless moved him to excruciating pity, and a deep, abiding anger-but no surprise.

And his mercilessness with the screever had come without calculation, his natural reaction. He knew the rookeries and their denizens. He might even have survived in them himself.

Only afterwards, when the plate was empty, did he lean back in the chair and think of the case.

A moneylender made sense. Joscelin Grey might well have borrowed money when he lost his small possessions in the affair with Latterly, and his family would not help. Had the moneylender meant to injure him a little, to frighten repayment from him, and warn other tardy borrowers, and when Grey had fought back it had gone too far? It was possible. And Yeats's visitor had been a moneylender's ruffian. Yeats and Grimwade had both said he was a big man, lean and strong, as far as they could tell under his clothes.

What a baptism for Evan. He had said nothing about it afterwards. He had not even asked if Monk would really have arrested people he knew to be innocent and then spread the word the screever had betrayed them.

Monk flinched as he remembered what he had said; but it had simply been what instinct directed. It was a streak of ruthlessness in himself he had been unaware of; and it would have shocked him in anyone else. Was that really what he was like? Surely it was only a threat, and he would never have carried it out? Or would he? He remembered the anger that had welled up inside him at the mention of moneylenders, parasites of the desperate poor who clung to respectability, to a few precious standards. Sometimes a man's honesty was his only real possession, his only source of pride and identity in the anonymous, wretched, teeming multitude.

What had Evan thought of him? He cared; it was a miserable thought that Evan would be disillusioned, finding his methods as ugly as the crime he fought, not understanding he was using words, only words.

Or did Evan know him better than he knew himself? Evan would know his past. Perhaps in the past the words had been a warning, and reality had followed.

And what would Imogen Latterly have felt? It was a preposterous dream. The rookeries were as foreign to her as the planets in the sky. She would be sick, disgusted even to see them, let alone to have passed through them and dealt with their occupants. If she had seen him threaten the screever, standing in the filthy room, she would not permit him to enter her house again.

He sat staring up at the ceiling, full of anger and pain. It was cold comfort to him that tomorrow he would find the usurer who might have killed Joscelin Grey. He hated the world he had to deal with; he wanted to belong to the clean, gracious world where he could speak as an equal with people like the Latterlys; Charles would not patronize him, he could converse with Imogen Latterly as a friend, and quarrel with Hester without the hindrance of social inferiority. That would be a delicate pleasure. He would dearly like to put that opinionated young woman in her place.

But purely because he hated the rookeries so fiercely, he could not ignore them. He had seen them, known their squalor and their desperation, and they would not go away.

Well at least he could turn his anger to some purpose; he would find the violent, greedy man who had paid to have Joscelin Grey beaten to death. Then he could face Grey in peace in his imagination-and Runcorn would be defeated.