The Face of a Stranger

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.