then seeing something in Monk, a vulnerability, perhaps a memory or a dream, and understanding its depth in a flash: 'Ah yes, Imogen.' He sighed. 'Got to know her very well.' His smile was half a leer. 'Love the way she walks, all eager, full of promise, and hope.' He had looked at Monk and the slow smile spread to his eyes till the light in them was as old as appetite and knowledge itself. He had tittered slightly. 'I do believe you're taken with Imogen yourself.
'You clod, she'd no more touch you than carry out her own refuse.
'She's in love with Florence Nightingale and the glory of the Crimea!' His eyes met Monk's, glittering bright. 'I could have had her any time, all eager and quivering.' His lip curled and he had almost laughed as he looked at Monk. 'I'm a soldier; IVe seen reality, blood and passion, fought for Queen and country. I've seen the Charge of the Light Brigade, lain in hospital at Scutari among the dying. What do you imagine she thinks of grubby little London policemen who spend their time sniffing about in human filth after the beggars and the degenerate? You're a scavenger, a cleaner up of other people's dirt-one of life's necessities, like the drains.' He took a long gulp of his brandy and looked at Monk over the top of the glass.
'Perhaps when they've got over that old idiot getting hysterical and shooting himself, I shall go back and do just that. Can't remember when I've fancied a woman more.'
It had been then, with that leer on his mouth, that Monk had taken his own glass and thrown the brandy across Grey's face. He could remember the blinding anger as if it were a dream he had only just woken from. He could still taste die heat and the gall of it on his tongue.
The liquid had hit Grey in his open eyes and bumed him, seared his pride beyond bearing. He was a gentleman, one already robbed by birth of fortune, and now this oaf of a policeman, jumped above himself, had insulted him in his own house. His features had altered into a snarl of fury and he had picked up his own heavy stick and struck Monk across the shoulders with it. He had aimed at his head, but Monk had almost felt it before it came, and moved.
They had closed in a struggle. It should have been self-defense, but it was far more than that. Monk had been glad of it-he had wanted to smash that leering face, beat it in, undo all that he had said, wipe from him the thoughts he had had of Imogen, expunge some of the wrong to her family. But above all towering in his head and burning in his soul, he wanted to beat him so hard he would never feed on the gullible and the bereaved again, telling them lies of invented debt and robbing the dead of the only heritage they had left, the truth of memory in those who had loved them.
Grey had fought back; for a man invalided out of the army he had been surprisingly strong. They had been locked together struggling for the stick, crashing into furniture, upsetting chairs. The very violence of it was a catharsis, and all the pent-up fear, the nightmare of rage and the agonizing pity poured forth and he barely felt the pain of blows, even the breaking of his ribs when Grey caught him a tremendous crack on the chest with his stick.
But Monk's weight and strength told, and perhaps his rage was even stronger than Grey's fear and all his held- in anger of years of being slighted and passed over.
Monk could remember quite clearly now the moment when he had wrested the heavy stick out of Grey's hands and struck at him with it, trying to destroy the hideous-ness, the blasphemy he saw, the obscenity the law was helpless to curb.
Then he had stopped, breathless and terrified by his own violence and the storm of his hatred. Grey was splayed out on the floor, swearing like a trooper.
Monk had turned and gone out, leaving the door swinging behind him, blundering down the stairs, turning his coat collar up and pulling his scarf up to hide the abrasion on his face where Grey had hit him. He had passed Grim-wade in the hall. He remembered a bell ringing and Grim-wade leaving his position and starting upstairs.
Outside the weather was fearful. As soon as he had opened the door the wind had blown it against him so hard it had knocked him backwards. He had put his head down and plunged out, the rain engulfing him, beating in his face cold and hard. He had his back to the light, going into the darkness between one lamp and the next.
There was a man coming towards him, towards the light and the door still open in the wind-for a moment he saw his face before he turned and went in. It was Menard Grey.
Now it all made obvious and tragic sense-it was not George Latterly's death, or the abuse of it, which had spurred Joscelin Grey's murder, it was Edward Daw-lish's-and Joscelin's own betrayal of every ideal his brother believed.
And then the joy vanished just as suddenly as it had come, the relief evaporated, leaving him shivering cold. How could he prove it? It was his word against Menard's. Grimwade had been up the stairs answering the bell, and seen nothing. Menard had gone in the door Monk had left open in the gale. There was nothing material, no evidence-only Monk's memory of Menard's face for a moment in the gaslight.
They would hang him. He could imagine the trial now, himself standing in the dock, the ridiculousness of trying to explain what manner of man Joscelin Grey had been, and that it was not Monk, but Joscelin's own brother Menard who had killed him. He could see the disbelief in their faces, and the contempt for a man who would try to escape justice by making such a charge.
Despair closed around him like the blackness of the night, eating away strength, crushing with the sheer weight of it. And he began to be afraid. There would be the few short weeks in the stone cell, the stolid warders, at once pitying and contemptuous, then the last meal, the priest, and the short walk to the scaffold, the smell of rope, the pain, the fighting for breath-and oblivion.
He was still drowned and paralyzed by it when he heard the sound on the stairs. The latch turned and Evan stood in the doorway. It was the Worst moment of all. There was no point in lying, Evan's face was full of knowledge, and pain. And anyway, he did not want to.
'How did you know?' Monk said quietly.
Evan came in and closed the door. 'You sent me after Dawlish. I found an officer who'd served with Edward Dawlish. He didn't gamble, and Joscelin Grey never paid any debts for him. Everything he knew about him he learned from Menard. He took a hell of a chance lying to the family like that-but it worked. They'd have backed him financially, if he hadn't died. They blamed Menard for Edward's fall from honor, and forbade him in the house. A nice touch on Joscelin's part.'
Monk stared at him. It made perfect sense. And yet it would never even raise a reasonable doubt in a juror's mind.
'I think that is where Grey's money came from-cheating the families of the dead,' Evan continued. 'You were so concerned about the Latterly case, it wasn't a great leap of the imagination to assume he cheated them too-and that is why Charles Latterly's father shot himself.' His eyes were soft and intense with distress. 'Did you come this far the first time too-before the accident?'
So he knew about the memory also. Perhaps it was all far more obvious than he believed; the fumbling for words, the unfamiliarity with streets, public houses, old haunts-even Runcorn's hatred of him. It did not matter anymore.
'Yes.' Monk spoke very slowly, as if letting the words fall one by one would make them believable. 'But I did not kill Joscelin Grey. I fought with him, I probably hurt him-he certainly hurt me-but he was alive and swearing at me when I left.' He searched Evan's countenance feature by feature. 'I saw Menard Grey go in as I turned in the street. He was facing the light and I was going away from it. The outer door was still open in the wind.'
A desperate, painful relief flooded Evan's face, and he looked bony and young, and very tired. 'So it was Menard who killed him.' It was a statement.
'Yes.' A blossom of gratitude opened wide inside Monk, filling him with sweetness. Even without hope, it was to be treasured immeasurably. 'But there is no proof.'
'But-' Evan began to argue, then the words died on his lips as he realized the truth of it. In all their searches they had found nothing. Menard had motive, but so had Charles Latterly, or Mr. Dawlish, or any other family Jos- celin had cheated, any friend he had dishonored-or Lovel Grey, whom he might have betrayed in the crudest way of all-or Monk himself. And Monk had been there. Now that they knew it, they also knew how easily provable it was, simply find the shop where he had bought that highly distinctive stick-such a piece of vanity. Mrs. Worley would remember it, and its subsequent absence. Lamb would recall seeing it in Grey's flat the moming after the murder. Imogen Latterly would have to admit Monk had been working on the case of her father's death.
The darkness was growing closer, tighter around them, the light guttering.
'We'll have to get Menard to confess,' Evan said at last.
