Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

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