Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

over, dismissed forever.
    He stared at Charles's smooth face. He looked irritable, but totally unconscious of any guilt. Monk tried frantically to think of an oblique way to ask him. His brain was like glue, heavy and congealing. Why in God's name did Charles have to be Imogen's husband?
    Was there another way? If only he could remember what he knew of them. Was this fear unreasonable, the result of an imagination free of the sanity of memory? Or was it memory slowly returning, hi bits and pieces, that woke that very fear?
    The stick in Joscelin Grey's hall stand. The image of it was so clear in his head. If only he could enlarge it, see the hand and the arm, the man who held it. That was the knowledge that lay like a sickness in his stomach; he knew the owner of the stick, and he knew with certainty that Lovel Grey was a complete stranger to him. When he had been to Shelbume not one member of the household had greeted him with the slightest flicker of recognition. And why should they pretend? In fact to do so would in itself have been suspicious, since they had no idea he had lost his memory. Lovel Grey could not be the owner of that stick with the brass chain embossed around the top.
    But it could be Charles Latterly.
    "Have you ever been to Major Grey's flat, Mr. Latterly?" The question was out before he realized it. It was like a die cast, and he did not now want to know the answer. Once begun, he would have to pursue it; even if only for himself he would have to know, always hoping he was wrong, seeking the one more fact to prove himself so.
    Charles looked slightly surprised.
    "No. Why? Surely you have been there yourself? I cannot tell you anything about it!"
    "You have never been there?"
    "No, I have told you so. I had no occasion."
    "Nor, I take it, have any of your family?" He did not look at either of the women. He knew the question would be regarded as indelicate, if not outrightly impertinent.
    "Of course not!" Charles controlled his temper with some difficulty. He seemed about to add something when Imogen interrupted.
    "Would you care for us to account for our whereabouts on the day Joscelin was killed, Mr. Monk?"
    He looked carefully, but he could see no sarcasm in her. She regarded him with deep, steady eyes.
    "Don't be ridiculous!" Charles snapped with mounting fury. "If you cannot treat this matter with proper seriousness, Imogen, then you had better leave us and return to your room."
    "I am being perfectly serious," she replied, turning away from Monk. “If it was one of Joscelin's friends who killed him, then there is no reason why we should not be
    suspected. Surely, Charles, it would be better to clear ourselves by the simple fact of having been elsewhere at the time than it would be to have Mr. Monk satisfy himself we had no reason to, by investigating our affairs?"
    Charles paled visibly and looked at Imogen as if she were some venomous creature that had come out of the carpeting and bitten him. Monk felt the tightness in his stomach grip harder.
    "I was at dinner with friends," Charles said thinly.
    Considering he had just supplied what seemed to be an alibi, he looked peculiarly wretched. Monk could not avoid it; he had to press. He stared at Charles's pale face.
    "Where was that, sir?"
    "Doughty Street."
    Imogen looked at Monk blandly, innocently, but Hester had turned away.
    "What number, sir?"
    "Can that matter, Mr. Monk?" Imogen asked innocently.
    Hester's head came up, waiting.
    Monk found himself explaining to her, guilt surprising him.
    "Doughty Street leads into Mecklenburg Square, Mrs. Latterly. It is no more than a two- or three-minute walk from one to the other."
    "Oh." Her voice was small and flat. She turned slowly to her husband.
    "Twenty-two," he said, teeth clenched. "But I was there all evening, and I had no idea Grey lived anywhere near."
    Again Monk spoke before he permitted himself to think, or he would have hesitated.
    "I find that hard to believe, sir, since you wrote to him at that address. We found your letter among his effects."
    "God damn it—I—" Charles stopped, frozen.
    Monk waited. The silence was so intense he imagined he could hear horses' hooves in the next street. He did not look at either of the women.
    "I mean—" Charles began, and again stopped.
    Monk found himself unable to avoid it any longer. He was embarrassed for them, and desperately sorry. He looked at Imogen, wanting her to know that, even if it meant nothing to her at all.
    She was standing