Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

marched into the foyer. The porter was standing by a small office doorway, no more than a cubbyhole.
    "Yes sir?" He moved forward courteously, but at the same time blocking their further progress.
    "Grimwade?" Monk asked him.
    "Yes sir?" The man was obviously surprised and embarrassed. "I'm sorry, sir, I can't say as I remember you. I'm not usually bad about faces—" He let it hang, hoping Monk would help him. He glanced across at Evan, and a flicker of memory lit in his face.
    "Police," Monk said simply. "We'd like to take another look at Major Grey's flat. You have the key?"
    The man's relief was very mixed.
    "Oh yes, sir, and we ain't let nobody in. Lock's still as Mr. Lamb left it."
    "Good, thank you." Monk had been preparing to show some proof of his identity, but the porter was apparently quite satisfied with his recognition of Evan, and turned back to his cubbyhole to fetch the key.
    He came with it a moment later and led them upstairs with the solemnity due the presence of the dead, especially those who had died violently. Monk had the momentarily unpleasant impression that they would find Joscelin Grey's corpse still lying there, untouched and waiting for them.
    It was ridiculous, and he shook it off fiercely. It was beginning to assume the repetitive quality of a nightmare, as if events could happen more than once.
    "Here we are, sir." Evan was standing at the door, the porter's key in his hand. "There's a back door as well, of course, from the kitchen, but it opens onto the same landing, about twelve yards along, for services, errands, and the like."
    Monk recalled his attention.
    "But one would still have to pass the porter at the gate?"
    "Oh yes, sir. I suppose there's not much point in having a porter if there's a way in without passing him. Then any beggar or peddler could bother you." He pulled an extraordinary face as he pondered the habits of his betters. "Or creditors!" he added lugubriously.
    "Quite." Monk was sardonic.
    Evan turned and put the key in the lock. He seemed reluctant, as if a memory of the violence he had seen there still clung to the place, repelling him. Or was Monk projecting his own fancies onto someone else?
    The hallway inside was exactly as Evan had described it: neat, blue Georgian with white paint and trims, very clean and elegant. He saw the hat stand with its place for sticks and umbrellas, the table for calling cards and so forth. Evan was ahead of him, his back stiff, opening the door to the main room.
    Monk walked in behind him. He was not sure what he was expecting to see; his body was tight also, as if waiting for an attack, for something startling and ugly on the senses.
    The decoration was elegant, and had originally been expensive, but in the flat light, without gas or fire, it looked bleak and commonplace enough. The Wedgwood-blue walls seemed at a glance immaculate, the white trims without scar, but there was a fine rime of dust over the polished wood of the chiffonier and the desk and a film dulling colors of the carpet. His eyes traveled automatically to the window first, then around the other furniture— ornate side table with piecrust edges, a jardiniere with a Japanese bowl on it, a mahogany bookcase—till he came to the overturned heavy chair, the broken table, companion to the other, the pale inner wood a sharp scar against its mellowed satin skin. It looked like an animal with legs in the air.
    Then he saw the bloodstain on the floor. There was not a lot of it, not widespread at all, but very dark, almost black. Grey must have bled a lot in that one place. He looked away from it, and noticed then that much of what seemed pattern on the carpet was probably lighter, spattered blood. On the far wall there was a picture crooked, and when he walked over to it and looked more carefully, he saw a bruise in the plaster, and the paint was faintly scarred. It was a bad watercolor of the Bay of Naples, all harsh blues with a conical Mount Vesuvius in the background.
    "It must have been a considerable fight," he said quietly.
    "Yes sir," Evan agreed. He was standing in the middle of the floor, not sure what to do. "There were several bruises on the body, arms and shoulders, and one knuckle was skinned. I should say he put up a good fight."
    Monk looked at him, frowning.
    "I don't remember that in the medical report."
    "I think it just said 'evidences of a struggle’, sir. But that's pretty obvious from the room here, anyway." His eyes glanced around at it as he