Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

had not yet found another to replace her, at least not one whose family considered him a suitable match. He was, after all, invalided out of the army, without a mer-chandisable skill and without financial expectations.
    Evan had acquired a rapid education in the manners and morals of his financial betters, and now was feeling both bemused and disillusioned. He sat in the train staring out of the window, and Monk regarded him with a compassion not unmixed with humor. He knew the feeling, although he could not recall experiencing it himself. Was it possible he had never been so young? It was an unpleasant thought that he might always have been cynical, without that particular kind of innocence, even as a child.
    Discovering himself step by step, as one might a stranger, was stretching his nerves further than he had been aware of until now. Sometimes he woke in the night, afraid of knowledge, feeling himself full of unknown shames and disappointments. The shapelessness of his doubt was worse than certainty would have been; even certainty of arrogance, indifference, or of having overridden justice for the sake of ambition.
    But the more he pulled and struggled with it, the more stubbornly it resisted; it would come only thread by thread, without cohesion, a fragment at a time. Where had he learned his careful, precise diction? Who had taught him to move and to dress like a gentleman, to be so easy in his manners? Had he merely aped his betters over the years? Something very vague stirred in his mind, a feeling rather than a thought, that there had been someone he admired, someone who had taken time and trouble, a mentor—but no voice, nothing but an impression of working, practicing—and an ideal.
    The people from whom they learned more about Joscelin Grey were the Dawlishes. Their house was in Primrose Hill, not far from the Zoological Gardens, and Monk and Evan went to visit them the day after returning from Shel-burne. They were admitted by a butler too well trained to show surprise, even at the sight of policemen on the front doorstep. Mrs. Dawlish received them in the morning room. She was a small, mild-featured woman with faded hazel eyes and brown hair which escaped its pins.
    "Mr. Monk?" She queried his name because it obviously meant nothing to her.
    Monk bowed very slightly.
    "Yes ma'am; and Mr. Evan. If Mr. Evan might have your permission to speak to the servants and see if they can be of assistance?"
    "I think it unlikely, Mr. Monk." The idea was obviously futile in her estimation. "But as long as he does not distract them from their duties, of course he may."
    "Thank you, ma'am." Evan departed with alacrity, leaving Monk still standing.
    "About poor Joscelin Grey?" Mrs. Dawlish was puzzled and a little nervous, but apparently not unwilling to help. "What can we tell you? It was a most terrible tragedy. We had not known him very long, you know."
    "How long, Mrs. Dawlish?"
    "About five weeks before he ... died." She sat down and he was glad to follow suit. "I believe it cannot have been more."
    "But you invited him to stay with you? Do you often do that, on such short acquaintance?"
    She shook her head, another strand of hair came undone and she ignored it.
    "No, no hardly ever. But of course he was Menard Grey's brother—" Her face was suddenly hurt, as if something had betrayed her inexplicably and without warning, wounding where she had believed herself safe. "And Jos-celin was so charming, so very natural," she went on. "And of course he also knew Edward, my eldest son, who was killed at Inkermann."
    "I'm sorry."
    Her face was very stiff, and for a moment he was afraid she would not be able to control herself. He spoke to cover the silence and her embarrassment.
    "You said 'also.' Did Menard Grey know your son?"
    "Oh yes," she said quietly. "They were close friends— for years." Her eyes filled with tears. "Since school."
    "So you invited Joscelin Grey to Stay with you?" He did not wait for her to reply; she was beyond speech. "That's very natural." Then quite a new idea occurred to him with sudden, violent hope. Perhaps the murder was nothing to do with any current scandal, but a legacy from the war, something that had happened on the battlefield? It was possible. He should have thought of it before—they all should.
    "Yes," she said very quietly, mastering herself again. "If he knew Edward in the war, we wanted to talk with him, listen to him. You see—here at home, we know so little of what really