Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger

different," he answered hesitantly, still putting the anxiety into his manner. He sat down on the chair opposite the desk. "I can't remember any other like it. One cannot make comparison."
    "Murder is murder." Runcorn shook his head a trifle pompously. "Justice does not differentiate; and let me be frank, neither does the public—in fact if anything, they care more about this. It has all the elements the public likes, all the journalists need to whip up passions and make people frightened—and indignant."
    Monk decided to split hairs.
    "Not really," he demurred. "There is no love story, and the public likes romance above all things. There is no woman."
    "No love story?" Runcorn's eyebrows went up.
    "I never suspected you of cowardice, Monk; and never, ever of stupidity!" His face twitched with an impossible blend of satisfaction and affected concern. "Are you sure you are quite well?" He leaned forward over the desk again to reinforce the effect. "You don't get headaches, by any chance, do you? It was a very severe blow you received, you know. In fact, I daresay you don't recall it now, but when I first saw you in the hospital you didn't even recognize me."
    Monk refused to acknowledge the appalling thought that had come to the edge of his mind.
    "Romance?" he asked blankly, as if he had heard nothing after that.
    "Joscelin Grey and his sister-in-law!" Runcorn was watching him closely, pretending to be hazy, his eyes a little veiled, but Monk saw the sharp pinpoints under his heavy lids.
    "Does the public know of that?" Monk equally easily pretended innocence. "I have not had time to look at newspapers." He pushed out his lip in doubt. "Do you think it was wise to tell them? Lord Shelburne will hardly be pleased!"
    The skin across Runcorn's face tightened.
    "No of course I didn't tell them yet!" He barely controlled his voice. "But it can only be a matter of time. You cannot put it off forever." There was a hard gleam in his face, almost an appetite. "You have most assuredly changed, Monk. You used to be such a fighter. It is almost as if you were a different person, a stranger to yourself. Have you forgotten how you used to be?"
    For a moment Monk was unable to answer, unable to do anything but absorb the shock. He should have guessed it. He had been overconfident, stupidly blind to the obvious. Of course Runcorn knew he had lost his memory. If he had not known from the beginning, then he had surely guessed it in Monk's careful maneuvering, his unaware-ness of their relationship. Runcorn was a professional; he spent his life telling truth from lies, divining motives, uncovering the hidden. What an arrogant fool Monk must have been to imagine he had deceived him. His own stupidity made him flush hot at the embarrassment of it.
    Runcorn was watching him, seeing the tide of color in his face. He must control it, find a shield; or better, a weapon. He straightened his body a little more and met Runcorn's eyes.
    "A stranger to you perhaps, sir, but not to myself. But then we are few of us as plain as we seem to others. I think I am only less rash than you supposed. And it is as well." He savored the moment, although it had not the sweetness he had expected.
    He looked at Runcorn's face squarely. "I came to tell you that Joscelin Grey's flat has been robbed, at least it has been thoroughly searched, even ransacked, by two men posing as police. They seemed to have had quite competently forged papers which they showed to the porter."
    Runcorn's face was stiff and there was a mottle of red on his skin. Monk could not resist adding to it.
    "Puts a different light on it, doesn't it?" he went on cheerfully, pretending they were both pleased. "I don't see Lord Shelburne hiring an accomplice and posing as a Peeler to search his brother's flat."
    A few seconds had given Runcorn time to think.
    "Then he must have hired a couple of men. Simple enough!"
    But Monk was ready. “If it was something worth such a terrible risk," he countered, "why didn't they get it before? It must have been there two months by now.''
    "What terrible risk?" Runcorn's voice dropped a little in mockery of the idea. "They passed it off beautifully. And it would have been easy enough to do: just watch the building a little while to make sure the real police were not there, then go in with their false papers, get what they went for, and leave. I daresay they had a crow out in the street."
    "I wasn't referring to the risk of their being caught in the act,"