The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online

frowning at the memory, and his skin was pale.
"The other rooms hadn't been touched." He moved his hands in a
gesture of negation. "It was quite a while before we could get Mrs.
Huggins into a sane state of mind, and then persuade her to look at the kitchen
and bedroom; but eventually she did, and said they were just as she had left
them the previous day."
    Monk breathed in deeply, thinking. He must say something intelligent,
not some fatuous comment on the obvious. Evan was watching him, waiting. He
found himself self-conscious.
    "So it would appear he had a visitor some time in the evening,"
he said more tentatively than he had wished. "Who quarreled with him, or
else simply attacked him. There was a violent light, and Grey lost."
    "More or less," Evan agreed, straightening up again. "At
least we don't have anything else to go on. We don't even know if it was a
stranger, or someone he knew."
    "No sign of a forced entry?"
    "No sir. Anyway, no burglar is likely to force an entry into a
house when all the lights are still on."
    "No." Monk cursed himself for an idiotic question. Was he
always such a fool? There was no surprise in Evan's face. Good manners? Or fear
of angering a superior not noted for tolerance? "No, of course not,"
he said aloud. "I suppose he wouldn't have been surprised by Grey, and
then lit the lights to fool us?"
    "Unlikely sir. If he were that coolheaded, he surely would have
taken some of the valuables? At least the money in Grey's wallet, which would
be untraceable."
    Monk had no answer for that. He sighed and sat down behind the desk. He
did not bother to invite Evan to sit also. He read the rest of the porter's
statement.
    Lamb had asked exhaustively about all visitors the previous evening, if
there had been any errand boys, messengers, even a stray animal. Grimwade was
affronted at the very suggestion. Certainly not: errand boys were always
escorted to the appropriate place, or if possible their errands taken over by
Grimwade himself. No stray animal had ever tainted the buildings with its
presence—dirty things, stray animals, and apt to soil the place. What did the
police think he was—were they trying to insult him?
    Monk wondered what Lamb had replied. He would certainly have had a
pointed answer to the man on the relative merits of stray animals and stray
humans! A couple of acid retorts rose to his mind even now.
    Grimwade swore there had been two visitors and only two. He was
perfectly sure no others had passed his window. The first was a lady, at about
eight o'clock, and he would sooner not say upon whom she called; a question of
private affairs must be treated with discretion, but she had not visited Mr.
Grey, of that he was perfectly certain. Anyway, she was a very slight creature,
and could not possibly have inflicted die injuries suffered by the dead man.
The second visitor was a man who called upon a Mr. Yeats, a longtime resident,
and Grimwade had escorted him as far as the appropriate landing himself and
seen him received.
    Whoever had murdered Grey had obviously either used one of the other
visitors as a decoy or else had already been in the building in some guise in
which he had so far been overlooked. So much was logic.
    Monk put the paper down. They would have to question Grimwade more
closely, explore even the minutest possibilities; there might be something.
    Evan sat down on the window ledge.
    Mrs. Huggins's statement was exacdy as Evan had said, if a good deal
more verbose. Monk read it only because he wanted time to think.
    Afterwards he picked up the last one, the medical report. It was the
one he found most unpleasant, but maybe also the most necessary. It was written
in a small, precise hand, very round. It made him imagine a small doctor
    with round spectacles and very clean ringers. It did not occur to him
until afterwards to wonder if he had ever known such a person, and if it was
the first wisp of memory returning.
    The