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

account was clinical in the extreme, discussing the corpse as if
Joscelin Grey were a species rather than an individual, a human being full of
passions and cares, hopes and humors who had been suddenly and violently cut
off from life, and who must have experienced terror and extreme pain in the
few minutes that were being examined so unemotionally.
    The body had been looked at a little after nine thirty a.m. It was that
of a man in his early thirties, of slender build but well nourished, and not
apparently suffering from any illness or disability apart from a fairly recent
wound in the upper part of the right leg, which might have caused him to limp.
The doctor judged it to be a shallow wound, such as he had seen in many
ex-soldiers, and to be five or six months old. The body had been dead between
eight and twelve hours; he could not be more precise than that.
    The cause of death was obvious for anyone to see: a succession of
violent and powerful blows about the head and shoulders with some long, thin
instrument. A heavy cane or stick seemed the most likely.
    Monk put down the report, sobered by the details of death. The bare
language, shorn of all emotion, perversely brought the very feeling of it
closer. His imagination saw it sharply, even smelled it, conjuring up the sour
odor and the buzz of flies. Had he dealt with many murders? He could hardly
ask.
    "Very unpleasant," he said without looking up at Evan.
    "Very," Evan agreed, nodding. "Newspapers made rather a
lot of it at the time. Been going on at us for not having found the murderer.
Apart from the fact that it's made a lot of people nervous, Mecklenburg Square
is a pretty good area, and if one isn't safe there, where is one safe? Added to
that, Joscelin Grey was a well-liked, pretty harmless young ex-officer, and of
extremely good family.
    He served in the Crimea and was invalided out. He had rather a good record,
saw the Charge of the Light Brigade, badly wounded at Sebastopol." Evan's
face pinched a little with a mixture of embarrassment and perhaps pity. “A lot
of people feel his country has let him down, so to speak, first by allowing
this to happen to him, and then by not even catching the man who did it."
He looked across at Monk, apologizing for the injustice, and because he
understood it. "I know that's unfair, but a spot of crusading sells
newspapers; always helps to have a cause, you know! And of course the running
patterers have composed a lot of songs about it—returning hero and all
that!"
    Monk's mouth turned down at the corners.
    "Have they been hitting hard?"
    "Rather," Evan admitted with a little shrug. "And we
haven't a blind thing to go on. WeVe been over and over every bit of evidence
there is, and there's simply nothing to connect him to anyone. Any ruffian
could have come in from the street if he dodged the porter. Nobody saw or heard
anything useful, and we are right where we started." He got up gloomily
and came over to the table.
    "I suppose you'd better see the physical evidence, not that there
is much. And then I daresay you'd like to see the flat, at least get a feeling
for the scene?"
    Monk stood up also.
    "Yes I would. You never know, something might suggest
itself." Although he could imagine nothing. If Lamb had not succeeded, and
this keen, delicate young junior, what was he going to find? He felt failure
begin to circle around him, dark and enclosing. Had Runcorn given him this
knowing he would fail? Was it a discreet and efficient way of getting rid of
him without being seen to be callous? How did he even know for sure that
Runcorn was not an old enemy? Had he done him some wrong long ago? The
possibility was cold and real. The shadowy outline of himself that had
appeared so far was devoid of any quick acts of compassion, any sudden
gentlenesses or warmth to seize hold of and to like. He was discovering himself
as a
    stranger might, and what he saw so far did not excite his