"Perhaps if he was homosexual?" Evan suggested it with returning distaste, and Monk knew he did not believe his own word. "He might have had a lover who would pay to keep him quiet-and if pushed too for, kill him?"
"Very nasty." Monk stared at the wet pavement. "Run-corn was right." And thought of Runcorn set his mind on a different track.
He sent Evan to question all the local tradesmen, people at the club Grey had been at the evening he was killed, anything to learn about his associates.
Evan began at the wine merchant's whose name they had found on a bill head in Grey's apartments. He was a fat man with a drooping mustache and an unctuous manner. He expressed desolation over the loss of Major Grey. What a terrible misfortune. What an ironic stroke of fete that such a fine officer should survive the war, only to be struck down by a madman in his own home. What a tragedy. He did not know what to say-and he said it at considerable length while Evan struggled to get a word in and ask some useful question.
When at last he did, the answer was what he had guessed it would be. Major Grey-the Honorable Joscelin Grey- was a most valued customer. He had excellent taste-but what else would you expect from such a gentleman? He knew French wine, and he knew German wine. He liked the best. He was provided with it from this establishment. His accounts? No, not always up to date-but paid in due course. The nobility were that way with-money-one had to learn to accommodate it. He could add nothing-but nothing at all. Was Mr. Evan interested in wine? He could recommend an excellent Bordeaux.
No, Mr. Evan, reluctantly, was not interested in wine; he was a country parson's son, well educated in the gentilities of life, but with a pocket too short to indulge in more than the necessities, and a few good clothes, which would stand him in better stead than even the best of wines. None of which he explained to the merchant.
Next he tried the local eating establishments, beginning with the chophouse and working down to the public alehouse, which also served an excellent stew with spotted dick pudding, full of currants, as Evan could attest.
"Major Grey?" the landlord said ruminatively. "Yer mean 'im as was murdered? 'Course I knowed 'im. Come in 'ere reg'lar, 'e did."
Evan did not know whether to believe him or not. It could well be true; the food was cheap and filling and the atmosphere not unpleasant to a man who had served in the army, two years of it in the battlefields of the Crimea. On the other hand it could be a boost to his business- already healthy-to say that a famous victim of murder had dined here. There was a grisly curiosity in many people which would give the place an added interest to them.
"What did he look like?" Evan asked.
" 'Ere!" The landlord looked at him suspiciously. "You on the case-or not, then? Doncher know?"
"I never met him alive," Evan replied reasonably. "It makes a lot of difference, you know.''
The landlord sucked his teeth. " 'Course it do-sorry, guv, a daft question. 'E were tall, an' not far from your build, kind o' slight-but 'e were real natty wiv it! Looked like a gennelman, even afore 'e opened 'is mouf. Yer can tell. Fair 'air, 'e 'ad; an' a smile as was summat luv'ly."
"Charming," Evan said, more as an observation than a question.
"Not 'alf," the landlord agreed.
"Popular?" Evan pursued.
"Yeah. Used ter tell a lot o' stories. People like that- passes the time."
"Generous?" Evan asked.
"Gen'rous?" The landlord's eyebrows rose. "No-not gen'rous. More like 'e took more'n 'e gave. Reckon as 'e din't 'ave that much. An' folk liked ter treat 'im-like I said, 'e were right entertainin'. Flash sometimes. Come in 'ere of an occasion an' treat everyone 'andsome- but not often, like-mebbe once a monf."
"Regularly?"
"Wotcher mean?"
"At a set time in the month?"
"Oh no-could be any time, twice a monf, or not fer two monfs."
Gambler, Evan thought to himself. "Thank you," he said aloud. "Thank you very much." And he finished the cider and placed sixpence on the table and left, going out reluctantly into the fading drizzle.
He spent the rest of the afternoon going to bootmakers, hatters, shirtmakers and tailors, from whom he learned precisely what he expected-nothing that his common sense had not already told him.
He bought a fresh eel pie from a vendor on Guilford Street outside the Foundling Hospital, then took a hansom all the way to St. James's, and got out at Boodles, where Joscelin Grey had been a member.
Here his questions had to be a lot more discreet. It was one of the foremost gentlemen's clubs in London, and servants did not gossip about members if they wished to retain their very agreeable and lucrative positions. All he acquired in an hour and a half of roundabout questions was confirmation that Major Grey was indeed a member, that he came quite regularly when he was in town, that of course, like other gentlemen, he gambled, and it was possible his debts were settled over a period of time, but most assuredly they were settled. No gentleman welshed on his debts of honor-tradesmen possibly, but never other gentlemen. Such a question did not arise.
Might Mr. Evan speak with any of Major Grey Is associates?
Unless Mr. Evan had a warrant such a thing was out of the question. Did Mr. Evan have such a warrant?
No Mr. Evan did not.
He returned little wiser, but with several thoughts running through his head.
When Evan had gone, Monk walked briskly back to the police station and went to his own room. He pulled out the records of all his old cases, and read. It gave him little cause for comfort.
If his fears for this case proved to be real-a society scandal, sexual perversion, blackmail and murder-then his own path as detective in charge lay between the perils of a very conspicuous and well-publicized failure and the even more dangerous task of probing to uncover the tragedies that had precipitated the final explosion. And a man who would beat to death a lover, turned blackmailer, to keep his secret, would hardly hesitate to ruin a mere policeman. "Nasty" was an understatement.
Had Runcorn done this on purpose? As he looked through the record of his own career, one success after another, he wondered what the price had been; who else had paid it, apart from himself? He had obviously devoted everything to work, to improving his skill, his knowledge, his manners, his dress and his speech. Looking at it as a stranger might, his ambition was painfully obvious: the long hours, the meticulous attention to detail, the flashes of sheer intuitive brilliance, the judgment of other men and their abilities-and weaknesses, always using the right man for any task, then when it was completed, choosing another. His only loyalty seemed to be the pursuit of justice. Could he have imagined it had all gone unnoticed by Runcorn, who lay in its path?
His rise from country boy from a Northumbrian fishing village to inspector in the Metropolitan Police had been little short of meteoric. In twelve years he had achieved more than most men in twenty. He was treading hard on Runcorn's heels; at this present rate of progress he could shortly hope for another promotion, to Runcorn's place- or better.
Perhaps it all depended on the Grey case?
He could not have risen so far, and so fast, without treading on a good many people as he passed. There was a growing fear in him that he might not even have cared. He had read through the cases, very briefly. He had made a god of truth, and-where the law was equivocal, or silent-of what he had believed to be justice. But if there was anything of compassion and genuine feeling for the victims, he had so far failed to find it. His anger was impersonaclass="underline" against the forces of society that produced poverty and bred helplessness and crime; against the monstrosity of the rookery slums, the sweatshops, extortion, violence, prostitution and infant mortality.
He admired the man he saw reflected in the records, admired his skill and his brain, his energy and tenacity, even his courage; but he could not like him. There was no warmth, no vulnerability, nothing of human hopes or fears, none of the idiosyncracies that betray the dreams of the heart. The nearest he saw to passion was the ruthlessness with which he pursued injustice; but from the bare written words, it seemed to him that it was the wrong itself he hated, and the wronged were not people but the byproducts of the crime.