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There was no use looking among his files again; he had already done that almost page by page. Instead he went directly to Runcorn.
"Morning, Monk." Runcorn was not at his desk but over by the window, and he sounded positively cheerful; his rather sallow face was touched with color as if he had walked briskly in the sun, and his eyes were bright. "How's the Grey case coming along? Got something to tell the newspapers yet? They're still pressing, you know.'' He sniffed faintly and reached in his pocket for a cigar. "They'll be calling for our blood soon; resignations, and that sort of thing!"
Monk could see his satisfaction in the way he stood, shoulders a little high, chin up, the shine on his shoes gleaming in the light.
"Yes sir, I imagine they will," he conceded. "But as you said over a week ago, it's one of those investigations that is bound to rake up something extremely unpleasant, possibly several things. It would be very rash to say anything before we can prove it."
"Have you got anything at all, Monk?" Runcorn's face hardened, but his sense of anticipation was still there, his scent of blood. "Or are you as lost as Lamb was?"
"It looks at the moment as if it could be in the family, sir," Monk replied as levelly as he could. He had a sickening awareness that Runcorn was controlling this, and enjoying it. "There was considerable feeling between the brothers," he went on. "The present Lady Shelburne was courted by Joscelin before she married Lord Shelburne—"
"Hardly a reason to murder him," Runcorn said with contempt. “Would only make sense if it had been Shelburne who was murdered. Doesn't sound as if you have anything there!"
Monk kept his temper. He felt Runcorn trying to irritate him, provoke him into betraying all the pent-up past that lay between them; victory would be sweeter if it were acknowledged, and could be savored in the other's presence. Monk wondered how he could have been so insensitive, so stupid as not to have known it before. Why had he not forestalled it, even avoided it altogether? How had he been so blind then when now it was so glaring? Was it really no more than that he was rediscovering himself, fact by fact, from the outside?
"Not that in itself." He went back to the question, keeping his voice light and calm. "But I think the lady still preferred Joscelin, and her one child, conceived just before Joscelin went to the Crimea, looks a good deal more like him than like his lordship."
Runcorn's face fell, then slowly widened again in a smile, showing all his teeth; the cigar was still unlit in his hand.
"Indeed. Yes. Well, I warned you it would be nasty, didn't I? You'll have to be careful, Monk; make any allegations you can't prove, and the Shelburnes will have you dismissed before you've time to get back to London."
Which is just what you want, Monk thought.
"Precisely sir," he said aloud. "That is why as far as the newspapers are concerned, we are still in the dark. I came because I wanted to ask you about the Latterly case—"
"Latterly! What the hell does that matter? Some poor devil committed suicide." He walked around and sat down
at his desk and began fishing for matches. "It's a crime for the church, not for us. Have you got any matches, Monk? We wouldn't have taken any notice of it at all if that wretched woman hadn't raised it. Ah—don't bother, here they are. Let them bury their own dead quietly, no fuss." He struck a light and held it to his cigar, puffing gently. "Man got in over his head with a business deal that went sour. All his friends invested in it on his recommendation, and he couldn't take the shame of it. Took that way out; some say coward's way, some say it's the honorable way." He blew out smoke and stared up at Monk. "Damn silly, I call it. But that class is very jealous of what it thinks is its good name. Some of them will keep servants they can't afford for the sake of appearance, serve six-course meals to guests, and live on bread and dripping the rest of the time. Light a fire when there's company, and perish with cold the rest of the time. Pride is a wicked master, most especially social pride." His eyes flickered with malicious pleasure. "Remember that, Monk."
He looked down at the papers in front of him. "Why on earth are you bothering with Latterly? Get on with Grey; we need to solve it, however painful it may prove. The public won't wait much longer; they're even asking questions in the House of Lords. Did you know that?"
"No sir, but considering how Lady Shelburne feels, I'm not surprised. Do you have a file on the Latterly case, sir?"
"You are a stubborn man, Monk. It's a very dubious quality. I've got your written report that it was a suicide, and nothing to concern us. You don't want that again, do you?"
"Yes sir, I do." Monk took it without looking at it and walked out.
* * * * *
He had to visit the Latterlys' house in the evening, in his own time, since he was not officially working on any case that involved them. He must have been here before; he could not have met with Mrs. Latterly casually, nor expected her to report to the police station. He looked up and down the street, but there was nothing familiar in it.
The only streets he could remember were the cold cobbles of Northumberland, small houses whipped clean by the wind, gray seas and the harbor below and the high moors rising to the sky. He could remember vaguely, once, a visit to Newcastle in the train, the enormous furnaces towering over the rooftops, the plumes of smoke, the excitement running through him in their immense, thrumming power, the knowledge of coal-fired blast furnaces inside; steel hammered and beaten into engines to draw trains over the mountains and plains of the whole Empire. He could still capture just an echo of the thrill that had been high in his throat then, tingling his arms and legs, the awe, the beginning of adventure. He must have been very young.
It had been quite different when he had first come to London. He had been so much older, more than the ten or so years the calendar had turned. His mother was dead; Beth was with an aunt. His father had been lost at sea when Beth was still in arms. Coming to London had been the beginning of something new, and the end of all that belonged to childhood. Beth had seen him off at the station, crying, screwing up her pinafore in her hand, refusing to be comforted. She could not have been more than nine, and he about fifteen. But he could read and write, and the world was his for the labor.
But that was a long time ago. He was well over thirty now, probably over thirty-five. What had he done in more than twenty years? Why had he not returned? That was something else he had yet to learn. His police record was there in his office, and in Runcorn's hate. What about himself, his personal life? Or had he no one, was he only a public man?
And what before the police? His files here went back only twelve years, so there must have been more than eight years before that. Had he spent them all learning, climbing, improving himself with his faceless mentor, his eyes
always on the goal? He was appalled at his own ambition, and the strength of his will. It was a little frightening, such single-mindedness.
He was at the Latterlys' door, ridiculously nervous. Would she be in? He had thought about her so often; he realized only now and with a sense of having been foolish, vulnerable, that she had probably not thought of him at all. He might even have to explain who he was. He would seem clumsy, gauche, when he said he had no further news.
He hesitated, unsure whether to knock at all, or to leave, and come again when he had a better excuse. A maid came out into the areaway below him, and in order not to appear a loiterer, he raised his hand and knocked.
/> The parlor maid came almost immediately. Her eyebrows rose in the very slightest of surprise.
"Good evening, Mr. Monk; will you come in, sir?" It was sufficiently courteous not to be in obvious haste to get him off the doorstep. "The family have dined and are in the withdrawing room, sir. Do you wish me to ask if they will receive you? "
