Read Wiliam Monk 01 - The Face of a Stranger for Free Online Page A

We wondered if he might have pawned it too; but we didn't find a ticket, and we tried the local pawnshops."
    "Nothing?"
    Evan shook his head. "Nothing at all, sir."
    "So we wouldn't know it, even if it turned up?" Monk said disappointedly, jerking his hand at the door. "Some miserable devil could walk in here sporting it, and we should be none the wiser. Still, I daresay if the killer took it, he will have thrown it into the river when the hue and cry went up anyway. If he didn't he's too daft to be out on his own." He twisted around to look at the pile of papers again and riffled through them untidily. "What else is there?"
    The next was the account of the neighbor opposite, one Albert SCarsdale, very bare and prickly. Obviously he had resented the inconsideration, the appalling bad taste of Grey in getting himself murdered in Mecklenburg Square, and felt the less he said about it himself the sooner it would be forgotten, and the sooner he might dissociate himself from the whole sordid affair.
    He admitted he thought he had heard someone in the hallway between his apartment and that of Grey at about eight o'clock, and possibly again at about quarter to ten. He could not possibly say whether it was two separate visitors or one arriving and then later leaving; in fact he was not sure beyond doubt that it had not been a stray animal, a cat, or the porter making a round—from his
    choice of words he regarded the two as roughly equal. It might even have been an errand boy who had lost his way, or any of a dozen other things. He had been occupied with his own interests, and had seen and heard nothing of remark. The statement was signed and affirmed as being true with an ornate and ill-natured signature.
    Monk looked across at Evan, still waiting by the window.
    "Mr. Scarsdale sounds like an officious and unhelpful little beggar," he observed dryly.
    "Very, sir," Evan agreed, his eyes shining but no smile touching his lips. "I imagine it's the scandal in the buildings; attracts notice from the wrong kind of people, and very bad for the social reputation."
    "Something less than a gentleman." Monk made an immediate and cruel judgment.
    Evan pretended not to understand him, although it was a patent lie.
    "Less than a gentleman, sir?" His face puckered.
    Monk spoke before he had time to think, or wonder why he was so sure.
    "Certainly. Someone secure in his social status would not be affected by a scandal whose proximity was only a geographical accident, and nothing to do with him personally. Unless, of course, he knew Grey well?"
    "No sir," Evan said, but his eyes showed his total comprehension. Obviously Scarsdale still smarted under Grey's contempt, and Monk could imagine it vividly. "No, he disclaimed all personal acquaintance with him. And either that's a lie or else it's very odd. If he were the gentleman he pretends to be, he would surely know Grey, at least to speak to. They were immediate neighbors, after all."
    Monk did not want to court disappointment.
    "It may be no more than social pretension, but worth inquiring into." He looked at the papers again. "What else is there?" He glanced up at Evan. "Who found him, by the way?"

    Evan came over and sorted out two more reports from the bottom of the pile. He handed them to Monk.
    "Cleaning woman and the porter, sir. Their accounts agree, except that the porter says a bit more, because naturally we asked him about the evening as well."
    Monk was temporarily lost. "As well?"
    Evan flushed faintly with irritation at his own lack of clarity.
    "He wasn't found until the following morning, when the woman who cleans and cooks for him arrived and couldn't get in. He wouldn't give her a key, apparently didn't trust her; he let her in himself, and if he wasn't there then she just went away and came another time. Usually he leaves some message with the porter."
    "I see. Did he go away often? I assume we know where to?" There was an instinctive edge of authority to his voice now, and