by Anne Perry
“Now Mr. Monk, ’ow should I know?” His massive shoulders were still twitching. “Do I ask people’s names?”
“Probably not, but you know who they are. Don’t pretend to be stupid; it doesn’t suit you.”
“I know some people,” he conceded in little more than a whisper. “’Course I do; but not every muck snipe ’oo tries ’is ’and at thievin’.”
“Muck snipe?” Monk looked at him with derision. “Since when did you hand out fakements for nothing? You don’t do favors for down-and-outs. They paid you, or someone did. If they didn’t pay you themselves, tell me who did; that’ll do.”
The man’s narrow eyes widened a fraction. “Oh clever, Mr. Monk, very clever.” He clapped his broad, powerful hands together in soundless applause.
“So who paid you?”
“My business is confidential, Mr. Monk. Lose it all if I starts putting the down on people wot comes ter me. It was a moneylender, that’s all I’ll tell yer.”
“Not much call for a screever in Australia.” Monk looked at the man’s subtle, sensitive fingers. “Hard labor—bad climate.”
“Put me on the boat, would yer?” The man’s lip curled. “Yer’d ’ave ter catch me first, and yer know as well as I do yer’d never find me.” The smile on his face did not alter even a fraction. “An’ yer’d be a fool ter look; ’orrible fings ’appen ter a Peeler as gets caught in ver rookeries, if ve word goes aht.”
“And horrible things happen to a screever who informs on his clients—if the word goes out,” Monk added immediately. “Horrible things—like broken fingers. And what use is a screever without his fingers?”
The man stared at him, suddenly hatred undisguised in his heavy eyes.
“An’ w’y should the word go out, Mr. Monk, seein’ as ’ow I aven’t told yer nuffink?”
In the doorway Evan moved uncomfortably. Monk ignored him.
“Because I shall put it out,” he replied, “that you have.”
“But you ain’t got no one fer yer robbery.” The hoarse whisper was level again, the amusement creeping back. “I’ll find someone.”
“Takes time, Mr. Monk; and ’ow are yer goin’ ter do it if I don’t tell yer?”
“You are leaping to conclusions, screever,” Monk said ruthlessly. “It doesn’t have to be the right ones; anyone will do. By the time the word gets back I have the wrong people, it’ll be too late to save your fingers. Broken fingers heal hard, and they ache for years, so I’m told.”
The man called him something obscene.
“Quite.” Monk looked at him with disgust. “So who paid you?”
The man glared at him, hate hot in his face.
“Who paid you?” Monk leaned forward a little.
“Josiah Wigtight, moneylender,” the man spat out. “Find ’im in Gun Lane, Whitechapel. Now get out!”
“Moneylender. What sort of people does he lend money to?”
“The sort o’ people wot can pay ’im back, o’ course, fool!”
“Thank you.” Monk smiled and straightened up. “Thank you, screever; your business is secure. You have told us nothing.”
The screever swore at him again, but Monk was out of the door and hurrying down the rickety stairs, Evan, anxious and doubtful, at his heel, but Monk offered him no explanation, and did not meet his questioning look.
It was too late to try the moneylender that day, and all he could think of was to get out of the rookeries in one piece before someone stabbed one of them for his clothes, poor as they were, or merely because they were strangers.
He said good-night briefly and watched Evan hesitate, then reply in his quiet voice and turn away in the darkness, an elegant figure, oddly young in the gaslight.
Back at Mrs. Worley’s, he ate a hot meal, grateful for it, at once savoring each mouthful and hating it because he could not dismiss from his mind all those who would count it victory merely to have survived the day and eaten enough to sustain life.
None of it was strange to him, as it obviously had been to Evan. He must have been to such places many times before. He had behaved instinctively, altering his stance, knowing how to melt into the background, not to look like a stranger, least of all a figure of authority. The beggars, the sick, the hopeless moved him to excruciating pity, and a deep, abiding anger—but no surprise.
And his mercilessness with the screever had come without calculation, his natural reaction. He knew the rookeries and their denizens. He might even have survived in them himself.
Only afterwards, when the plate was empty, did he lean back in the chair and think of the case.
A moneylender made sense. Joscelin Grey might well have borrowed money when he lost his small possessions in the affair with Latterly, and his family would not help. Had the moneylender meant to injure him a little, to frighten repayment from him, and warn other tardy borrowers, and when Grey had fought back it had gone too far? It was possible. And Yeats’s visitor had been a moneylender’s ruffian. Yeats and Grimwade had both said he was a big man, lean and strong, as far as they could tell under his clothes.
What a baptism for Evan. He had said nothing about it afterwards. He had not even asked if Monk would really have arrested people he knew to be innocent and then spread the word the screever had betrayed them.
Monk flinched as he remembered what he had said; but it had simply been what instinct directed. It was a streak of ruthlessness in himself he had been unaware of; and it would have shocked him in anyone else. Was that really what he was like? Surely it was only a threat, and he would never have carried it out? Or would he? He remembered the anger that had welled up inside him at the mention of moneylenders, parasites of the desperate poor who clung to respectability, to a few precious standards. Sometimes a man’s honesty was his only real possession, his only source of pride and identity in the anonymous, wretched, teeming multitude.
What had Evan thought of him? He cared; it was a miserable thought that Evan would be disillusioned, finding his methods as ugly as the crime he fought, not understanding he was using words, only words.
Or did Evan know him better than he knew himself? Evan would know his past. Perhaps in the past the words had been a warning, and reality had followed.
And what would Imogen Latterly have felt? It was a preposterous dream. The rookeries were as foreign to her as the planets in the sky. She would be sick, disgusted even to see them, let alone to have passed through them and dealt with their occupants. If she had seen him threaten the screever, standing in the filthy room, she would not permit him to enter her house again.
He sat staring up at the ceiling, full of anger and pain. It was cold comfort to him that tomorrow he would find the usurer who might have killed Joscelin Grey. He hated the world he had to deal with; he wanted to belong to the clean, gracious world where he could speak as an equal with people like the Latterlys; Charles would not patronize him, he could converse with Imogen Latterly as a friend, and quarrel with Hester without the hindrance of social inferiority. That would be a delicate pleasure. He would dearly like to put that opinionated young woman in her place.
But purely because he hated the rookeries so fiercely, he could not ignore them. He had seen them, known their squalor and their desperation, and they would not go away.
Well at least he could turn his anger to some purpose; he would find the violent, greedy man who had paid to have Joscelin Grey beaten to death. Then he could face Grey in peace in his imagination—and Runcorn would be defeated.
10
MONK SENT EVAN to try pawnshops for the pink jade, and then himself went to look for Josiah Wigtight. He had no trouble finding the address. It was half a mile east of Whitechapel off the Mile End Road. The building was narrow and almost lost between a seedy lawyer’s office and a sweatshop where in dim light and heavy, breathless air women worked eighteen hours a day sewing shirts for a handful of pence. Some felt driven to walk the street at night also, for the extra dreadfully and easily earned silver coins that meant fo
od and rent. A few were wives or daughters of the poor, the drunken or the inadequate; many were women who had in the past been in domestic service, and had lost their “character” one way or another—for impertinence, dishonesty, loose morals, or because a mistress found them “uppity,” or a master had taken advantage of them and been discovered, and in a number of cases they had become with child, and thus not only unemployable but a disgrace and an affront.
Inside, the office was dim behind drawn blinds and smelled of polish, dust and ancient leather. A black-dressed clerk sat at a high stool in the first room. He looked up as Monk came in.
“Good morning, sir; may we be of assistance to you?” His voice was soft, like mud. “Perhaps you have a little problem?” He rubbed his hands together as though the cold bothered him, although it was summer. “A temporary problem, of course?” He smiled at his own hypocrisy.
“I hope so.” Monk smiled back.
The man was skilled at his job. He regarded Monk with caution. His expression had not the nervousness he was accustomed to; if anything it was a little wolfish. Monk realized he had been clumsy. Surely in the past he must have been more skilled, more attuned to the nuances of judgment?
“That rather depends on you,” he added to encourage the man, and allay any suspicion he might unwittingly have aroused.
“Indeed,” the clerk agreed. “That’s what we’re in business for: to help gentlemen with a temporary embarrassment of funds. Of course there are conditions, you understand?” He fished out a clean sheet of paper and held his pen ready. “If I could just have the details, sir?”
“My problem is not a shortage of funds,” Monk replied with the faintest smile. He hated moneylenders; he hated the relish with which they plied their revolting trade. “At least not pressing enough to come to you. I have a matter of business to discuss with Mr. Wigtight.”
“Quite.” The man nodded with a smirk of understanding. “Quite so. All matters of business are referred to Mr. Wigtight, ultimately, Mr.—er?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I do not want to borrow any money,” Monk said rather more tartly. “Tell Mr. Wigtight it is about something he has mislaid, and very badly wishes to have returned to him.”
“Mislaid?” The man screwed up his pallid face. “Mislaid? What are you talking about, sir? Mr. Wigtight does not mislay things.” He sniffed in offended disapproval.
Monk leaned forward and put both hands on the counter, and the man was obliged to face him.
“Are you going to show me to Mr. Wigtight?” Monk said very clearly. “Or do I take my information elsewhere?” He did not want to tell the man who he was, or Wigtight would be forewarned, and he needed the slight advantage of surprise.
“Ah—” The man made up his mind rapidly. “Ah—yes; yes sir. I’ll take you to Mr. Wigtight, sir. If you’ll come this way.” He closed his ledger with a snap and slid it into a drawer. With one eye still on Monk he took a key from his waistcoat pocket and locked the drawer, then straightened up. “Yes sir, this way.”
The inner office of Josiah Wigtight was quite a different affair from the drab attempt at anonymous respectability of the entrance. It was frankly lush, everything chosen for comfort, almost hedonism. The big armchairs were covered in velvet and the cushions were deep in both color and texture; the carpet muffled sound and the gas lamps hissing softly on the walls were mantled in rose-colored glass which shed a glow over the room, obscuring outlines and dulling glare. The curtains were heavy and drawn in folds to keep out the intrusion and the reality of daylight. It was not a matter of taste, not even of vulgarity, but purely the uses of pleasure. After a moment or two the effect was curiously soporific. Immediately Monk’s respect for Wigtight rose. It was clever.
“Ah.” Wigtight breathed out deeply. He was a portly man, swelling out like a giant toad behind his desk, wide mouth split into a smile that died long before it reached his bulbous eyes. “Ah,” he repeated. “A matter of business somewhat delicate, Mr.—er?”
“Somewhat,” Monk agreed. He decided not to sit down in the soft, dark chair; he was almost afraid it would swallow him, like a mire, smother his judgment. He felt he would be at a disadvantage in it and not able to move if he should need to.
“Sit down, sit down!” Wigtight waved. “Let us talk about it. I’m sure some accommodation can be arrived at.”
“I hope so.” Monk perched on the arm of the chair. It was uncomfortable, but in this room he preferred to be uncomfortable.
“You are temporarily embarrassed?” Wigtight began. “You wish to take advantage of an excellent investment? You have expectations of a relative, in poor health, who favors you—”
“Thank you, I have employment which is quite sufficient for my needs.”
“You are a fortunate man.” There was no belief in his smooth, expressionless voice; he had heard every lie and excuse human ingenuity could come up with.
“More fortunate than Joscelin Grey!” Monk said baldly.
Wigtight’s face changed in only the minutest of ways—a shadow, no more. Had Monk not been watching for it he would have missed it altogether.
“Joscelin Grey?” Wigtight repeated. Monk could see in his face the indecision whether to deny knowing him or admit it as a matter of common knowledge. He decided the wrong way.
“I know no such person, sir.”
“You’ve never heard of him?” Monk tried not to press too hard. He hated moneylenders with far more anger than reason could tell him of. He meant to trap this soft, fat man in his own words, trap him and watch the bloated body struggle.
But Wigtight sensed a pitfall.
“I hear so many names,” he added cautiously.
“Then you had better look in your books,” Monk suggested. “And see if his is there, since you don’t remember.”
“I don’t keep books, after debts are paid.” Wigtight’s wide, pale eyes assumed a blandness. “Matter of discretion, you know. People don’t like to be reminded of their hard times.”
“How civil of you,” Monk said sarcastically. “How about looking through the lists of those who didn’t repay you?”
“Mr. Grey is not among them.”
“So he paid you.” Monk allowed only a little of his triumph to creep through.
“I have not said I lent him anything.”
“Then if you lent him nothing, why did you hire two men to deceive their way into his flat and ransack it? And incidentally, to steal his silver and small ornaments?” He saw with delight that Wigtight flinched. “Clumsy, that, Mr. Wigtight. You’re hiring a very poor class of ruffian these days. A good man would never have helped himself on the side like that. Dangerous; brings another charge into it—and those goods are so easy to trace.”
“You’re police!” Wigtight’s understanding was sudden and venomous.
“That’s right.”
“I don’t hire thieves.” Now Wigtight was hedging, trying to gain time to think, and Monk knew it.
“You hire collectors, who turned out to be thieves as well,” Monk said immediately. “The law doesn’t see any difference.”
“I hire people to do my collecting, of course,” Wigtight agreed. “Can’t go out into the streets after everybody myself.”
“How many do you call on with forged police papers, two months after you’ve murdered them?”
Every vestige of color drained out of Wigtight’s face, leaving it gray, like a cold fish skin. Monk thought for a moment he was having some kind of a fit, and he felt no concern at all.
It was long seconds before Wigtight could speak, and Monk merely waited.
“Murdered!” The word when it came was hollow. “I swear on my mother’s grave, I never had anything to do with that. Why should I? Why should I do that? It’s insane. You’re crazed.”
“Because you’re a usurer,” Monk said bitterly, a well of anger and scalding contempt opening up inside him. “And usurers don’t allow people not to pay their debts, with all the interest when they’re due.” He
leaned forward toward the man, threatening by his movement when Wigtight was motionless in the chair. “Bad for business if you let them get away with it,” he said almost between his teeth. “Encourages other people to do the same. Where would you be if everyone refused to pay you back? Bleed themselves white to satisfy your interest. Better one goose dead than the whole wretched flock running around free and fat, eh?”
“I never killed him!” Wigtight was frightened, not only by the facts, but by Monk’s hatred. He knew unreason when he saw it; and Monk enjoyed his fear.
“But you sent someone—it comes to the same thing,” Monk pursued.
“No! It wouldn’t make sense!” Wigtight’s voice was growing higher, a new, sharp note on it. The panic was sweet to Monk’s ear. “All right.” Wigtight raised his hands, soft and fat. “I sent them to see if Grey had kept any record of borrowing from me. I knew he’d been murdered and I thought he might have kept the cancelled IOU. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. That’s all, I swear!” There was sweat on his face now, glistening in the gaslight. “He paid me back. Mother of God, it was only fifty pounds anyway! Do you think I’d send out men to murder a debtor for fifty pounds? It would be mad, insane. They’d have a hold over me for the rest of my life. They’d bleed me dry—or see me to the gibbet.”
Monk stared at him. Painfully the truth of it conquered him. Wigtight was a parasite, but he was not a fool. He would not have hired such clumsy chance help to murder a man for a debt, of whatever size. If he had intended murder he would have been cleverer, more discreet about it. A little violence might well have been fruitful, but not this, and not in Grey’s own house.
But he might well have wanted to be sure there was no trace of the association left, purely to avoid inconvenience.
“Why did you leave it so long?” Monk asked, his voice flat again, without the hunting edge. “Why didn’t you go and look for the IOU straightaway?”
Wigtight knew he had won. It was there gleaming in his pallid, globular face, like pond slime on a frog.