The Face of a Stranger (13 page)

Monk faced him squarely. There was not more than a yard between them.

"Of course not, but that surely is all the more reason why we must
find the man."

"If you insist." With ill humor he ordered Monk to follow him,
and led him out of the very feminine sitting room along a short corridor into
the main hall. Monk glanced around as much as was possible in the brief time as
Shelburne paced ahead of him towards one of the several fine doorways. The
walls were paneled to shoulder height in wood, the floor parqueted and
scattered with Chinese carpets of cut pile and beautiful pastel shades, and the
whole was dominated by a magnificent staircase dividing halfway up and sweeping
to left and right at either

end of a railed landing. There were pictures in ornate gold frames on
all sides, but he had no time to look at them.

Shelburne opened the withdrawing room door and waited impatiently while
Monk followed him in, then closed it. The room was long and faced south, with
French windows looking onto a lawn bordered with herbaceous flowers in
brilliant bloom. Rosamond Shelburne was sitting on a brocaded chaise longue,
embroidery hoop in her hand. She looked up when they came in. She was at first
glance not unlike her mother-in-law: she had the same fair hair and good brow,
the same shape of eye, although hers were dark brown, and there was a different
balance to her features, the resolution was not yet hard, there was humor, a
width of imagination waiting to be given flight. She was dressed soberly, as
befitted one who had recently lost a brother-in-law, but the wide skirt was the
color of wine in shadow, and only her beads were black.

"I am sorry, my dear." Shelburne glanced pointedly at Monk.
"But this man is from the police, and he thinks you may be able to tell
him something about Joscelin that will help." He strode past her and
stopped by the first window, glancing at the sun across the grass.

Rosamond's fair skin colored very slightly and she avoided Monk's eyes.

"Indeed?" she said politely. "I know very little of
Jos-celin's London life, Mr.—?"

"Monk, ma'am," he answered. "But I understand Major Grey
had an affection for you, and perhaps he may have spoken of some friend, or an
acquaintance who might lead us to another, and so on?"

"Oh." She put her needle and frame down; it was a tracery of
roses around a text. "I see. I am afraid I cannot think of anything. But
please be seated, and I will do my best to help.''

Monk accepted and questioned her gently, not because he expected to
learn a great deal from her directly, but because indirectly he watched her,
listening to the intonations of her voice, and the fingers turning in her lap.

Slowly he discovered a picture of Joscelin Grey.

"He seemed very young when I came here after my marriage,"
Rosamond said with a smile, looking beyond Monk and out of the window. "Of
course that was before he went to the Crimea. He was an officer then; he had
just bought his commission and he was so"—she searched for just the right
word—"so jaunty! I remember that day he came in in his uniform, scarlet
tunic and gold braid, boots gleaming. One could not help feeling happy for
him." Her voice dropped. "It all seemed like an adventure then."

"And after?" Monk prompted, watching the delicate shadows in
her face, the search for something glimpsed but not understood except by a leap
of instinct.

"He was wounded, you know?" She looked at him, frowning.

"Yes," he said.

"Twice—and ill too." She searched his eyes to see if he knew
more than she, and there was nothing in his memory to draw on. "He
suffered very much," she continued. "He was thrown from his horse in
the charge at Balaclava and sustained a sword wound in his leg at Sebastopol.
He refused to speak much to us about being in hospital at Scutari; he said it
was too terrible to relate and would distress us beyond bearing." The
embroidery slipped on the smooth nap of her skirt and rolled away on the floor.
She made no effort to pick it up.

"He was changed?" Monk prompted.

She smiled slowly. She had a lovely mouth, sweeter and more sensitive
than her mother-in-law's. "Yes—but he did not lose his humor, he could
still laugh and enjoy beautiful things. He gave me a musical box for my
birthday." Her smile widened at the thought of it. "It had an enamel
top with a rose painted on it. It played 'Fur Elise'—Beethoven, you know—"

"Really, my dear!" Lovel's voice cut across her as he turned
from where he had been standing by the window. "The man is here on police
business. He doesn't know or care about Beethoven and Joscelin's music box.
Please try to concentrate on something relevant—in the remote likelihood there
is anything. He wants to know if Joscelin offended someone—owed them money—God
knows what!"

Her face altered so slightly it could have been a change in the light,
had not the sky beyond the windows been a steady cloudless blue. Suddenly she
looked tired.

"I know Joscelin found finances a little difficult from time to
time," she answered quietly. "But I do not know of any particulars,
or whom he owed."

"He would hardly have discussed such a thing with my wife."
Lovel swung around sharply. "If he wanted to borrow he would come to
me—but he had more sense than to try. He had a very generous allowance as it
was."

Monk glanced frantically at the splendid room, the swagged velvet
curtains, and the garden and parkland beyond, and forbore from making any
remark as to generosity. He looked back at Rosamond.

"You never assisted him, ma'am?"

Rosamond hesitated.

"With what?" Lovel asked, raising his eyebrows.

"A gift?" Monk suggested, struggling to be tactful.
"Perhaps a small loan to meet a sudden embarrassment?"

"I can only assume you are trying to cause mischief," Lovel
said acidly. "Which is despicable, and if you persist I shall have you
removed from the case."

Monk was taken aback; he had not deliberately intended offense, simply
to uncover a truth. Such sensibilities were peripheral, and he thought a rather
silly indulgence now. Lovel saw his irritation and mistook it for a failure to
understand. "Mr. Monk, a married woman does not own anything to dispose
of—to a brother-in-law or anyone else."

Monk blushed for making a fool of himself, and for the patronage in
Lovel's manner. When reminded, of course he knew the law. Even Rosamond's
personal jewelry was not hers in law. If Lovel said she was not to give it
away, then she could not. Not that he had any doubt, from the

catch in her speech and the .flicker of her eyes, that she had done so.

He had no desire to betray her; the knowledge was all he wanted. He bit
back the reply he wished to make.

"I did not intend to suggest anything done without your permission,
my lord, simply a gesture of kindness on Lady Shelburne's part."

Lovel opened his mouth to retort, then changed his mind and looked out
of the window again, his face tight, his shoulders broad and stiff.

"Did the war affect Major Grey deeply?" Monk turned back to
Rosamond.

"Oh yes!" For a moment there was intense feeling in her, then
she recalled the circumstances and struggled to control herself. Had she not
been as schooled in the privileges and the duties of a lady she would have
wept. "Yes," she said again. "Yes, although he mastered it with
great courage. It was not many months before he began to be his old self—most
of the time. He would play the piano, and sing for us sometimes." Her eyes
looked beyond Monk to some past place in her own mind. "And he still told
us funny stories and made us laugh. But there were occasions when he would
think of the men who died, and I suppose his own suffering as well."

Monk was gathering an increasingly sharp picture of Joscelin Grey: a
dashing young officer, easy mannered, perhaps a trifle callow; then through
experience of war with its blood and pain, and for him an entirely new kind of
responsibility, returning home determined to resume as much of the old life as
possible; a youngest son with little money but great charm, and a degree of
courage.

He had not seemed like a man to make enemies through wronging anyone—but
it did not need a leap of imagination to conceive that he might have earned a
jealousy powerful enough to have ended in murder. All that was needed for that
might lie within this lovely room with its tapestries and its view of the
parkland.

"Thank you, Lady Shelburne," he said formally. "You have
given me a much clearer picture of him than I had. I am most grateful." He
turned to Lovel. "Thank you, my lord. If I might speak with Mr. Menard
Grey—"

"He is out," Lovel replied flatly. "He went to see one of
the tenant farmers, and I don't know which so there is no point in your
traipsing around looking. Anyway, you are looking for who murdered Joscelin,
not writing an obituary!"

"I don't think the obituary is finished until it contains the
answer," Monk replied, meeting his eyes with a straight, challenging
stare.

"Then get on with it!" Lovel snapped. "Don't stand here
in the sun—get out and do something useful."

Monk left without speaking and closed the withdrawing room door behind
him. In the hall a footman was awaiting discreetly to show him out—or perhaps
to make sure that he left without pocketing the silver card tray on the hall
table, or the ivory-handled letter opener.

The weather had changed dramatically; from nowhere a swift overcast had
brought a squall, the first heavy drops beginning even as he left.

He was outside, walking towards the main drive through the clearing
rain, when quite by chance he met the last member of the family. He saw her
coming towards him briskly, whisking her skirts out of the way of a stray bramble
trailing onto the narrower path. She was reminiscent of Fabia Shelburne in age
and dress, but without the brittle glamour. This woman's nose was longer, her
hair wilder, and she could never have been a beauty, even forty years ago.

"Good afternoon." He lifted his hat in a small gesture of
politeness.

She stopped in her stride and looked at him curiously. "Good
afternoon. You are a stranger. What are you doing here? Are you lost?"

"No, thank you ma'am. I am from the Metropolitan Police. I came to
report our progress on the murder of Major Grey."

Her eyes narrowed and he was not sure whether it was amusement or
something else.

"You look a well-set-up young man to be carrying messages. I
suppose you came to see Fabia?"

He had no idea who she was, and for a moment he was at a loss for a
civil reply.

She understood instantly.

"I'm Callandra Daviot; the late Lord Shelburne was my
brother."

"Then Major Grey was your nephew, Lady Callandra?" He spoke
her correct title without thinking, and only realized it afterwards, and
wondered what experience or interest had taught him. Now he was only concerned
for another opinion of Joscelin Grey.

"Naturally," she agreed. "How can that help you?"

"You must have known him."

Her rather wild eyebrows rose slightly.

"Of course. Possibly a little better than Fabia. Why?"

"You were very close to him?" he said quickly.

"On the contrary, I was some distance removed." Now he was
quite certain there was a dry humor in her eyes.

"And saw the clearer for it?" He finished her implication.

"I believe so. Do you require to stand here under the trees, young
man? I am being steadily dripped on."

He shook his head, and turned to accompany her back along the way he had
come.

"It is unfortunate that Joscelin was murdered," she continued.
"It would have been much better if he could have died at Sebastopol—better
for Fabia anyway. What do you want of me? I was not especially fond of
Joscelin, nor he of me. I knew none of his business, and have no useful ideas
as to who might have wished him such intense harm."

"You were not fond of him yourself?" Monk said curiously.
"Everyone says he was charming."

"So he was," she agreed, walking with large strides not
towards the main entrance of the house but along a

graveled path in the direction of the stables, and he had no choice but
to go also or be left behind. "I do not care a great deal for charm."
She looked directly at him, and he found himself wanning to her dry honesty.
"Perhaps because I never possessed it," she continued. "But it
always seems chameleon to me, and I cannot be sure what color the animal
underneath might be really. Now will you please either return to the house, or
go wherever it is you are going. I have no inclination to get any wetter than I
already am, and it is going to rain again. I do not intend to stand in the
stable yard talking polite nonsense that cannot possibly assist you."

He smiled broadly and bowed his head in a small salute. Lady Callandra
was the only person in Shelburne he liked instinctively.

"Of course, ma'am; thank you for your . . ."He hesitated, not
wanting to be so obvious as to say "honesty." "... time. I wish
you a good day."