The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry Page B

statements," he answered, stopping on the corner
curb as a hansom sped past them, its wheels spraying filth. "That's the
only place I know to begin. I'll
    do the least promising first. The street sweeper boy is there." He
indicated the child a few yards from them, busy shoveling dung and at the same
time seizing a penny that had been thrown him. "Is he the same one?"
    "I think so, sir; I can't see his face from here." That was
something of a euphemism; the child's features were hidden by dirt and the
hazards of his occupation, and the top half of his head was covered by an
enormous cloth cap, to protect him from the rain.
    Monk and Evan stepped out onto the street towards him.
    "Well?" Monk asked when they reached the boy.
    Evan nodded.
    Monk fished for a coin; he felt obliged to recompense the child for the
earnings he might lose in the time forfeited. He came up with twopence and
offered it.
    "Alfred, I am a policeman. I want to talk to you about the
gentleman who was killed in Number Six in the square."
    The boy took the twopence.
    "Yeah guv, I dunno anyfink what I din't tell ve ovver rozzer as
asked me." He sniffed and looked up hopefully. A man with twopence to
spend was worth pleasing.
    "Maybe not," Monk conceded, "but I'd like to talk to you
anyway." A tradesman's cart clattered by them towards Grey's Inn Road,
splashing them with mud and leaving a couple of cabbage leaves almost at their
feet. "Can we go to the footpath?" Monk inquired, hiding his
distaste. His good boots were getting soiled and his trou-ser legs were wet.
    The boy nodded, then acknowledging their lack of skill in dodging wheels
and hooves with the professional's condescension for the amateur, he steered
them to the curb again.
    "Yers guv?" he asked hopefully, pocketing the twopence
somewhere inside the folds of his several jackets and sniffing hard. He
refrained from wiping his hand across his face in deference to their superior
status.
    "You saw Major Grey come home the day he was killed?" Monk
asked with appropriate gravity.
    "Yers guv, and vere weren't nob'dy followin' 'im, as fer as I could
see."
    "Was the street busy?"
    "No, wicked night, it were, for July, raining summink 'orrible.
Nob'dy much abaht, an' everyone goin' as fast as veir legs'd carry 'em."
    "How long have you been at this crossing?"
    "Couple o' years." His faint fair eyebrows rose with surprise;
obviously it was a question he had not expected.
    "So you must know most of the people who live around here?"
Monk pursued.
    "Yers, reckon as I do." His eyes sparked with sudden sharp
comprehension. "Yer means did I see anyone as don't belong?"
    Monk nodded in appreciation of his sagacity. "Precisely. ''
    " 'E were bashed ter deaf, weren't 'e?"
    "Yes." Monk winced inwardly at the appropriateness of the
phrase.
    "Ven yer in't lookin' fer a woman?"
    "No," Monk agreed. Then it flashed through his mind that a man
might dress as a woman, if perhaps it were not some stranger who had murdered
Grey, but a person known to him, someone who had built up over the years the
kind of hatred that had seemed to linger in that room. "Unless it were a
large woman," he added, "and very strong, perhaps."
    The
boy hid a smirk. “Woman as I saw was on the little side. Most women as makes
veir way vat fashion gotta look fetchin' like, or leastways summink as a woman
oughter. Don't see no great big scrubbers 'round 'ere, an' no dollymops."
He sniffed again and pulled his mouth down fiercely to express his disapproval.
"Only the class for gennelmen as 'as money like wot vey got 'ere." He
gestured towards the elaborate house fronts behind him towards the square.
    "I see." Monk hid a brief amusement. "And you saw some
woman of that type going into Number Six that evening?" It was probably
not worth anything, but every clue must be followed at this stage.
    "No one as don't go vere reg'lar, guv."
    "What time?"
    "Jus' as I were goin' 'ome."
    “About half past seven?''
    "S'