no haccident ternight, I promises yer. I'll be as careful as if you was me muwer. Jus' make up yer mind, sir!"
"Did you know him well?"
"Yes sir, 'e were a good mate o' mine. Did yer know 'im too, sir? Yer live 'rahnd 'ere, do yer? 'E used ter work this patch all ve time. Picked up 'is last fare 'ere, right in vis street, accordin' ter 'is paper. Saw 'im vat very night meself, I did. Nah is yer comin', sir, or ain't yer? 'Cos I 'aven't got all night. I reckon w'en yer goes a henjoyin' yerself, yer oughter take someone wiv yer. Yer in't safe."
On this street. The cabby had picked him, Monk, up on this street, less than a hundred yards from Mecklenburg Square, on the night Joscelin Grey was murdered. What had he been doing here? Why?
"Yer sick, sir?" The cabby's voice changed; he was suddenly concerned. " 'Ere, yer ain't 'ad one too many?" He climbed down off his box and opened the cab door.
"No, no I'm quite well." Monk stepped up and inside obediently and the cabby muttered something to himself about gentlemen whose families should take better care of them, stepped back up onto the box and slapped the reins over his horse's back.
As soon as they arrived at Grafton Street Monk paid the cabby and hurried inside.
"Mrs. Worley!"
Silence.
"Mrs. Worley!" His voice was hard, hoarse.
She came out, rubbing her hands dry on her apron.
"Oh my heavens, you are wet. You'd like an 'ot drink.
You'll 'ave to change them clothes; you've let yourself get soaked through! What 'ave you bin thinking of?"
"Mrs. Worley."
The tone of his voice stopped her.
"Why, whatever is the matter, Mr. Monk? You look proper poorly."
"I-" The words were slow, distant. "I can't find a stick in my room, Mrs. Worley. Have you seen it?"
"No, Mr. Monk, I 'aven't, although what you're thinking about sticks for on a night like this, I'm sure I don't know. What you need is an umbrella."
"Have you seen it?"
She stood there in front of him, square and motherly. "Not since you 'ad yer haccident, I 'aven't. You mean that dark reddish brown one with the gold chain like 'round the top as yer bought the day afore? Proper 'andsome it were, although wot yer want one like that fer, I'll never know. I do 'ope as you 'aven't gorn and lorst it. If yer did, it must 'a' bin in yer haccident. You 'ad it with yer, 'cos I remember plain as day. Proud of it. Proper dandy, yer was."
There was a roaring in Monk's ears, shapeless and immense. Through the darkness one thought was like a brilliant stab of light, searingly painful. He had been in Grey's flat the night he was killed; he had left his own stick there in the hall stand. He himself was the man with the gray eyes whom Grimwade had seen leaving at half past ten. He must have gone in when Grimwade was showing Bartholomew Stubbs up to Yeats's door.
There was only one conclusion-hideous and senseless-but the only one left. God knew why, but he himself had killed Joscelin Grey.
Chapter 11
Monk sat in the armchair in his room staring at the ceiling. The rain had stopped and the air was warm and clammy, but he was still chilled to the bone.
Why?
Why? It was as inconceivably senseless as a nightmare, and as entanglingly, recurringly inescapable.
He had been in Grey's flat that night, and something had happened after which he had gone in such haste he had left his stick in the stand behind him. The cabby had picked him up from Doughty Street, and then barely a few miles away, met with an accident which had robbed him of his life, and Monk of all memory.
But why should he have killed Grey? In what connection did he even know him? He had not met him at the Latter-lys'; Imogen had said so quite clearly. He could imagine no way in which he could have met him socially. If he were involved in any case, then Runcorn would have known; and his own case notes would have shown it.
So why? Why kill him? One did not follow a complete stranger to his house and then beat him to death for no reason. Unless one were insane?
Could that be it-he was mad? His brain had been damaged even before the accident? He had forgotten what he had done because it was another self which had enacted such a