The Silent Cry Page 0,139

well that a great many gentlemen took their pleasures in such places, it was still another matter to be caught at it. One's reputation would suffer, perhaps a great deal.

He stopped abruptly, almost tripping over the edge of the kerb. He all but overbalanced, memory came to him so sharply. Of course a man could be ruined, become the butt of social jokes, not so much from his carnal weakness as the absurdity of being caught in a ridiculous position. The dignity was shattered for ever. One's inferiors laughed, respect vanished. One could no longer exert authority.

Why had he thought of authority?

A man with a brazier of roasting chestnuts was staring at him curiously. A coster girl giggled and disappeared round the end of the alley into the thoroughfare, carrying a bag in front of her.

A magistrate. It was a magistrate caught in a police raid in a brothel. He had been in bed with a fat, saucy girl of about fourteen.

When the police had gone in, he had come running out of the room in his shirt tails, his hair flying, his spectacles left behind, and he had tripped and fallen downstairs, landing at the police officer's feet with his shirt over his head, very little left to the imagination. Monk had not been there. He had heard about it afterwards, and laughed till he was blind with tears and his ribs aching.

Why did he remember that now? It was still funny, but there was a certain injustice to it, a pain.

Why? Why should Monk feel any guilt? The man was a hypocrite, sentencing women for a crime in which he himself was the abettor, for selling goods which he only too obviously bought.

And yet the sense of regret remained with him as he turned left and crossed the road again. He was unconsciously heading towards one of the bigger brothels he knew of. Was it to ask about Leighton Duff? Or was this where the old raid had happened? Why would the police raid a brothel in St. Giles or the "Holy Land'? It was riddled with them, and no one cared. There must have been some other reason, theft, forgery, perhaps something more serious, kidnapping or even murder. That would justify storming into the place, without warning.

He passed a man with a bundle of walking sticks, threading his way through the alleys to a main street where he would begin to sell them.

A beggar moved into a doorway to shelter himself from the rain. For no particular reason Monk gave him threepence.

It would be more intelligent to go to the police station and get a picture of Leighton Duff from Evan. Thousands of men matched his description. It would be an extremely tedious job to comb St. Giles for someone who had seen Leighton Duff and could recognise him, but he had nowhere else to start. And there was only a day or two before the trial began.

But while he was still here in St. Giles he must see if he could trace his own history here with Runcorn. It was what he needed to know. Vida Hopgood was satisfied. He thought, with a smile, of her face when he had told her about Rhys Duff and his friends. It was less than perfect that Arthur and Duke Kynaston should escape, but it was not necessarily a permanent state of affairs. They would be unlikely to return to Seven Dials, and if they did, they would find a most unpleasant reception awaiting them. Perhaps Monk should go and warn them of that?

It might save their lives, which did not concern him over-much, but it would also free his own conscience from the stain of accessory to murder if they should be foolish enough to ignore him.

He reached the station and found Evan, now engaged in a new case.

"May I borrow your pictures of Rhys and Leighton Duff?" he asked when they were in Evan's tiny room.

Evan was surprised. "What for? Isn't Vida Hopgood satisfied?"

"Yes. This isn't for her." He would prefer not to have told Evan that he was trying to save Rhys Duff, to work in a sense against the case Evan had built.

"Then who?" Evan watched him closely, his hazel eyes bright.

Evan would find out sooner or later that Rathbone had taken up the defence. Evan would testify at the trial, he would know then, if not before.

"Rathbone," Monk answered tersely. "He would like to know more about what happened before that night."

Evan stared at