The William Monk Mysteries_ The First Three Novels - Anne Perry [115]
“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.
“At first there were too many real police about,” he answered. “Always going in and out.” He spread his hands in reasonableness. Monk would have liked to call him a liar, but he could not, not yet. “Couldn’t get anyone prepared to take the risk,” Wigtight went on. “Pay a man too much for a job, and immediately he begins to wonder if there’s more to it than you’ve told him. Might start thinking I had something to be afraid of. Your lot was looking for thieves, in the beginning. Now it’s different; you’re asking about business, money—”
“How do you know?” Monk believed him, he was forced to, but he wanted every last ounce of discomfort he could drag out.
“Word gets about; you asked his tailor, his wine merchant, looking into the paying of his bills—”
Monk remembered he had sent Evan to do these things. It would seem the usurer had eyes and ears everywhere. He realized now it was to be expected: that was how he found his customers, he learned weaknesses, sought out vulnerability. God, how he loathed this man and his kind.
“Oh.” In spite of himself his face betrayed his defeat. “I shall have to be more discreet with my inquiries.”
Wigtight smiled coldly.
“I shouldn’t trouble yourself. It will make no difference.” He knew his success; it was a taste he was used to, like a ripe Stilton cheese and port after dinner.
There was nothing more to say, and Monk could not stomach more of Wigtight’s satisfaction. He left, going out past the oily clerk in the front office; but he was determined to take the first opportunity to charge Josiah Wigtight with something,