Chapter Ten
Back in London, he climbed his stairs like an old
man. The funeral had been hellish. It had all been a kind of
comedy, but he found it sordid and humiliating for the dead man.
We all end up in a box, but it doesn’t have to be a
Jack-in-the-box.
At the top of his stairs, he opened the door to his
sitting room. He had expected nobody - Maude hadn’t come to the
door, so Denton figured he’d decamped - but at the far end of the
long room, just in front of the window through which his attacker
had vanished three nights before, a mysterious figure could be made
out, crouched, indecipherable, as if caught in some dubious act.
The hair on the back of Denton’s head prickled, and he reached for
his pistol, slow as he was to recognize the figure’s necromantic
gown as Atkins’s tattered Indian robe, then to recognize Atkins’s
face above the collar, and finally to understand that the seemingly
disembodied helmet above the face was a black bowler resting on a
swathing of bandage.
‘You gave me a start,’ Denton said.
‘Nothing to what you gave me, Colonel. I might of
shot you.’ Atkins was coming forward, now holding up a hand with
the derringer in it. ‘Copper brought this by.’
‘You’re supposed to be in hospital.’
‘Couldn’t lump it another day.’ Atkins took off the
hat, revealed a kind of turban. ‘Shaved my head. I look like a
bleeding fakir. So I had to wrap it in something, didn’t I? Old
scarf of yours, hope you don’t mind.’ He put the hat on again. It
sat about two inches above his forehead. ‘Reckon if I’d been
wearing this hat when the bastard hit me, I’d never have had to go
to the hospital in the first place.’
‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, Atkins.’ Denton
found himself smiling. He touched Atkins’s shoulder. ‘Glad you’re
back. Where’s the boy servant - what’s his name? - Maude?’
‘Sent him packing. Wet behind the ears. Did you
know the only experience he’d had was as a footman in some
jumped-up manufacturer’s manse? Family hopped off to the Continent
for a year, gave him his marching orders. Too young to be out
alone. All right if I sit?’
‘Well, of course—’
‘Bit wobbly still.’ Atkins fell into the armchair
and put the derringer on the table, which still showed the damage
from the bullet Denton had fired, the flash mark a burn like a
black teardrop. ‘I’ll stagger back downstairs presently.’
‘Like hell. You’ll take it easy until you’re fit.
In the meantime—’ Denton, still standing, reacted away from more
movement down the room. Atkins’s door had swung open and an
indeterminate shape had appeared. Denton snatched at the Colt
pistol. ‘What the hell’s that?’
‘Oh—’ Atkins turned, looked down the room. ‘I was
getting to that.’
Denton stared into the gloom. Something that might
have been a recently sheared sheep seemed to be standing there.
‘What the hell?’ he said.
‘Yes, well - he’s a comfort to me. Frankly,
General, I’m jumpy. No point in denying it. Old soldiers know
better than to fake the courageous. I still jump at shadows. Can’t
stand for anybody to be behind me; I think that chap’s going to
brain me again with the doorstop. So, see, I was glad to have
Rupert’s company.’
‘Rupert.’
‘Prince Rupert. Loan of a friend who’s in the dog
trade. Racing, and so on.’
Rupert didn’t look as if he did much racing. He was
in fact, one of the fattest dogs Denton had ever seen. He was also
big, ugly and enthusiastic. He had almost no tail, but the rump
around the stump vibrated with what might have been joy. He was
mostly black but with a white face, and mostly rounded, except for
a head and muzzle that were oddly angular. His eyes were more like
those of a pig than a dog, slightly slanted, rather smaller than
you’d want if you were designing a dog, and pale blue. He went
straight to Atkins and tried to hoist his bulk into Atkins’s lap.
Atkins managed to push him down; he sat, staring at Atkins, his
stump whisking the carpet. ‘Bull terrier in that head,’ Atkins
said. ‘Intelligent breed.’
‘I see some Rottweiler in the rear end, myself. The
middle looks like whale. But, if he’s a comfort—’ Atkins’s
confession of fear had reminded him of his own nerves when alone in
the house, the loading of the revolver. He shoved the revolver back
into the overcoat pocket.
‘Pardon me saying it, Colonel, but it looks like
you’re carrying an anvil in that overcoat.’
‘My revolver.’
‘So I saw. Your tailor would have a fit.’
‘It isn’t really a pocket pistol. But I’d as soon
not get stabbed again.’
‘Hand over that coat and I’ll do something to fix
it. Open the bottom of the pocket, is my notion - run the barrel
down there, maybe sew something like a holster into the pocket to
hold it upright. You’ll look like you’re carrying the blacksmith’s
hammer instead of his anvil.’
‘The real way to carry it is on its own belt around
your waist.’
‘Yes, well, that ain’t the fashion in London these
days. Take what you can get, I say - hand over that coat.’
Denton, grateful, put the overcoat in Atkins’s lap
and said, wanting to make some gesture, ‘You’d like the dog to keep
you company for a while?’
‘Well - to stand watch, as it were, Colonel. Only
until—’ He pointed at the layers above his scalp.
‘Dogs have to be fed, watered, walked, cleaned up
after—’
‘I’ve done latrine duty before, General. He eases
my mind, if you know what I mean.’
‘I think I’ll have the Infant Phenomenon back until
you’re well. No, no - I’m not going to have you busting a seam
somewhere by going back to work too early - no—’
Atkins made pro forma objections - no recent
footman going to mess in his household, couldn’t cook, left a
shocking amount of litter, no taste - but gave in easily enough.
The man was exhausted, aching and nervous; even a boy on his first
job would be a help.
‘But the dog,’ Atkins said with spirit, ‘I
feed the dog! Because dogs cleave to them that feeds them.’
‘Well, don’t let him cleave too closely. He’s a
loan, correct? Temporary? Until—?’ He, too, pointed at Atkins’s
turban and hat.
Rupert grinned from one to the other and, with a
satisfied sigh, collapsed at Atkins’s feet.
Denton had settled to read his mail with that
feeling of the just-returned traveller that he has been away for
weeks, is therefore surprised that so little has accumulated. In
fact he had been gone barely thirty-eight hours, and he had only a
few pieces of mail - a note from his editor, asking about the
progress of the novel he was supposed to deliver in three months;
an invitation he wouldn’t accept; and a short, brisk letter from
one of his sons in America.
And, hidden by the others, a long envelope from his
typewriter, Mrs Johnson. He slit it with a pocket-knife and pulled
out several sheets, all but one covered with typed names and
addresses.
Mr Denton, I enclose herewith the list of R.
Mulcahy’s found in the postal directories, with addresses. There
are one hundred and thirty-seven in all. I enclose also a bill for
the services of the three employees. One woman is continuing, at my
instruction, to look at the advertisements in Kelly’s and also in
Grove’s, in case the name appears in any of those; she will finish
tomorrow and will submit a separate bill. I hope this is all
right.
Yours, L. Johnson.
A hundred and thirty-seven names. At a shilling
a name.
Denton looked at the lists - looked and despaired.
The addresses were all over Greater London and there was no way to
tell one from another - which might be promising, which not. He had
promised Guillam he would hand the list over; now that he saw it,
he was quite willing. The job of sifting through it would be
enormous, too much for one man. Guillam was welcome to it. But he
was disappointed, he realized. Let down.
‘I’m going out,’ he called towards the
stairs.
‘I’m staying in.’ Atkins’s swathed and bowlered
head appeared. ‘Unless you’ve got other plans for me.’
‘You’re convalescent. You want the
derringer?’
‘I’ve got Rupert.’
Denton carried his bag up to his bedroom and bathed
and changed and, after sending a note off to the employment agency
to send Maude back, made his way down to New Scotland Yard, the
revolver riding uneasily in a mackintosh while Atkins doctored the
overcoat.
Guillam was there but wasn’t available; then he was
available, but he was somewhere else in the building. Denton, not
sure whether he was being toyed with or was simply suffering the
inevitable effects of bureaucracy, made himself calm and chatted
with the almost elderly constable who served as porter. Made
sympathetic, the man sent off a much younger constable to make ‘a
special effort for this gentleman’, with the result that Denton was
eventually led through the ants’ nest that was New Scotland Yard to
an office door, behind which sat four detectives, one of them
Guillam.
Guillam saw him, jerked, bobbed his head in a kind
of greeting. When Denton was standing by his desk, Guillam, head
down now over paperwork, grunted. After thirty seconds, Denton
said, ‘Could I sit down?’
Guillam looked up, bobbed his head towards a chair
against the wall - the only spare one in the room, testament to the
rarity of visitors - and Denton got it, lifted it one-handed and
carried it back and set it down. He sat, crossed his legs, watched
the top of Guillam’s head. Five minutes later, Guillam said, ‘Well,
now.’ He stared at Denton. ‘To what do I owe the honour of the
visit?’
Fighting irritation, Denton took out the sheets Mrs
Johnson had sent him. ‘You wanted the addresses of the R. Mulcahys
in the London directories.’
‘I did?’
‘You said you did.’ Denton hadn’t quite succeeded
in hiding his annoyance. ‘I told you I was having it done, and you
said it was evidence and you wanted it.’
‘I might have said something like that. All right,
chuck it in the basket.’ He bobbed his head towards a wire basket
on the far corner of his desk. ‘That’s it?’
‘You’re not even going to look at it?’
‘Willey’s manor, not mine. I’ll send it to
him.’
‘Today?’
Guillam’s head had already gone down twice, as if
he was going back to his paperwork; now, it stayed up as he eyed
Denton. ‘When I get to it.’
‘Isn’t it more important than that?’
‘That’s for me to decide.’ Guillam’s head went
down. ‘G’day.’
‘I’d think Sergeant Willey would want it as soon as
he can get it.’
Guillam’s look was ugly. ‘Willey’s got other things
to think about!’ he roared. The other detectives looked at each
other, grinned. ‘It isn’t going to run itself over to the City just
because you paid for it!’ He touched his pen to his fingers as he
counted. ‘A day to get logged here. A day to send it with the
messenger’s lot to City Police. A day for them to log it. A day for
it to get to Willey, who’ll take one look and chuck it into a
basket identical to mine and hope it gets buried until he’s got
nothing better to do! Now mind your own business, Denton!’
Denton had one of those instantaneous internal
debates - hit the man? No, don’t hit a copper in his own office.
Erupt in curses and threats? No, they’d laugh at him. Complain to
his superiors? - and stood, his overcoat over his good arm. ‘That
does it, Guillam. If I had my hand around Mulcahy’s neck, I
wouldn’t deliver him to you.’ He started out, turned back. ‘You’re
one rotten cop.’
‘Go to hell.’
Denton strode out. He heard laughter before the
door closed behind him. He knew his face was flushed and set; he
was barely able to be polite to the old constable in the lobby. He
wanted to kill somebody. Barring that, complaining was all that was
on offer. He headed for the Annexe and Hector Hench-Rose.
A florid-faced civil servant with the manner of a
church usher bowed his head and said, ‘Sir Hector will see you now,
sir.’
Before Denton had digested the Sir Hector,
he was in the office and looking at the man himself. Surprisingly,
Hench-Rose was wearing deep mourning. Denton, despite seething over
Guillam, took in the black and wondered what had happened, a
mystery best taken care of at once. ‘I take it you’ve had a
bereavement,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Only my brother,’ Hench-Rose said in a chipper
voice, ‘and I couldn’t stand him. Rather a swine, in fact. However,
he was nice enough to make me rich and pass on the title to me. You
may now address me as Sir Hector.’ He guffawed.
‘I thought the Queen did the knighting with a
sword.’
‘Baronetcy, not a knighthood. Hereditary.’ Well,
that explained the flunky.
‘I’ll never understand England.’
‘That’s what you get for rebelling against us.
You’re a sight for sore eyes, I must say - how’s that arm?’
‘I’ve had worse.’
‘The black hanky is quite romantic. Also the pallor
- is that loss of blood? You’ve come to ask me to lunch, I
hope.’
‘I’ve come to complain about an ass at the
Yard.’
‘What, only one?’ Hench-Rose roared. ‘I may be
leaving the police, actually. The Yard is losing its fascination
for me, now I’m wealthy.’
Denton said something about Guillam and stupidity
in general and then added, a little desultorily, that he hoped the
London police weren’t too much for Hench-Rose.
‘Not that at all; police are all right as far they
go, not too bad when you’ve got a sinecure. Trouble is, I’ve got a
grouse moor and my own mountain now.’ He smiled, waggled his
eyebrows. ‘What I’m trying to work out with the powers that be is
something that would allow me to drop in one or two days a week,
keep my hand in. Advisory or consultative, that sort of thing. Not
during the shooting season, of course.’
Denton had seen one or two men like that in the
publishing business, partners who came and went like ghosts making
visitations. They, however, had money invested in the firm.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘you should buy into Scotland Yard.’
‘What? Oh, not possible. Can’t buy a government
entity.’
‘I was joking.’
‘Oh? Really? Oh, I see!’ Hench-Rose laughed.
Perhaps in retaliation, he said, ‘Do you know you’ve dog hairs all
over your clothes? Your man is not doing his job.’
‘It’s his dog - long story.’To change the subject,
he said, ‘You were having a good time at Westerley Street the other
night. Did you get to the variety at Greenwich?’
‘What? Oh, I did see you, didn’t I! One forgets.
Yes, yes, that charming girl. No, I didn’t, as a matter of fact.
Got dragged to the Adelphi to look at the tarts - some real
smashers there, quite remarkable, but no good to me after Yvonne.
My word, that girl’d exhaust a monkey! No, oddly, I was asleep in
my own bed by one o’clock.’
‘So much for your night on the tiles.’
‘Well, it started rather handsomely. You didn’t
stay at Westerley Street, did you?’
Denton told him about the hugger-mugger trip to
Paris. Hench-Rose seemed scandalized by the idea of going to Oscar
Wilde’s funeral, muttered something about public morals. Denton
said, again to change the subject, ‘Does the name Janet Striker
mean anything to you?’
‘Striker.’ Hench-Rose had a vast family and was
probably sorting through third cousins and in-laws by marriage, his
eyes cast up. ‘Mmmm-no - wait—’ He swung around to look out of the
window, one finger on the end of his nose. ‘Striker. Yes, by God!’
He swung back. ‘There was a Striker - let’s see; it was a long time
ago - I was billeted at Salisbury, I think, not so bad as it sounds
because of the trains, possible to be in London at the weekend -
and there was a tale. Mmm. Woman who killed her husband, as I
remember. Must have, because she went to prison. Yes, that was it.
Newspapers very circumspect; you had to read between the lines,
understand that a lot of very racy stuff was involved. Yes,
Striker. Interest you as a novel or something?’
Denton dodged the question. He told himself it
couldn’t be the same woman. Hench-Rose asked again if Denton was
taking him to lunch; Denton answered that he thought that, as
Hench-Rose was now rich, it was his turn. That seemed to delight
Hench-Rose, who grabbed a black hat and led the way out, heading
for his club. As they were going out, Hench-Rose said, ‘Ah!’ and
turned around to stop Denton with a finger to his chest. ‘I’ve made
up a quip. It’s rather good.’ He grinned.
‘Let’s hear it.’
Hench-Rose cleared his throat, the rigours of
creativity making him flush. ‘All gals are divided into three
parts: mothers, tarts and the ones we’re allowed to marry. Eh? Eh?
Rather good, isn’t it? “All gals are divided”?’
Denton didn’t get it. It had to be, he knew, one of
those references that Hench-Rose had learned in school, therefore
must have something to do with Latin. He said, ‘I’ve told you, I
left school when I was twelve. I don’t get it.’
‘“All gals” - get it? “Gallia est omnis divisa—”
Eh?’ Hench-Rose could never accept the idea that Denton hadn’t been
to an English public school. ‘“All Gaul is divided into three
parts”! All gals!’ He chortled, but, seeing Denton’s
in-comprehension, stopped, became deeply gloomy. Halfway through
lunch, he explained his joke again, a process that he said was like
taking out one’s own gall bladder, and he added - unwisely - that
Denton lacked a sense of humour. Denton made the mistake of saying
that he didn’t think that Hench-Rose’s joke displayed much sense of
humour, either. Hench-Rose, now annoyed, said that Denton didn’t
know any more about humour than he did about women, as shown by the
fact that Denton ‘was wasting his time on some stupid bint who had
got herself murdered.’
Denton’s jaw set and he was about to say something
ugly when Hench-Rose, his face red, almost shouted, ‘And another
thing! That Striker woman! She murdered a man, and you’re
asking me about her as if you’re interested in her!’ His
voice rose; heads turned towards them. ‘Everybody said the husband
was as nice a chap as you’d ever want to meet, and she
murdered him. Or as good as - she might as well have put the
pistol to his head and pulled the trigger herself! She’s obviously
an awful woman! Awful!’
Then Hench-Rose realized that he had been shouting
and had committed that worst of crimes, calling attention to
himself. He seemed to shrink in his chair and, with his face almost
in his plate, he mumbled, ‘Fellow feels strongly about certain
things. Things have to be said.’
And Denton, who liked Hench-Rose no matter what,
felt his own anger evaporate, and he said in a gentle voice, ‘You
said it for my own good, Hector. You’re a good fellow. Should I try
the spotted dick?’