Atkins had come down the room and was leaning over him. ‘I thought we agreed she’s dead.’
‘“We” speculated she was probably dead. I’m not ready to go that far. I want a picture I can show around.’
‘You don’t even know it’s her.’
‘That’s what I’ll find out.’
‘Why?’
Denton looked at him, amused and annoyed. ‘Because like you I’m nosy.’
‘Oh, well — if you’re going to take that line-’ Atkins picked up the drawing. ‘One face-only, one each the little squiggles in the corners, one the lot.’
‘Fastest service. The drawing has to be back by noon in case Mrs Striker comes for the trunk.’ Atkins looked blank. ‘She’s going to take it back where she got it.’
‘I’d pitch it in the Grand Union canal.’ Atkins moved off, grumbling to himself. Rupert, his stump of tail going like a metronome set on Presto, followed.
Denton wanted to take a day away from all of it — the novel, Albert Cosgrove, Mary Thomason, even Janet Striker — and he had a fleeting notion of going to Hammersmith and rowing on the river, then a cut off the joint or something even rougher at the Dove. He didn’t do it, of course, but pushed himself to his desk before eight the next day and made himself write. His brain didn’t want to work — it, too, wanted to be on the river, being washed clean — but he bullied it and began to put words down on the paper as if he were trying to gouge them into it. He wasn’t well into it until ten, and then things started to flow, and he heard the bell pulled by the front door. He muttered a curse, got up and closed his own door, and minutes later was interrupted by a knock.
‘No!’
Another knock.
Denton wrenched the door open. ‘What now?’
‘Policeman below name of Markson. Wants to talk to you.’
‘Oh-! Damn him and damn Albert Cosgrove!’
He heard Atkins mutter, ‘For all the good it does,’ and he made himself more or less presentable and went down. Markson, whom he had last seen after the scuffle in the house behind, was standing by the sitting-room door, a bowler in one hand and a black box tucked under the same arm, looking straight down at Rupert, who had his chin planted in the detective’s crotch. Denton took that in, but what he was focused on was Mary Thomason’s trunk, which was about three feet from Markson’s left leg.
‘I see that Rupert’s found you. You’ve been told he’s friendly?’
‘Telling me so himself, isn’t he?’
Atkins was behind Denton now, over by the fireplace. Denton looked towards him, made a face and rolled his eyes towards the trunk before saying to the detective, ‘Ah, I’m working, you know.’
‘Yes, sir, but so are most people. No good time to talk to the Metropolitan Police, is what it comes down to.’
‘Is this about Cosgrove? Why are you coming to talk to me now? All that happened last week!’
‘Yes, sir. It won’t surprise you to hear that the police have been busy, too, I’m sure.’
While this had gone on, Atkins, with one smooth movement, had picked up a travelling rug from the chair opposite Denton’s and draped it over Mary Thomason’s trunk, then brushed the chair seat as if that was what he had meant to do all along, and thrown nonexistent dirt into the coals. ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he said now in a voice that made both men look at him. Atkins had put on a stern expression. ‘You expressly wanted the sweep in this morning while you wasn’t in this room. If I may, I recommend you repair to your study so as not to suffer the discomfort of the chimney.’
‘Oh — ah — yes, I’d forgotten. Detective Markson — if you don’t mind — upstairs-?’
Markson murmured apologies for upsetting the whole house, but by the time he’d finished they were on their way up to the next floor. Denton’s bedroom-study looked sufficiently workmanlike, Denton thought — Atkins had long since made the bed and hung up the clothes — and he pulled out a chair for Markson as he sat at his desk. ‘As you see — I was working-’
‘I’ll make this quick, sir. Only two things, really. First, a question or two.’ His questions were the ones Denton had already answered — why he’d gone into the house behind, was there any possibility that ‘the man Cosgrove’s’ letters were still about somewhere. Had he received any more letters from the man Cosgrove? When they were done with those, Markson opened the black box and held up the manuscript that Albert Cosgrove had left in the other house.
‘You’ve seen this, sir?’
‘Some of it.’
‘Which you allege is lifted from a book of your own, is it?’
‘I thought so.’
‘Which one?’
‘It’s the opening paragraph of The Demon of the Plains. Then I thought there was some from my outline for the book I’m trying to finish.’
‘Left in this house while you were away, sir?’
‘In a drawer of this desk.’ He pulled open the drawer as if to prove that, there being a drawer there, it must be where the outline had been left.
Markson sniffed. Munro had said Markson was capable; Denton would take his word for it. The questions seemed to him repetitive and obvious, but Markson was perhaps the dogged kind who dotted every i. Now, he said, ‘We’d like to have your reading of this manuscript, Mr Denton.’ Before Denton could say anything, he went on, ‘Literary criticism isn’t common at New Scotland Yard. We’d like to know what you see in it — if there’s anything more of your own, for one thing. And what you find in it — what sort of mind this chap has, what he thinks he’s doing.’
‘Detective, I’m trying to finish a book!’
‘And we’re trying to catch a criminal that attacked you, sir.’
‘He didn’t hurt me.’
‘Also broke into the house over there and, it looks like, broke into this house as well. Anything else missing, by the way?’
Denton stared at the desk. ‘I think a pen.’ It sounded absurd. He’d noticed only that morning that a pen he sometimes used wasn’t there.
‘Yes, sir. That sounds right. Anything else? How about clothing? ’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Underclothing?’ The question surprised Denton, suggested a sophistication he hadn’t expected in Markson.
‘You’d have to ask Atkins. I don’t keep track.’
‘Yes, sir. You’ll read the manuscript?’
‘Oh — if I have to-’ He reached for it.
‘At New Scotland Yard, I’m afraid, sir. Evidence. I had to sign for it, myself. This afternoon?’
Denton allowed himself the luxury, later to be the cause of self-flagellation, of blowing up. It had no effect. One of the qualities Munro may have been thinking of when he’d said that Markson was capable was a calm stubbornness. When Denton’s tantrum was over, Markson said, ‘Yes, sir. What time would be best for you?’
Denton had another, lesser eruption. When he had subsided, he was aware of voices downstairs, then that one was a woman’s, which he sorted out as Janet Striker’s. He was out of the chair and down the stairs in seconds. She was standing at the far end of the room with Atkins and the dog. The trunk, which he’d feared Atkins would already have uncovered again, wasn’t there.
‘I’ve just come for the-’ she began.
‘Detective!’ Denton shouted. ‘I’m with a detective from the Metropolitan Police. Uuuhhh-’ He was aware of Markson’s coming up behind him.
Janet Striker smiled and held out her hand. ‘How nice to see you again, Mr Denton. I’ve just come for the donation you promised us.’