‘Oh, don’t do that!’ Lang’s desiccated face looked to be near tears. ‘They’re not gentlemen!’
Denton heard a heavy footstep in the corridor and then the impressive bulk of Wilfred Gweneth himself filled the doorway. ‘What’s this, then? Ah, Denton-’ Gweneth seemed quite jolly, as if the motor car had never existed. They shook hands. Denton was sure that in fact Lang had sent for Gweneth while he was out of the office.
Gweneth looked at Lang. ‘Anything amiss?’
‘Mr Denton — our friend and valued author, Mr Denton — ah-’
‘Wants more money,’ Denton said.
Gweneth smiled. ‘Ah.’
‘You got your money back for the motor car. The Transylvania book has made you a pot. I’ve delivered the new novel. I want more for my next.’ He didn’t say he didn’t have an idea for a next in his head — not a hint.
Gweneth picked up one of the letters from the desk, read it, picked up another, then another. Lang whispered, ‘He’s talking about an agent.’
Gweneth smiled and shook his head, as if the vagaries of authors were beyond understanding. ‘How much?’ he said.
Denton told him. ‘There’s nothing about a next book in the letter agreement.’
‘I know.’ Gweneth laughed and showed his back teeth. He lifted Denton’s new book as if weighing it, apparently judged it sufficiently heavy. ‘Let’s say pounds not guineas, ten per cent royalty, but the old terms on the Empire and we’ll forget about the next-book clause!’ He pointed a hand at Lang. ‘Draw up a contract that meets the new terms. We don’t want him going to a wretched bunch of thieves like Longwin’s.’ Gweneth hooked a hand through Denton’s arm. ‘Lunch? I want to hear about your being shot. Is there a book in it, do you think-? Perhaps something that might touch on spiritualism — a moment when you saw beings in white robes all about you, a magical light, music-? Do you like fresh-caught salmon?’
At the end of April, Janet Striker handed him a pasteboard box. In it was a folded something of grey wool with blue trim. When he laid it out on his bed, he stared at it and tried to guess what it was and what he was supposed to do with it. The sleeves came, he thought, about to the elbows, the trousers to just below the knee. There was a little hat to match, rather like the caps that Eton boys wore. Surely they weren’t some sort of pyjamas she thought he would wear?
‘Unhhh-’ he said.
‘It’s a rowing costume.’ She was undressing, was wearing an only slightly frilly thing that came halfway down her thighs and had garters to attach to her stockings. ‘Can’t you tell that?’
‘You’re distracting me.’
‘You hate it, don’t you.’
‘In the attic, it’ll be fine.’
‘You’re not going to wear it in the attic! You’re going to wear it at Hammersmith. I’ve bought you a season ticket for a rowing boat. You’ll wear it on the Thames!’
He stared at it. She began to unfasten her stockings. He said, ‘I know I told you I’d do anything for you, but-’ She looked up, bent forward, a foot on the divan, pulling off a stocking. He said, ‘Of course I’ll wear it. It’s just the thing.’
The likely death of Erasmus Himple caused a brief sensation. Journalists came to interview Denton and were turned away. A French detective came with a translator and went over everything that Denton and Janet Striker knew and left without comment.
Denton sat late one evening with her and let the room go almost dark before he lit a lamp. He said, ‘It grieves me that they’ve got away with it.’
‘They?’
‘There had to be two of them. One man alone couldn’t have murdered Heseltine. You can make a man lie down in a bathtub, maybe, but you can’t hold both his arms and slash his wrists for him. He’ll fight you. From Munro’s description, Heseltine didn’t fight and didn’t splash blood around. That means he was unconscious when his wrists were slashed, already in the bath or there’d have been blood all over his flat. One small man couldn’t have dragged him to the bathroom and got him into the tub, even if he was unconscious.’
‘You still think Mary and her brother are different people.’
‘It’s the explanation that takes care of the most questions.’
‘You think a small man and a small woman could have moved Heseltine?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He stretched out both his legs and slowly raised the right one to put it over his left ankle. ‘I need to think. I’ve missed things.’
Lady Emmeline’s legal people got in touch with Sir Francis Brudenell, his solicitor. They were offering to pay his medical expenses in return for his signing a paper absolving Lady Emmeline and her son of all responsibility. ‘This, of course,’ Sir Francis wrote, ‘is nonsense. They are clearly terrified that we will sue. We should most certainly win, as there is no question of his having shot you or of her negligence in controlling him. However, the law is slow, and publicity could be an embarrassment to you, as it is my understanding that the shooting took place immediately after your egress from a premises less well-respected than many. It is my recommendation that I make them a counter-offer to settle the matter out of court for, let us say, your medical expenses plus ten thousand pounds. We shall settle for five. It will hardly matter to Lady Emmeline, as she owns a good deal of central Portsmouth. Of course, in case there is permanent damage from the bullets, we shall make the matter conditional on full recovery.’
It gave Denton something new to think about. With five thousand pounds, he could electrify his house, perhaps put in central heating, buy a motor car and still have enough to put away — a previously impossible luxury. On the other hand, he believed that he should earn whatever money he got. After two days, he scribbled a note: ‘Go ahead.’
He made lists. He compared dates. He reconstructed everything that had happened, dated it, made a chart of the what and the when, with the events down one side in chronological order, from his opening Mary Thomason’s letter through to the finding of the bones in Normandy. He tried to make a graph, or perhaps it was a map, of who had been in various places at various times, but it was too complicated and at the same time too empty: he didn’t know enough. After several days of it, sitting sulkily and looking at the papers he had stuck up with pins on his bedroom wall, he said, ‘Somebody’s lied to us.’
‘Who?’
He chewed on a thumbnail. ‘I mean to find that out.’ He stared at the papers; she moved about the room, picked up a book, sat to read. He said, ‘I’ve been thinking about those dreams. After I was shot.’ He chewed on the thumbnail. ‘I was afraid.’
‘But you know that.’
‘But not afraid the way I thought. It isn’t any of that elaborate allegory the doctor was trying to build; it was fear of-It’s something about the woman. The doctor was sure it was fear of death. Well, of course — all fear is fear of death, I suppose. But this was about-I don’t think the one with the shotgun was a man-’
‘It was Mary Thomason.’
He nodded.
‘A while ago, you thought that “they” would try again.’
‘I think that’s over. If they ever meant to. I wonder a little that they didn’t try to move Himple’s body after they shot me, but it was probably just too much — too risky. And they thought I’d die.’
‘They’ve given up?’
He studied his charts. ‘I hope that they don’t care about me any more. As soon as the news about finding the body hit the newspapers, there was no longer any reason. When the police couldn’t find them, they knew they’d won.’
‘So you’re safe.’
‘Unless we find something that sets them going again.’ He got up and limped around the room. He stood in front of one of his papers, arms folded. ‘I’m going to ask Munro to let me see Struther Jarrold.’