chair, he’s lain down on my bed, I’ll bet anything he took a crap in my WC because he couldn’t control himself!’
‘Burglars do that, it’s true — often in the middle of the carpet.’
‘Munro, I thought this was some harmless booby. Now I think otherwise. It’s — it’s “creepy”!’ A British reviewer had called Denton’s second book ‘an American fantasy of the creepy variety’. Now the word had come home to roost.
Munro’s stolid face seemed to become wooden. He stared at Denton. ‘I don’t see what it’s about.’
Denton got up and took a few steps down the room, then back. ‘I think it’s about imitation.’
‘You lost me.’
‘“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Would-be writers imitate writers who’ve made it — “playing the sedulous ape”, Stevenson called it. I think “Albert Cosgrove” may have gone a few miles beyond that.’
‘So you make him out a loony.’
‘I don’t know. But it’s creepy, finding something of my own that somebody else has taken over lock, stock and barrel. He may even believe he made it up himself.’
‘You mean, if he knows it’s yours, he’s an honest thief; if he thinks it’s his own, he’s mad — that it?’ Munro tapped the crease in his soft hat lightly with the side of a hand. ‘He dangerous, you think?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Well, he hit you with a poker. I think we’d best put some minders on you — see if he’s following you about.’
Denton didn’t like the idea of minders. ‘He may just be some kid who’s wild to be somebody.’
‘The somebody is you?’
‘I certainly hope not.’ Denton was no enthusiast of the new pseudo-science of psychology, but he’d read enough — Krafft-Ebing, James — to know that there was a form of fantasy that merged into obsession. He sometimes wrote about it, in fact, although differently, expressing it as a ghost or a demon instead of an aspect of personality. He wondered now if Albert Cosgrove had used ‘demon’ in his title as a deliberate imitation. Or was it identification? ‘Maybe he wants to hide in somebody else.’
‘From what? You’re off in fairy-land, Denton.’ Munro got up. He jiggled his hat on a finger inserted into the crown. ‘Sending you love notes, sort of, was he?’
‘You make it sound female — like a schoolgirl’s crush. Atkins said something like that.’
‘Well?’
‘Yes, it could be like that.’
‘You have any of his letters?’
‘Burned them the night I got home. No, maybe I have the one that came yesterday-’ He knelt by the grate, saw only ash and dying coals. ‘I’ll look for it. Maybe it’s in the waste bin.’
‘And you’ve forgotten the address.’
‘I’m not even sure there was one.’ He jammed his hands into his pockets. ‘I get letters like that, maybe not as excitable, all the time. It comes with the profession.’
‘The trials of the famous. You ever answer them?’
Denton huffed. ‘These had been here for a while. Of course I didn’t answer them. My God, in one he wanted a copy of each of my books, signed, with a personal inscription!’
‘But there wasn’t an address?’
‘I don’t think so. He isn’t rational.’
‘Mmp.’ Munro buttoned his overcoat. ‘Anyway, you’re to be a good citizen and take yourself down to New Scotland Yard before six tonight. And we’ll put somebody to trail you. And you’re going to let us know anything else that happens. Aren’t you.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Anything related.’
Munro gestured with the hat, holding it so its brim was vertical and waving it up and down. ‘And you’re not to go off on this by yourself! I don’t care if you were once upon a time the Lord High Sheriff of America,
‘My main concern is to finish my book.’
‘Good. Keep that in your head and we’ll be all right.’ He put his hat on. ‘You ever report that girl as a missing person?’
‘I never established that she was missing.’
‘Albert Cosgrove is police business enough for you for this year, anyway.’ He stood, bear-like, by the door, turned abruptly. ‘Dammit, I know it isn’t your fault, Denton, but you’re a bleeding magnet for loonies and misfits! I’ll see myself out.’
And he did. Denton heard the rumble of Atkins’s voice mingle with the sound of the front door’s opening.
When Atkins came up, Denton was back in his chair. ‘You heard?’ he said.
‘Couldn’t help myself. Dumb waiter left open through oversight. ’
‘The bastard was in here. He took my outline. God knows what else he did.’
‘Kind of makes you want to give everything a wash, don’t it.’
‘What d’you think?’
‘I think you’ve put your foot in a bow-wow’s mess. Best take a few weeks in Italy.’
‘We just got home.’
‘Awfully nice, Italy.’ Atkins pursed his lips. ‘I think I’ll hang on to the derringer for a bit. You really think this Cosgrove is mental?’
‘
‘Say it louder, General. Maybe they’ll go away.’
Dr Bernat came in towards noon and looked at his arm and his head and told him he was a very hard nut. When he was done with the back of Denton’s head, Bernat came around to the front, stepped closer, lifted his spectacles to look at Denton’s eyes. He had to stand on tiptoe to do so, a short man with a beard, stocky, rather handsome. ‘Your eyes are not happy, Mr Denton.’
‘I’ve been working.’
‘Eye strain.’ Bernat backed away and picked a book at random from the shelf and opened it. ‘Read.’ He held the book at eye level several feet from Denton.
‘Uh — no, too small-’
The doctor came a step closer. ‘Now?’ He moved again. ‘Now?’ ‘It’s blurry.’
Bernat closed the book with a clap. ‘You are needing eyeglasses for the close work.’
‘I haven’t got time to go someplace and go through a lot of rigmarole! ’
Bernat was writing on a pad. ‘You can go to Harley Street and pay several pounds and then go somewhere else and pay several more for eyeglasses.’ He handed over the paper. ‘Or you can go where I am going and where Whitechapel people are going and pay very little. You just try on glasses until you are finding a pair you like. Very nice people, also Jews like me, helpful — I am recommending it.’ He looked over his glasses. ‘Go today.’
‘I’m already supposed to go to New Scotland Yard to have my fingerprints taken.’
‘That sounds interesting. Good for you!’ He reached up to put a hand on Denton’s shoulder. ‘Splash cold water on the eyelids when there is pain or, what is the word — stinging. Also rest once each hour. Also look away from the work at some distant beauty-’ He waved a hand. ‘Maybe a pretty girl. But only at a distance!’ He laughed and headed for the door. ‘Don’t be putting too much strain on that arm. Meanwhile — look at a pretty girl.’
Denton was off at two towards the typewriter’s with more manuscript; then he took the underground to Whitechapel because his eyes were on fire and he thought that if he didn’t get relief, he wouldn’t be able to go on with the book. Far behind him, a fat man in dark clothes seemed to appear, then be replaced by a thin man in brown, then reappear. These were his police minders, he supposed.
He found his way to Newark Street and the Fancy Modern Imperial Spectacles and Eyeglass Emporium, where dour young men in business suits and pince-nez behaved as much as possible like doctors, helping the clientele pick glasses from shallow trays that covered twenty or so long tables.
‘Short-sighted, is it?’ a youth said.
‘For reading.’
‘Fuzzy? Not clear?’
‘That’s it.’
