‘The silver thing’s a nice touch,’ Denton said.
‘It’s called a salver. In the best houses.’
‘This isn’t one of the best houses.’
‘Mmm.’
Denton extracted the folded paper that was inside, teasing it out with the end of the letter-opener, and let it fall to his lap, where he prised the folds apart with the same tool and held it down so he could read it. When he was done, he said, ‘Read it?’
‘I didn’t presume.’
‘That’ll be the day.’ Denton turned the paper over and searched the other side and only then picked it up with his fingers and handed it over. ‘See what you think.’
Atkins read it. ‘Woman.’
‘Good. Most Marys are women.’
‘Fears bodily harm.’
‘So she says.’
‘You know what she’s doing, don’t you, Colonel? It’s the same old song and dance — somebody sees spooks or hears burglars under the bed, what does she do? Write a letter to the sheriff!’
‘I wasn’t a sheriff; I was a town marshal.’
‘And then they expect you to come riding on your faithful horse Fido with six-guns blazing! That’s what she’s on about. Another hysterical female, wants a bit of the thrilling.’
‘You should be writing novels, not me.’
‘Well, what you going to do?’
‘Nothing.’ Denton turned to look at the servant. ‘Look at the date.’
Atkins studied the paper, suddenly saw the light. ‘Oh, my heart, it’s two months old.’
‘Two and a bit.’ He picked up the heavy notepaper that had enclosed the small envelope. ‘“Dear Mr Denton, I found this missive behind a recently purchased little Wesselons. As it is addressed to you, I send it on like a good postman. Yours most sincerely, Aubrey Heseltine.”’ He handed the note to Atkins. ‘Pretentious — “little Wesselons”! Some Albany idiot who wants everybody in London to know he bought a painting.’
‘A Wesselons is a painting?’
‘Don’t play the dunce, Atkins! What’s got into you?’
‘My mind’s on higher things.’
Denton sighed. Atkins had had some sort of religious experience in prison, the source of a new dourness. ‘Does piety have to be humourless?’ he said.
‘I don’t think humour comes into it.’
‘Surely there are jokes in the Bible.’
‘I certainly hope not!’
‘God ought to be allowed to laugh, surely. Jesus laughs somewhere, doesn’t he?’ Denton thought of telling Atkins an American joke — a rabbi and a priest are almost run down by a carriage, and so on — but he wasn’t sure it was relevant. ‘Is this about a woman?’
‘Now you’re offending me.’
‘It’s like you to have been led into the tent by a female. Was it Katya?’ Katya had been some sort of hanger- on at the prison (actually, Denton thought, Colonel Cieljescu’s — the commandant’s — mistress), but Atkins had been much taken with her.
‘I’ll give notice if you keep this up.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with hearing a call to God just because the voice is a woman’s. Read
‘Who’s he?’
‘That’s the title. Upright man who falls in love with a lady preacher. Not your usual, however.’ Atkins was a great reader of Charles Lever. ‘George Eliot.’
‘I thought it was Adam Breed.’
‘The author.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘It’s a her. England’s greatest novelist.’
‘I haven’t had your advantages.’
‘You’ve had exactly my advantages; you just made different use of them.’ This was only roughly true: both men had been in the army, both had been poor, but one was English and one American, and one was a servant and one was a figure of some notoriety, even fame. Denton indicated the notepaper. ‘Wha’dyou think?’
‘I think he’s a gent who’s coming it a little high, as you say, but I don’t see nothing suspicious. He buys a painting, finds an envelope, sends it to the person it’s intended for. Trail’s cold after so long; female has either had harm done to her or not by now.’
Denton read the woman’s letter aloud. ‘“Dear Mr Denton, I should like to come by one evening to seek your advice. I believe that someone threatens harm to me and I do not know quite what to do. If I may, I will call and if you are not in I will return. Mary Thomason.”’ Atkins had been pouring coffee and now put it down next to him. Denton said, ‘No salutation — simply “Mary Thomason”. Suggestive. Have some more coffee yourself.’
‘Don’t mind if I do. Suggestive of what?’
Denton shrugged. ‘Unconventionality?’
‘Ignorance, more likely.’
‘No, it’s a good hand, trained, and she says “I should like”. Mmmnmh. Maybe in a hurry or maybe wanting to seem businesslike, but maybe unconventional.’
‘You’re off on a hare because the thing was found behind a painting — arty stuff. You think, “Art, Bohemians, unconventionality, that’s for me!” Rushing your fences, Colonel.’
‘And how do you find something “behind a painting”?’ Denton sipped his coffee. By now, Atkins was sitting in the other armchair. ‘He can’t mean on the wall behind a painting, because he says he bought it, and I can’t believe he bought the wall, too. What he probably means is “in the back of a painting”.’
‘Not my line of work.’
‘Nor mine, but we’ve both turned paintings over.’ There were four or five on the walls, two more in the downstairs hall, both stinkers he’d bought because they were big and he was trying to fill a lot of space. ‘I suppose Aubrey Heseltine could tell us.’
‘You’re intrigued.’
‘I am. I’m guilty, or bothered, or something. A woman thinks she’s appealed to me for help, and I don’t hear her cry until too late.’
‘Hardly your fault, is it? She never sent the letter, did she? There wasn’t no stamp on it, was there? The back of a painting isn’t exactly the Royal Mail, is it? No on all counts. She thought better of it; you’re free and clear.’
‘Why did she put the letter in the back of a painting?’
‘Did she? You got no evidence.’
‘Well — you have me there. But the letter didn’t put itself in the back of a painting. Hardly “thinking better of it” to put it there, was it? The trash would be the likelier place.’
‘But you don’t know she did it. It’s moot.’
Denton studied him, or seemed to; he was really thinking of the woman and the somebody who might have wanted to harm her. ‘I think I’d like to know where Mr Heseltine bought the painting.’
Atkins put his eyebrows up and rose, gathering the cups and putting them with the ruin of Denton’s breakfast. ‘I’m off, then,’ he said.
‘What are you off to do?’
‘Stack this lot for Mrs Char and then read my Bible. Going to look for jokes. You’ve got me thinking.’
‘Good.’
Atkins got to the end of the room and put the tray into the dumb waiter and then said from the gloom, ‘Mind, I’m not to be got at with secular reasoning. I’m a saint by revelation.’
‘Nice, having a saint for a servant.’
He went on down the stairs, the door banging behind him. Denton didn’t want to rob the man of his religion if it was a genuine comfort to him, but he liked Atkins better when he was doing what amounted to a music-hall turn
