‘I’m going to take one of Ruth’s laudanum pills and slip into the land of dreams for a while. I used to do it rather too much. But not in a long time.’ She leaned into the curved back of the sofa, which rose towards the ends in great loops like bows. ‘He painted “Astoreth” on the wall. I take it to mean that I’d been paid a visit by his demon.’ She exhaled shakily. ‘What sort of demon takes an interest in old clothes and a lot of odd bits picked off the rubbish tip? It makes me question the demon’s judgement.’ She looked shrewdly at him. ‘It was meant for you, you know.’
‘Partly.’
‘And part for me? Yes, perhaps. “See what I can do.” Be careful, Denton.’
‘Will you be safe here?’
‘Between Fred, Ruth, the girls and the clientele, I shall be safer than in the Tower of London. Go home now.’
‘Can I come back tomorrow?’
She frowned. ‘I’ll come to you. When do you stop working? Four? By then I’ll have begged or borrowed some clothes. I’ll come to you. Four?’
He held her again, kissed her and slipped out of the little door. In her receiving room, Ruth Castle was now surrounded by men, two or three with women of the house. Everybody was in formal dress. There was a smell of cigars and alcohol and perfume. Denton was impressed by the fact that he hadn’t heard them from the inner room — nor they he, therefore.
‘Denton, you look a fright — I’ve seen better-dressed navvies. Do go away.’ Mrs Castle looked to the sleek, well-dressed men. ‘When he’s properly turned out, he’s quite one of my favourite people.’ Her voice was nasal, easily mocking; she dropped the H in ‘he’, perhaps intentionally. The received wisdom was that Ruth Castle had been a child from one of the rookeries who had been plucked out, bathed and raped by a wealthy man who had kept her for several years before sending her off to a house. From there, she had continued to rise — a ‘personage’, a marriage (or at least the honorific ‘Mrs’), her own house.
She held out a hand, which he kissed, something he’d have done with nobody else. She pulled him close. ‘Take care of her,’ she murmured. The sour breath of champagne washed over him.
‘I mean to.’
‘You’d better.’ She shoved him off. ‘Now take your awful suit away.’
Seeing Oldaston again as he went out, he said, ‘You ever know somebody called the Stepney Jew-Boy?’
‘Jew-Boy Cohan? Haven’t heard that name since Hector was a pup. Yes, I remember him well — mind, I never fought him, too small for me by a couple of stone.’
‘He says he was never knocked down.’
‘That’s a fact. Very tough. But not fast enough. He could take a terrific blow, but he couldn’t move his hands quick. Mind, he won fights, quite a deal of them. But lost, too.’
‘He’s looking for work, if you hear of anything.’
‘No! Well, that’s the pugilist’s life in a nutshell. He addled?’
‘No — seems quite sharp.’
‘Tell you what I’d do if I was him — go to Mrs Franken. She’s a Jewess herself, nothing wrong with that. She might have something in my line of work. She has a couple of houses, you never know.’
Atkins was waiting at home. He’d found Janet Striker’s telegram beside Denton’s armchair. And he’d read it, of course, so there was no point in pretending nothing had happened, some gain perhaps in telling him.
‘I think I’ll keep carrying that derringer,’ Atkins said.
‘You have Rupert.’
‘All very well for you to say. You’re sitting on an arsenal.’
‘Don’t shoot yourself.’
‘Oh, ha-ha. Thirty years in the British army and I never so much as pinched my thumb in a breech. So your loony’s turned dangerous. Well, you said he would. Now what?’
‘A good citizen would wait for the police to catch him.’
‘Yes, but what are
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Munro and Markson showed up at three-thirty the next afternoon. The two detectives were sombre, Markson clearly nervous, perhaps blaming himself somehow for the attack on Janet Striker’s lodgings. Munro, phlegmatic at best, was apparently calm, but he acknowledged what Markson’s jerkings of a leg and facial tics indicated: the police were worried.
‘He isn’t just some Bohemian would-be writer now. He’s a threat,’ Munro said. He was sitting in the upholstered piece opposite Denton’s armchair; Markson was on an armless side chair that Atkins had fetched from farther up the room. ‘What he did was an act of violence.’
‘Symbolic violence, anyway,’ Denton said. ‘Paint looks like blood, but it isn’t blood. Cutting up clothes isn’t the same as cutting up a woman but gives the sense of it.’
‘You’re not defending him, I hope.’
‘Trying to be accurate.’ He was remembering what Janet Striker had said about insanity.
Munro grunted. ‘For this copper, he’s only one step away from real blood.’
‘You’re the police. Go catch him.’
Munro pushed his lips out and drew his brows down in an expression that, in a saloon, would have meant that a fight was coming. Markson said, ‘We’re trying. Mr Denton, we’ve had men on you all week.’
‘They did a particularly fine job of catching him while he watched Mrs Striker leave this house.’
Munro raised a hand to silence Markson before he could complain. Munro twisted in his chair, crossed his legs, looked at Denton sideways. ‘How did he find her, do you think?’
‘Followed her, I suppose.’
‘“Follow that cab”?’ Munro snorted. ‘What is he, invisible? One of Mr H. G. Wells’s inventions, is he?’
Markson twitched. ‘One of the watchers happened to be on his tea break.’
Munro groaned. ‘Jesus wept.’ He wiped his right hand over his face, then leaned his head on that hand, the elbow on the chair back. He looked like an actor playing great pain. ‘I apologize, all right, Denton? For the Metropolitan Police, for myself — I apologize. We should have done better. All right?’
‘I didn’t ask you to.’
‘No, but it makes me feel better. It’s also a lesson to young Fred here — we’re not always perfect.’ He leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘Now look. We need to know where we are. How much danger is the woman in? You’ve got to be frank with me, Denton. Fred says she was here while he was here that day — she was collecting for some charity-’
‘The Society for the Improvement of Wayward Women.’
‘This is the same woman that got her face slashed last year and you saved her life, am I right? Now — don’t get your dander up — is there more to it than her stopping by to pick up a contribution?’
‘Why should there be more?’
‘Because I’m a suspicious, cynical Canuck who doesn’t share the English taste for pussy-footing about. You saved her life last year. One of the watchers reported following you to the Embankment where you met with a lady. Now she happens to be here collecting a contribution, which seems bloody odd, as the Royal Mail worked efficiently the last time I looked.’
Denton looked into Munro’s eyes without wavering. ‘We’re friends.’
‘Was she here before? Could Cosgrove have seen her with you before?’
Denton knew what Munro was after, knew that it was foolish to splutter and object. ‘Yes.’
Munro looked at Markson, back at Denton. He sat back in his chair, his hands gripping the ends of the velour-covered arms. ‘I’m going to have to put a watch on her.’
‘Bit late. I don’t think she’ll like that.’
‘Nor would I, but we have to catch the bastard.’ He looked at Markson. ‘Report?’
This had been arranged, Denton guessed — a kind of briefing to make him feel that at least he was included,
