‘What makes you think he’s missing? What you mean is, you can’t find him. Not the same thing.’
‘I asked at the Slade about Arthur Crum. Asked a couple of the sister’s friends. Had somebody look in the Kelly’s. No Arthur Crum.’
‘What’re you suggesting — an RA took him to the Continent and did him in? Save it for a novel.’
‘Munro, you’re as hard to move as an elephant.’
‘And a good deal busier. Want a word of advice?’
‘No.’
‘We got enough crimes without you inventing them. Leave it.’
‘I can’t leave it. I thought I had; it came back.’
Munro looked up from his paperwork. ‘Where’d you get a picture of her?’
‘It turned up.’
‘Convenient.’ He went back to scribbling on a piece of typescript. ‘You hear that the docs sent in a report on your man Jarrold?’
‘“My man Jarrold” — my God!’
‘Guillam’s office filed it with the magistrate — “given to harmless childish fantasies but improving”. Docs recommend more of whatever they’re doing and a continuance of the charges. Guillam’s recommending to Mrs Striker that she agree.’ He raised his head. ‘She hasn’t told you?’
‘I haven’t seen her in a bit.’
‘Mm. Perhaps you should. Better than mucking about with missing persons.’ He started to lower his head to his paperwork again but lifted it and said, ‘Anyway, they’ve pulled the watchers off you because of the report on Jarrold. You’re on your own.’
When he saw her two days later, he said, ‘You didn’t tell me you’d heard about Jarrold.’
‘I haven’t seen you.’
‘You could have sent one of your telegrams.’
‘I didn’t think it was important.’
‘It’s important to me. Jarrold’s hoodwinked them. If they think what’s behind that moon face of his is a “harmless childish fantasy”, they should be disbarred or defrocked or whatever it is you do with medical men.’
‘Their report is quite positive. He’s “calm”. They’re giving him chloral at night and he’s sleeping. He’s given up wandering about in the dark, sleeps the night through. The Lady Astoreth has dropped out of his life.’
‘He’s pulling the wool over their eyes.’
‘Maybe the Lady Astoreth has run off with Arthur Crum.’
‘If Arthur Crum actually exists somewhere.’
‘Not to mention the Lady Astoreth.’ They were in his sitting room. Outside, it was crisp and cold; thin winter sunlight showed the sooty patterns on his windowpanes. She was wearing another suit, this one in a heavy rustred wool; she had taken off the jacket to reveal a plain white blouse with a mannish necktie. She said, ‘Maybe Munro’s right about both Mary Thomason and Arthur Crum. They’re both much ado about nothing.’
‘I think the Thomason business is nothing, then I swing the other way and am certain something’s really happened. The coincidences — the drawing, Himple, Crum going off with him-’ He struck the velvet arm of his chair and dust motes jumped into the room. ‘The little drawings, the remarques — if they mean something, if they’re some sort of code — Augustus John and the housekeeper both recognized the one of Lazarus, so that one’s clear enough. If she drew it, she was referring to the man who drew her picture, to Himple. But the other one-’
‘You said nobody recognizes the other one.’
‘It’s a doorway, just a doorway.’ He put his legs out. He touched her foot with one of his, frowned at her small boot. ‘Heseltine looked funny when he saw it, but he said he didn’t recognize it. No, he didn’t say that — he just said something about — what? It was too small to see, or something. But he did look funny.’
‘Ask him again.’
‘I hate to bother him. He’s in a bad state.’
‘So are you.’
He looked at her with the same frown. He meant that he didn’t think his own frustration was anything like Heseltine’s despair. She reddened.
‘Anyway, I don’t like the docs’ report on Jarrold. And the police have pulled off their watchers because of it. Damn them.’
Next afternoon, he walked down to Albany Court when he was done working. He had had the satisfaction of writing ‘end’ below a final paragraph, then underlining it. He had got the whole book out of his head and on the page, now had only to wait for the typewriter to do the final sheets, then take them to bed, revise, edit, get them down to the publishers. The great anticlimax.
Heseltine opened his own door. He answered a question about Jenks with only a shake of his head. Heseltine hadn’t shaved; he was still in a dressing gown, again with an old woollen scarf around his neck. The place smelled of benzoin, as if he really had been ill. When they had talked banalities for a few minutes, Denton let a silence fall and then he said, ‘Do you remember the drawing I showed you?’
‘Drawing?’
‘The young woman.’
‘Oh, of course.’
‘There were little drawings in the corners.’
‘I don’t recall.’
‘I thought you recognized one of them.’ Heseltine didn’t react. Denton pulled out a photographic copy and held it towards him. Heseltine hesitated and then took it.
‘The lower left one.’
Heseltine looked at it, but he spoke before he looked. ‘Afraid it doesn’t mean a thing to me.’
‘The light’s poor. I’d be grateful if you’d look at it in better light.’ Denton handed him a folding magnifier he’d brought on purpose.
Heseltine took it to a window. The Wesselons hung on the wall next to him; his shoulder almost brushed it as he leaned against the window frame. The light was colourless but bright. Denton got up and stood at his shoulder. ‘Recognize it?’
‘No — no-’ The corner of the paper quivered.
Denton said, ‘It’s important. It means something. You wanted to help me find this young woman, remember?’
Heseltine turned around him into the room and went back to where he had been sitting, a rather grubby love seat; he leaned over and put the drawing on the cushion of Denton’s chair, then dropped his head on the fingers of one hand and looked at the raddled carpet. He said, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘You were talking about going away.’
Heseltine rubbed his forehead with his fingers as he leaned on them. ‘The little drawing is of a doorway in Mayfair. It’s a place called the Mayflower Baths.’ His eyes were shut. He kept rubbing. ‘I was taken there when I was a schoolboy. I didn’t know-A friend of my father’s took me. It was only the once, I swear. I’m not-’ He stopped rubbing, then put his thumb and first finger on his eyes and seemed to push. ‘It’s
‘You mean — women, or men?’
‘Men, of course, dear God — women!’ He threw himself back, his eyes still closed. ‘I was deeply ashamed. I’m still ashamed. And the man who took me was a friend of my father’s, I trusted him, but looking back I realize he’d said things earlier, made insinuations.’
‘You were a boy.’
‘I was seventeen. I knew enough. At school — there’s always a certain amount of that sort of thing. I won’t claim I was innocent.’ He sat up. ‘But it was only the one time!’
‘You’re sure that’s what the picture shows.’
Heseltine cackled. ‘It’s unmistakable. I used to pass that doorway before the war, going to a house where I often looked in after dinner. I could never see it without flinching.’ He swallowed. ‘I learned to look away.’ He laughed.
