The Bohemian Girl

without seeming to make any proclamation about herself: she was herself, the scar down her face worn now without apology or even powder.

‘You’re magnificent,’ he said.

‘You mustn’t say things like that.’ She had reddened. ‘Come, Atkins says you must exercise — walk up and down the room with me.’

‘Atkins is trying to kill me — he brought two dumb-bells down from the attic this morning and told me to start lifting them.’ He groaned as he got out of his chair. ‘Only ten pounds each, and I had trouble getting them off the floor. God, when will this be over!’

They walked the length of the room and back, then up it again to the window over the garden, where he stopped, then leaned against the window frame and looked out. ‘Somebody’s bought the house behind,’ he said.

‘Good for Atkins! He didn’t tell you.’

‘What didn’t he tell me?’

She smiled. ‘I bought it.’

She was a few inches shorter than he; he looked down into her eyes. It dawned on him what she meant: she had found a way to live, if not with him, then near him. He pulled her to himself clumsily, off-balance; he kissed her. She tipped her head back and said, ‘What did you think I’d gone away for, Denton? I had to decide about you. And I decided.’ She kissed him again. ‘There’s to be a door knocked in the garden wall. For those who want to visit.’ When he bent to kiss her again, she said, ‘And there’s to be a lock on my side of the door. For those who don’t want a visit.’

He said, ‘I wish we could go to bed.’

‘Who says we can’t?’

‘I’m so — so-’

‘Like hell.’ She led him back down the room to the short corridor that led to his ad hoc bedroom, then into it, where she took his stick and pushed him gently down. He lay on his elbows, watching her as she undressed — that always-renewed wonder. Naked, she came to the foot of the bed, then climbed him like a horizontal ladder and took him to a place he had feared he would never see again.

Munro came on the Monday about the middle of the day. Denton had been working with the ten-pound dumb-bells on his sitting-room floor, gasping and groaning as if they weighed a hundred; by the time Munro had been shown up, he was knotting a cord around a dressing gown.

‘By God, it’s good to see you standing.’ Munro seemed truly glad to see him; he even shook Denton’s hand.

‘I’ve a long row to hoe yet.’

Munro bent and picked up one of the dumb-bells. ‘About six stone’s worth, I’d say. Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ Munro sat heavily. ‘You’ve heard from Mrs Striker, I suppose?’

‘She’s here, in fact. She’s staying upstairs.’ Denton smiled. ‘Where I can’t go. Can’t do stairs yet.’

Munro didn’t say But she can; probably he didn’t care. What he did say was, ‘She’s stirred up a hornet’s nest at the Yard.’

‘You should be grateful.’ Denton, for his part, didn’t say You wouldn’t do it yourself.

‘A detective arrived from Paris this morning — last night, actually. Was practically waiting on the doorstep this morning. He’s very keen.’

‘What have they found?’

‘Well, you don’t think he’s going to tell me right off, do you?’ Munro laughed. He seemed in good spirits. ‘Lot of horse-trading to be done. Whose case, and so on. Matter of jurisdiction. He jabbered something about the Quai d’Orsay, which I found later means their foreign office. Bloody French haven’t forgotten Waterloo, I think. Anyway, he seems to be a good copper, and very keen when it comes to murder.’

‘You’re sure it’s murder.’

‘Bodies buried under straw piles are usually murder, Denton.’

‘The owner of the farm in any trouble?’

Munro grunted. ‘When a body’s found, you don’t want to be the owner of the plot where it’s buried. I’m sure they showed him a fairly bad time. No arrest made, however. There’s a major problem — they don’t know yet how long the body’s been there.’ He got up and took off his overcoat, threw it over the back of his chair and sat down again, shaking his head when Denton made a move for the bell-pull. ‘The body was buried in lye.’

Denton slowly sat back, letting his head roll until it was supported by the chair. ‘That’s why the skin is white.’

‘What’s left of it. Lot of lye used — French police think as much as a hundred pounds. Not enough to dissolve the bones, but it’s apparently done some major damage. Plus there’s a complication.’

Denton raised himself upright.

‘There’s no head.’

‘Oh, dammit.’

‘They’ve sent everything off to Paris to a professeur who’s some sort of expert in old bones. He’s going to tell them — maybe — how long they’ve been in the ground and what sort of creature it was: male, female; old, young.’ Munro leaned forward with his hands on his knees. ‘Look, Denton, we’re not in it yet — CID have no official interest. They came to me because Mrs Striker gave them my name. We’re in it if the body turns out to be English.’ His eyes opened slightly; his brow went up. ‘I think you’d better tell me everything.’

‘I tried to already.’

‘I know. I was right not to listen then. Now I’m right to demand you tell me. Everything.’

Atkins came in with a tray, put it down on the folding table, opened the dumb-waiter doors, and turned left and went upstairs. Half a minute later, he came down again and vanished into his own lower regions.

‘He telling her I’m here?’ Munro said.

‘I suspect he’s asking her to join us for whatever’s on that tray.’

‘Hmp.’ Munro looked down at the tray, which held mostly crockery. ‘Not very nourishing.’ He looked at Denton again. ‘I daresay it’s better that she be here, anyway.’ He filled the time until she appeared with chatter. He talked about the coronation, now a few months off. There was great concern about anarchists. Police were going to be brought into London from the rest of England. He was sure the London criminals were already booking accommodation in other cities for the easy pickings. ‘Curious thing when you think about it, a coronation,’ he said.

‘I don’t think about it much.’

‘Well, it’s what your people had a rebellion about.’

‘Revolution. Rebellion is when you lose.’

‘Ah. Did you win? I thought it was the French who won.’ Munro looked sly and laughed. At that point Atkins and Mrs Striker almost collided at the foot of the stairs; she pulled back and insisted that Atkins, carrying another tray, go ahead.

‘Very sorry, madam, very sorry,’ Atkins said as he put the tray down on another table.

‘No harm done,’ she said. ‘Hallo, Sergeant. Are you angry with me?’

‘For putting the French on me? I’m not delighted.’

‘I thought they should have the best the Yard had to offer.’ She was bending over a teapot, looking into its steam as if she could read her future there.

‘Oh, ha-ha. Well, it might well have come my way, anyway.’ She was wearing an unfussy blouse and the green wool skirt with the box pleats, part of one of her suits; her hair was piled high, a comb with brilliants in it — diamond chips? — at the back. While she passed filled cups to Atkins to hand around, Munro told her what he’d already told Denton. He skipped the part about the missing head. When Atkins was gone, Munro said, ‘He hears everything down that dumb-waiter shaft, am I right?’

Denton said in a dry voice, ‘I don’t try to keep much from him, if that’s what you mean.’

Janet Striker sat on a side chair, crossed her legs and set her cup and saucer on them, keeping the saucer in the fingers of one hand. She said, ‘You’ll want to know everything.’

‘Indeed I will.’ He glanced at Denton. ‘I asked him to tell me “everything” a bit ago, and he didn’t.’

She looked at Denton and winked. It was an astonishing performance for that usually grave face. He smiled