‘I think it was attempted burglary, Tim,’ the first constable said to the other one, who grunted.
‘I am hurting?’ the doctor said. He had given Denton morphine to take the edge off the pain, but the cut was deep and long, and he had to make many stitches.
‘Not so bad.’
‘You behafe well.’
Denton grunted.
‘I am giffing you laudanum for after,’ the doctor said. He had a rather long beard, a bald pate with a circle of black hair, like a monk. ‘You don’t sleep without.’
‘Anything missing?’ the constable said.
‘I didn’t look.’
‘Didn’t look, Tim.’ The constable consulted his notebook. ‘My advice, look first thing tomorrow.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Atkins said. ‘Crikey, don’t you coppers realize the man’s been stabbed?’
‘Now, now!’ The constable looked severe. ‘Detectives will want a full inventory. They often close a case that way, knowing what’s missing.’
‘What, they see what’s missing so they close it?’ Atkins sneered. ‘Regular Sherlock Bleeding Holmeses, they must be.’
‘Now, now!’ The constable moved to stand in front of Atkins. ‘You mind your mouth, my lad.’
‘Can’t you see I’m in a nervous state?’ Atkins looked up at him, gauged the constable’s age, which was certainly less than his own. ‘“My lad.” My hat!’
‘He’s in shock, Tim,’ the constable said to the other one, who grunted. The constable returned to Denton. ‘Black hair, smelled bad, tall. Correct?’
The doctor looked up from his work. ‘When you are finishing? You vex my patient.’
‘I wot?’
Atkins twirled his hat. ‘“Vex.” It means to irritate, to bother, to be a royal pain in the bum. Couldn’t apply to you, oh, no!’
The constable turned. ‘Now, I’m telling you-’ He pointed a large, blunt finger. ‘I don’t mind making an arrest for interfering with the work of a constable. Get me?’
Denton flinched as the needle went into tissue. ‘Give it over, Sergeant. He’s doing his job as best he can.’ He moved a leg, which was going to sleep in the uncomfortable position required by the leather couch he was lying on. ‘Yes, black hair, tall. Big man — heavier than I am. Strong. Maybe a little gone to fat; his arms felt big but not muscular. Foul breath. Hadn’t washed — same thing with his teeth, I think. As if he’d been living rough.’
‘A tramp? Lots of tramps turn their hand to burglary when they’ve a chance. Leave a window unlocked, did you?’
Atkins groaned. Denton said, more feebly than he’d intended, that a detective could look to all that in the morning. Then, perhaps only because the doctor wasn’t finished and the constables were more comfortable in the surgery than on the street, they went through it all again. The doctor finished the arm and wrapped it tight in white bandage, which quickly discoloured with a line of oozing blood. He turned his attention to the ribs, which Denton had been surprised to find were cut, swabbing them with carbolic, which felt to Denton like live coals. His shirt was slashed, the suit jacket as well.
Denton found it hard to stand straight. Atkins paid the doctor out of Denton’s wallet, made a face when he saw it was then almost empty. When Denton thanked him, the doctor — still in a nightshirt, a cardigan pulled over it — smiled and said they were neighbours. He saw Denton often, he said. ‘My name is Bernat. For the next time.’ He grinned. ‘If you are cutting yourself at the shaving.’ He gave Atkins a folded paper. ‘Laudanum pills. I am old- fashion doctor — very believing of laudanum for pain and sleeping. Make him take them, please.’
Atkins helped Denton along the street. The two policemen followed them to the front door, where the one who grunted was to take up a post for the rest of the night. ‘Just in case,’ the constable said. Woozily, weakly, Denton thought,
It was so hard for him to get up the stairs to the first floor that he asked Atkins to make him a bed in the easy chair. ‘All I want to do is sleep.’ Atkins picked up the hat and overcoat Denton had dropped there two hours earlier and came back with pillows, a blanket, his slippers and the derringer, which had been in the coat pocket. He put the little pistol on the table next to Denton’s chair, then drew a pitcher of water in the pantry and poured a glass and gave him two of the laudanum pills. ‘Medical officer says you’re to take these. Orders.’
‘I had morphine.’
‘Do as you’re told, Corporal.’
Denton took the pills, sipped the water.
‘You think it was
Denton stared at him, shook his head. He was too wobbly to think. He waved a finger at the decanter. ‘Nightcap?’
‘It’s practically bloody morning, General!’
Denton stretched his feet out. ‘I feel like hell. A little, Sergeant.’
Atkins set the glass where he could reach it. ‘Medical officer didn’t say nothing about mixing laudanum with brandy. Be it on your head.’
‘It isn’t my head, it’s my arm. And my damned mid-section. ’ He sipped. The brandy, the taste of it, the strike of it, was far more satisfying than any pills. ‘Go to bed, Sergeant.’
Atkins was looking at the carpets. ‘Be a right treat, getting the bloodstains out of these. No bleeding rest for the weary!’
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow.’
Atkins grunted and disappeared through his doorway, glad, apparently to get to his own spaces at last.
Denton might have slept a little, might even have slept and woken several times. Each time, his disengagement from his body and from the room seemed greater. A part of him knew it was the laudanum; part of him didn’t care. The pain was gone, or reduced and changed, like a constant bass note that was not unpleasant. The brandy glass was empty. He stared at the blanket, which seemed to grow thick between his fingers, as thick as a snowdrift; his feet, mounded under it, were far away; he was like a vast field under snow, quiet, at peace.
And then, at the far end of the long room, Atkins’s door was opening. A hand, turning out the gaslight. The man’s smell reaching out ahead of him.
Denton watched him come down the room. Smelled him. Same smell, same man. Bottom part of his face covered again. He seemed to be coming a great distance, walking and walking and making no headway. Then suddenly he was there. With the knife.
Denton wanted to open his mouth and call out. He wanted to stand, to run to the door. A policeman was just outside.
He couldn’t make enough sound to summon him.
He looked at the man’s eyes, which looked at his. The man was sweating. Denton tried to force his hand to pick up the derringer and aim it, but he could command the hand only to move under the blanket to the arm of the chair and then, in a spasm, strike the edge of the table. Seeing the movement, the man with the knife moved faster. Their eyes remained locked. The man was trying to assess how best to do it, he thought, changing his grip on the knife and bringing it across his own body as if for a backhand stroke, as if he would perhaps grab Denton’s hair with his left hand and sweep the blade across his throat. As he had murdered Stella Minter.
Denton’s palm rested on the derringer.
The man with the knife moved.
Denton willed his arm to raise the gun, willed his eyes to aim, willed his finger to pull the trigger, but all that happened was that the gun, still on the table, went off, burning a crease across the tabletop, the bullet smashing through the thin, pie-crust edging and going into the wall.
The man with the knife cried out. He turned and raced back down the room, and Denton heard the sound of smashing glass. He was using something, maybe a foot, a boot, to break out the glass from the window at the foot of the stairs. The cooler air caressed Denton’s face; there was silence; he smelled burning coal and the last of the man’s stench. He tried again to call out, but nothing came.
Then a pounding on the front door. The policeman had heard the shot. Denton waited for Atkins to open the
