‘I can write you a letter. They can’t object to that.’ Bernat had to fetch paper and pen from Denton’s bedroom. Denton wrote the note, trying to make it florid and stuffy — ‘my personal physician,’ ‘to advise on the condition of my man Harold Atkins,’ ‘yours most very sincerely.’ Bernat took it without reading it and then shook a pudgy finger at Denton and said he was to go to bed; he was not to think of going out; he was to drink beef tea, apparently by the gallon. ‘Replacing the blood,’ Bernat said, shaking his finger. ‘We are replacing the blood, Mr Denton!’
When Bernat went off, the policeman came up with a nervous-looking, very young man and said apologetically that he wasn’t put there to answer the door, he was sorry, sir, it was job enough to keep the press away, as they was flocking like pigeons around an old lady with a bag of breadcrumbs.
‘Name is Maude, sir,’ the nervous young man said the moment the constable stopped talking. He was wearing a new suit, new round hat, new overcoat, none of the best but not the worst, either. ‘Sent by the Imperial Domestic Employment Agency, sir. Recommendation of — ’ he peeked at a card — ‘Mr Harris.’
Denton’s head was still muzzy, his vision filmed. He was quitting the world of laudanum and entering one of something like influenza. ‘What for?’
‘I’m filling in currently. Until something permanent transpires. Sir.’
The policeman was still in the room, waiting in fact for Denton to tell him to go. ‘He’s a valet, sir,’ he said, making it ‘val-it’ but clear enough. ‘Can I go, sir?’
Denton was putting it together in the fog. Harris, valet, employment agency: Frank Harris had sent him a servant to replace Atkins; therefore, Harris knew what had happened. Harris was famous for knowing all sorts of things; he was also famous for doing all sorts of things, many of them scandalous, scurrilous, or actionable, but sometimes — like now — inexplicably generous. Denton waved the policeman away and said to the young man, ‘I’ve got no room for you. His — the permanent man’s — rooms are a crime scene.’
‘Only coming in by the day as a temporary, sir. Accustomed to making do.’ Seeing, probably, that Denton was unconvinced of the need for him, he said, ‘Somebody to answer the door in this trying time quite important, sir. Not proper for the cop — policeman. Not well yourself, if I may say so, sir, helpful to have somebody about. There’s also the matter of clothing, your morning newspaper, letters and calling cards-’ He held out the morning mail and the newspaper, which he had been holding all the time he had been there.
‘Can you cook?’
‘Oh, no, sir! But I can serve a proper dinner.’
Atkins could cook. After a fashion. What he called ‘curries’, mostly meaning that he threw some things together and used spice from a tin he bought at the Army and Navy Stores. Plus eggs, gammon, toast, coffee and various sandwiches, always served with chutney and pickle. The Indian background.
‘But you can make a pot of tea.’
‘Why, yes.’
‘Good. Do it. Your hat and coat go in that closet. When the tea’s made, take a cup to each of the coppers outside — one’s at the back. Then I want you to go up to the attic and get some things for me, and then we’ll talk about drawing me a bath. You’ll get lunch for both of us from the Lamb, plus anything the officers want. Can you do that?’
With the air of a man of parts, the boy — for he was only a boy, perhaps sixteen — said, ‘Of course, sir.’ Leaving Denton to wonder why Frank Harris, who was only an acquaintance, had gone out of his way to help him. And what he would want in return.
Denton found the confirmation of what Guillam had told him buried on an inner page of the newspaper:
CAPE COLOURED SEAMAN ARRESTED IN MUTILATION MURDER
Joseph Abrahams, a Cape Town seaman, has been detained for the violent murder of a woman in the Minories two nights ago. Abrahams was found in an inebriated state and covered in blood, City police say. Detective Sergeant Steven Willey said he expects to lay charges tomorrow. Abrahams’s ship, the
‘Mr Atkins is comatose,’ Dr Bernat said several hours later. ‘Very bandaged, so I could not examine the wounding, but the resident was helpful.’ He tut-tutted. ‘A bad blow to the back of the head.’ He touched his own large dome behind his bald spot. ‘Concussion for certain. But not to despair yet. I am seeing many woundings of the head in Poland.’ The resigned smile again; no need, it said, to tell him who had been wounded and who had done the wounding.
‘I’d like you to see him again this evening. If you have time.’
Bernat bowed, a curiously courtly and old-fashioned gesture. He raised one of Denton’s eyelids, then the other, then looked inside Denton’s mouth. ‘Laudanum was new to you. It is very forceful that way sometimes. The brandy was not wise.’
‘I know that now.’
‘The doctor cannot predict is coming in a burglar to kill you. Sleeping is what I wanted for you, not knifing. But the brandy was foolish.’ He waved a finger at Denton. ‘Now you know better.’
‘I’m learning.’
Bernat gave him the smile, then rattled through advice — sleep, lots of liquids, red meat if he could eat it; rest, rest, rest. And
By then, Maude had handed the tea around, answered the door four times (three newspapermen, one Christian Scientist), brought Denton the late newspapers (
‘Bath, sir?’
‘Attic first.’ Denton explained exactly what he wanted and made the boy repeat what he had said. ‘Now help me up to my bedroom and bring me the stuff there. Then the bath.’ A few minutes later, he was lying against three pillows on his own bed, loading the Colt. Then he had the bath. And his third cup of beef tea.
Frank Harris turned up in the early afternoon. He looked pretty much as bad as he had the night before, but cleaner. Denton received him in his bedroom. ‘Informal but understandable, I hope,’ he said.
‘Ah, the author’s lair!’ Harris’s eyebrows went up and down. He had a lot of self-mockery, for surely he included himself in the idea of ‘author’. ‘How’s the temporary valet working out?’
‘Well enough that I want to thank you for him. I’m pretty much marooned here; it wasn’t working, having a copper for a doorman.’
‘I thought something like that. Plus it gave me an excuse for paying you a visit.’ The eyebrows went into their act again. ‘You ought to get away.’
Denton made it clear that he was sick of hearing about getting away.
‘Yes, yes, that’s all very well, but you need to get away. You’ve been stabbed; a madman is after you. Your house is practically uninhabitable. Paris is the place for you!’ He grinned as if they shared a joke.
‘You’ve something in mind.’
‘Well. Yes. It’s this way, Denton-’ Harris hitched his chair closer, leaned in as if to share a secret. ‘Somebody from the Cafe Royal crowd, somebody
It was typical Harris. Two days ago, he might not have been ready to subscribe two-and-six to a fund for Oscar Wilde, but a combination of contrariness and old friendship now made him Wilde’s champion. Plus he had once set up a famous meeting with Wilde and Shaw at the Cafe Royal, trying to persuade Wilde to skip his trial. Plus his bravura performance at the Cafe, in which Denton had supported him, probably appealed to his sense of self- dramatization.
And now Denton knew what he was supposed to do to repay him for the valet.
‘I’d go myself,’ Harris said, ‘but I’ve got a magazine going to hell under me, and anyway, the Paris authorities
