His house felt icy. The door closed with a slam like thunder, echoed by the real thing from somewhere south of the river, a great rolling crescendo like kettledrums. Water dripped from his soaked hat, and he whipped it off. Mrs Striker had been right; they should have had an umbrella. It had been difficult to find a cab, and they had both been wet and grumpy when at last he had dropped her at her office.
Atkins was standing near the alcove with his arms folded, watching the young would-be valet, Maude, who seemed to be operating a boat pump. For an instant, Denton thought there must be water in the sitting room; he even looked up at the ceiling. The idea was rejected almost as soon as he had it — the absurdity of using a pump in a room, the lack of damp on the ceiling — and he tossed his hat at the green armchair and tried to struggle out of his coat. Atkins, who knew where he had been going that afternoon, came forward and said, ‘Looks like the baby factory wasn’t no help, am I right?’
‘You’re always right, aren’t you?’ Free of the wet coat, Denton looked through his mail, found an envelope marked ‘
He tossed the envelopes aside and leaned forward to stare at Maude and the contraption he was working. ‘What the hell?’ he said.
‘Patent vacuum sweeper,’ Atkins said with what sounded like pride. ‘Very latest thing.’
Relieved of the coat, Denton took a couple of steps towards Maude, whose face was running with sweat and whose breath was rasping as he pumped the wooden handle of a long metal tube that did, in fact, look like a boat pump. Maude looked up, misery on his childish face.
‘Labour-saving miracle,’ Atkins said.
‘Doesn’t seem to be saving Maude any labour.’
‘He’s not used to it. That device is going to put the housemaid out of business. It’s going to liberate a generation from the drudgery of beating rugs. It’s going to-’
‘You’ve got money in it, is that it?’
Atkins bristled. ‘How could any intelligent person not see the advantages of it?’
‘Another of your investments? Sergeant, Sergeant-!’
Atkins draped his coat over the fire screen and scampered to the device. Pushing Maude aside, he bent down and twisted a latch in the metal tube and a door popped open. Behind it was a grey mass of fibres that looked like something a mouse had put together against the winter. ‘Look!’ Atkins cried. ‘Look!’
Denton bent to look. ‘Rats or squirrels?’ he said.
Atkins grabbed the mass with his fingers and pulled it out. ‘Dirt!’ he shouted. Dust and fibres floated out into the room. ‘From your floor, General! Your carpets! You think you can get that kind of filth out of a carpet with a broom? Have another think, then — only the Patent Pneumatic Vacuum Sweeper can pull fibres, dust, dirt, lint, microbes, insect bodies, effluvia-’
Denton put his face close to the mass. ‘Dog hairs,’ he said. ‘Looks like there’s a lot of Rupert in there, too.’ He straightened. ‘You mean to say this contraption actually got this stuff from our floors?’
‘Every bit.’ Atkins dropped the mass into a waste-basket and then began spreading newspapers, on which he dumped more from the tube as he talked. ‘This thing
‘You’re already peddling it?’
‘I’ve made a few experimental visits in Maida Vale and associated areas.’ He held up a hand. ‘On my evenings off!’
‘Well don’t use “effluvia” when you sell it, or they’ll think you’re saying something naughty.’ Denton picked the device up, saw that it had a sucker-like mouth that rested on the floor. At the other end was an oar-shaped wooden handle attached to a shaft that ran down into the metal tube. It was in fact a simple pump — push the handle down, a plunger descended, forcing air out through two valves; pull it back up and the valves closed and a weak vacuum was created at the mouth. Denton pumped it a couple of times, saw why Maude was sweating. ‘The new matrons are going to get damned tired,’ he said. He pumped again. ‘The handle’s wrong — who wants a handle in line with the shaft when you have to pull? You want something at right angles, like a shovel handle.’
Atkins shrugged. ‘We got a price on some oars. Of course, we intend to refine the product as the company grows.’
‘How much have you got in it?’
‘Ten pounds — fifty per cent share.’
Denton put the mouth down on the carpet, pumped twice, felt a suction that drew the end of the carpet off the floor. He handed it to Maude, who had collapsed in a chair. ‘Makes more sense to put an electric motor in it.’
‘We thought of that already,’ Atkins said with a hint of getting one over. ‘Won’t work — to pull the handle up, you need a great thing like a derrick working at the back.’
‘You don’t need to pull the handle up. There are rotary pumps, aren’t there?’
Atkins stared at him, then took out a notebook and a pencil and scribbled. ‘Good idea, Captain. Mind — ’ he held up the pencil — ‘it was given freely in conversation! Maude here’s a witness — no royalty or percentage due for it.’
Denton grunted and turned back to the morning’s mail. More bills. A quick survey of them told him that he owed more money than he had. ‘Damn,’ he muttered. His real concern was paying the women who were working for Mrs Johnson. If he hadn’t bought this house, he’d be all right. Or if he’d been able to finish the book that was due, he’d be all right. Or if somebody owed him money-
He grabbed the wet overcoat from the fire screen. ‘I’m going out!’ he shouted down the room.
‘You’re soaking wet!’
‘It suits my mood.’ He clapped the wet hat back on his head and was off.
‘Been looking for you,’ Denton said, sinking into a chair. Harris was sitting alone at a small table, staring at an empty brandy glass.
Harris looked up. It seemed to take him a couple of seconds to realize who Denton was; then his usual look of malevolence vanished and the corners of his eyes crinkled. Denton’s face must have told him everything, because Harris frowned, then shrugged and grinned. ‘I have some money for you,’ he said.
This was so surprising that Denton thought Harris must think he was somebody else. His prepared speech of appeal and outrage stuck in his throat.
Harris began to pull money from various pockets and drop it on the table. ‘Took up a collection. To cover your expenses in the Paris expedition. People surprisingly generous. You sent flowers, did you? Damned good of you to go at all — can’t have you out of pocket-’ He grinned. ‘Actually, I think you’ll do rather well out of it-’
‘The flowers were as ugly as anything I’ve ever seen, but at least they were flowers. The card said, “Form the writters and artistes du Cafe Royale” — with an e.’
‘Was the funeral dreadful? Was it all terribly Catholic and
Denton told him about the almost empty church, the miles-long ride to the cemetery.
‘Well, I’m grateful. Oscar liked to get his Johnson into funny places, but he was an
‘That’s what people say about Wagner.’
‘You’re not a Wagnerite?’
‘Lot of people screaming at each other in German. Pretentious horseballs.’
‘Don’t let Shaw hear you say that. You get along with Shaw?’
Denton was stacking the notes, mentally counting as he started to sort the coins, thinking he could pay off the shilling-apiece R. Mulcahys. ‘He’s delighted to meet me every time we’re introduced.’
‘Doesn’t remember you?’ Harris laughed. ‘Bit of a snob, actually. Typical Fabian — help the working-man,