Denton got to his feet then, muttering about having to go; he could take only so much of Harris when he started to rant. After several long seconds, Harris said, looking away from him, ‘It’s all coming to an end. It has to. All going to crash.’ He looked up. ‘Indignation’s no good, Denton. The Fabians, the do-gooders, the reformers — not a hope! We need a revolution.’ He lifted his almost empty glass. ‘Or another drink.’ He waved at a waiter.
Atkins was asleep in the armchair when Denton came into the sitting room; the sergeant’s swathed head glowed in the gaslight. As Denton closed the door, Atkins jerked awake and said, ‘Been thinking.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Stella Minter. Why’d she call herself that?’
‘I thought you were fed up with all that.’
Atkins was helping him with his overcoat. ‘You gave me a bit of an idea about the vacuum broom; thought I’d return the compliment. Why’d she call herself Stella Minter if her name was Ruth?’
‘She had to call herself something.’
‘Yes, but why that? Plucked it out of the air? Saw it on a hoarding? Name of somebody she knew?’
‘Spill it, Sergeant.’
Atkins shook out the coat. ‘What do blokes do when they want to be somebody else? Had a pal, had something going with a woman he’d met — never told her his real name so’s she wouldn’t come after him when it was over. What name’d he use? Mother’s maiden! What name does everybody what had a ma and pa have in the back of his head? Mother’s maiden. Bet you can tell me right now what your mother’s maiden name was, Captain.’
‘Burrell.’
‘See? Mine’s was Orping. Just for a test, I asked the Infant Phenomenon. His’s was Smithers. So.’
‘So?’
‘So when you haven’t got a certainty, you go for a likelihood. The likelihood is your tart’s mother’s name was Minter. Forget the Stella; that could of come from anywhere — sort of trashy-classy name a young girl might wish to give herself airs with. But Minter — that could be her mother.’
‘So all we have to do is locate all the women whose maiden name is Minter, and ask them if they had a daughter named Ruth. Shall we start a house-to-house canvass? Perhaps you could ask the new matrons as you peddle the boat pump.’
‘The registry, General, the registry! You know how old the girl was — about sixteen, correct? She was the oldest kid, right?’
‘So far as I know.’
‘So what’s the likelihood? That ma and pa were married seventeen, eighteen years ago. You could try to locate the marriage, but lots of marriages don’t get into the registry; they’re in the parish records or they’re nowhere at all. So what’s the likelihood? That the birth
‘All I have to do is search the thousands of babies born over two or three years.’
‘Work of a day for a smart chap.’
‘And then what? Go through the directories again with the father’s name? You know how many R. Mulcahys they found? Suppose it’s a name like Smith or Jones or Wright or, or-’
Atkins stared at him. ‘You’re giving up, aren’t you?’
‘It’s what you’ve been asking me to do, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve been asking you to make some money,
‘You going to do it for me?’
Atkins apparently had already thought it through. ‘The Infant Phenomenon’s capable of handling the house for one day. I’ll read him the manual of arms and the courts-martial act before I go. All right? Does that nod mean yes? Yes?’
Denton sighed, grunted.
‘Good! Wonderful! Your enthusiasm is like cool drink to a dying man.’ Atkins turned away, then swung back, dropped his voice as if there might be somebody else in the house who could overhear. ‘By the way, young Maude’s wages are due, if you’ve got some loose coins about you-’
Chapter Eighteen
Friday morning.
He was awake before Atkins and went downstairs to make his own tea in the alcove, the spirit stove giving off a blue light, the space otherwise dark with the sun not yet up. The window had been replaced at the bottom of the stairs, but the curtains hadn’t yet been put up; now he wanted sunlight to spill through, to tell him that the world was alive, life was good. Instead, he stared at the blue flame, smelled the burning alcohol, thought of the man who had lunged out of this place to attack him. He rubbed his arm. Where was Stella Minter’s murderer now? Awake, walking the streets in fear? Sleeping the sleep of the just? More likely the latter, Denton thought, a man without conscience, reckless, clever. He’d have seen the newspaper stories about Mulcahy’s body, have been watching for them, sure that when the body and the note were found, he’d be safe.
Denton took the tea back up the stairs, sipping as he went, feeling it scald his upper lip; he went on past the bedroom floor and up to the attic, stumbling in the darkness. Was the murderer up here, waiting? No, he’d finished with Denton; he’d realized days ago that if Denton had learned anything from Mulcahy, something would have happened. Now, he thought he was safe. Or all but safe. One day, one fact, one sliver of investigative hope lay between him and complete escape. And it depended not on Denton but on five women making lists and, perhaps, a soldier-servant with an idea.
Not much.
He began to row on the contraption. The attic was cold and silent; the rowlocks groaned. He hadn’t slept well — dreams, long waking periods, tormenting himself with old failures, old humiliations, back to childhood: failure begat failure. His mind turned, twisted, raced, as it had done all night, reviewing everything about the killings, about Mulcahy, the attack, the girl. On and on, over and over. Nothing new, nothing helpful.
He lifted the hundredweight dumb-bell, then lighter weights for each hand. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He fired the parlour pistols, then stood with the old percussion Colt held at arm’s length. Two minutes, three minutes, four, the sights never wavering from the target. He would have liked to shoot the killer right then. Wonderful if he had loomed out of the shadows — a bullet in the eye.
But the killer, he thought, was laughing at him, sitting at his breakfast by now, devouring sausage and potatoes and laughing around the half-chewed food.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Atkins was full of himself and his mission, so was particularly hard on Maude that morning, bustling and hectoring, outfitting himself with pads of paper and pencils from Denton’s desk, appropriating a never-used leather dispatch case given him by Emma Gosden (‘You’re never going to use this, right? Shame to waste it’), then swaggering off like a diplomatic courier in mufti. He left behind him an already exhausted Maude who was, as well, terrified of Rupert and who armed himself with biscuits to be produced whenever the dog looked his way.
‘I think I’d like to give notice, sir,’ Maude said as he was taking away Denton’s breakfast dishes.
Mindful that he hadn’t paid him, Denton produced a half-crown he’d got from Harris and said, ‘Could it wait until Monday? It’s rather a bad time.’
‘Oh — yes, sir — it’s only Mr Atkins is so-He’s very particular.’
‘One of his finest qualities.’
‘And then there’s the dog, sir.’
