The Frightened Man

Minter touched her hand and inclined his head, moving it in a quarter-circle to take in both of them. ‘And the reason for-?’ he said.

‘The matter is rather delicate.’

He looked at her, then Denton.

‘Your daughter-’ she said. Minter’s head snapped up. ‘We’d like to ask you about your daughter.’

‘This is most unusual.’ He tugged again at his waistcoat. ‘Most surprising. I fail to see why you — why anyone — would ask me about my-’ He made a gesture, as if the word ‘daughter’ was too sacred to pronounce.

‘Do you have a daughter named Stella?’

He pulled himself up to his full five feet six inches. He raised a hand and moved it slowly past the row of calligraphies on the wall. ‘An accomplished young woman. Thoroughly accomplished. The apple of our eye! I don’t understand your interest, madam.’

‘Might we see her?’

‘Certainly not. She is a girl, a sensitive and good girl. I see no reason to, mm, expose her to the-’ He frowned. ‘To strangers. Who, I must say, give me no reason to entertain, mm, to have confidence in, mm, to know who or what they are! I don’t know you, madam. Or you, sir.’

Janet Striker gave Denton a look; he got out a calling card, then searched his pockets for Hench-Rose’s letter, now somewhat battered. He handed both over. Minter took them, held the card low and well away, tipping his head back, then went to the front window and studied them there. After that, he held the letter at arm’s length and read it. He looked back at Denton, perhaps to determine if he could really be the Sir Galahad described by Hench-Rose, then returned to the letter and apparently read it again. At last, he came back to them and stood in the same spot in front of his fireplace, defender of the hearth. ‘What is all this about?’ he said a little hoarsely.

Janet Striker sat, the chair dark and overwrought, both hideous and uncomfortable-looking; she took up only the forward two or three inches of it. ‘A young woman using the name Stella Minter has met her death. We are looking for her parents.’

His left hand went unconsciously to his chest; the idea of his daughter’s death caused a spasm of pain on his face. ‘But she is alive and well!’ he gasped. ‘In this house. At this moment!’

‘May we see her?’

Minter’s lips moved; he hesitated, decided, went to the door and called into the darkness of the hall, ‘Mother! Please to bring our Stella to the front parlour. At once — please.’ He turned back to them. ‘You will see-’ He touched his forehead. ‘You gave me a turn. To suggest that our Stella-’

‘I’m so sorry, Mr Minter. I didn’t mean to suggest that your daughter was the victim. Only that we are looking for her parents.’

He went back to his place by the hearth and stared at the floor. ‘That was cruel,’ he murmured.

A middle-aged woman paused in the doorway, then came into the room; behind her, holding the woman’s hand, a young but very large girl followed, clearly the girl in the photograph. Both were taller than Minter, neither ‘good-looking’ by most standards, the girl’s face broad and long, her colour good, her hair lank. Both, Denton thought, were overdressed: did they put on their best to welcome Papa home to tea? Or were the clothes a declaration of status, like the little motor car?

‘My wife, Mrs Minter,’ Minter said, drawing her still farther in, ‘and our beloved daughter, Stella.’

The family stood together. They looked expectant. Minter stared at Janet Striker as if for help. Yet she looked at Denton, who saw it was his turn. ‘I’m happy to see,’ he said, ‘that Miss Minter isn’t the young lady we’re looking for.’

‘Looking for!’ the woman cried. ‘Why should you be looking for her?’

Minter turned his head to say something to her, but Denton said loudly, ‘It’s a case of mistaken identity, ma’am. Another young woman of the same name.’ He didn’t say how disappointed he was.

‘I should think so!’ she said. ‘Very mistaken, indeed, I should think! You really ought to determine your facts in a better fashion, I think!’

‘Now, Mother-’ Minter managed to say.

‘Anyone who knows her knows that there can’t be any confusion about who she is! I can’t hardly understand how her identity could be confused! I think you must be very ignorant people!’

‘Oh, Mama-!’ the girl moaned.

‘Hush, dear.’

‘My wife is overwrought,’ Minter said. ‘Stella is the apple of our eye.’

‘Apple, indeed!’ Mrs Minter shouted. ‘A girl of such accomplishments-! ’

‘That’s enough, Mother!’ Minter said. He had reverted to the clergyman’s voice; the effect was instantaneous, Mrs Minter’s mouth remaining open but no sound coming out. The girl blushed and looked at Janet Striker in appeal, perhaps apology; she looked at Denton and gave him a tentative, awkward smile. She was sixteen, the birth record had told him that; she had the adolescent’s embarrassment at her parents, however they loved her and she them. Her smile to Denton seemed to ask for an understanding of that, and on an impulse, he said to her, ‘Is that your picture on the mantel, Miss Minter?’

Her mother started to answer for her, but Minter said, ‘Now!’ in a warning voice; the girl, after a second or two, blushing some more, said, ‘I was just finished at the common school. I was only fourteen then.’

‘And look,’ Minter said, ‘at all she’s accomplished since! She’s won a scholarship to the Roedean School!’

‘And will go on to university — her teachers say so!’ the mother burst out.

‘That’s wonderful,’ Denton said. ‘Wonderful. You went to the local school, then? And stayed after age eleven, and went on as long as you could.’

‘I love studying.’

‘What’s your favourite?’

‘Science. I’m going to be a scientist.’

‘Or a teacher,’ her mother said; unresolved conflict hovered over the words.

‘Yours is an unusual name,’ Denton said. The girl nodded, blushed, as if to suggest that the name was not her doing. ‘I wonder,’ Denton started, looking aside at Janet Striker, the idea forming in his head as he asked the question, ‘if any other girls have ever used your name. Pretended to be you.’

‘What, as a kind of cheat? To get money or something?’

‘No, dear,’ Mrs Striker said, picking up Denton’s notion, ‘no, more from, perhaps, admiration. Or envy. “The sincerest form of flattery,” do you know that saying?’

‘Yes, but that’s imitation.’

‘Well, yes, dear, that’s I think what Mr Denton means. Imitating you. Has there ever been anybody like that?’

Mrs Minter laughed, a dismissive, contemptuous laugh. ‘They all envy her.’

‘Oh, Mama-’

‘Well, some are quite nasty, you’ve said so yourself! The green-eyed monster, that’s what afflicts people.’

Denton crossed his arms over his chest, his words trying to pull the talk back to his question. ‘But has there ever been anybody — some special friend, some girl who admired you, maybe talked like you, even said she wanted to be like you-?’

Stella Minter looked at her mother, made nervous movements with her shoulders, said, ‘Alice, I suppose.’

Her mother sniffed.

‘Well, she did admire me, Mama! She said so!’ She looked at Denton. ‘She was ever so unhappy, she said, and she wanted to make something of herself, to become somebody. She hadn’t my advantages, you see. We were such good friends, and she came here and she asked questions about everything, about-’

‘When they were very little girls; I think that when they are still in the age of innocence, little girls can be accepted where, later, they cannot,’ her mother said.

‘She wanted to know what a maid did, and what all the books I owned were, and how to play the piano, and — just everything! She was so sweet and she was my best friend, but-’ She glanced at her mother. ‘As Mama says, it was all right when we were little girls. She used to come here every day. I couldn’t go to her house, you