‘Not a burglar.’
‘I know he’s not a burglar! Judas Priest.’ He had his hands deep in his coat pockets, dragging his shoulders down. ‘You think it’s him, don’t you.’
‘Him?’
‘You know who I mean! Don’t get cute.’ He went past Denton, looked at the books beyond the fireplace, took one down and riffled its pages. ‘Because of your Mulcahy.’
‘My Mulcahy.’
‘Well, nobody else’s claiming him. You think it’s the man killed the Minter girl, you do. Hooked up somehow through your Mulcahy. Well, I won’t have it. Anyway, Willey’s got his Cape Coloured in custody; they’ll move to a charge as soon as he gets a confession. You look disappointed, Mr Denton. Myself, I’m happy with a nigger sailor.’
‘Don’t use the word “nigger” in my house.’
‘This is a police investigation! I’ll use any bloody word I want! What’re you, the society for the improvement of bloody Africa?’
‘I heard enough of that talk during the war. Cork it, Guillam — I mean it.’ Denton stared him down; Guillam shrugged and looked away. Denton said, ‘Find Mulcahy. He can tell you at least whether the murderer was a black man or not.’
Guillam put the book back and turned on Denton. ‘Very cute of you to spy out that peephole in the girl’s room. Terrifically cute of you not to tell me about it yesterday.’ He loomed above Denton. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the peephole yesterday?’
‘You would have made some joke about Sherlock Holmes.’ Denton pulled his blanket closer; he was in the green armchair again. ‘If Mulcahy was behind that peephole when the girl was killed, you’ve got a witness, you know.’
‘I have to be told about the peephole by Munro, who’s got a bee up his arse because he fell off his own roof and isn’t in CID any more, and he’s just delighted to know something that I don’t! Well, it was well done, and my congratulations to you, Mr Denton!’ Guillam took his hat off and made a deep bow. ‘Brilliant, brilliant! The coppers look like idiots again, and the amateur sleuth finds the clue!’
‘Go suck eggs.’
‘Don’t you talk to me like that! I’ll put your arse on the floor as soon as look at you!’
‘Well, do it while I have one arm in a sling; it’s your best chance.’
Guillam stared at him and burst out laughing. He went back up the room shaking his head, and two minutes later he came out with a pot of tea and two cups without saucers. ‘Sugar’s coming.’ He went to the window and called something down, and a minute later one of the policemen came up. By then, Guillam was laying out more cups and the sugar bowl and some vaguely suspicious-looking milk.
‘Yesterday’s milk,’ Denton said.
‘Smells all right. Oh, hell!’ Guillam had poured some into his tea, and apparently it had separated. ‘Forget the bloody milk.’ He muttered to the constable to take a cup down to his pal and get a move on, and then he brought his own cup and lowered himself to the hassock near Denton’s feet.
‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it that the bastard was so determined to kill you that he came back, and I don’t like it that it’s you, with your interfering and your nose into everything. Nothing personal, Denton, but you’re not a helpful part of the landscape.’
‘I didn’t invite him to come and try to kill me.’
‘Put an advert in the newspapers, did you, trying to reach your Mulcahy?’
‘I did not.’
‘“If R. Mulcahy will reply to this address, he will hear something to his advantage”? None of that? It would explain how the bastard found you.’
‘Sorry I can’t make it easy for you.’
Guillam sipped. Slurped. ‘Damned hot tea.’ He pushed his hat back on his head. ‘Could be he followed your Mulcahy.’
‘Then waited a night and a day?’
‘You don’t know what else he was doing. Maybe things didn’t come together for him until yesterday. You don’t know what else was going on in his mind. You don’t know but what he’s certifiably lunatic. Normal rules don’t apply.’
‘You agree, at least, that it has something to do with Mulcahy.’
‘I do not. I’m only playing your little game to see where it leads me. I can give you a dozen reasons for somebody coming after you. He read one of your books and thinks he’s the demon of the plains.’ Denton’s first book had been titled The Demon of the Plains — astonishing that Guillam knew it. ‘Or he’s part of a secret conspiracy that originated in Salt Lake City, Utah. Or he’s trying to avenge a crime you committed in India. The theft of a fabulously valuable jewel.’
‘I’ve never been in India.’
‘But the valet chap who got knocked on the head has. Told my boys that yesterday.’
‘I’m not in a humour for jokes, Guillam.’
‘Glad to hear it. We’ll stop the games then, shall we? I’m only trying to show you how stupid the idea of your Mulcahy is. Think of it from my point of view — I have to consider all the reasons for somebody knifing you that I’ve come across over the years. Such as, he saw you with a woman he fancies. Or he’s got an old grudge against you that you haven’t told us about yet. Or he owes you money. Or you owe him money. You rogered his wife. He blames you for something you don’t even know you did. Crikey, there’s more reasons for people to go slashing each other than Mudie has books.’
‘Or, he saw me at Stella Minter’s yesterday with you.’
‘There you are. Which wouldn’t mean he murdered Stella Minter, but only that he didn’t like your face or your hat.’
‘I’ve given you a reasonable motive for his coming after me.’
‘Motives be damned. I like facts I can send to court to hang the bastards.’ He finished his tea and hitched the hassock closer. ‘Now, see here. He came in your skylight, must have been while you and your man were both out. Between nine and eleven p.m., was it? He waits in the pantry, tries to knife you, does half a job but you fight him off. Then he pretends to run but hides again, whacks your man with an iron doorstop, and comes up here and tries it on again. Which you end with a gunshot. I see two things that don’t hang together: one, he’s a determined chap; and two, he scares off easy. You tell me.’
Denton had been trying to think about it through the fog of the laudanum. ‘He isn’t a natural killer.’
‘What the devil’s that mean?’
‘He didn’t use the knife on Atkins, didn’t kill him. He didn’t try to kill me with-There was none of the frenzy he used in killing Stella Minter.’
‘There you go again!’
‘None of the frenzy somebody used in killing Stella Minter.’
‘So what? He didn’t really want to kill one of his fellow men?’
‘Oh, wanted to, yes. But had to — I don’t know.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘Whoever killed Stella Minter would have done it no matter what. If it was the same man here, he had less — passion.’
Guillam looked disgusted. ‘We’ll put out a call for men six feet and above, twenty stone, don’t kill with passion.’
‘Don’t kill men with passion.’
‘Oh, no you don’t! Now you’re saying it’s the Ripper. I won’t have it. The Ripper’s ancient history, he is!’
‘Isn’t that why they gave this to you? Because it might be connected to the Ripper, and you’re their Ripper man?’
‘They gave it to me because I’m in CID and you were already part of a matter I investigated.’ Two detectives from E Division had been there before him, had turned it over to him and left. They hadn’t wanted to hear about Mulcahy and Stella Minter; they had looked for evidence of burglary — footprints in the back garden. Glad to leave it to somebody else.