Guillam heaved himself up and collected the cups. ‘Anything else you want to tell me before I leave to write this up? You been making trouble for me anywhere else?’
Denton told him about hiring Mrs Johnson to look for Mulcahy in the city directories. ‘He’s a potential witness, Guillam.’
‘Yeah, we thought of that, but it would take detectives off other cases and it isn’t worth it because frankly we think you’re spinning us a tale. Nevertheless, when you get the results, you’ll give them to me — understood?’
‘You going to reimburse me what it cost?’
‘I am not! But you’ll give it to me, otherwise you’re withholding evidence.’ He lumbered to the pantry, returned. ‘Anything else?’
‘I thought of trying to find the kid who’s supposed to have photos of Stella Minter. Her pimp.’
‘So are we, so give it up.’ He flexed his arms, a motion oddly like a rooster preparing to crow. ‘I don’t want interference. We clear on that point? If you don’t give up all this amateur-detective crap and I find out about it, I’ll come down on you like a hod of bricks.’ He pulled his hat forward and shrugged himself deeper into his coat. ‘I want to have a look at your attic for form’s sake, and then I’m off. Might be as well for you to get away for a rest somewhere, wouldn’t it?’
‘I live here.’
‘Yeah, but you’ve got no man, your window’s broken, and between laudanum and loss of blood, you’re a sorry spectacle. Find yourself a nice spot in the country for a week or two. Let us do our work. You get my meaning, Denton?’
‘Mind my own business.’
‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’ He laughed, turned away. ‘Gentleman detective!’
Guillam went off up the stairs. He was down again so quickly that Denton wondered if he’d even walked the length of the attic. Still, he’d certainly been up there, because he said, ‘Intruder smashed a pane of the skylight. If you hadn’t been out, you’d have heard him. Floor’s wet now. He didn’t see the guns you’ve got up there, else he might have used one. No light, I suspect. Daring chap. Dark house he’s never been in before, and so on.’ Looking at a notebook. ‘You’ve a lot of guns about, I must say.’
‘Mind your own business. Some wise advice I had recently.’
‘My business if you shoot somebody.’
‘I won’t tell you if I do. Anyway, I’m not likely to do it with a parlour pistol.’
‘Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you loaded that Colt and kept it by you.’ He’d hardly been up there for three minutes, but he knew the Colt wasn’t loaded, meaning he’d opened the case. Impressive. Guillam began to button his coat. ‘I don’t believe he’ll come back, but you never know for sure. You really might think seriously about going elsewhere for a bit.’
‘Worried about me, Guillam?’
‘Yeah, you’ve touched my heart-strings.’ He pulled at his hat brim in a gesture that might have been a salute or might simply have been a clothing adjustment, and he went out.
Denton had fallen into an exhausted sleep, to be woken by the constable from the front door, who wanted to know if he should let in a Dr Bernat, a Jew, sir. Denton said of course, and Bernat examined him, put on fresh dressings and asked after Atkins — word of the second crime had travelled through the neighbourhood.
‘He’s at University College Hospital in Gower Street. I can’t find out a damned thing from here.’ He touched the doctor’s shoulder as the man was bending over him. ‘Can I hire you as his physician?’ He flinched at ‘hire’, knew he should have said ‘retain’.
‘I am not being of the faculty,’ Bernat said. ‘I have no hospital.’ He gave a smile, more resigned than amused, no need to say to what. ‘Except the Jewish in the East End.’ He meant the hospital for indigent Jews.
‘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
Confession Imminent, City Police Say
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 Ladysmith Castle, will sail from the Port of London today.