‘I wondered about your clothes.’
‘I sent a note around to a policeman I know. They’ll be all over that place by now, and the body. I suppose they’ll make trouble for me over it. But I know now that Mulcahy didn’t kill Stella Minter.’
‘Why do you care?’
He opened his mouth to speak and then hesitated. ‘Because — because Mulcahy was a pathetic little man who came to me for help. And I didn’t help him. And because-’ He chewed on his moustache with his lower teeth. His left hand was clenched at the edge of the table. ‘I went to the post-mortem. It was all men. All of us — like a theatre, like-No better than Mulcahy. Watching, you know.’ He stammered a few syllables that made no sense. ‘I saw — Mulcahy made me see-It’s something about men and women.’ He shook his head.
‘Men hate women,’ she said, as if she were saying that tea was made with tea leaves and hot water.
‘That’s damned nonsense!’
After half a minute’s pained silence, she said, ‘You weren’t surprised to hear from Mary Kate that the Minter girl had had a baby.’
‘The surgeon at the post-mortem found something about — milk-’
‘She was still lactating? Oh, the stupid girl! If she’d come to me, I could have found her a place as a wet nurse. The money isn’t much, but she’d have had a roof over her head and a leg up on a servant’s place.’
‘Maybe she didn’t want to be a wet nurse.’
‘“Hard times will make a bulldog eat red pepper.”’ She grinned. It was a peace offering. ‘Did the girls tell you anything worthwhile? Were your twelve shillings well spent?’
‘Thirteen,’ he said, meaning Sticks. Atkins would have been furious. ‘Yes, her name. And her sister’s name. And that about being educated — I think that’s significant.’
‘Lillian wouldn’t know what education is. “Eddicated” may simply mean that Stella — Ruth — spoke better than the others. Or she knew where Norway is.’
‘Still — maybe she did have more education. How would she have got it?’
‘Oh — perhaps nothing more than doing her lessons. That would make her “eddicated” to Lillian, I suppose.’
He stirred his tea, although there was nothing in it to stir. ‘It’s grasping at straws, isn’t it.’
She poured herself more tea, then, after hesitating, poured some into his cup, as well.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It isn’t your fault.’
She chewed a piece of the bread and butter, saying it was all she’d get to eat until she got home. Thinking of what her ‘home’ might be, he said, ‘What’s become of your mother?’
‘She’s become a drunkard. She lives with me.’ She finished the bread and wiped her fingers. ‘You can’t keep them away from it. You do everything. Finally, you give up and let them drink.’
He remembered all that. Seen through the gears of the machine they’d built, he realized now that Lily’s drinking had been an effect, not the cause. ‘Your life isn’t easy,’ he said.
‘No life is easy. I curse those mindless women who swan about in carriages and dress for dinner and have everything done for them — the women who live the way my mother meant me to — but in fact I know that even their lives aren’t easy. Theirs are lives of ease, but not easy.’
He frowned, chewed his moustache, bit something back and at last, having thought of Emma Gosden and Stella Minter and Sticks and Janet Striker and his dead wife, he settled for mumbling, ‘Yes.’
Out on the street, she strode off without waiting for him. ‘The Humphrey,’ he said, catching up.
‘The Humphrey Institution for the Betterment of Unwanted Children. Yes.’
‘I want to talk to them.’
‘Grasping at more straws?’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose I could help you — I know them from my work, not that they think much of what I do. They’re not such very nice people.’ She grunted. ‘People who do good often aren’t.’
‘Would you go with me?’
She seemed to be totting up a column of figures in some moral account book. ‘I suppose. If I have the time.’ She was walking as if trying to outpace him, and she said, ‘I shan’t want company beyond this point, thank you.’ She stopped and put out her hand. He took it, saw there was no going farther with her. He said, ‘You don’t really believe that men hate women, do you?’
‘Of course I do,’ she said and walked away.
Chapter Fourteen
A constable was waiting at his front door to tell him that Munro would be by to see him soon, and the police would greatly prefer him not to leave his house until they had spoken.
‘And if I do?’
‘Just giving you what I was told, sir. Please to tell me where you can be found.’
Denton changed his clothes, realizing that he felt guilty and that the suit was incriminating. In law, he assured himself, he had done nothing by going to Mulcahy’s Inventorium — a bit of breaking and entering, perhaps, but hardly at a level to interest Munro — and in fact he had done the Metropolitan Police a favour. Unless he’d gone down the roof and seen the body, there’d have been no justification for their going into the Inventorium, as he was sure they’d done by now.
A public benefactor, he thought. The truth was, he’d set himself against doing anything that could help Guillam, and he was damned if he would tell Guillam first about what he thought he’d found in the Inventorium. As a result, he’d sent a note about it to Munro. On the other hand, what he’d learned from Janet Striker’s girls, although it hadn’t been much, was his, and he’d keep that to himself. And as for his having told Atkins that he’d washed his hands of it, well — that had been before he’d crossed the roof.
He ate something sent in from the Lamb and sat staring at a book, saying nothing to Atkins about where he’d been or what he’d done, not wanting to involve him. Atkins had forgone the hard hat that had crowned his bandages. Dressed now in a sober suit, he looked almost normal except for his tight white turban. Looking at the suit that Denton had worn to cross Mulcahy’s roof, he made noises and raised his eyebrows and muttered ‘Bloody hell’. Getting nothing from Denton, he had snatched up the suit and said, ‘Can’t weave a new seat into these trousers, you know.’
‘What’s wrong with the old seat?’
‘Ha-ha. You got a new pal with rawhide chair seats, or where were you today?’
‘Mind your own business, Sergeant.’
Munro came at last after nine. Denton heard him limping up from the front door, his breathing heavy. His face, appearing in the doorway, was exhausted and angry.
‘Well,’ Denton said. Munro waved a hand, as if the idea of Denton wore him out. He wouldn’t sit. Denton, nervous and trying to seem calm — nervous because he liked this man and wanted to be liked by him — sat, offered drink, food, finally silence.
After the silence had got long and ugly and then threatening, Munro said, ‘You were in that damned place today.’ His voice expressed controlled outrage.
‘What place?’
‘Don’t try that on with me! You put me in the middle of this business instead of going to any copper on the street as you should have! Well, by God, I’m not going to make it easy for you! What the hell were you trying to do, Denton? Did you think I’d lie for you?’
‘I thought you’d do exactly what I believe you did — turn it over to the right people.’