‘I know a woman who says that all men hate women.’
‘We do! Yet we can’t live without them! They have that magical thing, that locus of fantasy, the monosyllable that begins with C, and we want it! We must have it! And they hide it, protect it, make us scrape and plead and marry them to get at it — and we hate them for it! The only workable relationship between men and women is prostitution; the only revealing literary form is pornography. The woman who told you that we hate them is very wise — do I know her?’
Denton hesitated; there was the usual proscription against discussing women, plus some personal distaste in this case. ‘A woman named Janet Striker.’
‘Oh, I know of her! Formidable woman. Remarkable. Rather like the Hindoo whatsit — the thing that rolls over you-’
‘Juggernaut.’
‘That’s the one. Janet Striker, my God. A virago with a halo. However did you meet her?’
‘She took me to the Humphrey this afternoon.’
‘Yes, her line — saving women from men. Unwed mothers our speciality. Hopeless, but no more so than Fabianism.’ Harris drank, his eyes now rather red, his voice rising as he warmed up for the argumentative stage of his evening. ‘It’s all hopeless. It’s all going to crash, Denton! All this do-gooding, all this genteel putting of plasters on suppurating sores. Crash! Down it’s all going to come — you, me, magazines, pornography — out with us, I say, good riddance. Down come all the old ways of doing things, all the hypocrisy, all the good intentions, all the pretence that gentility is anything but greed tinted golden — there’s a fall coming, a plunge into an abyss — inevitable! Some cataclysm, some disaster — pestilence, famine, war! It’ll all be over in a quarter of a century!’
‘That’s pessimistic.’
‘On the contrary, I’m an optimist. It can’t go on. We can’t go on. Look at the hellhole you just visited — and that’s supposed to be for some greater good! Look around you — look at England’s artists. Dear God, Jesus laughs — artists! Art should be the hope of creation, and what do we have? The RA! Alma-Tadema! Composers who’ve never heard a minor key in their lives — little nightingale farts about their feelings while contemplating bloody nature! Poets with their lips pressed to the warm buttocks of privilege! Henley — dear God — “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”!’ He held up his fists like a strong man, braced his head and back like a hero on a horse. ‘Dum-dede-dum-dum dum de-dum! All the rhythm of a drunkard tupping a slattern in an alley.’ He shook his angry head. ‘Let it end! New art — we must have new art that’s jangled, mysterious, incantatory, wondrous — paintings that don’t have subjects, poems that don’t scan, novels about life as it’s never been-!’ He glared at Denton. ‘You don’t believe a word I say.’
‘I have an editor who wants me to write a book about vampires.’
‘Editors will be the first to be swept away!’ Harris laughed; Denton joined in. ‘How would twenty-five pounds do for the rights to the baby-factory idea plus an article for the new mag on your night of horror?’
‘In advance?’
Harris laughed again.
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 was registered, and I know for a great, bleeding fact that the mother’s maiden name and the child’s name go on the registry, as does pa’s name. So there you got them!’
‘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, which I thought Mulcahy was in the way of, but if you just give up Mulcahy altogether without a fight, you’ll sigh and moan and hang about here making life miserable for me, and what’s the good of that? Have a little backbone, Major! It’s only one more day’s work!’
‘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