The Bohemian Girl Part 33

'Because-I'm still looking for Mary Thomason.'

'Well, it isn't a she, at least.'

'No, of course not.'

The valet and the housekeeper, Mrs Evans, said that of course the John drawing wasn't Himple; it was the young man known as Arthur Crum.

After another week, Munro said, 'He's skipped. Absolutely skipped. The trail's cold - the last time he was seen was six months ago in Nice. He's beaten us.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

By then, they were into April. Denton wanted to be out, walking in the city. Flowers were blooming; birds were arriving in flocks; some of the days were warm, almost summery. Janet Striker was waiting to move into her own house, with the Cohans to take care of her; she was living partly in his old bedroom, partly in a hotel. He was now sure that her concern for appearances was some irrational personal quirk: she had explained that it was all right for her to sleep on the floor above him so long as he couldn't climb the stairs.

A doorway was being cut through the garden wall. He didn't know what she made of the people who could look into the garden from the nearby houses. Perhaps she meant to wear a disguise when she used the new door.

Missing her, wanting to be out and about, he was restless. He was gaining his weight back, but his strength was coming more slowly. One night when she was staying at her hotel and he was lying awake - the nursing-home insomnia had returned - he got out of bed and limped on his stick to the foot of the stairs. He looked up them. They seemed endless.

'The h.e.l.l with it.' He put his left foot on the first stair, grasped the banister in his left hand and pulled the right leg up. It was all right. He went another step, then another. He had to balance on the bad leg and the stick while he moved the good leg, but he was getting used to that; his shoulders were stronger. He went up another step. His breathing was heavy. And so he went up to the landing, made the turn, and pushed and pulled his way up to his bedroom.

He limped about, lit the gas, sat in his desk chair and let his pulse and his breathing recover. There was some scent of her in the room. His desk surprised him with its neatness; she must have straightened it, had probably been working at it on something of her own.

When he had explored the room - it had been more than three months since he had seen it - he went out to the corridor and looked at the closed door to the attic. He had the notion that if he could use his rowing machine, he could build the strength of his leg faster. The rowing machine, a huge contraption of cast iron that Atkins had rightly said was never coming down once it had been got up there, was in the attic.

'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.'

He opened the door, lit the gas at the bottom of the stairs. When he put his left foot on the first step, he thought that he was probably doing something stupid, but he didn't change his mind. He thought, I'll go to the first landing today and then come down. I can sleep in my bedroom and try it again tomorrow. I'll go to the first landing today and then come down. I can sleep in my bedroom and try it again tomorrow. When he got to the first landing, he was trembling, but he didn't go back, after all. Five steps up was another landing, and then four steps to the attic. He would go to the next landing. When he got to the first landing, he was trembling, but he didn't go back, after all. Five steps up was another landing, and then four steps to the attic. He would go to the next landing.

There was no gas to light here. On the third step, in the near darkness, he put the tip of the stick too close to the edge of the tread, and when he swung the bad leg up, the stick slipped. He went down hard on his left side, twisting as he went, wrenching his left shoulder, and then crashing down the stairs to the landing below. He hit his head on one of the steps and he lay there, dazed.

Atkins came pounding up from below. 'Good on you,' he said when he saw Denton.

Rupert came behind Atkins and stared.

'I think I've hurt myself.'

'Well, sit up, let's have a look at you.'

'What the h.e.l.l's the good? Jesus Christ, I can't even climb the stairs!'

Atkins helped him sit up against the wall, then went down and got an oil lamp and looked at Denton's head, then had him work his shoulder. 'No real harm done, I think, Colonel.'

'All right, help me down to my bed.'

Atkins held the lamp up. He looked into Denton's eyes. 'I think you better try it again, Colonel.'

'And fall again!'

'You know what they say - get back on the horse or stop riding. Be that much harder the next time if you don't do it now.' Atkins bent and put a hand under Denton's arm and helped him up, then put the stick in his hand. 'You slipped in the dark, that's all. We'll fix that.' He went up the stairs with the lamp.

For seconds, Denton hated Atkins. Then he recognized that Atkins was taking a risk for him - if he fell again and hurt himself, it would be Atkins's fault.

'All right. Just don't laugh.'

Six minutes later, weak, panting, he sat on the top step with the darkness of the attic behind him. He grinned at Atkins. 'All right - now how do I get down?'

'You stay up there. I'll brew us up some tea. Going on four, anyway - breakfast soon. I'll bring it up.' He looked back from the landing. 'Take some exercise while you're about it.'

After that, he was able to labour down the front stairs and so outdoors, and he began to walk in the streets again. First to the Lamb and back, then down to Guilford Street, then to Russell Square, always with a pistol in his pocket and Cohan, borrowed from Janet Striker, behind him. One day he dragged himself up to the attic again and rowed in the contraption, which had to have its springs set at the weakest so he could move the oars. It was the kind of exercise he wanted, but getting up there wore him out.

She was living in a hotel again, waiting for the work on her house to be finished. Many afternoons, they sat together in the long room. One day she said, 'I've been reading your Henry James.'

'My Henry James.' Henry James.'

'He seems to me sometimes very right about women. You don't like him? Or you do like him, what does that shake of the head mean?'

'We're very different.'

'Denton, say what you mean.'

Denton moved uncomfortably. 'People call him a genius. I'm not a genius.' He didn't want to say anything else, but she was waiting. 'He can do a lot of things that I can't.'

'And you can do things that he can't?'

Again, he was uncomfortable. He said, 'One, maybe.' He started to go back to his book, raised his eyes to her. 'I can deal with the life most people know.' He had let his own book fall on his crossed legs; he raised it, lowered his eyes to it, and again raised them to say, 'His characters never have to worry about making a living, unless they're bad and want the money that the good ones have. I'll admit, this frees James to be high-minded about moral decisions, but he just doesn't understand that for most of the world, making a living is the great reality. And the interest - the drama, the excitement, whatever you call it - comes from the struggle to survive and and to make moral decisions. And the farther down the income ladder you climb, the harder the decisions are.' to make moral decisions. And the farther down the income ladder you climb, the harder the decisions are.'

'Like Cohan, who wouldn't take a place with the Jewish madam.'

'Yes, just like that.' He settled the book again and looked down and started to read.

She said, 'Where do writers get their ideas from?'

He chuckled. 'That's just what James and I talked about. From everywhere.'

'From people they know?'

'Sometimes.'

'I don't want you ever to write about me. Even if we. . .' She left it hanging. He knew she meant If we go our separate ways If we go our separate ways, and he didn't say that if they did, that would be exactly when he'd be likely to write about her. The truth was, he was wondering if he would ever write again; his mind was empty, as if Jarrold's bullets had gone through his brain and not his back.

He carried the ma.n.u.script of the new book down to the publishers himself. He had pretty well forgotten it while he was in the nursing home, certainly had had no desire to work on it. Once home, he had stared at the pile of typed sheets and felt vaguely repelled by it, but he had at last begun to read. The typewriter had done the final copy; still, it had to be gone through once more. Reading it after so long was actually helpful; the months away freshened his eye.

'It's d.a.m.ned good,' he said to Diapason Lang.

'It's months months late.' late.'

'I suppose I should have put a clause in my contract about being shot.'

'Oh, my dear fellow-' Lang looked anguished. 'I didn't mean it that way. It's only - Gwen's so particular-'

'He got the insurer's money for the motor car.'

'Oh, yes. Yes, he did.' Lang looked at the pile of paper, craned his neck to read the t.i.tle page, read the t.i.tle, The Love Child The Love Child, and murmured, glancing at his picture of the maiden being visited by the nightmare, 't.i.tle's a bit risque.' He peeled back the top sheet as if to make sure the rest of the pages weren't blank. 'When can we expect the next one?'

'What next one?'

'We always look forward to your next one! And, of course, there's the, ah, clause in the contract.' He seemed to want Denton to help him say what had to be said. 'The clause that we are to be offered your next book.'

'You have have my next book.' Lang looked startled. 'This one is the replacement for the one I couldn't write a year ago. The Transylvania book was therefore the "next book".' He smiled, because he'd been thinking about it. 'The Transylvania book was written under a letter agreement, you'll remember, that made no mention of a next book.' my next book.' Lang looked startled. 'This one is the replacement for the one I couldn't write a year ago. The Transylvania book was therefore the "next book".' He smiled, because he'd been thinking about it. 'The Transylvania book was written under a letter agreement, you'll remember, that made no mention of a next book.'

Lang stared at him, said that it couldn't be so, said that they didn't do things that way, said excuse me and hurried out of the office and came back, his pale face almost pink, with the letter agreement. 'Well, yes,' he said, 'of course we didn't mention a next book, but-' He looked hopeful. 'It was understood as a gentleman's agreement.'

Denton had brought with him the letters from other publishers that he'd been getting since he'd returned in September. He began to drop them on Lang's desk. 'Longwin and Barnes - Low - Hildesheim - Henry Strath - Osgood-' They piled on the desk like blown leaves. 'They all want my next book.'

'They can't have it.' Lang's voice was a whisper.

'Lang, maybe being shot in the back has made me testy. I like you personally. But I want more money.'

Lang winced. 'There isn't any more money.'

'Five hundred guineas a book in advance against a ten per cent royalty.'

'Oh, no, no-'

'Or perhaps I ought to hire one of these agents that keep pestering me.'

'Oh, don't do that!' Lang's desiccated face looked to be near tears. 'They're not gentlemen!'

Denton heard a heavy footstep in the corridor and then the impressive bulk of Wilfred Gweneth himself filled the doorway. 'What's this, then? Ah, Denton-' Gweneth seemed quite jolly, as if the motor car had never existed. They shook hands. Denton was sure that in fact Lang had sent for Gweneth while he was out of the office.

Gweneth looked at Lang. 'Anything amiss?'

'Mr Denton - our friend and valued author, Mr Denton - ah-'

'Wants more money,' Denton said.

Gweneth smiled. 'Ah.'

'You got your money back for the motor car. The Transylvania book has made you a pot. I've delivered the new novel. I want more for my next.' He didn't say he didn't have an idea for a next in his head - not a hint.

Gweneth picked up one of the letters from the desk, read it, picked up another, then another. Lang whispered, 'He's talking about an agent.'

Gweneth smiled and shook his head, as if the vagaries of authors were beyond understanding. 'How much?' he said.

Denton told him. 'There's nothing about a next book in the letter agreement.'

'I know.' Gweneth laughed and showed his back teeth. He lifted Denton's new book as if weighing it, apparently judged it sufficiently heavy. 'Let's say pounds not guineas, ten per cent royalty, but the old terms on the Empire and we'll forget about the next-book clause!' He pointed a hand at Lang. 'Draw up a contract that meets the new terms. We don't want him going to a wretched bunch of thieves like Longwin's.' Gweneth hooked a hand through Denton's arm. 'Lunch? I want to hear about your being shot. Is there a book in it, do you think-? Perhaps something that might touch on spiritualism - a moment when you saw beings in white robes all about you, a magical light, music-? Do you like fresh-caught salmon?'

At the end of April, Janet Striker handed him a pasteboard box. In it was a folded something of grey wool with blue trim. When he laid it out on his bed, he stared at it and tried to guess what it was and what he was supposed to do with it. The sleeves came, he thought, about to the elbows, the trousers to just below the knee. There was a little hat to match, rather like the caps that Eton boys wore. Surely they weren't some sort of pyjamas she thought he would wear?

'Unhhh-' he said.

'It's a rowing costume.' She was undressing, was wearing an only slightly frilly thing that came halfway down her thighs and had garters to attach to her stockings. 'Can't you tell that?'

'You're distracting me.'

'You hate it, don't you.'

'In the attic, it'll be fine.'

'You're not going to wear it in the attic! You're going to wear it at Hammersmith. I've bought you a season ticket for a rowing boat. You'll wear it on the Thames!'

He stared at it. She began to unfasten her stockings. He said, 'I know I told you I'd do anything for you, but-' She looked up, bent forward, a foot on the divan, pulling off a stocking. He said, 'Of course I'll wear it. It's just the thing.'

The likely death of Erasmus Himple caused a brief sensation. Journalists came to interview Denton and were turned away. A French detective came with a translator and went over everything that Denton and Janet Striker knew and left without comment.

Denton sat late one evening with her and let the room go almost dark before he lit a lamp. He said, 'It grieves me that they've got away with it.'

'They?'

'There had to be two of them. One man alone couldn't have murdered Heseltine. You can make a man lie down in a bathtub, maybe, but you can't hold both his arms and slash his wrists for him. He'll fight you. From Munro's description, Heseltine didn't fight and didn't splash blood around. That means he was unconscious when his wrists were slashed, already in the bath or there'd have been blood all over his flat. One small man couldn't have dragged him to the bathroom and got him into the tub, even if he was unconscious.'

'You still think Mary and her brother are different people.'

'It's the explanation that takes care of the most questions.'

'You think a small man and a small woman could have moved Heseltine?'

'Oh, yes.' He stretched out both his legs and slowly raised the right one to put it over his left ankle. 'I need to think. I've missed things.'

Lady Emmeline's legal people got in touch with Sir Francis Brudenell, his solicitor. They were offering to pay his medical expenses in return for his signing a paper absolving Lady Emmeline and her son of all responsibility. 'This, of course,' Sir Francis wrote, 'is nonsense. They are clearly terrified that we will sue. We should most certainly win, as there is no question of his having shot you or of her negligence in controlling him. However, the law is slow, and publicity could be an embarra.s.sment to you, as it is my understanding that the shooting took place immediately after your egress from a premises less well-respected than many. It is my recommendation that I make them a counter-offer to settle the matter out of court for, let us say, your medical expenses plus ten thousand pounds. We shall settle for five. It will hardly matter to Lady Emmeline, as she owns a good deal of central Portsmouth. Of course, in case there is permanent damage from the bullets, we shall make the matter conditional on full recovery.'

It gave Denton something new to think about. With five thousand pounds, he could electrify his house, perhaps put in central heating, buy a motor car and still have enough to put away - a previously impossible luxury. On the other hand, he believed that he should earn whatever money he got. After two days, he scribbled a note: 'Go ahead.'

He made lists. He compared dates. He reconstructed everything that had happened, dated it, made a chart of the what and the when, with the events down one side in chronological order, from his opening Mary Thomason's letter through to the finding of the bones in Normandy. He tried to make a graph, or perhaps it was a map, of who had been in various places at various times, but it was too complicated and at the same time too empty: he didn't know enough. After several days of it, sitting sulkily and looking at the papers he had stuck up with pins on his bedroom wall, he said, 'Somebody's lied to us.'

'Who?'

He chewed on a thumbnail. 'I mean to find that out.' He stared at the papers; she moved about the room, picked up a book, sat to read. He said, 'I've been thinking about those dreams. After I was shot.' He chewed on the thumbnail. 'I was afraid.'

'But you know that.'

'But not afraid the way I thought. It isn't any of that elaborate allegory the doctor was trying to build; it was fear of-It's something about the woman. The doctor was sure it was fear of death. Well, of course - all fear is fear of death, I suppose. But this was about-I don't think the one with the shotgun was a man-'