The Bohemian Girl Part 36

'Head's too broken for us to take a statement. Concussion. Maybe by tomorrow. You didn't have to try to kill him, too, you know.'

'I didn't want him behind me while I went after the woman.'

'His nose was mashed flat against his face, he has two broken ribs, and he fractured a finger, apparently trying to protect himself from the poker. Can't you ever go easy on them?'

'I told you, I didn't want him behind me.'

Munro stared out of the window, then shook his head. 'Did you push the woman? The man?' you push the woman? The man?'

'I lost my grip on her wrist. She was off balance.'

'I wouldn't blame you if you had. He was an ugly piece of work. Cutting the head off Himple, killing Heseltine - the painting that came from Heseltine's flat pretty well cinches that one. You're always right.'

'Like h.e.l.l.'

Munro grinned at him, then became serious again. 'You think he was insane?'

'Anybody who commits murder is insane, isn't he?'

'I meant, playing at being a woman.'

Denton said nothing, then, 'She was sane. Maybe he wasn't.' 'They were the same person, Denton!'

Denton shrugged again. He felt light-headed, detached. Munro said, 'We're digging up Brown's garden to look for Himple's head.'

'Yes, you should do that. Although I don't think you'll find it.'

Munro grunted. 'No. I suppose it's somewhere like the middle of the Channel.'

'Or in an abandoned privy in Paris.'

'She wasn't here until last week - we've asked the neighbours. Why the h.e.l.l do you think she came back here here?'

'They wanted to be together, I suppose.'

Munro gave a snort of contempt. 'Queer sort of being together - murdering folk. You think it was always the two of them?'

'I didn't until I saw her in the garden. Yes, I think it was always the two of them - before anything else. Maybe Crum met Himple first at the Baths, but then when he met Brown - funny, how people pair off.' He gave a grim smile. 'There's a novel in that.' He moved the arm painfully to another position, then sipped the tea. 'Think you'll ever know who Arthur Crum really was?'

'Mr n.o.body from Nowhere. Some little chap who thought he'd found himself a clever way off the factory floor.'

'And it got away from him?'

Munro shrugged. He sighed and opened the door. 'Well, you can go. Although I think I'm letting the most dangerous man in London walk.' Denton got up and strode to the door. Munro said, 'Speaking of walk-'

'What?'

'Look at you.' at you.'

Denton looked where Munro was pointing, at his right leg. He wasn't limping. He didn't have a stick.

'Where's the bad leg, then?'

'I guess she took it over the roof with her.'

Janet Striker was waiting for him at the infirmary gate. She hurried him into a waiting cab and made him lie back into a nest of pillows she'd put there. 'Don't ever let anybody tell you that money isn't important,' she said. 'I bought these for you to lie on and they're going in the dustbin as soon as we get you home. But worth every penny!'

'I'm not an invalid.'

'You bled like a pig, I was told. You should be feeling weak and ill.'

'I'm not a pig.'

'No, you're a man, and a fairly good specimen of one.' She kissed him. 'Tell me everything, including how you got your leg back.'

As they rode, he went through it all. 'Finally,' he said when he had told her everything, 'I felt sorry for her. Not sorry, perhaps, but - sorrow.'

'And then you could walk.'

'It was going up the roof. I had to and I did. I've been letting it rule me, giving in to it. Being an invalid meant I'd never have to risk killing her.'

'Is that what it was about - not killing her?'

'Being afraid to kill her? No, more like being afraid I'd get to the moment and find I wanted wanted to kill her.' to kill her.'

'Because I told you all men hate women.'

He was silent.

'And you found you didn't.' Janet held his good hand. 'Does it make a difference that he wasn't a woman?'

'She was a woman when she went off that roof. I know in my soul I didn't want her to go off, and I'm satisfied.'

They were silent for a long way, and then they talked of trivial things like the cancelled coronation. He said, 'Atkins, at least, is delighted. The pneumatic truss wasn't ready, and now they've got at least a couple of months to get it right.' Just before they reached his house, he said, 'You had it figured. I wouldn't accept that the woman and the brother were the same.'

'Well, the evidence was thin.'

He remembered the dreams. 'It was the rags. I couldn't-'

She put a finger on his lips. 'It doesn't matter. You did what you set out to do - you found the woman who asked for your help.'

'And found that I was the one who was going to hurt her.' He shook his head. 'She didn't really ask for my help at all, but-I wonder if she was thinking about her letter when we were up on that roof.'

She came behind him up the stairs as if she might need to push, but he made it well enough, light-headed, weak. Atkins appeared with a bottle of the Army and Navy Stores' Extract of Meat and Malt Wine. That, and more tea, and a chop from the Lamb, gave Denton the illusion of feeling normal. A false euphoria came over him; he didn't recognize it as the giddiness of blood loss. As they ate, he talked about the future, an idea for a new book that had leapt into his head while he was on the roof, some sort of travel they could do together. He was opening his mail at the same time, over-excited, hands trembling. He hooted.

'Jarrold's sainted ma has instructed her lawyers to offer me seven thousand pounds and medical expenses!' He cackled happily. 'Sergeant!' When an answer came up the dumb-waiter shaft, he shouted, 'We're getting electric in the house! And heat! And a proper modern ice-box!' He turned back to Janet Striker. 'I'm going to buy a motor car. Where would you like to go?'

'University College.'

'Ah, I'd hoped Constantinople by way of Athens.'

She laughed, shook her head.

He shouted, 'Sergeant! Want to motor to-?'

'No,' came the hollow answer, 'and neither does Rupert.'

He put the letter down. He looked at her. 'Well, I'll pretend that your house is Constantinople. Your bed, most certainly.'

'Some of the time, anyway.'

'There'll always be the door in the garden wall, you mean.'

'But with a lock.'

'And you'll have the key.'

'I'll have the key.'

'Oh - well-' He leaned back, then suddenly sat up and said, 'Dammit! I left my boat tied up by the river!' He jumped up too quickly, felt the room start to go black and collapsed back into his cushions. He grinned at her foolishly. 'Maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow.'

About the Author.

Kenneth Cameron is the author of one previous novel featuring Denton, The Frightened Man The Frightened Man, as well as of plays staged in Britain and the US, and the award-winning Africa on Film: Beyond Black and White Africa on Film: Beyond Black and White. He lives part of the year in northern New York State and part in the southern US.