The Frightened Man tds-1 Read online

  Denton watched him come down the room. Smelled him. Same smell, same man. Bottom part of his face covered again. He seemed to be coming a great distance, walking and walking and making no headway. Then suddenly he was there. With the knife.

  Denton wanted to open his mouth and call out. He wanted to stand, to run to the door. A policeman was just outside.

  He couldn’t make enough sound to summon him.

  He looked at the man’s eyes, which looked at his. The man was sweating. Denton tried to force his hand to pick up the derringer and aim it, but he could command the hand only to move under the blanket to the arm of the chair and then, in a spasm, strike the edge of the table. Seeing the movement, the man with the knife moved faster. Their eyes remained locked. The man was trying to assess how best to do it, he thought, changing his grip on the knife and bringing it across his own body as if for a backhand stroke, as if he would perhaps grab Denton’s hair with his left hand and sweep the blade across his throat. As he had murdered Stella Minter.

  Denton’s palm rested on the derringer.

  The man with the knife moved.

  Denton willed his arm to raise the gun, willed his eyes to aim, willed his finger to pull the trigger, but all that happened was that the gun, still on the table, went off, burning a crease across the tabletop, the bullet smashing through the thin, pie-crust edging and going into the wall.

  The man with the knife cried out. He turned and raced back down the room, and Denton heard the sound of smashing glass. He was using something, maybe a foot, a boot, to break out the glass from the window at the foot of the stairs. The cooler air caressed Denton’s face; there was silence; he smelled burning coal and the last of the man’s stench. He tried again to call out, but nothing came.

  Then a pounding on the front door. The policeman had heard the shot. Denton waited for Atkins to open the door. The pounding went on. Where was Atkins? But the man with the knife had come from Atkins’s doorway, so where had Atkins been then?

  He was waiting for us, Denton thought. He never left the house. He slammed the front door but stayed inside, and he hid down in Atkins’s rooms until he could deal with Atkins, and then he came up to deal with me.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he managed to croak. His voice was expressionless. He was still covered in snow. Like being his own ghost.

  Outside, the policeman was shouting, then blowing his whistle. Denton pushed with his right hand and the little table on which the derringer rested toppled over. Denton rolled himself off the chair. He lay on the floor, then pulled himself to his knees, up to a crouch to shamble towards the door. A huge effort to open it, then beyond it the stairs down; he held on to the banister with both hands but still fell halfway and wound up sitting at the bottom. He crawled to the door and opened it.

  The policeman’s face was terrified, then enraged. Another whistle was sounding somewhere. Denton tried to speak.

  Chapter Eight

  It was morning.

  ‘How is Atkins?’

  ‘He’s had his head bashed in.’ Detective Sergeant Guillam looked angry, apparently his normal expression. He glared at Denton with what seemed to be disgust. ‘Didn’t the constables even come into the house with you?’

  Denton moved his head from side to side. He felt as if he’d ploughed a forty-acre field. ‘I didn’t ask them to.’

  ‘It isn’t your business to ask them! They’re supposed to use their bloody heads!’

  It was a little after eight in the morning. Atkins had been carried away to a hospital before daybreak; since then, the place had swarmed with police. Two of them were posted now, one in front and one in the back garden, through which, presumably, the man with the knife had escaped — classic closing of the door after the horse was gone. The window by the stairs, all its glass broken out except for sharp triangles along the frame, was hung with a blanket until the glazier arrived.

  ‘You didn’t see his whole face either time. He smelled. You say he looked frightened — what the hell does that mean?’

  ‘He was sweating. His eyes were frightened.’

  ‘Of what? You were there in your drug stupor; what’d he to be frightened of?’ Guillam was a Puritan, Denton decided; ‘drug stupor’ was a deliberately outrageous moral statement. ‘Why didn’t he kill you if he had the chance?’

  ‘The gun went off.’

  Guillam glanced at the hole the bullet had made in the plaster. ‘You’re a brilliant marksman,’ he muttered.

  ‘I want my gun back.’ The local detective had made off with it before Guillam had got there.

  ‘You’ll get it back, you’ll get it back. You’re going to get into trouble, having guns about.’ Guillam was grumpy: it was early; he had been got out of bed to take the case. Without Atkins in the house, nobody was offering him even tea.

  Denton used his good hand to point towards the pantry. ‘There’s an alcohol stove in there. Water. You could make us tea.’ His throat was sore, his mouth dry. ‘All of us.’

  ‘That where he attacked you the first time, is it?’ Guillam lumbered down the room and looked. He still had his bowler and his overcoat on. It was raining again; the smell of wet wool had come in with him. A certain amount of banging from the pantry indicated he was trying to make tea. He cursed. While the kettle heated, he pulled the now wet blanket aside and looked out of the broken window. ‘Probably cut himself,’ he said. ‘Not enough to matter, I suppose.’ He came towards Denton, looking at this and that in the room, sizing it up. ‘You sure it was the same man both times?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No burglar stays inside once he’s been seen. He skedaddles, he does.’

  ‘Not a burglar.’

  ‘I know he’s not a burglar! Judas Priest.’ He had his hands deep in his coat pockets, dragging his shoulders down. ‘You think it’s him, don’t you.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘You know who I mean! Don’t get cute.’ He went past Denton, looked at the books beyond the fireplace, took one down and riffled its pages. ‘Because of your Mulcahy.’

  ‘My Mulcahy.’

  ‘Well, nobody else’s claiming him. You think it’s the man killed the Minter girl, you do. Hooked up somehow through your Mulcahy. Well, I won’t have it. Anyway, Willey’s got his Cape Coloured in custody; they’ll move to a charge as soon as he gets a confession. You look disappointed, Mr Denton. Myself, I’m happy with a nigger sailor.’

  ‘Don’t use the word “nigger” in my house.’

  ‘This is a police investigation! I’ll use any bloody word I want! What’re you, the society for the improvement of bloody Africa?’

  ‘I heard enough of that talk during the war. Cork it, Guillam — I mean it.’ Denton stared him down; Guillam shrugged and looked away. Denton said, ‘Find Mulcahy. He can tell you at least whether the murderer was a black man or not.’

  Guillam put the book back and turned on Denton. ‘Very cute of you to spy out that peephole in the girl’s room. Terrifically cute of you not to tell me about it yesterday.’ He loomed above Denton. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the peephole yesterday?’

  ‘You would have made some joke about Sherlock Holmes.’ Denton pulled his blanket closer; he was in the green armchair again. ‘If Mulcahy was behind that peephole when the girl was killed, you’ve got a witness, you know.’

  ‘I have to be told about the peephole by Munro, who’s got a bee up his arse because he fell off his own roof and isn’t in CID any more, and he’s just delighted to know something that I don’t! Well, it was well done, and my congratulations to you, Mr Denton!’ Guillam took his hat off and made a deep bow. ‘Brilliant, brilliant! The coppers look like idiots again, and the amateur sleuth finds the clue!’

  ‘Go suck eggs.’

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that! I’ll put your arse on the floor as soon as look at you!’

  ‘Well, do it while I have one arm in a sling; it’s your best chance.’

  Guillam stared at him and burst out laughing. He went back up the
room shaking his head, and two minutes later he came out with a pot of tea and two cups without saucers. ‘Sugar’s coming.’ He went to the window and called something down, and a minute later one of the policemen came up. By then, Guillam was laying out more cups and the sugar bowl and some vaguely suspicious-looking milk.

  ‘Yesterday’s milk,’ Denton said.

  ‘Smells all right. Oh, hell!’ Guillam had poured some into his tea, and apparently it had separated. ‘Forget the bloody milk.’ He muttered to the constable to take a cup down to his pal and get a move on, and then he brought his own cup and lowered himself to the hassock near Denton’s feet.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it that the bastard was so determined to kill you that he came back, and I don’t like it that it’s you, with your interfering and your nose into everything. Nothing personal, Denton, but you’re not a helpful part of the landscape.’

  ‘I didn’t invite him to come and try to kill me.’

  ‘Put an advert in the newspapers, did you, trying to reach your Mulcahy?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘“If R. Mulcahy will reply to this address, he will hear something to his advantage”? None of that? It would explain how the bastard found you.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t make it easy for you.’

  Guillam sipped. Slurped. ‘Damned hot tea.’ He pushed his hat back on his head. ‘Could be he followed your Mulcahy.’

  ‘Then waited a night and a day?’

  ‘You don’t know what else he was doing. Maybe things didn’t come together for him until yesterday. You don’t know what else was going on in his mind. You don’t know but what he’s certifiably lunatic. Normal rules don’t apply.’

  ‘You agree, at least, that it has something to do with Mulcahy.’

  ‘I do not. I’m only playing your little game to see where it leads me. I can give you a dozen reasons for somebody coming after you. He read one of your books and thinks he’s the demon of the plains.’ Denton’s first book had been titled The Demon of the Plains — astonishing that Guillam knew it. ‘Or he’s part of a secret conspiracy that originated in Salt Lake City, Utah. Or he’s trying to avenge a crime you committed in India. The theft of a fabulously valuable jewel.’

  ‘I’ve never been in India.’

  ‘But the valet chap who got knocked on the head has. Told my boys that yesterday.’

  ‘I’m not in a humour for jokes, Guillam.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. We’ll stop the games then, shall we? I’m only trying to show you how stupid the idea of your Mulcahy is. Think of it from my point of view — I have to consider all the reasons for somebody knifing you that I’ve come across over the years. Such as, he saw you with a woman he fancies. Or he’s got an old grudge against you that you haven’t told us about yet. Or he owes you money. Or you owe him money. You rogered his wife. He blames you for something you don’t even know you did. Crikey, there’s more reasons for people to go slashing each other than Mudie has books.’

  ‘Or, he saw me at Stella Minter’s yesterday with you.’

  ‘There you are. Which wouldn’t mean he murdered Stella Minter, but only that he didn’t like your face or your hat.’

  ‘I’ve given you a reasonable motive for his coming after me.’

  ‘Motives be damned. I like facts I can send to court to hang the bastards.’ He finished his tea and hitched the hassock closer. ‘Now, see here. He came in your skylight, must have been while you and your man were both out. Between nine and eleven p.m., was it? He waits in the pantry, tries to knife you, does half a job but you fight him off. Then he pretends to run but hides again, whacks your man with an iron doorstop, and comes up here and tries it on again. Which you end with a gunshot. I see two things that don’t hang together: one, he’s a determined chap; and two, he scares off easy. You tell me.’

  Denton had been trying to think about it through the fog of the laudanum. ‘He isn’t a natural killer.’

  ‘What the devil’s that mean?’

  ‘He didn’t use the knife on Atkins, didn’t kill him. He didn’t try to kill me with-There was none of the frenzy he used in killing Stella Minter.’

  ‘There you go again!’

  ‘None of the frenzy somebody used in killing Stella Minter.’

  ‘So what? He didn’t really want to kill one of his fellow men?’

  ‘Oh, wanted to, yes. But had to — I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘Whoever killed Stella Minter would have done it no matter what. If it was the same man here, he had less — passion.’

  Guillam looked disgusted. ‘We’ll put out a call for men six feet and above, twenty stone, don’t kill with passion.’

  ‘Don’t kill men with passion.’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t! Now you’re saying it’s the Ripper. I won’t have it. The Ripper’s ancient history, he is!’

  ‘Isn’t that why they gave this to you? Because it might be connected to the Ripper, and you’re their Ripper man?’

  ‘They gave it to me because I’m in CID and you were already part of a matter I investigated.’ Two detectives from E Division had been there before him, had turned it over to him and left. They hadn’t wanted to hear about Mulcahy and Stella Minter; they had looked for evidence of burglary — footprints in the back garden. Glad to leave it to somebody else.

  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. Impr
essive. 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.