Bohemian Girl, The (23 page)

Denton tried to think about it. He lacked James’s interest in criticism, seldom worked in such terms. ‘I suppose I begin with situation,’ he said. He thought of the book he was trying to finish, the husband and wife and the ghostly child. ‘Or an exchange. Some kind of interaction.’

‘Aha! Very good. Interaction. Mmm. And then “the plot” comes along like a child’s wooden toy that gets pulled on a string, mechanically bobbing its head and wagging its tail. Yes. I quite agree. Although I begin rather differently; how matters not.’ His eyes had continued to dart about, even though his head was down and he and Denton might have seemed to be discussing secrets.

Denton thought about how they must look, then reminded himself that they were the only Americans there. The outsiders. It might have been the title of a Jamesian novel. He said, ‘I’d have said that you and I stand on the outside of the windows with our noses pressed against the glass, not that we were looking from the inside out.’

James let go of his arm. His little smile seemed almost apologetic. ‘You are made of even harder stuff than I. I fear it’s important to me to be safely inside.’ He prepared to move off. He pulled down a cuff and touched his white necktie. ‘I see Edmund Gosse over there. I must ask him about someone to paint my portrait. My publisher insists upon a portrait frontispiece for a collected works. I was to have been painted by Himple, RA, but he suddenly decamped for places unknown. I suppose this was “artistic” of him, but it leaves me in what Americans of our generation call “a pickle”. I have waited for him for months. Really, one should be able to be “artistic” and still maintain some regularity to one’s life.’ He gave Denton his small smile and a glance from his sharp eyes, up through his brows. ‘Thank you for your most helpful comments about our craft.’

Denton was able to get away twenty minutes after that. He had smiled at Lang and avoided Gweneth, the publisher who thought he had cheated them out of the motor car.

Atkins had circled a small article in the military-affairs page of
The Times
. Denton found it open on his morning tray:

The court-martial proceedings against Lieutenant Aubrey Heseltine, Imperial Yeomanry, ended yesterday with a verdict of guilty to a lesser included charge. The reduction in charge, from Withdrawal in the Face of the Enemy to Failure to Obey a Lawful Order, was the result, a spokesman for the court-martial board said, of consideration for Lieutenant Heseltine’s medical condition. He is said to be suffering from a nervous disorder.

The officer was sentenced to loss of three months’ pay, loss of emoluments and privileges, and return of his commission to the Crown without compensation. He is not to use the rank or wear the King’s uniform again in any circumstances.

Several witnesses spoke to his medical condition and to his good conduct before the incident at Spattenkopje which led to the charge.

‘Poor devil,’ Denton muttered.

‘If he’d been other ranks, they’d have shot him.’ Atkins was pouring tea. ‘Bloo-ha! Discipline! Make an example of him!’ Atkins had turned himself into a fat general of about seventy. ‘My hat!’

‘I’ll go see him.’

‘You finish that book, General. There’s bills to pay.’

‘I can finish the book
and
go see him.’ He bit into a piece of toast. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Today, you mean? The usual. Mrs Char coming to do the rooms.’

‘Good time for me to be out of the house. Don’t let her into my room.’

‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’

‘God isn’t an author.’

He thought he needed a reason to visit Heseltine - he could hardly show up and say something like
I thought as you’d been found guilty, I’d drop by
- so he put one of the photographic copies of Mary Thomason’s drawing into a leather case and carried it along. And it would be an opportunity to try the art dealer, Geddys, again. Or hadn’t he promised Munro to leave Mary Thomason to the police? Meaning to Guillam and his little empire. Who had done nothing.

A sleety rain was coming down. He put on a pair of heavy tweed trousers he’d had since his first winter in London, a single-breasted wool coat that matched nothing but its own waistcoat, and another of the high collars that he despised.

‘Find me some shirts with soft collars,’ he snarled to Atkins.

‘Not proper.’

‘To hell with “proper”. I feel as if I’m wearing a slave collar.’

‘Have to get them made special, Colonel - cost you.’

‘And worth it.’

He pulled on an unfitted tweed ulster that billowed around his legs, something else he had bought years before. It had the virtue of keeping the rain off, but it was as heavy as the flock of sheep it had come from. Only as wide as his shoulders at the top, it expanded to yards of circumference at the skirts.

‘If the wind is blowing, I’ll sail away over the rooftops of London,’ he said as he went down to the front door. ‘I’ll send you a postcard from Paris.’

‘If you’d had me when you bought that garment, you’d not have bought it.’ Atkins handed him a soft tweed hat. ‘This hat’s really for shooting, mind.’

‘Maybe I’ll shoot somebody, then.’ He didn’t, however, take the new revolver, the danger supposedly over now that Jarrold-known-as-Cosgrove was in his luxurious detention.

He wanted to walk, but it was too foul a day - sleet blowing in sheets from the west, wet slush piling up along the edges of pavements; part of a newspaper came pelting down the street, head-high, and he backed out of its path. His elastic-sided boots were soaked by the time he reached Russell Square, and he gave in and waved over a cab.

Albany Court was deserted, its plane trees bare now, the old man who stood nominal watch at the gate huddled in a kiosk. He merely waved Denton through, not willing to suffer a wetting. Heseltine’s ‘man’ - what was his name? Jenkins? Jenks? - opened the door. He was freshly shaven but his skin was blotchy, splashes of red on his nose and cheeks like stains. It was early in the day; he seemed sober. He even seemed to remember Denton.

‘Mr Heseltine isn’t well, sir.’

‘I just thought he might like to look at something.’ Denton lifted the leather case a few inches.

‘I’ll just see.’ Jenks - the name was certainly Jenks; he was sure now - made a slow about-face and felt his way across the room. Presumably he was drunk, after all. Denton wondered if it suited Jenks best to have Heseltine ‘ill’, confined to his room, not out and about where he could check the level of the sherry and ask questions.

‘Coming right out, sir. Tea? Or coffee? It’s morning. Isn’t it?’

‘Nothing, thanks. And yes, it’s morning.’

Heseltine appeared, again in a long dressing gown, a common wool scarf at his throat instead of collar and tie. They shook hands. Heseltine said, ‘You heard, I’m sure.’ He seemed quite calm.

‘I’m sorry it turned out as it did.’

‘It could have been worse.’ Heseltine took a cigarette from a box, offered Denton one, then stood with his unlighted. ‘There comes a point during the court martial when you say, “What’s the worst that can happen?” and you realize that the worst
is
happening. That you’re already there, already prepared.’ He struck a match. ‘My father was heartbroken. For me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘He’s a clergyman. Had I told you that? Quiet little village, rather quintessentially English, quite out of date. He believes in goodness. Is a good man himself. He said, “Come home. All will be well.”’ He lit the cigarette.

‘Will all be well?’ Denton murmured.

Heseltine tried to laugh; the voice sounded cracked.

‘I thought you might like to see this.’ Denton opened the clasp on the leather envelope. ‘It’s a drawing of the young woman who wrote the note you found in your painting.’ He looked towards the Wesselons.

‘Wherever did you get it?’

‘Probably somebody she modelled for did it.’ He handed the drawing over. Heseltine looked at it, perhaps more out of politeness than real interest. Denton watched his eyes travel over the drawing, then down to the corners where the two miniatures were. For an instant, something happened to his face - a gathering between the brows, a dipping of the head to look more closely - and then there was an almost visibly conscious recovery that included a glance at Denton. ‘Very nice,’ he said. He handed the drawing back.

‘I thought you’d seen something.’

‘Oh, no. The little sketches are hard to see. The head is quite well done.’

‘Some of the students at the Slade recognized her, anyway.’

‘What’s happened to her?’

Denton shook his head. ‘I’ve reported it to the police. Nothing else to be done, I guess.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that young woman. Rather looking for things to think about, you know. I wondered - you’ll find this the morbid thought of a disappointed man, I suppose - I wondered if she put the note in the painting so it would be found.’

‘And you found it.’

‘Not by me. Somebody else. It sounds rather daft now I say it. I thought she might have meant it for the person who was trying to “hurt” her - isn’t that what you told me? Put in the back of the painting like that, it could have been for somebody at the shop. Or - I told you somebody else had been going to buy the Wesselons.’

‘In an envelope with my name on it?’

‘Yes, that’s rather the sticking place, isn’t it. Well, it was just a thought. Not much of one, as it turns out.’

Heseltine didn’t seem really to care. If Mary Thomason had once had some interest for him, even some idea that he might achieve something by helping her, it was gone. They chatted in a desultory way for a few more minutes. Denton said, ‘How’s Jenks been behaving? ’

‘Oh, he’s atrocious. I shall have to get rid of him.’ But he had said that before. He came to the door with Denton and paused, fingers on the knob as if he meant to hold it closed. ‘My father wants me to come home.’

‘It might be the best thing.’

‘It sounds absurd, but I can’t face those people.’ He put his hand on the doorknob. ‘I may go away.’

‘Going someplace for a few years might not be the worst idea - Australia, Canada, the States. Put it behind you. Everybody west of the Mississippi is putting something behind him.’

‘I’ve lost my nerve.’

The rain had turned away from sleet but was still coming down. Denton pulled the hat brim lower and took the few steps along Piccadilly to the arcade and moved into its welcome shelter. What Heseltine had said about the note and the painting didn’t seem convincing, but it did suggest one or two possibilities. He had promised Janet he would talk to Geddys, anyway - how long was it since he’d tried and been told Geddys was travelling? Turning into Geddys’s shop, he saw Geddys standing there looking more than ever the gnome - some bent, malicious creature standing guard over a cave full of valuable, probably stolen things.

‘I was in a while ago,’ Denton said. ‘I came back, but you seem to have been travelling.’ Geddys gave no sign of recognition, but Denton thought that in fact he remembered him. ‘About a note that was left with a painting. A Wesselons sketch of a lion.’ He wondered if Geddys had been away at all.

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Mary Thomason.’

‘Oh, yes, I recollect.’

‘Mr Geddys, you told me that you didn’t know where Mary Thomason lived.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Her landlady says you sometimes saw her home.’

‘Did she.’

Denton waited for more. Apparently there was to be none. He said, ‘I’ve reported this to the police since I was here. Have they been to talk to you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I could make sure that they do.’

Geddys looked up at him, his neck twisted to one side. He said, ‘I don’t get what you’re about. You’ve no authority to come in here asking questions.’

‘Why did you lie to me?’

‘That is offensive.’

‘Look, Geddys, it’s me or the police. They’re a good deal more offensive than I am. Why did you lie to me?’

‘Please leave my shop.’

‘You saw the young woman home a number of times. Why did you want to hide that from me? What was going on?’

‘I’ll have a constable called if you don’t leave.’

‘Was there something between you?’ Geddys was ready to make a battle of it, but Denton jumped in. ‘She wrote me that she was afraid somebody was going to hurt her. She’s disappeared. You lied about how well you knew her. What do you think the police will make of it?’

Geddys licked his lips. ‘I don’t wish to be involved.’

‘But you are involved. You involved yourself by lying to me. What was going on between you?’

Geddys turned away and walked the few steps to the front of the shop. He bent to arrange something in the front window. ‘Do the police have to come into this?’ His voice was a whisper.

‘I don’t have to call them specially, if that’s what you mean.’ Geddys began to examine small objects on a low table. ‘She was a very - captivating girl. I became a little - interested in her.’ He looked up quickly. ‘But nothing happened! I swear it. I’ll swear it to the police. Yes, I took her home in a cab several times when the weather was bad. It was a chance to help her. But nothing happened!’ He finished moving the things and straightened. ‘I’m a coward. Look at me - you think it would be easy to offer yourself to a young woman if you looked like me?’ He walked to the shop window again, stood looking out past the paintings and bric-a-brac that were exhibited there. ‘That’s all there was to it.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘A man like you wouldn’t understand. But I’d never have hurt her, never.’

He was believable, Denton thought. He didn’t entirely believe, but he wasn’t any longer sure that Geddys was lying, either. An older man, something like infatuation - was some sort of purity possible here? Remembering what Heseltine had suggested, he said, ‘Mr Geddys, who else might have looked at the back of the Wesselons?’