The Frightened Man (21 page)

The poor sonofabitch
, Denton thought.

He looked everywhere for the red cord. When he was satisfied that it was not in the Inventorium, he leaned out of the dormer window again and looked down at the body. He ignored the imp. Denton didn’t think that what was left of Mulcahy had a red rope around his neck - and who would hang himself by jumping out of a window? And if he had done such a daft thing, why was there no sign of the cord’s having been tied off up here? No, Mulcahy hadn’t hanged himself.

Where, then, was the red cord?

Denton stood in the window for some minutes trying to work it out. Then he stood there for several more, thinking about how he would go back up the roof to the trapdoor.

When he was ready to go, he was shaking.

Chapter Thirteen

‘You’re late,’ Mrs Striker said. She was rushing towards him from her scarred door, thrusting a hatpin through a flat black hat that did nothing to flatter her. In the outer room, Denton was waiting with half a dozen women who, if they were prostitutes, gave him none of the smiles he might have expected.

‘I was working late,’ he said. In fact, he’d been to a cheap tailor on Whitechapel Road whose sign he had remembered - ‘We Press, You Wait.’ An ascetic-looking Eastern European had shaken his head over Denton’s suit and tut-tutted while he brushed off moss and sewed up tears; Denton had waited, trouserless and jacketless, in a sort of booth with a swinging door, until the tailor appeared and, helping him on with the jacket, had said, ‘A shame - a shame - such good cloth—’ But Denton had walked out looking more or less respectable again, the damage of the roof muted. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said now.

‘I’ve another appointment at eight.’ She made it sound as if he had already made her late, although it wasn’t quite five.

‘Which are the ones I’m supposed to meet?’ He looked around at the unsmiling women.

‘Oh, they wouldn’t meet you
here
!’ She gave him a little push towards the door. ‘We’re going up Aldgate High Street.’ When they were out on the pavement, she said, ‘We’ll walk,’ and strode away. Denton caught up, did a sort of dance to get on her left, and found her laughing at him.

‘
Quite
gentlemanly,’ she said.

‘Do you mind?’

‘It’s nothing to me either way.’They walked a few strides and she said more soberly, ‘These girls won’t go near my office. They think I’ll send for the police - as if I’d do such a thing! We’re meeting them in a public house, not a very nice one - they feel safe there.’ Another stride, and she had changed the subject - a habit he would eventually get used to. ‘I asked some of my nicer acquaintances about you. They said you were “entirely respectable”. Otherwise, I’d not have let you meet these girls.’ She smiled. ‘Did you ask about me?’

Denton thought of lying, didn’t. ‘One friend,’ he muttered.

‘A man? What did he tell you? That I’d killed my husband? ’

Startled, Denton jerked his head and made a sort of grunt.

‘It’s what they usually say,’ she murmured. Pointing ahead, she again shifted ground. ‘There’s the place where we’re meeting them. Let me speak for you, please. They’re like wild kittens.’ She walked faster and led him to the saloon door of a large pub with an electric-lighted front and several entrances. With her hand ready to push the door open, she said, a rather sly smile turning up her lips, ‘I didn’t kill my husband, in fact, no matter what your friend said.’ The smile turned wry. ‘Did he say I’d spent four and a half years in an institution for the criminally insane? Well, I did.’ And she pushed her way in.

The pub was huge, pounding with human noise, most of it coming from the other side of a wall to their right. The interior managed to be both muted and garish, dark green walls punctuated with the white, glaring electric globes. Part of a mahogany bar that must have served the whole house in a shape like a racetrack jutted from the wall in front of them, disappeared in a wall at their left; in that same wall, a door with frosted glass and ‘Private Rooms’ stood just beyond the bar’s curving end. Above the bar, coloured glass panes made a screen. The overall air was of activity and seediness, false elegance blurred by a fug of pipe smoke and coal.

‘In there,’ Mrs Striker said, again shoving him, this time towards the private rooms. ‘I’ll find the girls.’

Denton stopped. ‘I don’t really like to be pushed,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘I didn’t know I’d done it. Oh, I’m sorry.’ She muttered something about bad habits and, flustered, disappeared through a door marked ‘Ladies’ Bar’.

Denton waited. His suit smelled of the pressing - hot cloth, his own sweat. The memory of the roof made him sweat again. He was still rattled by it, not really able to focus well. He wished he could go home, have a hot bath, sit in the green armchair with a drink.

‘One, anyway,’ Mrs Striker said, coming through the door. She was pushing a thin girl in front of her with jabs between the shoulder blades. ‘Move along, Sticks.’

The girl whined something about a shilling; Mrs Striker explained that the only way she’d been able to get the girl to come was to promise her a shilling. ‘After,’ she said to her and gave her another jab.

‘Leave off!’

Mrs Striker rolled her eyes and indicated the private rooms, and Denton hurried to open the door. Inside was a row of half a dozen swinging doors, theirs the third one along. Denton pushed through, found a space a little bigger than a coffin with a narrow banquette on each side covered in greasy, almost napless brown velour. At the far end was the same coloured glass that stood above the long bar, and a hatch that he guessed was for service.

The child - eleven, Denton thought, emaciated, not pretty - fell into one of the banquettes and stuck her feet out. Mrs Striker said she was off to find the others; she turned back before she went out and said to the girl, ‘Mind your manners, Sticks.
You know what I mean
.’

When she was gone, the child said in the door’s direction, ‘Cow.’ She looked at Denton and said, as if on a dare, ‘Stupid old cow.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Hate her.’ It was like trying to understand another language; he had got ‘cow’ all right, but she ran her words together, and she had an accent he couldn’t follow. He sat down next to the door, finding himself embarrassed, not sure why.

‘JerwantaFrenchwye?’ the girl said.

‘What?’

‘Frenchwye,
French wye
! Yer deaf? French, I does’t betternor’ny. Ask any gemmun. Quick, I am. Bring yer off in lessnor minute.’

Denton stared at her. What struck him most was how entirely sexless she seemed. Yet he supposed that ‘French way’ meant the same as Harris’s
à la bouche
. ‘How old are you?’ he said.

‘Fourteen, wot bus’ness’t to you? Yeserno, you wannit ’fore the cow comes back? Shilling.’

Denton said no, and she flounced back against the greasy velvet and folded her thin arms. She had no breasts at all that he could see, nor any hips; if she was fourteen, nature hadn’t brought her any maturity yet.

‘Wantersee my place?’ she said. He felt himself flush. She smiled. ‘No hair on it. Tenpence.’ She reached down to grasp the hem of her skirt; the door pushed open, and Janet Striker came in.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘’E made a nindecent purposition ter me.’

Mrs Striker glanced at Denton and then at the girl. ‘You’re a terrible little liar, Sticks.’ She looked back at Denton. ‘I found the others outside the public bar; they’ll be right along.’ She sat on the same side as Denton, facing the girl, two adults apparently allied against her. ‘I know you better, Sticks. Drop it.’

The girl crossed her arms over her chest again and pouted her lips. ‘Where’s my shilling?’

‘After, I told you.’

‘Five shillings, you said!’

‘That’s if you had anything to tell us about Stella Minter. Well?’

‘Yerfinkiblab everyfink I know?’ She wiggled herself deeper into the banquette. ‘Fer five bloody shillin’? Make me larf.’

Janet Striker’s voice was tired. ‘She doesn’t know anything. I knew it was a mistake to spend time on her, but—Give her a shilling and I’ll send her on her way.’

‘I know wot I knows!’

‘Yes, nothing.’

Denton was trying to find a coin in his pocket, wondering if the tailor had taken his money. No, there it was—

‘I do know somethink, so there! Stella Minter tole me all her secrets!’

Mrs Striker took the coin and held it out. ‘Oh, Sticks - get out.’

The girl grabbed the coin and jumped up. ‘Stella Minter got the clap!’ she shouted and, giggling, ran out. She collided with two other girls, who shouted at her and she at them, and they came in red-faced. Both wore demure blouses and dark skirts and little round hats with brims. They looked at Denton and then at Mrs Striker and everybody seemed deeply embarrassed.

‘Sit down, do,’ Mrs Striker said. ‘That’s Lillian, and that’s Mary Kate.’ Lillian was plump, rather sleepy-looking, perhaps sixteen; Mary Kate was thinner, freckled. ‘This gentleman wants to know about Stella Minter, the girl who was murdered in the Minories. He’ll give you a shilling for being here and five shillings if you know something useful.’

The two girls looked at each other. They seemed still more embarrassed. Denton realized it was because of him - something about its being all right to sell themselves to a man like him but not all right to discuss their profession in front of him and another woman. Mary Kate put her feet flat on the wood floor and looked at her shoes; Lillian stared around as if she had never been in such a place before and then fanned herself with a hand and looked over Denton’s head. All at once, Mary Kate said, ‘Had a baby.’Three words, and he knew she was Irish.

Mrs Striker looked at Denton and then back at them and said, ‘Stella Minter? When?’

They looked at each other again. Lillian said, her voice so soft he could hardly hear it, ‘Wile ago.’ She glanced aside at Mary Kate and then murmured, ‘Waren’t married or nothin, she waren’t.’

‘What happened to the baby?’ Denton said. All three women turned towards him - they had been talking to each other - and frowned. Mrs Striker gave him a look and said that it was a good question, and did the girls know?

‘’Dopted,’ Lillian said.

‘She gave it up?’

Mary Kate studied her shoes but said, ‘She went to the Humphrey, an’ they kep’ it and all.’

Mrs Striker said aside to Denton, ‘The Humphrey is a home for unwed mothers.’ Then, to the other two, she said, ‘You’re sure? This is important information - you must be sure.’

‘Sure ’n’ I’m sure as sure,’ Mary Kate said, and Lillian giggled and got red.

‘Did she tell you?’

‘Sure, wasn’t she Lillian’s special pal, then? She was allus tellin’ you everthing, wasn’t she, Lil?’

‘Well, not
everythin
’.’ Lillian blushed deeper. ‘Oney oncet she tole me that when she were feelin’ low. She were a sad girl, she was. A’ways.’ Her face, which didn’t seem to know how to show sadness, got blank. ‘Never had no fun.’

‘Was she afraid of something?’ Denton said, and they all looked at him again.

‘Maybe. But I dunno. I do know she tole me oncet about the ’Umphrey and the awfu’ time they give ’er. Workin’ girls to death.’ She looked up at Janet Striker.

‘Yes, I know, dear.’ She glanced at Denton. ‘It’s like an old-fashioned workhouse.’Then, turning back to the others, she said, ‘Is that all? There’s nothing else you remember?’

They looked at each other once more, then around the little space as if for escape, and Lillian murmured, ‘Ever so eddicated.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Stella was eddicated. Nuffin’ she din’t know. G’ography. Reading.’

‘She owned a book,’ Mary Kate said.

Denton didn’t remember a book among Stella Minter’s belongings. Was that significant?

‘Name weren’t Stella, neither,’ Lillian said so low he wasn’t sure he had heard right.

‘What?’

‘Her name weren’t Stella. We was standin’ down Aldgate, nobody comin’ along, nuffing! And we was both sad and tellin’ things and she says, “My real name’s not Stella.” Well, lots o’ the girls change their names, don’t they? So I said, “Wot is it, then?” and she says, “Ruth, like the Bible.”’

‘Ruth what?’

‘She wooden tell that, would she? Oney Ruth.’ Lillian’s eyes were almost closed; she might have been a medium, hauling up these titbits from a trance. ‘Her sister’s name was Becca. Becky, but she says Becca.
Re
-becca. She’s ever so worried ’bout Becca.’

Denton leaned in. ‘Worried about what?’

‘So much younger, wasn’t she? Go the same way she done, I s’pose. She said something like, “Wind up like me.” And crying.’ Lillian looked at Mrs Striker. ‘We had such a good time at the hop-picking last summer, the three of us. Now she’s gone.’Tears shone in her eyes. ‘That’s all I know.’

Mrs Striker raced along the pavement, Denton striding to keep up with her. ‘You’re a fast walker,’ he said, meaning it as a compliment.

‘I shouldn’t have brought Sticks. She’s a vicious little brute. Did she offer herself to you?’

‘More or less.’

‘I’m trying to reach girls like her. I apologize for using your shilling to do it. Anyway, it didn’t work.’ She strode on as if late for her appointment, although there was more than an hour yet. ‘You needn’t accompany me.’
^I

‘I want to talk to you. About what they said and - other things.’

Perhaps she misunderstood; perhaps her own life was on her mind. Whatever the reason, she was silent, seemingly angry, and then she burst out, ‘I told you I spent four and a half years in an institution. Now I shall tell you why.’ She raised a finger to point to a turning to the right as they were entering the City. ‘My mother sold me to Frank Striker. It was called a marriage, but it was a sale. I was cheap goods - no dowry, no beauty. I was my mother’s only capital. She raised me to be marriageable, tried to teach me to please men, gave me all the useless capabilities - I could pour tea but I couldn’t boil water. When I was seventeen, she put me on the market.’

‘Edith Dombey,’ he said.

‘What? Oh, I suppose. Anyway, she found Frank Striker. He got me, and she got a yearly stipend and a flat in Harrogate.’ She fell silent again; he glanced aside at her and saw her face spottily reddened, her jaw set. Then she started talking again in a hard, half-strangled voice. ‘My husband liked two women at a time. That was my wedding night - a prostitute and me. I stood it for a year and then rebelled. He came for me one night with a belt and gave me three welts on my bare back, and then I tried to push him downstairs. He had me committed. Well, it’s perfectly logical, isn’t it? Any woman who’d raise her hand to her husband must be insane.’ She slowed, looked at her watch and strode on. ‘Four and a half years later, by whining and wheedling and saying I was a good girl now, I managed to get my release. He sent a servant for me. I jumped out of the cab and went straight to a woman lawyer I’d heard about in prison, and I started suit for divorce the same day. Two of his prostitutes testified for me - they were sorry for me. The prison doctor testified about my scars. We were going to win the case, and the night before the jury returned the verdict, he took his revenge - shot himself and left every penny to his Cambridge college.’ She laughed rather horribly. ‘My mother lost her stipend and her flat and tumbled on me to care for her. I sued to break his will, but I hadn’t a penny. Have you ever tried suing one of the colleges of our great universities? The nurseries of our great men, the treasuries of our best thought, the preserver of our highest traditions?’ She hooted.