nerves when alone in the house, the loading of the revolver. He shoved the revolver back into the overcoat pocket.
‘Pardon me saying it, Colonel, but it looks like you’re carrying an anvil in that overcoat.’
‘My revolver.’
‘So I saw. Your tailor would have a fit.’
‘It isn’t really a pocket pistol. But I’d as soon not get stabbed again.’
‘Hand over that coat and I’ll do something to fix it. Open the bottom of the pocket, is my notion - run the barrel down there, maybe sew something like a holster into the pocket to hold it upright. You’ll look like you’re carrying the blacksmith’s hammer instead of his anvil.’
‘The real way to carry it is on its own belt around your waist.’
‘Yes, well, that ain’t the fashion in London these days. Take what you can get, I say - hand over that coat.’
Denton, grateful, put the overcoat in Atkins’s lap and said, wanting to make some gesture, ‘You’d like the dog to keep you company for a while?’
‘Well - to stand watch, as it were, Colonel. Only until—’ He pointed at the layers above his scalp.
‘Dogs have to be fed, watered, walked, cleaned up after—’
‘I’ve done latrine duty before, General. He eases my mind, if you know what I mean.’
‘I think I’ll have the Infant Phenomenon back until you’re well. No, no - I’m not going to have you busting a seam somewhere by going back to work too early - no—’
Atkins made pro forma objections - no recent footman going to mess in his household, couldn’t cook, left a shocking amount of litter, no taste - but gave in easily enough. The man was exhausted, aching and nervous; even a boy on his first job would be a help.
‘But the dog,’ Atkins said with spirit, ‘I feed the dog! Because dogs cleave to them that feeds them.’
‘Well, don’t let him cleave too closely. He’s a loan, correct? Temporary? Until—?’ He, too, pointed at Atkins’s turban and hat.
Rupert grinned from one to the other and, with a satisfied sigh, collapsed at Atkins’s feet.
Denton had settled to read his mail with that feeling of the just-returned traveller that he has been away for weeks, is therefore surprised that so little has accumulated. In fact he had been gone barely thirty-eight hours, and he had only a few pieces of mail - a note from his editor, asking about the progress of the novel he was supposed to deliver in three months; an invitation he wouldn’t accept; and a short, brisk letter from one of his sons in America.
And, hidden by the others, a long envelope from his typewriter, Mrs Johnson. He slit it with a pocket-knife and pulled out several sheets, all but one covered with typed names and addresses.
Mr Denton, I enclose herewith the list of R. Mulcahy’s found in the postal directories, with addresses. There are one hundred and thirty-seven in all. I enclose also a bill for the services of the three employees. One woman is continuing, at my instruction, to look at the advertisements in Kelly’s and also in Grove’s, in case the name appears in any of those; she will finish tomorrow and will submit a separate bill. I hope this is all right.
Yours, L. Johnson.
A hundred and thirty-seven names. At a shilling a name.
Denton looked at the lists - looked and despaired. The addresses were all over Greater London and there was no way to tell one from another - which might be promising, which not. He had promised Guillam he would hand the list over; now that he saw it, he was quite willing. The job of sifting through it would be enormous, too much for one man. Guillam was welcome to it. But he was disappointed, he realized. Let down.
‘I’m going out,’ he called towards the stairs.
‘I’m staying in.’ Atkins’s swathed and bowlered head appeared. ‘Unless you’ve got other plans for me.’
‘You’re convalescent. You want the derringer?’
‘I’ve got Rupert.’
Denton carried his bag up to his bedroom and bathed and changed and, after sending a note off to the employment agency to send Maude back, made his way down to New Scotland Yard, the revolver riding uneasily in a mackintosh while Atkins doctored the overcoat.
Guillam was there but wasn’t available; then he was available, but he was somewhere else in the building. Denton, not sure whether he was being toyed with or was simply suffering the inevitable effects of bureaucracy, made himself calm and chatted with the almost elderly constable who served as porter. Made sympathetic,