- isn’t that Monk Lewis territory? - and so on, and then concentrate on Transylvania. You apply your great powers of description, that relentless honesty that makes your work so—’
‘Lang, I don’t give a hoot about legends and lore.’
‘You’re so very vexing sometimes. You Realist! Have you had lunch? We could walk to my club and have a late lunch and talk this over—’
‘I have to meet with some women about a girl who may have left school to get herself murdered. One of the desirable horrors of everyday life in London.’ He boosted his hat and coat back to his lap. ‘A travel book - me?’
Lang gave him a suddenly shrewd look. ‘Money, my dear - you need money.’
‘You told me once never to write for money.’
‘I am an idealist. But you are a Realist. And your creditors are literalists - they want twenty shillings in the pound. Come now, Denton - I’m sure I can get you the money for the right sort of book. A nice journey down the Rhine, some pleasant miles by train - Continental railways are perfectly acceptable, I believe - then, to be sure, a somewhat less luxurious mode of travel in Transylvania itself - colourful local carts, an ancient post-chaise, even a sledge—’
Denton was both angry and amused. He got up slowly and then went behind his chair and leaned his forearms on the back. Grinning none too pleasantly, he said, ‘A motor car to Whatsylvania.’
‘That’s an appalling idea.’
‘I’ll do it that way - but that’s the only way I’ll do it!’ Denton didn’t really mean it; it was simply something to say to vent his sense of outrage. ‘By Motor Car to the Land of Vampires.’
‘A motor car! That would ruin everything! It’s so - so disgustingly modern.’
‘All the more reason. Combine the new with the old, progress with legend and lore.’ He was improvising, atypically manic. ‘Start from Paris - I could pick up a car there; they’ve got thousands of them - and head east. Outrunning the werewolves in a Panhard Twelve! Flying over the steppe on a fuel of garlic and potato spirits!’
Lang was shaking his head and saying that Denton was being too bad, simply too bad. ‘You’re ragging me; I see what you’re doing. This is your little joke. Well, laugh. Surely you don’t think we’d buy you a motor car. Gwen doesn’t mind taking a flyer, but he’s not an outright idiot. Motor Car to the Land of Vampires, indeed!’
‘Buy the machine, keep ownership while I do the trip, sell it after. Famous motor car, used in Mr Denton’s best-selling new book. You’d make a fortune, Lang.’
Lang sniffed. ‘I despise commerce and everything it stands for.’
‘But you want me to write a book about horrors because it will sell.’
Lang waved a hand. He put the left side of his jaw on the thumb and three fingers of his left hand, the index finger resting on his leathery cheek, and he said in a dry voice, ‘What I had envisioned was some colourful narrative of native carts toiling up the Alps.’
‘It might come to that. Motor cars aren’t much in mountains - you did say there were mountains?’
‘The Transylvanian Alps, which are always represented as the teeth of a saw.’
‘Motor-car enthusiasts would love it - conquering the mountains. Breakdowns while the werewolves howl. Tyre punctures in the dead of night. We run out of petrol and are pulled across the snow by a team of vampires!’
‘Yes, make a joke of it. You’re the one who needs money, not I.’
Denton hunched farther towards him over the chair back. ‘So I am.’ He’d forgotten. He shrugged. ‘Actually, it doesn’t seem such a bad idea, Lang.’
‘My dear Denton, motor cars—! They’re simply - vulgar.’
Denton heaved himself up, laughing. He saw Lang’s confusion and guffawed again. ‘So am I! So am I!’
Then Mr Frewn padded in with Denton’s cheque, which was for seven pounds, five and ninepence. Denton, having expected ten times as much, swore and rushed out.
The women whom Mrs Johnson had assembled in her meagre parlour were both sceptical and respectful - he had paid up, after all - and in their way not so different from the young whores he had met with Janet Striker. A similar embarrassment and distrust were plain. Denton tried to outline what he wanted, tried to guess what the Schools Board’s bureaucracy would be, but one of the women had worked there and could tell the others all about it, ignoring him.
‘The