Part 31 (2/2)

'You're sure they were human.'

'I wanted to believe they weren't! I'd got a very nice young man named Emile to dig. I told him we were looking for buried money. It gave him something to look forward to. When he found the first bone, he said it was a cow. It seemed to me too slender to be a cow, so I had him dig farther along, where the feet might be. Well.' She gave him a partial smile. 'It was a very human foot, with a lot of the skin still intact.'

'What did you tell the farmer?'

'I'd given him twenty-five francs; for that, I didn't think I had to tell him anything. My story was that I wanted to paint where my friend the milord had painted. I set myself up at the door of the barn with a chair and a watercolour block and my paints and tried to look artistic while Emile did the digging.'

'You paint, too?'

'I can do anything that my mother thought would make me more saleable - insipid watercolours, insipid piano music, insipid talk - but nothing remotely useful. I learned accounting on a course at the People's Palace, but in order to take it I had first to do a course in arithmetic. It was humiliating!'

'And the police, the French police?'

'Very suspicious - of me. I finally told them to wire Munro at New Scotland Yard and he'd explain everything. Of course he didn't. But I looked respectable - meaning I looked as if I had money - and so they didn't toss me into the lock-up. They did want to know why we were digging in a barn, and I told him them the truth, which of course they thought was a fantastical improvisation. Emile confused things by saying we were digging for treasure. However, the main point was that we'd found human remains, and after the second day they let me come home.'

'Do you think it was Arthur Crum?'

'How would I know? I was so sickened by what I saw - I've seen a lot in the East End, Denton; I'm not easily made queasy - but the thought that those sc.r.a.ps of white leather and long bones were human-!'

'White leather?' leather?'

'Yes, the skin, what was left of it, looked white.'

'I'd have thought it would be brown.'

'Don't quibble.'

She had returned late in the morning, had come straight to his house. She looked remarkable - a travelling costume in a green so dark it was almost black, her hair done in a new way, a mannish hat like a homburg, a single peac.o.c.k's sword slanting down from it. She could wear clothes with a masculine cut - often a lesbian uniform - without seeming to make any proclamation about herself: she was was herself, the scar down her face worn now without apology or even powder. herself, the scar down her face worn now without apology or even powder.

'You're magnificent,' he said.

'You mustn't say things like that.' She had reddened. 'Come, Atkins says you must exercise - walk up and down the room with me.'

'Atkins is trying to kill me - he brought two dumb-bells down from the attic this morning and told me to start lifting them.' He groaned as he got out of his chair. 'Only ten pounds each, and I had trouble getting them off the floor. G.o.d, when will this be over!'

They walked the length of the room and back, then up it again to the window over the garden, where he stopped, then leaned against the window frame and looked out. 'Somebody's bought the house behind,' he said.

'Good for Atkins! He didn't tell you.'

'What didn't he tell me?'

She smiled. 'I bought it.' bought it.'

She was a few inches shorter than he; he looked down into her eyes. It dawned on him what she meant: she had found a way to live, if not with him, then near him. He pulled her to himself clumsily, off-balance; he kissed her. She tipped her head back and said, 'What did you think I'd gone away for, Denton? I had to decide about you. And I decided.' She kissed him again. 'There's to be a door knocked in the garden wall. For those who want to visit.' When he bent to kiss her again, she said, 'And there's to be a lock on my side of the door. For those who don't want a visit.'

He said, 'I wish we could go to bed.'

'Who says we can't?'

'I'm so - so-'

'Like h.e.l.l.' She led him back down the room to the short corridor that led to his ad hoc bedroom, then into it, where she took his stick and pushed him gently down. He lay on his elbows, watching her as she undressed - that always-renewed wonder. Naked, she came to the foot of the bed, then climbed him like a horizontal ladder and took him to a place he had feared he would never see again.

Munro came on the Monday about the middle of the day. Denton had been working with the ten-pound dumb-bells on his sitting-room floor, gasping and groaning as if they weighed a hundred; by the time Munro had been shown up, he was knotting a cord around a dressing gown.

'By G.o.d, it's good to see you standing.' Munro seemed truly glad to see him; he even shook Denton's hand.

'I've a long row to hoe yet.'

Munro bent and picked up one of the dumb-bells. 'About six stone's worth, I'd say. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day.' Munro sat heavily. 'You've heard from Mrs Striker, I suppose?'

'She's here, in fact. She's staying upstairs.' Denton smiled. 'Where I can't go. Can't do stairs yet.'

Munro didn't say But she can But she can; probably he didn't care. What he did say was, 'She's stirred up a hornet's nest at the Yard.'

'You should be grateful.' Denton, for his part, didn't say You wouldn't do it yourself. You wouldn't do it yourself.

'A detective arrived from Paris this morning - last night, actually. Was practically waiting on the doorstep this morning. He's very keen.'

'What have they found?'

'Well, you don't think he's going to tell me right off, do you?' Munro laughed. He seemed in good spirits. 'Lot of horse-trading to be done. Whose case, and so on. Matter of jurisdiction. He jabbered something about the Quai d'Orsay, which I found later means their foreign office. b.l.o.o.d.y French haven't forgotten Waterloo, I think. Anyway, he seems to be a good copper, and very keen when it comes to murder.'

'You're sure it's murder.'

'Bodies buried under straw piles are usually murder, Denton.'

'The owner of the farm in any trouble?'

Munro grunted. 'When a body's found, you don't want to be the owner of the plot where it's buried. I'm sure they showed him a fairly bad time. No arrest made, however. There's a major problem - they don't know yet how long the body's been there.' He got up and took off his overcoat, threw it over the back of his chair and sat down again, shaking his head when Denton made a move for the bell-pull. 'The body was buried in lye.'

Denton slowly sat back, letting his head roll until it was supported by the chair. 'That's why the skin is white.'

'What's left of it. Lot of lye used - French police think as much as a hundred pounds. Not enough to dissolve the bones, but it's apparently done some major damage. Plus there's a complication.'

Denton raised himself upright.

'There's no head.'

'Oh, dammit.'

'They've sent everything off to Paris to a professeur professeur who's some sort of expert in old bones. He's going to tell them - maybe - how long they've been in the ground and what sort of creature it was: male, female; old, young.' Munro leaned forward with his hands on his knees. 'Look, Denton, we're not in it yet - CID have no official interest. They came to me because Mrs Striker gave them my name. We're in it if the body turns out to be English.' His eyes opened slightly; his brow went up. 'I think you'd better tell me everything.' who's some sort of expert in old bones. He's going to tell them - maybe - how long they've been in the ground and what sort of creature it was: male, female; old, young.' Munro leaned forward with his hands on his knees. 'Look, Denton, we're not in it yet - CID have no official interest. They came to me because Mrs Striker gave them my name. We're in it if the body turns out to be English.' His eyes opened slightly; his brow went up. 'I think you'd better tell me everything.'

'I tried to already.'

'I know. I was right not to listen then. Now I'm right to demand you tell me. Everything.'

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