Part 32 (2/2)

A bit gruffly, he said, 'I suppose you've given me the clue.'

'Women bleed every month. Unless they're ignorant and nearly savage and dest.i.tute, they use something to catch the blood. Don't be embarra.s.sed, Denton; this is simple fact. Poor women - that's most of the women in the world - use rags. Men make jokes about them, don't they - ”She's got the rag on,” to explain anything odd a woman does. Even the black slaves in America used something, would be my guess, at least if they could get them or h.o.a.rd them. Moss, gra.s.s - something. Poor women in London keep old clothes, old bedclothes, anything they can get their hands on; they fold the rags into a sort of pad and pin them to their underskirts, or they fas.h.i.+on themselves a sort of belt and pin them to that.'

'Why are you telling me all this?'

'Wealthy women use pads they buy at places like Harrods. While they're shopping for the highest-quality s.h.i.+rts Mrs Cohan runs up in the attic, I suppose. The pads are disposable, so the well-off can pretend none of it's happening. The poor wash the blood out of the rags and use them again and again, and the rags show the brown stains of the blood.'

'All right, yes - I remember all that.' He was thinking of his dreams.

'The rags are valuable valuable, Denton. Not for money but for convenience, for necessity - when the bleeding starts, you must have them. Else you find blood staining through your petticoat to your skirt, and if you wear light colours, it's hideously embarra.s.sing.' She struck his arm lightly with her hand. 'What wasn't in Mary Thomason's trunk?'

'Rags,' he said weakly.

'Or pins or any kind of belt. Not a sc.r.a.p of cloth with a stain. Nor any stains in her drawers.'

'She wasn't, mm, at that time of the month.'

'On the contrary, the only reason - one of the only reasons - that we didn't find any could be that she was wearing them, or wearing some and carrying the rest. But surely she'd have had more in reserve. You want never to run out.' She hesitated, as if what she would say next might annoy him. 'I went back to Fitzroy Street yesterday and talked to Hannah - the maid at the place where Mary Thomason lived.'

'The plump Mrs Durnquess's.'

'I asked Hannah where the female tenants washed out their rags. She knew exactly what I meant. There's a sink for it in the bas.e.m.e.nt; they dry them on a line down there.' She met his eyes - no trace of embarra.s.sment. 'I asked her if Mary Thomason ever went down there. She said she couldn't recall ever seeing her. She hadn't thought about it, but now she thought about it and she said, ”Ain't that remarkable, ma'am.”' She tapped his hand. 'What did did we find in her trunk?' we find in her trunk?'

He'd have been a dunce not to know where she was going. 'The depilatory, but-'

'We at least have to ask ourselves, Denton, who doesn't menstruate and would need a depilatory?'

'You make it sound like a riddle for a parlour game.' He frowned at her, looked away.

'I want one of those cream-filled dessert things,' she said. They were still eating in his sitting room, although Munro was long gone; a small plate of pastries sat on a tiered table nearby. 'Anyway, it's a possibility, isn't it - that Mary Thomason isn't a woman?'

'Anything's possible, but-I've heard of women masquerading as men - even as soldiers-'

'Joan of Arc.'

'Yes, well-But why would a man masquerade as a woman?'

'Perhaps he prefers to be a woman. Perhaps he wants to be a woman. Or perhaps it's simply a wonderful disguise.'

'Even if he has s.e.x with men - the baths, Himple - that doesn't mean he wants to be a woman.'

'Not that that crazy, mmm? What sane man would be a woman if he had a choice?' crazy, mmm? What sane man would be a woman if he had a choice?'

'He'd have had to wear a wig. Where's the wig?'

'She'd have worn the wig when she left Fitzroy Street. Then got rid of it when she became a man.'

'But-' Atkins, who had appeared in response to a jingling bell, followed her pointing finger to a fat eclair. Denton asked for coffee and said when Atkins was gone, 'What would make such a thing worth it?'

She shook her head. She ate, then pulled the fork between her teeth to sc.r.a.pe the chocolate off. 'Living another life.'

'Something to hide.' He shook his head. 'I don't see it.'

'She wrote to you that somebody might be about to hurt her. Might that mean she was afraid she was about to be found out?'

'Well, I've told you, I don't think that letter was really for me.

It was to scare Wenzli, wasn't it? And why would somebody hurt her?'

'Well, if she was really a man-If Mary Thomason had a man - a man who wasn't so so, who wasn't a puff, a man like Wenzli or Geddys - interested in her, then being found out could mean - outrage? Disgust? If they were, you know, physically involved-'

'A man with a man? Oh, I see what you mean - the other man thinks he's a girl - there could be a certain amount of play - like Wenzli-'

'Kissing and so on, even well beyond that-'

'But surely, the man would find out when he-'

'Mmmm.' She sc.r.a.ped chocolate and cream off her plate, licked the fork with a voluptuous extension of her tongue. 'Mmmm.' She put the fork down. 'Perhaps that was the point Mary and Wenzli had almost reached.'

He shook his head. He watched her eat the eclair. 'This is a long tale to have built on some missing rags.' He accepted coffee from Atkins. 'It would be so complicated!'

'To the contrary, it's simplicity itself. A double life isn't necessarily like something in a Pavilion farce - going in and out of doors in different ident.i.ties. It's mostly a matter of keeping your lies straight - like being married and having an affair. You'd want your wits about you, is all.'

'Not with separate ident.i.ties - names, clothes, places to live-'

'It wouldn't have been that way. Mary was the ident.i.ty; her way of life was the princ.i.p.al way. But sometimes he - he he - was somebody else. Perhaps only occasionally.' - was somebody else. Perhaps only occasionally.'

'To do what?'

'Something difficult, don't you think?' She smiled, but only a little. 'Like making a middle-aged man fall in love with you?'

He shook his head again. 'Let's not tell Munro yet.'

'Let's not.'

Ten days later, Munro told him that the French expert had said that the bones were human and almost certainly male. He speculated that they belonged to a man in middle age but couldn't be certain. However, one tibia had an old fracture.

'We checked with Himple's medical man. He'd broken a leg as a boy, falling off a wagon. The French are having local police ask after Himple and Crum at every place he posted letters from.'

Munro again demanded a copy of the drawings that Augustus John had made. A few days later, he sent a note to say that Mrs Durnquess had told Markson that John's drawing was very like the young man who had come to get the trunk; the maid had agreed. Meanwhile, the CID, now accepting the probability of a crime, had found Himple's bank and asked what arrangements he'd made for money while he travelled. He had carried a letter of credit, was the answer, and had used it in three places, for a total of more than three hundred pounds. The CID had also interviewed several of the young men who had been picked up in the raid on the Mayflower Baths. Two of them recognized the John drawing as somebody they called 'Eddie'. He'd been at the baths off and on, but they hadn't seen him, they thought, in a year. Several more of them recognized a photograph of Himple; he was 'a regular'.

Munro had more copies of the drawing made and sent to France. After another week, the word came back that two people at the banks where the letter of credit had been used thought that John's drawing was like the man who had cashed a letter of credit as Erasmus Himple, RA.

'So he's a forger as well as a murderer. Dear G.o.d.' Denton was still shocked. 'I was so sure he would turn out to be the victim!'

'Why?' she said.

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