Munro grunted; Markson twitched; Denton ordered tea and put her in his own chair and then retired to the fireplace to look at her. She raised her bit of ecru veil and all but winked at him, then smiled again at the detectives. ‘Do sit down, gentlemen.’
‘You’ve found him, Mrs Striker?’
‘I’m not sure I’ve found him, but I think I have.’
‘Where, ma’am?’
‘In a bookseller’s. That is, he isn’t in the book shop. He left his name and address at the book shops, quite a long time ago. Half a dozen shops. I’ve been all over Charing Cross Road and Booksellers’ Row. It was an idea of someone else’s, told me by Mr Denton. And if it’s the right man, his name isn’t Albert Cosgrove, of course.’ She had a small handbag, which she opened to take out a notebook, from which she took a folded piece of paper. ‘Struther Jarrold — an address in Belgravia.’ She passed the paper across to Munro, who was sitting again. Munro looked at it and passed it to Markson.
Markson said, ‘We would have got to the booksellers on our own. Shortage of personnel.’
Munro shook his head and said to her, ‘We looked for you this morning, Mrs Striker. About the invasion of your rooms, most unfortunate-’
‘I went rather into seclusion, I’m afraid — hid in the house of an old friend. I was shaken.’
‘Anybody would have been.’ Munro was studying her, not without admiration. ‘You’re taking it wonderfully well.’
‘I didn’t yesterday. I work, Mr Munro, as I guess you know. I have — had — very little in those rooms to lose. Still, it was a shock. Even for a resident of Bethnal Green.’ She looked up at Denton and smiled.
It was the first time that Denton had known where she lived: he had guessed it was in a working-class part of London, but not one with a reputation for immigration and hopeless poverty and some of the city’s worst slums, the reputation now perhaps somewhat dated. Nonetheless, despite improvement schemes, ‘model’ housing, and a lot of good intentions, Bethnal Green still had an average income somewhere below fifteen shillings a week. He smiled back at her to show he didn’t care.
Munro asked how she had found Struther Jarrold’s name at the book shops.
‘Oh, I told them I had a set of signed copies of Denton’s books, and did they know anybody who’d buy them. They said they would, of course, and I said each time that I’d get more money from a collector. That was thought amusing; one of them said I ought to go into the book trade. But most of them looked through their lists of customers with special wants, and five of them came up with this Jarrold. I can give you a list of the shops, if you like.’
Munro looked at Markson, then at Denton. Denton said, ‘Well?’
Munro shifted his bulk, looked at Markson. The younger detective said, ‘We don’t want to, uh, take the wrong step-’
Denton plunged his hands deep into his trouser pockets. ‘You’ve got enough now — the letters, the threat, the attack on me-’
‘And woe betide us if we’re wrong,’ Munro growled. ‘If this what’s-his-name — Jarrold — is like anybody else in Eaton Square, he’ll have a solicitor beside him before we can get our first question out, and if we try to take him up on a charge, he’ll walk because we can’t prove he attacked you, we can’t prove he wrote the letters, and we can’t prove he was ever inside the house behind yours.’
‘Search his lodging.’
‘I don’t know how you do it out West, sheriff, but here we have to get a warrant. Nobody on the bench is going to give me a warrant on a suspicion that there might be something in somebody’s lodging that had come out of your house. I grant you there’s a circumstantial case. I’ll take it to the prosecutor, but I know what he’ll say: get me the evidence.’
Markson gave Denton a pleading look. ‘Fingerprint Branch are at the lady’s now.’
‘My piano,’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am, they’ll do the piano, too.’
‘No, I mean they must take extra care with the piano.’
The two detectives laughed, then saw too late she wasn’t joking. There was some lame fence-mending, some temporizing, and then Janet Striker said, ‘Do you mean, then, that you won’t be arresting him?’
‘Well — not at once, ma’am-’ Markson made the mistake of trying to explain the rules of evidence in a tone he’d have used to a child. Things started to get worse, and then Munro dragged Markson to his feet and the two detectives took themselves off.
When the street door had closed on them, Janet Striker gave a horrible laugh, pulled her hatpins out and threw her little hat as far down the room as she could. ‘Oh, the majesty of the law!’ she shouted.
‘They’re doing their job.’
‘Don’t patronize me! Bloody fools! At least they were stunned when they first saw me.’
‘I hardly recognized you.’
‘It’s the dress.’ She held out the sides of the skirt. ‘I borrowed it from one of Ruth Castle’s French girls.’
‘You look wonderful.’
She was going to say something angry, then caught herself. ‘It isn’t you; it’s them.’ She shook herself. ‘Damn them.’ Walking up and down, she quieted, then laughed, apparently at herself. ‘I had to go to Oxford Street for underclothes — oh, dear God, a corset! I haven’t worn a corset in ten years! I can’t wait to get out of it.’
‘Do.’ He knew at once it was a mistake; sexual innuendo didn’t work on her.
She looked angry. ‘I have to see my solicitor and I have to find a removal man and I said I’d have this dress back by six. First things first — appalling thing to say. I know it, I know it. Oh, God! Oh, damn the police! That they should make this fuss over my rooms in Bethnal Green, and they wouldn’t stir out of New Scotland Yard if my neighbours had had their throats slit!’ She began to stride up and down again. ‘I live in half of what used to be a weaving loft at the top of a ramshackle house. Now the weaving trade’s gone west and the room’s been divided, me on one side and three girls in the other. There’ve been robberies in that house, beatings, drunken abuse, and the only time the police have come is now — you know why? Because of you!’ She turned on him. ‘It isn’t your doing, I know, but if Cosgrove or Jarrold or whoever he is hadn’t painted his demon’s name on my wall, I’d have rated nobody higher than the local constable. But they connect him with you, and you’re well off and you’re famous! Don’t you see the unfairness of it? The comical, terrible unfairness of it? And then I present them with his name and they won’t charge him!’ As quickly as it had come, the mood vanished. ‘Oh, to hell with it.’ She laughed a little nastily. She snatched up the hat and grabbed his hand and started towards the door. ‘See me into my cab.’
While he was out getting dinner, a constable came with a message from Munro. Atkins met him with it at the front door: We have a fingerprint. Keep it to yourself.
Denton was at New Scotland Yard at eight the next morning. He felt guilty at not working; on the other hand, getting Albert Cosgrove out of his life would certainly make the writing go more easily. He expected to be told that Munro was not yet in; to the contrary, Munro was sitting at his desk in the CID room, the space mostly quiet now as a new shift began. Several men were gathered around a movable blackboard, talking and rubbing chalk from their fingers; a couple of others were at the desks. Munro looked grey, older, somehow handsomer because of his obvious fatigue.
‘You have somewhat the look of a Romantic,’ Denton said. ‘Not one of the ones who died young.’
‘Spent the night here. I was at the magistrate’s until half one, then back here to get it on paper. No way to get to Peckham that hour of the morning.’ He had a mug of tea, waved to somebody to fetch one for Denton. ‘Hope you’ve eaten. The canteen’s swill.’
‘Have you?’
‘Been eating all night — the only way to stay alive — if you can’t sleep, eat. Stopped at a coffee stall and got a bag of buns. Horrible sweet things — the staff of police life.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘You want to h
ear it?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘We picked Jarrold up last evening. Took his fingerprint. Matched the one on the piano lid. Like he’d dipped his finger in the paint to do it. Took him straight to police court; magistrate was an antique, but he was up on fingerprints — new Bureau has done its work. Got a warrant to search, too.’
‘What’s Jarrold like?’
‘Like a plant that’s been kept indoors too long. Pale, not so much fat as he doesn’t seem to have any muscles. Bag of jelly sort of thing. Perfectly amiable. Smiled, wanted to talk, but not about the case. Absolutely mum on that. Half an hour after he got here, two legal gents showed up, very high on the tree, one in evening dress, both making I’d guess about ten times what I do.’
‘You said that would happen.’
‘Yeah, well, what it turns out, Denton, is that Struther Jarrold comes from a very powerful and very rich family. He lives with his mother — that’s the Belgravia address — and she’s Lady Emmeline Jarrold.’
‘Where’s Lord Jarrold?’
‘There isn’t any Lord Jarrold; why would there be a Lord Jarrold?’ He sounded irritable.
‘You say she’s Lady something or other.’
‘Lady Emmeline. Because she’s the sister of the Duke of Edderton.’
‘Who’s her husband, then?’
‘Dead. He was Captain Jarrold.’
‘But-’
Munro leaned forward, his huge hands splayed on the desktop. He spoke slowly, as if to a backward child. ‘Duke’s daughters get called “Lady”. They marry commoners, the commoners stay common. Can we take that as read now?’ He wiped a hand down his face. ‘I’m too tired for this. Find yourself a Debrett’s.’
‘I’ll never understand this country.’
‘Nor me, and I’m Canadian.’ Munro produced a crumpled white paper from a drawer, then took a sugar bun, somewhat the worse for the night, from the paper. He munched. ‘Markson’s the officer of record, so he laid the charge, but I was there because I thought the legal gentry might make mincemeat of him. Also had somebody from the prosecutor’s shindig. In the event, Markson did all right.’ He finished the bun and dusted grains of sugar from his fingers. ‘However.’
‘I thought you might be leading up to that.’
‘Feeling of nameless dread? Yeah, I had it all through the arraignment. ’ He put his forearms on the desk again. ‘Here’s where we are: things are not ideal, but they’re passable. Markson laid a charge of breaking and entering at Mrs Denton’s, a charge of wilful destruction of property, and a charge of denial of quiet enjoyment. We laid no charges having to do with you, your house, or the house behind because we don’t have hard evidence and it’s better to wait until we do.
‘My super got the chief super out of the theatre last night to tell him that we’d arrested a relative of the Duke of Edderton. Chief Super’s immediate judgement — wise, I think — was that we go only with the things we can prove. Can always build a case on the circumstantials later, hope Jarrold gives us more in examination.
‘Jarrold’s counsel objected ten times — this is in police court! — and pled him not guilty on all counts. Magistrate let him out on bond of ten pounds and his recognizance.’
‘Oh, my God.’
‘He’s got no record, Denton. We cited no crime against persons — the attack on you wasn’t in it — and you’re talking about a duke’s nephew, or whatever the hell he is, and invasion of two rooms in bloody Bethnal Green! The clothes were old and shabby. The damned piano is good only for firewood. It’s the sort of thing you call a prank if you’re counsel for the defence.’
‘He’s dangerous, Munro.’
Munro took another bun from the sack. He wet a finger and used it to lift loose grains of sugar, then licked it. ‘His lawyers will fight the fingerprint evidence as an untested theory. They said so. They were quite jolly about it — strong suggestion that it would be like a slice off the rare to them. Not quite honest of them — they know it would be the test case for fingerprints, so the police and the prosecutors would throw everything into it. In fact, I suspect they’d rather not go to court over it.’ He put his head on one hand. ‘However, Crown Prosecutor’s office had a message from the Home Secretary this a.m. that he doesn’t want to use this as the test case on fingerprints.’
‘But that’s the strongest evidence you have!’
‘His view — and looked at from his place, Denton, he’s right — his view is that when we go to court on fingerprint evidence for the first time ever, he wants a sure conviction. To him, that means a full hand of prints and corroborating evidence — that is, good enough that we could convict without the prints. From his viewpoint, it’s important to the whole future of the use of fingerprints. I mean, imagine what would happen if we went to court on Jarrold and lost.’
Denton broke off a piece of the sugar bun and chewed it. The currants on the outside had got hard; inside, they were still fairly good, unlike the bun itself. He said, ‘Tell me the worst.’
‘If he’ll plead guilty, we’ll reduce the charges to trespassing on the premises of another and disrespect of private property.’
‘No imprisonment.’
Munro shook his head. ‘Counsel hinted last night that they’ll go for such a thing. They’re putting it out this morning that Jarrold has been under strain, temporarily unbalanced. Prosecutor thinks they’ll be willing to accept some sort of house arrest under medical supervision, meaning in fact that young Struther will tiptoe off to Mummy’s castle in Sussex and be very quiet for a while.’
‘He’s dangerous!’
‘And there’s something more.’ Munro had sat back, now turned sideways in his chair. He was looking at the edge of the desk, not at Denton, picking at a splinter with a fingernail. ‘If they go to court, everything about you and Mrs Striker will be splattered over the papers brighter than the paint on her walls. No, let me speak. I don’t know what’s between the two of you — it isn’t my business — but it was plain yesterday there’s something. You lit up like a magic lantern when she came into your room.
‘These people will be ruthless, Denton. They’ll hire detectives by the long ton. They’ll find out everything, and then the papers will double that with half-truths and plain lies.’
‘I don’t give a damn.’
‘And everything will come out about her. I know who she is, Denton. Do you want to put her through that again? They’ll start up the old crap about her killing her husband. They’ll say she was insane. You and I know she didn’t kill him; he was a rotten bastard who treated her like shit, but that’s not the line they’ll take. He put her in a mental institution to tame her, but what’ll be said is that she was mad and he committed her because she was dangerous. Do you want her to go through that?’ Before Denton could answer — the question had been rhetorical, anyway — Munro said, ‘They’ll put Mrs Striker on the stand and ask her under oath if she’s been a prostitute. Their line will be that she still is and she lured Jarrold to her rooms and did something to make him angry — tricked him, mocked him. Do you want that?’
Denton breathed noisily. He said, ‘You’ll have to ask her.’
‘I thought you’d be in touch with her.’
‘It isn’t like that. She makes her own decisions.’
Munro stared at him, shrugged.
‘What’s the alternative to a trial?’ Denton said.
‘Let him plead him guilty to lesser charges. Wait.’
‘Until he does something worse?’
Munro picked at the bit of wood. ‘And then only if he leaves evidence.’
Denton wasn’t present when Struther Jarrold pled guilty to the reduced charges. He saw Jarrold outside the courtroom for an instant, got what he thought was a shy smile of recognition that was also a look of satisfaction. The pasty face was that, he thought, of the man he’d seen on the bench at New Scotland Yard days before.
The actual proceedings happened in chambers, to the disappointment of not o
nly Denton but also a small crowd of journalists. Balked of Jarrold — his legal counsel took him down the judge’s private stairs and out a back way — the newspapermen crowded around Denton. He was prepared, however: his tale was that he was there looking over the courts for a new book; he knew nothing about Jarrold; it was all a mystery to him; why didn’t they go after Mr Jarrold?
‘Mr Denton, what’s your relationship with the Striker woman?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Woman whose rooms were vandalized. What’s the connection?’
‘No idea what you’re driving at.’ Where had he learned that expression? Guillam — the former CID man had said that to him. Useful line.
‘Isn’t the Striker woman the same one whose life you saved a year ago? Shot the eye out of the crazed killer that was holding her?’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Mr Denton, Mr Denton! There was a crime at your premises — any connection?’
‘My premises?’
‘Breakin at the house behind. What’s the connection with this Janet Striker?’
‘I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘Mr Denton, is this Striker woman the same one who was put in an institution by her husband some years ago? Great scandal — hospital for the criminally insane — did she do this to her own premises? Is she at it again?’
He bit his tongue. ‘You’re asking the wrong man.’
‘Mr Denton — Mr Denton-!’
He pushed his way through them. ‘I’ve got work to do-Sorry-Let me pass, please-’ He was almost free of them when a florid man his own height blocked his way. When Denton tried to go around, the big man put a hand on his chest. Denton looked down at the hand, up at the man’s eyes. He said, ‘I’ll give you three seconds to take that hand away.’ The man flushed, dropped his hand. The others hooted.
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