'You'd have to ask Atkins. I don't keep track.'

'Yes, sir. You'll read the ma.n.u.script?'

'Oh - if I have to-' He reached for it.

'At New Scotland Yard, I'm afraid, sir. Evidence. I had to sign for it, myself. This afternoon?'

Denton allowed himself the luxury, later to be the cause of self-flagellation, of blowing up. It had no effect. One of the qualities Munro may have been thinking of when he'd said that Markson was capable was a calm stubbornness. When Denton's tantrum was over, Markson said, 'Yes, sir. What time would be best for you?'

Denton had another, lesser eruption. When he had subsided, he was aware of voices downstairs, then that one was a woman's, which he sorted out as Janet Striker's. He was out of the chair and down the stairs in seconds. She was standing at the far end of the room with Atkins and the dog. The trunk, which he'd feared Atkins would already have uncovered again, wasn't there.

'I've just come for the-' she began.

'Detective!' Denton shouted. 'I'm with a detective from the Metropolitan Police. Uuuhhh-' He was aware of Markson's coming up behind him.

Janet Striker smiled and held out her hand. 'How nice to see you again, Mr Denton. I've just come for the donation you promised us.'

'Aaahh-' He was shaking her hand. 'This is Mrs Striker of the Society for the Improvement of Wayward Women. Um - Detective Markson.'

Then Denton said he'd write a cheque; she said that would be very fine of him; Atkins took the dog away; and Markson said he would go. 'Three o'clock today, sir?'

'Oh, if I have to. Yes, all right - all right-'

Markson went down the stairs quickly, seeming light on his feet. Moments later, Denton heard Atkins close the front door on him.

Janet Striker was giggling. He'd never heard her giggle before; it was a minor revelation. He said, 'I was afraid you'd mention the d.a.m.ned trunk.'

'I know!' She went off into laughter again, this time more boisterously. He thought perhaps he was seeing some sort of metamorphosis in her, the result of leaving the Society - maybe of leaving an entire way of life. 'Is he gone?'

Denton looked out, didn't see Markson, glanced up and down out of habit for Albert Cosgrove. 'You brought a cab.'

'I'm not about to carry the trunk to Euston station on my shoulder. Well!' She laughed again. 'That was fun.'

'I have to go to New Scotland Yard at three to read that d.a.m.ned lunatic's scribbles.'

'I'll be on my way back from Biggleswade by then. Did you get the drawing photographed?'

'Atkins did, I hope.' He turned to bellow for Atkins, found him standing ten feet away with the trunk in his arms.

'Of course I did,' Atkins said. 'Prints ready tomorrow.'

'Where's the drawing?'

'In the trunk.'

She interrupted, 'We found it under most of the other things.'

'I put it towards the bottom, with the sketchbook, madam.'

'You're a pearl of great price.'

Atkins smiled the gracious smile of royalty receiving tribute. 'I'll just put it in the cab.'

When he was gone, Denton said, 'I'm losing my mind, between the book and these interruptions.'

'No you're not. You're the sanest man I've ever known - also the best. There! You see what comes out when I'm contented.'

'So I'm forgiven? Will you have dinner with me?'

'Can't - I'm having dinner with my solicitor. It's all about money, mostly about when I get some from the lawsuit. I'm as poor as a church mouse, Denton - getting that money is important to me. What did Geddys say?'

'Geddys. Geddys? Oh, dammit - I forgot-' It seemed weeks ago that he'd said he'd talk to Geddys again about the man's apparent lie about knowing where Mary Thomason lived.

'No harm done. I'm off, then.'

'Tomorrow?'

'Yes, tomorrow, absolutely tomorrow.'

'Kettner's again?' They were going down the stairs. Atkins, coming in, held the door for her. They made their arrangements and then she was gone. Denton went back to work.

Albert Cosgrove's ma.n.u.script was a painful, sometimes bewildering thing to read. There was a story - or there had started out to be one - that had been infected by Denton's outline, which the writer had apparently tried to blend with his own tale. The result was like a crossing of radically different strains, producing a monstrosity.

Or perhaps it would have been a monstrosity anyway. Denton guessed that Cosgrove wasn't able to concentrate. This seemed contradictory in somebody obsessed, but the obsession, he thought, was not quite the same as what he was writing: that is, the story - novel, novella, whatever it was meant to be - was about obsession but it was not the object of obsession.

In the story with which Cosgrove had started, a young violinist who wants to know the 'secret' of greatness steals a violin bow. It belongs to a famous violinist who becomes a menace - never explained or defined - that looms over the young man. The bow does make him 'great' but it comes at a cost - a demon, who appears each time he plays. The demon takes a payment each time - first, the ability to sleep; then boils that appear on the violinist's face; then the use of a foot. However, by that point (which, for Denton, happened far too soon - Cosgrove was having the non-writer's problem 'making it long enough') Denton's outline had been forced in, and a wife appeared, domestic scenes that had no connection to anything else were added, attempts at Denton's sort of realistic detail were tacked on. Then the demon announced that he wanted the wife for himself, and then a page - the last - seemed to suggest that the demon and the 'great' violinist from whom the bow had been stolen were the same, or somehow connected, or at least in communication.

The prose was bad. Too many words, Denton would have said, too many long words, too much pretentious pseudo-philosophy. Some of it reminded him of Wagner, whom he despised. When Munro put his head in - Denton was reading, as promised, at New Scotland Yard - Denton groaned.

'Not delighting you, is it?' Munro limped in. 'Getting anything? '

Denton held up a list he had jotted down. Munro took it, raised it towards the gas, tipped his head back. '"Intelligent, incoherent, educated - Latin, Greek? reads books - knows mine well, also Shakespeare, poets; young - doesn't know real life; never poor, never hungry, never married." Sounds like most of the lads at our great universities.'

'I think he's unbalanced.'

'I could have told you that without reading his slop.'

'You've read it?'

'Tried. That's why we called on you.'

'I think he's trying to make a fable about himself and Art with a capital A - something about having ability but not making it because of some older fellow who's in the way, the older one being there through magic. Except the magic is also the Art - he's pretty confused. The idea might make it as a kind of horror tale - my editor's speciality - but Cosgrove can't do it. He wants to be a great writer - or thinks he wants to be - but people like me use our magic to keep him unknown. Does that make sense?'

'He might try some honest work.'

'He doesn't know what work is.'

'Well off?'

'There's a sinister female who wanders through it. I think she represents something, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what it is. But she's always "richly dressed" and "glittering with jewels". He hates her, but there's no reason why.'

'So you're Harlequin, with the magic wand.'

'Violin bow, in his case - not so far off.'

'So, he's spying on you to find your magic wand.'

'He may have stolen a pen, in fact. Sort of like a wand.' Denton stood and stretched. 'He doesn't really believe all that, at least not yet. I mean, he's writing a tale he knows - has to know - is fantasy. So he's sane, in that sense. But doing the other things he's done - spying on me, following me, breaking into houses - they aren't sane.'

'We've an entire category of criminals who do nothing but break into houses.'

'But they're after things of value. Things they can sell for money. They're sane - criminal but sane. We understand the motive - it's the basis of society and the Empire, right? Make money. But not Albert Cosgrove.'

Munro put the paper in a pocket. 'You done, then?'

'h.e.l.l will be having to read that thing again.'

'I'll have your list copied, give it to Markson.'

'It won't help.'

'What would help is an arrest. He hasn't followed you, I take it.'

'Ask your people. I see them behind me all the time. Call them off, will you? I'm sick of having somebody always looking over my shoulder.'

Munro laughed. 'They were walked off their feet yesterday. One of them told Markson he was going to take up a collection to pay you to take a cab - hadn't walked so much since he was a constable. I'll talk to Markson about pulling them off - may be too soon yet.'

They trudged up the long corridor that led past the CID offices.

At the stairs, Munro asked again if he'd reported 'that missing girl'. When Denton admitted he hadn't, but it was a dead issue, anyway, Munro walked him back to the corridor where Denton had had the unsatisfactory conversation with Guillam, what seemed like years ago. Munro pointed at a door. 'You want that one. Take you three minutes.'

'You said to stay away from Guillam.'

'Yes, but best to do things by the book.' Munro walked away.

Inside the office was a young man with spots, wearing a thick wool suit that had belonged to somebody else ten years before. He looked up with what first seemed to be fright, then a stern expression that was ridiculous on his soft face - practising to be a bureaucrat, Denton thought. He explained what he wanted; the young man threw several imagined obstacles in his way; Denton got over them; the young man sighed and took out a form and a pen.

'Name? That the given name or the family name? Given name? Wot d'you mean, you don't use your given name? Address?'

They got as far as 'relationship to the MP'. When Denton said there was no relationship and he hadn't even known the young woman, the clerk looked around the little office as if help might be there somewhere, then bolted through the door. Munro's three minutes became fifteen, and then the door opened again and Guillam came in. The clerk lingered behind with a look of 'now you're for it' on his face.

Guillam said, 'Oh. It's you. What's this, then?'

'I'm reporting a missing person.'

Guillam looked at the form, on which of course he must already have read Denton's name. 'No relation? Not even a friend?'

Denton stayed dead calm and explained about the letter.

'We're the police. We have serious work to do. We don't have time for you spinning tales out of nothing.'

'Munro told me this is the right thing to do.'

'Oh, it's Donnie Munro, is it. I should have known. He cuts no ice here. This is my bailiwick.' He handed the form to the clerk. 'Finish it and file it with a note, "awaiting more information".' Guillam's brutal face was red, perhaps only from bending to talk to the seated Denton. He said, 'Don't bother us with a lot of questions about it,' and he slammed out.

The clerk went quickly through the rest of the form, almost sneering now, and said, as if he were dismissing a pensioner, 'That'll be all.'

'I can go?'

'Yes, you can go.'

'You're sure?'

'What?'

'I want you to be sure.'

'What's that?'

'If you aren't sure, I'd feel better staying here until you are.'

'If you're having me on, I'll make trouble!'

'So long as you're sure.'

The clerk stared at him. The bureaucrat and the little boy in him struggled. Finally he said in an unsure voice, 'I'm sure, then.'

'Good. Then I'll go.' Denton went out.

On his way home, he stopped to talk to Geddys. Only a woman was there. She told him Mr Geddys had gone away on a buying trip and would be back in two weeks.

At home, Atkins greeted him with a dour face and 'You've a letter. From him. him.'

Denton groaned.

He teased the paper out of its envelope with his pocket-knife and opened it without touching anything but the edges. It said: You have disappointed me most terribly, and just when we were approaching an understanding. I read in the press that you were in the confederacy against me with the police, I cant comprehend how this can be as we share our profound feeling for Art. Now I must ask you to return what of mine has been stolen, I mean my BOOK, which is not now in the place where I had secured it. I will not stoop to believing that you are using my work on which to model something of your own, much less purloin some of my actual words, but only the return of my MS will a.s.sure me that all is well between us and you mean no theft. DO NOT TEST MY RESPECT FOR YOU. I am heartbroken and abject that you have chosen to treat me in this way.Yours in sorrow.Albert Cosgrove 'Rather got the shoe on the wrong foot, hasn't he,' Atkins said. He had been reading over Denton's shoulder.

'He's turning.'

'Turning what?'

'From adoration to dislike. You see it in hero-worship. What's constant is the lack of balance.'

'Loony, as I've said a hundred times now.'

'This'll have to go to the police.' He laughed, a single bark that remained humourless. 'I asked Munro to pull the followers off me. Just in time.' He looked at the letter again. '"I must ask you to return what of mine has been stolen, I mean my BOOK-" He didn't read about that that in the newspaper. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's been back in that house!' in the newspaper. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's been back in that house!'

'I thought the coppers were watching it.'