The Frightened Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

in an economic machine.’
    ‘What have you been reading? You sound like an anarchist, Denton. Is this for a new book?’ In fact, Denton had figured out the economics of shooting for himself because he was an American, an American who had started with nothing and was always near ruin; it gave him a point of view. And earned him some insults - parvenu , nouveau . He wasn’t sure why there was recourse to French when ‘Johnny-come-lately’ or ‘counter-jumper’ would have served so well. Something about the upper-class English and French: they decried French morals but envied French culture, adopted French words, even when they couldn’t pronounce them. Soi-disant , beauté de singe , nostalgie de la boue , elle s’affiche .
    Hench-Rose waited while an overweight young man brought in a tea tray and poured two cups, even though Denton had already refused it. ‘I like something going down the gullet,’ Hench-Rose muttered. He helped himself to scones.
    Denton said, ‘I’ve come on a kind of business.’
    ‘Oh, really?’ Hector seemed astonished that such a thing as business might even exist.
    ‘The newspapers are full of a new tale about a prostitute being murdered.’
    Hector groaned and said he knew it; it was terrifically boring. He held up a buff-coloured file. ‘I don’t have time for the interesting stuff. I’m supposed to respond to an endless minute on the cost of helmets written by that dried-up dog’s leavings Mortimer Asperley, the Permanent Under-Secretary. He’s written five pages to do with a three-page file.’
    ‘How accurate are the newspaper accounts of the new murder?’
    Hector looked blank. ‘ The Times is always accurate.’
    ‘Hector, I mean I want to know the details of the crime.’
    ‘Ah, aha. Writer’s curiosity, eh? Well, you’ve come to the wrong shop for anything having to do with police work; I might as well be in Whitehall monitoring the clothing regulations for other ranks in hot climates as here, for all I know about what the police are doing.’ He rang the overweight young man back into the room, told him to ask Detective Sergeant Munro to step round, looked pleased with himself for moving so briskly. ‘Munro will set us straight,’ he said. ‘Munro knows everything.’ He smiled the brilliant and open smile that made up for many failings. ‘Munro is a real policeman, not an ex-army officer dropped into a sinecure, like me.’ He beamed.
    ‘I was an ex-officer, once,’ Denton said.
    ‘Yes, but you hadn’t cousins in the senior civil service, had you? You mustered out and went to work - lucky you, Denton. Look at you now.’
    Denton grunted. He had mustered out as a temporary lieutenant (three months’ worth, a sergeant jumped up to demobilize what was left) after the American Civil War; ‘going to work,’ as Hector put it, had meant going to an unploughed piece of prairie and trying to turn it into a farm. Going to work, indeed.
    Detective Sergeant Munro was huge and walked with a limp. His massive face widened as it went downwards from his eyes; the jaws, seen straight on, were enormous, as if he could have chewed up iron bolts. He had a trace of a Scots accent, something else unidentifiable. His contempt for Hench-Rose was clear, even to Hector, who seemed amused by it.
    ‘Mister Denton is a famous author,’ Hench-Rose began. ‘He’s interested in a lady of the night who was murdered yesterday.’
    Munro looked at Denton, expanded his circle of contempt to include him. ‘Yes?’ he said.
    Hench-Rose smiled more fiercely. ‘I thought the first paperwork might have made its way up to us, and we could share it with him and send him on to the right people in CID.’
    Munro’s great jaws widened, the effect of a smile. ‘Not our crime, Mr Hench-Rose.’ Dripping with contempt. Hector, not the swiftest of intellects, stared at him. ‘Crime was apparently committed in the Square Mile, sir.’
    Hector frowned. ‘Oh, dear,’ Hector said. He looked at