into the robe as a means of avoiding more thanks and said, ‘We’re in the morning paper. Noted Novelist Returns. I’m included as “faithful soldier-servant Harold Atkins”. Faithful, my hat. You done with me?’
Denton was starting to rip envelopes open, the accumulated mail of six months, throwing crumpled paper towards the fireplace and missing. He was hoping to find a letter from a certain woman but failing. ‘Hold on.’ He tore the end off an envelope of a particularly heavy paper, noted that it was addressed from ‘Albany’, the once-fashionable ‘single gentlemen’s flats’ (correctly ‘Albany’, no ‘the’, although most people said the Albany, as had Oscar Wilde), found inside a note on the same heavy paper with some sort of embossed thing and a smaller, lighter, plainer envelope. He read the few words on the heavy paper and then looked at both sides of the smaller envelope but didn’t tear it open.
‘Got steam downstairs?’
‘Nothing that’d run a ship, if that’s what you’re after. Goose the kettle, if that’ll do.’
Denton handed over the small envelope and muttered that he didn’t want the envelope damaged, to which Atkins answered that of course he was in the habit of damaging everything that came into his hands, and he vanished back into the darker end of the long room and clumped downstairs, Rupert in tow. Denton dealt with the rest of his mail by glancing at it and throwing it away - invitations that he threw towards the fire unopened, both because he didn’t go anywhere and because they were months out of date; the usual letters from people adoring his books and wanting something, often to sell a ‘sure-fire idea for a best-selling book’ of their life stories, sometimes to borrow money. The only new thing among this lot were four - no, six; there were two more at the bottom of the pile - from somebody named Albert Cosgrove, proclaiming boundless enthusiasm for his books and profound awe at his genius. The first, sent a month before, was a request for a signed copy of one, ‘please to inscribe To Albert Cosgrove’, no offer to pay for the book, of course. The others were hymns of praise, one beginning ‘Dear master’, another ‘Cher maître’. Two had been written on the same day, only three days ago, one saying ‘I long for your arrival that will return the English language’s greatest literary artist to our land’ and asking for signed copies of all of Denton’s books.
Albert Cosgrove went into the fire, too.
Denton was American. He wrote grittily realistic novels about American sod-busters and the demons that tormented them, and he didn’t think of himself as a literary artist. He preferred to live in London, and he preferred living well to living like his characters. For that reason, his only regret about the Transylvanian trip was that most of the new novel - already paid for by his publisher and expected soon, as the editor’s letter showed - had been taken away when they were arrested and not returned when they escaped. Or were allowed to escape, as he believed had been the case.
By the time he had disposed of the mail, Atkins was back beside him with the steamed-open envelope on a salver.
‘The silver thing’s a nice touch,’ Denton said.
‘It’s called a salver. In the best houses.’
‘This isn’t one of the best houses.’
‘Mmm.’
Denton extracted the folded paper that was inside, teasing it out with the end of the letter-opener, and let it fall to his lap, where he prised the folds apart with the same tool and held it down so he could read it. When he was done, he said, ‘Read it?’
‘I didn’t presume.’
‘That’ll be the day.’ Denton turned the paper over and searched the other side and only then picked it up with his fingers and handed it over. ‘See what you think.’
Atkins read it. ‘Woman.’
‘Good. Most Marys are women.’
‘Fears bodily harm.’
‘So she says.’
‘You know what she’s doing, don’t you, Colonel? It’s the same old song and dance - somebody sees spooks or hears burglars under the bed, what does she do? Write a letter to the sheriff!’
‘I wasn’t a sheriff; I was a town marshal.’
‘And then they expect you to come riding on your faithful horse Fido with six-guns blazing! That’s what she’s on about. Another hysterical female, wants a bit of the thrilling.’
‘You should be writing novels, not me.’
‘Well, what you going to do?’
‘Nothing.’ Denton turned to look at the servant. ‘Look at the date.’