Page 13 of Copper Script
“It’s not.Her fiancé is my cousin.Rather, her ex-fiancé.She broke it off after what you said of him.”
“I can’t help that, and—dopleasetry to listen—I’m not discussing my clients’ business.Shall I write that down for you?”
Fowler’s mouth tightened another notch.“My cousin says you made certain assertions about his conduct.I want to know if what he said is true.”
“Liar, is he?”Joel said in a friendly manner.
Fowler did not react with the expected how-dare-you.He sounded quite unconcerned as he said, “One can’t expect Smith’s account of what Jones told him that Brown said to be reliable.And people are particularly prone to exaggerate in these circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“Fortune telling,” Fowler said, with a touch of bite.“You say ‘I see a woman wearing blue’ and it quickly turns into ‘He saw Aunt Elsie in the blue hat she always wore.’”
He wasn’t wrong, but it was still rude.“I don’t tell fortunes, or see visions.I analyse handwriting.”
“According to my cousin the conclusions you reached were extremely specific and highly unlikely.I’d like to know if and how you reached them.”
“Oh, well, that’s easy to answer,” Joel said, with bright helpfulness.“I used graphology.”
Fowler’s jaw clamped.“You looked at his handwriting and saw intimate details of someone’s personal conduct shortly before the letter was written.”
This was unquestionably the Barbara Wilson job.Joel probably didn’t need to worry about client confidentiality—she seemed to have told half of London about her affairs, judging by the nine new clients, all of them raving about how he’d caught out that dreadful Paul Napier-Fox—but he wasn’t going to help the police, or at least this policeman, as a matter of principle.“I did a graphological analysis and gave the results.”
“And was my cousin’s conduct expressed in the writing angle?The curve on the vowels?A sinking tendency of the letter basis?”
Someone had been doing his homework.“Yes, all that,” Joel agreed sarcastically.“I read handwriting, Detective Sergeant.I don’t spy on people to get my answers, if that’s what you’re getting at, or have a team of shills to dig out information like one of those Spiritualist operations: there isn’t the money in graphology.I just have a knack for hands.”He glanced at his left sleeve.“Ironic, really.”
Fowler’s dreamy-dark eyes could look rather menacing, he discovered.“So you look at a scrawled note and it gives you a profound insight into someone’s character and recent actions.I don’t believe you, Mr.Wildsmith.”
Joel eyeballed him right back.“I don’t care, Detective Sergeant Fowler.”
Fowler took just a fraction of a second on that.Joel couldn’t fault his self-control.“And I specifically don’t believe that graphology can tell anyone what you supposedly said of my cousin.How would that work?Did his handwriting look different to normal?”
“Since that’s the only time I’ve seen his handwriting, I really couldn’t—oh, was that meant to be a trap?Jolly good.But pointless, because I’m not lying.I’ve told you what I do, and if you don’t believe me, that’s your problem.You can watch me all day and night and you won’t find me sending out spies, or picking pockets for information or whatever else you suspect.I’m just good with handwriting.”
“How?” Fowler demanded.
Joel leaned back.“Before we continue this, Detective Sergeant, we had an agreement.You were going to tell me who wrote those papers.”
“No—” Fowler said.It sounded involuntary, almost like he’d tried to cut it off.
“Yes.I agreed to talk to you on that basis, so you can make a down payment now.If you’re going to change the deal, the door’s behind you.”
He saw the twitch of feeling on Fowler’s face, annoyance quickly leashed.“Very well.The first paper was written by my brother-in-law.”
Joel nodded approvingly.“Good choice.Decent chap.I’d let him marry my sister.”
“My sister didn’t give me a say in the matter,” Fowler observed.“He has, by the way, just dug her a rose bed.”
“That’s nice?”
“You specifically said a rose bed.You said he wouldn’t bring her flowers, but—”
“Good Lord, man, you can’t imagine I could tell that from his hand,” Joel said.There was no bottom to most people’s credulity but he’d expected different from Fowler, somehow.
“Of course I don’t.That’s why I’m here.I want to know how you knew that.”
“Ididn’tknow that.It’s an example I use a lot because people grasp it.I say, this is someone who does practical things to show love, he’s not one for gestures.So he won’t buy you flowers, but he will dig you a rose bed.People understand examples better than abstract words.”
