Page 11 of Copper Script
Aaron was damned if he was going into that.“Not at work.I can’t help what the papers say; I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Glad to hear it,” Colthorne said, evidently deciding the conversation wasn’t worth pursuing.“A good collar, and a good result.Davis tells me you’ve a few days’ leave booked?Well deserved.Enjoy yourself.”
***
AARON ALWAYS TOOK HISdays off because they were his right and you used your rights at work, but he didn’t have much to do with them.He generally went to stay with his sister in Sheffield, or had her little family descend on his flat in Lisson Grove, but he’d heard just the day before that his niece had come down with scarlet fever.He therefore occupied the first morning by purchasing a variety of books, toys, chocolates, and whisky in Debenhams for the benefit of the whole family and getting it all shipped up.Then he went to the dentist, then to the cinema, and with all his avenues of entertainment now exhausted, he turned his thoughts to Joel Wildsmith.
He’d been too busy to consider the graphologist for a while, but now he was at leisure, the problem nagged at his mind.He simply couldn’t see how Wildsmith could have found out as much as he had.
He bought a book on graphology.It assured him he could come to a full understanding of a person’s character simply by considering the differences in writing styles:
Some of pressure (strong, weak, irregular, decreasing in the downward direction, sudden dot-like pressure), differences in the degree of legibility, regularity, connection, size, width, fullness, extension upwards and downwards, differences of the writing angle (slant to the right, upward angle, slant to the left), of the speed between the movements, differences between good and bad spacing, between angles and curves, between a rising and sinking tendency of the letter basis...
“Makes perfect sense,” he muttered to himself, and flipped randomly to a later page, which informed him that writing the date rarely expressed the writer’s libido as thoroughly as other numerals could.
Sod this.He put the book on the table, although he felt like throwing it across the room, and headed off to Pentonville.He didn’t make an appointment.If he had to hang around for a while, he would: it was worth it to retain the element of surprise.
In the event, the char said Mr.Wildsmith was home, and let him in.He knocked at the door.A handsome man answered.
Aaron stared.Wildsmith, sans ghastly moustache, stared back at him.
It made all the difference.Without the foliage he had a lovely mouth, with a perfectly curved upper lip and a full lower one.He had a good nose, come to that, and his strikingly light eyes under the thick reddish brows were an intriguing, even dominating feature when the moustache wasn’t demanding all the attention.
“You shaved,” Aaron said, like a fool.
“Of course I shaved.Would you wear that thing longer than you had to?”
“Had to?”
“I lost a bet,” Wildsmith said, sounding as though he had explained himself as often as he was going to.“Hello again, Mr.Thurloe, and by that of course I mean Detective Sergeant Fowler.I saw you in the papers.Aren’t you glam.”
“May I come in?”
“Have you a warrant?”
“This isn’t an official visit.I’m calling as a private citizen.”
“You did that last time.I’m not a great admirer of policemen who pretend to be private citizens.It tends to end badly for the people they lie to.”
Wildsmith leaned against the doorway as he said that, and crossed his arms in a belligerent manner.A split hook protruded from his left sleeve.He had a pencil clamped between the two halves of the hook.
“Are you busy?”Aaron said.“Shall I make an appointment?”
“No, you should go away.”
“This is a private call.A pound an hour, wasn’t it?”
“Are you going to leave or do I have to call a constable?Not that a mere constable would dare enforce the actual law against a detective sergeant,” Wildsmith added sourly.“But he’ll have to find some fumbling excuse not to carry out his duty by removing an importunate nuisance, and at least that will be funny.”
“I don’t think I’m being importunate, although you’re certainly being obdurate,” Aaron said.“For the third time, I’m not calling in an official capacity.I’d like to consult you on a graphological matter, and I’m happy to pay for your time.”
Wildsmith looked at him.The fingers of his right hand drummed rapidly on his other sleeve.“Tell you what.You can come in if you tell me something.”
“What?”
“The pieces of writing you gave me.Whose hands were they?”
“None of your affair,” Aaron said, instinctively defensive.
