Dialogues of the Dead

“Don’t tell me. Orson Welles …Citizen Kane …rosebud! I’ve heard of drowning men clutching at straws, but this is going out to sea in a colander. I mean, where does it lead next? Touch of Evil maybe? Though come to think of it, when I look at your Mr. Dalziel, you may be on to something there …”

He didn’t get the reference but didn’t think it sounded a useful line to pursue.

“These dictionaries of Dee’s, you knew about them then?” he said.

“Yes. I’ve seen some of them.”

He thought instantly of what Wingate had said about the Erotic Dictionary and said jealously, “Which ones?”

“I really can’t remember. Does it matter?”

“No. Where did you see them? Here?”

He looked around the office in search of the offending tomes.

“No. At his flat.”

“You’ve been to his flat?”

“Any reason why I shouldn’t have been?”

“No, of course not. I was just wondering what it was like.”

She smiled and said, “Nothing special. A bit cramped but maybe that’s because every inch of space is crammed with dictionaries.”

“Yeah?” he said eagerly.

“Yeah,” said Rye. “Not because he’s obsessed or round the twist or anything like that, but because they are at the centre of his intellectual life. He’s writing a book about them, a history of dictionaries. It will probably become the standard work when it’s published.”

She spoke with a sort of vicarious pride.

“When will that be?”

“Another four, five years, I’d guess.”

“Oh well. I’d probably wait for the movie anyway,” said Hat. “Or the statue.”

He sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee and looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. Once more it struck him that they were all men. But he wasn’t about to remark on it, not even neutrally. Previously any hint that Dee was in the frame had provoked angry indignation. By contrast, this rational debunking he was hearing now was affectionate banter and had to indicate that he’d made progress in his quest to win her heart. No way he was going to risk that by what might sound like a homophobic sneer!

He said, “This the Dee ancestral portrait gallery?”

“No,” said Rye. “These are all, I believe, famous creators of or contributors to dictionaries. That one’s Nathaniel Bailey, I think. Noah Webster. Dr. Johnson, of course. And this one here might interest a man in your line of work.”

She pointed at the largest, positioned right in front of the desk, a sepia-tinted photo of a bearded man sitting on a kitchen chair with a book on his knee and on his head a peakless cap which gave him the look of a Russian refugee.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, his name was William Minor, he was an American doctor and a prolific and very important contributor of early instances of word usage to what eventually became the Oxford English Dictionary.”

“Fascinating,” said Hat. “So what’s his claim to fame as far as the police are concerned? Found the first use of the word copper, did he?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s the fact that he spent the best part of forty years, the years in which he made his contributions to the OED, locked up in Broadmoor for murder.”

“Good God,” said Hat staring with renewed interest at the photograph.

Contrary to received opinion that there is no art to read the mind’s construction in the face, many of the faces that he’d seen staring back at him from official mug-shot albums seemed to have criminality deeply engraved in every lineament, but this serene figure could have modelled for the Nice Old Gent in The Railway Children.

“And what happened to him in the end?”

“Oh, he went back to America and died,” said Rye.

“You’re missing the best bit,” said a new voice. “As indeed was poor Minor.”

They turned to the doorway where Charley Penn had materialized like Loki, the Aesir spirit of malicious mischief, his sardonic smile showing his uneven teeth.

How long had he been in eavesdropping distance? wondered Hat.

“Can I help you, Mr. Penn?” said Rye with enough frost in her voice to blast a rathe primrose.

“Just looking for Dick,” he said.

“He’s in the basement. They’re working on the Roman Market Experience.”

“Of course. Per Ardua ad Asda, one might say. I think I’ll go and see the fun. Nice to see you again, Mr. Bowler.”

“You too,” said Hat, who was working out whether Penn wanted to be asked what was the best bit Rye had missed out, or whether his intention was to provoke the question direct once he’d departed.

He made up his mind and called after the retreating writer, “So what was this best bit I haven’t heard?”

Penn halted and turned.

“What? Oh yes, about Minor, you mean? Well, it seemed that, despite his advancing years, the poor chap had constant erotic fantasies about naked young women which he found incompatible with his growing belief in God.”

“Yeah? Well, it must happen to a lot of older men,” said Hat with what he felt was commendable sharpness.

But Penn didn’t look wounded.

On the contrary he grinned the saturnine grin and said, “Surely. But they don’t all sharpen their penknives and cut off their dicks, do they? Have a nice day.”

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