CHAPTER 2 #3
Julia gripped Mary’s hand. “Talk to the other women. Try to convince them to come forward. Then talk to Richard Tennant.”
* * *
Julia spent a quiet Sunday afternoon stretched on the library’s settee, absorbed in the Sunday Telegraph.
A sudden thrum of rain against the library’s windowpanes pulled her attention from the newspaper to the gray outdoors.
It had taken three weeks, but a foggy day or a dark winter afternoon no longer triggered a spasm of clamping fear.
Julia folded the paper, curled on her side, and closed her eyes.
“Damn,” she muttered at the sound of a knock. She swung her feet to the floor, felt for her slippers, and stood.
A minute later, Mrs. Ogilvie opened the door. “Inspector Tennant.” The housekeeper stood back.
“Richard.” She met him, smiling, her hand outstretched. “Sit. Grandfather is upstairs napping and will be sorry to have missed you.”
“How is he?”
“Heart trouble is . . . unpredictable, but he’s well enough.” Julia smiled. “Mostly thanks to you for fishing me out of that canal.” She put her hand on the whiskey decanter.
Tennant shook his head. “I have two reports to finish.”
“Working on Sunday?”
“You keep adding to my caseload.”
“Ah. Mary consulted you after all.”
“I’ve just come from the house and wanted to tell you we’d spoken.”
“I suppose ... well, I imagine poison pens aren’t usually the province of the Detective Department. Thank you for seeing her.”
“They’re dangerous all the same. And the physical attacks . . . they’re unusual. One or the other, not both, assuming they’re connected.”
“Attacks?” Julia said. “There have been others?”
“Paddy O’Malley remembered an earlier report.” Tennant shook his head, smiling. “The man’s an elephant.”
“More like an amiable grizzly bear.”
“It’s Sergeant O’Malley, by the way. His promotion came through.”
Julia smiled. “I’m glad of it. What did he recall?”
“Last week, someone vandalized the French Gallery on Pall Mall. Splashed a can of emerald-green paint over the front steps and smeared the whole word—not just a W—across the double doors.”
“Why that particular word there?”
“The featured artist this month is Jane Benham Hay.”
Julia grimaced. “A female artist.”
“I circulated a notice to all divisional inspectors with galleries on their turfs, asking them to be alert to possible threats.”
“Mary mentioned an exhibit by women artists in February. Somewhere in Mayfair.”
“I’ll speak to the divisional inspector there.”
“Richard . . . did Mary mention the letters sent to other women artists in her circle?”
“Yes. And, oddly, Annie O’Neill. The little hatmaker turned up again.”
“I know. I must say, I was shocked.”
“And something else surfaced. Another artist’s model vanished about a year ago. She is one of three missing shopgirls from Cheapside.”
“Good Lord,” Julia said. “What’s been done to find them?”
“Little, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, Chief Inspector Clark assigned the cases to a pair of our less energetic officers.”
Julia shook her head. “Mary made a good point. Why torment a hatmaker with little money to spare?”
“The note sent to Annie concerned a former roommate, an artist’s model named Margaret Miller, called Margot.”
“That name rings a bell.... She was the model in Mary Allingham’s paintings.”
Tennant smiled. “Annie explained that Margot is spelled the French way ‘with a silent T stuck on the end’ just to be fancy.”
“But why write to Annie about Margot Miller?”
“The writer called the old roommate a prostitute and said Annie must be a ‘slag’ as well if she associates with her. I’ve sent O’Malley to track down Miss Miller.” Tennant looked out the window. “It’s getting late, and my unfinished reports beckon. And you return to work tomorrow, too.”
“Yes, back to the clinic at last. Richard . . . about that business at the station house with Annie O’Neill.”
“Yes?”
“I took my anger out on you. And to spare Annie, you’d taken the trouble to call me in. I’m sorry.”
“It’s odd. . . .”
Julia smiled. “An apology from me?”
“I meant our encountering Annie again. Coppers are trained to be wary of coincidences.”
“Well, coincidence or not, I’m glad the matter is in your hands.”
“As it happens, I’m acquainted with Mary’s sister-in-law, Louisa Allingham. Or was.”
“Really?”
“A lifetime ago, before I left for the Crimea. When she was still Louisa Upton.” He smiled faintly. “Another coincidence.”
Was it wistfulness Julia heard? And there was a soft expression in his eyes.
“Miss Allingham would do well to listen to Louisa,” Tennant said. “Charles Allingham was surprisingly offhand about the vandalism and letters. The fellow strikes me as feckless. Louisa and I urged Mary to take precautions. To lock her studio for one thing and not walk about the city unchaperoned.”
“I hope Mary listens to you. She struck me as someone not keen to take advice, however well-intentioned.”
“Indeed?” Tennant’s smile flickered. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
“Very amusing.”
“In the end, I had Miss Allingham’s attention. I inspected the grounds of Blenheim Lodge and found discarded shells and a crumpled packet. Someone stood among the yews, eating chestnuts and scoring the bark of a tree. Waiting and watching the house.”
Julia’s stomach fluttered, and she looked away. A month ago, she’d dismissed the inspector’s concern for her as male coddling. But now . . . Another watcher in the dark. Waiting with a knife. She looked up and found his gray eyes fixed on her.
As if he read her mind, Tennant said, “That slash across her painting worries me.”