CHAPTER 4
A week had passed since the discovery of Franny’s body, and Tennant had little to report to Chief Inspector Clark.
Sergeant O’Malley busied himself with the canvass near Harvey Nicols, showing the sketch of Franny Riley to the cabbies and shopkeepers along Brompton Road.
The street was a stretch of the leg, and O’Malley understood the doorman’s surprise.
How had Franny vanished from his sight? There was no turnoff before Knightsbridge.
A sudden gust snatched O’Malley’s bowler, sending it tumbling into the gutter. He retrieved it and brushed the crown with his sleeve as Inspector Tennant pulled up in a hansom.
“We’ve had a message from the Mayfair station,” he said. “There’s trouble at the women’s art exhibition.”
O’Malley climbed into the cab and settled in. “The chief won’t be happy we’re back to the ‘balmy’ lady artists.”
“I’ve been thinking about that drawing of Franny. It looks expert to me—not a sketch dashed off by a street artist. The girl was doing something to earn those extra shillings.”
“Sitting for painters, you’re thinking?”
“Let’s not forget that a model for one of Miss Allingham’s painter friends vanished a year ago. If Franny was modeling . . .”
“’Tis all connected and maybe not balmy after all.”
The cab dropped the inspector and his sergeant at a Mayfair address on Oxford Street. A police wagon pulled up behind them, and two constables from the Yard joined the local officers already at the scene.
“For the love of God,” O’Malley muttered. “What are we having here?”
A sallow-faced man with a gray-streaked, ginger beard had padlocked his left wrist to the entrance railing.
Dark, deep-set eyes flashed beneath bristling brows, and loose flesh hung from the sharp-etched cheekbones in his triangular face.
Wintry gusts flapped the folds of his black coat like crow’s wings as he spewed Scripture and waved a Bible over his head.
A younger, dark-haired companion in a shabby black suit wielded a cane, blocking the bottom of the gallery steps.
A banner hung above the door: SOCIETY OF FEMALE ARTISTS WINTER EXHIBITION, 8 FEbrUARY–16 MARCH 1867.
The Mayfair constables stood between the two men and a group of women huddled on the cold pavement. Tennant spotted Miss Allingham and the two artist friends he’d interviewed about the anonymous letters.
“Delilahs,” the old man shouted. “Salomes, Jezebels, and whores of Babylon, ye stagger down a crooked path. Proverbs warns us. Do not go near the door of her house.” He pointed his Bible at the women.
“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”
“Let’s break up the party, shall we?” Tennant called over to one of the constables. “Turn out the old fellow’s pockets. Find the padlock key and liberate the gentleman from the railing.”
O’Malley said, “I’ll crack on with the boy-o at the bottom of the steps. Maybe the lad has it on him.”
“Check his clothing and boots for traces of green paint.”
O’Malley clapped a young policeman on the shoulders. “Come along, son. Let’s have a bit of conversation with the creature.”
The sergeant approached the boy and said mildly, “I’ll have that stick, my lad.” When he refused to hand it over, O’Malley twisted the cane from his hand. “Now, what are you and the old fella on about?”
The young man refused to answer, crossing his arms mulishly and digging his hands deep into his armpits.
The towering sergeant leaned in and asked for the key.
O’Malley stood six-foot-two, weighed fifteen stone, and rarely had to ask twice.
Sullenly, the young man fished in his trouser pocket and produced it.
He extended his arms at the sergeant’s command and turned up his palms for inspection.
Satisfied, O’Malley handed him to a pair of constables, who marched the boy to the police wagon.
O’Malley flipped the key in the air and handed it to the inspector.
Tennant asked, “Any paint on him, Paddy?”
“Not a speck.”
Tennant unlocked the older man’s chains and relieved him of his Bible. Inside the front cover, he found an inked name: Josiah Miller.
“Mister Miller, you will be charged with trespass and other offenses against public order. Sergeant O’Malley and these officers will escort you to the police wagon.”
“They are the guilty ones,” the old man shouted, pointing at the women artists.
“The first book of John, chapter three. Sin is lawlessness. Nakedness . . .” He jabbed his finger repeatedly at the door.
“That nakedness must be torn from the walls. Eve covered herself before the Lord. In Isaiah, chapter—”
O’Malley slammed the door of the wagon and returned to Tennant.
“The young fella’s name is Micah Miller. Says the old holy Joe is his dad. Miller, now.” O’Malley smoothed the ends of his springy mustache. “I wonder. . . .”
“Inspector, may we have a word?”
Tennant turned to face Mary Allingham and her artist friends, Laura Herford and Barbara Bodichon.
Petite, dressed in black from hat to boots, Miss Herford seemed as tightly furled as her umbrella.
She’d glared at the intruders like a disapproving schoolmistress.
The towering Madame Bodichon, her red-gold hair spilling from her bonnet, looked amused by the spectacle.
“Miss Herford has something to tell you, Inspector.”
“I’ve seen the younger man before,” Laura Herford said. “Last week, he accosted my model on the pavement outside my house. Shouting drew me to the window.”
“You’re certain about your identification?”
“It’s his ears, Inspector. Pointed and quite distinctive, and those thick, slanted brows. I thought he’d make a marvelous Mephistopheles. Once Margot was safely inside, I sketched him from the window.”
“Do you still have that drawing?”
“Why, yes.”
“I’d like to send a constable around to borrow it. This afternoon if it’s convenient.”
O’Malley coughed. “Sir?”
The inspector turned. “Sergeant?”
“I have a question for Miss Herford. That model, now. Would it be Margot Miller you’re talking about?”
Miss Herford looked surprised. “That’s right, Sergeant. Full marks to you.”
“The old preacher’s name is Josiah Miller,” O’Malley said. “There’s many a Miller ’round and about. Still, the old fella has that ginger hair on him, and Margot’s is bright as a new penny.”
“It’s worth looking into,” Tennant said. “Are you ladies aware that this is the second attack on an exhibit?”
Laura nodded. “The French Gallery. The London art world is a small one.”
“One of us sneezes, and we all catch colds.” Madame Bodichon tightened her collar against the wind. “Speaking of which, may Laura open the doors, Inspector? I’m freezing.”
“Of course. One last question. Did a girl named Frances Riley—Franny Riley—sit for any of you?”
“I don’t know her,” Mary said. “Barbara?” Madame Bodichon shook her head.
“I’ve not heard the name,” Laura said, “and I know most models working in London. Who is she, Inspector?”
“A shopgirl who went missing. I’m sorry to say we found her beaten to death.”
“My God. Could it be . . . ?” Laura’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Yes, Miss Herford?”
“I was thinking about my model who vanished and what may have happened to her.”
* * *
The police court’s benches had filled with the day’s haul of prostitutes, petty thieves, and drunk-and-disorderly charges.
The magistrate was about to release the Millers with a caution when his clerk coughed and murmured, “Inspector Tennant. . . a suspicion of more serious charges . . . additional inquiries.” The judge changed course and held the pair for further questioning.
Two guards hustled the Millers out the door and back to the station’s holding cells.
Tennant said, “We’ll let them contemplate their sins, but we’ve got to connect the Millers somehow with the gallery and studio attacks.”
O’Malley grunted. “I sent a constable to Miss Herford’s house to borrow that drawing of young Micah,” O’Malley said. “Witnesses to show it to are thin on the ground, I’m thinking.”
“It’s a long shot, but someone near the French Gallery may have spotted him. Or one of the barrow boys along Kensington Road may remember the man who bought a bag of chestnuts late at night.”
“Ah, the watcher from the trees at the Allingham estate. But can you see either of these creatures writing those letters?”
Tennant shook his head. “We have parts of a puzzle that don’t fit.”
“And what about himself?” O’Malley asked. “Will the chief inspector be approving of all the time we’re spending on this?”
“Probably not. But there’s something, Paddy. Something is simmering. Nothing yet from our colleagues in Canada?”
“Not a word. There’s sure to be some man in the picture. Mrs. Murphy was like a mother to Franny, but young girls don’t tell their mams everything.”
“I asked her Canadian friend in my cable. If there was a man, Franny may have confided in her. Meanwhile, let’s head to the Millers’ address in Poplar. See what a search turns up.”
* * *
When Tennant and O’Malley got off the omnibus, the signs and scents of the nearby river surrounded them.
Herring gulls wheeled across the sky, gliding low, drifting below the roof-lines, calling out with mewing wails.
They turned a corner and came face-to-face with the brick ramparts guarding the perimeter of Poplar’s East India Docks.
The smells of tar, tobacco, and the spices of the East—cinnamon and cloves—scented the air.
They passed the entrance just as a steam whistle shrieked. A foreman with a face like cracked leather and a sandpaper voice rasped out names from a muster book. Coins changed hands, and the laborers trudged out the gate.
“Backbreaking labor at fourpence an hour,” O’Malley grumbled as they walked past.
“Not work for the faint of heart or shoulder.”
“Up with the sun tomorrow, they’ll be. Waving and shouting their names at the calling foreman, hoping to get on his list to work another day.”