CHAPTER 5 #2
The constable jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Sergeant Armstrong is upstairs now, sorting it.”
“Wait,” Tennant shouted at the cabbie driving away.
“Paddy, hand me your notebook.” He scribbled, tore out a page, and gave one of the constables the message and a half crown.
“I’ll clear it with your sergeant. Take the cab and deliver this to Doctor Julia Lewis—Julia Lewis, mind you. Her address is on the note.”
“Hell and damnation,” Tennant said through clenched teeth as they mounted the staircase. “I should have tracked him down last night.”
“Neither of us could guess at this.” O’Malley crossed himself. “The man was in the wind and could have been anywhere.”
“I should have parked myself in Allingham’s foyer and waited.”
Tennant and O’Malley found the Kensington sergeant in Allingham’s upstairs study. The wiry, sandy-haired Armstrong listened gray-faced as the inspector told him he’d commandeered one of the sergeant’s men. Tennant knew from experience that sorting the aftermath of a suicide was a grim business.
“I know the Yard had an interest in Allingham. Found your card in the man’s pocket. What’s it about, sir?”
“We’re tracing persons who knew a murder victim,” Tennant said.
“Was Allingham a suspect?”
“A possible witness. What is the cause of death?”
“Looks like suicide,” Armstrong said. “Arsenic poisoning, most like. We found him sprawled face down here.” He walked over to a door. “It opens into his dressing room.”
Charles Allingham had died in his well-appointed gentleman’s study, stretched across a burgundy-and-gold Turkish carpet.
The police had removed the body, but evidence of the tragedy remained.
A whiskey decanter, its contents tinted an odd color, sat on the mahogany desk.
An overturned glass had spilled a few ounces onto a blotter, staining some papers green.
Beside it, an envelope held the remains of an emerald powder; some of it had spilled across the desk.
Armstrong said, “He mixed it into his whiskey decanter and drank it off, poor blighter. When we turned him over, we found green stains on his lips, chin, and shirt front.”
“Who pronounced him dead?”
“Doctor Scott, the family physician. He said a block of that green powder could kill off half of Kensington High Street. Artists use it to mix paint.”
Tennant guessed the answer but asked, “Do you know the source?”
“The sister’s studio, most like. A painter, she says. Struck near dumb when she saw the stuff and then shaking all over. I asked her to have a squint at her supply, and she thought some of it was gone.” Armstrong ran his hands through his sandy hair. “Jesus. Questioning a suicide’s family is hell.”
“’Tis the worst of the job,” O’Malley said. “Tell me, was the paint Allingham used called Paris Green?”
Armstrong’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s right, Sarge.”
“We’ve seen it before.”
“We’ll test the stomach contents and whiskey to be sure,” Armstrong said. “Doctor Scott is on our medical list, so I’ve asked him to do the postmortem.”
“He’ll perform the Marsh test?” Tennant said.
Armstrong nodded. “There’s not much doubt it’s suicide by arsenic poisoning, but the test will nail it down.”
“He couldn’t drink that green muck by accident,” O’Malley said.
Armstrong nodded. “Murder’s out of the question. No one could have slipped that stuff into his drink without his noticing the color.”
“Where can I find the doctor?” Tennant asked.
“Preston Scott is one of these Harley Street blokes.” Sergeant Armstrong scribbled an address and gave it to Tennant. “The doctor played chess with Allingham once a week. Last night was the last time.”
“What did the doctor say about the dead man’s state of mind?”
“Scott saw nothing amiss with his friend. The old chap seemed quite shaken by the suicide.”
“Did Allingham leave a note?”
“We haven’t found one.”
“Sir?” O’Malley looked up from a leather portfolio on Allingham’s desk. “No suicide note, but there’s this—open on his desk.” He handed Tennant a picture from a set of artists’ prints.
Green smudges stained the white border. Its caption read Chatterton (1856) by Henry Wallis. The painting showed an ashen-faced young man sprawled across a bed with his arm hanging over the side. A vial had slipped from his hand to the floor.
“Allingham had death on his mind, by the looks of it,” O’Malley said.
“It appears so,” Tennant said. “Who found the body?”
“The footman,” Armstrong said. “He brought the man his morning tea and found him on the floor. Allingham had been sleeping in here.”
He opened the door to a small chamber. Inside was a narrow bed, the covers folded back but unrumpled.
Tennant asked, “Was that his usual practice?”
“When he worked late, his sister said.” Armstrong closed the door.
The inspector circled the study. The Chatterton artist had draped his suicide artfully across a bed. But Charles Allingham had staggered from his desk, vomiting, the traces of his agony spewed across the floor.
“Death by arsenic isn’t an easy end,” Tennant said.
Armstrong grunted. “Made a pig’s ear of it.”
“Any surprises, Armstrong? Anything puzzling?”
“A couple of things, sir. The locked bottom drawer in that chest seems dodgy to me. Nothing else is under lock and key. The victim’s desk and all the other cupboards are open to the world.”
“And the key?”
“Missing.”
“What’s the second thing?”
“It looks like he burned something. Papers, most like.”
“Show me,” Tennant said.
Armstrong crossed the room and squatted. He pulled a pencil from his pocket and poked around in the cold fireplace. “There’s quite a pile of fallen ash in the grate.”
O’Malley leaned over for a closer look. As he straightened, he spotted a white triangle between the legs of the fire-iron stand.
He drew out a torn scrap of paper with the tip of his boot and picked it up.
All that remained was the start of a sentence, written in block capital letters in black ink: DON’T THINK I WON’T TEL
“That partial last letter might be an L,” O’Malley said, handing the fragment to the inspector. “Probably ‘Don’t think I won’t tell.’ Are we looking at blackmail?”
“It’s a possible motive for suicide,” Tennant said.
“The same poison pen who’s been tormenting the lady artists.”
“It’s a theory, Paddy.” Tennant sized up the cabinet, inspecting its lock. “What’s been done to locate the key?”
“We checked Allingham’s pockets and his desk,” Armstrong said. “I asked his valet about it, Rawlings by name. We’ll get nothing out of that bugger. These ‘gentlemen’s gentlemen’ shut their mouths tighter than oysters.”
“I’d like a word with him.”
Armstrong said to the constable at the door, “Bring Rawlings in.”
If the presence of Scotland Yard at a suicide surprised the valet, he didn’t show it. Rawlings didn’t blink when Tennant identified himself.
“Sleek” was the word that came to Tennant’s mind.
Rawlings was a trim man of above-average height who had slicked back his dark hair with Macassar oil that gave off the citrusy scent of bergamot.
His neat mustache mostly hid a mildly disfiguring harelip.
The inspector was an expert at sizing up the cut of a man’s clothing, and Rawlings was an unusually well-tailored servant.
The valet answered Tennant’s queries about his background and the length of his service with the careful diction of someone who’s worked hard to remove any trace of his class or place of origin. Tennant turned his questions to Allingham.
“Did you notice any changes in your employer’s demeanor?”
“He seemed distracted,” Rawlings said. “But nothing to show he was . . .” The man swallowed. “Nothing that made me think he had this on his mind.”
“You were the last to see him alive, so—”
“I beg your pardon, sir. After Doctor Scott and Mister Allen left last evening, Mister Allingham didn’t ring for me.”
“Mister Allen?”
“My employer’s business partner. He returned with Mister Allingham shortly before Doctor Scott arrived, around eight. That was the last I saw of him. I had laid out the master’s night things earlier and turned down his bed.”
“Was that usual? To finish your duties so early in the evening?”
“Mister Allingham often worked late or went out to his club. When he did, and on the evenings that he played chess, he went to bed unassisted.”
“Thank you, Mister Rawlings. That will be all for now.”
After the servant withdrew, Armstrong said, “So Doctor Scott and Allingham’s business partner were the last to see him alive.”
“Possibly,” Tennant said. “What about his wife and sister?”
“Allingham retreated to the study with his guests. The ladies didn’t see him again.”
One by one, Armstrong brought in the servants. All had retired for the evening shortly after Mr. Allingham returned. All except Alfred: only the footman saw his employer later that night.
Charles Allingham had escorted his guests downstairs and locked the door behind them.
Before returning upstairs, he asked Alfred to pour a glass of port from the bottle in the dining room.
The footman brought it to him, and Allingham tossed it off and asked for another.
Then his employer asked him to check the first-floor windows and wished him good night.
Allingham climbed the stairs unsteadily, and Alfred watched him until he turned into the hallway.
The footman heard the study door close behind him.
Tennant asked Alfred about the missing key. He, like the other servants, knew nothing about it.
After Alfred left, Tennant said, “I don’t know about you, Sergeant Armstrong, but I grow more and more curious about that key.”
“If it doesn’t turn up, we’ll have to force the chest open.”
Tennant nodded. “Let’s have one more look around.”
* * *
Her coachman drove Julia and the Kensington constable back to Blenheim Lodge. Aside from the policeman at the door, nothing seemed unusual. Julia reached for the doorknocker and changed her mind. She asked the constable, “Is it unlocked?” When he nodded, she entered.