CHAPTER 6 #2
“Officer?”
“Captain.”
“Thought as much. The right schools, an elite regiment, they open doors.”
“There’s no denying it.”
“Well, Charlie provided the class, and I . . .” Allen dug his fist into a trouser pocket, pulled out a shilling, and flipped it. “I supplied the brass. And in a world where men play dirty? An ambitious bloke gets down in the muck. But that wasn’t for Charlie.”
“A tidy arrangement.”
Allen cocked his thumb at the window behind him.
“An old family firm with a proper address on the row? Neighbors with Longmans, Whittakers, and the like? That’s worth more than pounds sterling.
We moved into the fine art market, and you’d be surprised at the profit margin in art books, catalogs, and prints. ”
“I probably would.”
Allen grinned. “You’d be a proper doyle to lose money at it. Charlie had the connections. All he needed was the brass.” He rocked in his chair, his chest swelling. “We’ve never looked back.”
“Given the firm’s health, Mister Allingham’s suicide seems unconnected to business reversals.”
Allen flicked a dismissal. “The company is Bank-of-England sound. Charlie’s death had naught to do with the firm.”
“Then your dinner with him last night was . . . what? Simply routine?”
Allen hitched his shoulders uneasily. “We had a difference of opinion to iron out, I’ll not deny it. Sometimes Charlie has . . .” He swallowed. “He had a rubbish idea for a book. About some new French painters that no one’s heard of. Old Charlie could be a stubborn bastard at odd times.”
“How did you end it?”
“Charlie sort of . . . threw in the towel, sudden-like. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘have it your own way.’ Heard him say that a hundred times when he’d grown tired or bored with something. Like the air went out of the balloon.”
“And you played out your disagreement in front of Doctor Scott?”
“All over by the time the old bugger showed up at the house. But Charlie wasn’t in the mood for chess. What of it?”
“Who left first?”
“We had a drink, made an early night of it, and left together. Charlie saw us to the front door, and we went our separate ways.”
“I have a final question about your last meeting. Did Mister Allingham seem unusually despondent?”
Allen looked down at his desk and frowned. “Aye. Like he was carrying a hundredweight on his back.”
Tennant left Allen’s building, walked east along the row, and turned right on Old Change Street, heading toward the river.
As he passed St. Paul’s, the setting sun honeyed the pale stone of the cathedral’s facade, turning it golden.
Winter afternoons were short, but Tennant had put in a long day, and his leg ached.
He turned toward the river and winced when his boot twisted on the uneven cobbles.
On the other side of the Thames, scudding clouds dragged bands of rain in his direction.
He’d be caught in a downpour if he waited for an omnibus, so he shifted his weight to ease his leg and flagged a cab.
“Where to, guvnor?”
Tennant nearly told the cabbie to take him home to Bloomsbury. Instead, he clapped the hansom doors closed and told the driver, “Scotland Yard.”
No matter, he thought. Lately, his house on Russell Square, a comfortable chair, and a glass of whiskey by the fireside contented him less.
He’d begun to picture Julia there, sipping a sherry, sitting across from him, the flickering firelight gilding her chestnut hair.
He pictured her in other rooms and imagined what it would be like to wake and see her hair spread across a pillow.
Tennant hadn’t longed for someone so intensely since his broken engagement to Isobel. A lucky escape, he’d come to realize.
But Julia . . . She’s so self-sufficient, damn it. He could dream all he liked, but that was as far as it would go. It didn’t stop his pulse racing at the thought of her in his bed.
The inspector sighed and returned his mind to the case, wondering if he’d wasted his time with Allen. He’s a bit of a rogue. But was he an out-and-out scoundrel involved in a blackmail scheme? Tennant had no reason to think so.
Still, the inspector thought the interview had been revealing.
For one thing, there was that difference of opinion over Allingham’s state of mind.
The doctor had told Sergeant Armstrong that all had been well with his friend.
Yet, Allen saw a despondent Allingham. Tennant thought about things unsaid.
A clever man could take great care to monitor his disclosures.
But the inspector had learned to listen for the unspoken.
Allen hadn’t asked him why a copper from the Met’s detective department was investigating a suicide.
Tennant arrived at the Yard after six. He found two reports and a cable from Canada on his desk and snatched up the long-awaited message. Franny’s friend said a man named “Charles,” who published art books, had asked her to pose for some artists.
Tennant cursed the bad luck of timing. Had the cable arrived two days earlier, Allingham would still have been alive for questioning.
He picked up O’Malley’s report. It confirmed Allen’s statement that he and the doctor left Allingham’s study together.
And as for the man’s general health, O’Malley quoted Dr. Scott: “Charles Allingham was a superb specimen of British manhood.”
The sergeant had attached a note to the official report: Ticked the old fella off by asking about Allingham’s health. A ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy, he was, and the man barked at me like I was a common swabby. Not happy that a copper thick as a plank questioned his report.
The second report confirmed the cause of death: the Marsh test found arsenic in Allingham’s stomach and the whiskey decanter.
All the evidence pointed to suicide by arsenic poisoning.
* * *
Julia passed the newspaper across the breakfast table to her grandfather.
The death notice in The Times read, Suddenly, at home, Charles Frederick Allingham of Blenheim Lodge, Kensington, survived by his wife, Louisa Alice (née Upton), and his sister, Mary Margaret Allingham. The funeral and interment are private.
Dr. Andrew Lewis lowered the paper. “Tragic.”
“The coroner’s jury is meeting this morning,” Julia said.
“Not much doubt about the verdict.” Her grandfather shook his head sadly. “Death by his hand.”
Julia pushed away her unfinished dish of scrambled eggs. “Charles Allingham was young, well-off, and handsome. He had a beautiful wife and an affectionate sister.”
“Outward blessings don’t always add up to a happy life, my dear.”
“But after Regent’s Park . . . Grandfather, he’d been given a second chance at life. Others weren’t as lucky.” Julia thought of the young lieutenant she’d pronounced dead at the lake. “It’s such a waste.”
“Doctor Julie?” The housekeeper handed her a letter. “Miss Allingham’s coachman is waiting for an answer.”
Julia unfolded the black-bordered note and read it to her grandfather.
“A confounding anonymous letter arrived in yesterday’s post. In the day’s confusion and distress, we overlooked it until this morning. I’d be most grateful for your advice if you have a free hour before you leave for your clinic.”
“Strange,” her grandfather said. “Have you any patients this morning?”
“Mrs. Oates is bringing Timmy in at ten to have his cast removed. Do you think you could—”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Thank you.” Julia got up and gave her grandfather a quick hug. “Mrs. Ogilvie, please tell Miss Allingham’s coachman that I’ll be down in five minutes.”
* * *
A day after the death, the trappings of death had wrapped Blenheim Lodge in gloom.
Servants had lowered the shades and drawn the draperies, and the house presented a closed face to the world.
Someone had covered the brass knocker in black crepe, and Julia’s rap sounded blunt and dead against the oak panel.
A footman wearing a black armband opened the door.
“Miss Mary is upstairs, Doctor.”
The thick carpet muffled Julia’s footfalls as she crossed the silent hall. The servant’s murmured withdrawal, the click of a closing door, and a ticking grandfather’s clock were all she heard, sounds one would never notice in the ordinary bustle of a busy household.
“Doctor Lewis.” Mary stood on the landing.
She came down the staircase, her face a pale oval above the high neck of her black frock. She held a letter, a white rectangle against her dark dress.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Yes. But this morning, I feel numb. And every so often, I flame with fury at Charles.” Mary blinked at her tears. “And now this anonymous letter. It looks very like the two sent to me.”
She handed Julia the envelope. Someone had addressed it to Mrs. Charles Allingham in printed capital letters at the Kensington address.
She pulled out the note and read the message.
HE WAS WARNED. TELL HIM THAT. IT’S HIGH TIME YOU KNEW.
MEET ME AT THE MAZE WITH TWENTY QUID OR THE WORLD WILL HEAR ABOUT IT.
Julia looked up. “The maze?”
“I suppose he means the one here in Kensington, in the horticultural gardens. It’s a twenty-minute walk from our house.”
“The note says three o’clock on the sixteenth. That’s today.” Julia looked at the grandfather clock. “Five hours from now.”
Mary bit her lip. “I know.”
“You must go to the police.”
“Louisa . . . she’s vacillating, and I don’t want to go over her head. I thought, someone else. Someone whose opinion she respects. You might convince her to call them in.” Mary gripped Julia’s hand. “Please, will you come upstairs and speak to her?”
“Of course.” Julia shook it and smiled. “But whatever your sister-in-law feels, you must inform the police.”
“Yes. I understand.”
Julia followed Mary up the stairs to a silent hallway. She knocked on the door to Louisa’s bedroom and opened it.
“Lou?”