CHAPTER 8 #2
“Annie?” Mary crossed the corridor and gripped the girl’s hands. “Dear Annie, this terrible news about Margot. I’m so sorry. I know she was your friend.”
The girl flinched. “Thank you, miss,” she whispered. “And . . . and you, grieving as well. For your brother. ’Tis sorry I am that he passed.” She glanced at the door.
To Julia, Annie looked like a creature caught in a trap. But Mary seemed not to notice and asked questions that Annie answered with nods.
When Mary finally stopped for breath, Annie looked at Julia. “I can’t be staying to have those stitches out after all. Can I come back another day?”
“Of course, Annie.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Good day, Miss Allingham.”
Mary watched the front door swing behind Annie. “Poor girl.”
Julia handed her a brown, corked bottle. “The directions are on the label.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Mary stashed it inside the pocket of her muff. “I know your week is busy, but would you join us for tea some Sunday?”
“I’d like that.”
“Oh” Mary said, biting her lip. “I should have offered to drive Annie home. Let me try to catch her up. Goodbye, Doctor.” She hurried out the door.
Catch Annie up, indeed, Julia thought. Something ailed the girl, but what?
* * *
The cabbie dropped Inspector Tennant and Sergeant O’Malley in front of a bookshop at Oxford and Dean Streets in Soho.
A half century earlier, private houses in the once-residential neighborhood had given way to commercial properties.
Tennant and O’Malley looked for Quain’s address, passing furniture makers, drapers, and cobblers along the way.
Finally, they spotted it, a three-story brick house whose portico sorely needed whitewash.
Interior doors in a dim vestibule divided the bottom floor into two flats. Quain’s rooms were on the right.
O’Malley lifted a gloved fist the size of a coconut and rapped on the door. It creaked open.
“Be gone,” someone shouted, “unless you’ve got a bottle of Kilbeggan’s on you.”
Tennant pushed the door wider. “Empty-handed, I’m afraid.” He stepped over the threshold. “Mister Quain? Detective Inspector Tennant with Detective Sergeant O’Malley.”
The artist peered around the edge of his easel. “The peelers, is it now?”
“That’s right, sir. The Metropolitan Police. I’d like a word if may.”
Quain glanced at the windows and sighed. “The light’s going on me anyway.” He stowed his palette, wiped his hands on a rag, and crossed the sparsely furnished room.
His easel occupied the right-center of an ample, undivided space that had started life as a warehouse.
Three six-foot windows in the side wall opened onto platforms whose swingarm cranes still hung over the exterior windows like forgotten gibbets.
That day, the only thing entering through the windows was the last of the soft, even daylight, ideal for an artist’s studio.
Quain led them to a set of rickety chairs around a scarred table. “My rent is paid, and I’ve settled the tab at my pub, so I’m asking you to sit with a clear conscience on me.”
“Thank you, Mister Quain.” Tennant placed a folder on the tabletop and opened it to the pictures Mary had given him of Margot Miller. “I’m investigating the death of this young woman. Your work, I believe?”
Quain nodded. “She was a fine one, that Margot. A crime against nature it was to take her from this world.”
“When did you see her last?”
“Not for donkey’s years. I painted that two summers past.”
“I believe you sketched this young woman in the park.” Tennant showed him the picture of Franny Riley. “She’s dead, too. Beaten to death—were you aware of that?”
Quain stared at the picture before saying, “I’d heard that news.”
Tennant uncovered the picture of Margot on the bed and the girl with the paddle. “And this one?”
Quain’s head jerked up. “Where did you . . . of course, you’ve been through Mister Allingham’s effects. Stupid of me.”
“When was the last time you painted Miss Miller?”
“I finished that one two years ago, and I haven’t laid eyes on Margot in months.”
“And Miss Riley? When did you see her last?”
“A year ago. I assure you, Inspector, as God is my witness, I know nothing about her death.”
“The green dressing gown in this painting.” Tennant tapped the picture of Margot at Her Bath. “It matches the one we found wrapped around Franny Riley’s body. The moth design is distinctive. Have you an explanation?”
Quain licked his lips. “It was Margot’s gown.”
“I might have guessed,” Tennant said. “Miss Miller is conveniently dead.”
“What the hell do you mean by that!”
“Just a statement of fact.”
Seconds ticked by. Then the artist leaned back. “Margot supplied all the props for the composition. I’d like to see you prove otherwise, Inspector.”
O’Malley narrowed his eyes. “Where are you saying you hail from, sir? You’re speaking the Queen’s English now.”
Tennant, too, had noticed the sudden change in the artist’s accent. “Yes, Mister Quain. Why play the stage Irishman?”
The artist shrugged. “A bad habit, I’m afraid, my having some fun at the expense of the natives. I’m Irish, although your sergeant might dispute it. I’m not a left footer.”
“Meaning?”
O’Malley said, “He’s not a Catholic, he’s saying. He’s Anglo-Irish. A Protestant.”
“That’s right.” The artist knitted his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “I’m a deanery brat from Waterford. My father is dean of Christ Church, the city’s Anglican cathedral.”
“For shame, boy-o.” O’Malley picked up the painting of the naked, voluptuous Margot sprawled across her bed. “What would your daddy be making of this, now?”
Quain sat up straight and patted his pockets. He pulled a pipe from his painter’s smock and struck a match. He took several draws until the tobacco in his bowl glowed red and tossed the match into the fireplace.
“Not a clue, Sergeant. But like so many hypocrites, the old boy would enjoy having it both ways. Public outrage, private ogling.”
Tennant asked, “Did Charles Allingham commission these portraits?”
“Just the second one. Margot at Her Bath was part of a collection of watercolors Charles purchased from me when we first met.”
“How do you explain the notations on this?” Tennant showed him the list taken from Allingham’s cabinet. “The initials ‘WQ’ appear three times on this inventory of commissions.”
“Well . . .” He hitched his shoulder uncomfortably. “I painted two others for him.”
“Portraits of Margot Miller?”
“No. Yes. Not precisely, although she was part of the ensemble. You see . . .”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Charles commissioned two Chinese scenes in the French style. Modeled on the work of Eugène Delacroix, but more—”
“Yes, more,” Tennant said. “I’ve seen Mister Allingham’s collection. Did he dictate the compositions?”
“Only in the most general terms. Charles paid for the paintings, but Margot . . . well, Margot managed it all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“She arranged for the models. Brought them to my studio and staged the poses.”
“Who paid them?”
“Margot. The girls she brought . . . They were getting younger, and some didn’t seem too keen. One dark-haired girl got as far as the door and then bolted. Others kept looking at the food and drink Margot had set up here.” Quain smacked the tabletop.
“Why only three commissions? Other sets of initials appear many times on this list. Did you and Mister Allingham have a falling-out?”
“No.” Quain stood abruptly. He knocked the tobacco into the fire and turned. “We parted friends, and I’ll always be grateful to him. His introductions opened doors for me and led to several commissions. The excuse that I was too busy was a face-saving way to turn him down.”
Tennant raised his brow. “Why did you need one?”
The artist combed his fingers through his dark, curly hair. “Look, Charles was a good bloke. I don’t think he knew that Margot . . . he saw the fantasy I painted, not the truth behind it.”
“And what was the truth, Mister Quain?”
“That Margot found poor girls desperate to do anything she asked.” The artist dug his hands into his trouser pockets. “I’m not proud of my role in it.”
“And Margot?”
“There was nothing she wouldn’t do, come to that. Margot loved stripping off. She knew the power of her body, her allure, and who could blame her? In a world where men write the checks, she called the tune.”
O’Malley said, “Did she ever whistle your way?”
“No such luck, Sergeant. Margot knew I couldn’t afford her.”
“Someone could,” Tennant said. “She dressed in silks and satins and a fur-collared cape.”
“Oh, Margot was sleek, all right. The girls she brought to my studio were awed by ‘Miss Miller.’ Her clothes, her manner, and the way she walked and talked. She learned those airs and graces from the lady artists who hired her to sit. Margot spent as much time studying them as they spent looking at her.”
“We know a ‘John Smith’ leased the house she lived in,” Tennant said. “Most likely, an assumed name.”
“Not the most creative alias.”
O’Malley asked, “Could Charles Allingham have paid for Margot’s gaff?”
“Possibly . . . but the poor sod is the one person who couldn’t have killed her. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To find Margot’s murderer.”
“And where were you on the afternoon in question?” O’Malley said. “The day before yesterday and going on for dusk.”
“I was here. Working in my studio.”
“Not the most creative alibi,” Tennant said. “Your model can corroborate your story?”
“I didn’t use a model that day.” Quain crossed to his easel and jerked it around. “I’m working on a landscape, as you can see.” He pointed to a corkboard with sketches pinned to it. “Those sheep weren’t here either.”
“What about the last evening in January,” Tennant said. “Sometime after midnight, someone tossed Franny Riley in the gutter.”
“At a guess, I’d say I was heading home after a pint at my local.”
Tennant spotted a self-portrait in charcoal and removed it from the board. “I’ll take the liberty of borrowing this if you have no objection. You shouldn’t . . . if you’re as innocent as you contend.”