CHAPTER 11 #3
Mary gave her name to her smiling porter. He consulted the list at the back of his catalog and said, “Here you are, miss. You’re hanging in the East Room.” He pointed the way.
Mary flipped through her book, thrilled to find her entry on page fifteen. They’d hung her painting as one of the last in the largest of the exhibition’s chambers. There it was: Repose, and her name, Miss M. Allingham.
Laura looked up from her catalog. “My Margaret is in the Middle Room.” She took Mary by the arm. “Come, my dear. Take a deep breath and brace yourself.”
They passed through a columned archway and into the crowded East Room. Mary had visited the annual art show as a spectator, but this was her first varnishing day as an exhibiting painter.
She stopped inside the gallery and gaped. “Good Lord.”
Over two hundred paintings crammed the East Room’s walls from floor to ceiling.
One gilt-framed picture after another hung inches from the next.
Scores of men and a scattering of women hovered near paintings or stood on ladders.
Mary and Laura crossed the space as quickly as traffic allowed and found Repose hanging near the entrance to the Middle Room.
“A doorway location isn’t ideal,” Laura said, “but look. You’re only one row up from hanging ‘on the line,’ just above eye level.”
Mary said, “Not bad for a first-time exhibitor.”
Laura pointed to the ceiling. “I was in the rafters my first time out.”
They stood for a few moments admiring the painting. Then Mary hooked elbows with Laura. “Come. Let’s find your Margaret.”
“The Middle Room is just through here.”
They found Laura’s painting hanging in the center of the left wall. Margaret, like Mary’s picture, was one level above the line.
Mary touched the red star fixed to the frame. “Laura, you’ve sold it. Congratulations.”
“And I’m hanging above August Burke, a Royal Academician. The RA after his name will draw crowds and some reflected glory.”
A voice behind them said, “And there I am in the East Room, languishing high above Miss Obbard’s Apple Blossoms.”
Mary turned, and William Quain shrugged. “Well, what can I expect, placed above a woman?” He quoted in a high-pitched, affected tone, “‘Fruits and flowers are by divine appointment the property of ladies.’ Or so the Art Journal said this month.”
“This is Mister Quain. Miss Laura Herford.”
Laura offered her hand. “Do you agree with the author’s sentiment?”
Quain grinned. “The man’s a condescending twit and should open his eyes and look at your Margaret. Miss Herford, many artists have tried, but few have caught Margot Miller’s resplendence. You’ve placed her in a garden, but she’s its most vivid presence.”
Surprised, Mary looked at him appraisingly.
“Thank you, Mister Quain,” Laura said. “Few models radiated her vitality. A tragic loss.”
“Ladies, I’ll let you get on with the day’s business, as shall I. Some of my Irish sheep need a shadow or two.”
Laura followed his dark head as he threaded his way through the crowd. “Quite good-looking, don’t you think?”
Mary made a noncommittal noise. “Well, he’s right about your Margaret. I may have misjudged him. But he needs a haircut.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Laura said. “He’s a bit roguish, but in an attractive way. Well, shall we get on with our varnishing? I’ll finish up and meet you.”
Mary reentered the East Room and spotted Quain. He hadn’t gone far. The artist stood, gaping at a picture to her left. Then he turned abruptly.
“Excuse me.” He grinned, brushed past her, and bobbed across the room and out the door. He looked as if he’d placed a winning bet at the Derby.
Mary opened her catalog and flipped to the picture. It was number 233 by JA Whistler: Symphony in White, No. 3.
* * *
Quain jiggled the coins in his pocket and considered. Instead of a cab, he’d save a few bob and take an omnibus to Scotland Yard.
The day was cold but sunny, so he settled into a bench at the top of the ’bus.
Whistler? Painting smutty pictures for a few quid? When he laughed, a gentleman in the seat opposite gave him a curious look and angled his shoulders away.
Tennant had asked him to go through Allingham’s folders, and he’d spotted a match in the East Room.
The exhibition’s version of Whistler’s Symphony showed two girls dressed in white.
One lounged on a creamy sofa; the other sat on the floor, reaching for a fan.
But in Allingham’s copy, the two girls were naked.
The girl on the carpet stretched to grasp a paddle.
Her other hand rested on the thigh of a copper-haired beauty sprawled across the couch, gazing open-legged at the viewer.
The lounging model in the Allingham version was Margot Miller.
Inspector Tennant had hoped Quain would recognize the hand of other artists in the collection.
But many of the works were paintings like his Delacroix imitation: erotic images executed in the style of the great masters.
Some were dark and disturbing. In the original Rape of the Sabine Women, the Roman soldiers carried their “prizes” away to a fate Rubens hadn’t painted.
In Allingham’s version, someone had rendered the acts of sexual assault in brutal detail.
Any competent artist could have viewed those old masters in galleries or books and copied them. But Whistler’s painting was new. Whoever painted Allingham’s version must have spent hours studying the original and recently.
Quain flipped to the back of his exposition catalog and found the alphabetic list of artists and their addresses. Tennant will have to sort it out.
The inspector had asked for names. I’ll give him a famous one and get him off my back.
* * *
An hour after his interview with William Quain, Inspector Tennant hailed a cab and headed to Chelsea. The driver slowed as he passed Battersea Bridge and stopped at number two Lindsey Row.
Whistler occupied one of four residences carved out of a three-story stone house that faced the river.
The afternoon sunlight glittered and caught the white sail of a small boat as it slipped between Battersea’s curving piers.
The tide flowed out, exposing an expanse of the strand where bootless mud larks braved the cold, wading in search of river treasure.
Whistler needn’t roam far for a picturesque subject, Tennant thought. He could set up his easel twenty yards from his door.
The inspector wasn’t surprised when his knock went unanswered.
Number two Lindsey Row had the shades-drawn look of a house whose resident was absent.
A white-haired lady with a yappy terrier said the artist was in Paris.
Tennant scribbled a note on his card and slipped it into the brass letter slot, hoping Whistler planned to return in time for the exhibition’s opening on Saturday.
Tennant would be there, heading up the plainclothes police presence.
Given the recent attacks on art studios and galleries, Sir Francis Grant had asked for the Yard’s protection on opening day.
Tennant had proposed stationing twenty of the tallest bobbies they could muster.
He had argued that their helmets, visible above the crowds, would be a deterrent.
But the RA president refused to dampen the day’s festive spirit by filling the National Gallery with uniformed coppers.
The inspector doubted anything untoward would happen. O’Malley had warned off Josiah and Micah Miller, and Tennant planned to post two coppers at the entrance should they appear. Still, it wouldn’t be a wasted day.
Tennant had sent tickets to Julia and Dr. Lewis as a thank-you for their dinner invitation.