“In due time, Miss Forsythe. In due time.” He pressed a finger against his lips much like someone quieting a child.
“I’ve been working on a particular subject that may interest you,” he added. “I’ve taken several photographs.” He stood then and took hold of my arm. “Let me show you some of my latest work.”
His hand tightened slightly as I stood. “And do bring along your photographs.”
…Said the spider to the fly?
I hesitated. Still if he could identify the photographer… I freed my arm.
“Of course.” I replied, pushing back that uneasy feeling I had experienced at the office when he first met with us.
“It is at the back of the house. I will let my sister know, should a client arrive.”
I followed him, at a distance, through the house down a hallway to a door under the stairs in spite of that feeling, aware of the way his sister stared after us as he spoke with her.
The knife Munro had given me some time ago when I first set off on my adventures was comforting in the pocket of my skirt.
My first impression when he opened the door was that smell resembled rotten eggs that I heard about.
My next impression was of the surrounding darkness with a single electric light over several pieces of paper that had been hung along a wire over two long basins on the counter below.
“My sister complains that it smells dreadful and insists that I keep the door closed.” Talbot reached around and closed the door behind me.
“These are my latest endeavor, taken a short while ago down at the docks,” he explained, quite proudly I thought as he took down one photo and pinned it to a board.
“Such an opportunity to capture life… and death.”
The light was faint from that single overhead lamp, but it was easy to see the subject— several men gathered about, no doubt from one of the ships with various expressions that were amazingly clear.
“Taken with the glass plate camera as I was out and about. I was able to quickly set it up and take these.”
In the next photograph the men had stepped apart, two of them looking back over their shoulders at the camera, and in the third…
“This should be of particular interest to you, Miss Forsythe.”
He reached across in front of me, the back of his shoulder brushing mine as he retrieved a third photograph.
I stared at the picture. The men in the previous photograph had stepped aside to give him the view of the man who lay at their feet.
The details were excruciating. The man was young, perhaps no more than twenty, and had obviously been pulled from the river by the pool of water that surrounded him. His eyes were wide open, the upper part of his head mangled as well as one arm, his clothes shredded. The horror of it reminded me of that first case when I had first gone to Brodie to assist in finding my sister.
“He had fallen overboard in a scuffle with one of the other men, unfortunate fellow, and drowned before they could reach him. And then, it seemed that he was crushed against the pilings on the dock.” Talbot explained matter-of-factly, as if discussing a bird or some other poor creature. Certainly not a human being.
His hand closed over my shoulder. “Are you quite all right, Miss Forsythe?”
My fingers closed around the handle of the knife in my pocket.
“I thought to show you this, as an example of my own work, which you can clearly see, the way the light is angled at each shot for a specific effect.
“I always try to show the victim in the perfect way so that anyone looking at the photograph will feel a certain emotion.”
“I understand,” I managed to reply, battling twin emotions of anger and revulsion. “And the photographs I showed you?”
I turned, his features stark from that single light— a particular effect perhaps?
“You are most persistent, Miss Forsythe...” he smiled.
“The photographs are quite excellent, don’t you think? And the emotion is there. There is after all emotion even in death, wouldn’t you say, Miss Forsythe.”
