“I’ll just ring the bell, shall I?” Mr. Petrie said. “And be back in a jiffy.”
Mary nodded. “I’ll catch up with you.”
“Very good, Miss Allingham.”
She turned to Will and smiled. “It’s been quite a day.”
“Shall I come in?”
Mary shook her head. “It’s best that I speak to Louisa alone.”
“Very well.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
Mary caught up with the little man at the front portico. Will watched them chat while they waited for the footman, with Petrie doing most of the talking. Then Mary took the box as the door swung open. The furrier touched his hat, hurried to the cab, and climbed in.
“That’s a job well done,” he said. “It pays to go the extra mile for a good customer, I always say.”
Mr. Petrie prattled away. Will, frowning and hardly listening, thought,It can’t be . . . it’s too fantastic.
By the time they’d reached Knightsbridge Road, Petrie had concluded his disquisition on retail’s problems and moved on to the challenges of cleaning fur.
“Blood is the worst, Mister Quain, as I just explained to Miss Allingham. Still, her sister-in-law was lucky. The stains markedthe inside of the pelt but didn’t damage the sable. We didn’t realize the blotches were blood until we sponged the inside, and it came away pink.” He lowered his voice. “The muff was a Christmas present from her late husband, and thus quite—”
“What’s that, Mister Petrie? You returned a bloodstained muff to Mrs. Allingham?”
“Why, yes. She asked us to replace the lining as she’d torn it badly.” He tut-tutted. “I don’t know why Mrs. Allingham removed it herself. We would have done that for her. The lady must have had a sizable gash on her hand to produce those bloodstains.”
Will’s mind raced. When Mary had asked who would want to kill Charles and Margot Miller, it had flashed into his mind.The wronged wife.
Will pounded on the carriage roof until the coachman pulled up.
“I must let you out here, Mister Petrie. I’m sorry.” The startled little man gaped from the curb as Will shouted to the driver, “Take me back to Blenheim Lodge. Quick as you can!”
* * *
“Read this.” Julia opened Dr. Scott’s casebook on Inspector Tennant’s desk and pointed to an entry from March 14.
Sergeant O’Malley leaned over and read.Louisa Allingham was here about her headaches and rashes. Gave her laudanum for her pain and a tube of mercury salve (unlabeled, of course) for her skin. The dear girl made a gift of a bottle of Royal Lochnagar, knowing it to be a favorite of mine and her late father’s.
“Louisa Allingham? You’re saying Louisa Allingham poisoned Doctor Scott’s whiskey before giving him the bottle as a gift?”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Tennant said from the door. “Julia, will you accompany us to Kensington? I have a hackney waiting downstairs. I’ll explain in the cab.”
Julia grabbed her medical bag and the casebook and followed Tennant and O’Malley down the stairs and out the door. Tennant gave the cabbie the Allinghams’ address.
“I spoke to her jeweler this morning,” the inspector said as they drove off. “Louisa lied. She wasn’t at his shop on the day Margot Miller was murdered. He hasn’t seen her in over a year. Then I made the rounds of all the chemists along Kensington and Knightsbridge roads. Finally, I found the one where she’d signed the poisons register as Mrs. Alice Upton. Her middle and maiden names.”
O’Malley said, “Signed for strychnine?”
“No. For arsenic, a week before Charles’s death.”
“Then . . . you’re saying Louisa Allingham killed them all?”
“Yes, Paddy.”
“I understand she’d be wanting her husband and his mistress dead, but why kill the doctor?”
“It’s all there in the entry,” Julia said, tapping the casebook. “Headaches and rashes and the reference to mercury. Louisa had syphilis. And I think she only recognized the truth lately and realized Doctor Scott had kept the knowledge from her for years. The doctor had been treating Charles Allingham for his late-stage disease.”
