“’Tis late in the day. We’re like as not to miss him at the office.”
Tennant nodded. The gas lamps atop the Reform Club’s balustrade glowed dimly in the dusk. “You head home, Paddy. I’ll take a cab to Blenheim Lodge and catch him before he sits down to dinner.”
But the footman informed Tennant that Mr. Allingham was dining out. As for the “ladies of the house,” Mrs. Allingham was resting, and “Miss Mary” had not yet returned from the gallery.
“Where is Mister Allingham dining?”
“The Reform Club, I believe, sir.”
“No, he’s not. I just came from there,” Tennant said. “I want to speak to his coachman.”
But the driver couldn’t help him. Allingham had walked to Kensington Road to pick up a cab.The man could be anywhere in London,Tennant thought. He scribbled a brief note on the back of his card asking Allingham to delay his departure for the office in the morning. The inspector had a few questions.
“Please deliver this to Mister Allingham when he returns this evening.”
The inspector thought,No need to worry the man’s wife or sister. At least, not yet.
* * *
The following morning, Tennant and O’Malley arrived by cab at Blenheim Lodge just as a police wagon exited the drive. A pair of constables stood at the front door.
“Bloke topped himself,” one young copper told O’Malley.
Tennant spun around after paying the cabbie. “Who are you talking about?”
“The master of the house. Charles Allingham.”
“Mother of God,” O’Malley muttered, shaken. “You’re sure of that?”
The constable jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Sergeant Armstrong is upstairs now, sorting it.”
“Wait,” Tennant shouted at the cabbie driving away. “Paddy, hand me your notebook.” He scribbled, tore out a page, and gave one of the constables the message and a half crown. “I’ll clear it with your sergeant. Take the cab and deliver this to Doctor Julia Lewis—JuliaLewis, mind you. Her address is on the note.”
“Hell and damnation,” Tennant said through clenched teeth as they mounted the staircase. “I should have tracked him down last night.”
“Neither of us could guess at this.” O’Malley crossed himself. “The man was in the wind and could have been anywhere.”
“I should have parked myself in Allingham’s foyer and waited.”
Tennant and O’Malley found the Kensington sergeant in Allingham’s upstairs study. The wiry, sandy-haired Armstrong listened gray-faced as the inspector told him he’d commandeered one of the sergeant’s men. Tennant knew from experience that sorting the aftermath of a suicide was a grim business.
“I know the Yard had an interest in Allingham. Found your card in the man’s pocket. What’s it about, sir?”
“We’re tracing persons who knew a murder victim,” Tennant said.
“Was Allingham a suspect?”
“A possible witness. What is the cause of death?”
“Looks like suicide,” Armstrong said. “Arsenic poisoning, most like. We found him sprawled face down here.” He walked over to a door. “It opens into his dressing room.”
Charles Allingham had died in his well-appointed gentleman’s study, stretched across a burgundy-and-gold Turkish carpet. The police had removed the body, but evidence of the tragedy remained. A whiskey decanter, its contents tinted an odd color, sat on the mahogany desk. An overturned glass had spilled a few ounces onto a blotter, staining some papers green. Beside it, an envelope held the remains of an emerald powder; some of it had spilled across the desk.
Armstrong said, “He mixed it into his whiskey decanter and drank it off, poor blighter. When we turned him over, we found green stains on his lips, chin, and shirt front.”
“Who pronounced him dead?”
“Doctor Scott, the family physician. He said a block of that green powder could kill off half of Kensington High Street. Artists use it to mix paint.”
