“I thought I saw him exiting the premises a few minutes ago.”
“Mary—Miss Allingham—sent him along. Thoughtful of her, considering what those poor lasses must be suffering.”
He offered Tennant a seat and sat behind his desk. The inspector let a short silence stretch out. Allen was a twitchy sort, not from unease, Tennant guessed, but from boundless energy. He drummed his fingers against the desk, fiddled with his watchchain, and swiveled in his desk chair.
Not a patient man,Tennant thought.But willing to wait me out.
“I’ve spoken with Mister Eastlake,” the inspector said. “He tells me that you came to the rescue of a foundering firm. May I ask why?”
Allen shot Tennant an alert look. Then he hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and leaned back in his chair. “It suited me to play the white knight.”
“For practical reasons . . . or something else?”
“You’ve probably sized me up already, Inspector. I’m not what you’d call a clubbable bloke.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Too much of the North, aye man?” He shrugged. “I could barely pass muster—it was a close run even for the Topkapi Club.”
“You are a member as well?”
“Thanks to Charles Allingham. Charlie was a gent. Not a snob about things, you understand, but summat old school and all. You know the drill.” He pointed a stubby finger at Tennant’s red-and-blue regimental necktie. “Grenadier Guards?”
“Yes.”
“Officer?”
“Captain.”
“Thought as much. The right schools, an elite regiment, they open doors.”
“There’s no denying it.”
“Well, Charlie provided the class, and I . . .” Allen dug his fist into a trouser pocket, pulled out a shilling, and flipped it. “I supplied the brass. And in a world where men play dirty? An ambitious bloke gets down in the muck. But that wasn’t for Charlie.”
“A tidy arrangement.”
Allen cocked his thumb at the window behind him. “An old family firm with a proper address on the row? Neighbors with Longmans, Whittakers, and the like? That’s worth more than pounds sterling. We moved into the fine art market, and you’d be surprised at the profit margin in art books, catalogs, and prints.”
“I probably would.”
Allen grinned. “You’d be a proper doyle to lose money at it. Charlie had the connections. All he needed was the brass.” He rocked in his chair, his chest swelling. “We’ve never looked back.”
“Given the firm’s health, Mister Allingham’s suicide seems unconnected to business reversals.”
Allen flicked a dismissal. “The company is Bank-of-England sound. Charlie’s death had naught to do with the firm.”
“Then your dinner with him last night was . . . what? Simply routine?”
Allen hitched his shoulders uneasily. “We had a difference of opinion to iron out, I’ll not deny it. Sometimes Charlie has . . .” He swallowed. “He had a rubbish idea for a book. About some new French painters that no one’s heard of. Old Charlie could be a stubborn bastard at odd times.”
“How did you end it?”
“Charlie sort of . . . threw in the towel, sudden-like. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘have it your own way.’ Heard him say that a hundred times when he’d grown tired or bored with something. Like the air went out of the balloon.”
“And you played out your disagreement in front of Doctor Scott?”
“All over by the time the old bugger showed up at the house. But Charlie wasn’t in the mood for chess. What of it?”
“Who left first?”
“We had a drink, made an early night of it, and left together. Charlie saw us to the front door, and we went our separate ways.”
