“Thank you.” Julia got up and gave her grandfather a quick hug. “Mrs. Ogilvie, please tell Miss Allingham’s coachman that I’ll be down in five minutes.”
* * *
A day after the death, the trappings of death had wrapped Blenheim Lodge in gloom. Servants had lowered the shades and drawn the draperies, and the house presented a closed face to the world. Someone had covered the brass knocker in black crepe, and Julia’s rap sounded blunt and dead against the oak panel. A footman wearing a black armband opened the door.
“Miss Mary is upstairs, Doctor.”
The thick carpet muffled Julia’s footfalls as she crossed the silent hall. The servant’s murmured withdrawal, the click of a closing door, and a ticking grandfather’s clock were all she heard, sounds one would never notice in the ordinary bustle of a busy household.
“Doctor Lewis.” Mary stood on the landing.
She came down the staircase, her face a pale oval above thehigh neck of her black frock. She held a letter, a white rectangle against her dark dress.
“Thank you for coming, Doctor.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Yes. But this morning, I feel numb. And every so often, I flame with fury at Charles.” Mary blinked at her tears. “And now this anonymous letter. It looks very like the two sent to me.”
She handed Julia the envelope. Someone had addressed it to Mrs. Charles Allingham in printed capital letters at the Kensington address. She pulled out the note and read the message.HE WAS WARNED. TELL HIM THAT. IT’S HIGH TIME YOU KNEW. MEET ME AT THE MAZE WITH TWENTY QUID OR THE WORLD WILL HEAR ABOUT IT.
Julia looked up. “The maze?”
“I suppose he means the one here in Kensington, in the horticultural gardens. It’s a twenty-minute walk from our house.”
“The note says three o’clock on the sixteenth. That’s today.” Julia looked at the grandfather clock. “Five hours from now.”
Mary bit her lip. “I know.”
“You must go to the police.”
“Louisa . . . she’s vacillating, and I don’t want to go over her head. I thought, someone else. Someone whose opinion she respects. You might convince her to call them in.” Mary gripped Julia’s hand. “Please, will you come upstairs and speak to her?”
“Of course.” Julia shook it and smiled. “But whatever your sister-in-law feels, you must inform the police.”
“Yes. I understand.”
Julia followed Mary up the stairs to a silent hallway. She knocked on the door to Louisa’s bedroom and opened it.
“Lou?”
Julia followed Mary into a dimly lit chamber with drawn curtains. They found Louisa asleep in a chair she’d pulled closeto the fireplace. Someone sensitive to mourning traditions had covered the mirror over her dressing table with a dark cloth.
While Mary bent over Louisa, Julia looked around. A revolving barrel-shaped table held poetry collections: Shakespeare’s sonnets and the works of Milton, Donne, and Wordsworth. Louisa had novels in French by Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Gustave Flaubert. She had set aside a medical journal she’d been reading: an early February edition ofThe Lancet.
Portraits flanked the fireplace with Charles Allingham’s picture on the right and an elderly gentleman on the left.Louisa’s father, Julia thought. He wore a black frock coat, heavy watch chain, and snowy cravat, a uniform typical of prosperous doctors of his generation. He sat in a deeply carved mahogany chair with his left hand gripping the end of the armrest. In his right fist, he held an old-fashioned stethoscope at his breast like a scepter of high office. The top of a two-tiered table to the side of his portrait displayed a brass watch stand and gold-cased timepiece. The lower shelf held a well-worn, black medical bag.
A daughter’s shrine, Julia thought.
“Louisa,” Mary touched her sister-in-law’s arm. “Doctor Lewis is here to see you.”
Mrs. Allingham stirred and opened her eyes. She raised her black-gloved hand and pushed aside strands of her auburn hair. While Mary’s mourning dress had drained her complexion, Louisa’s high color and bright hair shone vividly against her widow’s black. Julia noted the pinpoint pupils and thought,Laudanum.It was a powerful opiate prescribed too often by well-meaning doctors.
Louisa nodded at Julia’s words of condolence. Then she turned away and fixed her gaze on the fire, her index finger worrying the oval mourning brooch pinned to her gown. Round and round, she traced its outer edge, a ring of black onyx stones. The firelight caught a lock of white hair under the glass in its center.
“Mrs. Allingham, this letter Mary showed me. Asking you for money is—”
Louisa roused herself suddenly, leaning forward, eyes glittering. “He must pay!” Then she fell back in her seat. “The rigid satisfaction . . .”
