“The note’s wording indicates that he sent it before your brother’s death. Perhaps the news reached him.”
“And frightened him off, you mean?”
“It’s possible. Blackmail coupled with a charge of manslaughter raises the stakes considerably.”
“Blackmail. Inspector, do you have any idea what . . .”
Tennant hesitated and hoped she hadn’t noticed. “Absent the letter, we can’t be certain. Whoever he is, he may have calculated that the risk of coming forward was too great.”
Mary dropped into a chair. “Then he may retreat into the shadows and never show his face.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Allingham.”
Mary leaned her right elbow on the armrest and rubbed her temple. “I don’t understand any of it.” She looked up. “Did you speak to Mister Allen?WasCharles worried about the business?”
“Your brother’s partner and Mister Eastlake say the firm is sound.”
“Then, I’m at a loss. Charles . . . a suicide. I cannot fathom it.”
* * *
The following morning, Tennant showed O’Malley the note sent to Mrs. Allingham.
“The writing is consistent with the scrap from Allingham’s office. What do you make of it, Paddy?”
“Things not adding up . . . when one-plus-one isn’t making two. All this writing to the artists. What’s the motive in it? Are we thinking it’s malice or money?”
“As far as we know, Mrs. Allingham’s is the only letter that quotes a figure.”
“And the others are a mix of truth and lies,” O’Malley said. “Take Madame Bodichon, for instance. Him calling her a bastard. Yes, she was born on the wrong side of the blanket, but she doesn’t give a toss who’s the wiser for it.”
“No possibility for profit there.”
“Margot Miller is up the pole, and who knows the father’s name. But a prostitute? And there’s Miss Allingham.”
“The affair with her aged Paris art teacher seems wholly fictitious,” Tennant said. “And Annie O’Neill’s letter threatened to tell her employer she modeled without clothing.”
“A lie, poor lass. Just what she’s refusing to do.”
“And why blackmail a poor hatmaker? Any profit from the threat seems limited.”
“A few bob at most,” O’Malley said. “What did you make of the two other lady artists that Madame Bodichon put us on to?”
“One found the charge of an affair with her female model amusing. ‘I’m a happily married woman with four children and a painting career,’ she told me. ‘I have neither the time nor the energy for a liaison with anyone.’”
O’Malley grinned. “Has the ring of truth to it, that does. And the other one?”
“She refused to name the threat, but the lady assured me the letter contained no suggestion of blackmail.”
“Burned, like the rest of them?”
“Yes, damn it. If the letters don’t make sense, are they a blind for something else?”
Tennant spun his chair and walked to the window. Cold air from a frigid blast leaked under the warped frame. A white blanket had dropped in the night, and a section of snow slid from the roof and fell with a whoosh past his window. Below in the street, churning carts and soot from countless coal fires had turned the snow the color of wet ash.
Tennant pulled down the shade. “I’ll send a constable around to show Franny’s sketch to all the women artists. Miss Allingham said she didn’t know her, but someone else might recognize her.”
“Maybe Margot Miller knew the lass. Let’s show it to her. They both turned up in Allingham’s naughty paintings.”
