“She’s steadfast in her confidence in Doctor Scott, but she’s not herself these days, and no wonder.” Mary sighed. “First Charles and now Margot Miller. You heard about her death?”
Julia nodded. “I performed the postmortem and will give evidence tomorrow at the coroner’s inquest.”
“Two deaths,” Mary said. “I hadn’t thought about the child until I saw your nurse with a mother and her baby.”
“Margot’s pregnancy was known, generally?”
“Oh, yes. I’d wondered how she would manage with no father coming forward.”
“Had she continued to work as an artist’s model?”
Mary nodded. “Most recently for Laura Herford. Just the finishing touches for her Royal Academy submission, so Laura was able to . . . paint around the problem.”
“I’d wondered . . . had she posed for male artists in addition to the women painters in your circle?”
Mary’s restless fingers went still. “Yes. For Rossetti and . . . and others.”
Julia nodded. “The police will look closely at them.”
“I . . . I imagine so.” Mary’s gaze dropped to her tightly knitted fingers. She stirred in her seat. “Well, I’ve kept you long enough, Doctor.”
Julia said, “Stay a moment while I fetch that bottle of bromide.” Julia wondered about her sudden change in mood.Something about the artists.When Julia returned from the medicine storeroom, she found Annie O’Neill waiting in the hallway.
Julia smiled and asked, “Are you here to have those stitches out?”
“Annie?” Mary crossed the corridor and gripped the girl’shands. “Dear Annie, this terrible news about Margot. I’m so sorry. I know she was your friend.”
The girl flinched. “Thank you, miss,” she whispered. “And . . . and you, grieving as well. For your brother. ’Tis sorry I am that he passed.” She glanced at the door.
To Julia, Annie looked like a creature caught in a trap. But Mary seemed not to notice and asked questions that Annie answered with nods.
When Mary finally stopped for breath, Annie looked at Julia. “I can’t be staying to have those stitches out after all. Can I come back another day?”
“Of course, Annie.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Good day, Miss Allingham.”
Mary watched the front door swing behind Annie. “Poor girl.”
Julia handed her a brown, corked bottle. “The directions are on the label.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Mary stashed it inside the pocket of her muff. “I know your week is busy, but would you join us for tea some Sunday?”
“I’d like that.”
“Oh” Mary said, biting her lip. “I should have offered to drive Annie home. Let me try to catch her up. Goodbye, Doctor.” She hurried out the door.
Catch Annie up, indeed,Julia thought. Something ailed the girl, but what?
* * *
The cabbie dropped Inspector Tennant and Sergeant O’Malley in front of a bookshop at Oxford and Dean Streets in Soho.
A half century earlier, private houses in the once-residential neighborhood had given way to commercial properties. Tennant and O’Malley looked for Quain’s address, passing furniture makers, drapers, and cobblers along the way. Finally, they spotted it, a three-story brick house whose portico sorelyneeded whitewash. Interior doors in a dim vestibule divided the bottom floor into two flats. Quain’s rooms were on the right.
O’Malley lifted a gloved fist the size of a coconut and rapped on the door. It creaked open.
“Be gone,” someone shouted, “unless you’ve got a bottle of Kilbeggan’s on you.”
