“If my friend in Paris is correct,heshares the life. You do the labor.” Mary waved in dismissal. “He’s amusing company, that is all.”
“Aha,” Laura said. “Sharing laughter. You’re well on your way.”
“Quite a few painting couples have made it work,” Helen said. “Henrietta and Edward Ward. Joanna and Henry Wells. You’re a professional woman, Doctor Lewis. What do you say?”
Julia smiled, shaking her head. “I say it sounds like the conversations I have with my great-aunt all the time. But shared work might increase the chance for success.”
Mary waggled her teaspoon. “I’m remembering. You are a medical examiner for Scotland Yard . . . and the policeman you work with, Inspector Tennant.Veryattractive, andnotin a rakish sort of way.”
Julia laughed. “Nowyousound conspiratorial—in league with my Aunt Caroline.”
It was getting late. Cups were set aside, wraps and hats gathered, and coachmen signaled. Julia hung back at the front door and handed Mary a card.
“For Mrs. Allingham. It’s the address of my clinic in Whitechapel. I assume Doctor Scott is still treating her, but if she ever wishes to make a change, please tell her I would be happy to see her.”
“Thank you, Julia. I hope she will. About Inspector Tennant. . . Forgive me. I only brought him up to divert the conversation from Will Quain.” Mary smiled impishly. “But there’sno denying it. The manishandsome. It’s no wonder he was one of Louisa’s old beaux.”
“No wonder.”
Mary took Julia’s arm and walked her to the front door. “About the case . . . is there anything new? The inspector seems focused on painters. I only wondered . . .”
“We mostly discuss the medical side of things. Still, I wouldn’t worry too much about the artists. The investigation is heading in many directions.” Julia offered her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid there isn’t more I can tell you.”
* * *
Mr. Ogilvie nosed the carriage into the Kensington Road traffic. Lost in thought, Julia noticed none of it.
They made good points,she thought. But the married women artists they mentioned combined domesticity with their profession. Julia guessed that many, like Mary, painted from studios in their homes.My case is different.She left the house every day for her clinic in Whitechapel.
Even if her private practice were to thrive,about as likely as my becoming head of the medical board,it wasn’t enough. Her important work happened at the clinic.What husband wants an absentee wife?What about children, what then? How would a doctor-mother balance their needs with her medical commitments?
Aunt Caroline often reminded her that life involved risk and reconsideration. After the dinner party with Mister Lloyd and his sister, her aunt had said, “My dear, that hymn might have been written for you.”
“I know you believe things are simple, Aunt. I’m not as certain.”
She’d kissed her niece’s cheek and climbed into her carriage. Before the coach rolled away, her aunt let down the window to have the last word. “You have many gifts, but itisa gift to be simple. Stop analyzing and listen to your heart.”
Heart, mind, and senses . . . and taking a chance.Julia closed her eyes in the rocking carriage. She pictured a summer morning at the pond, her grandfather in water up to his chest, arms outstretched, and her ten-year-old self hesitating. He’d said, “Jump, Julie,” and she’d vaulted from her perch. She recalled the rush of air, the weightlessness of the water, and her grandfather’s strong arms encircling her. Julia remembered the fear of that leap. She also recalled its thrill.
At ten, she had hurled herself into the void. Nearly twenty years later, she stood on another brink, hesitating.
* * *
Monday, the second week of April, opened at the Yard with two promising lines of inquiry.
Arnie Stackpole’s imminent release from prison offered them a potential trail. The seaman would finish his sentence in three days, and plans were in place to follow him.
Stackpole and Margot Miller were confederates in a criminal cabal linked to prostitution and pornography. At least, that was the inspector’s theory.And God knows what else,Tennant thought. Somehow, it had led to her murder. And he believed Rawlings, still in the wind, was deep in the scheme.
Chief Inspector Clark was less convinced of the linkages, and he’d made that clear in their meeting that morning. It had been weeks since Margot Miller’s murder and longer since the body of Franny Riley was found. Clark wanted arrests, not a Byzantine conspiracy. For Tennant, the connections held. He had murder victims linked to two criminal enterprises; either one could have led to Margot’s death.
More immediately, there were the pictures to explore. How had salacious versions of recently painted works ended up in Allingham’s collection?
While Clark grilled Tennant about the investigation’s lack of progress, O’Malley tracked down Simeon Solomon to question him aboutBacchus. The sergeant’s contented smile had spreadwhen he’d found the artist’s address at the back of the RA catalog.
“Gower Street, is it?” he’d said. “The station is on the underground line. I’ll get on at Farringdon and see what this Solomon fella has to say for himself.”
Have at it,the inspector had thought. A belching steam engine pulling a line of cars through a dark, buried tunnel? It was Tennant’s idea of hell. On any day, he’d take horses and the stench of dung over the reek of billowing smoke trapped inside a black hole. But O’Malley was an enthusiast, and in the four years since the underground opened, he’d ridden the subterranean railway countless times. For the sergeant, the experience was evergreen.
