The club secretary opened the door at the corridor’s end. “After you, Inspector,” Stewart said. “Please take a seat.” The secretary sat behind his desk, blinking rapidly. “Now, how can I help you?”
Tennant settled in and smiled. “I won’t take up too much of your time. The Yard is investigating a case that involves art . . .well, forgery, for lack of a better word. And I’m afraid we’ve uncovered a range of other crimes.”
“Heavens.”
“Do many club members have connections to China?”
“China? Odd question.” Stewart cleared his throat. “Well . . .”
“I’ve spoken with one of them, Doctor Preston Scott. I know of two others who collect art from the East. Indeed, they have all lent items to the exhibit at the South Kensington Museum.”
“Yes. Mister Bruce, our chairman, and Colonel Cedric Hamilton. I organized the handing off.”
“Directly to the museum?”
“To a publishing house for the museum catalog.”
“Allingham and Allen?”
“That is correct, but . . . is there some question? Do you doubt their authenticity?”
“Not precisely. I know Doctor Scott served in the First China War. What about the others?”
The secretary shrugged. “I can’t fathom the relevance, but I believe Colonel Hamilton fought in the Second.”
“And Mister Bruce?
The secretary’s pale, pink-rimmed eyes flickered. “He was the late Lord Elgin’s great-nephew.”
“And the late Lord Elgin was—”
“Appointed by Her Majesty’s government as High Commissioner for China. Mister Bruce traveled there and served as his secretary.”
“What is Mister Bruce’s London address?”
“Here, actually. The chairman of the club has a suite of rooms.”
“Tell me, is the artist John Frederick Lewis a member here?”
“No, but . . .” He narrowed his eyes as if straining to remember. “He made some sketches for a painting in our rotunda. Seven or eight years ago if memory serves.”
“This one—A Slave in the Harem?”Tennant held up Griffiths’s version.
Stewart’s eyes widened, and he pointed a wavering finger. “That’s not the painting the artist showed us. Lewis painted his wife fully clothed, not . . . not that naked creature. Mrs. Lewis was here when the artist displayed the finished picture in our hall.”
“How puzzling. Would it also surprise you that the model who posed for this picture said it looked like the Topkapi?”
He blinked. “The Topkapi? Why I—”
“Are women—other than kitchen and cleaning staff—allowed in the club?”
He hitched his shoulders. “Certainly not. She . . . this woman . . . a model, you say? Perhaps she saw illustrations of the TopkapiPalace. In Constantinople. At the artist’s studio.”
“That’s where the sultan housed his harem of sex slaves. And yet the background of this picture—the russet carpet, the arch, the tiles, the decorative bench—they’re not in a Turkish palace. They’re in your rotunda. That’s the scene she recognized.”
Stewart’s hand shook as he poured water from a carafe and drank. Then his shoulders relaxed. He looked up with a rictus of a smile.
“This female must have worked on the cleaning staff. It’s the only possible explanation.”
