The Painted Lady-TPL Read online

  “Which might not have been discovered, had I not insisted upon a post-mortem,” she replied calmly.

  McLevy grunted acknowledgement of the point but then launched into what his constable recognised as one of their favourite ploys – keep the suspect out of kilter.

  “I did not like your husband.”

  For a moment her eyes flickered, but with what?

  “Might one ask why?”

  “He enjoyed too much the punishment he meted out,” was the flinty response. “One young girl had tried to steal the wallet of a fine gentleman who was otherwise engaged with her. Whoring.”

  This time Mistress Pearson did not blink.

  “In the witness box she cried to break your heart. She had done it to feed her family, it was her first offence, she begged for the court’s mercy. The judge smiled and sentenced her to fifteen years.”

  Mulholland put in an equalising aside. “We were the arresting officers, sir.”

  “But I had no delight in it. The judge smiled.”

  In the silence all three took stock. The officers saw a woman of singular beauty with a secretive quality, raven dark hair, near to violet deep blue eyes, alabaster skin. There was something both inviting and contained about her – a combination that might unsettle many a man.

  Behind her, the portrait, its purple gown glowing in the subdued colours of the drawing room, provided an odd disparity as if one was more alive than the other.

  She saw two equally contrasting creatures. The constable tall, somehow boyish, as if growing out of his clothes, the hair fair, the accent soft and Irish, the eyes light blue – an innocent face that might lull many a suspect into inadvertent confession.

  The inspector was another proposition. James McLevy, thief-taker, a chunky, menacing figure in his dark overcoat and low-brimmed bowler. The face white and broken, eyes boring into hers like a wolf sizing up its quarry. By no means a butterfly.

  Yet he was her last hope.

  “My husband was a cruel man,” she murmured, eyes moving to the mounted display on the wall. “I often thought that the great relish he found in the collecting of these beautiful creatures was in the fact that once caught, he might stifle their senses and then put them in the killing jar. To watch them die.”

  “Was he cruel to you?” asked McLevy.

  The watching Mulholland sensed an opening, but was it by accident or design?

  She hesitated a moment and then spoke candidly. “He consorted with . . . loose women. And made no secret of it. The Just Land – that was where he took his pleasure.”

  “What about your pleasures?”

  This time she did blink at McLevy’s challenging enquiry. “What do you mean?”

  “There are stories that you may have found solace elsewhere: a cruel husband and new love add up to a powerful motive.”

  Another thrust that met with a calm response. “That is a lie. The portrait you see there is by Jardine Boothroyd. He caught my likeness. That is all. There is nothing between us.”

  McLevy waited for further protestations of innocence but none came. Her face was like a shield and he felt a sudden surge of anger. A jerk of the head to his constable and the inspector turned abruptly to make for the door. “Well, if you’ll excuse us, Mistress Pearson, we are both busy men.”

  “It’s a very nice picture,” allowed Mulholland on the move. “The fellow has talent, no doubt.”

  For the first time her composure faltered and the cry almost wrenched from her. “Can you not help me?”

  McLevy’s hand was on the doorknob and for a moment he thought he heard the sound of retreating steps on the other side; the butler perhaps – she had written of being spied upon.

  “It’s not my case, and you’ve told me nothing,” he said turning the handle.

  “Wait!”

  His face was stony, disinterested, but he did stop while she struggled to find the words.

  “My husband took a stimulant to . . . increase his potency. He boasted of it to me.”

  She focused on Mulholland, who appeared at this moment a much more sympathetic listener. “Is arsenic not regarded as some sort of . . .?”

  “Aphrodisiac, ma’am?”

  Judith nodded chastely. “I found traces on his clothes. A white powder.”

  “It’s a long shot,” said McLevy, unimpressed.

  “His doctor can tell, surely? Alexander Galbraith in Palmerston Place. They were as thick as thieves.”

  “Doctors are bound by oath. Goodbye, Mistress Pearson.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  The undertone of dismayed anger in her voice brought him back into the fray. “The night your husband died you mixed him a potion. What was in it?”

  “Hot toddy. To help him sleep.”

  “He certainly slept, right enough,” was the sardonic response. “Were you lying beside him that fateful night?”

  “Our bedrooms are separate.”

  “That’s nice. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  She suddenly flung her arms out in an oddly dramatic gesture, as if an actor on stage. “I am innocent, I swear to heaven. I beg you, inspector.”

  “That wee girl begged your husband and got fifteen years. As I said. Not my case.”

  With that and a polite nod from Mulholland, they were out of the door.

  For a moment Judith fought the panic as her other impassive image looked down. In a strange way it brought the fear under control. No matter what McLevy had said, he had come. The question was . . . what would he do next?

  What the inspector in fact accomplished was to blow his nose vigorously outside in the street before addressing Mulholland. “Ye didnae say much.”

  “I was observing the scene.”

  “Whit did ye think?”

  “Hard to tell with beautiful women.”

  McLevy let out a whoop of laughter. “By God you’re right – hard tae tell whether she had it all prepared or it jist – spilled out like a gutted fish!”

  “I know one thing though,” Mulholland said gloomily. “You’ll have noted those types on the corner over there?”

  “I see them.”

  “Haymarket men. We are in deep trouble, sir.”

  McLevy nodded sagely. “You could be right and to that end, I propose that we part company. Myself to have a wee saunter round, and you to lawfully pursue the nostrum salesman.”

  Mulholland did not bother to argue. The inspector was up to something; it would be designed put the nose out of joint of one Adam Dunsmore, a pompous nyaff that McLevy detested, and he, the constable, was in enough vexation already.

  A shake of the head as he strode off. “No good will come of this, mark what I say.”

  “I hear those words, Mulholland, and they strike sparks from the anvil of caution!”

  Having called out this nonsense and for some reason feeling absurdly cheerful, McLevy waggled his fingers at the watching Haymarket men then slid round the corner to disappear into the crevices of his beloved city.

  Alec Nimmo was hoping to do a roaring afternoon trade. It was a fine summer’s day, he had set up his open suitcase on a quiet street corner down by Leith Harbour and in no time at all he had gathered a curious crowd, mostly females, as he extolled his wares. He was a personable fellow with an impish gleam in his eye, a ready tongue, a quick wit and an easy smile, born in fact to sell worthless commodities to the public at large.

  His tone was confidential, not strident, as he drew the audience in like bees to honey.

  “Ladies,” he murmured. “No one knows better than I the trials and tribulations you face. The children, God bless their wee souls, are not meant to suffer the pains of ague and gum rot. They cry and howl for you their mother to soothe their brows and ease their aching breasts. You stand alone – a damsel in distress!”

  Here, he mimed the part of a worried mother, which drew some laughter from the throng. Alec allowed a little humour, but sympathy was his keynote. His hands were raised up dramatically in the
air like a priest’s, for indeed the bulk of his audience would be of the Catholic faith and credulous to a fault.

  “But do not despair, there is a solution at hand and I have it here before me!”

  He held up a small bottle of reddish brown liquid as if it were indeed holy water.

  “McMunn’s Elixir,” he intoned. “Made up uniquely by the most skilled apothecaries to a special recipe. Two large spoonfuls and your groaning infant will slip into a harmonious healing slumber.”

  “I’ll give the wee bugger four!”

  This cry, in a coarse Irish accent from a hefty matron who had an equally hefty baby in her arms, provoked laughter, but Alec kept the exchange on course for the acme of his persuasion approached.

  “Two will be sufficient, believe me,” he answered smoothly. “No more, no less. Now the price for this elixir, this bringer of peace and happiness, is a remarkably considerate single sixpence.”

  “That’s not cheap!” called the same woman.

  Alec sighed and shook a weary head. “Very well, I am a fool to myself and soft-hearted to boot. I will reduce the price to five pence. Do I have any takers?”

  “I’ll take the entirety and yourself as well, my good man.”

  The voice that rang through the air was firm and commanding. Lieutenant Roach, since the station was sepulchral, had decided to stroll down by the harbour and, as luck, fate, or a roll of the dice ordained, had come upon the sought-after nostrum salesman.

  Roach was well aware that both his subordinates, especially McLevy, regarded him as a desk-bound drawback and the few times he had ventured out on the streets with them had met with varying success.

  Now was his chance. Arrest the man where he stands and when the inspector returned empty handed, there would be the miscreant in the cells.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Alec since the lieutenant was near hidden at the back of the crowd.

  “I am a policeman and you are breaking the law!”

  But as Roach shoved through the onlookers, Alec’s quick wits came into play.

  “Stand between us, ladies,” he cried manfully as he kicked the trestle together and slammed the suitcase shut to a clatter of bottles. “This man would deny your children the right to a peaceful existence!”

  The crowd closed ranks and as the lieutenant attempted to push through, a foot neatly tripped him to fall like a sack of coal on his hands and knees.

  Alec called back triumphantly as he left at a rate of knots. “We’ll meet again, ladies, there are many nooks and crannies in Leith and I know them all!”

  As Roach groaned, his knees having taken the brunt of the fall, the hefty woman looked down in contempt.

  “Fell over your own feet. Some kind of policeman you are.”

  Amid ribald laughter the lieutenant rose with as much dignity as could be mustered, and limped off in bootless pursuit of the vanished nostrum salesman.

  A final insult was offered from the female as he disappeared from view. “Ye’ve ripped your trousers, mister. I’ll mend them for ye free of charge. All ye have to do is strip them off your hurdies!”

  Her baby woke up at the racket and started howling, and the hefty woman shook her head in disgust. If it hadn’t been for that damned policeman, she’d have the wee brute pacified and be in clover.

  Jean Brash lay back on the sofa with one silken arm of azure blue draped along its length. She had decided against the pink finally for fear it might give her the appearance of mutton dressed as lamb. Pink was for the young, or perhaps a rose bush in spring. She was neither.

  It had been hard not to move and the process so far was a slight disappointment. Certainly being mastered as regards the deployment of her limbs had a certain frisson while she marvelled at the depth and stamina of the man’s purpose. Yet despite the quivering of muscles unused to such submission, so far there was a lack of excitement.

  She was aware of some part being infiltrated but the sensation escaped her at this juncture.

  Then, as if to compensate for this numbness of experience, the door flew open and a strange amorphous shape blundered into the studio. The lines arranged themselves into the entity known to her as James McLevy, his face showing rare confusion.

  “Damnation! The door stuck. I pushed. And here I am. It needs a good oiling. The hinges. That door.”

  This was addressed to the third body in the room but Jean answered anyway. “You could have tried knocking.”

  McLevy was further flustered. “Jean Brash – whit are you doing here?” Answer came there none so he had to work it out for himself. “A pose. You are posing!”

  Jardine Boothroyd, brush in hand, confirmed the deduction. “Mistress Brash has commissioned a portrait.”

  “Uhuh?” The inspector tried not to catch Jean’s mocking eyes as he walked across to cast his discerning gaze over the preliminary sketch plus a few colour shades that Boothroyd had so far mapped out. “The nose isnae sharp enough.”

  “What do you want here, McLevy?” Jean snapped; the man could nettle her no matter the surroundings.

  “A word with Mister Boothroyd. But I didnae know he had such fine company.”

  The artist made a smooth intervention before war broke out. “Perhaps we should stop, Mistress Brash. I would not wish to fatigue you.”

  Jean stood up and shrugged into her coat, aware suddenly that her carriage was due and she had a bawdy-hoose to run. “I rarely run out of puff, Mister Boothroyd. Tomorrow – same time?”

  “I shall be waiting.”

  “Don’t forget to oil the hinges. Goodbye, James, try to behave yourself.”

  “Whit d’you want a picture for anyway?” McLevy asked out of the blue.

  It was a good question. She had heard whispers from many sides that Jardine Boothroyd was a man of parts, her curiosity had been roused and, as Hannah had observed, she lacked diversion.

  “So that when I am old and wrinkled, I may look back and see what a beauty I was in my prime,” Jean answered ironically.

  “In your prime?”

  “That is what I have attained. In case you havenae noticed!” And with that the door slammed, leaving both men a little short of air.

  Finally McLevy got a decent look at the man who was handy wi’ a brush. Tall enough, broad enough, a handsome fleshy face with a slight hint of petulance. Weakness to the jaw? The brown eyes were steady though, penetrating under heavy brows, and the talent manifest in his portrait of Judith plus the sketch he had made of Jean.

  The inspector had experienced an abrasive, choleric and unsuccessful exchange with Galbraith, the judge’s doctor, and decided to take the plunge into art. Jean Brash was the last person he’d expected to find, but life is full of surprises. So here he was. With a lady’s man.

  “You wished to speak with me, inspector?”

  Instead of answering, McLevy, whistling absent-mindedly under his breath, and wandered round the room like some visitor to a gallery. The large space with a skylight window above was remarkably tidy – he noticed a single bed tucked away in the corner, no doubt where the painter slept over if possessed by artistic frenzy.

  Of course it might have other uses but that would entail an obvious question that would give rise to an equally obvious answer. Mind you, the inspector quite enjoyed playing the buffoon and to that end sniffed the air like a warthog before enquiring, “Whit is that odour I detect?”

  “Turpentine. For the cleaning of brushes.”

  “Is that poison?”

  “The taste would deter an imbiber.”

  “Pity.”

  However, while Boothroyd, who had a remarkably deep and pleasant voice, patronised McLevy from the other side of the room, the policeman had been sifting idly through a sheaf of drawings neatly arranged in cardboard folders – mostly head and shoulders of various society matrons and, it must be admitted, somewhat unattractive daughters. But then he found a preparatory study of Judith Pearson.

  Again this was a head and shoulders with the flowing li
ne of her bare neck given particular emphasis, but what was hidden in the finished portrait was manifest on paper.

  He turned abruptly, holding the sketch under his chin so that it faced out to Boothroyd who now had the benefit of being regarded by two visages, one admiring and one most certainly not.

  “Judith Pearson – how deep does it go?”

  Boothroyd was disconcerted by the unexpected question and the ferocity in McLevy’s eyes.

  “I beg your pardon –”

  “You heard me! How deep did you delve, my mannie, how deep does it go?”

  “A . . . commission. Nothing more.”

  The inspector paid little heed to this faltering response and tapped the sketch with a meaningful forefinger. “A kind regard in her eyes. Ye might even say desirous.”

  The painter had recovered himself somewhat and adopted a lofty tone. “I have heard the rumours concerning myself and Judith Pearson, they are untrue and unwarranted. There is nothing between us.”

  McLevy let out a roar of laughter to further rattle the composure of his target. “That’s what the wee widow announced. Exact same words.”

  “The simple truth!”

  A sly disbelieving look answered this vehement protestation and McLevy shook the stiff paper. “The picture tells another story, my mannie. Desirous!”

  “I cannot help it if women form attachments!”

  Boothroyd’s face jerked suddenly as if the truth had been ejaculated and McLevy intuited that perhaps, one way or another, should the man but know it, which he certainly did not, the painter might be exactly opposite to what he imagined of himself.

  Not a predator, a victim. A weakling. He needed women. Needed to see his image in their eyes. McLevy also noted a faint sheen of perspiration on the smooth skin above the upper lip – a symptom of unease perhaps, or something stronger? Guilt was never far away, especially where murder is concerned.

  “Attachments, eh?” he echoed, replacing the sketch. “So long as you don’t form them back?”

  “Precisely!”

  McLevy grinned like a wolf, nodded brusquely and left abruptly, without even a goodbye. Let him stew. But the inspector had a real case to pursue now and whistled cheerfully as he went down the narrow staircase.