The Painted Lady-TPL

by David Ashton

  One of Robert Burns’s less well-known airs: “My wife's a wanton wee thing, She winna be guided by me.”

  McLevy was still breezy as he walked into Lieutenant Roach’s office to find Adam Dunsmore waiting like a bad smell while, surveyed by the icon of Queen Victoria, Roach was grimness personified at his desk.

  “You’ve been busy, inspector. In the Haymarket.”

  “A few wee visits,” came a blithe response.

  “One of them to the Pearson house,” Dunsmore declared. “My men saw you.”

  “As I saw them.”

  “And the other visit,” Roach interposed, lips pursed, “was to a certain Doctor Alexander Galbraith who has written a formal note of complaint, which Inspector Dunsmore has been kind enough to deliver by hand.”

  “A good deed never goes wrong.”

  The lieutenant ploughed on, trying to contain a mounting irritation. “The doctor states that you barged into his consulting rooms and tried to prise out confidential medical matters.”

  “Stimulants,” McLevy clarified. “I wanted to know if Judge Pearson had been prescribed such. Arsenic, for instance.”

  “You’re havering, man. Typical Leith!”

  Dunsmore’s interjection caused Roach to purse his lips further for a different reason – he was proud of his station and no one bar himself insulted his officers.

  “And who told you of these . . . stimulants, inspector?”

  “The wife. After she wrote tae me.”

  “A love letter, was it?” sniped the Haymarket man.

  McLevy’s face betrayed nothing of the anger that was building. For two pins he’d smack the wee nyaff in the chops and have done with it. But he kept steady, remembering that he was dealing with a lower species.

  “She merely affirmed that she had no faith in the investigation and felt it was prejudiced against her.”

  Dunsmore went puce. “You’ve got a damned cheek!”

  “You go to hell, Dunsmore.”

  Before blood might spatter the picture of his Queen, Roach took command. “That’s quite enough, gentlemen!”

  He rose from his desk like Moses on the mountain. “Inspector Dunsmore, you may accept my assurance that your investigation can proceed without further intrusion and that the matter will be dealt with here – severely.”

  Dunsmore nodded pompous acceptance of the offer but before leaving, strived for the last word. “And McLevy, as for your precious Mistress Pearson, I have evidence that will show the dirty linen underneath. Dirty linen!”

  Out he went and Roach surprised his subordinate with a quiet remark. “I don’t know if I much care for Mister Dunsmore.” Then just in case McLevy took that as a signal for further action, he added swiftly. “However, I want your solemn promise to interfere no more in this matter, otherwise I shall haul both you and Mulholland up before the chief constable for an official action of censure!”

  “I promise not to set foot in Haymarket until I have your permission, sir.”

  That came out a bit too pat for the lieutenant’s liking, but he nodded warily.

  “Where is the constable anyway?” asked McLevy to alter tack before Roach became overly suspicious.

  “He has been already reprimanded and I have sent him to my home to pick up a spare pair of trousers – it’s the least he can do.”

  “I noticed the rupture in your cloth. Was it a dog?” enquired McLevy chummily. “I don’t like dogs.”

  This brought to the lieutenant unwelcome memories of his recent debacle. “No, it was not a dog. Now quit my sight and for God’s sake try not to get into any more mischief!”

  With the look of an angel of virtue that sat most strangely upon his countenance, McLevy slid out of sight.

  Minnie Holmes, despite her profession, was a curiously innocent soul. In fact her apparent lack of guile attracted the older clients who could then indulge in patriarchal lechery of Biblical proportions. She had a small dainty face, a frame to match, and, in the main, seemed to find the world a puzzling proposition.

  At this moment it was more fearful than puzzling as she sat between Jean Brash and McLevy in the kitchen of the Just Land. This was usually Hannah Semple’s domain where the old woman rustled up provender for the magpies on the principle that the girls needed sustenance for their activities in much the same fashion as an army marches on its stomach.

  Jean had been informed of a tapping at the back garden door and opened it to find the inspector looming like a hungry beast in the dark night. No mention had been made of the recuperated boxer; McLevy had merely remarked that he was on a case and needed information as regards the chosen magpie of Judge Pearson.

  She had been tempted to inform him in turn that he might crawl into the nearest dung heap, but by chance Hannah had just made a brew of coffee and the aroma not only gave rise to a wistful look on the scrounger’s face but brought out her better side.

  Besides she missed him like a sheep misses a tick.

  The Just Land was busy with the General Assembly being in Edinburgh; however, Hannah was sent to fetch Minnie and now here they all were. Gathered to worship.

  McLevy came straight to the point, though he was not too comfortable with the subject matter. “Now, Minnie . . . you were Judge Pearson’s preferred company, were you not?”

  “He appreciated my beauty,” said Minnie.

  Jean hid a smile. This could be fun.

  McLevy slurped the fragrant coffee for succour. “Was the judge a . . . vigorous man?”

  “No’ too bad. For his age. I had twa gae-ups for one gae-doon but that’s quite usual.”

  Jean laughed aloud this time and the inspector’s face began to show pink at the edges. “To that end did he avail himself as it were . . . of artificial stimulation?”

  “No. Not at all,” Minnie replied promptly, then catching the narrowing of eyes from a mistress who knew the magpies inside out. “Well – nearly not.”

  “Tell me a wee thing,” McLevy said, with what he hoped was a benign expression.

  “There was a white powder he took. Tried tae get me to, but I wouldnae.”

  “Why didn’t you inform me of this, Minnie?” Jean exclaimed angrily.

  “He said it was doctor’s orders,” was the plaintive response. “It perked him up no end.”

  Silence followed. McLevy had nothing more to say but there was a predatory gleam in his eye.

  “You may go now, Minnie,” said Jean, “and the next time some man lays out white powder, you let me know.”

  At the door Minnie stopped and a wistful look came over her face. “We used to do a game, the judge and me. I would be a butterfly. He would chase. And pin me down.”

  With that she exited. A silence ensued.

  “The powder might well have been arsenic,” McLevy remarked finally. “The judge was apparently murdered by such.”

  “Ye think he took too much, maybe?”

  “I don’t know. But a woman stands accused.”

  “His pretty wee wife?” Jean teased, with more than a little needle in her tone. “Are you her knight in shining armour, James?”

  He responded in kind. “Your friend Mister Boothroyd may well be involved in all this. Watch yourself.”

  She too had heard the rumours and it had piqued her interest to the extent that Jean had decided to indulge her curiosity. A diversion of desire.

  “Ye better get going,” she announced, refusing McLevy the satisfaction of a response. “As I said, we have the General Assembly. Busy as hell.”

  A sudden shaft of humour lit up the lupine eyes. “Whit happens if I meet one of the clergy?”

  “Tell him you’re the devil in disguise.”

  For a moment they looked at each other. Jean and McLevy had been in many scrapes together and it was a mystery to one and all what held the two of them in bondage. But bonded they were, and the secret they shared was one that no other person would ever penetrate, no matter how much acrimony danced at times in their hearts.

  �
��I thank you, Jean Brash,” he said. “For the coffee.”

  “Good night, James McLevy,” was her answer.

  Diary of James McLevy

  It is amazing how wayward women can be, for I do believe there was a hint of jealousy in Jean Brash at the end of our conversation. Thank God men are above such things.

  And yet Judith Pearson’s countenance stays with me from that portrait. Desirous, yet vulnerable, like a child caught in a woman’s body. Then Boothroyd, a handsome brute – flesh on the bone, but I sense a weakness and behind that fallibility the rank sweat of fear and guilt.

  What is the truth of it all? What lies behind these faces? How did the judge come to die and what is this feeling that I have somewhere missed a sign?

  At this point McLevy laid down his pen, slurped at his tin mug and grimaced over the bitter dregs. Events so far had left a residue of crystals; dregs of a sort that he was looking at like some old harpy in the fairground trying to read the future in tea leaves.

  He opened the pages of The Heart of Midlothian to seek out solace in the writing of Sir Walter Scott, a man of the highest moral and literary integrity – never knowingly found in a bawdy-hoose, who aspired to the ideal that virtue may always be rewarded and treachery unerringly punished.

  The inspector had never found this to be the case in his own experience but he was prepared to be diverted.

  Yet something in the case had slipped him by, and he could not bring it to mind.

  As the artist struggled out of profound sleep a gloved hand laid itself over his mouth. He let out a muffled yelp of anger and fear at the intrusion while a voice sounded in the darkness – a voice familiar to his senses but not welcome at this moment.

  “Pleasure and pain, Mister Boothroyd. Pleasure and pain.”

  The hand was removed for him to blurt out, “God Almighty, what are you doing here?”

  Judith Pearson laughed softly, desperation and desire entangled in her response. “I have your key. I entered in.” She saw the panic in his eyes and moved to soothe this reaction. “The servants were asleep. I left by the back door. No one saw me.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Once more Judith fed him comfort; this was what drew her to Jardine Boothroyd, the need for reassurance like a child almost, in contrast to his driving certainty in the act of love.

  “It is the dead of night. Everyone sleeps, save you and I.” She took his hand and pressed it fast it over her heart just below a breast untrammelled by corset. “There – can you feel it beating?”

  He was still uneasy. A recent visit had unsettled his nerves. “McLevy – he came – he asked me of you. At great length.”

  “How excellent!” she cried. “The inspector is pursuing the case – that is the best news possible!”

  “You are mad, Judith. This . . . we agreed that there would be no contact. You are mad.”

  She laughed softly and leant closer so that he might smell the fragrance of her perfume. “What have we to fear? We are innocent. Babes in the wood.”

  His eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He could make out the familiar shapes of the studio and the white oval of her face hanging before him like a tempting spectre. Hard to think when the mouth is dry, when desire melts resolve and hardens flesh.

  “Innocent,” she repeated, her lips now so near that he could feel the warmth of her breath. “Save for a certain . . . enticement on your part.” Judith laughed again but this time with an edgy, uncontrolled quality that both alarmed and attracted the artist.

  “You laid aside the brush, walked over to where I sat and said, “I admire the line of your neck. It is very beautiful.” You reached out your finger and traced that line down my flesh. Skin upon skin. Do you remember?”

  His hand had moved to cup her breast. Another familiar shape.

  “And do you remember when you came to my house, to finish off the portrait – you held me hard against the wall? So hard I was bruised. Like a butterfly.”

  “Yes,” he muttered hoarsely.

  “We are guilty of nothing but love, and must be forgiven our sins.”

  “Sins?” The judge had died. Out of the blue. Poison was rife in rumour but he knew nothing except – the judge had died. His thoughts were confused. There are many sins. But he knew nothing.

  Judith could sense his desire now. To match her own flame. This was everything. All her terrible fears burnt to ashes at this moment. This was everything.

  “It is the dead of night,” she murmured. “Only we two . . . are truly alive.”

  Somewhere a church clock struck midnight as their bodies moved together into the two-backed beast.

  Pleasure and pain.

  Alec Nimmo once more weaved his spell. Market Place, Leith: different crowd, similar delivery as he neared the end of a dramatic description on the vicissitudes of motherhood. “Ague and gum rot! The children cry and howl for you their mother to soothe their brows and ease their aching bodies –”

  “They need McMunn’s Elixir.”

  Alec’s head snapped round as a tall figure detached itself from the crowd and moved to stand directly before the improvised trestle table. It was most obviously a constable at law.

  “And I need you at the station,” said Mulholland. “With your confiscated cargo.”

  “You want it? You can have it!”

  So saying, Alec threw the contents of his tray at his nemesis and hurtled off, only to be tripped by an unexpected boot that brought him hard to the ground.

  “Alec Nimmo!” said McLevy cheerfully as he hauled the man up. “I thought you’d moved to Glasgow.”

  “I came back,” was the gloomy response.

  “That was a mistake,” replied the inspector as a none-too-happy Mulholland approached, spattered in brown liquid spilled from the scattered bottles.

  “Oil of cloves,” McLevy identified amongst the odours. “Nice smell.”

  “Plus the laudanum,” said the constable grimly, as he slammed the restrainers onto Alec’s wrists. There were no heroics from the throng this time – Roach had finally confessed his failure as regards crowd control and so, forewarned, one glare from McLevy sent them on their way.

  “Well, Alec,” the inspector said to the disconsolate figure. “I thought market day in Leith would be too much of a temptation for a nostrum salesman and I was proven right.”

  “I havenae done anything wrong, McLevy.”

  “You sold a serving maid this mixture and she near killed two children with it,” Mulholland reprimanded.

  “She must hae poured it doon,” was the indignant claim. “I tell them every time, jist two spoonfuls.”

  The constable was unimpressed and McLevy shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, Alec, but the law is the law –”

  “Wait!” As Nimmo was about to be dragged off, his quick mind was searching out a bargaining chip. “The man that makes up the mixture, he’s mair tae blame than me, eh? An apothecary. Respectable!”

  Neither policeman altered expression. Less said the more comes your way.

  Alec’s words tumbled over each other in an effort to ignite their interest. “Dishes it out under the counter. Society doctors at the back door. Dishes out the drugs – cheap, cash in hand, nothing official, no records kept. Records do not inspire trust, eh?”

  Both officers had heard of such criminality, though finding proof had always been the problem. Yet they still gave nothing away. McLevy sniffed at the oil of cloves emanating from Mulholland as if that was all there was to concern him and the constable jerked impatiently at the restrainers round Nimmo’s wrists.

  “Wait! I can give you his name. They come from all over, he tellt me, the doctors. Princes Street, the Royal Terrace, Haymarket, everywhere!”

  “Haymarket?” All feigned disinterest blew away in smoke as McLevy’s eyes lit up like a wolf on the prowl.

  “Now hold on,” Mulholland said worriedly. “Hold it right there –”

  Nimmo smiled at the constable’s reaction and then flinch
ed slightly to find McLevy’s face about an inch away from his own, eyes boring in like the east wind.

  “I’ll do what I can for you, Alec, but you better not be blawin’ your horn. Nice and slow. No mistakes. Name and address. We can go in by the back door.”

  Alexander Galbraith had large mutton chop whiskers that framed a florid complexion and a choleric disposition. It showed at this moment as he faced intruders in his home.

  “So, inspector, not content with invading my consulting rooms, you now interrupt my mealtime as well!”

  McLevy was unperturbed; not, however, Mulholland, who knew that if this went wrong they would both be up before the chief constable – at the least, official reprimand with a black mark on the books and at worst the added infliction of being taken off the streets and confined to desk work at the station. A fate worse than death.

  The odour of steak and kidney pie wafted in from the kitchen where the Galbraith family sat waiting for a blessing from the master of the house as he launched into further vehement remonstrance directed at McLevy.

  “I have already made one complaint about you, sir, but this time I shall go straight to the top. And let me warn you, I attend the same Masonic lodge as your own Chief Constable!”

  Mulholland winced, but the inspector did not turn a hair as he threw out a casual question. “Templeton the apothecary. Do you know him?”

  Galbraith blinked for a second. “I don’t think so.”

  In for a penny, thought Mulholland. “Mister Templeton has premises in the Canongate, sir.”

  “What has this to do with me?”

  “You have certain similarities,” McLevy affirmed quietly. “Both weak and greedy men.”

  “How dare you!”

  But the accusation lacked a certain force as the inspector continued testimony. “The apothecary supplied large amounts of cheap laudanum to a nostrum seller called Alec Nimmo. We threatened Templeton with criminal proceedings and he cracked like a soft-boiled egg.”

  “I . . . I fail to see –”

  “His back room had all the opiates under the sun, sir,” Mulholland added gravely. “None of them noted on his receipt books – illicit sources, no doubt.”

  “There’s a fortune to be made for a doctor dispensing to the addicts of high society – get it cheap, sell it dear, and no one is any the wiser.”