David Ashton: The Painted Lady

“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.