David Ashton: The Painted Lady

The judge’s wife looked at the portrait of herself hung high on the wall. In the painting she stood by a long French window that allowed a sliver of moonlight to enter, and wore a purple gown — the colour indicating love of truth even unto martyrdom.

The expression on canvas was in contrast to the one upon the pale flesh of the observer. The depicted lips had the hint of a smile with subtle warmth in the direct gaze; the present face displayed to the world, had humanity been attending in the drawing room, was equally beautiful but tightly contained.

Behind glass.

Like a butterfly in a case — such specimens as festooned the walls in their caskets, splayed out in bright colours that belayed their expiry at the hands of his honour.

Such a pretty death.

The door opened and the butler entered carrying a tray precisely laid with a pot of tea, toast and two soft-boiled eggs, the judge’s invariable breakfast.

“I can take that,” she said abruptly. “The master has been ill. It will be my pleasure.”

The butler nodded with a frigid movement of his head, and exited.

Opening the bedroom door while clutching a tray was a difficult task but if servants can accomplish such, surely a judge’s wife may succeed?

As indeed she did. She entered, laid down the tray on a small bedside table, and finally twitched back the counterpane.

He lay on his back, mouth open, eyes staring, pinned to the pillow and most obviously bereft of life.

She took a deep mouthful of air and let loose a single piercing scream.

This was not a pretty death.

Diary of James McLevy

The heart is an intricate contrivance. The seat of mortal courage and source of all affections. Love, they tell me, dwells there and desire prowls like a hungry beast. I am not such an idiot that I cannot experience within myself the darkness of the human heart, its violence and anger, plus the impulse to murder and destroy, but I find love a trickier proposition.

A knock at his attic room door interrupted James McLevy in mid-meditation and the voice of his landlady, Mrs MacPherson, a stalwart Dundonian in foreign climes, accompanied the sliding of a letter under the portal.

“This came through the letterbox, Mister McLevy. “Your name upon it, your business I would wager.”

With that she stumped off back down the stairs while he carefully blotted the page, put aside the pen and then crossed to pick up the missive.

It was addressed to Inspector James McLevy, and as he stuck a stubby thumb under the envelope flap he pondered who would hand-deliver at this time of night.

The devil maybe?

But no, it was not Auld Hornie — not that name at the bottom of the page.

I am falsely accused of a crime I did not commit. Spied upon; my own servants look at me with sly accusing eyes. I have no friends, no one to turn to, but let me plead my case.

It was I who insisted on a post-mortem on my husband’s body because of the sudden advent of his death. Why would I do that if I had poisoned him? I was shaken to the core at the findings of arsenic in his remains and fainted to the floor. Is this the action of a guilty woman?

“Uhuh, Mrs Pearson?” he muttered. “It’s easy to faint, ye just close your eyes and fall over.”

My husband was a great admirer of your tenacity of purpose and scrupulous presentation. I fear the Haymarket police will slant the evidence against me and I have no one on my side. Please help me. If not, then Justice will not be done upon this earth.

Yours in desperation and hope,

Judith Pearson.

McLevy walked to the large window that overlooked his city, deep in thought. He had been reading Sir Walter Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian , and this provided a deal of contrast. The inspector was acquainted with the salient facts of the case but no official charge had as yet been laid by Haymarket police.

Of course it was none of his business, out of his parish, he didnae even know the woman. But Leith was quiet at this moment and he was aye itchy in the quiet.

He slurped cold coffee from a tin mug that had its domain on the rickety table, which sufficed as a desk when writing his diary, and made a face.

A terrible brew.

Pity he’d fallen out with Jean Brash but the woman had the morals of an alley cat. Mind you, her coffee came all the way from the Lebanon and was a sore loss.

McLevy looked over his beloved Edinburgh to witness the lights shine in the dark.

One needs the other — light the dark, God the Devil, birth death, and policemen need crime.

It was a love of sorts, he supposed.

Constable Mulholland had much on his mind as he loped along with his inspector. Normally he relished being on the saunter, pacing his one long stride alongside McLevy’s two short footfalls, but the quest so far had been a fruitless trek and his thoughts shifted back to the station.

Lieutenant Roach’s long snout had twitched excitedly as he pored over his morning edition of the Leith Herald .

“One moment Judge Pearson is donning the black cap and the next? Dead as a doornail.”

“I often wondered about that,” Mulholland said, who did not possess the Calvinist undertow of prurience.

“Body riddled with arsenic! Inspector Adam Dunsmore hints at imminent arrest .”

“Why a doornail?” asked the constable. “Why should that be deader than any other nail?”

As Roach gazed somewhat blankly in response, McLevy entered, late as usual, nodded briefly to the portrait of Queen Victoria on the wall and tuned in effortlessly to the lieutenant’s abiding interest.

“So the wife is suspect, eh?”

“Vile rumour has it so,” replied Roach happily. “And it is also hinted that the marriage bed was by no means sacrosanct. Only a hint, mark you!”

Dirty deeds in high society would seem to get folk going like nothing else, however, the lieutenant swept concupiscence aside along with the paper. “Well, it’s Haymarket’s case, Adam Dunsmore in particular. We have more important things on hand.”

Of course Roach was well aware that there had been a lack of murderous activity in the parish, not a decent robbery to be seen, no fearsome assaults in the wynds, no inexplicable bodies in the harbour; paradise to the pure at heart but anathema to men who breathed in the fumes of deep criminality like a pig after truffles.

“McMunn’s Elixir, the infant pacifier,” McLevy pronounced without noticeable relish.

“Exactly!” answered Roach with enthusiasm. “Sold on a street corner to a witless nursing maid who administered it copiously to the respectable twins in her charge and due to the excess of cheap laudanum in the mixture?”

“It near pacified them off the planet,” Mulholland threw in, while Victoria frowned at such malfeasance.

The lieutenant, trying to generate an appetite for the chase, banged his fist down on the desk causing one of his inkwells to jump like a rabbit. “You claim to know the wynds and back doubles of Leith better than any living being, McLevy. Find this man and find him quick!”

The inspector knew that these street corner Johnnies were notoriously hard to pin down but nodded obediently enough as he turned to go.

“C’mon, Mulholland, crimes of state wait for no man.”

Had Roach been more alert he might have wondered at the dutiful tones of his subordinate but the lieutenant was anxious to get them out the office so that he might rifle the middle pages of the newspaper and search out additional salacious titbits on the Pearson case.

The constable however, had been struck by the inspector’s compliant response, and after a futile trawl through the harbour streets and wynds of Leith, pondered further why they had ended up at a tavern called The Salutation, which though not in the Haymarket itself was a favourite haunt of their police force.