He shook his head. ‘If I understood you just now, there isn’t much to blush about.’
‘I blush for my naivete, Sergeant, not for shame. Have you met Julian?’
‘He is known to me as Mr Howard Cromer, miss.’
‘Of course. “Julian” was right for Hampstead, but “Howard” is assuredly Kew Green. He would know. He is extremely sensitive in matters of taste. Do not underestimate him. He is silver-tongued, Sergeant. We three girls were on our guard when we arrived at his studio that summer afternoon. In a matter of minutes he had given us a sherry and a homily on the vital contribution photography was making to the perfection of fine art. Spell-binding names were tossed so casually into the conversation that we were convinced he was on intimate terms with them-Bill Frith, Eddy Landseer, Lawrie Alma Tadema. And, of course, Freddy Leighton. Freddy, we were told, was preparing to paint his masterpiece, a canvas ten feet high and fifteen feet in length encompassing all the principal figures of Greek mythology. Some thirty gods, goddesses and nymphs were to be depicted, and Julian had been asked to take a series of photographs as preliminary studies. He showed us a selection he had already taken, and we were reassured to see that the models were without exception decently robed. In short, Sergeant, we consented to pose. The pictures he took that afternoon were unexceptionable and Julian’s behaviour was exemplary. We put up our hair in the Greek fashion and wrapped ourselves in linen sheets for three or four short poses and got half a sovereign apiece for our pains. It needed little persuasion to induce us to return the following week. Do I need to go into that?’
Cribb lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘You were given an extra glass or two of sherry, I imagine, and told that Sir Frederick was delighted by the previous week’s results.’
‘Enraptured was the word,’ said Lottie. ‘So enraptured, in fact, that he had asked if we would model not as anonymous nymphs, but principals. I was to be Sappho, Judith was Helen and Miriam Aphrodite. In each case, our costume amounted to a strip of muslin and a comb. The postures, I repeat, were not offensive. As Julian very reasonably pointed out at the time, how could you possibly depict a Greek goddess in stays? We got a guinea each and giggled all the way home. Quite soon, I had forgotten about it. I remember mixed feelings of disappointment and relief when the picture was not listed in next summer’s Royal Academy show, but it had not crossed my mind that the photographs had been put to any other purpose. That is really all I am able to tell you, darling.’
‘There is another matter,’ said Cribb as casually as he could. ‘Your friend Judith died in tragic circumstances two years after this incident. You appeared as a witness at the inquest.’
Her manner changed abruptly. There was ice in her voice as she said, ‘If you know about that, then you know what I told the coroner. There is nothing more to be said.’
‘Touching on Miss Honeycutt’s death? Oh, I’m sure you told the coroner all you were obliged to, miss.’ Cribb looked down at the hat on his knees and rotated it half a turn. ‘But the coroner would not have asked you the things I need to know, such as how Miss Honeycutt came to be in Ducane’s employment at the time of her death.’ He looked up quickly. ‘You can tell me, Lottie.’
She gave him a guarded look that made him regret the impulse to use her name. ‘This is a free country. She went to work for him.’
‘Come now, that’s no help,’ said Cribb without changing his voice a semitone. ‘Judith is dead. Miriam is locked in a death-cell. You are the only one who can tell me how it was that those photographic sittings led to one girl working for the man and the other marrying him. Did he blackmail them?’
‘Blackmail?’ Her face rippled into laughter. ‘That’s delicious! Darling, I’m sure you do a marvellous job in the police, but it’s a terrible mistake to account for everything in criminal terms. You evidently need a few elementary lessons in feminine psychology. For a well brought-up girl to take off her clothes, however tastefully, for the first time in the presence of one of the other sex is an experience that is frightening, but not without a measure of excitement. It can stir up unsuspected emotions. Not one of us confessed it to the others, but we were deeply interested in the impression our bodies made on Julian Ducane. When he took our photographs he was scrupulously careful to treat us with equal charm, but we knew, you see, that we should meet him again at the Society. Each one of us in her private thoughts imagined him when he developed the prints becoming intoxicated with her charms. He was almost twenty years our senior and had shown no partiality to any of us, but in our girlish imaginations he was a privileged being. At the meetings we pursued him unashamedly-with what purpose it is difficult to say, because not one of us would have been allowed to walk out with a man our parents had not met. Soon there was an obvious rivalry between us. For convention’s sake we rode to and from Highgate together, but once we entered that hall we were sworn enemies. Julian, poor man, was at a loss. Well, can you imagine being hounded by three starry-eyed females scarcely out of school? He tried to solve the problem by introducing us to his friends. One was his solicitor.’
‘Allingham.’
‘Simon, yes. There is no doubt Simon was smitten with Miriam, but Julian was the prize she aspired to. Her self-esteem demanded it. I know, because I was similarly afflicted until I came to my senses. We were the three graces in a modern Judgment of Paris. To win was everything. Little by little, Miriam ousted us. She is one of those enviable females who can cast a spell over men. Not one of you is capable of seeing her as she really is. It takes another woman to do that.’
‘Speaking for myself, I have never met her.’
‘Then she has not made a fool of you, but she would. When I understood this power she had, I saw the futility of competing with her. It was only when I relinquished the contest, so to speak, that I realised how absurd it was to be chasing Julian. He was tolerably successful in his work and dapper in his dress, but a dreadful bore really. And so old! Imagine!’
‘A little over forty, I believe,’ Cribb said.
‘Grotesque! Well, as I mentioned, I turned my attention elsewhere. Judith, too, soon after appeared to retire from the contest. She started talking to me again, telling me about young men who had tried to flirt with her across the counter in the umbrella shop. It was her way of telling me she was no longer interested in Julian, or so I understood at the time. Judith and I confided in each other a lot; it helped to heal the wounds. She was dark-haired, like me, and vivacious. She had a sense of humour, too. We had a secret joke that Julian must have sold Miriam’s photograph to Burne-Jones, whose women are so solemn and underfed. Cattish, weren’t we? All this went on over many months. The meetings were fortnightly, did I tell you?
‘Then one day, to my intense surprise, Judith coolly announced that she had changed her job. She had been taken on by Julian as his assistant. This on the top of a bus to Highgate on the way to a Society meeting. Miriam was speechless. If you could have seen the look in her eyes, darling! It was naughty of Judith to trot it out so casually, yet I suppose she didn’t want to make an issue of it. I remember Miriam sitting through that meeting stony-faced, and when the coffee came she didn’t even look in Julian’s direction. He came over to make conversation and she just bit her lip and walked away. It was Simon who went after her to find out what was wrong. Julian was utterly at a loss.’
‘Feminine psychology isn’t his strong point, either,’ said Cribb.
She smiled at that.
‘So Judith had cut in on Miriam’s game,’ he said. ‘How had she managed that?’
‘By sheer resourcefulness. She used the advantage she had over Miriam and me: she was in employment. She noticed in the Express that Julian was advertising for an assistant. She put it to her father that it was time she learned a more creative occupation than selling umbrellas. After that it only remained to convince Julian of the advantages of employing female labour.’