Waxwork

was presented with sundry playmates, most of whom I loathed. To be fair, Miriam was easier to tolerate than most. With her fair, straight hair she was unlike me in looks, so there were no invidious comparisons. She tended to look up to me as the rightful occupant of the garden. I think she was conscious of the fact that her people were in trade, even though her father had been mayor, whereas Papa was on the Stock Exchange. Status was very important to Miriam. When I was feeling generous I would play lady’s maid to her, and she was never happier. I don’t pretend we were twin souls. There were times when we were not on speaking terms, and it was usually a relief when the holidays ended and I went back to boarding school, but all in all we put up with each other. As we grew older, we met less, except for church and occasional parties and soirees.’

‘You joined the Literary and Artistic Society,’ put in Cribb.

Lottie Piper smiled. ‘We were Girls of the Period by then-or supposed we were. Life in Hampstead was very confining, you may imagine. Schooldays were over, and the social life revolved around St John’s. We met the same people over and over. When we read in the Express that this new society was being formed in Highgate, we made our fathers’ lives a misery until they agreed to let us join. We knew nothing about literature or art, but we convinced ourselves that people who did would find us enchanting. There was another girl we knew in the parish-Judith Honeycutt. Her father kept the umbrella shop, which was a little infra dig, but Judith was a kindred spirit, so the three of us joined together.’

‘That would be 1882, would it?’

‘Darling, I have no idea. I don’t have a head for dates. All I remember is that the lectures were a dreadful bore, but the company was a revelation. The place swarmed with velvet coats and feather boas-another world! For half an hour or so at the end there was coffee and homemade cakes and everyone left their seats and mingled. It’s laughable now, but to me at twenty that little hall buzzing with conversation was the Cafe Royal. I had never experienced anything so exotic. I am certain Miriam and Judith were no less enchanted. We would stay till the last possible minute we could without seeming too desperate to be noticed. Then we would catch the bus home and talk all the way of the exciting people we had met. After that it was just a question of wishing away the days to the next meeting.’

‘How did the business of the photographs arise?’ Cribb asked, mindful that the dresser was expected soon.

‘Exactly as Miriam described it. We must have been members for six or seven months when we had a talk from someone from the Royal Academy, on Florentine Art. Fearfully boring. Afterwards over the coffee-cups everyone said how stimulating it had been, as we were bound to, and that we couldn’t wait to visit the National Gallery to see the paintings he had described, just as the previous week we had gone away vowing to read every one of Milton’s poems. Nobody ever asked if we did, thank God. Well, as usual on the way home I started telling the other two of the encounters I had made, when Miriam stopped me, saying she had something unbelievably exciting to tell us. I remember being dubious, having noticed she had spent most of the coffee-time with Mrs Rousby, one of the Society’s founders, an over-rouged person with a domineering manner, but I gave way gracefully. I am bound to admit that Miriam’s news was more sensational than any I could supply. Mrs Rousby had said she was delighted to hear that Miriam had enjoyed the lecture, because it showed she had an affinity for art. Painting, Mrs Rousby said, was her passion. She was a personal friend of Sir Frederick Leighton, and she happened to know that the great artist was interested in finding a number of elegantly proportioned young ladies with artistic sensibilities to pose for a vast canvas he was painting on a classical theme.’ Lottie Piper gave a small shrug. ‘You know the rest, of course.’

Cribb wanted to hear it from her, but he was willing to provide cues. ‘It appealed to you as an adventure, and you felt safe, going together.’

She nodded. ‘At the next meeting of the Society, the three of us engaged to pose. We were given an address in West Hampstead, which I questioned, since I happened to know that Sir Frederick’s house was in Kensington, but Mrs Rousby explained that a preliminary study was to be made by one of the artist’s assistants. Left to myself, I should not have gone, but by this time not one of us would have spoiled the adventure for the others. The following afternoon we presented ourselves in West Hampstead and learned that the assistant was not a painter at all, but a photographer.’

‘May I ask,’ Cribb put in quickly, ‘whether he was also a member of the Society?’

‘He was.’

This was no time to hesitate. ‘Named Julian Ducane?”

‘Yes-until the name became inconvenient. You must know about that.’

‘Broadly, miss. First, would you be so kind as to tell me about the pictures he took?’

She twisted a curl round her finger. ‘You are a very dogged detective. Aren’t you going to spare my blushes?’

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