Page 73 of A Treacherous Trade
I wandered around the shop feeling giddy. A little like a war spy.
Charles Hartigan was very good at what he did. His portraits neither seemed too posed nor too chaotic. The figures were relaxed and well illuminated. It was like having an audience standing in his gallery. Scores of sepia eyes stared out of a frozen memory. Family portraits, most, with a few stills of important men in suits clutching their lapels. Or groups in costume or uniform. Of commemorative occasions and political ones. Some even of gardens, landmarks, and one of the sea. I wished fervently that the cresting wave were any color but beige.
I longed to visit the sea, and had a painting of the White Cliffs of Dover hanging across from my bed so I could wake to it in lieu of a view.
I preferred paintings to photographs, I decided. I needed color. A bit of fancy and whimsy.
Reality was often too like this… monochromatic.
“Here we are.” The voice startled me from this side of the curtain, and I whirled to see a slender man of medium height holding a broom and a pan.
Whatever I’d expected of Charles Hartigan, this wasn’t it. “I-I really am sorry. I’m forever clumsy. You must let me pay for the bell.”
He seemed to interpret my breathlessness as embarrassment for my mishap rather than distress that he’d appeared behind me with nary a sound.
“Nonsense. ’Twas nothing but a paltry trinket. I think I even have another one in the back somewhere.” For a man of indeterminate middle age, he was neither attractive nor unappealing. Sort of like the tones of his photographs, he was simply varying shades of beige and brown, all the way down to his suit.
“What brings you to my shop on such a gloomy afternoon?” he asked as he swept. “Have you children you’d like me to photograph? I’ve a catalogue of a variety of poses, and that wall over there is for babies all the way up to debutants.”
“Is it?” I said, drifting in the direction he pointed. It unsettled me more than a little that he immediately seemed so keen to photograph children.
He paused to crouch down and sweep the leavings of the ribbon and the bell into the dust bin. I hoped he didn’t mark the cleanly cut line of the ribbon. I hadn’t really considered that one might look for a fray. “I do commemorative pictures of many ladies’ societies, if that’s what you’re after.”
“Indeed?” I made myself busy scanning the wall of children. Chubby cherubs in christening gowns were framed next to cricket teams with trophies and gap-toothed smiles. Little girls in Easter gowns stood next to their mothers, their eyes happy, if not their faces.
“Tell me, miss, what are you here for?”
I found the answer at the exact same time he asked the question with a bit more urgency than seemed necessary.
A familiar face amongst the youths. Dressed in a bonnet and braids. A cryptic expression that would put the Mona Lisa to shame.
The only time I’d seen her, those eyes had been leaking tears of blood.
Jane Sheffield.
“I—erm.” I cleared the shock out of my throat. “I am looking for a certain kind of photograph, Mr. Hartigan.”
Turning away from Jane’s mysterious smile, I found him a bit paler than before, smoothing a hand over thinning wisps of light hair. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced, miss…”
“Viola,” I replied, using my moniker from The Orchard. “Viola Montague.” I’d made my first mistake. There was no written proof that C.B.H. Photography and Gallery stood for Charles Barclay Hartigan.
He was wondering how I knew his name.
“I’m told you are willing to take… more interesting photographs than your workaday photographer.” Adopting a sly expression, I peered up at him from behind coquettish lashes.
He gulped. “Where did you hear that, Miss Montague?”
“Oh, here and there.” I ran my gloved fingers across the bar, inspecting them for invisible dust. “I’ve a few… coworkers who claimed you paid them for portraits intended for men of particular tastes.”
When Charles Hartigan smiled, it was with the teeth of a shark.
Every single hair on my body lifted in warning.
“I think we might understand each other, Miss Montague. But I’d like you to expound upon the specific tastes you are referencing.”
I peeked around us, as if looking for eavesdroppers, knowing there was one close by. “These particular photos, one might only find in the boudoir of a lonely man, if you catch my meaning.”
It might have been my imagination, but his smile dimmed just a little.
