It is 1875 and Annabel Rowe and her older brother Edwin share more than DNA and brotherly love but the love and need to paint. There is also discord between the two siblings- Edwin has a history of not paying his debts and gambling. He also has a history of deceiving other people, mainly art collectors, by claiming a fraud an actual piece of art, which has landed him time spent in jail. Annabel blames Edwin’s behaviors on their parents’ deaths, but Edwin seems to have learned from his mistakes and lives a life of a law-abiding citizen, working as a painter and a restorer of old and authentic works of art. The change in Edwin results in the siblings becoming close, meeting one another every other Tuesday.
Right: Evelyn DeMorgan’s painting Flora.
And Annabel is content in her career path as a student studying painting at the Slade School of Art, which she is able to pay by renting the house that her parents left her in their will.
Right: Portrait of Felix Slade, founder of the Slade School of Art. Attributed to Margaret Sarah Carpenter.
Some habits are hard to break for Edwin, and one of those habits is to disappear for days at a time so when Edwin doesn’t meet her on Tuesday she is not too concerned until that day, during Mr. Poynter’s class at the Slade School of Art, her paintbrush tells her something . . .
The crimson paint symbolizes Edwin’s shed blood when that very same day Annabel rushes to Edwin’s rented room only to be greeted by the two Scotland Yard plainclothesmen: Chief Inspector Martin and Inspector Matthew Hallam. The two inform Annabel that her brother has been murdered due to a stabbing.
Poynter by J.P Mayall from Artists at Home, published 1884, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington DC
After she helps Inspector Matthew Hallam search Edwin’s room for clues she goes back to her own rented room only to receive a visitor from family friend Felix Severington, who works at Bettridge’s auction house. Felix reveals to Annabel that Edwin was restoring a famous painting of Madame de Pompadour by Francois Boucher. He inquired if she saw the painting in Edwin’s room and she had to inform him that the painting, which was estimated to be worth at least six thousand pounds, was not there.
Right: One of many paintings Francois Boucher painted of Madame de Pompadour
Annabel decides to share this information with Inspector Matthew Hallam and rushes to Scotland Yard Division in a rainstorm to see him. She makes two requests of Inspector Hallam: that she accompany him during the investigation into Edwin’s death and that she will tell him all she knows with the understanding that he will not share with anyone unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. Inspector Hallam agrees to the conditions.
Old “New Scotland Yard”, Westminster Viewers of old black-and-white crime dramas will recognise the red brick building on the right as the former HQ of the Metropolitan Police – before they moved nearer to the Home Office. It was, for example, in the opening credits of “Fabian of the Yard”. On the extreme left is the edge of Portcullis House, new offices for MPs.
Only thirty people come to Edwin’s funeral: Annabel herself, students from the Slade School of Art, and the only people that Annabel knows: Mr. Poynter, Felix, Inspector Matthew Hallam, and her only biological family member Aunt Caroline, whom Annabel described as cold and bitter with not a tear in her eyes. It is obvious to Annabel that Aunt Caroline believes Edwin deserved what happened to him. Annabell is distressed at the thought.
But then Annabel thinks of her mother and how she would have reacted to Edwin’s death and it gives her hope.
At the receiving line of the funeral, Annabel meets numerous friends of Edwin’s, including Will Giffen who was a classmate of Edwin’s at Tennersley, and Mr. Pascoe, the vicar at St. Pancras Old Church in Camden (Bel0w) who visited Edwin in prison. Father Pascoe seems to know some of Edwin’s secrets but refuses to betray the priest confidentiality
Then on a cold and rainy day a man dressed in a black scarf, hat pulled over his face, and carrying a knife attempts to harm Annabel in the stairway leading to her rented room. Fortunately, Inspector Matthew Hallam was there to rescue her, but the dark figure managed to escape.
Annabel and Inspector Matthew Hallam wonder if Edwin’s killer and the man who attacked her are the same people.
Soon Annabel and Inspector Matthew Hallam are on the journey of their lives into murder, attempted murder, sexual assault, art forgery, conspiracy, arson, misconduct among the auction houses of the day, and deep secrets that Edwin had kept from his family, which would explain his behaviors and reveal what really happened between him and their parents.
Annabel’s own journeys are numerous and complex: is she trying to figure out who killed her brother and why? Is she trying to discover why there was such a rift between her parents and her brother? Is she trying to find the missing painting? Or is it she trying to find her place in the world and does that place include Inspector Hallam?
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