# Ashton-Kirk, Investigator — Character guide

> Key figures in Ashton-Kirk, Investigator by John T. McIntyre.

- [Ashton Kirk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/ashton_kirk.md): Kirk moves through the city with an athlete's ease and a scholar's appetite, collecting dialects, disguises, and out-of-the-way knowledge while politely ignoring the society that would claim him. Where others see a locke
- [Pendleton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/pendleton.md): Pendleton is the warm, excitable counterweight to Kirk's composure: he teases his cousin Edyth about her punctuality, fetches her to the investigator's book-cluttered rooms, and takes his dismissal with wounded dignity a
- [Miss Edyth Vale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/edyth_vale.md): Edyth arrives at Kirk's rooms with a trouble she will not name in front of her cousin Jimmie, and her nervous hands betray what her steady manner will not. She has heard Kirk praised as brilliant, wealthy, and eccentric,
- [David Purtell Hume](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/hume.md): Hume settled in the city in 1899 as an art dealer, but the steamship records and customs portraits tell a different story: a man who slipped through the nets of Holland, Spain, and France, and who drank his way into a fa
- [Allan Morris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/allan_morris.md): Morris is the absent presence at the center of the investigation: his father's friendship with Hume links him to the dead man, and his disappearance makes him the obvious suspect even as Edyth's evasions suggest she is p
- [Professor Locke](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/locke.md): Locke works in silence, communicating through heavy characters written on discarded plans, and his composure when Kirk appears is a marked change from the trepidation he has shown before. He gestures Kirk to a chair half
- [Antonio Spatola](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/antonio_spatola.md): Spatola moves through the case as a man whose history nobody can quite pin down, and Ashton-Kirk treats him as a thread worth pulling whenever the obvious suspects go quiet. His foreignness and reserve make him a natural
- [Mr. Stillman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/stillman.md): Stillman belongs to the circle of people who think the missing portrait can be reasoned out like a parlor puzzle, and he is happy to supply a theory when asked. His certainty is both useful and suspect: it gives Pendleto
- [Osborne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/osborne.md): A character involved in the events surrounding the portrait.
- [Mr. Tobin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/tobin.md): A man who assists Kirk with local information.
- [Dr. Mercer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/mercer.md): A doctor who provides medical insights into the case.
- [Fuller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/fuller.md): A minor character who appears during the investigation.
- [Mr. Berg](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/berg.md): A character who provides information to Kirk.
- [Burgess](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/burgess.md): A minor character encountered during the investigation.
- [Mr. Sams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/sams.md): A minor character who appears briefly.
- [Mr. Brolatsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/brolatsky.md): A man with a connection to the Spatola family.
- [Richard Morris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/richard_morris.md): The father of Allan Morris, involved in the background of the case.
- [Mr. Bernstine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/bernstine.md): A businessman who provides information about the portrait.
- [Mrs. Marx](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/mrs_marx.md): A woman who provides lodging or information.
- [M. Sagon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/sagon.md): A Frenchman with a role in the portrait's history.
- [Mrs. Dwyer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/mrs_dwyer.md): A woman who provides information about the Spatola family.
- [Sime](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/sime.md): A minor character who assists in the investigation.
- [Stumph](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/stumph.md): A man who provides information about the portrait's past.
- [Haines](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/haines.md): A minor character who appears during the investigation.
- [Superintendent Weagle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/weagle.md): A police superintendent who assists Kirk.
- [Dan O'Connor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/dan_oconnor.md): A minor character who appears briefly.
- [Paulson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/paulson.md): A minor character who assists in the investigation.
- [James Vale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/james_vale.md): Edyth Vale's deceased brother, whose death is part of the mystery.
- [Jimmie Pendleton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters/jimmie_pendleton.md): A relative of Pendleton who appears briefly.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/ashton_kirk_investigator_se/characters