Page 12 of Ghost in the Garden (Murder in Moonlight #3)

“I nspired,” Solomon said wryly as they sat in the hackney taking them to St. Giles.

“True, though.” Constance hesitated, then said, “We are acting against our client’s interests. She doesn’t want her husband arrested or hanged. She didn’t hire us for that.”

“No. She hired us to find her ghost, and we agreed. Anything else is outside our agreement.”

“It’s as well we made her pay half her fee in advance. Solomon? Don’t let my mother take advantage of you.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners, rather beguilingly. “I am not known as a soft mark to anyone else.” Their eyes met. “She misses you. And she regrets much, much that you would forgive in any other woman.”

“I do forgive her,” Constance said. Curiously, it was true. “In fact, there is very little to forgive. I just refuse to be where I am not wanted.”

“She does want you. But she knows she has lost you.”

Constance dragged her gaze free. She didn’t like the clawing of old pain. “Oh, she’ll never quite do that.” It was meant to be funny, although her voice broke. “Don’t think I haven’t tried.”

She gazed out of the carriage window for a time, at the passing traffic and the street vendors, all yelling their wares so that it was indecipherable above the noise of wheels and horses against the cobbles.

“So which of these women do you think might be the ghost?” she said at last.

“Any of them who can walk,” Solomon said. “They all know Lambert was at least one of their landlords, and most of them would be happy to knife him. She looked young to me, but I suppose she was just spry. I never saw her face.”

“Neither did I. Or her hands.”

Constance, used to her large house, with her large sitting room and bedchamber all to herself, with the others never sharing more than two to a room, had almost forgotten the sort of overcrowding she found next to the collapsed building. Disease would be rife here, worse during the winter, when whole swaths of them could be carried off, and there would always be other, even more desperate people waiting to take their place. Once she’d thought this the only way to live, and there had always been someone to look after her when her mother was “out.” Later, she was so desperate to be alone even for five minutes that she had hidden in cupboards and cellars…

But this was not about her. She walked forward.

Solomon had been here before. So had Dr. Dragan Tizsa, and many of the survivors from the building next door knew Solomon had sent him. There was distracted gratitude from Emmy, the mother of a mostly paralyzed girl of twelve who had begun to eat, grudging nods of respect from a few, hopeful stares from a few others.

“You’re doing a good thing,” one woman said to him, ignoring Constance. “Dr. Tizsa and you. There’s a bit of life about them again. Even Lenny.”

Solomon said nothing, merely nodded, but Constance regarded the woman with more interest. She could have been anything between thirty and fifty years old, with a face lined by hard work, hardship, and tragedy. But her eyes were those of a fighter, and she moved with swift economy. Constance wondered if, veiled and in a fog, the woman would appear to glide. She could easily imagine her running up a back lane and jumping into a carriage. Only the hackney fare would have been beyond her.

Solomon obviously had the same idea, for he said suddenly, “This may seem an odd question, but have you ever seen hackney carriages stop here?”

“Don’t be daft. Nor omnibuses, neither. No one here can afford them.”

“Were you here yesterday evening?” Constance asked.

“Where else would I be? Spending my gold at Covent Garden?”

Constance regarded the woman’s contemptuous face and took a chance. “We think someone from here might be visiting Caleb Lambert, for whatever reason. It would at least be good to know who it wasn’t.”

“I’d stick a knife in him if I could,” the woman said at once. “And maybe I will one day. But it weren’t no one in this room. There’s a will, but not the energy.”

“Did you know Huxley Gregg was murdered?”

“Heard it from a patterer at the market. Good riddance to him. Hope the same right-thinking philanthropist does the same for Lambert. Only there’ll always be another to take his place.”

“You talk like an educated woman, Mrs.…?”

“Smith. And I’m not. I just listen.”

“Me too,” Constance said. “Do you know anyone, from here or anywhere else, who would seriously try to hurt either Gregg or Lambert? Not just talk, but risk everything to do it?”

“Why would they? There isn’t much point, is there? The world needs change, not more violence or revenge.”

Constance thought she was right. There was hatred and hopelessness in this room and so many like it, but they were too weary for action.

She said as much to Solomon as they descended the filthy stairs.

He nodded, then paused. “Except perhaps for these people. The rent collectors.” He moved faster and rapped smartly on the first door. From the one opposite and another near the front door, two children’s shaggy heads appeared and vanished.

The door in front of them opened to reveal a pert, pretty young woman. She wore a plain, working dress, covered by an apron. But no patches were visible.

“Yes?”

Solomon took off his hat. “Mrs. Fraser?”

“Yes?”

“I thought so. I was talking to your husband the other day. Is he at home?”

“He’ll be back directly. Why?”

“I was hoping for another word.”

She frowned, suspicion glaring out of her blue eyes. “Here, you’re not that journalist bothering us again? We only collect the rents. Someone’s got to.”

And she shut the door in their faces.

Constance forgot to breathe until they were out in the street again.

“That’s her,” she said in a rush. “I’ll bet you anything that’s our ghost.”

*

Iris Fraser almost fell on her husband Frank as he returned to their room.

“He was here again!” she blurted before the door was even properly closed.

“Who?” Frank demanded.

“That journalist you spoke to the other day. I’m sure it was him. Tall, sallow bloke, speaks like a gent. Had a woman with him.”

“What sort of a woman?” Frank asked, scowling.

“I don’t know,” Iris said impatiently. “Too bloody pretty by half, though her dress was nothing to marvel at. Nosy cow, too.”

“Why, what did she ask? Ain’t we got any tea?”

“I’ll get it later. She didn’t ask anything, but she was peering inside, trying to see over my shoulder.”

Frank laughed. “Looking for dust?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like people coming round here. What if they know?”

“Know what?” Fraser said, throwing himself into the comfortable chair.

“That I go and see him .”

“Why should anyone know that? You take care, don’t you?”

“Yes, but someone chased me down that lane last night, and it weren’t bloody Lambert.”

Frank curled his lip. “Maybe Mrs. Lambert. You’ll need to watch your back, girl.”

“Frank, I don’t want to do it no more. Ain’t we got enough money yet?” She sat in his lap, because he liked that, and traced a pattern on his shirt front with one finger.

Frank sighed. “I suppose we have. Tell the truth, I don’t much like you going there either.”

“Then why d’you let me? You said you wasn’t frightened of him.”

“I’m not,” Frank bragged. Iris knew he was lying. “I just like that he thinks he’s getting one over on me, stealing my wife. And in reality, you’re taking his presents and selling them, so we’re getting one over on him .”

“You wouldn’t feel the need to if I wasn’t going to his bed twice a week.”

Frank shifted. “Does no harm to keep him sweet.”

She flattened her hand on his chest to lever herself up and glare at him.

“All right,” he said hastily, “you’re right. It ain’t worth it. You can’t just stop going, though. We don’t want to make him mad with us. Go tomorrow as usual, tell him I’m getting suspicious and you’re worried and can’t come for the next few weeks. Likely he’ll move on to some other girl.”

Iris didn’t quite like that idea, either that Lambert would find it so easy to move on from her, or that Frank would think it so easy. But at least she was winning the argument.

“Can’t I just send a message?” she wheedled.

“Don’t be daft. Who would you trust that to? Or should I take it to him meself?”

She sighed. “Fair enough. Once more, then, and I ain’t ever going back after that. We’ve got to find another place to stay.”

*

Having reluctantly seen Constance into a hackney to return to the Lamberts’ house, Solomon drowned his misgivings by questioning all the hackney drivers at the stand, including the new ones as they turned up. It was time consuming but instructive.

It was dark by the time he arrived back at the office to find the lamps lit and both Janey and Knox drinking tea in her tiny office.

“Any callers?” he asked casually, having established that Juliet Silver was no longer on the premises, although her trunk and bags remained in Constance’s parlor.

“No,” Janey said, “but there’s a note on your desk. Cup of tea, guv? I mean sir.”

Solomon accepted. “Did you manage to keep Mrs. Lambert in sight? Where did she go?”

“Around a load of buildings and offices. The offices is mostly landlords, Mr. Knox says, and the buildings tenements you wouldn’t even want your enemies living in.”

“Did she go to Gregg’s office?” Solomon asked, perching on a corner of the desk.

“Nah, nothing half so respectable looking.”

“What was she doing? Was she buying property for her husband?”

“Maybe, or just seeing what’s available. She had that big cove with her most of the time, and also another she picked up at one of those offices. She seemed to be looking over the buildings quite thoroughly.”

“Looking for dangerous flaws?” Solomon speculated. Constance seemed to be right that Angela was concerned by the St. Giles disaster.

“Yes,” Knox said. “Partly. Pretty sure she was collecting rents too. Fraser does that in the St. Giles properties, but these others were all over the place. Whitechapel, Cheapside.”

“Did she go into Devil’s Acre?”

Knox shook his head. “Lamberts aren’t that daft. They come from there. If one of their buildings collapsed in the Acre, they’d get rough justice right away. I doubt they own anything there. Too risky. I suspect her visits today were to minimize risk as well as collect the rents.”

“Is that why she came to your building in St. Giles?”

“Maybe. Or seeing if she could cram in more people. My Cathy spoke to her, said she listened and was sympathetic. But nothing happened.”

“Was Lambert there too when your wife spoke to her?”

“No, they never came at the same time. Lambert only came to see Fraser. Then the rent usually went up.”

“Although Gregg was your landlord.”

“Officially. Lambert’s always liked other people to do his dirty work, keep him out of trouble. Especially now he thinks he’s respectable.”

Which was one of the many things that made Solomon uneasy. Even if Lambert hadn’t killed Gregg with his own hands, why would he have had it done in his own house? Why hide the body there so long? Even if one of his staff had overstepped and done the killing without permission, why would they have left Gregg in the wine cellar, where only Lambert went?

Lambert and Duggin, the “butler.”

A sudden chill shook Solomon. He really didn’t want Constance in that house for another night.

*

In the kitchen, Alfie Duggin heard the knock on the door and glanced up from his tea to see Angela’s girl, Silver, breeze through the open door.

“Has she rung?” Silver asked, taking off her hat and coat.

“Not yet,” Ida said. “She’s only just in herself.”

“I’ve got time to put these away, then,” Silver said, heading for the stairs.

“Might even have time for a quick cup of tea,” Ida said kindly to her back.

“Come on, then, you’ve all had your tea,” Duggin said to the remaining staff. “Jump to it. Here. Pat.” Duggin stood to corner the “footman” and lowered his voice. “Keep your eye on her.”

“Bert already is. We all watch her when we can.”

“Good.” Duggin let him go and scowled at the giggling maids as they went about their business.

He wasn’t sure that Denise was a good influence on his daughter. Goldie could certainly aim higher than Robin, who had Denise eating out of his hand, but he didn’t like the idea of Goldie entertaining men at all. He’d caught her looking at Lambert himself once or twice, and he definitely didn’t like that. She was still his little girl, although her mother, may she rest in peace, had been no older when he’d first taken her. Lambert had been a catch once, but he’d never leave Angela—who was worth two of him anyway.

Duggin sat back down beside Ida, who was pouring a splash more gin into her empty teacup. “What’s your view on Angela’s girl?” he asked abruptly.

Ida shrugged. “No harm in her. Angela likes her.”

“Do you?”

“I do, as it happens. I gather you don’t.”

“She ain’t one of us. I don’t like strangers in the house. And she must have Angela wrapped around her little finger to get hours off every bleeding day.”

“You don’t know that she’s been off duty,” Ida pointed out. “She might be doing stuff for Angela. She don’t have to go through you all the time, Alfie. Content yourself with Caleb.”

Duggin grunted, and Ida splashed the dregs of her flask into his cup. It was enough for a swallow. “I don’t trust her. She talks too hoity-toity and she’s too damned nosy.”

“Course she’s nosy. So would you be in a new house with new master and mistress. You want to know how everything and everyone works. Besides, she ain’t so different from you and me.”

“How d’you work that out?”

“I can tell. She’s had her share of knocks. Dragged herself up by her bootstraps, same as Angela and Caleb and you and me.”

“You telling me she lived in the Acre?”

“Maybe not the Acre, but there’s other places just as miserable.”

Duggin sniffed and got up again. “I hope you’re right about her. ’Cause I think she’s got Angela just where she wants her. And that ain’t good for us.”

“You underestimate women, Alfie,” she said vaguely. “You always did.”

That Ida had no misgivings about the lady’s maid was some comfort to Duggin, but he still didn’t like her. He watched as she came back down, drank half a cup of tea, then jumped up to answer the bell rung from the bedchamber.

Duggin didn’t put it past Lambert to have rung that bell. Which was another worry. Lambert had noticed her. The little Fraser tart from St. Giles wouldn’t keep him occupied forever, and if he took up with Silver instead…well, that would hurt Angela more. What was she thinking about, hiring a maid with looks like that? She must have known Lambert would look twice.

Well, who was Duggin to judge? His own marriage hadn’t lasted long enough for him to get the hang of wives. There were other important things in life.

Just before the Lamberts went in to dine, Silver slipped out again through the kitchen door.

Duggin caught Pat’s eye as he came in from the dining room, and jerked his head toward the door. Pat nodded and went out after her.

*

Constance wasn’t sure that Solomon would come this evening, when they had spent most of the afternoon together. But she wanted to know what Janey had reported about Angela’s doings, and if Solomon had learned anything useful from the hackney drivers.

And then she also wanted to discuss how to catch their “ghost,” and how much to tell Angela of their plans.

So while everyone was busy preparing the dinner, she simply took her shawl and walked out into the garden.

It looked very different without the mist. The light from windows and stars and the streetlights on the main road all penetrated the darkness so that it took only a few moments for her eyes to adjust and make out the path to the garden door.

“Constance.” Solomon stepped out of the shadows beneath the wall, and she took his arm without thought. She could not believe how close they had come to severing their partnership, ending their friendship.

He said at once, “She’s up to her neck in Lambert’s business, though she might be trying to minimize the chances of any further disasters. That’s where she goes all day.”

“She does everything to please him,” Constance said. “All the time. Even whores have time off. Did you have any luck with the hackney drivers?”

“Yes. A couple had taken her from the stand to Victoria Street, and picked her up at midnight by arrangement at the corner of Tothill Lane.”

“It’s got to be Iris Fraser,” Constance said with some satisfaction. “I looked in the Lamberts’ stables, by the way, and they don’t have a donkey, only carriage horses, so we might not even have been following Gregg’s body last night. If Mrs. Fraser is our ghost, though, why would she kill Gregg?”

“To get his rents?” Solomon suggested. “Or maybe her husband did it in a fit of jealousy.”

“And locked his body in Lambert’s cellar?”

“We don’t really know how cozy Lambert and Gregg were. He might have had a key.”

“Like the ghost.” Constance sighed, then held her breath, cocking her ear to hear better.

“I heard movement behind us,” Solomon breathed.

Constance, who had heard something altogether different, veered across the lane, dragging Solomon with her, to a rather run-down building. She put her ear to the door. Unmistakably, a donkey brayed within.

She grinned. “I’ll bet any of the servants could have broken in here and borrowed the donk—”

He stepped closer, placing his fingers urgently against her lips. She stared up at him in startlement. But he really had heard something else. And it was behind them. Someone’s stealthy footsteps.

Her blood chilled. Had someone noticed her leaving the kitchen and followed her? A burly man moved among the shadows of the lane. He was not exactly subtle. More of a brute than a spy. Surely one of Lambert’s bodyguards…

And she had to have a reason for being here with Solomon that was not searching for donkeys or comparing notes on Lambert’s villainy. She slid her arms around Solomon’s neck and tugged him closer.

He came easily, co-operating at once, not only bending his head to hers, but covering her mouth with his as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

It is. Oh God, it is …

While the footman’s casual footsteps grew nearer, Solomon seemed to be entirely focused on kissing her. The thoroughness of his acting was totally unexpected. He pressed her closer into the doorway, caressing the sides of her breasts, her waist, her hips, while he kissed her on and on, deeper and deeper.

This was what she had wanted that last night of their last case when she had lain in his arms, so dreadfully aware of her own desire and his. And it was…

She had no words. Instead of trying to find them, she opened her eyes, peering at the footman—surely it was Pat—as he sauntered down the lane, hands in pockets, whistling in a manner that somehow told her he was vastly entertained. He turned the corner of the lane.

“He’s gone,” she muttered against Solomon’s lips.

One of his hands stilled, the other came up and touched her cheek, the corner of her mouth, but he did not stop kissing her. Even though he no longer needed to touch her. Bemused by this stunning fact, she forgot to hold her own feelings in check, and they washed over her in a tidal wave of sweet awareness and heavy desire.

Oh, Solomon, Solomon, I can never come back from this…

Some remnant of sanity must have remained hanging by a thread, for somehow she was able to drag her mouth free. “You can stop pretending now.”

She drawled the words, meaning them to be light, but her voice shook damnably. She could not give him this advantage over her, betray this weakness that would appall them both just as soon as he stood a few more inches away from her.

“I stopped pretending a long time ago,” he said huskily. He cleared his throat and stood back. “Although I admit this is neither the time nor the place.” He tucked an escaped lock of hair behind her ear and straightened her shawl before drawing her hand through the crook of his arm. “Let us walk more sedately and make our plans for the morrow.”

She resented that he could even think at that moment, but she walked blindly forward, one foot in front of the other, and wondered how she would ever live with this.

With an effort, she said, “Angela believes the ghost won’t come without the fog. It never has before.”

“And what do you believe?” he asked.

“That she comes every Thursday and Saturday without fail, but when it’s misty, she changes her routine, coming and going earlier. She probably has the non-foggy days timed to perfection, so that she avoids the garden patrols and walks boldly through the garden to the cellar while everyone else is busy around the dining room and can’t see her. On foggy days, she takes longer because she can’t see so well, and probably comes earlier or later. The house staff probably do things out of time too, so everything is just very slightly out of schedule, and mistakes are made.”

She’d grasped on to this explanation, stumbled over it by accident with some desperation, though as she blurted it out, it made a kind of sense. Which was a huge relief. It meant she could escape this unbearable moment, hide what Solomon had done to her, what she had done to herself by caring, by wanting more than she could ever have. He had always got through her guard, ever since he had crashed into her, saving her life by his lightning-swift reaction. Now she had to rebuild her armor, and she couldn’t do it with him anywhere near.

“Maybe,” he said thoughtfully.

“Good,” she said, slipping her hand free of his arm. “Tomorrow, then. Come earlier. Goodnight.”

She sensed his surprise as she turned and fled. “Constance—”

She flapped one dismissive hand and kept going.