Page 16 of Ghost in the Garden (Murder in Moonlight #3)

I t was a spectacularly good question. Did Constance trust Angela Lambert?

The hackney jolted its way onward among the sea of costermongers and criers still lurking around Westminster.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something has changed and I can’t put my finger on what it is.”

“Something in you?” Solomon asked. “Or in her?”

“In my perception of her. I feel for her. I always did. I thought she was like me, but she isn’t. I feel for her losing her husband—she genuinely loved him, I’m sure of that—but I don’t trust her not to use me or anyone else to get her revenge. Does that make sense?”

“Then you don’t think she did it?” Solomon asked.

“She doesn’t have a key.”

“More than anyone else, she had opportunity to take it and copy it. You say Bert is always with her, but he isn’t. She came to see us without him, remember?”

Constance, who had, in fact, forgotten that, nodded slowly. “And if she didn’t have her own key, Duggin opened the cellar door for her quickly enough when she told him to.” She didn’t want it to be Angela, but she forced herself to consider the possibility.

“She couldn’t have done it herself,” she continued. “She was in the dining room at least until Duggin left her. And we found her there surely a bare ten minutes later. She was wearing the same clothes and there was not a mark on her, not a drop of blood.”

“Nor on anyone else, so far as I could see,” Solomon said. “Would that even be possible? We need to ask the police surgeon.”

“I’m sure Harris has already done so. No, I don’t think Angela can have done it herself, but she could have ordered someone else to do it. Perhaps she didn’t really think they’d go through with it. She did seem genuinely shocked.”

“Whom would she have ordered?”

“Bert?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Their first loyalty always seemed to be to Lambert, not Angela. We need to get times from the kitchen staff.”

“And not neglect other possibilities,” Solomon said. “Such as Frank Fraser. Who will pretty much do anything for money.”

Constance sat up straight. “Including lend his wife’s key, or another copy of it, to whoever wished Lambert and Gregg ill! Which must be just about everyone in that tenement, even the ones who didn’t start off in the collapsed building next door…”

“I don’t know about everyone ,” Solomon argued. “You’d need to be pretty brave to set foot in Lambert’s territory, extremely determined. And patient enough to find out everything about the servants’ movements and the Lamberts’ habits. To say nothing of knowing when Gregg would visit them.”

He didn’t look happy about it, and she soon worked out why. “You are thinking of Lenny Knox.”

“I am,” Solomon said, “and I don’t want to be. I like him. And I don’t believe he’s a violent man.”

“Everyone has a breaking point. What happened to his wife and child could easily be his.”

“I know,” Solomon said. “And he was more than happy to help me try to prove Lambert’s responsibility for the disaster.”

Constance thought about this for a while. “He’s all in favor of responsibility, isn’t he? For factory owners and landlords and the government. I’m not sure he would murder in secret and run. Wouldn’t he take responsibility for his crimes and make the point of why he’d committed them very loudly indeed?”

“In his right mind, I think he would.” He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of annoying suspicions. Constance knew how he felt. “We have quite an array of suspects now.”

“And no one to pay us for finding out the truth. It’s quite…liberating, isn’t it?”

A smile flickered across his face. “It is.”

They were in Grosvenor Square already. The time always passed too quickly with Solomon.

He was gazing out of the window. “I can stop for a while, if you like, while we talk about it.”

Her eyes widened. “You would come into my establishment in the hours of darkness? Knowing what bacchanals go on there?”

He smiled lazily. “I am wise to your ways, Constance Silver. I am sure there are routes in that avoid your guests.”

There were, and she intended to use them, even if she made an appearance in the salon later on. He had never asked her where she wanted the hackney to take her. She was just glad he understood that she needed this night in her own place, surrounded by the familiar.

For the first time, she wondered if he had a different motive. He had offered to come in. With no other man would she have assumed it was from kindness, from knowledge that Lambert’s murder all but under their noses had thrown her utterly.

“I am far too honorable to thus ruin your reputation,” she said lightly. “I will see you at the office tomorrow.”

She rapped on the ceiling, and the carriage drew to a halt. Not at her front door, but just around the corner. Once, it had been amusing to see if Solomon would ever enter her house of ill repute that she knew he disdained. He had, in broad delight, when he first proposed their investigation partnership. But something had changed, and she was too tired, too confused, to work out what it was.

Solomon in her sitting room, where no man had ever set foot. Exciting thought, tempting and sweet and utterly wrong.

“We’ll talk later, when the case is over,” he had said last night. Technically, it was over now. They had uncovered the ghost. In normal circumstances, she would be delighted by his company, by the opportunity to relax and talk about something, anything. But not this.

He sat very still in the stationary carriage, watching her, the glow from the street lamp casting a shadow over one side of his face. Even weary, she felt the familiar thrill of butterflies in her stomach, the jolt of attraction that had always been there.

Normally, he treated her with courtesy, as though she were a lady. He alighted from the carriage to hand her down. Tonight, he was not moving. So she did, almost in panic, reaching for the door.

And he was before her, forcing her to fall back while he opened the door and kicked down the steps. From the street he held out his hand, as he always did, yet it seemed such a huge matter to place her hers upon it as she stepped down.

His fingers curled around hers. “Constance. Will you not let me talk to you? To ask you—”

“Not tonight, Solomon,” she interrupted, keeping her voice light and careless. “Like Angela, it seems I need to be alone. Goodnight.”

He released her at once. Perversely, she was disappointed. Relief rolled off her, leaving only loneliness, as old and familiar as breathing. She walked away from him, around the corner. She might have imagined the soft “Goodnight” that followed her.

She wanted to cry.

*

“The Strand, please,” Solomon said bleakly to the jarvey, and climbed back into the hackney.

Slumped back against the bench, he missed the warmth of Constance’s nearness and cursed himself for a fool.

The end of a case had always been difficult for them. At Greenforth, he had bolted from his own growing feelings. At the Maules’ house, he had held her in the glow of comfort and so much more, and she was the one who fled. He’d salvaged that with his proposal of partnership, which she had jumped at. This time…

He just had to be patient, to meet at the office when she was ready. For they both knew the case was not truly over.

It hurt that Constance did not need him as he needed her. He would have battered his own hopes into nothing and withdrawn from the lists for good had it not been for the way she’d kissed him. And the warmth of her eyes, her easy friendship and the occasional, betraying catch of her breath. And her mother’s pronouncement: “ She would leave it for you. To be with you .”

Not tonight she wouldn’t. Something was wrong, and she would not talk to him. That hurt too, for they had both told each other things that no one else knew. About her secret longing for true family, for the identity a father might bring her. About David, whose loss was always with him, a black hole of grief and guilt.

Whatever troubled her did not need to be about him. It could be the Lamberts. It could be her mother, her own business, her own friends. Whatever, he just had to step back and be there if and when she needed him. He was used to his own corroding loneliness.

A light shone in the window above his front door. When he let himself in, his butler Jenks came to greet him—his expression, as always, one of welcome indifference—and took Solomon’s hat and coat.

“Have you dined, sir? Would you care for a bite of supper?”

“I would,” Solomon replied, surprising himself with the truth.

Mounting the stairs to his sitting room, he lit the lamps and candles, poured himself a small brandy, and sat down by the fire.

When had it become not enough to enjoy a solitary drink, a solitary meal, the warmth of his own fireside?

When Constance Silver had exploded into his life. Disruptive, intriguing, funny, unafraid, rabidly curious, and entirely unashamed. And why should she be? It was he who felt ashamed of once disdaining her as less than him. He had been fighting against such disdain all his life, even as he climbed into the ranks of the wealthy and internationally respected. Sought after, he kept his social distance. And yet he would be proud to walk into a dinner party or a ball or Lady Swan’s charity evening with Constance Silver on his arm.

He wanted to dance with her. Court her. Win her.

He gazed into the flames, giving his imagination free rein, while around him, Jenks set the table with one place and brought in a light supper and a bottle of wine, from which he would drink only one glass.

He rose and sat at the table. Jenks bowed and withdrew. And Solomon imagined Constance sitting opposite him, laughing, teasing, talking. Could she want those things too? With him? He ached with not having them, with not knowing. And yet not knowing was better than being rejected.

Tonight, he would think of her. Tomorrow, he would return to Lambert’s murder.

*

“They’ve missed you,” Janey said as Constance drank her first coffee of the morning.

“Who?” Constance asked distractedly.

“The girls. The guests. It all livened up last night when you made your appearance downstairs. It was a good night.”

Constance forced herself to smile. Although she had been tired to the bone, she had forced herself to change and pamper her hair and skin, then go down to the salon, just to prove she still could, just to make sure standards had not slipped in her absence. She knew from the reactions of the men, and the smiles of the girls, that she sparkled. But only on the outside. It was a professional sparkle she had learned long ago how to achieve because it was better for business. She had even sung for them, but that made her want to weep, because Solomon had not heard her as he had at the Maules’ house.

What was the matter with her? She had to find some equilibrium, some way to deal with the new turbulence she felt around him. Perhaps Lady Griz or someone else would introduce him to a kind, beautiful woman who would be his forever. It would break Constance’s heart, but it was better than the proposition he was surely about to make to her.

Why?

At the beginning, had she not wanted that proposition? As something so much better than the blatant transactions of her establishment? A secret yearning that had only grown with their friendship until it was unbearable. And she didn’t even know why.

“What d’you think?” Janey said.

Constance blinked, aware she had missed something. “About what?”

“About me working at Silver and Grey rather than being a maid—don’t think I’m cut out for that, but I like being at the office, and finding out about people. Mr. Grey said I was good at it.”

“But you were so eager to be a lady’s maid,” Constance reminded her.

Janey grimaced. “I was eager to be respectable, and I wanted to be the best, but I can’t even stop swearing. How would that go down with some hoity-toity mistress? To say nothing of a stuck-up butler and all the other servants?”

“Not well,” Constance agreed. “Which is why I’m trying to cure you of the habit. But, you know, you can’t swear at our clients either.”

“Don’t have to, do I? Got set things to say to them, then smile and show them out.”

Constance regarded her doubtfully. She had spent so little time in the office with Janey that she could not judge. “I’ll speak to Mr. Grey and we’ll think about it. You’ve certainly been invaluable this week.”

Janey grinned. “I have, haven’t I? You wanting a bath? And what you going to wear?”

What with bathing and dealing with a few housekeeping matters before she left the house, it was after eleven o’clock before Constance let herself into the Silver and Grey offices.

She knew at once that Solomon was there. She could smell him, feel him. Though her heart beat too loudly, she kept to the ritual they had formed in the first, un-busy days of opening.

She stuck her head into his office, uttering a cheerful “Good morning.”

He rose from behind his desk. “Good morning. Angela has paid.”

Contance raised her eyebrows and walked across to him. “In full?”

“Including your wages for four days’ work as her maid.”

“She’s paying us off,” Constance said slowly. “Does that mean she doesn’t want to see me today after all?”

“I think we should go.”

“So do I. The house is likely to be swarming with police, after all. Cup of tea before we go?”

“Why not?”

She smiled to see that the stove was lit in the kitchen. Perhaps nothing had changed after all. She would keep their conversation impersonal.

“How is Janey managing in the office?” she asked as she brought in the tray and set it on the low table between the armchair.

“Well. She takes in the post, notes appointments, and, so far as I know, hasn’t put any clients off. Someone knocked in passing yesterday, so we now have three appointments next week, and some jewels to find. She and Lenny Knox did a good job between them of following Angela Lambert.”

“Knox,” Constance repeated, pouring a splash of milk into the cups. “Is he still in St. Giles?”

“Actually, we can probably find him at your mother’s new shop in Covent Garden.”

Constance blinked and set down the jug.

“He’s building her some shelves,” Solomon said gravely.

“You’re not paying for this, are you? I don’t see how she can afford the rent, never mind refitting the entire premises.”

“With the sale of her old place to me. I have plans for it, particularly if I can persuade a few people to invest in running water, underground sewers, and the development of the building into decent flats.”

“Solomon, no one can afford decent flats round there. And those who can wouldn’t be seen dead in St. Giles.”

“The point is, they will be able to afford them.”

“They’ll sublet every space and you’ll be back to an overcrowded slum in no time.”

“Not necessarily. The rents will be reasonable, and subletting will not be allowed.”

“If they’re that reasonable, you’ll lose money.”

“I know. I plan to raise funds at Lady Swan’s charity ball. I’ve spoken to Sir Nicholas about it already. It’s an experiment, though a drop in the ocean of what is needed. But I digress. I propose we seek out Angela and the servants first, and then your mother and Knox.”

Since Constance had much the same thoughts, she saw no reason to argue.

She had no idea how she would be greeted at the Lambert house, so she made no effort to throw off Solomon’s company. Angela’s payment clearly ended their old association, and the entire household was likely to be suspicious of the newcomer who had decamped in her mistress’s time of trouble.

However, it was Bert who opened the front door to them, and he actually looked relieved to see Constance. He threw the door open wide. “Just the person she needs. The police are here again, and she won’t come out the parlor.”

At least she’d got out of her bed.

“Just go in,” Bert said carelessly, though he looked Solomon up and down as he laid his hat on the table. “I’ll tell Mr. Duggin.” This may or may not have been a warning shot across Solomon’s bow.

Solomon said nothing. Constance walked down the hall to the back parlor and knocked.

“Come in,” Angela commanded with impatience.

Exchanging a quick glance, they entered and found the widow at her desk. She stood abruptly at the sight of them. “Mrs. Silver. I hoped you’d come. Those bloody peelers are here again, poking around, asking questions.”

“It’s their job,” Constance replied.

“Well, they’re upsetting my people, and they have jobs to do. I’d help if I could—for once—but I don’t know what they want or why.”

“Is Inspector Harris here?” Constance asked.

“The governor? Oh yes, he’s there, going through Caleb’s office, cheeky bas—”

“If you like,” Solomon interrupted mildly, “I’ll go and talk to him.”

“Good idea,” Constance agreed, for they needed to talk to Harris. And Angela seemed to want to speak to her.

“Directly across the hall,” Angela said.

Solomon bowed slightly and left the room.

“How are you?” Constance asked quietly when the door had closed behind him.

“I’m holding together by a thread. I feel if I sit down without doing something, I’ll shatter. I don’t want to think.”

“Do you have family who can come and be with you?”

Angela looked at Constance as though she’d grown horns. “They’re no use to me. You are.”

“We received your payment,” Constance said. “In the circumstances, you didn’t have to be quite so prompt, but thank you.”

“I wanted an end to it—your investigation for me, and your maid pretense. I’d like to offer you a different position.”

Constance blinked. “You would?” Was she asking Silver and Grey to investigate her husband’s death? Should they accept payment for something they fully intended to do anyway? Although not necessarily to Angela’s benefit.

Angela’s eyes were shrewd, a businesswoman’s eyes, not those of a just-bereaved widow. “You’ve been useful to me. Even in the few days you’ve been here. I’ve come to rely on you. You’re a clever woman, Mrs. Silver, and there ain’t so many of us about.”

“ Are not so many of us about,” Constance corrected her.

Angela’s lips twitched in response. “You see? But that’s a side benefit. If that was all you did, you’d be bored in a week. Less. I want you to learn my business, help me expand it, be my lieutenant, if you like. As I was Caleb’s.”

It was odd, but even while everything in her revolted against subservience to anyone, let alone to the woman who inherited Lambert’s gruesome businesses, Constance felt a spark of pride to be asked.

“You’ve taken me by surprise,” she said honestly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Think about it. After all, we can’t even move here with the peelers strutting about.” Angela rose abruptly and picked an invitation card off the desk. “Caleb was very proud of this,” she said, showing the card to Constance. “Lady Swan invited both of us to her charity ball. Her husband’s the sort of business associate he always wanted, and I was to go with him.”

Perhaps that explained the odd urgency of Angela’s desire to speak better. And the new gown, of course, which would now have to be sacrificed for mourning black. “I’m sorry.”

Angela shook her head. “Don’t be. I’m going to go anyway, in Caleb’s honor, make the large donation he meant to, and it will be twice as touching now I’m so newly widowed.”

Constane blinked. “It will also be twice as shocking. In their world, you would barely leave the house for a year.”

“They won’t accept me anyway, though they’ll grab my money quick enough. I might as well make an impression. And that impression will be better if you come with me to keep me right on manners. It could be your first duty in your new position.”

Constance almost laughed. The idea of her, the notorious courtesan, guiding the steps of the plebian, if not downright underworld, widow through the Society of well-born, rich, and respectable people…

But Angela had no idea how Constance’s presence would embarrass at least some of the gentlemen and outrage all of their wives. She swallowed back her mirth and considered Angela’s whole proposal.

The temptation to string her along was strong—to learn about Lambert’s business while she pretended to think about the offer. But Constance did not have the luxury of time to win the amount of trust that would surely be necessary. Nor did it seem terribly fair play. The woman was at a low ebb, and Constance owed her honesty.

“I don’t need to think about your offer, Mrs. Lambert. I’m grateful and flattered, but I have my own business.”

Angela cast a quick, derisive glance at the door. “You mean he does.”

“We are partners.”

“More than that, from what I hear.”

Constance hoped the sudden heat did not show in her face. “A certain amount of subterfuge is necessary in our business.”

Angela waved that aside. “I don’t care about your personal life. I’m talking about my business.”

“And I about mine. I can’t do both, Mrs. Lambert, though I thank you for the offer.”

“I’m disappointed,” Angela said after a moment. She leaned back in her chair. “And yet you came back.”

“I said I would.”

“And there’s your things in my dressing room. I had Goldie pack them up.”

She’d had Goldie go through them. Thank God Constance had kept nothing she’d written down. “Thank you. Mrs. Lambert… You don’t really think Iris Fraser murdered your husband, do you?”

Angela’s face changed. She was no longer the hard-eyed businesswoman but a wrathful goddess. “I know she did. And she’ll pay.”

“You must leave it to the law,” Constance said urgently.

Angela looked away. “I know that. But even they can’t miss. They got an intruder with a motive.”

“And an alibi.”

“Not necessarily,” Angela replied. “But everyone else in the house has got one. You sneaking off into the garden early nearly lost yours, but at least you were with him . And you know the inspector, don’t you?”

“Harris? Yes, slightly.”

“How’d that come about, then?”

“Accident. He was investigating another crime.”

“Did he solve it?”

Constance met her gaze. “Yes. Don’t underestimate him.”

In fact, he had only nearly solved it. It had been Constance and Solomon who found the missing piece of the puzzle via a very risky maneuver. But she needed to warn Angela, who had probably seen her husband run rings around lesser policemen for years.

“I won’t,” Angela said. “Nor you, neither.”

*

Solomon found Inspector Harris in the pantry, interviewing Duggin the butler, who had thug written all over him, and was not remotely intimidated. Of the two of them, it was Harris who looked more harassed. As Solomon stuck his head around the door, the inspector waved a frustrated hand.

“You can go, for now. I want a word with this gentleman, too.”

“Don’t we all,” Duggin murmured on his insolent way past Solomon. He left the door open.

Solomon closed it.

“Was that a threat?” Harris asked.

“I rather think it was.” And Duggin didn’t care who heard it. “He’s not afraid in the slightest.”

“Which probably means he didn’t do it. I can’t dispute his story, and the other so-called servants tell the same one. Ghostly sightings and all.”

“Iris was undoubtedly our ghost. She’s been coming here for weeks, if not months.”

“Duggin claims to know his master had thrown her over. Same story as Mrs. Lambert.”

“Do you believe them?” Solomon asked.

“Do you ?” Harris countered.

“I believe he might have meant to. He seems to have relied on his wife, so if it came down to a choice, Angela would win, hands down. But I would doubt Iris cared enough to take an axe to him. She claims she had come to end it, and there was certainly no blood on her.”

“A jury would likely still convict her,” Harris said. “Adulteress. Scorned, deprived of funds, intruding where she had no decent business to be. Conceivably, she could have croaked him the moment he entered the cellar and bolted out the front in time for you to see her coming back in from the garden. I just can’t see why she’d bother. A jury might care about that. There’s probably enough to hang her. Especially when everyone else in the premises, including you and Mrs. Silver, can account for each other during the five minutes or so in which he must have died.”

“Duggin can’t. He could easily have gone into the wine cellar on his way from the dining room to the kitchen.”

“Not according to the other servants, who claim they heard him enter by the baize door and come straight downstairs into the kitchen.”

“The baize door doesn’t make a noise. I’ve never encountered such well-oiled hinges as there are in this house. And garden.”

“Maybe. But they’d hear his feet on the steps. He lumbers.”

“True.”

“Are they scared enough to lie for him? Loyal enough?”

“I suppose his daughter is, at least. But someone’s lying. If it isn’t Iris, it’s everyone else.” A suspicion, not entirely new, flared in Solomon’s mind.

Who would everyone in the house lie for?