Page 17 of Ghost in the Garden (Murder in Moonlight #3)

“L earn anything?” Solomon asked as they settled into the hackney he had hailed in Victoria Street.

“Nothing I’m sure is any use.” Constance met his gaze. “She offered me a position as her lieutenant.”

“Did she indeed?” Solomon said, his eyes widening. “I wonder why?”

For an instant, she looked annoyed, then laughter sprang into her eyes, catching at his breath. “It’s as well I have you to depress any delusions I might have of my own worth!”

“I’m not sure it’s just your worth she’s recognizing,” Solomon said. “She’s securing your loyalty. Or trying to.”

“It crossed my mind,” Constance admitted. “But she’s like Lambert in one way—one of these people you cannot ignore.”

“What did you say?”

She stared at him. “I said I’d start tomorrow. What do you think I said?”

He sighed. “I wondered if you couldn’t string her along for a little and learn what we need to know.”

“I thought about it. But Lambert’s dead. We can’t punish him again for the disaster in St. Giles, or for Gregg’s murder.”

“Then you have lost interest in discovering the truth?”

She shifted position on the hard bench. “Of course not. But even I have some standards. I couldn’t lie to her. I told her Silver and Grey was all I had time for. She thinks I work for you.”

“How ironic, when it is the other way around,” Solomon murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. Did she mind that you turned her down?”

“I don’t think she has given up hope of changing my mind. Did you learn anything?”

“Harris doesn’t believe Iris did it, but he’s afraid lack of evidence against anyone else will pressure him into arresting her. He has superiors who like results more than truth.”

Constance gazed beyond him out of the window. “Someone is lying.”

“I rather think they’re all lying. We need to speak to the Frasers again.”

“After Lenny Knox.”

*

Constance was both impressed and alarmed by her mother’s new shop. Although not huge, it was in a good location for passing customers and had a decent window for displays. Some elegant curios had already been placed there, along with a sign that read, Opening Soon . A curtain hid the rest of the shop from view.

Solomon led her through a narrow close to the back door of the building, which boasted a large brass knocker in the shape of a gargoyle. His brief rap was answered by Juliet herself, beaming and pleased with herself.

“Come in, come in! What do you think, Connie?”

“A long step up from Seven Dials.”

They stood in a cozy room behind the shop. It had a stove, a desk and chair, and an easy chair. The window was barred, though it had a pretty curtain. It had two internal doors, one half open to a staircase.

“Lenny’s working behind the door to the shop,” Juliet said, “so I’ll show you upstairs first. Got a proper kitchen up there.”

She didn’t puff as she used to on her way upstairs. It came to Constance that her mother was happier than she had been for years. It seemed to make a difference to her health. Thank you, Solomon.

It was undoubtedly a pleasant place to live, and Juliet clearly took great pride in it. She parked Solomon in a bright, as-yet-uncluttered sitting room, saying to Constance, “Come and I’ll show you the rest. He’s seen it already.”

The twinge in Constance’s stomach was not jealousy. Of course it was not. And yet it was something to do with her mother closing in on her friend. When had she become so small-minded? Perhaps it was indeed jealousy. Or the realization that she and her mother were not so different and never had been.

Politely, she admired her mother’s new bedroom, the spare bedroom—currently used as a storage room for the things that would go in the shop—and a very decent kitchen, where a kettle was coming to the boil.

“Got running water,” Juliet boasted, turning on the tap just to show her.

“It’s a good place,” Constance said. “But seriously, can you afford it?”

“If the shop does well.”

“And in the meantime?”

“Your Mr. Grey has bought my old place. Ain’t worth much, but it’ll keep me going for a while, buy me new stock—”

“Not stolen, Ma,” Constance said firmly.

Juliet looked at her irritably. “We all do what we have to in order to get by. You know that. What makes you so sure I’d never even try for respectability?”

“Because you’ve never known it,” Constance said bluntly. God knew that was not her mother’s fault, but though it hadn’t been meant unkindly, Juliet was frowning, the light of pride dying in her eyes. Her lips thinned.

“And you have? You run a brothel, Constance. The title of abbess is mockery and it sure as hell isn’t respectable. And you needn’t imagine you’re some high lord’s bastard, raising you above the rest of us, because you aren’t, and even if you were, it’d change nothing.”

Constance gripped the back of the nearest chair. Her knuckles were white. She didn’t even know what to be angry about first.

“Then whose child am I?” The words almost burst out of her.

“You’re mine,” Juliet snapped, glaring back at her. “There’s no bolt of thunder, no god-in-the-machine that will win your Mr. Grey for you. He’ll always be above our touch.”

Sometimes Constance forgot her mother had some smattering of education. She had taught Constance to read and write, after all. She had taught her so many things among all the confusion of drink and loneliness and despair. In spite of everything, Juliet had made her daughter’s rise possible. That made Constance ashamed of both of them, and yet it should make her proud.

Emotion clogged her throat. Maybe she was proud. Either way, she couldn’t bear any more of this.

“Where’s the tea?” she asked aggressively.

*

Solomon sensed some kind of atmosphere between the mother and daughter as they brought in tea. They didn’t speak to each other, although there was no overt hostility between them.

“One reason we came was to talk to Lenny,” Solomon said, setting down his cup.

A cynical smile flickered on Juliet’s lips. “What d’you want with him?”

“Was he working here yesterday?” Constance asked.

“He came round in the evening. Why?”

“What time?”

“Gawd, I don’t know. Six? Just before?”

“And when did he leave?”

“After eight, by the time we had supper. He needs feeding up, poor devil.”

“And you were with him all that time?” Solomon asked.

“Pretty much. Had a lot to talk about. He made me some drawings. Clever bloke, your Lenny. I’m grateful. Now, why do you care where he was?”

“‘Pretty much’ isn’t an answer,” Constance said. “Did he go out in that time?”

“He went and got us some supper from the Crown, but he was only gone half an hour or so.”

“Could you be more exact?” Solomon pressed.

“Maybe an hour,” Juliet said grudgingly. “And the food was hot!”

Solomon exchanged glances with Constance. An hour would have given him just enough time, but he would have had to know the habits of the household.

He’d already proved adept at watching and following…

“Shall we take him a cup of tea?” Constance suggested.

“No point if you can’t get in the shop door,” Juliet pointed out, though she did pour a third cup with a spoonful of sugar, which she handed to Constance without comment.

Knox himself opened the shop door when Solomon called to him. He gave his shy, distracted smile and motioned them to enter. “Mind the mess, though!”

It was a useful warning, for tools and pieces of wood of many sizes littered the floor. He had begun constructing shelving along all the available back wall.

“It will go around the sides as well, and we’ll have a couple of central cabinets, too,” he said.

Solomon was inspecting the frame nearest the door. “You do good work.”

“I do. I won’t overcharge her.”

“I never supposed you would,” Solomon said, amused. “I would not have recommended you if I had. Actually, we came to pick your brains about Caleb Lambert.”

Constance sat down on a clear patch of floor and set Knox’s tea down. They all sat like children.

“What about Lambert?” Knox asked coldly. His eyes were like flint.

“Did you know he was dead?” Solomon said.

The hard eyes widened and blinked. Some emotion sparked there, though Solomon couldn’t read it. It was almost disappointment, not quite relief.

“Good,” he said. “Saves some poor bastard—begging your pardon, ma’am—from hanging for murder.”

“Actually, it probably doesn’t,” Constance said. “Some bastard, poor or otherwise, did murder him.”

He stared at her, transferred his gaze to Solomon as though for confirmation, then exhaled slowly. “Forgive me if I hope they never catch him.”

“Then you think it was someone affected by the collapse of the tenement?” Solomon asked.

“Seems reasonable, considering both he and Gregg have been murdered now.”

“Do you know who did it?” Constance asked bluntly.

“No. Though I’m not sure I’d tell you if I did.”

“Can you tell us anything about Lambert’s household? Who lives there, when they come and go?”

Knox’s lips curled back, making his pleasant face ugly. “No. I know where it is, because Miss Janey and me went there and followed his wife from there and back again. On your instructions. Nice, big place,” he added bitterly.

“You didn’t by any chance happen to go there again for any reason? For instance, did you see who went in and out of the grounds yesterday evening?”

“I’d go mad doing that.” There was desolation in Knox’s voice, though he kept his gaze on his hands in his lap. “I couldn’t allow myself near him. I don’t know that would ever have changed.”

“Then you weren’t there?” Solomon persisted, although he tried to infuse disappointment into his voice. Constance had taken great care with the phrasing of her questions, and Solomon had no desire to upset Knox with suspicion on top of what the poor man was already suffering.

“No.” Knox raised his eyes to Solomon’s somewhat defiantly. “But I’m glad he’s dead. Never thought I’d think that about anyone, but I do.”

*

“He didn’t do it,” Constance said with certainty as they walked through the flower market close to her mother’s house. “It’s not in his nature.”

“The trouble is,” Solomon replied, “his nature is not quite stable right now. I could almost believe he did it and lost the memory of it in his own overwhelming grief.”

Constance frowned at him. “Is that even possible? Supposing it is, you have absolutely no evidence of it.”

Solomon was quiet for a moment. “There is violence in him. Behind his eyes. I feel it when he speaks of Lambert. Don’t you? He’s hiding something.”

“Yet you sent him to my mother ?”

“He’s not a madman. I’m merely considering possibilities. But if the same person murdered both Gregg and Lambert, I would seriously doubt Lenny is our man. When I first saw him, he seemed…comatose.”

“But Gregg would already have been dead by then. Maybe his state was due less to grief than to shock at committing murder. Solomon, I don’t like that idea at all.”

“Well, as you say, there’s absolutely no evidence of it. We need to find out what the Frasers did with their keys.”

Constance hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as though she could thus make sure of her mother’s safety. Distant, half-forgotten childhood memories prickled, times when her mother hadn’t come home, when other women had taken Constance in, fed her the odd scrap and not let her see her mother for several days. She had come to understand that her mother had been hurt or sick in those times. The awfulness of that was still unbearable. It was surely the root of everything she had done since…

“Constance. He won’t hurt her.” Solomon’s familiar, soft voice penetrated the sudden bleakness. “I don’t truly believe he killed Gregg or Lambert.”

“Then why mention it?” she snapped. She knew why. It was how they reached the truth, throwing possibilities around to discard or disprove or investigate further.

“Do you want to go back?” he asked patiently.

She focused on him once more, on the concern in his face, and somehow it soothed her, warmed her. She drew in a breath. “No. No, I’m being silly. Let’s beard the Frasers in their den.”

The Frasers, however, did not at first answer their door. Constance could hear them arguing as soon as she stepped into the passage from the street, even over the noise of the women fighting in the muddy street outside and the thundering feet of filthy, ragged children playing on the stairs out of the rain. She had had to stop Solomon from interfering in the women’s fight—they would only have turned on him—by dragging him inside.

“It’s all noise, no claws,” she told him, having learned the difference long ago.

He looked doubtful, but appeared to bow to her greater knowledge. The raised voices in the Frasers’ room cut off instantly at his first knock. On the other side of the door, nothing moved. At least they weren’t climbing out of the window.

On the stairs, a male voice swore at the children, who paid it no heed whatsoever. They thundered back down the stairs, the tiny boy at the front clutching a large key in his grubby little fist.

On impulse, Constance strode to the foot of the stairs and caught him. They others piled into his back, swearing as fluently as the man who’d just told them off, and trying to wrestle the key from the boy at the front, who held on grimly.

Constance solved that argument by plucking it from him herself and holding it too high for any of them to reach. It felt rather like the garden door key to the Lamberts’ property.

“Oi!” said the largest child, who might have been all of seven. “That’s his! Give it back!”

“It’s treasure,” said the tiny boy earnestly. “They’re trying to get it off me. Pretend, like.”

“So give him it back,” the biggest commanded.

“Not until you tell me where you got it,” Constance said. “In fact, I’ll give you all a penny each if you tell me truth.”

The children exchanged glances. “Found it,” muttered the largest boy.

“I thought you did. Where?”

“Out the back.” He jerked his head toward the door at the other end of the passage. One of the planks was missing. From the stink that drifted in, a sewer ran right through the backyard.

“When?”

“This morning.”

“Good for you.” She doubted many of the miserable rooms here had keys, apart from the Frasers’. Delving into her reticule, she retrieved a handful of pennies and gave one to each child. They snatched the coins with awe. “See if you can find any more out there, and I’ll pay you again.”

They looked at her, their eyes suddenly old and hard, well beyond their years. She could see they were considering rushing her and just snatching her reticule and all its contents.

“Really?” she said, gazing back.

Solomon materialized beside her, large and solid.

The biggest boy shrugged philosophically. “All right. We’ll look. Cost you twopence, though. Each!”

“Done,” Constance said. “Wait for us here if you find anything.”

They dashed off again toward the back door, children once more. Constance met Solomon’s gaze.

“They threw the keys out the window?” he suggested.

“Wouldn’t you if the police were coming? At least they decided to brazen it out rather than bolt.”

They returned to the Frasers’ door, and Solomon knocked again. A faint rustling could be heard, the ghost of a whisper, and then nothing.

“We’re not the peelers,” Constance said, getting her lips as close to the crack in the door as she dared.

A hectic whispering ensued. Solomon raised his eyebrows and then his hand to knock somewhat more forcefully, but before he could, the door opened a crack and Frank Fraser’s nose appeared.

“You again?” he snarled at Solomon. “What d’you want now?”

“Do you want me to tell you out here?” Solomon asked. “The police won’t be so accommodating, you know.”

The door opened another inch, then a foot. Solomon did the rest by simply pushing the door and, for once, walking in ahead of Constance.

The room was warm enough for Fraser to be in his shirt sleeves. Iris wore a pretty pink dress with a modest crinoline. She seemed to have no concept of being out of place in the neighborhood—or perhaps she enjoyed being the grande dame of the tenement.

“Well?” Fraser asked aggressively, while Iris looked Constance’s rather drab gray dress up and down and all but preened.

“We need to see your keys to Lambert’s property,” Solomon said.

“You ain’t even got the authority to ask,” Fraser sneered.

“True. But the police do, and I suspect they’re already on their way. There’s a possibility we can save them the trouble, but you need to answer our questions and do as we ask. The keys, if you please.”

“Haven’t got any keys,” Iris said loudly. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Solomon sighed. “We saw you using at least two keys last night. The police already know about them.”

“You can’t prove it,” Fraser said. “Neither can they.”

Constance held up the key. “The children found it under your window,” she said, exaggerating the nearness for effect. “They’re now hunting for the rest. How many are they going to find?”

The couple exchanged glances.

“It proves nothing!” Fraser said.

“Along with our testimony, it proves a likelihood,” Solomon said. “Look, we just want the truth. If neither of you killed Gregg or Lambert, I don’t care if you’ve a key to every room in his house. We know about the garden door and the cellar.”

“That’s all I had, sir,” Iris said earnestly. “Truth, sir. Just enough to let me in without his wife knowing.”

“Did you ever use those keys?” Solomon asked, swinging suddenly on Fraser.

“Course I bloody didn’t!” Fraser exploded. “What d’you take me for?”

“Leaving that aside,” Solomon said smoothly, “did you ever lend those keys to anyone else? Between Mrs. Fraser’s visits, perhaps?”

“And have everyone know we had them?” Iris said. “Not a chance!”

“Perhaps you copied them and sold them to one of Lambert’s many enemies,” Constance suggested. “After the collapse next door, for example.”

“After that,” Fraser said forcefully, “we had to be more careful than ever. Everyone knew Lambert was the real landlord, and anyone to do with him had a target on their back. It was hard enough for us without being accused of visiting the bastard.”

“And yet Mrs. Fraser continued to do so,” Constance pointed out, catching Iris’s gaze. “When did Lambert break it off between you?”

Iris blinked. “I wish he bloody had.”

Constance believed her. Which meant Angela had lied. Constance had already been fairly sure of that, though she could understand the pride behind the untruth.

“So whom did you sell those copies to?” Solomon asked.

Fraser clawed one hand through his hair. “What copies? I told you, I wouldn’t risk it!”

“Don’t want word to get around that you sold your wife to Lambert for a few dresses?” Solomon asked.

Fraser flushed angrily and took a hasty step forward. Solomon raised one eyebrow, and Fraser’s fist unclenched. He knew exactly what he had done, whether through greed or complaisance.

“Iris went last night to end it,” he said urgently. “Neither of us could take it anymore. We’re looking for a new place, as proper caretakers. I’d have thrown those keys away as soon as she got home, whether or not Lambert turned up his toes.”

“Could anyone have broken in here and taken the keys without your knowledge?” Constance asked.

“I don’t see how,” Fraser said, tugging at his hair again. “One of us is usually here.”

“Did anyone ask to borrow the keys? Offer to buy them?”

“No,” Fraser said bitterly. “I wish they had. Then I wouldn’t have had to throw them out the bleeding window.”

*

“It has to be someone in the Lamberts’ house,” Constance said discontentedly. She now had both keys in her reticule and several fewer coins. “Which means someone is lying.”

“It means they’re all lying,” Solomon corrected her.

Her stomach twisted. She knew it was true. The question was, were they covering for themselves or Angela? Were they even lying on her instructions? Was she trying to protect one of them? Unlikely, if they had murdered her beloved husband.

The carriage stopped at Scotland Yard, and Solomon instructed it to wait. Inside, they were told Inspector Harris was not in the station. Constance was about to hand over the keys with a message when Sergeant Flynn appeared, escorting a man handcuffed to a uniformed police officer.

“Hello!” he said, looking startled to see them. “Are you waiting for the inspector?”

“Or you, if you have a moment,” Solomon said.

“I do. Just finished a different murder case.”

Constance glanced after the handcuffed man, who seemed to have put up no kind of fight. His shoulders were slumped, not defeated so much as…lost.

“A difficult one?” Solomon asked.

Flynn sighed. “No. If it’s not rot for robbery, it’s nearly always the husband. What can I do for you?”

As Constance blindly handed over the keys and Solomon explained their significance, the sergeant’s words echoed in her head.

“It’s nearly always the husband.”

The very intimacy of marriage intensified every emotion, every rage or sense of injustice. Had she been trying not to see it all along? Angela had been alone in the dining room when Lambert went in search of the wine. They only had Duggin’s word that he had lingered with her at all…

It’s nearly always the husband.

Or the wife.