Page 2 of Ghost in the Garden (Murder in Moonlight #3)

B eyond his need to protect, Solomon was aware of curiosity concerning the mother of Constance Silver. He knew only that she had been a whore when Constance was born, and that therefore Constance had no idea who her father was. In fact, one of the first vulnerabilities he had discovered in her was her longing to belong to a family, from which he had gathered that her mother had never supplied any sense of that.

Constance rarely spoke of her at all, and then it was only ever in passing. Why this sudden yearning for her company?

As though she heard his unspoken question, she regarded him from her own bench in the hackney. “My mother is many things, among them a veritable font of information about people most of us would rather not think about. It would be interesting to know if she had ever heard of the Lamberts.”

“Does that mean you are giving me permission to accompany you?”

“You would come anyway.”

“I might wait outside the door.”

“No one waits in Seven Dials. It’s an invitation to be beaten up and robbed. Or worse.”

He waited for threats, for excuses, for demands not to judge, but she only gazed out of the window at the impossibly straining traffic on Piccadilly. She had decided to trust him.

Warmed, he said nothing, merely alighted on the edges of Covent Garden where she told the jarvey to stop and handed her down. Immediately, she delved into a warren of side streets and alleys.

“Did you grow up here?” he asked.

“Somewhere very similar. I had my first establishment near here.” She liked to shock him with these brazen little announcements, as if to make sure he never forgot who and what she was. Or to be certain she didn’t.

She entered a doorway and climbed the stairs. “Gerry,” she said to the man at the top—a burly young fellow who actually dragged off his cap, his eyes gleaming.

“Miss Connie.”

“Is she in?”

“Got someone with her, but just wait in the parlor. She won’t be long.”

The large youth opened the door, his gaze unfriendly as he subjected Solomon to a thorough visual search.

The hallway was not well lit, but it seemed to be clean. Constance led Solomon left into a gloomy parlor that looked onto a stone wall. But the room itself was packed with things in apparently haphazard order. Little jeweled boxes, elegant statuettes beside others that were clearly cheap junk. Glass and porcelain, silver cutlery, jewelry, and piles of lace and linen covered every available surface.

“What is all this stuff?” he asked, amused.

“Guess,” she said dryly. “Just don’t spread your answer around.”

Stolen goods… Was her mother a fence?

It seemed likely as a shady man walked past the door counting the coins in his palm. Beside him, a short, buxom lady dressed in startling purple with improbably blonde hair said playfully, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Course I do, Mrs. Jules, else I wouldn’t have come,” said the man hastily, and vanished along the hall to the door.

Presumably the burly lad at the door had communicated their presence to their hostess, for she sailed in, smiling, shrewd eyes gleaming in her plump, still-pretty face. If he looked hard, Solomon could see where Constance got her looks, though the younger woman was much more refined and slender in appearance.

“Connie, my pet!” the vision in purple exclaimed, opening her arms wide, though it was noticeable she dropped them again well before she came in reach of her daughter.

For her part, Constance said carelessly, “Hello, Juliet.”

Brows raised, her mother raked her with her eyes. “Changed your style, Con?” She let out a cackle of laughter. “Never tell me the reformers got you after all!”

“I have merely expanded and diversified my business, as you always taught me. I dress accordingly. This is my new business partner, Mr. Grey. Solomon, my mother, Mrs. Juliet Silver.”

“Well!” Juliet Silver exclaimed, looking him up and down as though she had only just noticed him—which was not the case. She had clearly clocked him the instant she entered the room. She offered him one plump, beringed hand. Some of the diamonds were real. “You’re lovely, dear, but you don’t look much like a pimp to me.”

“I daresay you don’t look much like a raddled old whore to him, either,” Constance said pleasantly.

With an effort, Solomon refrained from blinking. He couldn’t recall Constance ever being deliberately rude before. He bowed civilly over Juliet’s hand. She hadn’t batted an eyelid over her daughter’s insult, but her gaze on his was both speculative and admiring—though he doubted he could trust the latter.

“Mr. Grey was never in that kind of business,” Constance said.

“What is your business, sir?” Juliet asked.

“Right now, investigations,” Solomon replied.

Juliet’s eyes widened, though the smile stayed on her lips. “You don’t look like a peeler, neither. And if my Connie’s gone over to that side, I’ll eat my best hat.”

“Your headgear is safe, ma’am,” Solomon said. “Our investigations are for private clients.”

“Still sounds like snooping to me,” Juliet said frankly. “Which is just what I don’t hold with. I know I told you to get out of the game, Con, but if there’s one thing worse—”

“I’m not out of the game. I have added another string to my bow. What do you know of a man called Caleb Lambert, and his wife, Angela? They live in Westminster, behind Tothill Street.”

Juliet’s eyes flickered. “Enough to keep me out of his way. I’d advise you to do the same, though since you always do the opposite, I’ll advise Mr. Grey instead.”

“He’s a villain, then?” Solomon said with interest, even while he changed plans in his head. Constance would not go into that house in any guise. “In what line?”

“Don’t know if he’s that kind of villain,” Juliet said, ambling toward a tray of decanters and glasses on the dresser. “Or not now. More what you might call a ruthless businessman. Like you, I daresay.”

Constance snorted. “Then he stays within the law?”

“His business does, most probably,” Juliet said, sloshing amber liquid from a decanter into three glasses. “It’s what happens to those who cross him that worries me.”

“What is his business?” Solomon asked.

“Property,” Juliet said. “He owns buildings all over London.”

“Devil’s Acre?” Constance asked quickly.

Juliet shrugged, carrying the three glasses across to them. “Possibly.” Setting the glasses on the nearest table to Solomon, she presented him with one, gave another to Constance, and kept the largest for herself. “Though even he wouldn’t want that lot after him. Definitely Cheapside, Whitechapel, and St. Giles, moving into the city and the west. I hear he’s trying to get into Prince Albert’s good books and build some of his model houses for all those poor people he currently crams into his old places, ten families per leaky room.”

“He’s a slum landlord,” Constance said, frowning as her mother eased herself into the chair beside her drink. “Is there much money in that?”

“Ten families per leaky room,” Solomon said wryly, “and the pennies soon mount up.”

“Especially with nothing going out on such nonsense as repairs to the leaks, stone, roofs, rot, or anything else.” Juliet regarded him with a bit more respect. “In the property business yourself, Mr. Grey?”

“To a small degree. But I’ve never come across the name of Caleb Lambert.”

“Expect you’ve heard of Huxley Gregg, though.”

Solomon’s breath caught. “Wasn’t he the owner of that building that collapsed in St. Giles a couple of weeks ago? People died.”

“Bloody right they did. Well, Gregg was Lambert’s partner.”

“In that particular building?” Constance asked, sitting down abruptly.

Juliet shrugged. “I’d say so, though they never touched him for it. Gregg must have kept his mouth shut. The parish is leading an inquiry into how it happened, threatening to bring a prosecution against Gregg. But I don’t reckon he’ll make it that long. There’s a lot of bad feeling against him, and someone will take the law into their own hands. He knows it too, keeping least in sight, I hear. He’d probably rather be in prison.”

“They’d get to him there too,” Constance said. “And not many would cry for him.”

“Retribution,” Solomon murmured, meeting Constance’s gaze. Was that what Angela Lambert truly feared? It would certainly explain her nervousness and her desire to involve outside help to find her “ghost.”

Constance took a distracted sip of her drink, looked faintly surprised at herself, and set her glass on the table. “Interesting.”

“Unsavory,” Solomon added.

Juliet raised her glass in a bitter toast of agreement. Like Constance, she seemed to be an odd mixture of caring and hardness. Yet when he tried to visualize Constance being brought up by this woman, his imagination failed.

“What do you know of the wife?” Constance asked abruptly. “Angela.”

“Nothing. Didn’t know he was married. Don’t like to think of a bastard like that with kids, do you?”

“No,” Constance said bleakly.

Even through the closed door of the parlor, Solomon heard the front door opening to let in a raised voice. It sounded like the young man who’d let them in, answered by another, deeper voice.

Juliet knocked back the rest of her brandy as though it was water and struggled to her feet. “Excuse me one moment.”

She moved with surprising speed toward the parlor door, which was thrown open from the other side to reveal a stocky man in a fur-collared coat that hung open to show long gold fobs and a loud tartan waistcoat.

Beside Solomon, Constance stiffened.

“Mrs. Jules,” purred this vision fondly. “I knew you were at home. The whole place feels different when it basks in the glow of your presence.”

“It certainly feels different in yours,” Juliet murmured. “You must excuse me, Mr. Boggie, when I am privately engaged.”

“I excused you last time,” Boggie said unpleasantly. He was a florid man, prosperous and oily looking, which might have had something to do with his neat, waxed moustache. His eyes lacked the hard, mean look of many bullies, but to Solomon they also lacked any humanity, as if there was no one at home.

Until they flickered over him without interest and strayed to Constance, where they lingered. “And what friends they are.” He swept off his hat and bowed, not without elegance. “How do you do, madam?”

Solomon’s hackles rose. There was something obscene about this man even looking at Constance.

Constance said coolly, “I’d do better in private, sir, as Mrs. Silver requests.” Something odd had happened to her accent—neither the unmitigated Cockney she could put on when she chose, nor the refined voice she had cultivated, it was something in between, enough to give an impression of lowborn respectability. She was playing a part, and he knew instinctively that it was not that of Juliet’s daughter. There was acute tension in her stillness, as though she recognized the intruder and did not like him.

Boggie looked surprised to be told off.

“Oh, we’re finished here, ain’t we?” Juliet said to Solomon. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir. I’m quite exhausted now and need a lie-down.”

“I thought you had something for me, Mrs. Jules,” Boggie said, his mouth curling as he dragged his eyes off Constance to impale her mother instead.

“Oh, I got nothing for you, Mr. Boggie,” Juliet said with apparent regret. “Gerrald there will show you all out together, and let an old lady have her nap.”

“I believe I’ll wait,” Boggie said.

“I believe you won’t,” Solomon said gently. “Let us do the gentlemanly thing and leave the lady to rest as she desires. Anything else would be unforgivably rude.”

“Would it?” said Boggie, staring at him in mingled astonishment and derision.

“It would,” Solomon assured the man, picking up his hat. “Mrs. Silver, my thanks for your hospitality. Good day.”

“Good day, sir. Ma’am,” Juliet said.

Constance inclined her head as though her mother were the merest acquaintance and sailed toward the door beside Solomon. Boggie fell back before them and found Gerry still holding open the front door. Another, large male figure had appeared from the depths of the house, but it was Solomon that Boggie kept his wary gaze on.

Solomon had learned long ago how to sweep unwanted people out of his way without actually touching them or giving undue offense. Boggie seemed quite bewildered to discover himself on the other side of the closed door to the street.

“Good day,” Solomon said amiably, inclining his head before he strolled off with Constance’s tense hand on his arm. “He won’t go back in now,” he murmured. “He’d lose his dignity.”

“His what?” Constance said with a hint of savagery. She exhaled slowly. “Thank you for that.”

“You know him,” Solomon said. “Who is he?”

“Someone I wouldn’t let near my girls. I had cause to keep him out of my last establishment.”

“Then he knows you?” Solomon said quickly.

“Oh. No, we never met. Even then, I had people to keep out those I wished to. He wasn’t quite so full of his own importance then. What I want to know is, what is he doing with my mother?”

“She wasn’t exactly welcoming,” Solomon pointed out.

“She isn’t a fool,” Constance said shortly. “But what does he want with her?”

He regarded her curiously. After their greeting to each other and the casual parting, he hadn’t expected her to care. “What is Boggie’s business?”

Constance wrinkled her nose. “He was a fence. Someone who sells stolen goods. I wonder if he’s trying to move in on my mother’s business?”

Solomon blinked. Despite his own suspicion, he hadn’t expected Constance to admit it. “Your mother is a fence?”

“A trader in antiquities and rare goods. And a pawnbroker,” she said in tones that told him her mother was indeed a fence, even if only on the side of her more lawful business. “It was, you know, a step up from prostitution. Or so she told me.”

“You don’t agree?”

Constance shrugged with unusual irritability. “It’s safer and she drinks less. It’s her business, nothing to do with me.”

“And yet…” Solomon murmured.

Constance sighed. “And yet the habit of protection is hard to break. I don’t like Boggie hanging around her.”

“She probably doesn’t like me hanging around you.”

“Oh, she doesn’t mind that at all,” Constance said. “She’ll like it even more now you got rid of Boggie for her with such ease.”

Solomon said nothing.

“He’ll be back,” Constance said restlessly.

“Perhaps we should look into that instead of the Lambert ghost. You will be too unprotected in that house in any case.”

“I’m as protected as I ever was. Besides,” she said, gazing up at him challengingly, “it’s not just about the ghost anymore, is it? It’s making Lambert pay if he had anything to do with that building collapsing.”

“We can do that without your being in his house.”

“We’ll do better with his wife around to answer questions.”

Solomon swore beneath his breath. “Constance, if you ask questions like that…”

“Don’t be silly. I shan’t ask. We’ll just talk. What do you know about the collapse?”

“The roof caved in, crashed through rotted floorboards, bringing masonry with it. The whole place was riddled with damp, rot, and neglect. The pointing was gone; bricks were loose and damaged. It should have been pulled down, not housing all those people. Only, of course, those tenants had nowhere else to go for shelter.”

Curiosity replaced the determination in her eyes. “How do you know all this?”

“I’m on the board of a housing charity. We encouraged the parish inquiry into Gregg’s negligence.”

“Then you know him?”

“Not personally, but I know he collected the rent with threats, even put it up a month before the building came down and killed at least eighteen tenants, maiming several others who’ll never work again.” With an effort, he controlled the surging anger. “I never heard the whisper of a partner. Could your mother be wrong?”

“It’s possible,” Constance said, “but I would doubt it. She hears things no one else does. Always did. People like her, talk to her.”

“You don’t.”

“We’ve got no illusions about each other, that’s all.”

But still Constance worried for her. He wondered if that went both ways.