Page 6 of Ghost in the Garden (Murder in Moonlight #3)

S olomon arrived early at the Silver and Grey office to find Janey already at the door waiting for him. She was dressed as a respectable lady’s maid, which it was apparently her ambition to become, but there was no disguising her confident, cheeky grin.

“Wotcha, sir. Sleep in, did you?”

“No,” said Solomon, unlocking the door. It was not yet full daylight.

Janey’s eyes widened when he ushered her in before him. She opened all the curtains and lit one of the lamps in his main office, while he divested himself of his hat and overcoat. “You seeing herself today?” she demanded as he walked into his office.

“Yes.”

“Can you give her a message from me?”

“Certainly.”

“Tell her Boggie fancies himself in the higher leagues. Absorbing businesses, legit and other, as he goes. He’s got the backing of someone big, and his threats have been working.”

Solomon gazed at her, knowing it would be too much of a coincidence. “Who is the backer?”

“Whisper is, it’s Caleb Lambert.”

“Janey, do you know Lambert?”

“Course I don’t know him,” she said derisively. “Heard of him, though. He owned the brothel I’d have gone to if herself hadn’t found me. He don’t own it now. Sold it.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged. “Friends.”

“Did you tell Mrs. Silver any of this?”

Janey stared at him. “No, she never asked. Why would she care about a bastard like Lambert?”

Because she’s living in his house. “How do you know he’s a bastard?”

“Friends,” Janey said again. “Think he was turning respectable like, which is why he sold the brothel.”

“Whom did he sell it to?”

Janey thought. “Don’t know,” she said. “I can find out, though. If you tell her about Boggie.”

“I will, of course. One more thing. Do you know about the tenement building collapse that killed people in St. Giles?”

“I heard. Everybody heard.”

“Ever hear a whisper that Lambert was involved?”

“No, but I can find out about that too.”

“Discreetly, Janey. Lambert’s dangerous.”

Janey grinned. “So am I. Want some tea, guv?”

*

Despite her locked door, Constance did not sleep well. Which was why she was already awake when she heard the house stirring, and was able to rise, dress, and go down to the kitchen for a cup of tea before returning to Angela’s room to clean out, rebuild, and light the fire. It was Denise who carried the coal for her, not the footmen, none of whom seemed to rise early.

Ida, who was making fresh bread, gave her a slice of yesterday’s toasted, with a good slathering of butter and jam. “Mrs. L likes tea and toast in her room at eight.”

“Thanks.”

There was a pall of fog beyond the window when Constance opened Angela’s curtains. Ghost weather , she thought with a twinge of excitement.

“Can I ask you something?” Angela asked from the bed, where she was sitting propped up by lacy pillows, a shawl around her shoulders, a tray of tea and buttered toast across her legs.

“Of course.” Constance turned to face her.

“You’re from my world, aren’t you? You’re no more a lady than I am.”

“Probably not,” Constance said. “I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘lady.’”

“For these purposes, it’s how you sound, and you got that perfect. I could have sworn you were a lady when we first met.”

Constance cast her eyes at the connecting door, as she had done last night, and again Angela dismissed her fears.

“He’s gone. For the day, most likely. How’d you do it, then?”

“I suppose I’m a natural mimic. And I observed and listened and learned. I was fortunate to have that opportunity.”

“I never had it. Would you teach me? When we both have time.”

“If you like. Not everyone has a good ear, though.”

“I’d like to try.” Angela looked embarrassed. “Caleb’s come up in the world. He wants a wife who don’t sound like she came out of the gutter.”

Caleb did not deserve her efforts. He was not faithful to her, judging by the way he’d looked at Constance. She wondered if Angela knew and that was why she tried so hard.

“You don’t want to sound like you’re putting it on, either,” she said.

Angela nodded quite seriously, then changed the subject. “I’ll be going out today. I’ll take Bert and I won’t need you.”

“Good. I thought I’d just lurk near the windows or in the garden, looking for ghosts.”

“Don’t blab if you find out who it is,” Angela said sharply. “I want to know first.”

“Of course.”

Angela nodded. “Then I’ll wear that gray gown.”

With both the master and mistress of the house out of the way, Constance took the opportunity to look around the place more carefully. She began with Angela’s parlor, because Angela was keeping relevant things from her, and that was neither safe nor fair. As she hoped, there was no one in the room, so she went directly to the tidy roll-top desk. Half expecting it to be locked, she lifted the top, and it slid smoothly back.

An appointment book lay in front of her, with a marker at today’s date. There were appointments listed, though frustratingly, they were merely initials with times.

9am– SD

11am– W– RG

1pm– M

3pm– CL– F

Which meant precisely nothing to her. She could not even make the initials match anyone connected to the case—except, she supposed, the “F” at three p.m. could be Fraser, the caretaker of the buildings at St. Giles. No Huxley Gregg, though. Probably, she was simply meeting friends.

The entries for other days were similar, though the initials were different. Some days displayed very little, an occasional C with a time, which could have referred to Caleb.

Giving up on the book, Constance rifled through the shelves and drawers. On the bottom shelf she found two long, slender ledgers full of figures that again meant nothing to her, although the amounts involved were large.

The smaller drawers and shelves contained only notepaper, envelopes, sealing wax, pens, and ink. It seemed that if Angela received any correspondence, she did not keep it.

The waste basket was empty. The fire in the parlor was not yet lit, presumably because Angela was out for the day, but it had been cleaned and set. The whole room was pristine and somehow clinical. Though furnished like a lady’s private sitting room or boudoir, it felt to Constance like an office. Well, Angela was a tidy person.

Emerging cautiously from the room, Constance heard the distant chatter of the maids from the top landing. Presumably they were making beds and tidying bedchambers. Pat and Robin would have gone out with Lambert. It was as good an opportunity as she was likely to have.

She crossed the hall toward the baize door that led to the kitchen. Next to it was Lambert’s office, where she had been told never to go. But Angela secretly feared the ghost was the spirit of someone her husband had wronged, probably Cathy Knox. Her more rational belief was that it was some living person he had wronged, who was out for vengeance. If Constance was to truly investigate…

Her heart beating faster, she raised her hand and lifted the latch. It gave a small click, but otherwise, the door opened smoothly. Lambert, clearly, saw no need to lock the door. Because he trusted his household? Ot because none but Angela could read? She realized she didn’t even know if Lambert could. Was Angela his clerk?

This room was not so neat and clean. There was dust on some of the shelves and on the carpet and the back of the large desk that dominated the room. But a pile of letters, both opened and unsealed, lay to one side of the desk. Another, half finished, lay in the middle. She was not close enough to judge the handwriting yet.

The fire was not yet lit here either, but on the mantelpiece above it, propped up against the wall, were cards of invitation. Interesting. She was about to move into the room when a sudden, sharp voice made her jump.

“What are you doing there?” Duggin demanded.

He stood holding the baize door to the kitchen, through which he had clearly just emerged with alarming silence. Fortunately, she had her story planned and ready.

“Looking for madam’s shawl that she wore last night. Either she mislaid it or I did.”

“It’s not in there,” Duggin said coldly.

Constance sighed. “No, it does not appear to be. Nor is it in the parlor, the dining room, or the drawing room. I wonder if I was foolish enough to pick it up with the laundry by mistake? I’ll just nip down and see…”

“Mrs. Lambert is never in this room. No one but Mr. Lambert is allowed in here, apart from on cleaning days.”

Constance flared her nostrils. “And there don’t appear to be many of those.” Closing the door, she ignored Duggin’s scowl and brushed past him. He made a fuss about locking the office door. Damn.

She pushed open the silently swinging baize door, and for the first time noticed another door on the left, almost hidden in gloom. Duggin came up behind her, making her flesh crawl, although she refused to show it.

“What’s in there?” she asked brazenly, nodding toward the newly discovered door.

“The wine cellar,” Duggin replied with exaggerated patience. “Mrs. Lambert don’t go in there neither. Only Mr. Lambert and me.”

Constance sailed on as though she had lost interest. In the kitchen, she made a fuss of looking through the laundry for the missing shawl that was not missing at all, then returned, muttering about nerves, to Angela’s bedchamber. And her own.

She closed the door and locked it before extracting paper and pencil from the top drawer of her chest. Sitting on the bed, she began to write down everything they had learned about the ghost sightings, including both rational and supernatural explanations, and Angela’s suspicions as well as her own and Solomon’s.

It wasn’t a memory aid. She remembered everything said to her and everything she read with an accuracy most people found startling. But writing things down sometimes helped her to see patterns and possibilities she hadn’t previously thought of.

And there were patterns. The ghost was only seen in fog, and only on Thursdays and Saturdays. Moreover, the times and directions of the sightings were consistent, too. Goldie’s talk of a day off was actually a possibility, though hardly from heavenly chores.

Everyone who’d seen it agreed the ghost was a female figure. If it was someone from outside—someone working for Lambert’s rivals or enemies, or for Gregg—then they faced the problem of the locked door at the foot of the garden. They could have come in via the front, of course—though the gates were apparently locked at night—but no one had ever seen the ghost at the front, only in the back garden. It wouldn’t be an easy climb for a woman in skirts, and unless she was very agile—or had help—she would not be able to do so in silence.

Constance tapped the end of the pencil against her teeth.

The likelihood was, then, that the intruder had a key.

Or came from within the house. Angela, Goldie, Bert, and Pat had all claimed to see the ghost. Which, of the females in the household, left only the maid Denise and Ida.

Interesting. What were their backgrounds? Why were they here with the Lamberts?

Constance scrunched the paper in hand and threw the pencil back into its drawer. Then, remembering her own curiosity in the parlor, she took her scrunched notes with her into the main bedroom and fed them into the fire.

*

Solomon, dressed in his normal business attire, went first to the office of Huxley Gregg, a respectable suite of rooms in the city.

He was greeted with courtesy by the clerk nearest the door, who rose, while another two continued to work industriously.

“Good morning, sir. How can we help you today?”

“I’d like to see Mr. Gregg, if you please. Here is my card.”

Interestingly, his name clearly meant something to the young clerk, for his eyes widened and began to gleam. “Mr. Grey! An honor to receive you.”

“Then Mr. Gregg is available now?” Solomon had hardly dared hope.

“Sadly not, sir. But Mr. Aitken is entirely in his confidence if you’d care to come this way.”

Entirely in Gregg’s confidence might prove useful, Solomon reflected, following the young man the length of the large room to the door at the back. A nameplate read, W. Aitken, General Manager .

The clerk knocked and waited to be answered before opening the door and pushing it wide.

“Mr. Solomon Grey, sir,” he said in awed tones. “In the absence of Mr. Gregg, I was sure you would be able to help.”

Mr. Aitken, a balding, middle-aged man with round spectacles, almost bounced to his feet, walking eagerly forward with one hand already stretched out. “Tea, Jones,” he threw at the clerk. “Mr. Grey! I’m Wilfred Aitken. Allow me to take your coat and hat.”

Solomon allowed it while the clerk bustled off. Aitken invited him to sit and beamed at him. No wonder. In Gregg’s terrible publicity over the building collapse, the manager could never have expected to receive an inquiry from a man of such distinction.

Solomon’s gaze strayed around the opulent office, lingering on the portrait of a serious and surprisingly young gentleman above the fireplace. “Is that Mr. Gregg?”

“Indeed it is, sir. I believe it was painted some five years ago. It is a very good likeness, I think, combining as it does Mr. Gregg’s gentlemanly origins with his knowledge of business matters.”

“It does not seem such a great tactic to allow his investment to collapse,” Solomon observed.

Aitken’s smile vanished into sadness as he shook his head. “A terrible tragedy, caused by a unique combination of circumstances that have little to do with Mr. Gregg. As you will be aware, our largest concentration of property is in the more affluent areas of the city. For instance, this delightful property, part of our holdings in Belgravia, has just become available. It would be perfect for a man of your standing.”

Solomon stretched his lips very slightly. “Would it? I would really need to speak to Mr. Gregg himself before I could consider such an acquisition.”

“Sadly, Mr. Gregg has had to make himself unavailable, in order to deal with personal matters.”

“Has he? What a shame,” Solomon said, rising.

Aitken jumped up with clear alarm.

“Unless…” Solomon paused. “Perhaps you could direct me instead to his partner, Mr. Lambert?”

“Mr. Lambert has offices just around the corner,” Aitken said, clearly disappointed, although he opened a drawer in his desk and removed a card, which he passed to Solomon. “But I believe you will find we have more to offer.”

“Then this firm is not partnered with Mr. Lambert?”

Aitken licked his lips. “In some ventures. Not in all.”

“The house you mention in Belgravia?”

“Certainly,” Aitken said eagerly.

“The tenement in St. Giles that collapsed? And the one still standing next to it?”

Aitken’s lips tightened. “I believe not.”

“Then you alone take charge of the rents from the extant property?”

“It is banked in the usual way,” Aitken said stiffly. “If you have an interest in such properties, sir, I believe both Mr. Gregg and Mr. Lambert would be willing to sell.”

Solomon tapped his fingers on the desk as though considering. “Is there much money to be made from such lowly investments?”

“There’s always money to be made if one knows how.”

“That’s what I thought,” Solomon murmured. “Though a lot to lose if one’s investment collapses.”

“A once-in-a-lifetime tragedy for us all,” Aitken said nervously.

“Of its type, one trusts so, though of course there is always the other ever-present danger of fire, cholera, and other diseases spreading like the wind amidst such overcrowding.”

“One is never short of tenants.”

“No,” Solomon said, eyeing him with dislike. “I don’t suppose you are. And you do vouch for Mr. Lambert’s reputation?”

“I have every reason to believe in his respectability. He and Mr. Gregg invest together in many ventures.”

“And if Mr. Gregg goes to prison,” Solomon said, watching Aitken wince, “what will become of those joint ventures?”

“That is so unlikely a contingency that I could not possibly guess. Are you seriously considering the property in Belgravia?”

Out of the blue, a vision flashed into Solomon’s mind, of himself walking through a gracious, empty house, inspecting the rooms and making plans. A woman walked by his side, his partner in all things.

Ludicrous.

He rose hastily, hoping he didn’t look as disconcerted as he felt. “I am always serious, Mr. Aitken. After speaking to Mr. Lambert, I may well be back.”

He went immediately to Lambert’s office, before any messengers from Aitken could reach him. It was indeed only a short walk around the corner. Here, he was admitted by a large doorman, although a glance at the individual, who wore no livery, caused him to wonder if this was one of Lambert’s footmen-bodyguards that Constance had told him about.

“My name is Grey,” he said, with more haughtiness than he had employed in Gregg’s office. “Mr. Lambert, if you please.”

The card he held out in no particular direction was taken not by the large doorman but by a clerk who bustled up to him. His jaw showed a tendency to gape.

“Mr. Grey! Please do sit down for one moment…” The clerk all but fled to one of the two offices opening off the main room. He appeared to be the only occupant of the outer office, if one ignored the muscle.

The clerk obviously knew Solomon’s name. He wondered if Lambert did. If not, the clerk clearly enlightened him, for in only moments, he was escorted into a neat, very unbusy office, occupied by another large young man in one corner, and, presumably, Lambert himself.

Unlike Aitken, Lambert did not fawn. He granted audiences in a manner guaranteed to take the self-important down a peg. If he hadn’t been born with the gift, it had certainly become natural to him. Solomon disliked him on sight, though whether on the basis of his own instincts or Constance’s, he wasn’t sure.

The man’s hair was dark and oiled, his whiskers well trimmed. His mouth was full, at once sensual and brutal, and his eyes… They were not the eyes of anyone Solomon would ever do business with. Constance’s presence in this man’s house appalled him.

Only his habitual reserve kept the distaste from his expression. Fortunately, Lambert did not offer to shake hands.

“Mr. Grey,” he said genially. “Sit down and tell me how I might assist you.”

Solomon sat without gratitude. Lambert resumed his seat on the other side of the desk. The clerk had vanished, although the large man in the corner was still there, lounging on a chair. No pictures or portraits relieved the stark, clean walls of this room, although the carpet underfoot was thick and the curtains opulent. The chair was comfortable, too.

“I have just come,” Solomon said, “from the office of Mr. Gregg. I prefer to meet personally anyone I consider doing business with.”

“Very wise, Mr. Grey. It’s a precaution I always take myself. What sort of business do you have in mind?”

“Property, since I am here,” Solomon said in a bored, slightly disappointed voice. “I am always looking for new investment possibilities, and then there is the matter of a suitable residence. Gregg’s man, Aitken, was recommending Belgravia.”

“It’s the new Mayfair,” Lambert told him. “We have built several beautiful homes there that are much admired and sought after.” His accent was interesting—less obviously London than his wife’s, as though by mixing with the better bred he had sheered the rough edges off it, yet wisely never bothered to pretend to be a gentleman. Presumably that had been Gregg’s part in their partnership.

“It is one matter I am considering,” Solomon said. “The other is less…expensive properties—such as the one that has landed Mr. Gregg in all sorts of difficulties. You are his partner in that venture?”

Lambert smiled, undisturbed. “You’ve been misinformed. I don’t take such risks.”

“Yet your partner does? This does not fill me with confidence.”

“Gregg grew careless, which is why I’ve disembarrassed myself of much of the business we had together. Now we go our own ways.”

“Apart from the Belgravia properties.”

“For the moment.”

“And your St. Giles properties?”

Lambert met his gaze without fear. “Do you have one in mind?”

“To be frank, I’m thinking of the one that fell down, which does give one pause. What will happen to those properties now? Will a new building be constructed on the plot of the old one?”

“Ask Gregg.”

“I would if I could find him. He is never at home, and he no longer attends his office.”

“Keeping low till the inquiry blows over.”

“I daresay that is wise. You, being his partner, wouldn’t know where I can reach him?”

“We were never that close,” Lambert said.

“Then you could not advise me on the business of…lesser properties?”

Lambert didn’t bat an eyelid. “You’d get Gregg’s buildings for a song right now. On the other hand, I couldn’t advise it.”

Clever. Did he know Solomon was not serious about entering the business of slum landlords? Or was he just testing the waters?

“Who could?” Solomon asked. “Whom would I approach about the possibility of purchase?”

“Mr. Gregg, of course. Or his office.”

“How odd,” Solomon said, holding the man’s steady gaze. “I had the impression you were the important partner.”

Lambert was considering him very carefully, greed no doubt warring with risk. “Perhaps you should come and see me again,” he said at last, rising to his feet. “After the inquiry.”

“You know, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Solomon said, standing unhurriedly. “Good day, Mr. Lambert.”

“Mr. Grey.”

It had been a long time since his neck had prickled in quite such an alarming fashion, or for quite so long. Within five minutes of stepping into the street, he was sure he was being followed.

Lambert was suspicious. Interesting. And it was rather too dangerous to return to the Silver and Grey offices. Instead, Solomon took a hackney to St. Catherine’s, where his largest warehouse resided.