Page 9 of Ghost in the Garden (Murder in Moonlight #3)

F or an instant, the blood froze in his veins. It seemed he was seriously considering the supernatural explanation.

But of course she hadn’t wafted through a solid wall—she had surely walked out of Lambert’s garden door, where she paused a moment. Locking it?

Then she glided up the lane away from them, and his paralysis broke. Grabbing Constance’s hand, he broke into a run after the silvery figure.

The fog must indeed have been thinner, for they didn’t lose sight of her this time. She was slender and wispy and veiled, but she heard them. She glanced over her shoulder, as if with alarm, then broke into a run—much less smooth, much more human.

“Got her,” Constance gasped with some glee.

But ahead, just at the end of the lane, a carriage loomed out of the mist. The driver sat inhumanly still on his box. A horse stamped its foot. Solomon swore beneath his breath, and they ran faster. But the ghost wrenched open the carriage door, leapt up, and slammed it behind her as a whip cracked and the horse took off at the gallop.

Solomon and Constance ran around the corner after it, and as far as the main road, where they could no longer even hear it. They had no idea which direction it had taken, and there was no one around to ask.

Constance, still breathing raggedly, grasped his arm and turned back toward the lane. “Well. Whoever heard of a ghost traveling by hackney? At least we’ve proved she’s a real person. The question is, what the devil was she doing there?”

“At least she wasn’t carrying Gregg’s body,” Solomon said dryly.

“Perhaps it was already in the carriage.”

“That would certainly match the rest of our luck this evening.”

“She must be someone’s lover,” Constance said. “Only, why is it such a secret? Denise the maid sleeps in Robin the footman’s bed. I suppose they don’t want strangers in the house.”

“They accepted you,” Solomon pointed out.

“Angela wants to be more of a lady, to match Lambert’s rise in the world. Funny when you think about it that she chose me. I shall inquire about sweethearts.” She inserted her key into the garden door’s lock and turned. The ghost had indeed locked it behind her.

“How many inquiries do you intend to make in the five minutes it will take you to collect your things?”

She paused, her hand still on the key, and glanced up at him. “What things? I’m going inside to see who is in the house, so we know if it’s safe to go into the cellar again. I’ll save other questions for tomorrow.”

They were speaking very low, so that even someone in the garden would not make out their words. With difficulty, Solomon maintained a mere murmur.

“No. You can’t stay there now. The case is over.”

“Of course it isn’t,” she said impatiently. “We don’t know who the ghost is.”

“Hang the ghost! It’s Lambert we want.”

“That isn’t what we were hired for.”

Panic rose in him. “No. You’re going home tonight.”

Her jaw dropped. Even in the dark and the fog, he could see that. It made her no less beautiful. Or precious.

“I thought you were serious about our agency,” she said, a trace of anger in her bewildered hiss.

“I am. Just not to the point of finding you in the cellar next time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can look after myself and have done in worse houses than this. I need to go back, both for the ghost and for Gregg. The ghost will be back on Saturday, if she follows her pattern. We should be ready and waiting in the cellar.”

“Saturday is two days away. We’ll make plans in the office tomorrow.”

She stared at him, nothing friendly in her eyes now. That hurt. “Are you laying down the law, Solomon? I thought this was a partnership.”

“It is, and I want to keep my partner, however annoying she is.”

A glimmer softened her eyes. “Don’t be foolish. You know the only sensible way forward is for me to return. I can guarantee Angela has not given me away to Lambert.”

“Are you blind to her? Or just idiotic?” he said disastrously. “Get your things if you must, but I’ll only wait five minutes before I come in and get you.”

She took the key out of the lock slowly. Just for a moment, he thought he had won.

“All evening,” she said, so low that he had to bend nearer to hear her at all, “you have ignored what I say. You have given me orders without discussing anything. Now I am supposed to give up our case? If that is your idea of partnership, Solomon, it is not mine.”

He ignored the injustice of that, for danger pressed in on him, an entirely different danger to any he had faced before. He had never cared so much before. He had forgotten how.

“Constance, you can’t trust Angela or her protection,” he said urgently. “ She betrayed you. ”

“Everyone does, in the end.”

Pain hit him so hard he stepped back. That was what she thought of him? “Your mother was wrong,” he blurted. “You would not cross the street to be with me, would you? Because there is always someone more interesting, more dangerous, just around the next corner. Are you really dissolving our partnership over this ?”

Her head flew back. Her eyes blazed like a cat’s in the darkness. “A partnership involves partners . It seems we were never that in the first place.” She whisked herself inside the garden door, even as he reached for her, and shut it in his face. He barely even heard the key turn in the lock, only her muffled footsteps marching away from him.

*

Fury carried Constance across the garden so fast that she narrowly avoided bumping into the apple tree. Fury and disappointment and hurt and—What the devil had he meant about her mother?

Casting that aside, she concentrated on the partnership argument and on his belief that if she didn’t obey him, she was dissolving it. That was not the Solomon she thought she knew. Or had she ever known him? Had she not just been drawn to that beguiling mixture of danger and respectability? To say nothing of his beautiful person. And she thought it was friendship, love… Whatever name she gave it, had she really been so wrong?

She didn’t want to be wrong. She wanted this agency, this work, this partnership. She wanted him , in whatever capacity she could. And she had just shut the door on him. Literally and metaphorically.

Was that really the end of it? Had something precious been broken between them? Somewhere, she knew he had been looking after her, but that was no excuse for laying down the law as though she were his servant, his tool. Under no circumstances could she ever be those things again. Not to anyone. That he was used to giving orders was no excuse. Not when he spoke to his partner.

And yet…

And yet she had a part to play, and to do so, she needed her wits about her. Knocking firmly on the back door, she thrust the quarrel aside to some small, lonely part of her mind where she refused to dwell.

Duggin opened the door. “Where’ve you been?”

“Evening off,” Constance said breezily, brushing past him into the kitchen. “Courtesy of the mistress. She hasn’t rung yet, has she?”

To her surprise, all the servants except the cook were sitting around the kitchen table, drinking a last cup of tea. No one wore outdoor clothing, or clothes spattered with mud or blood…

“Mrs. Feathers gone to bed?” she asked cheerfully.

“Obviously,” Duggin said.

Ignoring him, Constance fetched herself a cup. “Any tea left in the pot?”

“Enough for one,” Goldie said. “It’s yours.”

Constance took the long way back to the table, passing the closed door of Ida’s bedroom. Snores emanated from within.

Were we following a false trail? Or did she just beat us back to the house?

Constance poured herself a cup of tea and sat down. Everyone was looking at her. “What?” she said, as though surprised by their interest.

“You’ve only been here two days and you’ve already had an evening off,” Denise said resentfully.

“Well, Mrs. Lambert didn’t need me. I’m pretty flexible, as long as I get the time I’m owed. Anything happen here while I was gone?”

“Quiet evening,” Robin said. “Always is on a Thursday.”

“Why’s that, then?” Constance asked, quite aware of Duggin’s warning glare on the footman, who, however, only grinned derisively.

“His nibs stays in on a Thursday,” Robin said.

“He stayed in on Wednesday too,” Constance pointed out.

“How do you know?” Robin challenged.

“Because you were here. And because Mrs. Lambert told me.”

A bell rang. In the main bedchamber.

Her stomach twisted with nerves, but she took a last swallow of lukewarm tea and stood up. “Duty calls.” She had no idea what, if anything, any of them knew about the evening’s events, but at least none of them had attacked her.

Lambert, however, was a quite different matter. As she passed the ground-floor landing, she quickly tried the wine cellar door. Locked, of course. It would have to be in the middle of the night now before she could try to get back in…

She half expected Lambert to be lurking in the passage. That he wasn’t did not provide much comfort, for he could easily be in his wife’s bedchamber. She knocked once, drawing a breath for courage, and walked in.

Not for years had she been quite so prepared to dodge whatever blows came her way. She had already swerved and ducked before she realized only Angela was in the room.

She was fully dressed, still, standing near the window as she turned to face her.

“So you are still here.”

“We have an agreement. We have established your ghost is human and female and travels by hackney—both horse and carriage caused far too much noise for spirits, I feel.”

“You are angry with me,” Angela observed.

“You have made us complicit in obstructing the law. Why should I not be angry with you? Where is the body?”

Angela sighed. “I should have known you would suspect me.”

“Whom was I supposed to suspect?”

Angela shrugged. “You already know my husband is not a good man, and he has many minions.”

“Minions who appear to have spent the evening at home.”

“They are far from his only minions. It doesn’t matter. I took the matter into my own hands. I could not have the police here, poking about, arresting Caleb.”

“Why? What else would they have found?” Constance asked swiftly.

“I don’t know.” It sounded like the truth. Certainly, Angela did not try to look away. “Is murder not enough?”

“Why did he kill Gregg?”

“Probably because Gregg was about to expose him.”

“As his partner in St. Giles?” Constance asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why did Gregg risk coming here?”

“I don’t know that either.” Angela paced away from the window, crossing to the door and back again, before flinging herself into one of the armchairs. “It seems so foolish that I suspect it might not have been Caleb at all who killed him. It could easily have been one of his professional enemies, or one of the angry tenants. Someone might have followed Gregg here.”

“And killed him in your cellar?” Constance asked with blatant disbelief.

“Do you know for certain that he died in the cellar? He could have been put there afterward.”

“There was blood. On the cellar floor. The axe was there too.”

“Not a huge amounts of blood,” Angela argued. “Not enough to prove the matter, either way. Content yourself with the fact Gregg met justice—considerably more than the law would have provided. Forget it. I hired you to find the ghost. You found out she’s human. Who is she?”

Angela’s swift change of subject was chilling. She had just dismissed a murder committed in her home, most probably by her husband, with the ease of moving down the agenda at a church meeting.

Not that Constance had ever attended one of those.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But if she entered the house when we first saw her, she had been here for more than three hours. Presuming you had no female visitors this evening—”

“We had no visitors at all.”

“Someone did. Do any of your male staff have sweethearts or mistresses?”

“None that they would dare entertain while at work.” Angela sounded impatient again. “She can’t be anything to do with the staff.” Almost angrily, she drummed her fingers on the chair arm, frowning at Constance. “Look, I wish it had been a ghost. But I still think I’m right about motive. Whoever she is, she means harm to my husband. And I mean to stop her. She’s dangerous. Dangerous enough to have killed Gregg. Dangerous enough to draw you to his body and implicate Caleb.”

Oddly, those were things Constance had not thought of. She considered them now, doubtfully. The female who had fled up the lane and leapt into the hackney had been young and agile, but she had also given the impression of feminine frailty.

“You mean she killed Gregg with an axe, on your grounds? And then hid him in your cellar?”

“Caleb could have hidden him when he found the body. He can’t afford to have corpses around the house. Or she deliberately hid him here. After all, you nearly brought the peelers down on us.”

Constance stared at her. “Don’t you think you should simply ask your husband? Before you start making up fantasies to excuse him? Since you got rid of the body and the weapon, we now have no evidence to help us find out the truth. I should turn you over to them right now.”

A faint smile curved Angela’s severe lips. “But you won’t, will you? I doubt your own past will bear much scrutiny. Or carry much weight with the law.”

“I might surprise you there, so please don’t wager your life on the possibility.”

Angela rubbed her forehead tiredly. “Look, I’ll see—” She broke off, her gaze flying to the dressing room door. Sure enough, Constance heard the faint footsteps in the passage and the soft opening and closing of a nearby door.

“Unhook me and go to bed,” Angela said, turning her back.

Constance walked over to her. Her fingers felt too large and too clumsy for the job. At any moment, she expected Lambert to walk in.

“Goodnight,” Angela said.

“Goodnight, ma’am,” Constance replied, and retreated to her own chamber.

She turned the key in the lock. The lamp was not lit, so she just lay down on the narrow bed as she was. After all, she would be going out again in a couple of hours to look around the cellar. On her own. Without Solomon. Providing Lambert did not sleep in his wife’s bed.

She meant to listen out for that. But, somehow, she fell asleep.

*

Solomon waited for rather more than five minutes in the lane behind Lambert’s garden, even though he knew she would not let him in.

He had achieved the exact opposite of what he had intended—Constance safely away from that house. Instead, fear for her seemed to have drowned his wits and made him say things guaranteed to drive her back in there and away from him. Shutting the door in his face had been an unmistakable message, yet still he hoped she would see the danger for herself and come out…

While he waited, their words echoed around his mind, bitter and agonizing.

“She betrayed you,” he’d told her.

“Everyone does, in the end.”

Everyone. As though she had just been waiting for his betrayal. Even after all they had shared together. She had slept in his arms the night they solved the Maule case. He had thought it was trust. But she had never trusted him not to betray her, and this, this argument tonight that should have been a discussion, must feel to her like his betrayal—of her and of the partnership they had formed.

Would she walk away from it now? Was that it ended?

They had each put money into the venture, but that was the least of what he would lose if she ended it. A life without Constance in it, without the hope of seeing her…

A void was opening up before him, black and gaping. He remembered that void. It had been there, vast and terrifying, when he lost David, his brother, at the age of ten. But he was no longer a child to panic and disintegrate. He was a man with responsibilities to his staff and his workers, and everyone else who depended on his being there at least somewhere in the background.

Constance was not dependent on him, though it seemed he wanted her to be. That it was the other way around, that he was dependent on her , was another shock.

A life without Constance…

She wasn’t coming.

And he could not go in there to fetch her, alone or with several policemen, without risking her life. Instead—a novel idea was forming—should he not trust her ? Trust her opinion, her ability to take care of herself? This was her world far more than his, the world she had sprung from and never quite left behind. He was the alien, not just in terms of country and race, but in the privilege he had been born into.

He had never struggled for food or shelter. If he had walked into dangerous situations—which he had, deliberately and otherwise—he always knew that safety lay on the other side, not more of the same struggle to exist. Constance’s strength had brought her through that old life to what she was now. Clever, perceptive, compassionate…and still strong.

His admiration for her, like his feeling, had crept up on him. He didn’t seem to know how to deal with it except by protecting her. But she was right: they were partners.

Beyond the garden wall, he heard the faint sounds of footsteps. He couldn’t fool himself that they were hers. Someone tried the door. Solomon flattened himself into the shadows, but the door never opened. It was just Lambert’s men patrolling the premises before bed. There was no sign of panic or trouble among them, no screaming or shooting from the house.

Constance was not stupid enough to walk into danger she could not deal with in her own way. She knew these people. He did not.

Faintly, through the fog, he heard the sound of the kitchen door opening, closing, and locking. The night was quiet, shrouded. Solomon waited another quarter of an hour, just to be sure. And then he walked away—from Lambert’s house, but not from the inquiry, and certainly not from his partnership.