The Glass House

by Jennifer Ashley

  The boatman gazed silently at the ring, looking a bit irritated that he hadn't found it before he'd reported the body to Thompson.

  Thompson closed his hand around it. "We could put out a notice about the ring, but that would likely only bring us a flood of people who want to take home a pretty gewgaw. The killer will probably be wise enough to let the ring go. Or we could inquire at jewelers."

  He looked at Pomeroy, whose face fell. I knew he was hating the thought of walking up and down London calling on every jeweler from the river to Islington. Pomeroy preferred chasing known thieves and tackling them instead of slow, painstaking investigation.

  Pomeroy shot a look at me and brightened. "The captain here knows many of the posh and upper classes. Maybe he could ask about who it belonged to."

  Thompson eyed me with less enthusiasm. He didn't know me and had no reason to trust me, though it was not unusual for a civilian to assist in crime solving. The magistrates' offices had nowhere near the resources they needed to patrol the London metropolis, although the City of London itself had its own police. A citizen was expected to give chase and make an arrest when necessary as well as to bring perpetrators to court and prosecute them.

  Thompson would use me as a resource if he could, though I would get no monetary compensation. Runners received rewards if criminals were convicted, but a gentleman like myself did not get paid as a thief taker. If I helped with an arrest and prosecution, it would be Thompson or Pomeroy who would reap the reward.

  Thompson drew his forefinger and thumb down the sides of his mouth. "Do you think you could find out quickly, Captain? Every moment could take the murderer a step closer to the Continent."

  "If he decides to run," Pomeroy said.

  "I know a man who could possibly help," I said. "This is a prominent man's ring, and he knows prominent gentlemen's jewelers."

  I could imagine Grenville's long nose quivering with interest when I presented the ring. Little exciting had happened since we'd concluded the regimental affair in the summer, and he had told me point blank last time we'd met that I needed to find him some new amusement.

  Thompson nodded and dropped the ring into my hand. "Ask your questions, Captain. Tell me the answers tomorrow."

  I liked that the man spoke quickly and decisively; he was deferential but not fawning. I gave him my word that I would keep him apprised of my success or lack of it, and he acknowledged it with the barest nod.

  I had not mistaken the look in Thompson’s eyes. He, like me, did not like puzzles to remain unsolved. And he, like me, wanted to find the person who had killed the pretty young woman on the shore. I could not imagine what harm a small woman like her could have caused anyone, and I was angry at whoever had hurt her.

  I looked at her again, lying still, gray, her lips slack, her fair hair limp. I slipped the ring into my pocket, took my leave of the men, and returned to the world above.

  *** *** ***

  I reached Grosvenor Street in Mayfair at ten o'clock. The thoroughfare was packed with carriages, as I had expected it to be. No one who was anyone refused an invitation to one of Lucius Grenville's soirees, even on a cold January night.

  I descended my very unfashionable hackney at the end of the line of carriages, paid over my shillings, and walked the rest of the way to Grenville's house.

  The façade of Grenville's home was unostentatious, even plain. The simplicity of the outside, however, hid a magnificent interior, made even more magnificent tonight.

  Grenville's fortune was vast, his taste impeccable. Chandeliers glittered above a wide marble staircase that lifted to a landing arched like a Roman piazza. Hothouse flowers graced every niche of the staircase and expansive hall, their reds and blues and oranges vibrant against the white marble walls. The scent of the flowers mixed with that of the people--perfume, soap, pomade, fabric, perspiration.

  I'd had the privilege of being shown over this house from top to bottom, of entering the rooms into which Grenville invited very few. Those private rooms revealed glimpses of the real man--intellectual, curious, fascinated by the world; tonight, the public rooms showed only the lavishness that people expected from him.

  I joined the throng entering the house, bowing politely to a matron and daughter and allowing them to enter before me. Both the women glittered from head to foot with diamonds.

  The hall was loud with people talking, laughing, calling to friends they had not seen since the hunting season in autumn. Over this din soared the voice of a popular Italian tenor.

  The purpose of a soiree was not only to enjoy drink, food, music, and the company, it was also to press one's way upstairs to greet the host. Grenville stood on the landing above, surrounded by a swarm of people eager for a few minutes conversation with him. He bowed and talked and shook hands, the gracious host. Gentlemen lingered to look over his clothes; ladies young and old smiled and flirted.

  Tonight, Grenville wore a fine suit of black in the very latest stare of fashion. His black pantaloons encased tightly muscled legs, and his dancing pumps shone. A diamond stickpin rested like a chip of ice in his carefully tied cravat, and his hair glistened mahogany dark under the chandeliers.

  Grenville was not a handsome man, having a long nose, slightly pointed chin, and eyes that glittered like a ferret's; however, these defects did not bother the ladies of London, who viewed him with the same fervor as a gentleman might view an elusive fox.

  But Grenville had never married nor showed an inclination to do so. Instead, he squired about well-known actresses, opera singers, and lady violinists with every evidence of enjoyment.

  Quizzing glasses came out as I made my slow way up the stairs, gentlemen and dandies scanning me and my regimentals. The ton had grown used to me but still wondered about me, though my situation was not unusual for the time. My family name was old and respected, but my father had run through what was left of the fortune, leaving me nothing.

  Many a long-standing family had lost money during the war or the years following it; gentlemen with fine education and family connections were forced to become tutors or secretaries in order to earn a living. They made little more than I did on my half-pay, although their employers no doubt gave them better accommodations than I could afford.

  That Grenville had befriended me made polite society talk. Usually their rudeness annoyed me, but tonight I could not help wondering whether a gentleman here had given the young woman on the riverbank the ring, or had murdered her.

  When I reached Grenville, his face lit with genuine pleasure. He gripped my hand. "Lacey, there you are. I feared you would not come. The weather is foul."

  I made a slight bow. "Not at all. I was honored by the invitation."

  It was what I was expected to say, what those around us wanted to hear.

  Grenville, however, knew better than to take my words at face value. He leaned toward me, said in a low voice, "I need to speak to you, my friend. You can rest up in my sitting room if you prefer it to the crush. I'll join you when I can."

  I grew curious, but I knew he’d explain no further in the press of guests. I nodded, and withdrew, relinquishing his attention to the next guest.

  As I turned away, I spied Bartholomew and his brother Matthias, both clad in livery, dashing up and down the stairs with glasses of champagne. I motioned Bartholomew to me.

  "Evening, sir," he said, as I lifted a glass from his tray. He cast a critical eye over my regimentals, which he'd studiously brushed this morning. His look turned disapproving, so I was certain I’d allowed a speck of mud to land somewhere on my journey to the house. But he said nothing and hurried away again.

  I took the champagne and climbed the next flight of stairs to a quieter landing and Grenville's private rooms. I was grateful to his invitation to rest away from the crowds, because after seeing the poor girl on the bank of the Thames, I was in no mood for polite conversation and false smiles. I had a few true friends among the ton; one of them was Lady Aline Carrington, a spinster of loud opinions and i
ndependent thought, but I could not expect her to give all her attention to me. The Brandons had also been invited, but they were not attending, Louisa had informed me in a letter, because Colonel Brandon did not much approve of Grenville.

  The news disappointed me, because Louisa had been elusive of late, and I had hoped to speak with her. A few months ago, Louisa had helped me through a bad bout of melancholia. Her presence in my front room had been a bright beacon as I lay unmoving in my bed. When I showed signs of recovering, she left me to the care of my landlady and departed. In early December, she and her husband had gone north to visit one of Brandon's cronies in a hunting box. Since their return to town, I had not seen much of either of them, and I was not certain why.

  I sipped champagne as I opened the door to Grenville's sitting room. I looked forward to perusing Grenville's collections or dipping into one of his many fine books.

  On the threshold, I stopped. A slim lady in an ivory silk gown and a feathered headdress stood on the other side of the sitting room, her back to me. Her attention was fixed on a row of tiny figurines from the Orient that rested on a shelf near the window. As I watched, she lifted one and held it up to the light, turning it this way and that to admire the cleverness of it.

  If she had been any other lady, I might have believed that Grenville had given her leave to examine his collection, perhaps to wait to be private with him later. With this particular lady, however, I knew he bloody well had not.

  I cleared my throat. Lady Breckenridge snapped her gaze to me but she didn’t put down the figurine, nor did she look in the least bit ashamed of being caught.

  "Ah, Captain Lacey. Good evening."

  The dowager Lady Breckenridge was near to thirty, with a sharp face, dark brown hair, and blue eyes like summer skies at dusk. I had met her the previous summer, in Kent, while I was investigating the affair of Colonel Westin. She'd played billiards with me, blown cigarillo smoke in my face, and told me that I was a fool. What irritated me most was that she'd been right.

  "Good evening, my lady," I returned.

  She looked at me a moment longer then shrugged at the figurine in her hand. "I could not resist. I hear that Mr. Grenville's collections are the best in England, but he shows them to so very few. Netsuke, I believe they are called. They’re very exotic, aren't they?"

  The ivory figure in her hand was a ferocious-looking little beast; only three inches long, it had two rows of teeth and a curving tail. Lady Breckenridge reached to return it to its place, but the sleek ivory slipped from her hands and dropped to the floor. Fortunately, the figurine landed easily on the thick carpet and did not shatter.

  Lady Breckenridge began to bend to retrieve it, but I crossed the room, bent down for her, and came up with the little creature in my hand.

  "Always the gentleman," she said. She smiled at me, and I was surprised and a bit pleased to see that it was without rancor.

  I set the figurine back on its shelf. Last year Lady Breckenridge had, by letting me go through her husband's papers, helped me discover who had committed several murders. She’d never betrayed sorrow for her now-deceased husband, and having met him, I could hardly blame her.

  With any other lady, I would have had a stock of polite conversation ready to hand, and she would have a stock of polite responses. With Lady Breckenridge, such convention was useless. She would bat away any polite phrase with stinging wit and wait for more.

  "Well, Captain," she said, breaking the silence. "I believe that you still owe me five guineas."

  I had lost a wager with her at that fateful billiards game, but I had dutifully enclosed the note with a letter to her when I'd received my autumn pay packet. I'd made certain to pay that debt, not only for honor’s sake, but because I definitely did not want to be beholden to Lady Breckenridge.

  She knew this. The glitter in her eyes told me so.

  I bowed. "I beg your pardon. I will rectify the omission immediately."

  Her smile deepened, as though she'd wagered with herself whether I would go along with her pretense or tell her to go to the devil.

  We watched each other for a few minutes more, then, losing interest in our non-conversation, Lady Breckenridge abruptly inclined her head and said, "Good evening, Captain," and sashayed her way to the door.

  The musky scent of her perfume lingered after she'd gone. I straightened the figurines on the shelf, wondering again what to make of Lady Breckenridge. Her blunt observations were every bit as pointed as those of Lady Aline Carrington, but Lady Breckenridge's eyes often held a spark of malice, while Lady Aline was kindness itself.

  I had learned through Lady Aline that Lady Breckenridge came from a very wealthy and powerful family; likely she'd married Viscount Breckenridge at her family's behest. There had certainly been no love lost between Lord and Lady Breckenridge; in the brief time I'd observed them, they’d never even exchanged words.

  I sank down with some relief to the Turkish sofa to wait for Grenville, and amused myself with a volume of his Description de L'Egypte. Grenville was the proud owner of these large folios of magnificent engravings put together by Napoleon’s scientific expedition to Egypt nearly eighteen years before. The emperor had been mad for Egypt, and so had dragged artists, scientists, draftsmen, and architects with him to the Nile to measure and record every antiquity in the country. We'd heard intriguing stories of artists drawing while bullets rained down around them and of them using soldiers' backs as drafting boards.

  The Description was immense, and few could afford it, but Grenville, of course, had procured the first volumes immediately on publication. He kept them in a cabinet that had been specially built for it, with shelves ready to receive the forthcoming volumes.

  I flipped through the pages, admiring the artist's skills and letting myself be astonished by the exotic temples, pyramids, and statuary. Grenville had a passion for Egypt, and had been there more than once. I wondered when he would disappear from foggy London to travel there again.

  I was engrossed in drawings of colossal statues depicting seated men with hands on knees when Grenville finally entered.

  I looked up in surprise. I had been sitting only an hour or so, and the soiree still raged below. I had not expected him until very late.

  Grenville closed the door with an air of relief. "Quite a crush."

  I returned the folio to its shelf while he moved to a side table and a decanter. "Claret? I've set aside the best."

  Grenville seemed in no hurry to tell me why he'd wanted to speak to me. He poured us both a glass of warm, red claret, seated himself on his favorite chair, and drank deeply.

  I supposed him working up his way to confide in me, but I was too impatient with my own task to wait. I removed the silver ring from my pocket and passed it to him.

  Startled, Grenville took it. "What is this?"

  "Would you be able to tell me who it belonged to?"

  He set aside his claret, brought out his quizzing glass, and squinted through it at the ring. "A pretty bauble. Exquisitely made." He looked up. "If one of my guests had dropped this, Lacey, you would not make a point of showing it to me. Out with it. What is the story?"

  I sat back and took an unhurried sip of the claret. "It was found on the finger of a dead woman earlier this evening," I said. "On the bank of the Thames."

  * * * * *

  Chapter Three

  If I’d wanted to created a sensation, I’d succeeded admirably. Grenville's mouth opened, closed, opened again, and he looked at the ring again. "Good lord."

  I told him the tale. Grenville studied the ring as I spoke, turning it around in his hands, much as Thompson had done.

  "Interesting," he murmured when I finished, then he pocketed the quizzing glass, and his voice became brisk. "If she wore the ring under the glove so it would not fall off her finger, that means she did not want to lose the ring, which indicates that she probably cared for the paramour, whoever he is."

  I rubbed my upper lip. "We are rather presuming that the woman
received this ring from a lover. She might have stolen it herself. Although, in that case, she likely would have tried to sell it or given it to a lover of her own."

  Grenville peered at the band again. "Possibly, but it's common for a gentleman to give his ring to his ladybird. Pity there is no inscription."

  Indeed, a line reading "To my beloved Miss Smith from Mr. Worth," or some such would have been most helpful.

  "However." Grenville squinted. "There is a jeweler's mark. Excellent. If it belongs to a jeweler in England, we will easily know for whom this ring was made."

  "As easily as that? Pomeroy winced at the thought of looking in at every jeweler in the West End and Mayfair. I supposed we will have to."

  Grenville's nose twitched. He was well and truly interested. "Nonsense. All I need do is ask my man Gautier. He knows every jeweler, boot maker, glove maker, hat maker, and tailor in London, not to mention the history of each business and the family who owns it. I wager he can tell us what this jeweler's mark is in a trice."

  He rose and tugged the bellpull then sent the answering footman for Gautier. Grenville liked to move quickly when something took his interest, which, in this case, was amenable to me. The sooner we could discover who the lady was, the more speedily I could lay my hands on her murderer. The sight of the pathetic and bloated body in pretty clothes had done something to me.

  Gautier, a fine-boned Frenchman who had, last summer, efficiently bandaged my hands after an impromptu boxing match, responded to Grenville's summons with perfect equanimity. He studied the ring and the jeweler's mark inside for a time, before he handed back the ring and announced it was the work of Mr. Neumann of Grafton Street.

  "Excellent, Gautier, thank you," Grenville said. He flipped the ring in the air, caught it. "Tell Matthias to run and fetch Mr. Neumann here."

  Gautier bowed, took this instruction in stride, and glided from the room.