The Glass House (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #3)

by Ashley Gardner

  The man, middle-aged, with a handsome face running to fat, acquiesced to Grenville's request without protest. He was a businessman, after all. Any connection with Grenville, no matter how small, could boost his custom. The quantity of brandy Grenville gave him, along with a large tip, did not hurt either.

  Mr. Neumann looked at the ring, gave us the name Lord Barbury, and departed home in the luxury of Grenville's carriage.

  Grenville's eyes sparkled black fire. Lord Barbury, he said, a baron, had indeed answered the invitation to the soiree, and was likely still in the house. He departed in search of the man, nearly bouncing in his polished leather shoes.

  He returned not long after with Lord Barbury in tow. Lord Barbury was a tall man with deep brown eyes, in his thirties, past his first blush of youth but not yet at middle age. Waves of thick dark hair dressed in the romantic style touched his shoulders and made his long face look still longer. His chin was shadowed with beard, as though his whiskers sprouted as quickly as his valet scraped them off.

  Barbury wore a black suit much like Grenville's, with an ivory-and-white striped waistcoat. Heavy gold rings encircled his fingers, and his cravat pin sported a large emerald. A man about town, I assessed, living to go to his clubs, ride horses, gamble, and take a pretty mistress.

  He frowned at me as Grenville introduced us, a frown that froze when Grenville opened his hand and displayed the silver ring.

  "Where the devil did you get that?" Barbury demanded.

  I said quietly, "A woman was pulled from the Thames earlier this evening. She was wearing it."

  All the color drained from his face. "What do you mean? Tell me at once."

  "Is this your ring?" Grenville asked.

  "Yes, that is my be-damned ring. I do not understand why you have it."

  "Lacey?" Grenville said.

  "The woman was small and pretty," I said. "She had blond hair and wore a gown of light pink and beaded slippers. She was wearing this ring under her glove. She had been murdered, her head struck, before she was pushed into the river."

  Lord Barbury gasped for breath, his eyes becoming pinpoints of black in his stark white face. Grenville caught him as he sagged and got him into a chair. I poured the man a glass of claret and handed it to him. Lord Barbury drank.

  His hauteur and rage faded as he swallowed. He gave Grenville a dazed look. "Please, gentlemen, tell me you are mistaken. That this is some disgusting joke . . ."

  "I wish I could," I said. "The young lady died at about half-past four this afternoon, according to the men who found her. Did you see her today?"

  "No. I was to meet her later. Tonight." Barbury pressed his hand to his face. "I cannot believe this. This cannot be."

  "Where were you, my lord," I asked, "at half-past four?"

  He raised his head, eyes filling with rage, but I held my ground. If he’d killed the young woman, I didn’t care whether he were a baron or a boatman.

  "I was at my club," he snapped. "How dare you think that I could do this, that I could harm my Peaches." His voice broke.

  "I believe I saw you with her once," Grenville said. "A pretty young woman."

  "Lovely and sweet as a peach," he said. "Which is why I call her . . ." Barbury looked up at me, brown eyes filled with tears, an anguished man unused to grappling with this sort of pain. "Who did this to her?"

  "That we do not know," Grenville said. "An officer of the Thames River patrol and one of Bow Street are looking into it."

  "Bow Street, bah. Trumped up watchmen who do nothing without a large reward dangling over their heads."

  "You could offer the reward," Grenville suggested.

  "Then they will simply scoop up anyone from the street and push through a conviction."

  I didn’t completely disagree with Barbury. Pomeroy was diligent in seeking out his rewards, and he enjoyed arresting people, whether they had anything to do with the crime in question or not.

  "Mr. Thompson of the Thames River patrol struck me as being intelligent," I said. "He is interested in the truth."

  Lord Barbury waved away Mr. Thompson as well. "You do it, Lacey."

  "Pardon?"

  Barbury looked at me with a mixture of grief and rage. "I have heard that you run about finding lost girls and discovering murderers. Twitting magistrates is an admirable quality. Besides, at least you're a gentleman."

  Lord Barbury had in no way convinced me that he had not himself murdered the woman called Peaches. He might have quarreled with her, he might have tried to end the affair and she resisted, or she might have threatened him. His grief seemed genuine, but I had met men before who could portray grief and be perfectly sanguine a moment later. It would be easy enough, however, to discover Barbury’s whereabouts between four and five o'clock that afternoon, though that was not to say that a man of his standing couldn’t hire others to do his dirty deeds.

  Barbary was looking at the ring again. His arrogance had crumpled, a man trying very hard to not believe the worst.

  I said, "I will see what I can do."

  "Please do," Barbury glared at me. His grief made him abrupt, but I sensed that even in the happiest of times, he was a man of impatience and who brooked no fools. "I want to find whoever hurt Peaches, and I want to watch him dance from the gallows."

  Whatever I thought about Barbury, I shared his wish. No matter what Peaches had done in life, I vowed that the man who had hurt that helpless and frail young woman would feel my wrath.

  *** *** ***

  Grenville and I learned as much as we could from Lord Barbury before he departed the house, sunk in grief. The next morning, I visited Thompson to return the ring and tell him the story.

  Peaches, Lord Barbury had told us, was in truth a lady called Mrs. Chapman. She had a husband, a barrister, and significantly, his chambers were in Middle Temple. Born Amelia Leary, Peaches had been an actress, moving from company to company in search of better roles, rather like Marianne did. Her sweet charm on the stage soon attracted Lord Barbury, and they’d become lovers.

  Then, about five years ago, Peaches had left the theatre, married Mr. Chapman, and ceased to be Barbury’s lover. Barbury had spoken of this in clipped, dry tones. Peaches, it seemed, had had ambition. She must have realized fairly soon that Barbury would never marry her, she being beneath his station, so she'd turned her sights to another mark, the barrister called Chapman.

  I wondered why Chapman, a respectable barrister, had taken a wife with Peaches' background. But perhaps he'd been flattered by her attention, perhaps the pretty Peaches had charmed him, perhaps Chapman hadn't known much about what went on in the world of the theatre. In any case, they’d married, and Peaches dropped from sight.

  A year ago, Lord Barbury, still unmarried himself, had met Peaches again by chance. They'd discovered that their mutual attraction still was strong, and they'd begun another affair. They'd enjoyed a sweet reunion, Barbury said, his grief breaking his voice. They’d met regularly in two places--at the gatherings of a man called Inglethorpe in Mayfair and at The Glass House.

  Thompson looked interested when I mentioned The Glass House. We sat in his office at Wapping on the Thames, a bare room with desk and chair and a stool for guests. I had come alone, Grenville having had an appointment to view a famous private collection of porcelain. He’d made the appointment weeks ago and had been vastly disappointed that he couldn’t traipse the back lanes of the East End with me this morning.

  "The Glass House," Thompson said. "A name that has no good attached to it. Whenever magistrates or reformers try to close it, their intentions are blocked. Have you ever been there, Captain?"

  I had not. I'd heard of The Glass House, a name spoken by many an upper-class gentlemen as a place to go for vices more exotic than those offered in the hells of St. James's. Grenville had never suggested taking me--never spoke of it, actually, from which I surmised he disdained it. Grenville’s tacit disapproval did not stop wealthy gentlemen going in droves, however, from what I’d heard. But I had
neither the wealth, connections, or the interest to seek out The Glass House on my own.

  "Nasty goings on there," Thompson said. "I believe a man must be deep in pocket and long in pedigree to even cross the threshold."

  That left me on the doorstep. A barrister who lived on what people paid him to prosecute cases likely would be left on the doorstep as well.

  "I will have to send for Mr. Chapman and tell him the disagreeable news," Thompson said, sighing. "And he’ll have to identify the body. Not a happy errand."

  "Do you mind if I am present when you question him?" I didn’t necessarily relish watching a man look upon the dead body of his wife, but Chapman had the most motive for killing her. Peaches had been cuckolding him, and Chapman’s chambers were near to the Temple Stairs. Chapman might well have discovered his wife's affair with Lord Barbury, met his wife in the Temple Gardens, quarreled with her, and killed her.

  I could not rule out Barbury, either, despite his impassioned plea to me to find Peaches' killer. He was an impatient man, as I'd observed. He could very well have been angry and jealous, and he was a large man, easily able to kill such a delicate young woman as Peaches.

  Both men had strong connections to her; it was likely that she had been killed either by one of them or because of one of them.

  "You’re welcome, if you like," Thompson said. "Sir Montague Harris told me things about you. He's astute as they make them, for a magistrate, and I've learned to trust him." He slanted me a look that said he'd be interested to see what I did, if not explicitly sharing Sir Montague's trust in me.

  Sir Montague Harris, magistrate from the Whitechapel house, had attended an inquest last summer at which I'd been called to give evidence. I’d been impressed with the man's common sense and pointed questions, even if the magistrate in charge had found him irritating.

  I left Thompson, who told me he would send word when he fetched Chapman, and made my way back to Covent Garden.

  *** *** ***

  Grenville and I met at the Rearing Pony to confer. I'd thought Grenville would prefer a more elegant meeting place, even our usual coffeehouse in Pall Mall, but he professed himself happy to settle in here. He explained, with an air of irritation, that here at least he would not be required by every passerby to render his opinion on a cravat, the cut of a coat, or the latest on-dit, as he had done all morning while viewing the porcelain.

  I sensed that Grenville was growing weary of his role as most popular man in London. He betrayed a restlessness that had begun after our adventures last summer, and I wondered when he'd announce that he was returning to his world travels.

  When he finally went, I would miss him. Despite our differences in wealth and opinions, we had become friends. Perhaps we were friends because of our differences; Grenville knew I would never toady to him, and he accepted me as I was--one of the few people in my life ever to do so.

  As I repeated the conversation I'd had with Thompson, the barmaid, Anne Tolliver, slid another tankard in front of me and gave me a warm smile. I returned the smile with a nod. "It would be helpful if we could piece together what Mrs. Chapman did yesterday," I said as Mrs. Tolliver walked away. "Where she went, who she met."

  I stopped. Grenville was staring at me, a half-amused, half-exasperated look on his face. "How do you do it, Lacey?"

  "How do I do what?"

  "Good Lord, you do not even know."

  I studied Anne Tolliver’s retreating back, her hips swaying as she walked. "If you refer to Mrs. Tolliver, she has a smile and a wink for every gentleman in the room."

  Grenville studied me, his eyes sharp, then he laughed. "Not every gentleman. But never mind. We were speaking of Mrs. Chapman. We can quiz her servants, of course. Discover what she intended to do that day, whether she meant to meet friends, or Barbury, or perhaps even another lover."

  "Lord Barbury mentioned a Mr. Inglethorpe."

  Grenville looked uncomfortable. "Yes, Simon Inglethorpe. He lives in Curzon Street."

  The name meant nothing to me. "Who is he?"

  "No one of particular importance. A gentleman of much money and leisure time. He enjoys social gatherings."

  I shrugged. "So might many a man."

  "Lately, he has taken to the new sort of gas that leaves one feeling euphoric. He invites ladies and gentlemen to partake of it in his upstairs rooms. Interesting that Lord Barbury decided to take Peaches there."

  "Might she have gone there the day of her death?"

  "That is possible. Let us hope so. If she'd had some of Inglethorpe's magic gas, she might not have felt the blow that took her life."

  I did not understand how that could be, but I didn’t comment. "She might have made some acquaintance there, who could help us discover her movements yesterday."

  "It is worth a try," Grenville agreed.

  Inglethorpe in truth might have nothing to do with Peaches death, but I wanted to leave no stone unturned. Peaches might have made a friend at Inglethorpe's gatherings, someone who possibly could tell us where she'd been the day she'd died and what she'd done. Also, she might have gone to this Inglethorpe's home and met someone there, gone away with them, and died by their hand, for reasons unknown. Perhaps Inglethorpe himself had killed her.

  "Shall we speak to Mr. Inglethorpe then?" I asked, lifting my glass of ale.

  Grenville nodded. "He had gatherings on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. I will write and ask him to admit you to the gathering tomorrow."

  My glass paused halfway to my lips. "Will you not be attending with me?" That seemed unlike Grenville, who was usually adamant to be in the thick of things. "Another appointment with porcelain?"

  Grenville flushed. "I keep my distance from Inglethorpe."

  "May I ask why?"

  "Oh, certainly you may ask." Grenville stopped, looked contrite. "I beg your pardon, Lacey. If you must know, Inglethorpe propositioned me once. A few years ago. It was a bit embarrassing."

  "I see." Such things had happened to Grenville before, much to his dismay. Wealthy and elegant Grenville was not only the object of women's aspirations but of a few gentlemen's as well. "Is Inglethorpe an unnatural, then?" I asked.

  "I honestly do not believe he cares which way the wind blows," Grenville said. "Inglethorpe enjoys sensual pleasure of any kind. He claims he does not hold my refusal against me, but even so, I avoid him." Grenville gave me a sharp look. "That goes no further than you, please, Lacey."

  "I would never repeat your conversation to another," I said stiffly.

  He sighed. "I beg your pardon. I know. I have been put off by this poor woman's murder."

  So had I. "Have you been able to discover, at all, if Lord Barbury was at his club yesterday afternoon, as he claims?" I asked.

  "He was. At White's. I've met a few fellows who claimed he was there, though I'll poke about a bit more and make certain. Though I do not like to think of Barbury as a murderer. He is grief-stricken. It’s heartbreaking to see him."

  "He might not have done the deed himself but hired someone to kill her," I pointed out, "while making certain he was visible at his club."

  "You are a cheerful chap, Lacey." Grenville turned his ale glass, watching the liquid inside. "I like Barbury, you see. He is not fatuous or toadying. He says what he thinks, and I find that refreshing."

  Grenville had genuine liking for few people. I hoped for his sake that Barbury did not turn out to be a murderer, but I could not dismiss him simply because Grenville approved of him.

  He sipped his ale. "It is a bother that we don't know whether Peaches was killed in the Temple Gardens or her body brought there afterward. At least in the Hanover Square affair, we knew where the man was killed and more or less why." He made an expression of distaste, recalling that gruesome death. "This is different. This is the work of a brute."

  I agreed.

  I had not told Grenville or Thompson of the other reason I wanted to look into the mystery of Peaches' death. General anger that someone could commit such a crime was part of i
t, but the other was that, when I had looked upon the childlike face of Mrs. Chapman, gray and dead in the light of the torches, she had greatly put me in mind of my estranged wife, Carlotta Lacey.

  Of course, the dead girl could not have been Carlotta. Peaches had been in her late twenties at most, and Carlotta would now be nearing forty. Carlotta lived in France--precisely where and with whom only one man in England knew, and he was the one man I would never ask.

  The girl could also not be, thank God, my daughter, Gabriella. The child Carlotta had taken away from me when she'd fled so long ago would be about sixteen now, and Peaches had definitely been older.

  But I hated to think of my own child lying dead somewhere, with no one to care. Barbury grieved but did not want Bow Street mucking about his affairs. Thompson investigated because it was his job and because of professional interest. Pomeroy sought the criminal for monetary reward, and Grenville helped in order to relieve his ennui.

  So far, I seemed to be the only one concerned for Peaches' sake, although I could be wronging Barbury with that assumption. Whatever Peaches had done, whatever choices she had made, she did not deserve what had happened to her.

  "Another avenue of possibility is The Glass House," I said. "If Peaches and Barbury went there together, someone there might have known her and perhaps be able to tell us what she did yesterday."

  Grenville made a face. "The Glass House. What do you know of it?"

  "Little. It is a gaming hell that costs much to enter. In the East End?"

  "Number 12, St. Charles Row, near Whitechapel," Grenville said. "I have been once and vowed never to go back. Every vice is available there, whether you have a penchant for gambling, or women, or men, or-- well, anything you can think of, The Glass House will supply it." He watched me with his sharp, dark eyes. "I do mean every vice, Lacey. I must wonder why Barbury went there with Peaches when he could easily have arranged a better place. Any connection Peaches formed there will be a sordid one."

  Nasty goings on there Thompson had said. Whenever magistrates or reformers try to close it, their intentions are blocked.

  "Murder is sordid," I said.