The Glass House (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #3)

by Ashley Gardner

  Her eyes widened. "Good lord, why should they?"

  "That is what my friend Pomeroy is trying to discover. Did you speak to Mr. Inglethorpe at all before you departed yesterday?"

  "No. I took my leave quite quickly."

  "Good."

  "Why good?"

  "Because I found Inglethorpe unsavory. It pleases me that your connection was not strong."

  She stared at me. I had no right, of course, to lecture her about her connections. In her world, I was nobody. But I told the truth--I was pleased that she had not known Inglethorpe well. He was not the sort of man I wanted nieces of my acquaintance to know.

  "Do you remember which gentlemen remained when you departed?" I went on. "One of them could have taken the walking stick."

  She shook her head, the ribbon moving on her neck. "I couldn't be certain. I do believe Mr. Yardley and Mr. Price-Davies were there, but I really do not remember."

  "Do you know either of those gentlemen well?"

  "Not well, no. I saw a bit of Mr. Yardley before I married Mr. Danbury, but I've spoken to him little since."

  I rolled the shaft of the walking stick between my fingers. "Either of those men could have taken it. And returned with it the next day."

  "Good heavens, Captain. You cannot seriously believe that Mr. Yardley or Mr. Price-Davies would murder Inglethorpe. Why on earth should they?"

  Her vehemence surprised me. "Someone did, Mrs. Danbury."

  "Well, yes, but it must have been the work of a tramp or a madman. Gentlemen of Mayfair do not stab one another with sword-sticks."

  "They fight duels," I pointed out.

  "That is entirely different, and not all gentlemen condone duels."

  She gave me an admonishing stare, as though I ought to be above accusing other gentlemen of so sordid a crime as murder.

  Her answers made me conscious of another difference between Mrs. Danbury and Lady Breckenridge. Lady Breckenridge, with her outlook on life nearly as cynical as my own, would have agreed with me. Mrs. Danbury, connected with the unworldly Derwents, refused to believe it.

  "I know it is unpleasant," I said. "But it might have happened."

  "I am sorry you believe so," she returned, angry. "I can assure you, Captain, I saw neither gentleman take the walking stick, nor do I believe that either of them returned and killed Mr. Inglethorpe. A housebreaker surprised Mr. Inglethorpe, that is all. That must have been what happened."

  She'd been hesitant a few minutes ago; she was adamant now. If Mrs. Danbury were hiding something from me, she took refuge in her anger.

  I decided it time to change the subject. "I would like to speak to Jean, if I may," I said. "I need to ask her a few more questions about Mrs. Chapman."

  Mrs. Danbury's color remained high, but she seemed relieved that I'd stopped speculating on Inglethorpe's murder. "I suppose it can do no harm," she said. "Jean seems a resilient child, not hysterical, but please do not upset her."

  She glared at me to remind me that I'd already upset her. I promised to not tire the girl, and Mrs. Danbury summoned the footman and bade him fetch Jean from below stairs.

  When Jean joined us, she was dressed in a sensible garment. With the kohl and rouge gone from her face, she looked like what she was, a child. She was a working-class girl, with stubby fingers and a child's flyaway hair barely contained in a tail tied with a ribbon.

  She did not curtsey, but gave a little bow to me and Mrs. Danbury. Jean regarded me warily, perhaps wondering whether I'd come to snatch her away again, but she answered my request to tell me more about Peaches readily enough.

  "She wasn't a bad sort," Jean said. "She let me sleep in her room sometimes. I could lock the door. Only she had the key."

  I regarded her in surprise. "Mr. Kensington did not have one?"

  "No. He never came in there. She'd never let him have a key."

  "Mr. Kensington opened that door for me the night I rescued you," I said. "He had a key then." Which he could have stolen from Peaches if he'd murdered her, or found it left behind after her death.

  "Oh, he had the key to the chamber on the first floor," Jean said, as though she thought me a simpleton. "But not to her room in the attics."

  "In the attics?"

  Bloody hell. No wonder the chamber Kensington had let us into had been impersonal. No wonder he'd not been worried that we'd searched it. He'd known there would be nothing for us to find, I chafed that I'd so readily believed him, damn the man. He must have laughed to himself about how easily he'd tricked us.

  "Yes," Jean said. "She kept all her things up there, things she didn’t want Mr. Kensington to see. He and Peaches shouted at each other a great deal about it. And other things."

  Kensington had implied he'd allowed Peaches to take refuge at The Glass House out of sympathy and old friendship. "What other things would they shout about?" I asked.

  "He would say that he knew her before she became high and mighty, and she would say she'd always been beyond his reach. She laughed at him."

  "Did he ever try to hurt her, or threaten to?"

  "No. He seemed almost afraid of her, sometimes."

  I thought of Kensington's mean, dark eyes and his oily smile. It pleased me that he had not held Peaches in thrall.

  "Can you remember anything that happened on Monday, anything at all before Peaches went away, that might be a little out of the ordinary?"

  Jean thought, but she shook her head. "When Peaches came in that day I heard Mr. Kensington start to shout at her, but she went on upstairs and slammed the door. Later, I saw her go down through the kitchen. She was smiling."

  "Mr. Kensington did not go with her?"

  "I didn't see him."

  So I was back to Peaches disappearing from The Glass House and turning up later in the Thames.

  "Did she speak to anyone else? Perhaps tell them where she was going?"

  Jean shook her head. "I didn't see."

  Not her fault. I gave her a nod. "Thank you," I said. "You have been very helpful."

  "Yes, sir," she said. She'd answered without hesitation but without much enthusiasm either. No anger, sorrow, fear. She was like a mongrel dog eating the food given it without gratitude toward the feeder.

  I wanted to reassure her. "You're safe here, Jean. The Derwents will look after you."

  "Yes, sir." She sounded doubtful.

  I had nothing else to add. She would have to learn trust; it could not be forced, well I knew.

  Mrs. Danbury announced she'd take Jean up to bed, effectively cutting short the interview and indicating she wanted me to go. I issued my goodnights to her and the little girl and again expressed my best wishes for Lady Derwent.

  Mrs. Danbury condescended to give me a half-smile as I departed. Perhaps my gentle treatment of and concern for Jean had redeemed me in her eyes a small amount, at least.

  I returned home and spent a restless night. This day I had enraged Louisa, upset Mrs. Danbury, discovered I'd been duped by Kensington, and nearly been accused of murder by Pomeroy. Not the best day of my life, by any means.

  I woke with a headache and received a note from Pomeroy that the inquest for Inglethorpe would be held that morning, in Dover Street, at eleven o'clock.

  Before I departed for it, I penned Louisa an apology for my behavior at her house the night before. I knew I should not have let Brandon provoke me. I seemed to forever cause pain to the one woman I least wished to.

  I sent the letter in care of Lady Aline Carrington, Louisa's dearest friend. I disliked delivering it in this roundabout fashion, but I did not want Brandon to put the note on the fire the moment he recognized my handwriting. Louisa would at least do me the courtesy of reading it, even if she too burnt it afterward.

  It was just eleven when I slid inside the dim public house on Dover Street and took a seat near the back wall. The murder had been committed in the parish of St. George's and so the inquest was held there as well. The room was warm and stuffy, the smell of steaming wool and damp hair p
omade just covering the odor of stale cabbage. My swordstick, still covered with dried blood, lay naked on a table before the coroner.

  The coroner called the proceedings to order. Sir Montague Harris had chosen to attend, and the coroner had called in a doctor, rather unnecessarily, I thought, because Inglethorpe had obviously died of the stab wound, and the butler could fix the time of death within half an hour.

  The doctor, a thin, spidery man with pomaded black hair, confirmed that because of the warmth of the body and the stickiness of the blood when he'd been found, that Inglethorpe had died not more than thirty minutes before that, in other words, by half-past two yesterday afternoon.

  The coroner interviewed the butler who had discovered the body. The man was nervous, wetting his lips and darting his gaze about, but no more uncomfortable than any man being asked such questions might be. He'd seen his master at two o'clock, he'd said, when Inglethorpe had risen from bed and taken a light meal.

  The butler had returned to the servants' hall and attended to duties below stairs until he'd gone upstairs again at half-past two. He'd found the front door standing open and closed it, annoyed that the footman had not noticed. Then he'd stepped into the reception room and found his master on the floor.

  The butler's lips were gray when he finished, and he walked heavily to his seat.

  Pomeroy rose and gave his evidence about being summoned by the Queen's Square magistrate to the scene of the crime, finding Inglethorpe dead, and recognizing the walking stick as belonging to one Captain Lacey. When he finished, and the coroner asked me to rise.

  As I took my place before the coroner I spied Bartholomew sitting to the right of the jury and Grenville next to him, his curled-brimmed hat resting on his knee. Grenville caught my eye but sent no acknowledgement.

  I identified the swordstick and explained how I had left it behind on Wednesday, when I'd attended a gathering at Inglethorpe's house. The coroner asked what kind of gathering, and I told him of the scientific gas that Inglethorpe had in the bags, which produced an interesting, but temporary euphoria. The coroner nodded, as though he'd heard of such things before.

  I explained that I'd returned to Inglethorpe's yesterday--to look for the walking stick, which I could not afford to lose--and had found instead the Runner, Pomeroy, who'd informed me of Inglethorpe's death.

  The coroner seemed quite interested in me. He tried to make me tell him that I had arrived at Inglethorpe's unseen at quarter past two, crept in, and stabbed the man to death, being obliging enough to leave my own sword behind, and then return soon after to be confronted by a Runner. Fortunately, I could place myself at the moneylender's in the City during the hour that Inglethorpe met his end.

  Disappointed, the coroner questioned me about why I had not returned to Inglethorpe's as soon as I'd realized I'd left the stick behind, and I explained that I'd borrowed another from a friend, since I'd had other engagements. He at last seemed to take my word for it and dismissed me.

  Calling the butler back, the coroner asked what had become of the walking stick between the time I'd left it and the time I'd returned for it the next day. The butler, still nervous, said that he'd found no walking stick left behind in the sitting room where Mr. Inglethorpe's guests had gathered; he'd never seen it. Neither had any of the other servants in the house.

  The coroner nodded, made a tick on his paper, and moved on to his next note. He questioned the butler about who had been in the house when Inglethorpe died, which had been the servants and no other guests, according to the butler. The coroner then asked about the gathering the day before--one of those attending could have taken the walking stick then returned and killed Inglethorpe, he said.

  He asked the gentlemen who'd been present at the gathering, including Mr. Yardley and Mr. Price-Davies, to rise and tell their stories.

  Each was similar. The gentlemen had been invited by Inglethorpe to partake of his magical gas in the upstairs drawing room, where'd they'd breathed the air and sat in comfort. Three gentlemen had departed the house before I had. Mr. Yardley said he thought he remembered seeing the walking stick left behind, but he'd not mentioned it to his host. Whyever should he? he demanded when the coroner asked him why not. Inglethorpe had servants to clean up the rooms and restore any lost property. That's what servants were for, wasn't it? Mr. Yardley hadn't thought anything more about it.

  Mr. Price-Davies hadn't remembered one way or another about any walking stick. None of the gentlemen claimed to have returned to visit Inglethorpe the next day, and all could put themselves somewhere else, with witnesses, at the time of Inglethorpe's death.

  After this, the coroner summoned the two ladies who'd been present from the private room in which they'd been waiting. Lady Breckenridge sat tall and straight before the coroner and told him in clear tones that she had gone to Inglethorpe's on Wednesday, departed his house at about half-past four, hadn't taken Captain Lacey's walking stick, and had not returned to Inglethorpe's the next day. Between two and three on Thursday, when Inglethorpe had died, she'd been at her toilette, attended by three maids who could all attest to that fact.

  In her dark blue pelisse and widow's bonnet, Lady Breckenridge looked quiet and respectable and elegant, but her eyes were as sharp as ever. She stared haughtily down her nose at the coroner, and if she'd had a cigarillo to hand, she would have blown smoke into his face.

  Mrs. Danbury, however, looked quite unhappy. Sir Gideon Derwent escorted her, I was pleased to see, and he stood beside her while the coroner questioned her.

  She told the same story as had Lady Breckenridge; she'd gone to the gathering at Inglethorpe's invitation, partaken of the strange gas, then gone home. No, she did not remember noticing any other gentleman going away with the walking stick. She had gone out yesterday afternoon to shop, though she could not remember precisely where she had been between two and three, but she certainly had not gone to stab Inglethorpe.

  The coroner nodded and dismissed her, and Sir Gideon led her away. Mrs. Danbury's face was white, and she leaned heavily on Sir Gideon's arm.

  It occurred to me, and I wondered if it had occurred to the jury, that the butler himself had the best opportunity to dispatch his master. He would know when everyone in the house would be safely out of the way, he could divert Inglethorpe to the reception room, and he could have hidden my walking stick beforehand and professed to have no knowledge of it. The butler must have thought so, as well, because his nervousness increased as the inquest went on.

  The coroner finished, and the jury went aside to confer. When they returned, they gave their verdict, death by person or persons unknown. The coroner instructed Pomeroy and his patrols to continue investigating to find the culprit. He then closed the inquest and dismissed us.

  *** *** ***

  Lady Breckenridge emerged from the public house behind me as we all filed out. I tipped my hat, and she bowed. "Good morning, Captain," she said, without stopping. "Ghastly hour to be dragged from one's home."

  She continued to her landau. Her footman quickly set a padded step-stool on the ground in front of it, and Lady Breckenridge stepped from it to the carriage without breaking stride. A pair of splendid ankles flashed, and then she was inside, the footman shutting the door.

  Sir Gideon led Mrs. Danbury to the Derwent coach, his arm about her shoulders. Mrs. Danbury did not look around or see me watching her.

  As Sir Gideon's coach pulled away, Sir Montague spoke at my side. "A relieving verdict for the coroner, was it not, Lacey? Must have been tricky when he learned that all those Mayfair gentlemen were involved. Gentlemen with influence, upon whom his position depends, perhaps. Presiding over the case of a drowned prostitute or a dead vagrant is so much easier."

  The coroner himself walked by us at this point, his lips thin. Unembarrassed, Sir Montague bowed to him.

  "I noted that the coroner did not mention Inglethorpe's clothes," I said. "Or lack of them."

  Sir Montague gave me a conspiratorial wink. "Why complicate things,
eh? Most curious, though, is it not? I am interested in those clothes."

  I thought about Inglethorpe lying on his back, feet apart, surprised and alone. Fine pantaloons had encased his legs, and his coat and shirt and waistcoat had been neatly folded on a hair. His shoes . . . I stopped, frowning.

  "What are you thinking, Captain?" Sir Montague's eyes twinkled in the weak winter sunlight.

  "He wore pumps," I said. "But their soles were muddy."

  "Is that significant?"

  "It is if you are a gentleman of his standing. Those shoes were not meant to be worn outside."

  "No?"

  "Grenville must have a dozen pairs of slippers he wears only inside his house. Inglethorpe's shoes were to be worn indoors with pantaloons. More to set off his feet than for function. Yet, they had mud on them. As though he'd run out into the street for a few minutes."

  Sir Montague rocked on his heels. "To meet someone, perhaps?"

  "Or he saw something outside the window," I said. "It surprised him, and he went out to investigate. Or he went out to bring a person back inside with him."

  "Hmm. And then took off half his clothes. A lover, perhaps?"

  "Perhaps." The explanation did not quite ring true. If a man had a sudden assignation, did he carefully remove his clothing and fold it neatly on a chair? Or were the clothes hastily ripped from the body and dropped on the floor, or not completely removed at all?

  "There may be something in what you say," Sir Montague said. "By the way, Mr. Thompson told me of your doings in The Glass House the other night." He chuckled. "You must have put the wind up them."

  I was not so certain. Kensington did not seem easily frightened; in fact, he'd been a bit overconfident, even when I'd broken the window. "Kensington is key to the business of The Glass House and Mrs. Chapman's death," I said. "I am convinced."

  "Being convinced is not proof," Sir Montague said. "I want no holes in this case."

  "I know. The girl I rescued could tell you an earful. I believe Kensington might work for a man called James Denis, although I have not confirmed that. But if you are looking for a man powerful enough to block the magistrates and reformers, it would be Denis."