Page 63 of Ghost in the Garden
“Is he?” Lambert’s gaze was speculative, though whether he was considering the shipping clerk or Constance was impossible to tell.
He didn’t come any closer, but neither did he show any signs of either leaving or dismissing her. Her flesh began to crawl. She had no idea what he was thinking, and that was unusual enough to be frightening.
“We’ll see,” he murmured, moving away from her at last.
She breathed an inward sigh of relief, but to her alarm he was tugging off his necktie. She had to get out. Now.
Casually—and yet she was sure it was not casual at all—he dropped the tie on the bed and kept walking toward his open dressing room door. Constance was afraid to breathe.Don’t dare lock it and turn back to me…
He walked on through the door, closed it, and locked it from the other side.
Constance exhaled in a rush and sank down on the nearest chair. Just like after their last encounter, she was shaking.
Only a few moments later, she sprang up again as the door to the passage opened.
Angela whisked inside and closed the door. “Ah, you’re here already. Good.” Her gaze fixed on the necktie lying across the bed. “When was he here?”
“Just a few minutes ago.”
For the first time, there was suspicion in Angela’s eyes when they met Constance’s, veiled yet unmistakable. “Did he speak to you?”
“Just to ask how I was settling in. He went into the dressing room.”
Did she imagine Constance was casting out lures to Lambert? Or did she not trust him to keep his hands off any woman? Had he left the tie deliberately to sow doubt in his wife’s mind? Or was it some kind of signal to Angela? That her husband would be joining her for his marital rights?
“Unhook me,” Angela said abruptly. “And then you may go to bed.”
Constance was no prude, of necessity. But she did wonder how to fashion earplugs for the night.
*
Juliet Silver calledat the office the following morning to thank Solomon and give him a note of her address. “To pass on to Connie.”
“Of course. I’m glad you found something suitable,” he said.
“Oh, it’s more than suitable. It’s got a shop window. Never thought I’d be able to have such a place for my little curiosities.”
“Some of your curiosities are worth a fair bit of money.”
“I know, and now I can get what they’re worth—which I’ll need to, to pay that rent. In the meantime, I could do with some shelving in the shop and the storeroom. You don’t happen to know an honest carpenter, do you?”
“Funnily enough, I do,” Solomon said, thinking of Lenny Knox. “I’ll send him along later today.”
Juliet smiled and hefted herself to her feet. “My Connie’s done well for herself to find you. Don’t give up on her.”
Solomon, vaguely irritated, said nothing, merely rose politely to see her off the premises before his ten o’clock appointment turned up.
At the front door, she paused. “You said something about buying my old place. You still interested? What would you give me for it? I could always sell it to Boggie for a pretty decent price, but I hate to think what he’d do with the place. Come to that, what wouldyoudo?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Solomon said. “I have a few people to see. I suppose you’ve no running water in the building or proper sewer outside?”
“Don’t be daft.”
“I’ll send someone round today or tomorrow, but if Boggie tracks you down, tell him we already have a deal. Don’t give him this address,” he added, thinking of Janey on her own. “Send him to my office at St. Catherine’s.” He gave her one of the older cards with his main company address.
“Damn, I wish I’d met you when I was young and beautiful,” Juliet said.
*
