Page 75 of Ghost in the Garden
“Nor on anyone else, so far as I could see,” Solomon said. “Would that even be possible? We need to ask the police surgeon.”
“I’m sure Harris has already done so. No, I don’t think Angela can have done it herself, but she could have ordered someone else to do it. Perhaps she didn’t really think they’d go through with it. She did seem genuinely shocked.”
“Whom would she have ordered?”
“Bert?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Their first loyalty always seemed to be to Lambert, not Angela. We need to get times from the kitchen staff.”
“And not neglect other possibilities,” Solomon said. “Such as Frank Fraser. Who will pretty much do anything for money.”
Constance sat up straight. “Including lend his wife’s key, or another copy of it, to whoever wished Lambert and Gregg ill! Which must be just about everyone in that tenement, even the ones who didn’t start off in the collapsed building next door…”
“I don’t know abouteveryone,” Solomon argued. “You’d need to be pretty brave to set foot in Lambert’s territory, extremely determined. And patient enough to find out everything about the servants’ movements and the Lamberts’ habits. To say nothing of knowing when Gregg would visit them.”
He didn’t look happy about it, and she soon worked out why. “You are thinking of Lenny Knox.”
“I am,” Solomon said, “and I don’t want to be. I like him. And I don’t believe he’s a violent man.”
“Everyone has a breaking point. What happened to his wife and child could easily be his.”
“I know,” Solomon said. “And he was more than happy to help me try to prove Lambert’s responsibility for the disaster.”
Constance thought about this for a while. “He’s all in favor of responsibility, isn’t he? For factory owners and landlords and the government. I’m not sure he would murder in secret and run. Wouldn’t he take responsibility for his crimes and make the point of why he’d committed them very loudly indeed?”
“In his right mind, I think he would.” He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of annoying suspicions. Constance knew how he felt. “We have quite an array of suspects now.”
“And no one to pay us for finding out the truth. It’s quite…liberating, isn’t it?”
A smile flickered across his face. “It is.”
They were in Grosvenor Square already. The time always passed too quickly with Solomon.
He was gazing out of the window. “I can stop for a while, if you like, while we talk about it.”
Her eyes widened. “You would come into my establishment in the hours of darkness? Knowing what bacchanals go on there?”
He smiled lazily. “I am wise to your ways, Constance Silver. I am sure there are routes in that avoid your guests.”
There were, and she intended to use them, even if she made an appearance in the salon later on. He had never asked her where she wanted the hackney to take her. She was just glad he understood that she needed this night in her own place, surrounded by the familiar.
For the first time, she wondered if he had a different motive. He had offered to come in. With no other man would she have assumed it was from kindness, from knowledge that Lambert’s murder all but under their noses had thrown her utterly.
“I am far too honorable to thus ruin your reputation,” she said lightly. “I will see you at the office tomorrow.”
She rapped on the ceiling, and the carriage drew to a halt. Not at her front door, but just around the corner. Once, it had been amusing to see if Solomon would ever enter her house of ill repute that she knew he disdained. He had, in broad delight, when he first proposed their investigation partnership. But something had changed, and she was too tired, too confused, to work out what it was.
Solomon in her sitting room, where no man had ever set foot. Exciting thought, tempting and sweet and utterly wrong.
“We’ll talk later, when the case is over,”he had said last night. Technically, it was over now. They had uncovered the ghost. In normal circumstances, she would be delighted by his company, by the opportunity to relax and talk about something, anything. But not this.
He sat very still in the stationary carriage, watching her, the glow from the street lamp casting a shadow over one side of his face. Even weary, she felt the familiar thrill of butterflies in her stomach, the jolt of attraction that had always been there.
Normally, he treated her with courtesy, as though she were a lady. He alighted from the carriage to hand her down. Tonight, he was not moving. So she did, almost in panic, reaching for the door.
And he was before her, forcing her to fall back while he opened the door and kicked down the steps. From the street he held out his hand, as he always did, yet it seemed such a huge matter to place her hers upon it as she stepped down.
His fingers curled around hers. “Constance. Will you not let me talk to you? To ask you—”
“Not tonight, Solomon,” she interrupted, keeping her voice light and careless. “Like Angela, it seems I need to be alone. Goodnight.”
