Page 80 of Ghost in the Garden
“I won’t,” Angela said. “Nor you, neither.”
*
Solomon found InspectorHarris in the pantry, interviewing Duggin the butler, who hadthugwritten all over him, and was not remotely intimidated. Of the two of them, it was Harris who looked more harassed. As Solomon stuck his head around the door, the inspector waved a frustrated hand.
“You can go, for now. I want a word with this gentleman, too.”
“Don’t we all,” Duggin murmured on his insolent way past Solomon. He left the door open.
Solomon closed it.
“Was that a threat?” Harris asked.
“I rather think it was.” And Duggin didn’t care who heard it. “He’s not afraid in the slightest.”
“Which probably means he didn’t do it. I can’t dispute his story, and the other so-called servants tell the same one. Ghostly sightings and all.”
“Iris was undoubtedly our ghost. She’s been coming here for weeks, if not months.”
“Duggin claims to know his master had thrown her over. Same story as Mrs. Lambert.”
“Do you believe them?” Solomon asked.
“Doyou?” Harris countered.
“I believe he might have meant to. He seems to have relied on his wife, so if it came down to a choice, Angela would win, hands down. But I would doubt Iris cared enough to take an axe to him. She claimsshehad come to end it, and there was certainly no blood on her.”
“A jury would likely still convict her,” Harris said. “Adulteress. Scorned, deprived of funds, intruding where she had no decent business to be. Conceivably, she could have croaked him the moment he entered the cellar and bolted out the front in time for you to see her coming back in from the garden. I just can’t see why she’d bother. A jury might care about that. There’s probably enough to hang her. Especially when everyone else in the premises, including you and Mrs. Silver, can account for each other during the five minutes or so in which he must have died.”
“Duggin can’t. He could easily have gone into the wine cellar on his way from the dining room to the kitchen.”
“Not according to the other servants, who claim they heard him enter by the baize door and come straight downstairs into the kitchen.”
“The baize door doesn’t make a noise. I’ve never encountered such well-oiled hinges as there are in this house. And garden.”
“Maybe. But they’d hear his feet on the steps. He lumbers.”
“True.”
“Are they scared enough to lie for him? Loyal enough?”
“I suppose his daughter is, at least. But someone’s lying. If it isn’t Iris, it’s everyone else.” A suspicion, not entirely new, flared in Solomon’s mind.
Who would everyone in the house lie for?
Chapter Seventeen
“Learn anything?” Solomonasked as they settled into the hackney he had hailed in Victoria Street.
“Nothing I’m sure is any use.” Constance met his gaze. “She offered me a position as her lieutenant.”
“Did she indeed?” Solomon said, his eyes widening. “I wonder why?”
For an instant, she looked annoyed, then laughter sprang into her eyes, catching at his breath. “It’s as well I have you to depress any delusions I might have of my own worth!”
“I’m not sure it’s just your worth she’s recognizing,” Solomon said. “She’s securing your loyalty. Or trying to.”
“It crossed my mind,” Constance admitted. “But she’s like Lambert in one way—one of these people you cannot ignore.”
