Page 8 of Ghost in the Garden
Solomon’s hackles rose. There was something obscene about this man even looking at Constance.
Constance said coolly, “I’d do better in private, sir, as Mrs. Silver requests.” Something odd had happened to her accent—neither the unmitigated Cockney she could put on when she chose, nor the refined voice she had cultivated, it was something in between, enough to give an impression of lowborn respectability. She was playing a part, and he knew instinctively that it was not that of Juliet’s daughter. There was acute tension in her stillness, as though she recognized the intruder and did not like him.
Boggie looked surprised to be told off.
“Oh, we’re finished here, ain’t we?” Juliet said to Solomon. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir. I’m quite exhausted now and need a lie-down.”
“Ithoughtyou had something for me, Mrs. Jules,” Boggie said, his mouth curling as he dragged his eyes off Constance to impale her mother instead.
“Oh, I got nothing for you, Mr. Boggie,” Juliet said with apparent regret. “Gerrald there will show you all out together, and let an old lady have her nap.”
“I believe I’ll wait,” Boggie said.
“I believe you won’t,” Solomon said gently. “Let us do the gentlemanly thing and leave the lady to rest as she desires. Anything else would be unforgivably rude.”
“Would it?” said Boggie, staring at him in mingled astonishment and derision.
“It would,” Solomon assured the man, picking up his hat. “Mrs. Silver, my thanks for your hospitality. Good day.”
“Good day, sir. Ma’am,” Juliet said.
Constance inclined her head as though her mother were the merest acquaintance and sailed toward the door beside Solomon. Boggie fell back before them and found Gerry still holding open the front door. Another, large male figure had appeared from the depths of the house, but it was Solomon that Boggie kept his wary gaze on.
Solomon had learned long ago how to sweep unwanted people out of his way without actually touching them or giving undue offense. Boggie seemed quite bewildered to discover himself on the other side of the closed door to the street.
“Good day,” Solomon said amiably, inclining his head before he strolled off with Constance’s tense hand on his arm. “He won’t go back in now,” he murmured. “He’d lose his dignity.”
“His what?” Constance said with a hint of savagery. She exhaled slowly. “Thank you for that.”
“You know him,” Solomon said. “Who is he?”
“Someone I wouldn’t let near my girls. I had cause to keep him out of my last establishment.”
“Then he knows you?” Solomon said quickly.
“Oh. No, we never met. Even then, I had people to keep out those I wished to. He wasn’t quite so full of his own importance then. What I want to know is, what is he doing with my mother?”
“She wasn’t exactly welcoming,” Solomon pointed out.
“She isn’t a fool,” Constance said shortly. “But what does he want with her?”
He regarded her curiously. After their greeting to each other and the casual parting, he hadn’t expected her to care. “What is Boggie’s business?”
Constance wrinkled her nose. “He was a fence. Someone who sells stolen goods. I wonder if he’s trying to move in on my mother’s business?”
Solomon blinked. Despite his own suspicion, he hadn’t expected Constance to admit it. “Your mother is a fence?”
“A trader in antiquities and rare goods. And a pawnbroker,” she said in tones that told him her mother was indeed a fence, even if only on the side of her more lawful business. “It was, you know, a step up from prostitution. Or so she told me.”
“You don’t agree?”
Constance shrugged with unusual irritability. “It’s safer and she drinks less. It’s her business, nothing to do with me.”
“And yet…” Solomon murmured.
Constance sighed. “And yet the habit of protection is hard to break. I don’t like Boggie hanging around her.”
“She probably doesn’t like me hanging around you.”
