The Glass House (12 page)

Lord Barbury had played a game of whist with
Lord Alvanley and two other prominent gentlemen, who each swore
that Barbury never left the table from three o'clock to six.
Likewise, Barbury's coachman had been carefully questioned. He had
not gone to Middle Temple, he said, nor had he been summoned to
drive Mrs. Chapman there.

I'd told Thompson when I'd arrived of my
findings at Inglethorpe's and that Peaches had last been seen at
The Glass House by young Jean, and about Kensington, who deserved
further investigation. But when Thompson mentioned the name of The
Glass House, the coroner immediately cut him off and bade him sit
down. I remembered Thompson and Sir Montague saying that whoever
owned The Glass House had several magistrates in his pocket, and I
wondered if that were the case here.

The coroner instructed the jury, who quickly
brought back the verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.
The inquest was at an end.

From the look in Thompson's eye, he
considered things far from over. He had no time to speak with me,
however, because other cases awaited his attention, and he left at
once for his house in Wapping.

I departed public house to run my own
errands, one of which was close by in the City. Thompson had seemed
satisfied with Lord Barbury's alibi at White's, but I wondered if
he truly believed Barbury's innocence to be established. I was
sorry he had to rush away, and I would have to find him again and
learn his ideas.

A second errand I wanted to run today was to
retrieve my walking stick from Inglethorpe. While I appreciated
Grenville's generosity in lending me his walking stick, and my leg
was now relaxed and warm from Barnstable's ministrations, I wanted
my own back. Not only had it cost me a quarter's pay, but Louisa
Brandon had assisted me in choosing it.

We'd gone to a Spanish sword maker, who'd
made the beautiful sword and its cane, adding a hidden latch in the
handle that released the sword. Last spring, the cane had been
broken in one of my adventures, and Grenville had ordered a
replacement for it. The walking stick was no longer simply a prop
for my lameness, it represented the kindness of my friends.

My first errand, however, was with a
moneylender.

This particular moneylender had dealt with
the Lacey family for generations. When the Laceys had been high in
the world, the coffers of London had been open to them. My
grandfather and father had each drawn on that tradition and managed
to borrow enough to live a life of relative ease while squandering
their fortune. The long war against France had not been kind to
either my father or the estate, and now all that was left was the
ruin of a house Norfolk and the tiny bit of land on which it sat.
The remainder of the farms had been sold long ago to pay my
father's mountain of debts.

I was the last of the family, a gentleman of
reduced means. In the Army, I had led a life of much activity, and
sitting idly at home did not appeal to me. I had already begun
keeping an ear open for circumstances in which a gentleman might
earn his keep, as a secretary, perhaps, or an assistant, a sort of
gentleman's aide de camp. I planned to recruit Bartholomew in the
task of discovering whom might be willing to employ for me, since
the lad seemed to know everyone in London.

The moneylender I spoke to remembered my
grandfather well, was his contemporary, in fact. I looked into the
lined face, eyes undimmed by time, and wondered if my own
grandfather would have lived longer had he not succumbed to
hedonistic pleasures. The man facing me had suppressed his own
desires with years of strict discipline. His fortune had increased
while the Lacey fortune had faded, and now he was in a position to
condescend to me.

He lent me three hundred guineas. In return
I'd have to pay him a percentage of the money, payable in
increments. I was not fond of usury, but I had no choice. I signed
myself into debt and left his house with the money.

I visited my bank, paid it into my account,
and wrote out a bank draft. I returned to the outside world and
settled my uneasiness by purchasing coffee from a vendor. I took a
hackney to Mayfair, heading for Inglethorpe's residence to retrieve
my walking stick.

I descended at Curzon Street at half-past
three. Bartholomew left me there, jogging off to Grosvenor Street
to visit his brother and wait for me at Grenville's. As I stepped
up to the door, a gust of wind sent rain under my greatcoat, and
water poured from my hat brim. I lifted the knocker.

The door opened before I could let the
knocker fall, the polished brass ripped from my hand.

"Ah, Captain," Milton Pomeroy said. "I was
about to send a lad to fetch you. Returned to the scene of the
crime, eh?"

Icy droplets slid under my collar. "Crime?"
What crime?"

Pomeroy's flat yellow hair was dark with
rain. "The crime of murder, sir. Mr. Simon Inglethorpe, gentleman.
Laid out flat in his own reception room, dead as stone. And curious
thing, Captain. It's your sticker that has him pinned to the floor.
It's in him all the way through to the carpet."

* * * * *

Chapter Eight

Inglethorpe lay spread-eagled on the gold and
cream carpet of the reception room, the same small, uncomfortable
room had housed me yesterday while I'd waited for the footman to
admit me upstairs.

Inglethorpe's expression was one of
astonishment. The dead man's face was chalk white face, a thick
rivulet of dried blood creased his chin. He was naked from the
waist up, his white skin stark against the carpet. Below the waist
he wore tight black pantaloons that buttoned at his ankles, silk
stockings, and pumps. His stomach showed that he had slightly gone
to fat, and his chest muscles were limp.

The sword from my walking stick stuck
straight out of Inglethorpe's chest, the blade surrounded by a
circle of dried blood. The handle, which doubled as a hilt, shone
faintly in the candlelight.

I turned to Pomeroy, dumbfounded. "When did
this happen?"

"Just an hour gone, sir, since he was found.
I was sent for right away and arrived not much before you did.
Butler last saw him at two o'clock this afternoon, upstairs. At
half past, butler glances into this room and sees that." He
gestured to the corpse.

I looked into Pomeroy's ingenuous blue eyes.
He liked to lay his hands on a culprit, and I had the feeling that
he would not scruple to arrest even his former captain on the slim
evidence of my sword in the wound.

"You a friend of Mr. Inglethorpe, Captain?"
he asked me.

"No, I met him for the first time
yesterday."

"Lent him your stick, did you?"

"I left it behind," I said in a hard voice.
"I was returning to fetch it."

"Yesterday, while you were calling on Mr.
Inglethorpe. He'd invited you?"

I eyed him narrowly. "Yes."

"Butler says, too, that you were here with a
gathering of Mr. Inglethorpe's friends. Butler says he saw you come
in with your walking stick, that very one that's stuck in his
master."

"I did not stick it there, Sergeant."

Pomeroy shrugged. "Sometimes you get into a
rare temper, sir. I have seen what you are like when you're
enraged. Ready for murder, sir, you are."

"If I had been that angry at Inglethorpe, I
would have challenged him," I said.

"Not necessarily. I've seen you draw a pistol
on a cove, and I've seen you knock a chap down, easy as breathing.
No mention of duels then. Dueling would be too good for them, you
said."

I held onto my temper. "I was not angry with
Inglethorpe, and I was not here today. I barely knew the man."

"That's as may be, sir. But that is your
sticker. You weren't his friend, but you looked him up yesterday.
Struck with fellow feeling, were you, sir?"

"Do not question me, Pomeroy. I do not like
it."

"Just following orders, sir, same as always.
You came here yesterday. I want to know why."

I observed the room, trying to shut out
Pomeroy's prying questions. Little had changed from when I'd paced
in here the day before, except that a neatly folded pile of
clothing now lay on the chair. I unfolded and examined each
piece--a frock coat, a waistcoat, shirt, collar, and cravat. Fine
materials, fine tailoring. The cravat smelled of lavender oil.

"The dead man's," Pomeroy said. "So the
butler says. Neither of us can decide why he was standing
bare-breasted in his reception room."

"What do the servants say?" I asked.

"Very little, sir. Inglethorpe was right as
rain all this morning, then he came in here and that was that."

"Inglethorpe must have entered this room for
some reason. To greet a visitor, most likely."

"Servants didn't open the door to anyone all
morning, they say."

That did not mean no one arrived. Gentlemen
of Inglethorpe's wealth let their servants answer the front door,
but that did not mean he could not have admitted someone himself.
Perhaps Inglethorpe had spied the person arriving and hadn't wanted
to wait for his butler to open the door.

The removed clothing suggested a romantic
liaison--I could think of no other reason for Inglethorpe to so
tamely remove his coat and shirt. The visitor, then, might have
been a woman, although I remembered Grenville in the Rearing Pony,
his mouth twisted in distaste, proclaiming, "I honestly do not
believe Inglethorpe cares which way the wind blows." A woman or
man, likely a man, from the strength of the blow.

I had left my walking stick in the sitting
room upstairs. Had Inglethorpe found it? Brought it down here with
him, where his killer had used it as a convenient weapon? Or had
the murderer been a member of yesterday's gathering, taken my
walking stick away with him, and returned with it this morning?

My heart went cold. Mrs. Danbury had been in
the room when I'd gone off without my walking stick. I remembered
her, flushed with the magic gas, staring at me in bewilderment as I
hurried after Lady Breckenridge.

Lady Breckenridge had not taken the stick
away with her; I would have seen it. That left Mrs. Danbury and the
few gentlemen who'd still remained when I'd gone. I could not
remember through the haze of the laughing gas which of the
gentlemen still had been there, though Inglethorpe's servants would
probably know.

I did not want to think of Mrs. Danbury
returning this morning and stabbing Inglethorpe when he made
advances upon her.

Common sense cut into this dire scene.
Inglethorpe had removed and folded his clothes, not torn them off
in a frenzy of passion. I doubted Mrs. Danbury would stand still
and wait for him to undress before stabbing him in panic.

Also, I could see no reason for Mrs. Danbury
to return to Inglethorpe's at all. If she had taken my walking
stick, she could have had it delivered to my rooms or given it to
Sir Gideon Derwent to give to me when I next visited him. Lady
Breckenridge had said that Inglethorpe's gatherings were held on
Mondays and Wednesdays only, and that Inglethorpe was most regular
in his habits, which meant he would not have had a gathering
today.

Why Mrs. Danbury had attended Inglethorpe's
party the day before still puzzled me. She had not known how to
breathe the air in the bag, which indicated she had not done it
before. Had she, like Peaches, come to Inglethorpe's in search of a
new sensation? Or out of curiosity? Or had she been Inglethorpe's
friend, and he had invited her personally?

I felt cold again. She being a close friend
of Inglethorpe brought me back to the possibility of her murdering
him. I could imagine Inglethorpe eagerly hurrying to open the door
for the pretty Mrs. Danbury without waiting for the servants. I
certainly would have. I also would have been happy to pull her into
the tiny reception room to speak with her alone. Perhaps Mrs.
Danbury had come for a liaison with Inglethorpe, and they'd
quarreled. No, I could not overlook the possibility that she had
deliberately stabbed him.

I dropped the clothes back on the chair.
Inglethorpe's death must be no coincidence--Peaches had come here
the afternoon before she'd died. Had she told Inglethorpe something
that the killer worried about? Had she been on her way to The Glass
House to meet someone and had told Inglethorpe who? I'd planned to
question Inglethorpe about Peaches yesterday, and of course had
missed the opportunity through my own folly. I'd planned to ask him
again today, and his death had put paid to that.

"Has Sir Montague Harris been informed?" I
asked.

"Couldn't say, sir. I imagine he will
be."

I walked out of the room with Pomeroy
following. "Bloody hell, Sergeant," I said heavily.

"It's a nasty thing, sir, people sticking
each other."

He sounded cheerful and confident. He'd never
had a day of melancholia in his life.

"I did not kill this man, Pomeroy," I said. I
took up my hat, clapped it back to my damp hair. "But I intend to
find out who did."

"Probably in your best interest, sir."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

I strode out into the rain. Pomeroy said
something jovial behind me, but I did not stop to respond.

*** *** ***

I continued walking to Grosvenor Street,
angry and worried, wondering what Inglethorpe had known--and what I
had overlooked. I needed to know more about Inglethorpe's household
and his friends, and I thought over ways in which I might find
out.

When I reached Grenville's house, Matthias
admitted me but told me his master was out. When I informed him and
Bartholomew of the news of Inglethorpe, they both stared at me with
stunned blue eyes.

"Lord, sir," Bartholomew breathed. "With your
sticker?"

"Yes. It's a bother, that." I went over the
plan I'd formed as I'd walked between Inglethorpe's and here.
"Bartholomew, I'd like you and your brother to poke around
Inglethorpe's a bit, get the servants to confide in you. Find out
who was in Inglethorpe's house yesterday and this morning. Discover
if any of the staff saw what became of my walking stick between the
time I left it and the time it ended up in Inglethorpe's chest. I
want to know any gossip about Mrs. Chapman--who she knew and what
she did whenever she went to Inglethorpe's, how well she knew
Inglethorpe, and what they talked about."