The Glass House (23 page)

"Two years after that," Mr. Harper continued,
"the great aunt, who had never married herself, died. She had named
her sister's children and grandchildren as inheritors of a trust,
of which I am the trustee. Mrs. Chapman's mother was the only
offspring of the original ill-advised marriage, and because she and
her husband had already died, Miss Amelia Leary was the only one
left to inherit the trust. And so, upon learning she had inherited
the property, Miss Leary decided to come to London. She looked me
up, and I explained it all to her."

"Did not the property go to Chapman when she
married him?" I asked. That was usual, unless the trust protected
the property very tightly. Most men inherited what their wives had
absolutely, and a gentleman could sell a wife's property and
squander the money however he wished.

"This trust was quite specific," Mr. Harper
said. "The property belonged solely to Miss Amelia Leary and the
heirs she named, and the trust ensured that her husband could not
touch it. The great aunt had no liking for men and feared the
property going to, as she called them, 'lowly actors.' Now, as Mrs.
Chapman had no offspring before she died, the trust reverts to the
original estate, and we trace the inheritance from there. So far, I
have had no luck."

"What was this property?" Sir Montague asked
him.

"A house in London," Mr. Harper replied in
his thin voice. "Number 12, St. Charles Row."

*** *** ***

"Well, this is a turn up," Thompson said.

The three of us had adjourned to a
coffeehouse, where Sir Montague partook of beefsteak, and Thompson
and I sipped rather over-boiled coffee.

We were all a bit startled by the revelation.
But the fact that Peaches owned The Glass House herself explained
why she'd not needed Lord Barbury to supply her with one. It also
explained why she'd kept a room there after her marriage. It was a
place of her own, a retreat from her unhappy life with Chapman.

A trust meant that although Peaches had
technically inherited number 12, St. Charles Row, she could not
sell it. But she could certainly hire it out and enjoy the income
from it. The house had indeed been hired, Mr. Harper had gone on to
tell us, to--no surprise to any of us--Kensington.

There was no doubt that the house made much
money, and Peaches would have reaped some of the profit. The riches
she'd looked for upon first journeying to London had come to her,
although perhaps not as she'd anticipated.

"Well, her husband wouldn't have killed her
for the house," Thompson said. He took a sip of coffee. "He doesn't
get it. Think he's telling the truth about Inglethorpe?"

"Possibly," Sir Montague said. "Or at least
what he's convinced himself is the truth."

"He still cannot explain why Inglethorpe had
taken off half his clothes," I mentioned. "Nor why he had mud on
his shoes."

Both men looked at me without much
enthusiasm. They had found and arrested a murderer; they did not
much care about the victim's eccentricities.

"What about poor Lord Barbury?" I continued.
"Have you any idea who might have killed him?"

"Himself," Thompson said. "You say that his
health had deteriorated greatly after Mrs. Chapman's death. Due to
either excessive grief or excessive remorse, perhaps."

I studied my coffee. "I do not think he did
it himself. I saw the wound that killed him. It was too far to the
back of his head." I lifted my hand and tapped myself behind the
ear. "It is more usual for a man to shoot himself through the
temple, or through the mouth."

I had seen more than one corpse of a suicide
in the Army; once, of a man in my own company. Most of us in the
Army had been very stoic about the fact that every time we rode
into battle, we would likely not return. We agreed that death
fighting the pesky French was more honorable than death by the
infections that regularly swept through the camps. We even joked
about it.

But there were those for whom the horrors of
war had come as a shock. Some men could not face shooting and
killing others and were terrified by the thought of death by
bayonet or musket ball. In the quiet hours of dawn, these gentlemen
would creep away by themselves and end their lives quickly with a
bullet in the head, as I described.

No one stopped them. A man had to find honor
where he could. We simply buried them, sent their effects back to
their families, and marched on.

I'd always thought it a waste of life that
these good officers and men were not put to use elsewhere than the
front. But the pigheaded fear of cowardice, drummed into us since
birth, made men prefer death at their own hands to being made a
headquarters aide because they could not face bullets.

The head wounds I had seen on these men were
usually in the temple, above the ear, or through the back of the
throat. None had been behind the ear, where the man would have to
pull his arm back at a slightly uncomfortable angle.

"Perhaps," Sir Montague agreed. "What we need
is a witness or more evidence. Pomeroy continues to tramp through
the neighborhood, but so far, no one admits they saw him die."

"I don't think Chapman killed him," I
continued. "He was astonished when I told him Lord Barbury had been
his wife's lover. He'd been fixed on Inglethorpe."

"Why would someone other than Chapman kill
Lord Barbury, in any case?" Thompson asked. "Unless Lord Barbury
knew something about Mrs. Chapman's death that he hadn't
revealed?"

I turned my cup around on the table. "I have
toyed with the idea that Lord Barbury might have been blackmailing
the killer, and the killer grew fearful or tired of it. But I do
not think so. I would swear Barbury knew nothing of how Mrs.
Chapman died."

"Unless he killed her himself," Sir Montague
suggested. "Then remorse built up so much that he took a quick way
out. Or perhaps after speaking with you and Mr. Grenville, he
realized that he could not hide his guilt forever."

"Lord Barbury was a man of volatile
passions," I said. "I saw that in him, and in those letters he
wrote to Mrs. Chapman. I agree that he could have quarreled with
Mrs. Chapman and killed her, perhaps even accidentally. Both of the
bedrooms I saw had heavy brass fenders at the fireplaces. If she'd
fallen and hit her head, the blow could have killed her. I did
check both fenders and found no evidence of blood on either, but
they could have been cleaned afterward. The one in the attic was
certainly shiny."

"Well, I shall ask Mr. Kensington about those
fenders, when I have him up before me," Sir Montague said, sounding
happy. "I intend to arrest him before the week is out. I will need
your testimony and that of the little girl, Lacey, but I will get
him."

"What of Lady Jane?" I asked. I had explained
about her, and what Denis had told me, on our way to see Mr.
Harper.

"I've heard of her," Sir Montague said. "So
far, no one has been able to fasten anything illegal to her, but
that is because she's slippery, not innocent." He thought a moment.
"Can Mr. Denis set us an appointment with this Lady Jane?"

"He and Lady Jane are fierce rivals," I said.
"I doubt she'd let him pin her down."

"Mr. Denis might find it in his best interest
to keep a magistrate happy," Sir Montague said, smiling.

"Unfortunately, that may not sway him."

"No harm in asking," Sir Montague said with
good cheer. "Or we can get to her through her subordinate, although
I have the feeling that when we arrest Kensington, she, the larger
fish, will slip the net. I would like to do this the easy way,
Captain. I do not have the manpower to scour the city for her."

I gave him a nod and promised to send word to
Denis, though I was not optimistic.

Sir Montague grunted as he climbed to his
feet. "I will have Mr. Harper keep me informed of who will inherit
the house. I hope this person, whoever it might be, is horrified to
learn it is being used as a bawdy house and closes it. And if he is
of mercenary disposition and wishes the income from it, I will have
a little talk with him."

Sir Montague looked buoyed. He had realized
today that The Glass House's lifespan would be even shorter than
he'd hoped.

"Lady Jane can simply open another house," I
pointed out.

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Sir
Montague stuck out his hand. "You have been of great help,
Captain."

"I have done very little," I said, as we
shook on it.

"Nonsense. You got yourself into The Glass
House where my patrollers could not go, you found the connection
between Mrs. Chapman, Lord Barbury, and The Glass House, you got
Chapman to confess to the murder of Inglethorpe. Impressive work to
this plodding magistrate."

"It comes from poking my nose where it does
not belong."

"Yes, indeed." Sir Montague clapped me on the
shoulder. "Keep it up, there's a good fellow."

* * * * *

Chapter Fifteen

Much happened that afternoon. When I returned
home, I wrote to James Denis, telling him that Sir Montague wished
to speak to Lady Jane, and it would please Sir Montague if Denis
would help us find and meet with her. I doubted Denis would be
impressed, but I sent the letter anyway.

I had two missives waiting for me at the
bakeshop, one from Lady Breckenridge asking me to join her in her
box at Covent Garden Theatre that night. The other was from
Grenville who had learned of Barbury's death and was anxious to
discuss it with me. I wrote my acceptance to Lady Breckenridge then
journeyed with Bartholomew back across the metropolis, to be
greeted by the impatient Grenville and invited to partake of yet
another meal.

I ate savory chicken pastries with succulent
wine sauce while I told Grenville all that had happened. He was as
angry as I at Lord Barbury's death and expressed a wish to pin it
on Kensington.

"I dislike Kensington," I said as I finished
off the excellent dish. "He is manipulative and a liar. But he also
strikes me as a coward. I can believe him killing Peaches, but Lord
Barbury was large and strong, and Kensington is a small man."

"Lord Barbury was shot," Grenville pointed
out.

"The gun was pressed against his head. The
powder burns around the wound attest to that. I cannot imagine Lord
Barbury standing still and letting Kensington shoot him. If he'd
have seen Kensington coming at him with a pistol, he would have
tried to fight him."

"Then he didn't see the pistol," Grenville
suggested.

"But Barbury knew Kensington. He wouldn't
have trusted the man for a moment. I too want Kensington to be
guilty, but I am not certain he is. At least not of killing Lord
Barbury."

"And Thompson is still not certain how
Peaches got herself to Middle Temple Gardens?"

"And who would have noticed anyone scuttling
down the streets on that afternoon?" I asked. "At just after four
that day, it was raining and dark and cold. Anyone walking would
have been heavily bundled against the weather--everyone looks like
everyone else in such a circumstance, especially in the dark. Most
people were indoors seeking warmth. Did the killer count on that,
or did circumstance work in his favor?"

"Begging your pardon, sir," Bartholomew said
from where he stood against the wall. "But I've thought of
something." He and Matthias had taken up stations on either side of
the room, waiting to serve us. It was not a footman's place to
speak to his master or guest while they served--servants were
supposed to be invisible. Not in Grenville's house, however, where
he solicited opinions of his staff, saying he employed them for
their brains as well as their service.

Bartholomew approached the table, while his
brother topped off our glasses with hock. "Seems to me that we are
all thinking that since poor Mrs. Chapman ended up in the river she
was tossed from the banks. But what if she was in a boat already?
Rowed up to the Temple and heaved over the side? Or, since she
fetched up under Blackfriar's Bridge, why not put in the river
right there? The murderer might figure she'd wash far away
downstream before anyone found her. His bad luck she stuck under
the bridge."

He had a point. Boatmen and others did go up
and down the river all the time, scavenging for articles that they
could sell or keep. They could be paid to transport people, if you
wanted to share a boat with a smelly, ragged man and his
family.

I remembered standing on the Temple steps,
reflecting how the river used to be the main artery of travel in
days gone by. Two hundred years ago, men had rarely moved about the
city on horseback or foot or in any kind of conveyance. With the
river handy, they'd had no need to.

"A long way to row from The Glass House to
the Temple Gardens," Grenville said. "Upstream."

"Maybe, sir, he was afraid that if Mr.
Thompson figured out she went in by London Bridge or below that,
he'd connect her more easily with The Glass House," Bartholomew
said. "If she went in by Middle Temple, she'd be more connected to
her husband. Maybe The Glass House would never be mentioned."

"And wouldn't have been," Matthias added,
putting the stopper in the decanter and licking a bit of spilled
hock from his thumb, "if the murderer had noticed her wearing his
lordship's ring and took it from her."

"That would not have hidden things for long,"
Grenville said. "Lady Breckenridge, for example, knew that Mrs.
Chapman was Barbury's mistress. Barbury would have been questioned
eventually, and the connection to The Glass House revealed."

Bartholomew shrugged. "Maybe the murderer
didn't think of that. He was panicked and hauled off her corpse,
supposing everyone would think her husband had done her in.
Husbands usually do. Or wives their husbands."

I ignored this optimistic view of marriage
and drank deeply of hock. "It is an interesting theory," I said.
"But how much time would it take to go upstream from London Bridge
to Blackfriar's Bridge in a boat? Peaches died at about half-past
four. She was in the river a few hours before she was found at
eight o'clock. Does the time fit?"