The Glass House (5 page)

But I hated to think of my own child lying
dead somewhere, with no one to care. Barbury grieved but did not
want Bow Street mucking about his affairs. Thompson investigated
because it was his job and because of professional interest.
Pomeroy sought the criminal for monetary reward, and Grenville
helped in order to relieve his ennui.

So far, I seemed to be the only one concerned
for Peaches' sake, although I could be wronging Barbury with that
assumption. Whatever Peaches had done, whatever choices she had
made, she did not deserve what had happened to her.

"Another avenue of possibility is The Glass
House," I said. "If Peaches and Barbury went there together,
someone there might have known her and perhaps be able to tell us
what she did yesterday."

Grenville made a face. "The Glass House. What
do you know of it?"

"Little. It is a gaming hell that costs much
to enter. In the East End?"

"Number 12, St. Charles Row, near
Whitechapel," Grenville said. "I have been once and vowed never to
go back. Every vice is available there, whether you have a penchant
for gambling, or women, or men, or-- well, anything you can think
of, The Glass House will supply it." He watched me with his sharp,
dark eyes. "I do mean every vice, Lacey. I must wonder why Barbury
went there with Peaches when he could easily have arranged a better
place. Any connection Peaches formed there will be a sordid
one."

Nasty goings on there
Thompson had
said. Whenever magistrates or reformers try to close it, their
intentions are blocked.

"Murder is sordid," I said.

"I grant that, and you might be right that
The Glass House is important. I will have to get you inside,
because you'll never gain entry on your own. No insult to you."

"None taken." My father had been a gentleman;
but a country gentleman of Norfolk, however ancient our family, was
not in the same standing as someone like Lord Barbury or
Grenville.

"I guarantee that you will not like it,"
Grenville said.

"I have no interest in liking it," I said. "I
am not seeking entertainment."

"I know. But please, do not blame me if the
place disgusts you. There, I have warned you."

He made me curious. Grenville could affect
disdain, but his distaste now was genuine.

We finished our ale, said our farewells, and
departed, Grenville to return via his luxurious coach to Mayfair,
me to my rooms in Grimpen Lane. Grenville promised to send word
about when I should call on Inglethorpe.

He was interested, at least. When Lucius
Grenville became interested in something, he pursued it with a
tenacity the Emperor Bonaparte would have envied. The murderer
would be hard pressed to elude the both of us.

* * * * *

Chapter Four

That evening, Thompson sent word to me that
Chapman was due in Bow Street to speak to Pomeroy at five o'clock.
It was a short walk to the magistrate’s office from my rooms,
though I moved slowly, because the weather cramped my injured
knee.

The tall edifice of the magistrate's house
encompassed numbers 3 and 4 Bow Street. Behind it, across a small
yard, lay the strong rooms for the keeping of prisoners; the
officers sometimes used the cellar of the tavern across the road
for prisoners when the house was full.

Church clocks were striking the quarter hour
when I entered the house and made my way up to Pomeroy's room,
where Mr. Chapman waited. In his early fifties, Chapman had a
fringe of graying hair, small dark eyes, and an expression of one
whose mind was always moving forward to his next task.

He greeted Pomeroy and Thompson politely,
looking in no way worried about why they'd brought him there.
Apparently, he’d not believed their story that his wife had been
found dead and seemed impatient for them to prove it. He was
uninterested in who I was and expressed a desire to get on with it
as he had important appointments.

Peaches' body had been placed in one of the
buildings in the yard behind the house. Pomeroy led us there and
unlocked the door. The stone room was chilly and damp, a foul tomb
for anyone.

Peaches, wrapped in a sheet, waited in
silence on the table. Standing beside the shrouded body was Sir
Montague Harris, the magistrate I’d met the year before. I was
surprised at his presence, as he was magistrate at the Whitechapel
house, far from the scene of the crime. The houses and officers
often cooperated with each other, but if a magistrate from another
part of the metropolis had not been asked to participate in an
investigation, he had no need to.

Sir Montague, however, looked very
interested. He shook my hand, professing himself pleased to see
me.

Chapman was introduced to him but did not
look impressed.

"This must be a mistake, you know," he said,
in a voice of one annoyed that the outside world had intruded on
his workday. "My wife is in Sussex."

"That's as may be," Pomeroy said. "But here
we are."

He stepped forward, removed the wrapping from
Peaches' face, and held his candle high.

Silent and blue-gray in the circle of light,
Peaches looked almost serene. Her ringlets had dried from her
dousing in the Thames and lay on her shoulders as silken and golden
as a girl's.

Chapman stared at her a long time, his face
unmoving.

"Well?" Pomeroy boomed. His candle wavered,
and a drop of hot wax splashed on Peaches' shrouded chest.

"That is my wife," Mr. Chapman said finally.
"She was meant to be in Sussex." He sounded as though this breach
of plans displeased him.

"I am very sorry, sir." Sir Montague's words
were polite but sincere. "From what Mr. Thompson tells me, she died
quickly. Probably never knew what happened. Now, then sir, when did
you last see your wife?"

Thompson quietly pulled the sheet back over
Peaches' face. She was not a person any more, merely a figure under
a sheet.

"I handed her into a hackney, bound for a
coaching inn," Chapman said. "She was to take the mail to Sussex.
That was three, no four days ago."

"And where were you," Pomeroy broke in,
"yesterday afternoon at half-past four?"

Chapman turned to him in mild shock. "Why is
that important?"

"Because your wife was tipped into the river
very near your chambers in Middle Temple at that time."

Chapman paled. "If you imply that I killed
her, you are wrong. I dined that evening in the hall, with my pupil
and fellow barristers. I never left it. I put my wife into a coach
on Saturday, and have not set eyes on her from that time to this."
He glanced at the shrouded body and flinched, as though only now
understanding that her death was real.

"Did you have any quarrel with your wife,
sir?" Pomeroy asked.

A vein began pulsing in Chapman's forehead.
"What do you mean, asking me such a thing?"

"Did you know, for instance, that your wife
was having an affair with a posh gent?"

Chapman's face suffused with color. He looked
at the four of us, all silent, all waiting for his answer. It
struck me that although Chapman had not believed his wife dead, he
very well believed she'd had a lover.

"Gentlemen, you cast aspersions on my wife's
reputation," he said.

"She'd been an actress, had she not?"
Thompson said. "Not many actresses have excellent reputations to
begin with."

Chapman's jaw hardened. "That was years ago.
She gave up the stage--everything--when she married me."

"An odd choice of wife, wasn't it?" Thompson
said. "For a respectable barrister?"

"That is really none of your business."

Sir Montague spoke, still polite, but his
voice firm. "She was murdered, sir, which is a very serious crime.
We will expect you at the inquest, day after tomorrow."

Chapman blinked at the word "inquest."
"Surely, I will not be called to give evidence."

"A few things will be easier if you are
there," Sir Montague said. He never lost his polite geniality. "You
understand."

As a barrister, Mr. Chapman obviously
did.

"Before you leave, just tell Mr. Pomeroy the
names of the men you dined with, and your movements between four
and five o'clock, yesterday."

"Of course." Chapman's voice was
lackluster.

We went back to the outside world, which was
almost as dim as the stone room had been. Mr. Chapman did not shake
hands with me or Thompson. He moved into the side room indicated to
wait for Pomeroy.

"He must have done it, sir," Pomeroy hissed
at Sir Montague, his round face wearing an annoyed expression. "Why
are you letting him go?"

"So that you may watch him, of course," Sir
Montague said. "If he is innocent, he will do nothing but grow
enraged at the inefficiencies of the magistrates. If he is guilty,
he will betray himself."

Pomeroy looked thoughtful, gave Sir Montague
a nod, and turned back to the waiting Chapman.

Sir Montague asked me and Thompson to speak
to him and led us upstairs to the magistrate's rooms. The Bow
Street magistrate was not there. He was even now presiding in the
court below, where those arrested during the night would parade
before him--pickpockets, prostitutes, thieves, and ruffians. The
magistrate would hear the cases against them and decide whether to
let the culprits go free or to bind them over for trial. Mr.
Chapman might very well prosecute them in a few days at the Old
Bailey, if Pomeroy didn’t arrest Chapman first.

Thompson closed the door, and Sir Montague
settled his bulk on a wide bench. "I was pleased for the chance to
meet you again, Captain," he said. "When Mr. Thompson told me that
Mr. Pomeroy had fetched you to view the body, I was interested. I
remember how you tweaked the coroner's nose in Kent for not doing
his job."

"I was impertinent." I had been, but I’d also
believed in what I’d said.

"He was in a hurry and wanted his dinner,"
Sir Montague said. "Your observations were apt, and he ought to
have paid attention. I would be pleased to hear your observations
in this case."

He was watching me closely. I had the
feeling, as I had in Kent, that were I ever in the dock before him,
Sir Montague Harris would peel me apart layer by layer.

"I agree with Mr. Thompson's idea that she
was killed in the Temple Gardens, near the stairs," I said. "It
would have been dark and few people would have been out in the
rain. Also, as the wife of a barrister, she would see nothing wrong
with answering a summons from her husband--or one purporting to be
from her husband--to Middle Temple."

Thompson leaned against a plain wooden desk
and folded his arms. "Why would her husband summon her if he
thought her in Sussex?"

"We have only his word on that matter," Sir
Montague said. "He and his servants will be questioned, of
course."

"If she had returned to London to meet
someone at the Temple Gardens," I said, "she likely hired a coach
to let her down at Middle Temple Lane. Drivers can be
questioned."

"Or the posh Lord Barbury hired a coach for
her," Thompson said. "I have an appointment to speak to him today;
I will certainly ask him. I suggest she used the Sussex journey as
a ruse to get away from her husband for a few days to meet Lord
Barbury. Perhaps Chapman discovered the ruse and killed her in
anger."

"Would she answer a summons to Middle Temple
if she were hiding from her husband?" I asked.

Thompson spread his hands. "Perhaps the other
speculation is correct, that she met her end elsewhere and was
brought to the gardens. Her husband would know the gardens and know
they would be empty at that time of day."

"Or it is the lover," Sir Montague broke in.
"Perhaps she wanted to end the association and return to her
husband's affections. In a crime like this, it is often one or the
other, the husband or the lover. We only need discover which
one."

"But in this case," I said, "both the lover
and the husband claim to have been in places with plenty of
witnesses at the time of the crime. Mr. Chapman in Middle Temple
Hall, and Lord Barbury at White's."

"We will certainly ascertain that," Sir
Montague said. "But we have yet to establish the involvement of a
third party."

"What is your interest?" I asked Sir
Montague. "Whitechapel is a long way from Bow Street or even
Blackfriar's Bridge."

Sir Montague shrugged, but I saw his hint of
smile. "I simply take an interest. And when I heard your name crop
up, that interest increased." He exchanged a look with Thompson.
"That and the fact that The Glass House might be involved."

"Which lays near Whitechapel," I said.

"It is a house I would like to shut down.
Rumors of what goes on there are disquieting, but rumor is not
evidence. Whoever owns the house is very powerful. Whenever a
magistrate moves to close it, that magistrate suddenly backs off
very quietly."

His statement made me pause. I knew a man
powerful enough to send magistrates scuttling away when he wished.
He was a man called James Denis, and he had his finger in many a
soiled pie. If Denis owned The Glass House, I could understand why
Sir Montague wanted it closed, and also understand his difficulty
in doing so.

"Only the very wealthy and important are let
through the doors," Sir Montague said. "It is not like a brothel or
even a gambling den that my patrollers can infiltrate. Vice for the
upper classes often stays hidden."

I knew the truth of that. "My friend Mr.
Grenville tells me that the places the fashionable frequent change
rapidly. If you wait, interest will die, and the fashionable will
go elsewhere."

Sir Montague's look was shrewd. "I do not
want to wait that long. This house has fascinated for a while now
and shows no sign of abating. My men cannot go there, and neither
can I. While my knighthood might get me through the door, I am too
well known as a meddling magistrate." His eyes twinkled. Sir
Montague was also hugely rotund, though his legs were thin, a
profile that many would remember. "But you, Captain Lacey, have the
correct social standing and connections."