This room was not so neat and clean. There was dust on some of the shelves and on the carpet and the back of the large desk that dominated the room. But a pile of letters, both opened and unsealed, lay to one side of the desk. Another, half finished, lay in the middle. She was not close enough to judge the handwriting yet.
The fire was not yet lit here either, but on the mantelpiece above it, propped up against the wall, were cards of invitation. Interesting. She was about to move into the room when a sudden, sharp voice made her jump.
“What are you doing there?” Duggin demanded.
He stood holding the baize door to the kitchen, through which he had clearly just emerged with alarming silence. Fortunately, she had her story planned and ready.
“Looking for madam’s shawl that she wore last night. Either she mislaid it or I did.”
“It’s not in there,” Duggin said coldly.
Constance sighed. “No, it does not appear to be. Nor is it in the parlor, the dining room, or the drawing room. I wonder if I was foolish enough to pick it up with the laundry by mistake? I’ll just nip down and see…”
“Mrs. Lambert is never in this room. No one but Mr. Lambert is allowed in here, apart from on cleaning days.”
Constance flared her nostrils. “And there don’t appear to be many of those.” Closing the door, she ignored Duggin’s scowl and brushed past him. He made a fuss about locking the office door.Damn.
She pushed open the silently swinging baize door, and for the first time noticed another door on the left, almost hidden in gloom. Duggin came up behind her, making her flesh crawl, although she refused to show it.
“What’s in there?” she asked brazenly, nodding toward the newly discovered door.
“The wine cellar,” Duggin replied with exaggerated patience. “Mrs. Lambert don’t go in there neither. Only Mr. Lambert and me.”
Constance sailed on as though she had lost interest. In the kitchen, she made a fuss of looking through the laundry for the missing shawl that was not missing at all, then returned, muttering about nerves, to Angela’s bedchamber. And her own.
She closed the door and locked it before extracting paper and pencil from the top drawer of her chest. Sitting on the bed, she began to write down everything they had learned about the ghost sightings, including both rational and supernatural explanations, and Angela’s suspicions as well as her own and Solomon’s.
It wasn’t a memory aid. She remembered everything said to her and everything she read with an accuracy most people found startling. But writing things down sometimes helped her to see patterns and possibilities she hadn’t previously thought of.
And therewerepatterns. The ghost was only seen in fog, and only on Thursdays and Saturdays. Moreover, the times and directions of the sightings were consistent, too. Goldie’s talk of a day off was actually a possibility, though hardly from heavenly chores.
Everyone who’d seen it agreed the ghost was a female figure. If it was someone from outside—someone working for Lambert’s rivals or enemies, or for Gregg—then they faced the problem of the locked door at the foot of the garden. They could have come in via the front, of course—though the gates were apparently locked at night—but no one had ever seen the ghost at the front, only in the back garden. It wouldn’t be an easy climb for a woman in skirts, and unless she was very agile—or had help—she would not be able to do so in silence.
Constance tapped the end of the pencil against her teeth.
The likelihood was, then, that the intruder had a key.
Or came from within the house. Angela, Goldie, Bert, and Pat had all claimed to see the ghost. Which, of the females in the household, left only the maid Denise and Ida.
Interesting. What were their backgrounds? Why were they here with the Lamberts?
Constance scrunched the paper in hand and threw the pencil back into its drawer. Then, remembering her own curiosity in the parlor, she took her scrunched notes with her into the main bedroom and fed them into the fire.
*
Solomon, dressed inhis normal business attire, went first to the office of Huxley Gregg, a respectable suite of rooms in the city.
He was greeted with courtesy by the clerk nearest the door, who rose, while another two continued to work industriously.
“Good morning, sir. How can we help you today?”
“I’d like to see Mr. Gregg, if you please. Here is my card.”
Interestingly, his name clearly meant something to the young clerk, for his eyes widened and began to gleam. “Mr. Grey! An honor to receive you.”
“Then Mr. Gregg is available now?” Solomon had hardly dared hope.
“Sadly not, sir. But Mr. Aitken is entirely in his confidence if you’d care to come this way.”
