The Glass House by Ashley Gardner Page B

tell him we would
not stay another moment, but I forestalled him with a look. Another
woman of the house might have seen Peaches that day, might know who
she had met. Peaches had died here, or very soon after leaving
here, and I wanted to speak to anyone who had seen her.
    "Please," I said to Kensington. "Choose a
room for us."
    Kensington smiled. It was not a nice smile.
"I have just the thing, Captain. Allow me to prepare." He gave me a
little bow and glided away, leaving the door open behind him.
    Once we heard him close the door at the
bottom of the stairs Grenville turned to me. "Why on earth did you
tell him that? I'd have thought you'd want nothing more to do with
this place."
    I explained, but he looked skeptical. "Such a
lady may know nothing or be paid to know nothing."
    "Perhaps, but it is worth a try. Now, while
we have the chance, shall we see what else this room can tell
us?"
    "Kensington would not have left us alone if
it could," Grenville pointed out, but he turned his hand to the
task.
    We went over the room again, looking under
the bed covers, through the dressing table, behind curtains, under
the bed. I examined the tools at the fireplace, studied the heavy
brass grating. I finished my search, finding nothing. The room was
neat, well-dusted, impersonal.
    Grenville found nothing either, but I knew
that Peaches could very likely have been killed in this room.
    We found no evidence that she had been, of
course. Her killer would have had time to tidy up behind themselves
or he had paid Kensington to do it. Or perhaps Peaches had left
with her killer and met her death somewhere between here and the
Temple Gardens.
    Kensington was waiting for us at the bottom
of the stairs when we came down. He told me that he'd chosen Room
Five for me and that he wanted three hundred guineas for the
pleasure.
     
     
    * * * * *

Chapter Seven
     
    I nearly told Mr. Kensington exactly what I
thought of his three hundred guineas. Grenville, on the other hand,
coolly handed it over. "I will wait for you," he said.
    He returned to the front room, while
Kensington bade me follow him. I wondered what vice Kensington had
decided a man like me would want.
    We did not return to the main room but
entered the front staircase hall. Kensington produced another key
from his pocket and took me to a small door a little way along the
gallery that encircled the stairwell. He opened the door, gestured
me inside, and closed and locked the door behind him.
    We stood in a narrow corridor lined with
doors on our left. I realized that this hall ran behind the main
room and the small rooms that encircled it. I wondered briefly what
the builders brought in to alter the house had thought about the
bizarre floor plan.
    Kensington led took me to a door in the
middle of this hall and produced another key. He had put the key in
the lock and turned it, when I heard a cry. A child's cry.
    It did not come from the room Kensington was
opening for me but from the one next door. I turned to Kensington,
my countenance frozen. "Let me in there." I pointed to the blank
door to the right.
    His pleased smile sealed his fate. "That room
is taken."
    "Nonetheless."
    "The bid for that room was considerably
higher than yours," he said, giving me a patient look. "It has
already been spoken for."
    Every spark of rage that had been building
inside me since I'd seen pretty Peaches dead on the riverbank
surged and focused on the small man with the oily smile.
    I had Kensington against the wall in a trice,
the handle of Grenville's walking stick pressed against his throat.
My leg ached and throbbed, berating me for the punishment I'd given
it that afternoon. It was likely that Peaches had either met her
death in this house or met her killer here, and Kensington knew
that too. He might be the murderer himself.
    Kensington eyes held fear but also a deep
glint of confidence. "You do not know what you are doing,
Captain."
    "On the contrary, I believe I do."
    He had mistaken me for a