The Riddle of the Roses (Murder in Moonlight #8)

Chapter One

Silver and Grey were celebrating.

Constance and Solomon, as owners of the firm, were dispensing a buffet lunch with wine to all three members of their staff, in recognition of their excellent work in finding a missing child before real harm befell her.

As a bonus to this triumph, the child’s doting parents were fabulously wealthy and had paid liberally for their speedy success.

Janey, the firm’s inquiries assistant, and carpenter Lenny Knox, their occasional helper, had done much of the slog of this search, and it was largely down to them that the case had been solved so quickly.

Lenny looked slightly bemused to be so feted, Janey was thoroughly delighted, and Hat, the receptionist, was smiling with pleasure to be included.

Chatter and laughter and the sweet satisfaction of success in such a harrowing case surrounded Constance. She would never grow tired of sharing such moments with her husband and partner. So it was a silly time for a quarrel.

“You see?” Solomon murmured. “We are an odd mix of people, and yet we are happy.”

“Yes,” she said at once, “but can you really imagine your respectable business associates bringing their wives to such a gathering? For longer than half a minute?”

“Yes. Many of them.”

“And to the other half, you are forever tainted by association. Turning a blind eye to your unwise marriage is not the same as publicly endorsing it. It’s a lovely idea, Solomon, but not a practical one.”

They were not, of course, talking about this impromptu staff celebration but about Solomon’s wish to hold an evening party at their marital home. Constance was more than happy to entertain his friends, just not alongside her own. For one thing, his friends would not bring their wives.

“Don’t you see that it would be turning our home into another establishment?” she said, intensely. “And you want that as little as I do.”

In fact, it was strange of him altogether, for he was hardly the most sociable of men.

“The establishment is already more respectable than before,” he pointed out.

The establishment, which had begun as Constance’s well-run brothel with a charitable sideline, had, largely thanks to Solomon, recently become more of a charity with a disreputable sideline.

At least, that was the perception they were aiming at, largely because Constance did not want Solomon’s wife to be known as a courtesan, or worse.

The civilized evening parties for gentlemen to choose their companions had begun to double as fundraising events, so that no one knew anymore who attended for the girls and who for philanthropic intent.

In fact, many came from mere curiosity and still stayed for one reason or the other.

But the new house, her and Solomon’s home, should be inviolate.

“Then let’s not make our home less respectable,” she snapped. “It won’t do, Solomon. Unless you hold the party while I am out.”

“That does not work.”

“It is the only way it will work,” she said. “I cannot change who I am. Can’t you be content as we are?”

“Content?” he repeated, staring at her. A rare spark of anger flashed in his shrewd, dark eyes, as if the tameness of the word offended him. “Constance…”

He blinked, gazing beyond her to the doorway.

Hat stood there, clearly having answered the front door that the others had been too preoccupied to hear. Behind her stood a distinguished man Constance had never expected to see again.

Sebastian Kellar.

“Oh—oh,” she said involuntarily, even while she summoned a delighted smile and hurried to meet him. “Mr. Kellar, what a delightful surprise.”

“Mrs. Grey, a pleasure to see you again!” He bowed over her hand and turned to shake hands with Solomon. “How are you, Grey? I’m sorry. I seem to have interrupted—”

“Not at all,” Solomon said. “Are you hungry? A glass of wine, perhaps?”

“Actually, no. Happy though I am to see you both again, I’m afraid this is not a social call. It is business.”

“Then perhaps we should go through to my office,” Constance suggested, relieved. She nodded to Hat, who looked uncertain. “You do have another half-hour for luncheon,” she reminded the girl, and led the way out of Solomon’s office, and along the hallway to her own.

Kellar gazed about him. “Charming offices,” he said mildly. “I should not be surprised. Is it someone’s birthday next door?”

“No,” Constance replied, going at once to her desk—Kellar had clearly stated business, after all. “Do sit down. How long have you been back in England?”

They had last seen him in Venice during their honeymoon in March. A British diplomat with a roaming brief and unclear duties, he had been on his way to Rome when he took his leave of them, mentioning a subsequent intention to return to England. That had been four months ago, in March.

“Just a few weeks,” Kellar replied vaguely. “You?”

“Since May,” Solomon replied, placing a third chair at the side of the desk, at a right angle to both the others, and sitting down. “What can we do to help you?”

Don’t mention my mother. Don’t mention my mother…

In Venice Constance had been stunned to discover that Kellar, obviously a gentleman, had once wanted to marry her mother Juliet, who, he seemed to imagine, was equally respectable.

She may have been thirty years ago—though Constance had trouble picturing it—but she certainly wasn’t now, with careers of whoring and fencing behind her.

Currently, she was running a shop trading in curiosities and antiques.

Although Constance owed Kellar for a timely saving of the day in Venice, that debt did not supersede loyalty to the maddening Juliet.

Kellar did not answer for a few moments—which itself was odd.

Constance remembered him as the consummate diplomat, a man who thought on his feet and always said the right thing, never by accident.

His hesitation implied thoughts were taking a little longer than usual.

And now that she focused on him, there was a new tension in the set of his face, in his very posture.

“Over the years,” he said at last, “I have developed an instinct for trouble, for the wrongness of a situation. I imagine,” he added politely, “that you both have similar kinds of instincts.”

“And what is yours telling you?” Solomon asked.

“About you two?” Kellar beamed. “I no longer need instinct. I have made my own inquiries. Honesty and success are a heady combination in any business.”

“You forgot discretion,” Solomon said. “If that is why you hesitate, our discretion with clients is absolute, unless they have committed a crime.”

“Have any of them?”

“Not yet, although it’s come close. Shall we return to your instincts?”

“By all means.” Kellar’s smile faded. “A young friend of mine died last night.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Constance said sincerely. “How did it happen?”

“According to the doctor, it was heart failure. She had been troubled by irregularities of the heart over the last year.”

“And according to your instincts?”

“They tell me something is wrong. She controlled her heart problem with digitalis prescribed by her doctor, and appeared as healthy as ever. The whole household is astounded as well as devastated.”

“And who is the whole household?”

“Her husband, their servants.”

“Does the husband accept the doctor’s findings? Will there be an autopsy?”

“Yes, Montague accepts it, and no, there will be no autopsy.”

“Then have you cause for suspicion?”

“Nothing I can lay my finger on, except she looked exceedingly well when I saw her at the theatre the previous evening. That and the fact that Montague—her husband—inherits all her money.”

Constance raised her eyebrows. “You believe he killed her somehow?”

“I will believe you,” Kellar said, “if and when you tell me he did not.”

“You don’t like him.”

Kellar shrugged. “Not hugely, though I know nothing to his discredit, except that a run of bad luck in business has left him a little short of funds. I always thought him a trifle…dull for someone as bright and vital as Caterina.”

“Caterina is the dead lady? Was she very wealthy?”

“She commanded considerable fees for her appearances, plus she had shares in several theatres across the country. And, of course, the money she inherited from her parents.”

“Is that a great deal?” Constance asked him.

“It is.”

Solomon pounced. “How do you know?”

“Because I arranged to have it removed to England for her.”

“From where?”

“Italy.” Kellar looked from one to the other. “The deceased is Caterina di Ripoli. You may have heard of her.”

Solomon’s brows flew up. “The opera singer?”

Kellar inclined his head.

“We saw her only last week at Covent Garden,” Constance said, awed and appalled. “In Rigoletto. She didn’t sound as if she had heart difficulties then.”

“No,” Kellar agreed. “She didn’t last night, either.” He stared beyond them, looking indescribably sad. “She would have been wonderful in La Traviata.”

It was at the opening night of that opera in Venice that Constance had first seen Kellar.

Solomon stirred on his chair. “You call her a friend. How did you know her?”

“We met in Rome several years ago. I knew her parents. They were singers too, famous all over Europe, but they died in 1848. I helped her escape to England.”

“With her money,” Solomon said.

“That took a little longer, but yes.”

“So when exactly did Caterina die?” Constance asked.

“At some point during last night,” Kellar said. “Her maid left her at around midnight, and by half past seven, when the maid returned, Caterina was dead.”

“Peacefully? Were there signs she had died in distress?”

“None,” Kellar said. “Her eyes were closed, her face in repose. The bedding looked quite undisturbed.”

“Then you saw the body yourself?” Solomon asked.

Kellar nodded. It troubled him, Constance saw.

“What about the husband?” she asked.

“Montague? He saw her when she came home from the theatre at about eleven last night.”

“Then they do not share a bedroom?”

“Apparently not.”

“How is he?” Constance asked.