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.'
I’d suspected he'd get to that. Sir Montague could not enter the realm of the aristocrat, but Lucius Grenville could. And Lucius Grenville could take me with him, as he'd already offered to.
I supposed Sir Montague expected me to protest. Grenville was ready to let me use my connection with him to enter, but I was not certain how happy he would be when he learned that I wanted to not only to investigate Peaches' murder but to spy on Grenville's own cronies.
However, Sir Montague did not know how much I would welcome any opportunity to thwart James Denis. I despised the man, and would happily get in the way of anything he did.
I gave Sir Montague a quiet nod. 'Of course. What would you like me to do?'
'Have you ever thought of going into law, Bartholomew?' I asked the next morning. Bartholomew, towering six feet and more with golden blond hair and a youthful face for his nineteen years, stopped in the act of refilling my cup.
'Can't say I ever did, sir. I mean to be a valet.' He poured the thick, black coffee, its steam bathing my nose in heady aroma. 'Or a Runner. A chap needs learning to go to law.'
'He apprentices,' I said, lifting my cup. The coffee burned my tongue, but I swallowed it down. 'He apprentices to a barrister and learns the art of prosecuting in court.'
If I had stayed at Cambridge and finished instead of following Colonel Brandon off to the Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons, I likely would have found my way to one of the Temples or Lincoln's or Gray's Inn to learn to practice at the bar. My father had been pressing me that direction, not to mention to marry a young lady for her fortune. Twenty years old and arrogant, I had told my father to go to the devil.
He’d shouted at me for days, and I had shouted back. Grown man though I was, he’d still been fond of beating me across the backside with his stout cane whenever he could reach me. I’d felt the brunt of that cane most of my life. I’d witnessed many a flogging in my Army life, but no soldier had ever beaten another with the vicious thoroughness of my father.
'I need an excuse to go poking about the Middle Temple,' I said. 'You could put on a suit and pretend you are looking to apprentice to a barrister. You are about the right age.'
Bartholomew grinned. 'Any of that lot will peg me for a slavey right off, I open my mouth.'
'Then keep it closed.' I chewed through another hunk of Mrs. Beltan's cheapest bread and downed the coffee. 'Stay behind me and look shy. I'll be your uncle or some such, happy to be getting you off my hands.'
His smile widened. 'I'm your man, sir.'
Bartholomew was as fascinated as Grenville by the fact that I investigated things. His last adventure with me had resulted in him receiving two bullets in his arm and leg, but that fact had not dimmed his interest. Bartholomew had recovered with the exuberance of youth and didn’t even sport a limp.
Unlike myself. I had received a nasty knee injury courtesy of French soldiers on the Peninsula and had to lean on a walking stick. The stick sported a sharp sword within it, which had come in handy more than once since my return to London and civilian life.
When Bartholomew was ready, we departed. As I closed my door, I was surprised by the sight of Marianne Simmons coming up the steps. She wore yellow straw bonnet tied with a green ribbon that made her girlish face more fetching than ever. Marianne scowled when she saw me, golden brows drawn over eyes of cornflower blue.
'Where the devil have you been?' I asked, startled into rudeness. She'd been away longer than usual, and Peaches' death had worried me.
Marianne’s scowl deepened. 'None of your business, Lacey.' She paused halfway to her floor to glower down at me. 'None of his either.'
She did not mean Bartholomew, who hovered behind me. She meant Grenville, who'd taken an interest in Marianne and twice given her money, asking for nothing in return.
I did not pursue it. Marianne was correct-what she got up to when she was far from here was none of my business. I shut my door but did not lock it. 'There's half a loaf of bread on my table. Take it if you want it.'
She gave me a freezing look. 'I do not need your leavings.'
I shrugged but still did not lock the door. I followed Bartholomew down the stairs, hearing Marianne ascend to her own rooms behind us. I had no doubt that when I returned the bread would be gone.
Bartholomew and I set off along the Strand through Temple Bar to Fleet Street, then walked south, down Middle Temple Lane, which bisected the Middle and Inner Temples. The environs of the two Temples overlapped somewhat, with buildings belonging to Middle Temple straying into the areas of the Inner Temple.
I led Bartholomew past the courts and chambers and toward the hall and gardens.
Bartholomew wore the plain suit in which he visited his mother, and he slowed his exuberant stride for my slower one. His suit was cheap, though not shabby, but it did not matter. The middle-class men and young gentlemen who apprenticed here did not always come from families of wealth.
Pupils fluttered about the lanes and gardens like students anywhere-some with the frightened but determined looks of young men resolute to prove they were good at something; some with the superior looks of those who already knew they were good; some with the devil-may-care looks of young men who lived for larks, studies getting done when they got done. At Cambridge, I, unfortunately, had been a member of the latter group.
Bartholomew stayed quiet as instructed, and I behaved like an uncle anxious to rid myself of a lad I was at wit's end what to do with. The pupils spoke to us readily enough. They eyed Bartholomew with either awe at his size or with a spark of mischief as they debated how to make fun of him.
We received much jovial advice on which barristers to avoid, but no one mentioned Chapman. I had to inquire about him directly and was directed to a tall, lanky young man who was taking a turn about the gardens.
Mr. Gower was about twenty summers, very tall, very thin, and with a crop of bright red hair. He had freckles all over his face and throat and the bony wrists that protruded from the ends of his gown. He had a serious expression, but when I asked him about Chapman, he rolled his light blue eyes.
'Dull,' he said.
I raised my brows. 'Dull?'
'Deadly. I was his pupil all Michaelmas term and now I've Hilary term to get through. I'm almost dead from yawning.'
'Sounds the perfect man for the lad, here.' I jerked my thumb at Bartholomew.
Mr. Gower gave me a look that said he didn't think much of my senses. 'Not what I'd wish on my nephew. Chapman passes up the most interesting cases and sticks with what's safe and only needs two words to the judge to get a conviction. No style, no verve. But alas, one has to put up with it if one wants to become a barrister. Someone in my family must make a living.'
'Mr. Chapman is married, I believe,' I said. 'Perhaps that makes him wish to choose cases that are
