"Hmm," I answered, not satisfied.
Surely Lord Barbury could have found a better place in which to meet his ladybird. I knew that if I'd had a pretty young lady with whom I kept company, I'd want a cozy, private place to be with her, not a room in this rather seedy hell. But then, Peaches had craved excitement. Perhaps she'd not been satisfied with an ordinary nest.
"The Glass House is a novelty," Grenville said, dropping the curtain. "It will wane, as all novelties do. For now, it is a place to see and be seen. Because I have come tonight, it will experience a new surge of popularity."
He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, without a trace of pomposity. But he was correct. Any place Grenville visited instantly became the height of fashion.
Grenville lifted the drape of the next window to find the blank back of another drape behind it. He released it at once. When I looked a question, he said, "When a room has been taken by a patron, the curtains inside may be closed, or left open, as the buyer dictates. Some like to be watched."
I frowned my distaste. We moved down the walls and looked into other rooms.
Grenville hadn't exaggerated. Every vice was available. Some of the things I saw fueled my growing rage. I would be certain to mention this house to a reformer I knew; that is, if I did not begin breaking the windows myself.
"Have you found something to your liking, gentlemen?"
A small, plump man with a sharp nose and round brown eyes looked up at us, a salesman's smile on his face. His nose bore a scar from a long-gone boil, but his suit was fine and well tailored.
Grenville regarded him with a look I’d come to recognize as true disdain. Grenville sometimes feigned the look for the benefit of his audience, but he genuinely disliked this man, whoever he was.
The man's dark eyes glittered with a cold light even as he fawned at us. "My name is Kensington. Emile Kensington." He held out a hand.
His palm was warm and dry, though his handshake was a bit limp. "Room number five is quite intriguing," he said.
I expected Grenville to say something, to go along with our pretense. Instead, Grenville stared at the man with cold annoyance. He was angry, as angry as I was, but I needed to keep to my purpose.
"I am interested in a woman called Peaches," I said.
The man jumped. I swore I saw his feet leave the ground. He pondered his answer then fixed on a simple truth. "She is not here."
"I know that," I said. "She died two days ago."
Kensington's mouth dropped open. For a moment, pure astonishment crossed his face, then his glittering stare returned. "Died?"
"Found in the river," I said. "She came here often, I am told. Was she here on Monday?"
Kensington's eyes narrowed as he looked me over again. "Who are you, a Runner?"
"An acquaintance of Lord Barbury. He is, as you can imagine, deeply distressed."
I watched the thoughts dance behind his eyes. A woman who came here regularly, dead. Her lover, a powerful man. Trouble for The Glass House?
"I am sad to hear of his loss," Kensington said.
"Indeed," I said, unable to keep the chill from my voice. "Had she come here Monday?"
"I don't think so. I don't remember."
"But she did used to come here?" Grenville asked. "I believe you provided her with a private room."
Kensington looked back and forth between us and wet his lips. "There was no harm in it. She wanted somewhere to meet Lord Barbury, safe from her husband."
"And they paid you well for it, I'd wager," I said.
Kensington looked offended. "Not at all. Amelia-Peaches-and I are old acquaintances. I knew her when she was a girl, just come to London to make her fortune. She wanted to bring Lord Barbury here, and I was willing to oblige. They enjoyed it."
I wondered about that very much. If the house had been Peaches' choice, because she knew this Kensington, why on earth had Barbury gone along with it?
Kensington's gaze shifted again as though he'd argued with himself and at last reached a conclusion. "Ah, I remember now, gentleman. She did come here Monday. In the afternoon."
His memory was very convenient, I thought. "Are you certain?"
"Yes. I had forgotten, what with one thing and another. She must have been at the laughing gas again, because she was in high spirits."
"What time was that?"
"Around four or so, I believe."
He was a little off; Lady Breckenridge put Peaches leaving Inglethorpe's shortly after four, and she could not have reached here for another half hour.
"When did she leave?" I asked.
"As to that, I have no idea. I did not see her go. Never saw her again after she went up to the room."
"Which I would like to see," I said.
Kensington looked distressed. "No one goes above this floor, sir."
"Except Lord Barbury, and Peaches, and you," I answered, my voice hard. "And now I will."
Kensington opened his mouth to further protest, then closed it. I must have looked quite angry, and although Grenville's walking stick had no sword in it, it was made of ebony, hard and strong. Kensington could always call for the ruffians that every hell employed to keep order, but not before I could swing the stick.
Finally, he shrugged, produced a key, and led us to a door behind one of the curtains.
That door led to a dimly lit hall and a narrow flight of stairs. At the next landing, Kensington unlocked a door, lifted a taper from one of the sconces in the stairwell, and ushered us into a cold chamber.
The neat plainness of this room contrasted sharply with the tawdry finery on the floor below. The chamber held a bed hung with yellow brocade draperies, a dressing table, and two comfortable-looking chairs. The room was dark now and fireless, but I imagined it could be cheerful. Here, if Kensington spoke the truth, Peaches and Lord Barbury had carried on their liaison.
I moved to the dressing table and began opening the drawers. Kensington looked distressed, but he made no move to stop me.
As I expected, I found nothing. Kensington would have had ample time to remove anything from this room he wanted no one to see. Grenville looked over my shoulder as I pulled from the dressing table a silver hairbrush, a handful of silk ribbons, and a reticule.
I opened the reticule, but found little of interest. A viniagrette, which a lady would open and apply to her nose when she felt faint, a bit of lace, a comb, and a tiny bottle of perfume.
Grenville lifted the perfume bottle and worked open the stopper. The odor of sweet musk bathed my nostrils. "Expensive," he pronounced, then returned the stopper to the bottle. "A gift from Barbury?"
"Probably." I returned everything to the reticule.
We found nothing more in the drawers. Kensington stood inside the doorway, watching us, looking more curious than alarmed.
"Why did she come here Monday?" I asked him as Grenville closed the dressing table.
Kensington shrugged. "Why shouldn't she? She was probably meeting her lordship."
"She'd made an appointment to meet him much later that night," I said. "Yet you say she was here after four in the afternoon. Why should she have come?"
Kensington hesitated, and I watched him choose his words carefully. "Gentlemen, as I told you, I'd known Amelia Chapman a very long time. She was a young woman who found life tedious, and it was no joy for her being married to a plodding gent like Chapman. She did not like to go home, and I sympathized. She'd retreat here when her husband grew too dull for her, and I was happy to let her. I believe she had told her husband some rigmarole about visiting a friend in the country, in any case, so she would not be expected home. She had done such a thing before."
"Did she meet anyone else here that afternoon?" I asked. "Someone not Lord Barbury?"