Two

THE FOLLOWING MORNING Pitt went first to the police station, where Forbes was waiting with a lugubrious face.

“Morning, Forbes,” Pitt said cheerfully. “What’s the matter?”

“Police surgeon’s been looking for you,” Forbes replied with a sniff. “Got a message about that corpse from yesterday.”

Pitt stopped.

“Fanny Nash? What message?”

“I don’t know. ’E wouldn’t say.”

“Well, where is he?” Pitt demanded. What on earth could the man have to say beyond the obvious? Was she with child? It was the only thing he could think of.

“Gone to ’ave a cup of tea,” Forbes shook his head. “I suppose we’re going back to Paragon Walk?”

“Of course, we are!” Pitt smiled at him and Forbes looked glumly back. “You can see a little more of how the gentry live. Try all the staff at that party.”

“Lord and Lady Dilbridge?”

“Precisely. Now I’m going to find that surgeon.” He swung out of the office and went to the little eating house on the corner where the police surgeon in a dapper suit was sitting over a pot of tea. He looked up as Pitt came in.

“Tea?” he inquired.

Pitt sat down.

“Never mind the breakfast. What about Fanny Nash?”

“Ah.” The surgeon took a long gulp from his cup. “Funny thing, that. May mean nothing at all, but thought I should mention it. She has a scar on her buttock, left buttock, low down. Looks pretty recent.”

Pitt frowned.

“A scar? Healed. So what does that matter?”

“Probably not at all,” the surgeon shrugged. “But it’s sort of cross-shaped, long bar with shorter cross bar toward the lower end. Very regular, but the funny thing about it is that it’s not a cut.” He looked up, his eyes very brilliant. “It’s a burn.”

Pitt sat perfectly still.

“A burn?” he said incredulously. “What on earth could burn her like that?”

“I don’t know,” the surgeon replied. “So help me, I don’t even care to think.”

Pitt left the tea house puzzled, unsure if it meant anything at all. Perhaps it was no more than a perverse and rather ridiculous accident. Meanwhile he must continue the dreary task of establishing where everyone had been at the time the murder was committed. He had already seen Algernon Burnon, the young man engaged to marry Fanny, and found him pale but as composed as was proper in the circumstances. He claimed to have been in the company of someone else all that evening, but refused to say whom. He implied it was a matter of honor that Pitt would not understand, but was too delicate to phrase it quite so plainly. Pitt could get no more from him and for the present was content to leave it so. If the wretched man had been indulging in some other affair at the very time his fiancée was being ravished, he would hardly care to admit it now.

Lord and Lady Dilbridge had been with company since seven o’clock, and could be written off. The household of the Misses Horbury contained no men at all. Selena Montague’s only manservant had been either in the servants’ hall or in his own pantry in view of the kitchen all the relevant time. That left Pitt with three more houses to call on and then the distressing duty of going back to the Nashes’ to see Jessamyn’s husband, the half brother of the dead girl. Lastly there was the personally awkward necessity of asking George Ashworth to account for his time. Pitt hoped, above anything else in the case, that George could do so.

He wished he could have got that interview over with first, but he knew that George would not be available so early in the morning. More than that, there was a foolishness in him that hoped he might discover some strong clue before he came to the necessity, something so urgent and pointed he could avoid asking George at all.

He began at the second house in the Walk, immediately after the Dilbridges’. At least this unpleasant task could be put behind him. There were three Nash brothers, and this was the house of the eldest, Mr. Afton Nash and his wife, and the youngest, Mr. Fulbert Nash, as yet single.

The butler let him in with weary resignation, warning him that the family was still at breakfast, and he must oblige him to wait. Pitt thanked him and, when the door was closed, began slowly to walk around the room. It was traditional, expensive, and yet made him feel uncomfortable. There were numerous leather-bound volumes in the bookcase in such neat order as to look unused. He ran his finger along them to see if there was dust on them, but they were immaculate, more to the credit of the housekeeper, he guessed, than of any reader. The bureau held the usual clutter of family photographs. None of them smiled, but that was usual; one had to hold a pose for so long that smiling was impossible. A sweetness of expression was the best that could be hoped for, and it had not been achieved here.

An embroidered sampler hung above the mantel, a single, baleful unblinking eye, and underneath it in cross stitch, “God sees all.”

He shivered and sat down with his back to it.

Afton Nash came in and closed the door behind him. He was a tall man, becoming portly, with strong, straight features. But for a certain heaviness and a tightening in the mouth, it should have been a handsome face. Curiously, it was not even pleasing.

“I don’t know what we can do for you, Mr. Pitt,” he said coldly. “The poor child lived with my brother Diggory and his wife. Her moral welfare was their concern. Perhaps on hindsight it would have been better if we had taken her, but it appeared a perfectly adequate arrangement at the time. Jessamyn cares for Society more than we do, and therefore was more suitable to introduce Fanny.”

Pitt should have been used to it, the defensive drawing together, the protestations of innocence, even of noninvolvement. They came in some form or other every time. And yet this was peculiarly repellent to him. He remembered the girl’s face, so unmarked by life; she had hardly begun, and she was destroyed so quickly. Here in the comfortless room her brother was talking about “moral welfare” and looking to exonerate himself from whatever blame there turned out to be.

“One cannot ‘make arrangements’ against murder,” Pitt could hear the edge in his own voice.

“One can surely make arrangements against rape,” Afton answered tartly. “Young women of virtuous habits do not court such an end.”

“Have you some reason to suppose your sister was not of virtuous habits?” Pitt had to ask, although everything in him already knew the answer.

Afton turned round and regarded him with a curl of distaste.

“She was raped before she was murdered, Inspector. You must know that as well as I. Please do not be coy. It is disgusting. You would be better employed speaking to my brother Diggory. He has some curious tastes. Though I would have expected even he would not infect his sister with them, but I could be mistaken. Perhaps one of his less salubrious friends was in the Walk that night? I assume you will do your best to ascertain precisely who was here?”

“Of course,” Pitt agreed with equal coolness. “We shall be determining the whereabouts of everyone we can.”

Afton’s eyebrows rose a little.

“The residents of the Walk can hardly interest you—the servants perhaps, although I doubt it. I, for one, am most particular about the type of manservant I employ, and I do not allow my women servants to have followers.”

Pitt felt a twinge of pity for the servants, and the bleak, joyless lives they must lead.

“A person might be in no way involved,” he pointed out, “and yet possibly have seen something of significance. The smallest observation may help.”

Afton grunted in irritation that he had not seen the point for himself. He flicked a nonexistent crumb from his sleeve.

“Well, I was at home that night. I remained in the billiard room most of the evening, with my brother Fulbert. I neither saw nor heard anything.”

Pitt could not afford to give up so easily. He must not let his dislike of the man show. He had to struggle.

“Perhaps you noticed something earlier, in the last few weeks—” he began again.

“If I had noticed such a thing, Inspector, do you not imagine I should have done something about it?” Afton’s heavy nose twitched minutely. “Apart from the unpleasantness for all of us of such a thing happening here, Fanny was my sister!”

“Of course, sir—but with the perception of hindsight?” Pitt finished the question.

Afton considered again.

“Not that I can recollect,” he said carefully. “But if something does occur, I shall inform you. Was there anything else?”

“Yes, please I would like to speak to the rest of your family.”

“I think if they had observed anything they would have spoken to me of it,” Afton said with impatience.

“Nevertheless, I would like to see them,” Pitt persisted.

Afton stared at him. He was a tall man, and they looked eye to eye. Pitt refused to waver.

“I suppose it is necessary,” Afton conceded at last, his face sour. “I do not wish to set a bad example. One must consider one’s duty. I would ask you to be as delicate as you are capable with my wife.”

“Thank you, sir. I shall do my best not to distress her.”

Phoebe Nash was as different from Jessamyn as possible. If there had ever been fire in her, it long since had been damped. She was dressed in tired black, and there was no artificial color in her pale face. At another time she might have been pleasing enough, but now she looked very much the recently bereaved, eyes a little pink, nose puffed, her hair orderly but far less than elegant.

She refused to sit, and stood staring at him, holding her hands tightly together.

“I doubt I can help you, Inspector. I was not even at home that evening. I was visiting an elderly relative who had been unwell. I can give you her name if you wish?”

“I do not doubt you for a moment, ma’am,” he said, smiling as much as he dared without appearing to show undue levity in the face of death. He felt a nameless, sad pity for her. He wanted to put her at ease and did not know how. She was a sort of woman he did not understand. All her feelings were inward, tightly governed; gentility was everything.

“I wondered if perhaps Miss Nash might have confided in you,” he began, “being her sister-in-law, if perhaps someone had paid her unwelcome attention, or passed an offensive remark? Even if she had seen a stranger in the neighborhood?” He kept on trying, “Or if you have yourself?”

Her hands jerked into a knot, and she stared at him, appalled.

“Oh dear heaven! You don’t imagine he’s still here, do you?”

He hesitated, wanting to take away her fear, which at least was a familiar emotion, and yet he knew it was foolish to lie.

“If he’s a vagrant, I don’t doubt he’ll have moved on by now,” he settled for a truth that was without meaning. “Only a fool would stay, when the police are here and looking for him.”

She relaxed visibly, even permitting herself to sit down on the edge of one of the bulging chairs.

“Thank goodness. You’ve made me feel so much better. Of course I should have thought of that for myself.” Then she frowned, drawing her light brows together. “But I don’t recall seeing any strangers in the Walk, at least not of that type. Had I done so, I should have sent the footman to get rid of them.”

He would only terrify and confuse her if he tried to explain that rapists did not necessarily appear different from anyone else. Crime so often surprised people, as if it were not merely an outward act born from the inward selfishness, greed, or hate that had grown too big inside, the dishonesties suddenly without restraint. She expected it to be recognizable, different, nothing to do with the people she knew.

It would be pointless and hurtful to try to change her. He wondered why after so many years he even noticed it, still less allowed it to disturb him.

“Perhaps Miss Nash confided in you?” he suggested. “If anyone had distressed her, or made improper remarks?”

She did not even bother to consider it.

“Certainly not! If such a thing had happened, I should have spoken to my husband, and he would have taken steps!” Her fingers were winding round a handkerchief in her lap, and she had already torn the lace.

Pitt could imagine what Afton Nash’s “steps” might have been. Still he could not quite give up.

“She expressed no anxieties at all, mentioned no new acquaintance?”

“No.” She shook her head vehemently.

He sighed and stood up. There was nothing more to be gained from her. He had a feeling that, if he frightened her with the truth, she would simply banish it from her mind and dissolve all reason and memory in blind fear.

“Thank you, ma’am, I’m sorry to have had to distress you with the matter.”

She smiled with something of an effort.

“I’m sure it is perfectly necessary, or you would not have done so, Inspector. I suppose you wish to see my brother-in-law, Mr. Fulbert Nash? But I’m afraid he was not at home last night. I dare say, if you call this afternoon, he may have returned.”

“Thank you, I shall do that. Oh,” he remembered the peculiar burn the surgeon had remarked, “do you happen to know if Miss Nash had had an accident recently, a burn?” He did not wish to describe the place of the injury if it was avoidable. He knew it would embarrass her exquisitely.

“Burn?” she said with a frown.

“Quite a small burn,” he described its shape as the police surgeon had described it to him. “But fairly deep, and recent.”

To his amazement, every vestige of color fled from her face.

“Burn?” her voice was faint. “No, I cannot imagine. I’m sure I know nothing of it. Perhaps—perhaps she had—” she coughed “—had taken some interest in the kitchen? You must ask my sister-in-law. I—I really have no idea.”

He was puzzled. She was plainly horrified. Was it simply that she knew the site of the injury and was agonized with embarrassment by it because he was a man, and an infinitely inferior person in her social hierarchy? He did not understand her well enough to know.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it is of no importance.” And with further polite murmurings he was shown out by the footman into the light and sun again.

He stood for several minutes before deciding whom to call upon next. Forbes was somewhere in the Walk, talking to the servants, relishing his new importance in investigating a murder, and indulging a long cherished curiosity about the precise workings of the households of a social order beyond all his previous experience. He would be a mine of information tonight, most of it useless, but in all the welter of trivial habit, there might be some observation that led to another—and another. He smiled broadly as he thought of it, and a passing gardener’s boy stared at him with amazement, and a little awe for one who was obviously not a gentleman and yet could stand idle in the street and grin at himself.

In the end he tried the central house, belonging to one Paul Alaric, and was told very civilly that Monsieur Alaric was not expected home until dark, but if the Inspector would care to call then, no doubt Monsieur would receive him.

He had not yet composed in his mind what he meant to say to George, so he shelved it and tried the house further on, belonging to a Mr. Hallam Cayley.

Cayley was still at a very late breakfast but invited him in, offering him a cup of strong coffee, which Pitt declined. He preferred tea anyway, and this looked as thick as the oiled water in the London docks.

Cayley smiled sourly and poured himself another cupful. He was a good-looking man in his early thirties, although excellent, somewhat aquiline features were spoiled by a deeply pocked skin, and already there was a shade of temper, a slackness, marking itself around his mouth. This morning his eyes were puffed and a little bloodshot. Pitt guessed at a heavy engagement with the bottle the evening before, perhaps several bottles.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?” Cayley began before Pitt asked. “I don’t know anything. I was at the Dilbridges’ party most of the night. Anyone’ll tell you that.”

Pitt’s heart sank. Was everyone going to be able to account for themselves? No, that was foolish. It did not matter, it was almost certainly some servant who had had too much to drink, got above himself, and then when the girl had screamed, he had knifed her in fear, to keep her quiet, perhaps not even meaning to kill. Forbes would probably find the answers. He himself was merely asking the masters because someone had to, as a matter of form, so they would know the police were doing their jobs—and better he than Forbes, with his awkward tongue and his glaring curiosity.

“Do you happen to recall who you were with about ten o’clock, sir?” he recalled himself to his questions.

“Actually, I had a row with Barham Stephens,” Cayley helped himself to yet more coffee and shook the pot irritably when it did no more than half-fill his cup. He slammed it down, rattling the lid. “Fool said he didn’t lose at cards. Can’t stomach a bad loser. No one can.” He glared at his crumb strewn plate.

“You had this disagreement at ten o’clock?” Pitt asked.

Cayley remained staring at the plate.

“No, bit before, and it was more than a disagreement. It was a bloody row.” He looked up sharply. “No, not what you would call a row, I suppose. No shouting. He may not behave like a gentleman, but we’re both sufficiently wellbred not to brawl in front of women. I went outside for a walk to cool off.”

“Into the garden?”

Cayley looked down at the plate again.

“Yes. If you want to know if I saw anything—I didn’t. There were loads of people milling around. Dilbridges have some peculiar social tastes. But I suppose you’ve got a guest list? You’ll probably find it was some footman hired for the evening. Some people do hire carriages, you know, especially if they’re only up for the Season.” His face was suddenly very grave, and he looked at Pitt un-blinkingly. “I honestly haven’t an idea who could have murdered poor Fanny.” His face crumpled a little with a strange pain, subtler than simple pity. “I know most of the men on the Walk. I can’t say I care for all of them, but neither can I honestly believe any of them capable of sticking a knife into a woman, a child like Fanny.” He pushed his plate away with repugnance. “I suppose it could be the Frenchman, odd sort of fellow, and a knife sounds a French kind of thing. But it doesn’t really seem likely.”

“Murder often isn’t,” Pitt said softly. Then he thought of the filthy, teeming rookeries squatting just behind stately streets, where crime was the road to survival, infants learned to steal as soon as they could walk, and only the cunning or the strong made it to adulthood. But all that was irrelevant in Paragon Walk. Here it was shocking, alien, and naturally they sought to disown it.

Cayley was sitting quite still, eaten up with some inner moil of emotions.

Pitt waited. Outside, carriage wheels crunched on the gravel and passed.

At last Cayley looked up.

“Who on earth would want to do that to a harmless little creature like Fanny?” he said quietly. “It’s so bloody pointless!”

Pitt had no answer for him. He stood up.

“I don’t know, Mr. Cayley. Presumably she recognized the rapist, and he knew it. But why he assaulted her in the first place, only God knows.”

Cayley banged a hard, tight fist on the table, not loudly, but with tremendous power.

“Or the devil!” He put his head down and did not look up again, even when Pitt went out of the door and closed it behind him.

Outside the sun was warm and clear, birds chattered in the gardens across the Walk, and somewhere out of sight beyond the curve a horse’s hooves clattered past.

He had seen the first open grief for Fanny, and although it was painful, a reminder that the mystery was trivial, the tragedy real—that long after everyone knew who had killed her, and how, and why, she would still be dead—yet he felt cleaner for it.

He went to see Diggory Nash. It was the middle of the afternoon when he could no longer put off going back to Emily and George. He had learned nothing that would allow him to avoid asking the question. Diggory Nash had offered nothing positive either. He had been away from home, gambling, so he said, at a private party, and was reluctant to name the other players. Pitt was not prepared at this stage to insist.

Now he must see George. Not to do so would be as obvious and thereby as offensive as any questions he could ask.

Vespasia Cumming-Gould was taking tea with Emily and George when Pitt was announced. Emily took a deep breath and asked the parlormaid to have him shown in. Vespasia looked at her critically. Really, the girl was wearing her corset far too tightly for one in her stage of pregnancy. Vanity was all very well in its place, but child-bearing was not its place, as every woman should know! When the opportunity arose, she must tell her what apparently her own mother had neglected to. Or was the poor girl so fond of George, and so unsure of his affection, as to be trying still to capture his interest? If she had been a little better bred she would have been brought up to expect the weaknesses of men and take them in her stride. Then she could have treated the whole thing with indifference, which would have been far more satisfactory.

And now this extraordinary creature, the police inspector, was coming into the withdrawing room, all arms and legs and coattails, with hair like the scullery maid’s mop, falling in every direction.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Pitt said courteously.

“Good afternoon, Inspector,” she replied, extending him her hand without rising. He bent over and brushed it with his lips. It was a ridiculous gesture from a policeman, who after all was more or less a tradesman, but he did it without an iota of self-consciousness, even a kind of odd grace. He was not as uncoordinated as he appeared. Really, he was the oddest creature!

“Please sit down, Thomas,” Emily offered. “I shall send for more tea.” She rang the bell as she spoke.

“What is it you wish to know this time?” Vespasia enquired. Surely the fellow could not be paying a social call?

He turned a little to face her. He was uncommonly plain, and yet she found him not displeasing. There was great intelligence in his face and a better humor than she had observed in anyone else in Paragon Walk, except perhaps that marvelously elegant Frenchman all the women were making such fools of themselves about. Surely that could not be why Emily was tying herself in? Could it?

Pitt’s reply cut across her thoughts.

“I was not able to see Lord Ashworth when I called before, ma’am,” he answered.

Of course. Suppose the wretched man had to see George. It would appear odd if he did not.

“Quite,” she agreed. “I suppose you want to know where he was?”

“Yes, please?”

She turned to George, sitting a little sideways on the arm of one of the easy chairs. Wish he would sit properly, but he never had since he was a child. Always fidgeted, even on a horse; only saving grace was that he had good hands, didn’t haul an animal about. Got it from his mother. His father was a fool.

“Well!” she said sharply, turning to him. “Where were you, George? You weren’t here!”

“I was out, Aunt Vespasia.”

“Obviously!” she snapped. “Where?”

“At my club.”

There was something in the way he was sitting that made her feel uncomfortable and distrust his answer. It was not a lie, and yet it was somehow incomplete. She knew it from the way he shifted his bottom a little. His father had done exactly the same as a child when he had been in the butler’s pantry trying the port. The fact that the butler had imbibed the majority of it himself was immaterial.

“You have several clubs,” she pointed out tartly. “Which were you at on that occasion? Do you wish to send Mr. Pitt scouring all the gentlemen’s clubs in London asking after you?”

George colored.

“No, of course not,” he said with irritation. “I was at Whyte’s, I think, most of the evening. Anyway, Teddy Aspinall was with me. Although I don’t suppose he kept time, any more than I did. But I suppose you could ask him, if you have to?” He twisted to look at Pitt. “Although I’d rather you didn’t press him. He was pretty well soaked, and I don’t suppose he can remember much. Rather embarrassing for him. His wife is a daughter of the Duke of Carlisle, and a bit straitlaced. Make things rather unpleasant.”

The old Duke of Carlisle was dead, and anyway Daisy Aspinall was as used to her husband’s drinking as she had been to her father’s. However, Vespasia forbore from saying so. But why did George not want Pitt to ask? Was he nervous that Pitt would let fall that he was George’s brother-in-law? No doubt George would get ragged about it, but one was not accountable for the peculiar tastes of one’s relatives, as long as they were discreet about it. And so far Emily had been excellently discreet, as much as loyalty to her sister would allow. Vespasia admitted to a rapidly mounting curiosity about this sister she had never seen. Why had Emily not invited her? Since they were sisters, surely the girl had been tolerably well brought up? Emily certainly knew how to behave like a lady. Only someone of Vespasia’s immense and subtle experience would have known she was not—not quite.

She had missed some of the conversation. Hope to heavens she was not becoming deaf! She could not bear to be deaf. Not to hear what people were saying would be worse than being buried alive!

“—time you came home?” Pitt finished.

George scowled. She could remember the same expression on his face when doing sums as a child. He always chewed the ends of his pencils. Disgusting habit. She had told his mother to soak them in aloes, but the softhearted woman had refused.

“I’m afraid I didn’t look,” George answered after a few moments. “I think it was pretty late. I didn’t disturb Emily.”

“What about your valet?” Pitt enquired.

“Oh—yes,” George seemed uncertain. “I doubt he’ll remember. He’d fallen asleep in my dressing room. Had to waken him up.” His face brightened. “So it must have been pretty late. Sorry, I can’t help you. Looks as if I was miles away at the time that matters. Didn’t see a thing.”

“Were you not invited to the Dilbridges’ party?” Pitt asked with surprize. “Or did you prefer not to go?”

Vespasia stared at him. Really, he was a most unexpected person. He was sitting now on the couch, taking up more than half of it in pure untidiness. None of his clothes seemed to fit him properly, poverty, no doubt. In the hands of a good tailor and barber he might even have looked quite well. But there was a suppressed energy about him that was hardly decent. He looked as if he might laugh at any time, any inappropriate time. Actually, when she thought about it, he was quite entertaining. Pity it had taken a murder to bring him here. On any other occasion he would have been a distinct relief from the boredom of Eliza Pomeroy’s ailments, Lord Dilbridge’s excesses, as recited by Grace Dilbridge, Jessamyn Nash’s latest gown, Selena Montague’s current involvement, or the general decay of civilization as monitored by the Misses Horbury and Lady Tamworth. The only other diversion was the rivalry between Jessamyn and Selena as to who should attract the beautiful Frenchman, and so far neither of them had made any progress that she had heard about. And she would have heard. What was the point in making a conquest if one could not tell everybody about it, preferably one by one and in the strictest confidence? Success without envy was like snails without sauce—and, as any cultivated woman knew, the sauce is everything!

“I preferred not to go,” George said, his brow wrinkled. He also failed to see the relevance of the question. “It was not the sort of occasion to which I would wish to take Emily. The Dilbridges have some—some friends of decidedly vulgar tastes.”

“Oh, do they?” Emily looked surprised. “Grace Dilbridge always looks so tame.”

“She is,” Vespasia said impatiently. “She does not write the guest list. Not that I think she would object to it. She is one of those women who like to suffer; she has made a career of it. If Frederick were to behave properly, she would have nothing to talk about. It is the sole source of her importance—she is put upon.”

“That’s terrible!” Emily protested.

“It’s not terrible,” Vespasia contradicted. “She is perfectly happy with it, but it is extremely tedious.” She turned to Pitt. “No doubt that is where you will find your murderer, either among Frederick Dilbridge’s guests, or among their servants. Some of the most reprehensible persons can drive a carriage-and-pair extraordinarily well.” She sighed. “I can remember my father had a coachman who drank like a sot and bedded every girl in the village, but he could drive better than Jehu—best hands in the south of England. Gamekeeper shot him in the end. Never knew whether it was an accident or not.”

Emily looked helplessly at Pitt, anxiety driving the laughter out of her eyes.

“That’s where you’ll find him, Thomas,” she said urgently. “No one in Paragon Walk would have done it!”

There was still time for Pitt to see Fulbert Nash, the last brother, and he was fortunate to find him at home a little before five. Apparently, to judge from Fulbert’s face, he had been expected.

“So you are the police,” Fulbert looked him up and down with undisguised curiosity, as one might regard some new invention, but without the desire to purchase it.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Pitt said a little more stiffly than he had intended.

“Oh, good afternoon, Inspector.” Fulbert mimicked the tone very slightly. “Obviously you are here about Fanny, poor little creature. Do you want her life history? It’s pathetically short. She never did anything of note, and I don’t suppose she ever would have. Nothing in her life was as remarkable as her death.”

Pitt was angered by his flippancy, although he knew how often people covered grief they could not bear with apparent indifference, or even laughter.

“I have no reason yet, sir, to suppose she was anything but a chance victim, and therefore her life story need not be inquired into so far. Perhaps if you would tell me where you were on that evening, and if you saw or heard anything that might help us?”

“I was here,” Fulbert replied with slightly raised eyebrows. He was more reminiscent of Afton than of Diggory, having something of Afton’s faintly supercilious expression, features that should have been handsome, but were not. Diggory, on the other hand, was less well constructed, but there was a pleasingness in the irregularity, character in the stronger, darker brows, something altogether warmer.

“All evening,” Fulbert added.

“In company, or alone?” Pitt asked.

Fulbert smiled.

“Didn’t Afton say I was with him, playing billiards?”

“Were you, sir?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t. Afton’s several inches taller than I am, as I dare say you’ve noticed. It irritates the hell out of him that he can’t beat me, and Afton in a bad temper is more than I care to put up with.”

“Why don’t you let him beat you?” The answer seemed obvious.

Fulbert’s light-blue eyes opened wide, and he smiled. His teeth were small and even, too small for a man’s mouth.

“Because I cheat, and he’s never been able to work out how. It’s one of the few things I do better than he does,” he answered.

Pitt was a little lost. He could not imagine any pleasure in a competition to see who could cheat the best. But then he did not enjoy games himself. He had never had time in his youth, when he might have learned the skills. Now it was too late.

“Were you in the billiard room all evening, sir?”

“No, I thought I just told you that! I wandered round the house a bit, library, upstairs, into the butler’s pantry and had a glass of port, or two.” He smiled again. “Long enough for Afton to have nipped out and raped poor Fanny. And since she was his sister, you’ll be able to add incest to the charge—” He saw Pitt’s face. “Oh, I’ve offended your sensibilities. I forgot how puritanical the lower classes are. It’s only the aristocracy and the guttersnipes who are frank about everything. And on reflection, perhaps we are the only ones who can afford to be. We are so arrogant we think no one can shift us, and the guttersnipes have nothing to lose. Do you really imagine my painfully self-righteous brother crept out between billiard balls and raped his sister in the garden? She wasn’t stabbed with a billiard cue, was she?”

“No, Mr. Nash,” Pitt said coldly and clearly. “She was stabbed with a long knife, sharp point and probably single-edged.”

Fulbert shut his eyes, and Pitt was glad he had hurt him at last.

“How revolting,” he said quietly. “I didn’t go out of the house, which is what you want to know, nor did I see or hear anything odd. But you can be damned sure that if I do, I’ll look a good deal harder! I suppose you’re working on the hypothesis it is some lunatic? Do you know what a hypothesis is?”

“Yes, sir, and so far I am merely collecting evidence. It is too early for hypotheses.” He deliberately used the plural to show Fulbert that he knew it.

Fulbert observed and smiled.

“I’ll lay you odds two to one it is not! I’ll lay you it’s one of us, some nasty, grubby little secret that snapped through the civilized veneer—and rape! She saw him, and he had to kill her. Look into the Walk, Inspector, look at us all very, very carefully. Sift us through a small sieve, and comb us with a fine-tooth comb—and see what parasites and what lice you turn up!” He giggled very lightly with amusement and met Pitt’s angry eyes squarely, brilliantly. “Believe me, you’ll be amazed what there is!”

Charlotte was waiting anxiously for Pitt all afternoon. From the time she had put Jemima upstairs for her afternoon sleep, she found herself repeatedly glancing at the old brown clock on the dining room shelf, going up to it to listen for the faint tick to make sure it was still going. She knew perfectly well it was foolish, because he could not return before five at the very earliest, and more likely six.

The reason for her concern was Emily, of course. Emily was newly with child, her first, and, as Charlotte could remember only too well, those first months could be very trying. Not only did one feel a natural unsureness at one’s new condition, but there were nausea and the most unreasonable depressions to overcome.

She had never been to Paragon Walk. Emily had invited her, naturally, but Charlotte was not sure if she had really wished her to go. Ever since they were girls, when Sarah had been alive, and they had lived in Cater Street with Mama and Papa, Charlotte’s lack of tact had been a social liability. Mama had found umpteen suitable young men for her, but Charlotte had had no ambitions, like the others, to make her curb her tongue and seek to impress. Of course, Emily loved her, but she was also aware that Charlotte would not be comfortable in the Walk. She could not afford the clothes, nor the time from her household tasks. She knew none of the gossip, and her life would soon be seen to be utterly different.

Now she wished she could go, to see for herself that Emily was quite well and not afraid because of the appalling crime. Of course her sister could always remain at home, go out only with a servant, and in daylight, but that was not the real terror. Charlotte refused to remember or think of that.

It was after six when she finally heard Pitt at the door. She dropped the potatoes she was straining in the sink and knocked over the salt and pepper on the edge of the table running out to meet him.

“How’s Emily?” she demanded. “Have you seen her? Have you discovered who killed that girl?”

He closed her in a hard hug. “No, of course I haven’t. I’ve barely begun. And yes, I saw Emily, and she seemed quite well.”

“Oh.” She pulled away. “You haven’t discovered anything! But you know at least that George had nothing to do with it, don’t you?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she saw the indecision in his eyes before he found the words.

“You don’t!” It came out as an accusation. She was aware even as she said it, and she was sorry, but there was no time to apologize now. “You don’t know! Why haven’t you found out where he was?”

He moved her aside gently and sat down at the table.

“I asked him,” he said. “I haven’t had time to check yet.”

“Check?” she was at his elbow. “Why? Don’t you believe him?” Then she knew that was unfair. He did not have the choice of belief, and anyway belief was not what she needed, not what Emily needed. “I’m sorry.” She touched his shoulder with her hand, feeling the hardness of it under his coat. Then she moved away back to the sink and picked up the potatoes again. She tried to keep her voice casual, but it came out ridiculously high. “Where did he say he was?”

“At his club,” he replied. “Most of the time. He can’t remember how long he was there, or precisely which other clubs he went to.”

She went on mechanically dishing the potatoes, the fine-chopped cabbage and the fish she had been so careful to bake in cheese sauce. It was something she had only just learned how to make successfully. Now she surveyed its perfection without interest. Perhaps it was foolish to be afraid. George might be able to prove exactly where he had been all the time, but she had heard about men’s clubs, the games, the conversations, people sitting around drinking, or even asleep. How could anyone remember who had been there at a particular time, or even a particular evening? How was one evening different from another to recall it with surety?

It was not that she thought George might have killed the girl, nothing so appalling as that, but she knew from the past what damage even suspicion can do. If George was telling the truth, he would resent it if Emily did not utterly and immediately believe him. And if he had evaded the truth, left out something, like a flirtation, a foolish party, some excess in drink, then he would feel guilty. One lie would lead to another, and Emily would become confused and in the end perhaps suspect him even of the crime itself. The truth could be full of so many uglinesses. It was unforeseeably painful to strip away the small deceits that made life comfortable and allowed you not to see what you preferred to pretend you did not know.

“Charlotte,” Pitt’s voice came from behind her. She forced the fear out of her mind and served the food. She set it on the table in front of him.

“Yes?” she said innocently.

“Stop it!”

It was no use trying to deceive him, even with a thought. He read her too easily. She sat down with her own plate.

“You will prove it wasn’t George as soon as you can, won’t you?” she asked.

He stretched out his hand across the table to touch hers.

“Of course, I will. As soon as I can, without making it look as if I suspect him.”

She had not even thought of that! Of course—if he pursued George first of all, it would make it even worse. Emily would think—oh goodness only knew what Emily would think.

“I shall go and call on Emily.” She speared a potato with her fork and sliced it hard, unconsciously making the pieces smaller than usual, as if she were already dining in Paragon Walk. “She is often inviting me.” She started to think which of her dresses she could possibly make suitable for the occasion. If she called in the morning, her dark gray would be well enough. It was a good muslin and not too obviously last year’s cut. “After all, one of us should go, and Mama is busy with Grandmama’s illness. I think it is an excellent idea.”

Pitt did not answer her. He knew that she was talking to herself.