Paragon Walk

Five

Charlotte could hardly wait until Pitt came home. She rehearsed a dozen times in her mind what she meant to tell him, and each time it came out differently. She completely missed the bookshelves in her dusting and forgot to salt the vegetables. She gave Jemima two lots of pudding, much to the child’s delight, but at least she did have her changed and sound asleep when Pitt finally came.

He looked tired, and the first thing he did was to take his boots off and empty his pockets of the enormous number of things he had shoved into them throughout the day. She brought him a cold drink, determined not to make the same mistake as last time.

“How was Emily?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Well enough,” she answered, almost holding her breath to avoid plunging into the story. “The whole affair was rather horrible. I suppose they felt the same as we would underneath, but nothing showed. It was all-empty.”

“Did they talk about her-Fanny?”

“No!” She shook her head. “No, they didn’t. You’d hardly have known whose funeral it was. I hope when I die whoever’s there talks about me all the time!”

He smiled suddenly, a broad grin like a child.

“Even if they do absolutely all the time, my darling,” he replied, “it will still seem quiet without you!”

She looked around for something harmless to throw at him, but the only thing to hand was the lemonade jug, which would hurt, not to mention break the jug, which they could ill afford. She had to settle for making a face.

“Didn’t you learn anything?” he pressed.

“I don’t think so. Only what Emily had already told me. I got lots of odd impressions, but I don’t know what they mean, or even if they mean anything at all. I had umpteen things to tell you before you came, but now they seem to have frittered away. All the Nashes are unpleasant, except perhaps Diggory. I didn’t really get to meet him, but he has a bad reputation. Selena and Jessamyn loathe each other, but that can’t be relevant; it’s all to do with the most gorgeous Frenchman. The only people who seemed to be really upset were Phoebe-she really was terribly white and shaky-and a man called Hallam Cayley. And I don’t know whether he was upset for Fanny, or because his own wife died only a little while ago.” It had seemed so much when it was all a tumult of feelings in her mind, but now that she wanted to put words to it, there was nothing. It sounded so silly, so ephemeral that she was a little ashamed. She was a policeman’s wife, she should have had something concrete to tell him. How did he ever solve a case if all witnesses were as woolly as she was?

He sighed and stood up, walking in his socks over to the kitchen sink. He ran the cold water and put his hands under it, then splashed it up over his face. He held out his hands for the towel, and she brought it.

“Don’t worry.” He took it from her. “I didn’t expect to learn anything there.”

“You didn’t expect to?” She was confused. “You mean you were there?”

He dried his face and looked up at her over the towel.

“Not to learn anything-just-because I wanted to.” She felt the tears prickle hot behind her eyes and her throat ache. She had not even seen him. She had been busy watching everyone else, and thinking how she looked in Aunt Vespasia’s dress.

At least Fanny had had one real mourner, someone who was simply sorry she was dead.

Emily had no one with whom she could discuss her feelings. Aunt Vespasia did not consider it good for her to dwell on such things. It would produce a melancholic baby, she said. And George was unwilling to speak of it at all. In fact, he went noticeably out of his way to avoid it.

Everyone else in the Walk seemed determined to forget the entire subject, as if Fanny had merely gone away for a holiday and might be expected to return at any time. They resumed their lives, as much as propriety would permit, still wearing sober dress, of course, as to do anything else would be tasteless. But there appeared to be an unspoken consensus that the very indecency of the manner of death made the usual observances of mourning a reminder of it, and therefore a little vulgar, possibly even offensive to others.

The only exception was Fulbert Nash, who had never minded giving offense. In fact, he appeared at times positively to relish it. He made sly, delicate suggestions about almost everyone. There was nothing decisive, nothing that one could question him with, but the swift color in people’s faces betrayed when he had hit a mark. Perhaps they were old secrets he was referring to; everyone had something of which they were ashamed, or at least would very much prefer to keep from their neighbors. Perhaps the secrets were not witty so much as merely foolish? But then no one wished to be laughed at either, and some would go to great lengths to prevent it. Ridicule could be as deadly to one’s social aspirations as a report of any of the ordinary sins.

It was a week after the funeral, and still hot, when Emily finally decided to go and ask Charlotte directly what the police were doing. There had been a lot more questions put, mostly to servants, but if anyone were either suspected or totally cleared, she had not heard of it.

Having sent a letter the day before to warn Charlotte she was coming, she put on a muslin from last year and sent for the carriage to take her. When she arrived, she told the coachman to drive around the corner and wait precisely two hours before returning to pick her up.

She found Charlotte expecting her, and busy preparing tea. The house was smaller than she had remembered, the carpets older, but it had an air of being lived in that made it pleasant, along with the smell of wax polish and roses. It did not occur to her to wonder whether the roses had been bought specially for her.

Jemima was sitting on the floor, crooning to herself, as she built a precarious tower out of colored blocks. Thank heaven it seemed as if she were going to look like Charlotte rather than Pitt!

After the usual greetings, which she meant most sincerely-in fact she was coming to value Charlotte’s friendship more and more lately-she launched straight into news of the Walk.

“No one else even talks of it!” she said heatedly. “At least not to me! It’s as if it had never happened! It’s like a dinner table where someone has made a personal noise-a moment’s embarrassed silence, then everyone begins to talk again a little bit more loudly, to show that they haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t the servants talk?” Charlotte was busy with the kettle. “Servants usually do, among themselves. The butler wouldn’t know. Maddock never did.” She recalled Cater Street vividly for a moment. “But ask one of the maids, and they’ll tell you everything.”

“I never thought of asking the maids,” Emily admitted. It was a stupid oversight. At Cater Street she would have done so without the need for Charlotte to tell her. “Perhaps I’m getting too old now. Mama never knew half as much as we did. They were all afraid of her. I think perhaps my maids are afraid of me. And they’re terrified of Aunt Vespasia!”

That Charlotte could well believe. Quite apart from Aunt Vespasia’s personality, no social climber was more impressed by a title than the average housemaid. There were the exceptions, of course, those who saw the trivialities and the flaws behind the polished front. But these servants were usually not only perceptive but also awake enough to their own advantage not to allow their perception to be known. And there was always loyalty. A good servant regarded his master or mistress almost as an extension of himself, his property, the mark of his own status in the hierarchy.

“Yes,” she agreed aloud. “Try your lady’s maid. She’s seen you without your stays or your hair curled. She’s the least likely to be in awe of you.”

“Charlotte!” Emily banged the milk jug on the bench. “You say the most appalling things!” It was an undignified and uncomfortable reminder, especially of her increasing weight. “In your own way you are as bad as Fulbert!” She drew breath quickly. Then as Jemima began to whimper at the sharp noise, she swung around and picked her up, jiggling her gently till she began to gurgle again. “Charlotte, he’s been going around in the most awful way, letting out little jibes at people, nothing you could exactly say was accusing, but you know from their faces that the people he’s talking about know what he means. And inside himself he’s laughing all the time. I know he is.”

Charlotte poured the water onto the tea and put on the lid. The food was already on the table.

“You can put her down now.” She pointed at Jemima. “She’ll be all right. You mustn’t spoil her, or she’ll want holding all the time. Who is he talking about?”

“Everyone!” Emily obeyed and put Jemima back with her bricks. Charlotte gave her daughter a finger of bread and butter, which she took happily.

“All of the same things?” Charlotte said in surprise. “That seems a little pointless.”

They both sat down and waited for tea to brew before eating.

“No, all different things,” Emily answered. “Even Phoebe! Can you imagine? He implied that Phoebe had something she was ashamed of and one day all the Walk would know. Who could be more innocent than Phoebe? She’s positively silly at times. I’ve often wondered why she doesn’t hit back at Afton. There must be something she could do! On occasions he is quite beastly. I don’t mean he strikes her or anything.” Her faced paled. “At least, good heavens, I hope not!”

Charlotte chilled as she remembered him, his cold, probing eyes, the impression he gave of a bitter humor, and a contempt.

“If it’s anybody in the Walk,” she said with feeling. “I sincerely hope it’s him-and that he is caught!”

“So do I,” Emily agreed. “But somehow I don’t think it is. Fulbert is perfectly sure it isn’t. He keeps saying so, and with great pleasure, as if he knew something horrid that amused him.”

“Perhaps he does.” Charlotte frowned, trying to hide the thought, and failing. It would come out in words. “Perhaps he knows who it is-and it is not Afton.”

“It’s too disgusting to think of,” Emily shook her head. “It will be some servant or other, almost certainly someone hired for the Dilbridges’ party. All those strange coachmen milling about, with nothing to do but wait. No doubt one of them refreshed himself too much, and, when he was in liquor, he lost control. Perhaps in the dark he thought Fanny was a maid, or something. And then, when he discovered she wasn’t, he had to stab her to keep her from giving him away. Coachmen do carry knives quite often, you know, to cut harness if it gets caught, or get stones out of horses’ hooves if they pick them up, and all sorts of things.” She warmed to her own excellent reasoning. “And after all, none of the men who live in the Walk, I mean none of us, would be carrying a knife anyway, would we?”

Charlotte stared at her, one of her carefully cut sandwiches in her hand.

“Not unless they meant to kill Fanny anyway.”

Emily felt a sickness that had nothing to do with her condition.

“Why on earth would anyone want to do that? If it had been Jessamyn, I could understand. Everyone is jealous of her because she is always so beautiful. You never see her put out, or flustered. Or even Selena, but no one could have hated Fanny-I mean-there wasn’t enough of her to hate!”

Charlotte stared at her plate.

“I don’t know.”

Emily leaned forward.

“What about Thomas? What does he know? He must have told you, since it concerns us.”

“I don’t think he knows anything,” Charlotte said unhappily. “Except that it doesn’t seem to have been any of the regular servants. They can all pretty well account for themselves. And none of them have a past trouble he can find. They wouldn’t, would they? Or they wouldn’t be employed in Paragon Walk!”

When Emily returned home, she wanted to talk to George, but she did not know how to begin. Aunt Vespasia was out, and George was sitting in the library with his feet up, the doors open to the garden, and a book upside down on his stomach.

He looked up as soon as she came in and put the book aside.

“How was Charlotte?” he asked immediately.

“Well.” She was a little surprised. He had always liked Charlotte, but in a rather distant, absent way. After all, he very seldom saw her. Why the keenness today?

“Did she say anything about Pitt?” he went on, moving to sit upright, his eyes on her face.

So it was not Charlotte. It was the murder and the Walk he was thinking about. She felt that intense moment of reality when you know a blow is coming but it has not yet landed. The pain is not quite there, but you understand it as surely as if it were. The brain has already accepted it. He was afraid.

It was not that she thought he had killed Fanny; even in her worst moments she had never believed that. She did not know or sense in him the capability for such violence or, to be honest, for the fierceness of emotion to ignite such a train of events. If she were honest, he was not stirred by great tides. His worst sins would be indolence, the unintentional selfishness of a child. His temper was easy; he liked to please. Pain distressed him; he would go to much trouble to avoid his own and, as much as he had energy for, that of others. He had always possessed worldly goods without the need to strive for them, and his generosity frequently bordered on the profligate. He had given Emily everything she wanted and taken pleasure in doing so.

No, she would not believe he could have killed Fanny- unless it were in the heat of panic, and he would have given himself away immediately, terrified as a child.

The blow she felt was that he had done something else that Pitt would uncover in searching for the killer, some thoughtless gratification, not intended to hurt Emily, just a pleasure taken because it was there, and he liked it. Selena-or someone else? It hardly mattered who.

Funny, when she had married him, she had seen all that so clearly and accepted it. Why did it matter now? Was it her condition? She had been warned it might make her oversensitive, weepy. Or was it that she had come to love George more than she had expected to?

He was staring at her, waiting for her to answer the question.

“No.” She avoided his eyes. “It seems as if most of the servants are accounted for, but that’s all.”

“Then what in hell is he doing?” George exploded, his voice sharp and high. “It’s damn near a fortnight! Why hasn’t he caught him? Even if he can’t arrest the man and prove it, he ought at least to know who it is by now!”

She was sorry for him because he was frightened, and sorry for herself. She was also angry because it was his stupid thoughtlessness that had given him cause to fear Pitt, self-indulgence he had had no need to take.

“I only saw Charlotte,” she said a little stiffly, “not Thomas. And, even if I had seen him, I could hardly have asked him what he was doing. I don’t imagine it is easy to find a murderer when you have no idea where to begin, and no one can prove where they were.”

“Dammit!” he said helplessly. “I was miles away from here! I didn’t come home until it was all over, finished. I couldn’t have done anything or seen anything.”

“Then what are you upset about?” She still did not face him.

There was a moment’s silence. When he spoke again his voice was calmer, tired.

“I don’t like being investigated. I don’t like half London being asked about me, and everyone knowing there is a rapist and murderer in my street. I don’t like the thought that he’s still loose, whoever he is. And, above all, I don’t like the thought that it could be one of my neighbors, someone I’ve known for years, probably even liked.”

That was fair. Of course, he was hurt. He would have been callous, even stupid, not to have been. She turned and smiled at him at last.

“We all hate it,” she said softly. “And we’re all frightened. But it might take a long time yet. If he’s one of the coachmen or footmen, he won’t be easy to find, and if it’s one of us-he will have all sorts of ways of hiding himself. After all, if we’ve lived with him all these years and have no idea, how can Thomas find him in a few days?”

He did not reply. Indeed, there was no argument to make.

Still, regardless of tragedy, there were certain social obligations to be honored. One did not abandon all discipline simply because there had been loss, still less if the loss had been accompanied by scandalous circumstances. It would be unseemly to be observed at parties quite so soon, but afternoon calls, discreetly made, were an entirely different matter. Vespasia, prompted by interest and justified by duty, called upon Phoebe Nash.

She had intended to convey sympathy. She was genuinely sorry for Fanny’s death, although the idea of dying did not appall her as it had in her youth. Now she was resigned to it, as one is to going home at the end of a long and splendid party. Eventually it must happen, and, perhaps by the time it did, one would be ready for it. Though doubtless that could hardly have been the case for Fanny, poor child.

Her real sympathy for Phoebe, however, was for her misfortune in having made an excessively trying marriage. Any woman obliged to live under one roof with Afton Nash was deserving at the least of commiseration.

She found the visit more trying to her patience. Phoebe was more than ordinarily incoherent. She seemed forever on the edge of some confidence which never actually formed itself into words. Vespasia tried concerned interest and appreciative silence in turn, but on every occasion Phoebe dived off into some altogether unrelated subject at the final moment, twisting her handkerchief in her lap until the thing was not fit to stuff a pincushion.

Vespasia left as soon as duty was fulfilled, but outside in the blistering sun she walked very slowly and began to reflect on what might be causing Phoebe such distraction of mind. The poor woman seemed unable to keep her wits on anything for more than a moment.

Was she so overcome with grief for Fanny? They had never appeared especially close. Vespasia could not recall more than a dozen occasions when they had gone calling together, and Phoebe had never accompanied her to any balls or soirees, or held any parties for her, even though this was her first Season.

Then a new and very unpleasant thought occurred to her, so ugly she stopped in the middle of the path, quite unaware of being stared at by the gardener’s boy.

Was Phoebe aware of something from which she guessed who it was that had raped and murdered Fanny? Had she seen something, heard something? Or more likely, was it some episode remembered from the past that had led her to understand now what had happened, and with whom?

Surely the idiot woman would speak to the police. Discretion was all very well. Society would disintegrate without it, and everyone naturally disliked having anything to do with something as distasteful as the police. Still, one must recognize the inevitable. To fight against it only made the final submission the more painful-and obvious.

And why should Phoebe be prepared to protect any man guilty of such a horrendous crime? Fear? It hardly showed sense. The only safety lay in sharing such a secret, so it could not die with you!

Love? Unlikely. Certainly not for Afton.

Duty? Duty to him, or to the Nash family, perhaps even duty to her own social class, paralysis in the face of scandal. To be the victim was one thing-it could be overlooked in time-to be the offender, never!

Vespasia started to walk again, head down, frowning. All this was speculation; the reason could be anything, even as simple as the dread of investigation. Perhaps she had a lover?

But it was beyond doubt in her mind now that Phoebe was profoundly frightened.

To call upon Grace Dilbridge was unavoidable, but it was a dreary task and consisted of the usual almost ritual commiserations over Frederick’s bizarre friends and their incessant parties and the indignities to which Grace felt herself subjected, as she was excluded from gambling and whatever else unmentionable went on in the garden room. Vespasia rather overdid the vehemence of her sympathy and excused herself, just as Selena Montague was arriving, brilliant-eyed and quivering with life. She heard Paul Alaric’s name mentioned before she was quite out of the door and smiled to herself at the obviousness of youth.

It was necessary, of course, to call upon Jessamyn. Vespasia found her very composed and already out of total black. Her hair shimmered in the sun through the French windows, and her skin had the delicate bloom of apple blossom.

“How good of you, Lady Cumming-Gould,” she said politely. “I’m sure you would like some refreshment-tea or lemonade?”

“Tea, if you please,” Vespasia accepted, sitting down. “I still find it pleasant, even in the heat.”

Jessamyn rang the bell and gave orders to the maid. After she had gone, Jessamyn walked gracefully over toward the windows.

“I wish it would cool down.” She stared out at the dry grass and dusty leaves. “This summer seems to be going on forever.”

Vespasia was so practiced in the art of small conversation that she had an appropriate remark for any circumstance, but, faced with Jessamyn’s composure and delicate, stiff body, she knew she was in the presence of powerful emotion, and yet she did not fathom precisely what it was. It seemed far more complex than simple grief. Or perhaps it was Jessamyn herself who was complex.

Jessamyn turned and smiled. “Prophecy?” she inquired.

Vespasia knew immediately what she meant. It was the police investigation she was thinking of, not the summer weather. Jessamyn was not a person with whom to be evasive; she was far too clever, and too strong.

“You may not have intended it as such when you spoke.” Vespasia looked straight back at her. “But I dare say it will be the case. On the other hand, summer may slide quite imperceptibly into autumn, and we shall hardly notice the difference until one morning there is a frost, and the first leaves fall.”

“And it is all forgotten,” Jessamyn came back from the window and sat down. “Just a tragedy from the past that was never fully explained. For a while we shall be more careful about the manservants we hire, and then presently even that will pass.”

“It will be replaced by other storms,” Vespasia corrected. “There must always be something to talk about. Someone will make or lose a fortune; there will be a society marriage; someone will take a lover, or lose one.”

Jessamyn’s hand tightened on the embroidered arm of the sofa.

“Probably, but I prefer not to discuss other people’s romantic affairs. I find them a quite private matter, and not my concern.”

For a moment Vespasia was surprized, then she recalled that she never had heard Jessamyn gossiping of loves or marriages. She could only remember conversation of fashion, parties, and even on rare occasions matters of weight like business or politics. Jessamyn’s father had been a man of considerable property, but naturally it had all gone to her younger brother, since he was the male. It had been said at the time the old man died, years ago, that the boy had inherited the money, and Jessamyn the brains. He was a young fool, so far as she heard. Jessamyn had the better part.

The tea came, and they swapped polite reminiscences of the previous Season and speculations as to what the next turn of fashion might be.

Presently she took her leave and met Fulbert at the gateway to the drive. He bowed with amused grace, and they exchanged greetings, hers decidedly cool. She had had enough visiting and was about to continue on her way home when he spoke.

“You’ve been calling upon Jessamyn.”

“Obviously!” she replied tartly. Really, he was becoming fatuous.

“Most entertaining, isn’t it?” His smile widened. “Everyone is rushing back to their own private sins, to make sure they are still covered. If your policeman, Pitt, were the least interested in voyeurism, he would find this better than a peepshow. It is rather like undoing one of those Chinese boxes; each comes apart in a different way, and nothing is what it seems.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said coldly.

It was plain from his face that he knew she was lying. She understood him with exactness, even if she had no better than educated guesses as to what the sins in question might be. He did not seem to be offended. He was still smiling, and there was laughter in his face, even in the angle of his body.

“There is a great deal goes on in this Walk you don’t dream of,” he said softly. “The carcass is full of worms, if you break it open. Even poor Phoebe, although she’s too frightened to speak. One of these days she’ll die of pure fright, unless, of course, someone murders her first!”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Now Vespasia hovered between fury at his adolescent pleasure in shocking and a chill of quite real fear that indeed he knew something beyond even the worst imaginings of her own.

But he simply smiled and turned to walk up the driveway toward the door, and she was obliged to proceed on her way without an answer.

It was nineteen days after the murder that Vespasia came to the breakfast table with a frown on her face and an extraordinary wisp of hair trailing across her head completely out of place.

Emily stared at her.

“My maid tells me a most peculiar story.” Vespasia seemed not quite sure where to begin. She never ate a heavy breakfast, and now her hand hovered over the toast rack, then the fruit, but could not settle for either.

Emily had never seen her so out of countenance before. It was disturbing.

“What sort of story?” she demanded. “Something to do with Fanny?”

“I’ve no idea.” Vespasia’s eyebrows went up. “Not apparently.”

“Well, what is it?” Emily was growing impatient, not sure whether to be afraid or not. George had put down his fork and was staring at her, his face tight.

“It seems Fulbert Nash has disappeared,” Vespasia spoke as if she herself could hardly believe what she was saying.

George breathed out in a sigh, and the fork clattered from his hand.

“What on earth do you mean, disappeared?” he said slowly. “Where has he gone?”

“If I knew where he had gone, George, I would hardly say he had disappeared!” Vespasia said with unusual acerbity. “No one knows where he is! That is the point. He did not come home yesterday, although he had no dinner engagement that anyone knows of, and he has not been home all night. His valet says he has no clothes with him other than the light suit he was wearing for luncheon.”

“Are all the coachmen or footmen at home?” George demanded. “Did anyone take a message or call a cab for him?”

“Apparently not.”

“Well, he can’t simply have vanished! He must be somewhere!”

“Of course.” Vespasia frowned still more and at last took herself a piece of toast and spread it with butter and apricot preserve. “But no one knows where. Or, if they do, they are not prepared to say.”

“Oh God!” George gasped at her. “You’re not suggesting he’s been murdered!”

Emily choked on her tea.

“I’m not suggesting anything.” Vespasia waved her arm at Emily, for George to do something about her. “Slap her, for goodness’ sake!” She waited while George obliged and Emily pushed him away, finding her breath again. “I simply don’t know,” Vespasia finished. “But doubtless there will be suggestions, all of them unpleasant, and that will be one of them.”

And it was, although Emily did not hear it until the following day. She had called upon Jessamyn and found Selena already there. So soon after Fanny’s death, social visits were being kept very much within their own immediate circle, possibly as a matter of good taste, but more likely so that they might be freer to discuss it if they wished.

“I suppose you have heard nothing whatever?” Selena asked anxiously.

“Nothing,” Jessamyn agreed. “It is as if the ground had opened up and swallowed him into it. Phoebe came this morning, and naturally Afton has inquired as much as is possible, discreetly, but he is not at any of his clubs in town, and no one else can be found who has spoken to him.”

“Is there no one in the country he might have visited?” Emily asked.

Jessamyn’s eyebrows shot up.

“At this time of the year?”

“It’s the height of the Season!” Selena added, a little disparagingly. “Whoever would leave London now?”

“Perhaps Fulbert,” Emily was stung to reply. “He seems to have left Paragon Walk without a word of explanation to anyone. If he were in London, why should he be anywhere but here?”

“That makes sense,” Jessamyn admitted, “since he is not at any of the clubs, and he does not seem to be visiting any other friends up for the Season.”

“The alternatives are too dreadful to contemplate.” Selena shivered, then instantly contradicted herself. “But we must.”

Jessamyn looked at her.

Selena was not going to draw back now.

“We must face it, my dear. It is possible he has been done away with!”

Jessamyn’s face was very pale, very fine.

“You mean murdered?” she said quietly.

“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

There was a moment’s silence. Emily’s mind raced. Who would murder Fulbert, and why? The other possibility was, at once, worse and also an infinite relief-except that she dared not say it-suicide. If he had after all been the one who killed Fanny, maybe he had taken this desperate way to escape.

Jessamyn was still staring. In her lap her long slender hands were stiff, as if she could neither feel with them nor move them.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why would anyone murder Fulbert, Selena?”

“Perhaps whoever killed poor Fanny killed him also?” Selena replied.

Emily could not say what was in her mind. She must lead them to it, gently, until one of them had to say it for herself.

“But Fanny was-molested,” she reasoned aloud. “She was only killed after that-perhaps because she recognized him, and he could not then let her go. Why should anyone kill Fulbert-if indeed he is dead? He is only missing, after all.”

Jessamyn smiled very faintly, something like gratitude warming her pallor.

“You are quite right. There is hardly anything to suggest it was the same person. In fact, there is not really anything to prove they are connected at all.”

“They must be!” Selena exploded. “We could not have two entirely unconnected crimes in the Walk in the space of a month. That is straining credulity too far! We must face it-either Fulbert is dead, or he has run away!”

Jessamyn’s eyes were very bright, her voice came slowly, as if from far away.

“Are you saying that it was Fulbert who killed Fanny, and he has now run away in case the police find him?”

“Someone did.” Selena would not be put off. “Perhaps he is mad?”

Another thought occurred to Emily.

“Or perhaps it was not him, but he knows who it was, and he is afraid?” she said it before she considered what effect it might have.

Jessamyn sat absolutely still. Her voice was soft, almost sibilant. “I don’t think that’s very likely,” she said slowly. “Fulbert was never very good at keeping a secret. Nor was he especially brave. I don’t think that can be the answer.”

“It’s ridiculous!” Selena turned on Emily sharply. “If he knew who it was, he would have said so! And enjoyed it! And why on earth should he protect them? After all, Fanny was his sister!”

“Perhaps he didn’t have the chance to tell anyone?” Emily was growing annoyed at being spoken to as if she were foolish. “Perhaps they killed him before he could get away?”

Jessamyn took a deep breath and let it out in a long, silent sigh.

“I think you must be right, Emily. I hate to say so-” Her voice faded for a minute, and she was obliged to clear her throat. “-but I think it is inescapable that either Fulbert killed Fanny and has run away, or else-” She shivered and seemed to shrink into herself. “-or else whoever so dreadfully murdered Fanny knew that poor Fulbert knew too much and killed him before he could speak!”

“If that is true, then we have a very dangerous murderer living in the Walk,” Emily said quietly. “And I am very glad I have no idea who he is. I think we should all be extremely careful whom we speak to, what we say, and whom we find ourself alone with!”

Selena gave a little whimper, but her face was flushed and there were very fine beads of sweat on her face. Her eyes were bright.

The day seemed darker, the heat more suffocating. Emily rose to go home; the visit was no longer any pleasure.

The day after, it was not possible to keep the matter from the police. Pitt was informed of it and returned to the Walk, feeling tired and unhappy. It was a mark of his failure that something so unforeseen should have happened, and he had no explanation to offer for it. Of course, there were volumes of theories. He had no niceties to keep his mind from coming first to the most obvious and the most ugly. He had seen far too much crime for anything to surprize him, even incestuous rape. In the rookeries and teeming slums incest was all too common. Women bore too many children and died young, often leaving fathers with elder daughters to bring up a brood of little ones. Loneliness and reliance slipped easily into something else more intimate, more urgent.

But he had not expected to find it in Paragon Walk.

Then there was the possibility that it was not escape, or suicide, but another murder. Perhaps Fulbert had known too much and been foolish enough to say so? Perhaps he had even tried blackmail and paid the ultimate price for it.

Charlotte had told him something about Fulbert’s remarks, the sly, cutting cruelty of them, the “whited sepulchers.” Perhaps he had chanced on a secret more dangerous than he knew and been killed for that-nothing to do with Fanny at all? It would not be the first time one crime had planted the seed of an idea for another, where motives were completely unconnected. Nothing invites imitation like apparent success.

The only place he could start was with Afton Nash, the person who had reported Fulbert as missing and who had lived in the same house. Pitt had already sent men to check on the clubs and houses of other sorts, where a man might be who was indulging himself, had taken more to drink than was good for him, or wished to be anonymous for a while.

He was received with chilly civility at the Nash house and conducted to the morning room, where a few moments later Afton appeared. He looked tired, and there were harsh lines of irritation around his mouth. Afflicted by a summer cold that obliged him to keep dabbing at his nose, he looked at Pitt with disfavor.

“I presume you are now here with reference to my brother’s apparent disappearance?” he said, and sniffed. “I have no idea where he is. He gave no indication of intending to leave.” He pulled his mouth down. “Or of being afraid.”

“Afraid?” Pitt wanted to allow him room and time to say anything he would.

Afton looked at him with contempt.

“I am not going to avoid the obvious, Mr. Pitt. In view of what has happened here recently to Fanny, it is not impossible that Fulbert is also dead.”

Pitt sat sideways on the arm of one of the chairs.

“Why, Mr. Nash? Whoever killed your sister cannot possibly have had the same motive.”

“Whoever killed Fanny did so to keep her silent. Whoever killed Fulbert, if indeed he is dead, will have done so for the same reason.”

“You think Fulbert knew who that was?”

“Don’t treat me like a fool, Mr. Pitt!” Afton dabbed at his nose again. “If I knew who it was, I would have told you. But it is only rational to consider the possibility that Fulbert knew, and was killed for it.”

“We will have to find a body or some trace of it before we can assume murder, Mr. Nash,” Pitt pointed out. “So far there is nothing to indicate that he did not simply choose to go away.”

“With no clothes, no money, and alone?” Afton’s pale eyes widened. “Unlikely, Mr. Pitt.” His voice was soft, weary with Pitt’s stupidity.

“He may have done quite a few things we had thought unlikely,” Pitt pointed out. But he knew that, even when people change the major direction of their lives, they do not often alter the small thing: a man will still keep his personal habits, his tastes in food, the pleasures that entertain or bore him. And he doubted Fulbert was careful enough, or desperate enough, to have left without thought for his creature comfort. He had been used to clean clothes all his life and a valet to lay them out for him. And if he were leaving London he would assuredly need money.

“Still,” Pitt agreed, “you’re probably right. Who was the last person to see him, that you know of?”

“His valet, Price. You can speak to the man if you want, but I’ve already questioned him, and he can’t tell you anything of use. All Fulbert’s clothes and personal possessions are still here, and he had no engagement that evening that Price knew of.”

“And I presume he would know, because he would be required to set out Mr. Fulbert’s clothes, if he were going out?” Pitt added.

Afton looked slightly surprized that Pitt should know such a thing, and it irritated him. He dabbed at his nose and then winced; it was becoming raw with the constant friction.

Pitt smiled, not enough for levity, but enough to let Afton know he had understood.

“Quite,” Afton agreed. “He left here at about six in the evening, saying he would be back for dinner.”

“But he didn’t say where he was going?”

“If he had, Inspector, I should have told you!”

“And he didn’t come back, nor did anyone see him again?”

Afton glared at him.

“I imagine someone saw him!”

“He could have walked to the end of the road and taken a cab,” Pitt pointed out. “There are quite often hansoms even around here.”

“Where to, for heaven’s sake?”

“Well, if he is still in the Walk, Mr. Nash, where is he?”

Afton looked at him with slow comprehension. Apparently he had not considered it before, but there were no rivers or wells, no woods, no gardens large enough for one to dig unnoticed, no untenanted cellars or sheds. There were always gardeners, footmen, butlers, kitchenmaids or boot-boys to find something left. There was nowhere to hide a body.

“Find out whose carriage left the Walk that evening, or the following morning,” he ordered waspishly. “Fulbert was not a very big man. Anyone could have carried him if they had needed to-except perhaps Algernon-especially if he were already unconscious or dead.”

“I intend to, Mr. Nash,” Pitt answered him. “And to question cabbies, errand boys and send out a directive to every other police station in the force, also a description of him to all the railway stations and especially the cross-channel ferry. But I shall be surprized if we turn up anything of use. I have already begun a search of hospitals and morgues.”

“Well, good God, man, he’s got to be somewhere!” Afton exploded. “It’s not as if he could have been eaten by wild animals in the middle of London! Do all those things, by all means-I suppose they are necessary-but you’d get furthest by asking a few damned awkward questions right here! Whatever’s happened to him has to do with Fanny. And much as I would like to imagine it was some drunken coachman from the Dilbridges’ party, it would be straining credulity a little too far. If it were, Fulbert would not know of it, and so it could be of no conceivable danger to the man.”

“Unless he saw something,” Pitt pointed out.

Afton looked at him with icy amusement.

“Hardly, Mr. Pitt. Fulbert was with me all that evening, playing billiards, as I believe I told you when you first asked.”

Pitt met his eyes perfectly calmly.

“As I understand, sir, from both of you, Mr. Fulbert did leave the billiard room on at least one occasion. Is it not possible that while passing a window he observed something unusual, which afterward he realized to be of significance?”

Dull anger crept up Afton’s face. He hated to be in the wrong.

“Coachmen are not significant, Inspector. They are about the street all the time. If you had one, you would know. I suggest you press a little more closely on the Frenchman, for a start. He said he was at home all evening. Perhaps he was not, and it was he whom Fulbert saw? One lie springs from another! Find out what he was really doing. He’s far too easy with women. He’s managed to seduce the minds of nearly every woman in the Walk. I think he is a great deal older than he pretends. Spends all his time inside, or going out at night-but see his face in the daylight.

“One expects women to be frail, to look no further than a man’s features or his manners. Perhaps Monsieur Alaric’s tastes run to something young and innocent like Fanny. But she was not duped by his charm. Maybe the loose and sophisticated women like Selena Montague bored him. If Fulbert sensed that, and was rash enough to let Alaric know he had seen him out-” He sniffed savagely and choked. “If he did,” he added.

Pitt listened. The flow was poisonous, but there might be some germ of truth in it, even so.

Afton continued.

“Selena always was a-a strumpet. Even when her husband was alive, she did not know how to conduct herself. Lately she has sought after George Ashworth, and he’s been fool enough to dally with her! I find it disgusting. Perhaps it does not offend you?” He glared at Pitt with curled lip. “Nevertheless, it is true.”

It was what Pitt had been fearing. He had already read it through Charlotte’s words, although of course he had not told her. Perhaps he could still keep it from Emily. He said nothing to Afton, just looked at him, his face attentive, as he struggled to keep expression out of it.

“And you should take a good deal closer look at Freddie Dilbridge’s party,” Afton went on. “Not only coachmen drink more than they can hold. He has some very strange guests. I don’t know how Grace puts up with it, except of course it is her place to obey him, and, good woman that she is, she abides by it. But, good God, do you know his daughter is keeping company with some Jew, and Freddie allows it, just because the man has money! I ask you, some money-grubbing little Jew, with Albertine Dilbridge!” He turned around sharply, his eyes narrowed. “Or perhaps you don’t understand that? Although even the lower classes don’t usually mix their blood with foreigners. To do business with them is one thing, even to have them in one’s house, when one must, but that is utterly different from permitting one of them to court one’s daughter.” He snorted and was obliged to blow his nose. He flinched in pain as the linen of his handkerchief rubbed the red flesh.

“You had better start doing your job a little more effectively, Mr. Pitt. Everyone here is suffering appallingly. As if the heat and the Season were not enough! I loathe the Season, with its endless simpering young women dressed by their mothers and taught to parade like cattle at a fat stock show, young men gambling away their money, whoring around, and drinking till they cannot even remember which idiocy they were at the night before. Do you know I went to see Hallam Cayley at half past ten on the morning Fulbert disappeared, to inquire if he had seen him, and he was still insensible from the previous night? The man is only thirty-five, and he’s a dissipated wreck! It’s obscene!”

He looked at Pitt without pleasure. “One thing to be said for your type, I suppose, at least you are too busy to become drunk, and you cannot afford it.”

Pitt straightened up and put his hands into his pockets to hide the clenching of his fists. He had seen every kind of moral and spiritual wreck thrown up with the flotsam of London’s underworld, but nothing that offended him, as did Afton Nash, without stirring up a modicum of pity. There must be some deep and dreadful scar on this man he did not even guess.

“Does Mr. Cayley drink a great deal, sir?” he asked with soft voice.

“How the devil should I know?” Afton snapped. “I do not frequent that sort of place. I know he was drunk the other morning when I called, and he behaves like a man who has indulged himself beyond the point his stomach can bear.” He jerked his head up to look at Pitt again. “But look at the Frenchman. There is something sly and over intimate about him. God only knows what foreign aberrations he has! There is no one in his house but his own servants. He could be doing anything in there. Women are incredibly foolish. For God’s sake, protect us from this-this obscenity!”