Paragon Walk

Six

Emily did not mention Fulbert’s disappearance to Charlotte, and she heard of it from Pitt. There was nothing she could do about it so late in the evening, or indeed the following day. Since Jemima was grizzly with cutting teeth, Charlotte did not feel it fair to ask Mrs. Smith to look after her. However, by midafternoon she was so distracted by Jemima’s crying that she slipped over the street to ask Mrs. Smith if she had any remedy for it, or at least something to ease the pain sufficiently for the child to rest.

Mrs. Smith clucked with disapproval at Charlotte and took herself off into the kitchen. A moment later she came back with a bottle of clear liquid.

“You put that on ’er gums with a piece of cotton, an’ it’ll soothe ’er in no time, you just see.”

Charlotte thanked her for it profusely. She did not ask what was in the mixture, feeling she would probably prefer not to know, as long as it was not gin, which she had heard some women gave their babies when they could bear the crying no longer. Still, she imagined she would recognize the smell of that.

“And ’ow’s your poor sister?” Mrs. Smith asked, glad of a few moments’ company and wanting to keep it.

Charlotte seized the chance to prepare the ground to visit Emily again.

“Not very well,” she said quickly. “I’m afraid the brother of a friend has disappeared quite without trace, and it is all very distressing.”

“Oooh!” Mrs. Smith was entranced. “’Ow dreadful! Ain’t that extraordinary, wherever can ’e ’ave gorn?”

“Nobody knows.” Charlotte sensed that she had won already. “But tomorrow, if you will be kind enough to look after Jemima, and I hardly like to ask you when-”

“Never you mind!” Mrs. Smith said instantly. “I’ll look after ’er, don’t you worry. She’ll ’ave them teeth cut in a week or two, and poor little thing’ll feel the world better. You just go and see to your sister, love. Find out what ’appened!”

“Are you sure?”

“’Course, I’m sure!”

Charlotte gave her a dazzling smile, and accepted.

Actually she was going as much for curiosity as in any belief that she could help Emily. But she might help Pitt, and perhaps that was what was in her heart. After all, Fulbert’s disappearance could hardly make anything worse for George. And she had a great desire to speak again with Aunt Vespasia. As Vespasia frequently pointed out, not always at happy moments, she had known most of the people in the Walk since childhood and had a prodigious memory. So often, small clues, threads from the past, could point to something in the present that would otherwise be overlooked.

She arrived at Emily’s house at the traditional time for afternoon tea and was shown in by the maid, who recognized her now and ushered her in.

Emily already had Phoebe Nash and Grace Dilbridge with her, and Aunt Vespasia joined them from the garden almost at the same time as Charlotte came in at the other door. The usual polite greetings were exchanged. Emily told the maid she might bring in the tea, and a few minutes later it arrived: the silver service and bone china cups and saucers, minute cucumber sandwiches, little fruit tarts, and sponge cakes spread with fine sugar and whipped cream. Emily poured the tea, and the maid waited to hand it around.

“I don’t know what the police are doing,” Grace Dilbridge said critically. “They don’t seem to have found the slightest trace of poor Fulbert.”

Charlotte had to remind herself that, of course, Grace had no idea that the police in question included Charlotte’s husband. The notion of having a social connection with the police was unthinkable. She saw a bright spot of color in Emily’s cheek, and surprisingly it was Emily who came to their defense.

“If he does not wish to be found, it would be extremely difficult even to know where to begin,” she pointed out. “I would have no idea where to start. Would you?”

“Of course not.” Grace was put out by the question. “But then I am not a policeman.”

Vespasia’s magnificent face was perfectly calm except for a faint surprise, but her eye flickered over Charlotte for an instant before fixing on Grace.

“Are you suggesting, my dear, that the police are more intelligent than we are?” she inquired.

Grace was momentarily floored. It was certainly not what she had intended, and yet somehow she seemed to have said it. She took refuge in a sip of tea and then a nibble at a cucumber sandwich. A look of confusion passed over her face, followed by polite determination.

“But everyone is so appallingly upset,” Phoebe murmured to fill the gap. “I know I miss poor Fanny still, and the whole household seems to be at sixes and sevens. I jump every time I hear a strange sound. I simply cannot help myself.”

Charlotte had wanted to see Aunt Vespasia alone in order to put some questions to her frankly; there would be no point at all in trying to be devious. But she would have to wait until tea was properly accomplished and the visitors excused themselves. She took one of the cucumber sandwiches and bit into it. It was unpleasant, faintly sweet, as if the cucumber were bad, and yet is was crisp enough. She looked at Emily.

Emily had one also. She stared at Charlotte, consternation on her face.

“Oh dear!”

“I think you had better have a word with your cook,” Vespasia suggested, putting down one of the cakes. She reached for the bell herself. They waited until the maid came and was duly sent to fetch the cook.

When the cook came, she was a buxom woman with a good color, who normally might well have been handsome enough, but today looked hot and untidy, although it was long before time for the preparation of dinner.

“Are you feeling unwell, Mrs. Lowndes?” Emily began carefully. “You have put sugar in the sandwiches.”

“And, I fear, salt on the cakes,” Vespasia touched one delicately with her finger.

“If you are,” Emily continued, “perhaps you would prefer to take to your bed for a while. One of the girls can prepare some vegetables, and I am sure there is a cold ham or chicken we could eat. I cannot have dinner turning out like this.”

Mrs. Lowndes stared at the cake stand in dismay, then let out a long wail of anguish, rising at the end. Phoebe looked alarmed.

“It’s awful!” Mrs. Lowndes moaned. “You can’t know, m’lady, ’ow awful it is down there, knowing as there’s a maniac loose in the Walk. An’ decent, God-fearin’ people bein’ a murdered one by one. Only the good Lord knows as who’ll be next! The scullery maid’s fainted twice today already, and me kitchen maid’s threatening to leave if ’e ain’t found soon. Always been in decent employment, all of us! Never ’ad anything like this in all our lives! We won’t never be the same again, none of us! Aoow-eee!” she wailed, even more shrilly, and tore a handkerchief out of her apron pocket. Her voice rose higher and louder, and the tears streamed down her face.

Everyone looked stupefied. Emily was aghast. She had no idea at all what to do with this enormous woman rapidly nearing the verge of complete hysteria. For once even Aunt Vespasia seemed at a loss.

“Aowoo!” Mrs. Lowndes howled. “Ooooh!” She began to shake violently and threatened to collapse on the carpet.

Charlotte stood up and seized the vase of flowers from the sideboard. She took the blooms out with her left hand and felt a satisfactory weight remaining. With all her strength she hurled the water into the cook’s face.

“Be quiet!” she said firmly.

The howl ceased in mid-breath. There was total silence.

“Now control yourself!” Charlotte went on. “Of course, it is unpleasant. Do you not think we all feel distressed? But it is up to us to behave with dignity. You must set an example to the younger women. If you lose control of yourself, what on earth can we expect of the maids? A cook is not merely someone who knows how to mix a sauce, Mrs. Lowndes. She is head of the kitchen; she is there to keep order and to see that everyone conducts themselves as they ought. I’m surprised at you!”

The cook stared at her. The color brightened in her face, and slowly she drew herself up to her full height, throwing her shoulders back.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” Charlotte said stiffly. “Now Lady Ashworth will look to you to stop any silly chatter among the girls. If you keep your head and behave with the dignity appropriate to the senior member of the female staff, then they will all take courage and follow your example.”

Mrs. Lowndes lifted her chin a little and her bosom swelled, remembering her own importance.

“Yes, m’lady. I’ll take it kindly, m’lady,” she looked at Emily, “if you’d overlook my momentary weakness, and not mention it in front of the other servants, ma’am?”

“Of course not, Mrs. Lowndes,” Emily said quickly, taking Charlotte’s cue. “Quite understandable. It’s a heavy burden of responsibility you carry for so many girls. The less said, the better, I think. Perhaps you would have the parlormaid bring us some fresh cakes and sandwiches?”

“Yes, m’lady, most certainly.” With great relief she picked up the two plates and sailed out, dripping with water, and ignoring Charlotte, still standing with the flowers in one hand and the empty vase in the other.

After Phoebe and Grace had gone, Emily immediately took herself to the kitchen, against Vespasia’s advice, to make sure that Charlotte’s counsel had been taken, and dinner would not be another disaster. Charlotte turned to Vespasia. There was no time for subtlety, even were she capable of it.

“It seems even the servants are in a turmoil over Mr. Nash’s disappearance,” she said directly. “Do you think he has run away?”

Vespasia’s eyebrows rose in slight surprise.

“No, my dear, I do not for a moment think so. I imagine that his tongue has at last earned him the fate he has so long sought by it.”

“You mean someone has murdered him?” Of course it was what she had expected, but to hear it spoken so plainly by someone other than Pitt was still startling.

“I should think so.” Vespasia hesitated. “Except that I have no idea what they have done with his body.” Her nostrils flared. “A peculiarly unpleasant thing to think of, but ignoring it will not change it. I suppose they took him out in a hansom and left him somewhere, perhaps the river.”

“In that case, we’ll never find him.” It was an admission of defeat. With no body, there was no proof of murder. “But that is not the most important thing, what matters is who!”

“Ah,” Vespasia said softly, looking at Charlotte. “Indeed, who? Naturally I have given the subject a great deal of consideration. In fact I have been able to think of little else, although I have avoided speaking of it in front of Emily.”

Charlotte leaned forward. She was not sure how to express herself without seeming forward, even callous, and yet she must. Delicacy was of no service now. “You have known these people most of their lives. You. must know things about them the police could never discover, or understand if they did.” It was not intended as flattery, simply fact. They needed Vespasia’s help-Pitt needed it. “You must have opinions! Fulbert used to say fearful things about people. He said to me once that they were all whited sepulchers. I don’t doubt most of it was for effect, but judging from their reactions, there was a germ of truth!”

Vespasia smiled, and there was dry, faraway humor and regret in her face, an infinity of memories.

“My dear girl, everyone has secrets, unless they have lived no life at all. And even they, poor souls, imagine they have. It is almost an admission of defeat not to have a secret of some kind.”

“Phoebe?”

“Hardly one to kill over,” Vespasia shook her head slowly. “The poor soul is losing her hair. She wears a wig.”

Charlotte recalled Phoebe at the funeral, her hair sliding one way and her hat the other. How could she feel so sharply sorry for her and at the same time want to laugh? It was so unimportant, and yet it would be painful to Phoebe. Unconsciously she touched her own hair, thick and shining. It was her best feature. Perhaps if she were losing it, it would matter enormously. She too would feel insecure, belittled, somehow naked. The laughter vanished.

“Oh,” there was pity in the word, and Vespasia was looking at her with appreciation. “But as you say,” Charlotte collected herself and went on, “hardly a matter to murder over, even if she were capable of it.”

“She wouldn’t be,” Vespasia agreed. “She is far too silly to do anything so big so successfully.”

“I was thinking of the purely physical side,” Charlotte replied. “She couldn’t manage that, even if she’d a mind to.”

“Oh, Phoebe is stronger than she looks,” Vespasia sat back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling in recollection. “She could murder him all right, with perhaps a knife, if she had lured him somewhere she could simply leave him. But she has not the nerve to carry it off afterward. I remember when she was a girl, about fourteen or fifteen, she took her elder sister’s lace petticoat and pantaloons and cut them down to fit herself. She was as cool as you like doing it, but then, when she came to wear them, she was so stricken with fear, she wore her own on top in case anything should catch her skirt and the better ones be seen. As a result she looked ten pounds heavier and not in the least attractive. No, Phoebe might do it, but she has not the endurance to carry it off.”

Charlotte was fascinated. How little one guessed of people when one saw them only in the single dimension of a few days or weeks; how they lacked all the substance of the past. They seemed almost flat, like cardboard, with all the depth gone.

“What other secrets are there?” she asked. “What else did Fulbert know?”

Vespasia sat up and opened her eyes wide.

“My dear child, I wouldn’t begin to guess. He was unbearably nosy. His main preoccupation in life was to acquire uncharitable information about others. If at last he found something too big for him, I cannot but say he richly deserved it.”

“But what else?” Charlotte was not going to give up so easily. “Who else? Do you think he knew who killed Fanny, and that was it?”

“Ah!” Vespasia breathed out slowly. “That, of course, is the real question. And I’m afraid I have no idea. Naturally I have been over and over everything I know. To tell the truth, I expected you to ask me.” She looked at Charlotte hard. Her old eyes were very clear, very clever. “And I would warn you, my girl, to keep your tongue a little stiller than you have done so far. If indeed Fulbert did know who killed Fanny, it served him ill. At least one of the secrets in Paragon Walk is a very dangerous matter indeed. I don’t know which of them brought Fulbert Nash to his death, so leave them all alone!”

Charlotte felt the cold ripple through her, as if someone had opened an outside door on a winter day. She had not thought of personal danger before. All her anxieties had been for Emily, that she might learn of weakness, selfishness in George. She had not feared violence, not even to Emily, let alone to herself. But, if there were a secret so dreadful in Paragon Walk that Fulbert had lost his life merely because he knew it, then to betray curiosity at all would be dangerous, and knowledge itself would be fatal. Surely the only secret like that must be the identity of the rapist. He had killed Fanny to protect that. There couldn’t be two murderers in the Walk-could there?

Or had Fulbert stumbled on some other secret, and his victim, already prompted by the one so-far-successful murder, simply copied the same resolution to his problem? Thomas had said that crime begot crime; people imitated, especially the weak and sick in mind, the opportunists.

“Do you hear me, Charlotte?” Vespasia said somewhat abruptly.

“Yes! Oh, yes, I do.” Charlotte recalled herself to the present, the sunlit withdrawing room and the old lady in ecru-colored lace sitting opposite her. “I don’t speak to anyone except Thomas about it. But what else? I mean, what other secrets do you know?”

Vespasia snorted. “You won’t be told, will you!”

“Don’t you want to know?” Charlotte met her eyes squarely.

“Of course, I do!” Vespasia snapped. “And if I die for it, at my time of life it doesn’t matter! I shall almost certainly die soon anyway. If I had anything useful to say, don’t you think I would have said it? Not to you, but to your extraordinary policeman.” She coughed. “George has been dallying with Selena. I have no proof of it, but I know George. As a child he played with other children’s toys if he felt like it, and ate other children’s sweets. He always gave the toys back, and he was always generous with his own. Used to everything being his anyway. Trouble with an only child. You have a child, don’t you? Well, have another!”

Charlotte could think of no adequate reply to this. She had every intention of having another, when the good Lord should so choose. Anyway, her concern was for Emily now.

Vespasia guessed it.

“He knows that I know,” she said gently. “He is far too frightened at the moment to do anything foolish. In fact he turns decidedly green every time Selena comes anywhere near him. Which isn’t very often, except to try and show the Frenchman that she is sought after. Silly creature! As if he cared!”

“What other secrets?” Charlotte pressed.

“None of any value. I cannot think Miss Laetitia would harm anyone because they knew she had a scandalous love affair thirty years ago.”

Charlotte was stunned.

“Miss Laetitia? Laetitia Horbury?”

“Yes. Quite secret, of course, but very burning at the time. Haven’t you noticed Miss Lucinda always making cutting little remarks to her about morals, and so forth? The poor creature is so jealous it is eating her alive. Now, if Laetitia had been killed, I could understand it. I have frequently thought that Lucinda would poison her in a shot, if she dared. Except she would be lost without her. Devising new ways of observing her own moral superiority is her chief enjoyment in life.”

“But how can it hurt? Laetitia knows it is only envy?” Charlotte was fascinated.

“Good heavens, no! They never discuss it! They each imagine the other does not know! What would be the pleasure or the savor of it if it were all in the open?”

Again Charlotte was torn between pity and laughter. But then, as Vespasia had said, it was hardly a matter over which Fulbert could have lost his life. Even if all Society knew, it would do Miss Laetitia little harm; in fact it might rather enhance her interest. Miss Lucinda would be the one to suffer by comparison. Then her jealousy might well be unendurable.

Before she could pursue the matter any further, Emily returned from the kitchen hurt and in short temper. Apparently she had had some altercation with the scullery maid, who was frightened out of her wits that the bootboy was after her, and Emily had told her not to be so stupid. The girl was as plain as a coal scuttle, and the bootboy had his sights set a good deal higher.

Vespasia reminded her she had been advised not to go, which only added fuel to the fire of Emily’s temper.

Charlotte excused herself as soon as she could, and in ill-grace Emily ordered her a carriage to take her home.

Of course Charlotte had regaled Pitt with everything she had heard, plus her own evaluation of it, almost as soon as he had come in the door, and although he knew that most of it would be irrelevant, no more than trivia to the case, yet momentous to those concerned, still he bore them at the back of his mind when he went out the following day to continue his investigations.

There had been no trace of Fulbert anywhere. Seven bodies had been found in the river, two of women, almost certainly prostitutes, one child, probably fallen in by accident and too feeble to cry out or splash for help; probably an unwanted mouth to feed anyway, put out to beg as soon as it was old enough to speak intelligently. The other four had been men but, like the child, beggars and outcasts. Certainly none of them could conceivably have been Fulbert, however abused or molested. It had taken more than a few days to bring them to such a degree of emaciation.

All the hospitals and morgues had been checked, even the workhouses. The sector of the police who were most familiar with the opium rooms and the brothels had been asked to keep an eye and an ear open-to ask questions would be pointless-but there had been no glimmer of him at all. To search the rookeries, of course, was impossible. As far as every human inquiry could ascertain, Fulbert Nash had disappeared from the face of London.

So there was nothing to do but go back to the Walk and pursue it again from there. Accordingly nine o’clock in the morning found him in Lord Dilbridge’s morning room awaiting his lordship’s pleasure. It was some quarter of an hour before he appeared. He was extremely neat-his valet would have seen to that-but there was a vague and rather disheveled look about his face. Obviously he was either unwell, or had had a wild night immediately previous. He stared at Pitt, as if he had trouble recalling precisely who the footman had said he was.

“Inspector Pitt, from the police,” Pitt helped him.

Freddie blinked, then irritation focused in his eyes.

“Oh dear, is this still about Fanny? The poor child is gone, and the wretched creature who did it is miles away by now. I don’t know what on earth you think any of us can do about it? The back streets of London are full of thieves and blackguards. If you fellows did your jobs properly and cleaned up some of them, instead of asking damn fool questions around here, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen!” He blinked and rubbed something out of his eye. “Although I suppose, to be fair, we should be more careful who we hire as servants. But really, there isn’t anything more I can do about it now, and certainly not at this time in the morning!”

“No sir,” Pitt at last had the opportunity to speak without interrupting. “It isn’t about Miss Nash. I called with regard to Mr. Fulbert Nash. We still have no trace of him-”

“Try the hospitals, or the morgue,” Freddie suggested.

“We have done so, sir,” Pitt said patiently. “And the doss houses, the opium rooms, the brothels, and the river. Also the railway stations, the port, the lighter men as far down the river as Greenwich and as far up as Richmond, and most of the cab drivers. No one has told us anything.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Freddie said angrily. His eyes were bloodshot, and he kept blinking. Freddie screwed up his face in an effort to think clearly. “He’s got to be somewhere. He can’t have vanished!”

“Quite,” Pitt agreed. “So having searched everywhere I can to find him, I am obliged to come back here to see if I can deduce where he might have gone, or if not where, at least why.”

“Why?” Freddie’s face fell. “Well, I suppose he was-well-no-I don’t know what I suppose. Never really thought about it. Didn’t owe money, did he? Nashes have always been well off, so far as I know, but he is the youngest brother, so maybe he hadn’t so much.”

“We thought of that, sir, and we checked. His bank gave us access to their records, and he is in good funds. And his brother, Mr. Afton Nash, assures us that he had no financial problems. We have found no mention of any debt in any of the usual gambling clubs.”

Freddie looked worried.

“Didn’t know you people could get into that kind of thing! What a man gambles is his own affair!”

“Certainly, sir, but where a disappearance is concerned, possibly a murder-”

“Murder! Do you think Fulbert was murdered? Well,” he pulled a terrible face and sat down rather abruptly. He looked at Pitt through his fingers. “Well, I suppose we knew that, if we were honest. Knew too much, Fulbert, always was a bit too clever. Trouble is, he wasn’t clever enough to pretend to be a little less clever.”

“Very well put, sir.” Pitt smiled. “What we need to know is which of all his clever remarks was the one that backfired on him? Did he know who raped Fanny? Or was it something else, possibly even something he didn’t actually know, but implied he did?”

Freddie frowned, but the high color in his face fled, leaving the broken veins standing out. He did not look at Pitt.

“Don’t know what you mean! If he didn’t actually know it, why should anyone kill him? Bit risky, isn’t it?”

Pitt explained patiently. “If he were to have said to someone, I know your secret, or words to that effect, he would not need to have spelled it out. If there really were something dangerous enough, the person would not wait to see if Fulbert would tell it or not.”

“Oh. I see. You mean, just kill him anyway, be on the safe side?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Rubbish! Few odd affairs, maybe, but no real harm in that. Good God! Lived in the Walk for years, every Season, of course, not in the winter, you understand?” The perspiration was standing out on his forehead and lip. He shook his head, as if he might at once clear it and drive out the loathsome idea. After a moment his face lit up. “Never thought of anyone like that. You’d better look at the Frenchman; he’s the only one I don’t know.” He waved his hand as if he could wash Pitt away like a petty annoyance. “Seems to have plenty of means, and decent enough manners, if you like that sort of thing, bit too precise for me. But no idea where the man comes from, could be anywhere. A sight too easy with the women. And come to think of it, he never told us who his family was. Always be spacious of a fellow when you don’t know who his family is. Look him up, that’s my advice to you. Try the French police, maybe they’ll help you?”

It was something Pitt had not thought of, and he mentally kicked himself for the oversight, the more so because it had taken a fool like Freddie Dilbridge to point it out to him.

“Yes sir, we shall do that.”

“Might have been a rapist in France for all we know!” Freddie’s own voice lifted as he warmed to the subject, pleased with his own sagacity. “Maybe Fulbert discovered it. Now that would surely be worth killing him for, wouldn’t it? Yes, you find out about Monsieur Alaric before he came here. Guarantee you’ll find the reason for your murder there! Guarantee it! Now, for heaven’s sake, let me go and have some breakfast! I feel perfectly awful!”

Grace Dilbridge had an entirely different outlook on the subject.

“Oh no!” she said immediately. “Freddie is not himself this morning, or I’m sure he would not have made such a suggestion. He is very loyal, you know. He would not wish to think of any of his friends as-as more than a little- indelicate. But I assure you, Monsieur Alaric is the most charming and civilized man. And Fanny, poor child, thought him quite devastating, as indeed did my own daughter, until quite lately when she has become fond of Mr. Isaacs. I really don’t know what I’m going to do about that!” Then she blushed at having mentioned so personal a thing in front of what was after all no more than a tradesman. “But no doubt it will pass,” she added hastily. “This is her first Season, after all, and it is natural she should be admired by a number of people.”

Pitt felt he was losing the thread. He tried to pull her back.

“Monsieur Alaric-”

“Nonsense!” she repeated firmly. “My husband has known the Nashes for years, so naturally he is loath to admit it, even to himself, but it is quite obvious that Fulbert has run away because he himself was guilty of molesting poor Fanny. I dare say in the dark he mistook her for a maid, or something, and then when he discovered who she was, and she of course saw him, there was nothing he could do but kill her to keep her silent. It is perfectly awful! His own sister! But then men are perfectly awful, at times, it is their nature, and has been ever since Adam. We are conceived in sin, and some of us never rise above it.”

Pitt searched his mind and found no answer to that, and anyway his thoughts were revolving on her earlier words and the thought that had never occurred to him before, that Fulbert could have mistaken Fanny for someone else, a maid, a kitchen girl, someone who would never dare to accuse a gentleman of forcing himself on her or, for that matter, might not even have minded, could possibly have encouraged him. And then, when he found it was his own sister, the horror and the disgrace not only of rape but of incest would have panicked many a man into murder! And that applied equally to all three of the Nash brothers! His brain was in a whirl with the enormity of it, the vast new dimensions it opened up. Vista upon vista swam into his imagination and fell away endlessly. The whole problem would have to be started again almost from the beginning.

Grace was still talking, but he was not listening anymore. He needed time to think, to be outside in the sun where he could rearrange all that he knew in this new light. He stood up. He knew he was cutting across her speech, but there was no other way to escape.

“You have been extraordinarily helpful, Lady Dilbridge. I am most grateful.” He smiled at her dazzlingly, leaving her a little startled, and swept out into the hallway and through the front door, coattails flapping, sending the maid on the step over backward, her broom at her shoulder like a guardsman presenting arms.

It was a long, hot and busy week later, when Charlotte announced to him that Emily was giving a soiree. He had very little idea what that was, except that it occurred in the afternoon, and that she had been invited to it. He was preoccupied with waiting for news from Paris about Paul Alaric and with the wealth of detail he had learned about the personal lives in the Walk, since he had begun, with Forbes’s wide-eyed and willing assistance, to inquire all over again in the totally new light of Grace Dilbridge’s suggestion. It seemed, if everyone was to be believed, that there were a great many more relationships of varying natures than he had suspected. Freddie Dilbridge was quite notorious. Something secret, and apparently thrilling to those who partook, was assumed to happen at some of his more riotous parties. And Diggory Nash had given way to temptation on more than a few occasions. There was much speculation about Hallam Cayley, especially since the death of his wife, but he had not yet sorted out the direct lies from the fantasies on that one, and had even less idea how much might actually be truth. Apparently George had at least had the good sense to keep his indulgences out of the servants’ quarters, although it was beyond doubt he had certainly entertained feelings toward Selena, heartily reciprocated, which would deeply hurt Emily if she ever had to know. But if there were anything but wishful thinking about Paul Alaric, no one was prepared to speak of it.

He would dearly like to have discovered something to the discredit of Afton Nash, as he found the man incredibly unpleasant. However, although none of the maids seemed to feel kindly toward him, there was not even the barest suggestion he had been in the least familiar with any.

As for Fulbert himself, there were whispers, suggestions, but since his disappearance even the mention of his name produced such hysteria that Pitt had no idea what to believe. The whole Walk seethed in overheated imagination. The mind-dulling monotony of daily chores that stretched from childhood to the grave was made bearable only by the penny romances and the giggling stories swapped in tiny attic bedrooms when the long day was done. Now murderers and lust-crazed seducers lurked in every shadow, and fear, half-desire, and reality were hopelessly entangled.

He did not expect Charlotte to learn anything of value at Emily’s party. He was convinced that the answer to the murders lay below stairs, far out of Charlotte’s or Emily’s reach, and all he said to her on the matter was in the nature of an exhortation to enjoy herself and a very firm command totally to mind her own business and make no inquiries or comments that might lead to anything but the most trivial of polite conversation.

She said, “Yes, Thomas,” very demurely, which, had he been less consumed in his own thoughts, would have struck him immediately as suspicious.

The soiree was a very formal affair, and Charlotte was totally swept off her feet with delight at the gown Emily had had made for her as a present. It was of yellow silk, and it fitted her perfectly and was quite ravishingly beautiful. She felt like sunshine itself as she swept in through the doorway, head high, face glowing. She was surprised when no more than half a dozen people turned to look at her; she quite expected the whole room to fall silent and stare. However, she was conscious that Paul Alaric was one of those few who did look. She saw his elegant black head turn from Selena to where she stood on the step. She knew the color burned up her cheeks, and she lifted her chin a little higher.

Emily came over to welcome her straightaway, and she was pulled into the crowd, which must have numbered fifty or more, and drawn into conversation. There was no opportunity for any private exchange. Emily gave her a long, straight look, which said very plainly that she was to behave herself and think before she spoke, and the moment after she was called away to welcome another guest.

“Emily has asked a young poet to come and read us some of his work,” Phoebe said with brittle cheerfulness. “I have heard it is most provoking. Let us hope we can understand it. It will give us food for much discussion.”

“I hope it is not vulgar,” Miss Lucinda said quickly. “Or erotic. Have you seen those quite dreadful drawings of Mr. Beardsley’s?”

Charlotte would like to have commented on Mr. Beardsley, but since she had never seen any of his drawings, or indeed heard of him, she could not.

“I cannot imagine Emily choosing someone without doing all that one can to assure that he is neither,” she replied, with an immediate edge to her voice. “Of course,” she went on, “one is not able to control what one’s guests say or do once they come, only to judge to the best of one’s ability whom to invite.”

“Of course.” Lucinda colored faintly. “I did not mean to imply anything but mischance.”

Charlotte remained cool.

“I believe he is political rather than romantic.”

“That should be interesting,” Miss Laetitia said hopefully. “I wonder if he has written anything about the poor or social reform?”

“I believe so.” Charlotte was pleased to have caught. Miss Laetitia’s interest. She rather liked her, especially since Vespasia had told her about the long past scandal. “They are the best things about which to try to stir people’s consciences,” she added.

“I’m sure we have nothing to be ashamed of!” It was a stout elderly lady who spoke, her body marvelously corsetted into a peacock-blue dress and her face above square-jawed and reminding Charlotte of a Pekinese dog, although vastly larger. She guessed her to be the Misses Horbury’s permanent guest, Lady Tamworth, but nobody introduced her. “Poor Fanny was a victim of the times,” she went on loudly. “Standards are falling everywhere, even here!”

“Do you not think it is up to the Church to speak to people’s consciences?” Miss Lucinda asked with a slight flaring of the nostrils, although it was not clear whether her distaste was for Charlotte’s political views or Lady Tamworth having brought up the subject of Fanny yet again.

Charlotte ignored the remark on Fanny, at least for the time being. Pitt had not said she must avoid political discussion, although of course Papa had outrightly forbidden it! But she was not Papa’s problem now.

“Perhaps it is the Church that has stirred his will to speak in the way he is best equipped?” she suggested innocently.

“Do you not feel he is then usurping the Church’s prerogative?” Miss Lucinda said with a sharp frown. “And that those called of God for the purpose would do it far better?”

“Possibly,” Charlotte was determined to be reasonable. “But that is not to say others should not do the best they can. Surely the more voices the better? There are many places where the Church is not heard. Perhaps he can reach some of those?”

“Then what is he doing here?” Miss Lucinda demanded. “Paragon Walk is hardly such a place! He would be better employed somewhere else, in a back street, or a workhouse.”

Afton Nash joined them, his eyebrows raised in slight surprize at Miss Lucinda’s rather heated comment.

“And who are you consigning to the workhouse, Miss Horbury?” he inquired, looking for a moment at Charlotte, then away again.

“I’m sure the back streets and the workhouses are already converted to the need for social reform,” Charlotte said with a slight downward curve of her mouth. “And indeed for the ease of the poor. It is the rich who need to give; the poor will receive readily enough. It is the powerful who can change laws.”

Lady Tamworth’s eyebrows went up in surprize and some scorn.

“Are you suggesting it is the aristocracy, the leaders and the backbone of the country, who are at fault?”

Charlotte did not even think of retreating for courtesy’s sake, or because it was unbecoming in a woman to be so contentious.

“I am saying there is no purpose in preaching to the poor that they should be helped,” she replied. “Or to the workless and illiterate that laws should be reformed. The only people who can change things are the people with power and money. If the Church had already reached all of them, we would have achieved our reform long since, and there would be labor for the poor to earn their own necessities.”

Lady Tamworth glared at her and turned away, affecting to find the conversation too unpleasant to continue, but Charlotte knew perfectly well it was because she could think of no answer. There was a delicate type of pleasure in Miss Laetitia’s face, and she caught Charlotte’s eye for a moment before also leaving.

“My dear Mrs. Pitt,” Afton said very carefully, as if speaking to someone unfamiliar with the language, or a little deaf. “You do not understand either politics or economics. One cannot change things overnight.”

Phoebe joined them, but he disregarded her entirely.

“The poor are poor,” he continued, “precisely because they do not have the means or the will to be otherwise. One cannot denude the rich to feed them. It would be insane and like pouring water into the desert sand. There are millions of them! What you suggest is totally impractical.” He managed a smile of condescension for her ignorance.

Charlotte seethed. It took all the self-will she possessed to master her face and affect an air of genuine inquiry.

“But if the rich and the powerful are unable to change things,” she asked, “then to whom does the Church preach, and to what purpose?”

“I beg your pardon?” He could not believe what he had heard.

Charlotte repeated herself, not daring to look at Phoebe or Miss Lucinda.

Before Afton could form a reply to such a preposterous question, another voice answered instead, a soft voice with a delicate intonation of accent.

“To the purpose that it is good for our souls to give away a little, so that we may enjoy what we have, and still sleep easily at night, because we can then tell ourselves we have tried, we have done our bit! Never, my dear, in the hope that anything will actually change!”

Charlotte felt the color sweep up her face. She had had no idea at all that Paul Alaric was so close and had heard her opinionated baiting of Afton and Miss Lucinda. She did not look at him.

“How very cynical, Monsieur Alaric.” She swallowed. “Do you believe we are all such hypocrites?”

“We?” his voice rose very slightly. “Do you go to Church and feel better for it, Mrs. Pitt?”

She was caught in complete indecision. Certainly, she did not. Sermons in church, on the rare occasions she went, made her squirm with anger and a desire to argue. But she could not say so to Afton Nash and hope to be even remotely understood. And it would only hurt Phoebe. Damn Alaric for making a hypocrite of her.

“Of course I do,” she lied, watching Phoebe’s face. The anxiety ironed out of it, and she was immediately rewarded. She had nothing in common with Phoebe, and yet she felt an ache of pity for her every time her plain, pale face came to mind. Perhaps it was only because she imagined all the hurt Afton could do with his hard, thrusting tongue.

She turned to face Alaric and was shaken all over again by the humor in his eyes and the precise understanding of what she had said and why. Did he know she was not one of the rich, that she was married to a policeman and had barely enough to make ends meet, that her beautiful dress was a gift from Emily? And that the whole argument about giving to the poor was academic for her?

There was nothing but a charming smile on his face.

“If you will excuse me,” Afton said stiffly. He almost pulled away Phoebe, who walked beside him as if her limbs were bruised and weak.

“A generous lie,” Alaric said gently.

Charlotte was not listening to him. Her mind was on Phoebe, and the painful, almost distant way in which she walked, holding herself in from Afton’s touch. Was it just years of hurt; the instinctive withdrawal, as the burnt hand moves away from fire? Or did she know something new, perhaps only by instinct as yet? Was some memory stirring within her of a change in Afton, a lie remembered now, maybe something between him and Fanny-no, that was too obscene to think of! And yet it was not impossible! Perhaps in the dark he had not even known who it was, simply a woman to hurt. And he loved inflicting pain, that she knew herself as surely as any animal knows its predator by sight and smell. Did Phoebe know it, too? Was that why she walked afraid on the landing of her own house and called for the footman in the night?

Alaric was still waiting, composed, but a pucker of question between his brows. She had forgotten what he had said and was obliged to ask.

“I beg your pardon?”

“A most generous lie,” he repeated.

“Lie?”

“To say that you feel better for going to church. I cannot believe it was the truth. You have not the enchantment of mystery, Mrs. Pitt. You are an open book. All your fascination lies in wondering what devastating truth you will deliver next. I doubt you could lie successfully, even to yourself!”

What did he mean by that? She preferred not to think. Honesty was her only skill, and her only safety against him.

“The success of the lie depends a great deal upon how much the hearer wishes to believe it,” she replied.

He smiled very slowly, very sweetly.

“And therein lies the entire foundation of Society,” he agreed. “How terrifyingly perceptive of you. You had better not tell anyone else. You will ruin the whole game, and then what will there be left for them to do?”

She swallowed hard and refused to meet his eyes. With great care, she took the conversation back to the previous point.

“I lie very well, sometimes!”

“Which returns me to the sermons in church, does it not? The comfortable lies we repeat over and over again because we wish them to be true. I wonder what Lady Ashworth’s poet will have to say? Whether we agree or not, I think the faces of the audience will be vastly entertaining, don’t you?”

“Probably,” she answered. “And I dare say his words will provide fuel for indignation for weeks to come.”

“Oh indeed. We shall have to make a great deal of noise to convince ourselves all over again that we are right and that nothing really can or should be changed.”

Charlotte stiffened. “You are trying to make me seem a cynic, Monsieur Alaric, and I find cynicism very unattractive. I think it is a rather facile excuse. One pretends nothing can be done; therefore, one can do nothing and feel perfectly justified. I think it is only another kind of dishonesty, and one I like even less.”

He suddenly surprised her by smiling broadly and quite without disguise.

“I didn’t think any woman could disconcert me, and you have just done it. You are quite appallingly honest; there is no way of entangling you in yourself.”

“Did you wish to?” Why on earth should she feel so pleased? It was quite ridiculous!

Before he could reply, they were joined by Jessamyn Nash, her face as blemishless as a camellia and her cool eyes sweeping over Alaric before settling on Charlotte. They were wide, blazing blue, and intelligent.

“How charming to see you again, Mrs. Pitt. I had no idea you were going to visit us so often! Is not your own circle of society missing you dreadfully?”

Charlotte stared back at her without a flicker, smiling into the marvelous eyes.

“I hope so,” she said lightly. “But I shall support Emily whenever I can, until this tragic business is resolved.”

Jessamyn had more composure than Selena. Her face softened, the full mouth easing into a warm smile.

“How generous of you. Still, I dare say you may enjoy the change?”

Charlotte took her point perfectly, but kept up her innocence. She would match smile for smile if it choked her. She had no gift for guile, but she had always known that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

“Oh quite,” she agreed. “We have nothing so dramatic where I live. I don’t think there has been a rape or a murder for years! In fact, maybe never!”

Paul Alaric tore out his handkerchief and sneezed into it. Charlotte could see his shoulders shaking with laughter, and the color burned up her face in exhilaration.

Jessamyn was white. Her voice, when it came, was as brittle as glass splinters.

“And perhaps not soirees like this, either? You must permit me to advise you, as a friend! One should circulate, speak to everyone. It is considered good manners, especially if one is in some degree or other a hostess, or connected with the hostess. You should not allow it to become obvious that you prefer one guest to another- however much you may do so!”

The shot was perfect. Charlotte had no choice but to leave, the heat flaming in her neck and bosom that Alaric might already imagine she had sought his company. And what was worse, her embarrassment now could only confirm it. She was furious and swore she would disabuse him of the idea that she was one of those stupid women who spent their time pursuing him! With a stiff smile she excused herself and sailed away, head so high she nearly fell over the step between the two reception rooms, and was still regaining her balance when she collided with Lady Tam-worth and Miss Lucinda.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered in apology. “I do beg your pardon.”

Lady Tamworth stared at her, obviously noting her high color and the clumsiness of her deportment. Her thoughts regarding young women who drink too much in the afternoon were apparent in her face.

Miss Lucinda was on quite another tack. She grasped Charlotte fiercely with her plump little hand.

“May I ask you, quite confidentially, my dear, how well does Lady Ashworth know the Jew?”

Charlotte’s eyes followed Miss Lucinda’s to a slender young man with olive complexion and dark features.

“I don’t know,” she said immediately, glancing at Lady Tamworth. “If you like, I shall ask her?”

But they were not abashed.

“I should, my dear. After all, she may not be aware who he is!”

“No, she may not,” Charlotte agreed. “Who is he?”

Lady Tamworth looked nonplussed for a moment.

“Why-he’s a Jew!” she said.

“Yes, so you said.”

Lady Tamworth snorted. Miss Lucinda’s face dropped, her eyebrows puckered.

“Do you approve of Jews, Mrs. Pitt?”

“Wasn’t Christ one?”

“Really, Mrs. Pitt!” Lady Tamworth shook with outrage. “I accept that the younger generation has different standards from our own.” She stared once more at Charlotte’s still glowing neck. “But I cannot tolerate blasphemy. Really, I can’t!”

“That is not blasphemy, Lady Tamworth,” Charlotte said clearly. “Christ was a Jew.”

“Christ was God, Mrs. Pitt,” Lady Tamworth said icily. “And God is most certainly not a Jew!”

Charlotte did not know whether to lose her temper completely or laugh. She was glad Paul Alaric was out of earshot.

“Isn’t He?” she said with a slight smile. “I never really thought about it. What is He then?”

“A mad scientist,” Hallam Cayley said from over her shoulder, a glass in his hand. “A Frankenstein who didn’t know when to stop! His experiment has got a little out of hand, don’t you think?” he stared around the room, his face mirroring a disgust so deep it hurt him.

Lady Tamworth chewed her teeth in impotence, her rage too great for words.

Hallam regarded her with contempt.

“Do you really imagine this was what He intended?” he finished his glass and waved it round the room. “Is this bloody lot in the image of any God you want to worship? If we’ve descended from God, then we’ve descended a hell of a long way. I think I’d rather join Mr. Darwin. According to him, at least we’re improving. In another million years we might be fit for something.”

At last Miss Lucinda found speech.

“You must speak for yourself, Mr. Cayley,” she said with difficulty, as if she, too, were a little drunk. “For myself, I am a Christian, and I have no doubts whatever!”

“Doubts?” Hallam stared into the bottom of his empty glass and turned it upside down. A single drop fell out onto the floor. “I wish I had doubts. A doubt would at least include room for a hope, wouldn’t it?”