Paragon Walk

Nine

Pitt found no pleasure at all in the discovery of Fulbert’s body, not even the satisfaction of solving a mystery. He had expected Fulbert to be dead, but the deep stab wound in his back made suicide impossible, even if someone else had disposed of the body by stuffing it up the chimney. Although he could think of no reason why any innocent person should do so, except perhaps Afton Nash, to hide his brother’s guilt. To everyone else, a suicide was the perfect answer to the rape and murder of Fanny.

And Fulbert had been dead a long time, probably since the night he disappeared. The body was decomposed in the heat of summer and riddled with maggots. It was not possible he could have been alive to attack Selena.

It was another murder.

They brought a closed coffin and took him away. Then Pitt turned to the inevitable. Hallam Cayley was waiting. He looked appalling; his face was gray and running with sweat, and his hands shook so badly the glass rattled against his teeth.

Pitt had seen shock before; he was used to watching while people came face to face with horror or guilt or overwhelming grief. He had never learned to tell one kind of shock from another. Looking at Cayley now, he did not know what the man felt, except that it was total and appalling. Pitt’s mind observed and thought of questions to ask, but a feeling of pity drenched him and put reason into a silent background.

Hallam set the glass down.

“I don’t know,” he said hopelessly. “So help me God, I did not kill him.”

“Why did he come here?” Pitt asked.

“He didn’t!” Hallam’s voice was rising; his control was thin, slipping away. “I never saw him! I don’t know what the hell happened!”

Pitt had not expected admission, at least not yet. Perhaps he was one of those who would deny everything, even when there was proof. Or it was conceivable he really did know nothing. Pitt would have to speak to all the servants as well. It would be long and wretched. Finding guilt was always finding tragedy. When he had first joined the police, he had thought it would be dispassionate, the solution of mysteries. Now he knew otherwise.

“When did you last see Mr. Nash?” he asked.

Hallam looked up, surprised, his eyes bloodshot.

“Good God, I don’t know! It was weeks ago! I don’t remember when I saw him, but not the day he was killed. I do know that.”

Pitt raised his eyebrows slightly.

“You believe he was killed when he disappeared?” he asked.

Hallam stared at him. The color rushed up his face, then ebbed away again. The sweat stood out on his lip.

“Wasn’t he?”

“I should imagine so,” Pitt said wearily. “It’s not possible to tell now. I suppose he could have stayed up there indefinitely, as long as that room wasn’t used. The smell would have got worse, of course. Did you give the maids orders to clean in there?”

“For heaven’s sake, man, I don’t care about housekeeping! They clean when they want to. That’s what I have servants for-not to have to think about things like that.”

There was no point in asking him if his servants were acquainted with Fulbert in any personal way. That had all been gone into already, and everyone had denied it, which was to be expected.

It was Forbes who elicited a surprising new fact or at least a statement. The footman admitted now that he had opened the door to Fulbert on the afternoon of his disappearance, while Hallam was out, and Fulbert had gone upstairs, saying he wished to speak to the valet. The footman had assumed that he had let himself out afterward, but now it was obvious that he had not. He excused himself for the lie in his first account, by saying he did not believe it important and had not wished to implicate his master on so flimsy a coincidence, being naturally afraid for his employment.

It ended in an unsatisfactory impasse. The valet denied having seen Fulbert, and nothing could be proven. Forbes said there had long been all manner of rivalries and old feuds among the household staff, and he had no idea whom to believe. According to previous testimony, either of the manservants could conceivably have killed Fanny, if one or more were lying, and neither of them could have attacked Selena.

Finally Pitt went back to the station, posting a constable to see that none of the Cayley servants moved from the Walk. The whole thing left a sour and unfinished taste in his mouth, but he could accomplish no more with questions now.

Fulbert was buried immediately, and the funeral was a small and somber affair, almost as if the dreadful corpse were in full view, instead of discreetly nailed into a polished dark, wood box.

Pitt attended, this time not out of pity for the dead, but because he needed to observe the mourners. Charlotte had not come, and neither had Emily. They were both still suffering from the horror of discovering the body, and in truth Charlotte had known him so little, her presence might be interpreted not so much as respect but rather as mere curiosity. Emily’s condition gave her ample excuse to remain at home. George, grim and white-faced, body stiff against the wind, was the only representative of the family.

Pitt borrowed a black coat to cover his own rather multicolored clothes and stood discreetly at the back, half under the yew trees, hoping no one would do more than glance at him, possibly even assume him to be part of the undertaking party.

He waited as the cortege arrived, black crepe fluttering in the wind. No one spoke except the minister, and his sing-song voice floated over the hard clay and the withered grass between the gravestones.

There were no women except the immediate family, Phoebe and Jessamyn Nash. Phoebe looked appalling; her skin was ashen, and there were dark blotches under her eyes. She stood with shoulders hunched; from the back she might have been an old woman. He had seen abused children with that same resigned look, terrified, and yet too sure of the blow to bother to run.

Jessamyn was totally different. Her back was as straight as a soldier’s, her chin high, and even the drifting black veil over her face could not hide the luminosity of her skin and the glittering eyes, fixed on the yew branches shifting in the wind at the far side, where the walk went down to the lych-gate. The only betrayal of emotion was the hard-clenched hands, so hard that, but for the gloves, surely the nails would have bitten into the skin.

All the men were there. Pitt studied them one by one, his memory turning over everything he knew about them, searching for reasons, inconsistencies, anything from which to distill an answer.

Fulbert had been murdered because he knew who had raped Fanny, and then Selena. Surely there could be no other cause, no other secret in the Walk worth killing for?

Could it have been Algernon Burnon? It would have needed no great strength to strike the blow, a single plunge with a knife. He was close to the open grave, his face sober, no passion in it. It was unlikely he had cared much for Fulbert. Probably, he was thinking of Fanny. Had he loved her? Whatever grief he had felt had been masked behind generations of careful composure. Gentlemen did not make exhibitions of their feelings. It was unbecoming, effeminate to show obvious distress. A gentleman managed even to die with dignity.

Who had decided on the long engagement? Surely, if he had felt such violent hunger for her, he could have insisted the marriage take place sooner? Many women married at Fanny’s age, or younger; there was nothing hasty or improper about it. Looking at Algernon’s calm face now, Pitt found it too difficult to believe there lay behind it ungovernable passion of any sort.

Diggory Nash was next to him, close to Jessamyn but not touching her. Indeed she looked so unlike a woman who needed any supporting arm, it would almost have been an impertinence, an intrusion to have offered her one. She was isolated in whatever feeling gripped her, unaware of the rest of them, even of her husband.

Did she know something about Diggory that they did not? Pitt stared at him from the discreet shelter of the yews. It was a less proportionate face than Afton’s and yet so much warmer. There was no laughter in it now, but the lines were there, and a gentleness in the mouth-perhaps not the power of Afton? Had some weakness of appetite, years of easy gratification, led him to a mistaken identity in the dark, rape of his own sister, and murder to hide it?

Surely such a character would have betrayed itself before now? Guilt and terror would have wracked him, haunted his solitude, kept him awake, ended in some desperate folly and downfall? All Forbes’s questions had elicited no complaint from any maid as to Diggory’s behavior. Admittedly, there had been advances, but no unwelcome ones had been pressed. Refusal had been accepted, on the rare occasions it was offered, with humor and resignation.

No, Pitt could not believe Diggory was more than exactly what he seemed.

And George? He knew now why George had been so evasive in the beginning. He had simply been too drunk to remember where he had been-and too embarrassed to say so, Perhaps the fright would have done him good, at least for Emily’s sake?

Freddie Dilbridge. He had his back to Pitt now, but Pitt had watched him as he walked down the path behind the coffin. His face had been anxious, confused rather than grieved. If there was fear, it was of the unknown, the inexplicable, not the all-too-plain fear of one who knows precisely what is wrong, and what the vengeance for it will be.

And yet there was something about Freddie that troubled Pitt. He had not yet discovered what it was. Dissolute parties were not exceptional. There were always those who were bored, occupied by no necessity to earn their bread or even to administer their property, driven by no ambition, who found entertainment in satisfying their own appetites, or the more bizarre appetites of others. Voyeurism was not novel, even a little moral blackmail afterward, a feeling of superiority.

Although that picture fitted his mind’s perception of Afton Nash better. There was cruelty in him, a delight in the frailty of others, especially the sexual frailty. He was a man who might well pander to tastes he despised, for the pleasure of reveling in his own superiority at the same time. Pitt could not think of anyone he had disliked as much. To be the victim of one’s own faults, however grotesque, he could find a pity for. But to delight in and prey upon the weakness of others was beyond the realm of any compassion he could muster.

Afton was standing at the head of the grave, his eyes on the minister, grim and hard. But then he had buried a brother and had a sister murdered in one short summer. Was it conceivable he was the arch-hypocrite and had violated and killed his own sister, then stabbed to death his brother to keep his secret? Was that why Phoebe was disintegrating in terror before their eyes, descending from eccentricity into madness? Dear God, if it were, Pitt must catch him, prove it, and have him taken away. Pitt had never enjoyed hanging. It was commonplace, a part of society’s mechanics to purge itself of a disease, but still he found it repellent. He knew too much about murder, about the fear or the madness that impelled it. He had seen and smelled the grinding poverty, the unnumbered deaths from and diseases of starvation in the rookeries, and he knew there were forms of murder that never soiled the hands, long-distance extermination that blind society and profit never looked at. Death from hunger happened a hundred yards from death from obesity.

And yet he felt, if Afton were guilty, he could have sent him to the gallows without any personal pity.

The Frenchman, Paul Alaric, was there, if indeed he were French? Perhaps he came from one of the African colonies? He was far too smooth, too wry and subtle to be from the great wind-and-snow-driven plains of Canada. There was something incredibly old in him; Pitt could not conceive of him belonging to the New World. Everything about him spoke of centuries of civilization, roots deep enough to cling to the very core and heart of old cultures and rich, dark history.

He stood now with black head bent and the rising wind, sleek and beautiful even in this graveyard. He mirrored respect for the dead, courteous observance of custom. Was that all he was here for? Pitt had discovered no relationship between him and Fulbert except that of neighbors.

Could Alaric be the supreme actor? Was there unfulfilled hunger under that intelligent face, hunger so violent it had driven him to attack first Fanny and then the all-too-willing Selena? Or was Selena not really willing, when it came to the point?

He dared not dismiss it, it was his duty to consider everything possible, however unlikely. And yet he could not force himself to believe that Alaric was so different from every appearance. Over years of studying people, Pitt had become a skilled judge, and he had found most people do not hide much of themselves from a careful watcher, one who listens to every phrase, watches the eyes, the hands, the small deceptions to build the vanity, the tiny exhibitions of greed or ambition, the betrayals of essential selfishness, the straying eyes, the grubby innuendos.

Alaric might be a seducer, but a rapist Pitt could not believe.

That left Hallam Cayley. He was standing over the grave from Jessamyn, staring at her, as they at last began to shovel in the earth. The hard clay rubble clattered on the lid, sounding hollowly, almost as if there were no body inside. One by one they turned and walked away-the observances were over. Now it was the gravediggers’ duty to finish, fill in the earth and stamp it down. A fine misty rain hung on the wind, slicking the paths and making them dangerous.

Hallam walked behind Freddie Dilbridge. As Pitt moved from the yews, hurrying to keep pace with them, he saw Hallam’s face. He looked like a man in a nightmare; the pock marks in his skin seemed to have become deeper, and he was pallid and sweating. His eyes were puffed, and even at that distance Pitt could see the nervous twitch in one lid. Was it excess of drink that racked him, and if so what torture had driven him to it? Surely loss of a dead wife would not have ravaged him so? From all that he and Forbes had learned through questioning neighbors and servants, the marriage had been no more than ordinary, a fondness for each other, but not a passion so consuming as to leave this devastation in its wake.

In fact the more Pitt thought about it, the less likely did it seem. Hallam had only been seen to drink more than most men in the last year, certainly not since the time of his wife’s death. What had happened a year ago? He had so far discovered nothing.

He was level with them now, and Hallam turned for a moment and saw him. His face twisted with fear and recognition, as if the gravestone he was passing were his own, and he had read his name on it. He hesitated, staring at Pitt, then Jessamyn caught up with him. Her face was tight, all expression ironed out of it.

“Come, Hallam,” she said quietly. “Take no notice of him. He is here because it is his duty. It means nothing.” Her voice was quite flat. She had composed herself till every vestige of feeling was suppressed, controlled into what she wished it to be. She did not touch him, keeping herself apart, at least a yard from him. “Come,” she said again. “Don’t stand here. You’re holding everyone up.”

Reluctantly Hallam moved, not that he wished to obey or to leave so much as that there was no purpose in remaining.

Pitt stood still, watching their black-creped backs, as they wound up the damp path toward the lych-gate and out onto the street.

Could Hallam Cayley have raped Fanny? It was possible. Emily had said Fanny was boring, nondescript, not the sort of girl to excite anyone. But Pitt remembered the small white body lying on the morgue table. It had been very delicate, virginal, almost childlike, the bones small, the skin clear. Perhaps that very innocence had attracted. She would demand nothing; her own hungers would not have awoken yet; there would be no expectations to satisfy, no comparisons to be made with other lovers, not even with dreams, except the most limpid and unformed.

Jessamyn had said she was too guileless to interest, too young to be a woman. But perhaps Fanny had grown tired of being viewed as a child and had secretly started to think as a woman inside, while preserving outside the image everyone expected of her? Perhaps she had seen Jessamyn’s glamour and decided to grasp for a little of it herself. Had she practiced her budding arts on Hallam Cayley, imagining him safe, and found one dark evening that he was not, that she had gone too far, succeeded in her temptation?

It was believable. More believable than that she had tempted some servant.

The other possibility, of course, was that she had been mistaken for someone else, a maid. There were several kitchen girls and between maids who were not unlike her in build, even in face. Only the clothes were radically different. Would the fingers of an obsessed man in the dark feel the difference between Fanny’s silk and a servant girl’s wash-cotton?

He had no idea.

But Fulbert’s body had been found in Hallam’s house. The servants had let him in; no one denied that-but why had he gone there, if not to see Hallam? Had he waited till Hallam came home, as he had said he would do, and then been killed for his knowledge? Or could it have been a manservant, the footman or the valet, again because of what he knew. They could have killed Fanny; it was not impossible.

He had not forgotten that someone else could have come in. It was not likely they had been let in by a servant. Any servant would tell of it, only too glad to widen the circle of suspicion, away from themselves. But the garden walls were not high. A man of average agility could climb over without difficulty. His clothes would be marked, brick dust, moss stains. They would be got rid of, but Pitt should ask valets. He must get Forbes to check again.

There were gates, of course, but he had already ascertained that Hallam’s was kept locked.

He followed the last of the funeral out of the gate and turned up the street, away from the graveyard and back toward the police station. He believed it was Hallam. It was possible, and the horror of it was in his face. But he had not enough to prove it. If Hallam were simply to deny it, to say someone had followed Fulbert and seized the chance to murder him and leave the body in Hallam’s house, there was nothing to prove him a liar. He could not arrest a man of Hallam Cayley’s social position without a better case than that.

If he could not prove Hallam guilty, the next best thing he could do was to disprove any other possibility. It was a thin case-and unsatisfactory.

At the police station one small question was answered- why Algernon Burnon had been so reluctant to name the person in whose company he claimed to have been on the evening Fanny was killed. Forbes had at last run her down, a handsome and cheerful girl who in a higher class of society might have called herself a courtesan, but from her usual clientele was no more than a tart. No wonder Algernon had preferred the odd glance of halfhearted suspicion to the surety that he had been paying for such indulgence while his fiancee was struggling for her life.

The day after, Pitt and Forbes went back to the Walk, quietly, going in by back doors and asking to see valets. No one’s clothes showed stains of damp or moss, and there was no discernible brick dust, just the general dust of a dry summer. There had been one or two small tears, but nothing unaccountable. But then one could so easily say one had caught it getting in or out of a carriage, or in one’s own garden. Rose thorns tore; one knelt on the grass to pick up a fallen coin or handkerchief.

He even went to Hallam Cayley’s garden and asked permission to look at the walls on both sides, and a highly nervous footman escorted him around step by step, watching him with increasing tension and unhappiness, as no mark or disturbance was found. If anyone had climbed over these walls lately, they had done it with a padded ladder placed so carefully it had not crushed the moss nor scratched a brick, and they had smoothed out the holes left by the feet of the ladder in the ground. Such care seemed impossible. How could he have hauled the ladder after him back to his own side without leaving great runnels in the moss on top of the wall? And once back, what then of the ladder marks in the ground? The summer had been dry, but the garden earth was still deep and friable enough to mark easily. He tried it with the weight of his own foot and left an unmistakable print.

There was a door in the farthest wall onto the path beyond the aspen trees at the end, but it was locked, and the gardener’s boy had the key and said it had never left him.

Hallam was out. Tomorrow Pitt would call and ask him about keys, if he had ever had another and given or lent it, but it was only a formality. He did not believe for a moment that anyone else had come along the pathway at the end and let themselves in to keep an appointment with Fulbert in Hallam’s house-and still less that it could have been a chance meeting.

He went home and told Charlotte nothing about it. He wanted to forget the whole affair and enjoy his own family, the peace and sureness of it. Even though Jemima was asleep, he demanded that Charlotte get her up, and then he sat in the parlor with her in his arms, while she blinked at him sleepily, unsure why she had been roused. He talked to her, telling her about his own childhood on the big estate in the country, exactly as if she understood him, and Charlotte sat opposite, smiling. She had some white sewing in her hands; he thought it looked like one of his shirts. He had no idea if she knew why he was talking like this-that it was to blot out Paragon Walk and what must be faced tomorrow. If she had, she was wise enough not to let him know.

There was nothing new at the police station. He asked to see his superior officers and told them what he intended to do. If there were no other explanation, no other key to the garden door, and no one had seen any other person, he would have to assume it was someone in Cayley’s household and interrogate them in that light, not only the footman and the valet, but Hallam Cayley himself.

They were unhappy with the idea, especially of accusing Hallam, but they conceded that it seemed unavoidable that it was someone in the house-most likely the valet or the footman.

Pitt did not argue with them or give them all the reasons why he thought it was Hallam. After all, most of it was deduction and the misery in the man’s face, the horror within him that was greater than anything outside. They could so easily have said it was simply the terrors of a man who drinks too much and cannot stop himself. And he could not have reasoned otherwise.

He arrived at the Walk in the late morning and went straight to the house. He rang at the front door and waited. Incredibly, there was no answer. He tried again, and again there was nothing. Had some domestic crisis occupied the footman to the neglect of his usual duties?

He decided to go around to the kitchen door. There surely would be servants there; there were always maids in a kitchen, at any time of the day.

He was still yards short of the door when he saw the scullery maid. She looked up and gave a yelp, grabbing at her apron front and staring at him.

“Good morning,” he said, trying to force a smile.

She stood frozen to the spot, speechless.

“Good morning,” he repeated. “I can’t make anyone hear at the front. May I come in through the kitchen?”

“The servants has got the day off,” she said breathlessly. “There’s just me and cook, and Polly. And Mr. Cayley in’t up yet!”

Pitt swore under his breath. Had that fool of a constable allowed them all to leave the Walk-including the murderer?

“Where have they gone?” he demanded.

“Well, ’oskins, that’s the valet, ’e’s in ’is own room, I reckon. I ain’t seen ’im today, but Polly took ’im a tray o’ toast and a pot o’ tea. And Albert, that’s the footman, I reckon as ’e’s probably gorn round to Lord Dilbridge’s, ’cos ’e’s got a fancy for their upstairs maid. Is anything wrong, sir?”

Pitt felt a wave of relief. This time the smile was real.

“No, I shouldn’t think so. But I’d like to come in all the same. I dare say someone could wake Mr. Cayley for me. I need to see him to ask him about one or two things.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t, sir. Mr. Cayley, well, ’e’s-’e won’t like it. ’E in’t very well in the mornings!” She looked anxious, as if she feared she would be blamed for Pitt’s arrival.

“I dare say not,” he agreed. “But this is police business, and it can’t wait. Just let me in, and I’ll wake him myself, if you prefer?”

She looked very dubious, but she knew authority when she heard it and led him obediently through the kitchens and stopped at the baize door to the rest of the house. Pitt understood.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “I’ll tell him you had no choice.” He pushed the door open and went into the hall. He had only got as far as the bottom stair when the barest movement caught his eye, just an inch or two, as of something unfixed among the straight wooden pillars of the stairway.

He looked up.

It was Hallam Cayley, swinging by his neck very, very slightly from his dressing gown cord, attached to the bannister where it ran along the landing.

Only for the first second was Pitt surprised. Then it all seemed dreadfully, tragically inevitable.

He started to climb up slowly until he reached the landing. Closer to, it was obvious Hallam was dead. His face was mottled but had not the purplish look of suffocation. He must have broken his neck as soon as he jumped. He was lucky. A man of his weight might easily have snapped the cord and ended up two stories below, broken-backed but still alive.

Pitt could not haul him up alone. He would have to send one of the servants for Forbes, and a police surgeon, the whole team. He turned around and went down slowly. What a sad, predictable end to a wretched story. There was no satisfaction in it, no sense of solution. He went through the baize door and told the cook and the girl simply that Mr. Cayley was dead and they were to go next door and ask one of the manservants to send for the police, a surgeon, and a mortuary coach.

There were fewer hysterics than he had expected. Perhaps, after the discovery of Fulbert’s body, they were not entirely surprised. Perhaps they had no more emotion left. Then he went back upstairs to look at Hallam again and see if there were any letter, any explanation or confession. It did not take him long; it was in the bedroom on a small writing table. The pen and ink were still beside it. It was open and not addressed to anyone.

I did assault Fanny. I left Freddie’s party and went out into the garden, then into the street. I found Fanny there quite by chance.

It all began as a flirtation, weeks before that. She pursued it. I realize now she did not understand what she was doing, but at the time I was beyond thinking.

But I swear I did not kill her.

At least the day afterward I would have sworn it. The day after I was stunned as anyone.

Nor did I touch Selena Montague. I would have sworn that. I don’t even remember what I was doing that night. I was drinking. But I never cared for Selena; even drunk I would not have forced myself on her.

I’ve thought about it till my mind reeled. I’ve woken in the night cold with terror. Am I losing my mind? Did I stab Fanny without even knowing what I was doing?

I didn’t see Fulbert alive the day he was killed. I was out when he called, and when I came back my footman told me he had shown him upstairs. I found him in the green bedroom, but he was already dead, lying on his face with the wound in his back. But, so help me God, I don’t remember doing it.

I did hide him. I was terrified. I did not kill him, but I knew they would accuse me. I put him up the chimney. It was large, and I am a great deal bigger than Fulbert. He was surprisingly light when I picked him up, even though he was dead weight. It was awkward getting him into the cavern of it, but there are niches up there for the sweeps’ boys, and I managed it at last. I wedged him in. I thought he might stay there forever, if I locked the room off. I never thought of spring cleaning, and of Mrs. Heath having a master key.

Perhaps, I am mad. Maybe I killed both of them, and my brain is so clouded with darkness or disease I don’t know it. I am two people, one tormented, lonely, full of regrets, not knowing the other half, and haunted by terrors of it-the other God, or the devil knows what? A savage, a madman, killing again and again.

Death is the best thing for me. Life has nothing but forgetfulness in drink between terrors of my other self.

I am sorry about Fanny, truly sorry. That I know I did.

But, if I killed her, or Fulbert, it was my other self, a creature I don’t know, but he will at least die with me.

Pitt put it down. He was used to feeling pity, the wrench inside of a pain one could not reach, for which there was no balm.

He walked back onto the landing. There were police coming in at the front door. Now there would be the long ritual of surgeon’s examination, search of his belongings, recording of the confession, such as it was. It gave him no sense of accomplishment.

He told Charlotte about it in the evening when he got home, not because he felt any ease over it, but because it concerned Emily.

For several moments she said nothing, then she sat down very slowly.

“Poor creature.” She let out her breath quietly. “Poor haunted creature.”

He sat down opposite her, looking at her face, trying to close Hallam and everything else to do with Paragon Walk out of his mind. For a long time there was silence, and it became easier. He began to think of things they might do, now that the case was over and he would have some time off. Jemima was big enough not to take cold; they might go for a trip up the river on one of the excursion boats, even pack a picnic and sit on the back and eat, if the weather stayed so fine. Charlotte would enjoy that. He could picture her now, her skirts spread around her on the grass, her hair bright as polished chestnuts in the sun.

Perhaps next year, if they were careful of every penny, they might even go to the country for a few days. Jemima would be old enough then to walk. She could discover all the beautiful things, pools of water in the stones, flowers under the hedges, perhaps a bird’s nest, all the things he had known as a child.

“Do you think it was the loss of his wife that started his madness?” Charlotte’s voice scattered his dream and brought him back rudely to the present.

“What?”

“The death of his wife,” she repeated. “Do you think grief and loneliness preyed on his mind till he drank too much and became mad?”

“I don’t know.” He did not want to think about it. “Maybe. There were some old love letters among his things. They looked as if they had been read several times, edges a bit bent, one or two tears. They were very intimate, very possessive.”

“I wonder what she was like. She died before Emily went there, so she never knew her. What was her name?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t bother to sign the letters. I suppose she just left them around the house for him.”

Charlotte smiled, a tight, sad little gesture.

“How dreadful, to love someone so intensely, and then for them to die. His whole life seems to have disintegrated since then. I hope, if I died, you would always remember me, but not like that-”

The thought was horrible, bringing the darkness of the night inside the room, void and immense, never ending, cold as the distance to the stars. Pity for Hallam overwhelmed him. There were no words for it, just the pain.

She moved to kneel on the floor in front of him, taking his hands gently. Her face was smooth, and he could feel the warmth of her body. She did not try to say anything, find words to comfort, but there was a sureness in her quiet beyond his understanding.

It was several days before Emily called, and when she came in with a swirl of dotted muslin she was glowing as Charlotte had never seen her before. She was quite noticeably heavier now, but her skin was flawless, and there was a new shine in her eyes.

“You look wonderful!” Charlotte said spontaneously. “You should have children all the time!”

Emily pulled a dreadful face, but it was in mock, and they both knew it. Emily sat down on the kitchen chair and demanded a cup of tea.

“It’s all over,” she said determinedly. “At least that part of it is!”

Charlotte turned slowly, her own thoughts hardening and finding shape even as she swung from the sink to the table.

“You mean you’re not happy about it either?” she asked carefully.

“Happy?” Emily’s face fell. “How could I be-Charlotte! Don’t you believe it was Hallam?” her voice was incredulous, her eyes wide.

“I suppose it must have been,” Charlotte said slowly, pouring water into the kettle and over the top, spilling into the sink without noticing. “He admitted assaulting Fanny, and there was no other reason for killing Fulbert-”

“But?” Emily challenged.

“I don’t know,” Charlotte turned off the tap and emptied the excess out of the kettle. “I don’t know what else.”

Emily leaned forward.

“I’ll tell you! We never discovered what it was that Miss Lucinda saw, and what it is that is going on in the Walk- and there is something! Don’t try to tell me it was all something to do with Hallam, because it wasn’t. Phoebe is still terrified. If anything, she is even worse, as if Hallam’s death were just one more thread in the ghastly picture she can see. She said the oddest thing to me yesterday, which is partly why I came today, to tell you.”

“What?” Charlotte blinked. Somehow all this seemed at once unreal, and yet as if it had been inevitable. All her vague unease was focused now. “What did she say?”

“That all the things that had happened had concentrated the evil in the Walk, and there was no way we could exorcise it now. She hardly dared to imagine what abominable thing would happen next.”

“Do you think perhaps she is mad, too?”

“No, I don’t!” Emily said firmly. “At least not mad the way you mean. She is silly, of course, but she knows what she’s talking about, even if she won’t tell anyone.”

“Well, how are we going to find out?” Charlotte said immediately. The thought of not trying to discover never occurred to her.

Emily had also taken it for granted.

“I’ve worked it out, from all the things everyone has said.” She got down to business now, decisions made in her mind. “And I’m almost certain it is something to do with the Dilbridges, at least, with Freddie Dilbridge. I don’t know who is involved and who isn’t, except that Phoebe knows, and it terrifies her. But the Dilbridges are having a garden party in ten-days’ time. George doesn’t approve, but I mean to go, and you are coming, too. We shall break away from the party without being noticed and explore the house. If we are clever enough, we shall find something. If there is real wickedness in that place, it will have left something behind. Maybe we’ll discover whatever it was that Miss Lucinda saw? It has to be there.”

Memories of Fulbert’s charred body slithering down the chimney flashed into Charlotte’s mind. It would be a long time before she wished to poke into other people’s rooms in search of answers, but then, on the other hand, neither could she possibly leave the question unanswered.

“Good,” she said firmly. “What shall I wear?”