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
