When she came in, he was amazed again at the emotional impact of her beauty. It was far more than a mere matter of color or the symmetry of brow and cheek. It was something in the curve of the mouth, the challenging blue blaze of her eyes, the fragile throat. No wonder she grasped for what she wanted, knowing it would be given her. And no wonder Selena could not come to terms with subordinacy to this supreme woman. It flickered through his mind, the moment before she spoke to him, to wonder what Charlotte would have made of her if there had ever been a true rivalry between them, if perhaps Charlotte had also wanted the Frenchman? Did any of them love the Frenchman, or was he merely the prize, the chosen symbol of victory?
“Good morning, Inspector,” Jessamyn said coolly. She was dressed in pale summer green and looked as fresh and strong as a daffodil. “I cannot imagine what more I can do for you, but, if there is still something left to ask, of course I shall try to answer.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He waited until she sat down, then he sat also, as usual, allowing his coattails to fall where they may. “I’m afraid we have still found no trace of Mr. Fulbert.”
Her face tightened a little, a very little, and she looked down at her hands.
“I assumed you had not, or surely you would have told us. You cannot have come only to say that?”
“No.” He did not wish to be caught staring, yet both duty and a natural fascination kept his eyes on her face. He was drawn to her as one is to a solitary light in a room. Whether one wills it or not, it becomes the focus.
She looked up, her face smooth, eyes clear and brilliantly frank.
“What else can I tell you? You have spoken to all of us. You must know everything we know about his last days here. If you have found no trace of him anywhere in the city, either he has eluded you and gone to the Continent, or he is dead. It is a painful thought, but I cannot escape it.”
Before he set out, he had ordered in his mind the questions he meant to ask. Now they seem less ordered, even less useful. And he must not appear impertinent. She could so easily be offended and refuse all answers, and from silence he could learn nothing at all. Neither must he over-flatter; she was used to compliments, and he judged her far too intelligent, even too cynical, to be gulled by them. He began very carefully.
“If he is dead, ma’am, it is most probable he was killed because he knew something which his killer could not afford to have him tell.”
“That is the obvious conclusion,” she agreed.
“The only thing we know that is so monstrous as that is the identity of the rapist and murderer of Fanny.” He must still not patronize her or let her once suspect he was leading her.
Her mouth twitched in bitter amusement.
“Everyone desires their privacy, Mr. Pitt, but few of us need it to the point where we will kill our neighbors to preserve it. I think it would be ridiculous, without evidence, to suppose there are two such appalling secrets in the Walk.”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
She gave a very small sigh.
“So that brings us back to who raped poor Fanny,” she said slowly. “Naturally, we have all been thinking about it. We can hardly avoid it.”
“Of course not, especially someone as close to her as you were.”
Her eyes widened.
“Naturally, if you knew anything,” he went on, perhaps a bit hastily, “you would have told us. But maybe you have had thoughts, nothing so substantial as a suspicion, but, as you say-” He was watching her closely, trying to judge exactly how much he could press, what could be put into words, what must remain suggestion. “-as you say, you cannot dismiss the matter from your mind.”
“You think I may suspect one of my neighbors?” Her blue eyes were almost hypnotic. He found himself unable to look away.
“Do you?”
For a long time she said nothing. Her hands moved slowly in her lap, unwinding some invisible knot.
He waited.
At last she looked up.
“Yes. But you must understand it is only a feeling, a collection of impressions.”
“Naturally.” He did not want to interrupt. If it told him nothing of anyone else, at worst it would tell him something of her.
“I cannot believe anyone in their right mind, in their true senses, would do such a thing.” She spoke as if weighing each word, reluctant to speak at all, and yet pressed by obligation. “I have known everyone here for a long time. I have gone over and over in my memory all that I know, and I cannot believe such a nature could have been hidden from all of us.”
He was suddenly disappointed. She was going to come up with some impossible suggestion about strangers.
Her fingers were stiff in her lap, white against the green of her dress.
“Indeed,” he said flatly.
Her head came up, and there was a flame of color in her cheeks. She took in a deep breath and let it out, collecting herself.
“I mean, Mr. Pitt, that it can only have been someone laboring under the influence of a quite abnormal emotion, or perhaps intoxicated. When they have had too much to drink, people sometimes do things that in sobriety they would never dream of. And I’m told that even afterward they do not always recollect what has happened. Surely that would also account for an apparent innocence now? If whoever killed Fanny cannot clearly remember it-?”
He recalled George’s blank about the night, Algernon Burnon’s reluctance to name his companion, Diggory’s anonymous gambling. But it was Hallam Cayley who had repeatedly been drunk so often lately that he overslept. In fact, Afton had said he had been in an alcoholic sleep at ten o’clock on the very morning Fulbert’s disappearance had been discovered. It was not a foolish suggestion at all. It would explain the lack of lies, of any attempt to mislead or cover up. The murderer could not even remember his own guilt! There must be a black and dreadful void in his mind; he must wonder; in the night terrors must creep out to fill the space with fragments of violence, images, the smell and sound of horror. But more drink would bring more oblivion.
“Thank you,” he said politely.
She took a deep breath again.
“Is a man to blame for what he does in drunkenness?” she asked slowly, a little frown between her brows.
“If God will blame him, I don’t know,” Pitt answered honestly. “But the law will. A man does not need to get drunk.”
Her face did not change. She was continuing with some train of thought that had already begun.
“Sometimes, to cover pain, one drinks too much.” Her words were very careful, weighted. “Perhaps pain or illness or pain of the mind, perhaps a loss.”
He thought immediately of Hallam Cayley’s wife. Was that what she meant him to think? He looked at her, but her face was as smooth now as white satin. He decided to be bold.
“Do you speak of someone in particular, Mrs. Nash?”
Her eyes moved away from his for a moment, and the brilliant blue clouded.
“I would prefer not to speak plainly, Mr. Pitt. I simply do not know. Please do not press me to accuse.” She looked back at him, clear and blazingly frank again. “I promise you, if I should come to learn anything, I shall tell you.”
He stood up. He knew there would be no more.
“Thank you, Mrs. Nash. You have been most helpful. Indeed, you have given me much to consider.” He did not make any trite remarks about having an answer soon. It would be an insult to her.
She smiled very slightly.
“Thank you, Mr. Pitt. Good day.”
“Good day, ma’am,” and he permitted the footman to show him out to the Walk.
He crossed over to the grass on the other side. He knew he was not supposed to stand on it-there was a very small notice to that effect-but he loved the live feel of it under the soles of his boots. Paving stones were insensate, unlovely things, necessary if a thousand people were to walk over them, but hiding the earth.
