“No.” She shook her head vehemently.
He sighed and stood up. There was nothing more to be gained from her. He had a feeling that, if he frightened her with the truth, she would simply banish it from her mind and dissolve all reason and memory in blind fear.
“Thank you, ma’am, I’m sorry to have had to distress you with the matter.”
She smiled with something of an effort.
“I’m sure it is perfectly necessary, or you would not have done so, Inspector. I suppose you wish to see my brother-in-law, Mr. Fulbert Nash? But I’m afraid he was not at home last night. I dare say, if you call this afternoon, he may have returned.”
“Thank you, I shall do that. Oh,” he remembered the peculiar burn the surgeon had remarked, “do you happen to know if Miss Nash had had an accident recently, a burn?” He did not wish to describe the place of the injury if it was avoidable. He knew it would embarrass her exquisitely.
“Burn?” she said with a frown.
“Quite a small burn,” he described its shape as the police surgeon had described it to him. “But fairly deep, and recent.”
To his amazement, every vestige of color fled from her face.
“Burn?” her voice was faint. “No, I cannot imagine. I’m sure I know nothing of it. Perhaps-perhaps she had-” she coughed “-had taken some interest in the kitchen? You must ask my sister-in-law. I–I really have no idea.”
He was puzzled. She was plainly horrified. Was it simply that she knew the site of the injury and was agonized with embarrassment by it because he was a man, and an infinitely inferior person in her social hierarchy? He did not understand her well enough to know.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it is of no importance.” And with further polite murmurings he was shown out by the footman into the light and sun again.
He stood for several minutes before deciding whom to call upon next. Forbes was somewhere in the Walk, talking to the servants, relishing his new importance in investigating a murder, and indulging a long cherished curiosity about the precise workings of the households of a social order beyond all his previous experience. He would be a mine of information tonight, most of it useless, but in all the welter of trivial habit, there might be some observation that led to another-and another. He smiled broadly as he thought of it, and a passing gardener’s boy stared at him with amazement, and a little awe for one who was obviously not a gentleman and yet could stand idle in the street and grin at himself.
In the end he tried the central house, belonging to one Paul Alaric, and was told very civilly that Monsieur Alaric was not expected home until dark, but if the Inspector would care to call then, no doubt Monsieur would receive him.
He had not yet composed in his mind what he meant to say to George, so he shelved it and tried the house further on, belonging to a Mr. Hallam Cayley.
Cayley was still at a very late breakfast but invited him in, offering him a cup of strong coffee, which Pitt declined. He preferred tea anyway, and this looked as thick as the oiled water in the London docks.
Cayley smiled sourly and poured himself another cupful. He was a good-looking man in his early thirties, although excellent, somewhat aquiline features were spoiled by a deeply pocked skin, and already there was a shade of temper, a slackness, marking itself around his mouth. This morning his eyes were puffed and a little bloodshot. Pitt guessed at a heavy engagement with the bottle the evening before, perhaps several bottles.
“What can I do for you, Inspector?” Cayley began before Pitt asked. “I don’t know anything. I was at the Dilbridges’ party most of the night. Anyone’ll tell you that.”
Pitt’s heart sank. Was everyone going to be able to account for themselves? No, that was foolish. It did not matter, it was almost certainly some servant who had had too much to drink, got above himself, and then when the girl had screamed, he had knifed her in fear, to keep her quiet, perhaps not even meaning to kill. Forbes would probably find the answers. He himself was merely asking the masters because someone had to, as a matter of form, so they would know the police were doing their jobs-and better he than Forbes, with his awkward tongue and his glaring curiosity.
“Do you happen to recall who you were with about ten o’clock, sir?” he recalled himself to his questions.
“Actually, I had a row with Barham Stephens,” Cayley helped himself to yet more coffee and shook the pot irritably when it did no more than half-fill his cup. He slammed it down, rattling the lid. “Fool said he didn’t lose at cards. Can’t stomach a bad loser. No one can.” He glared at his crumb strewn plate.
“You had this disagreement at ten o’clock?” Pitt asked.
Cayley remained staring at the plate.
“No, bit before, and it was more than a disagreement. It was a bloody row.” He looked up sharply. “No, not what you would call a row, I suppose. No shouting. He may not behave like a gentleman, but we’re both sufficiently wellbred not to brawl in front of women. I went outside for a walk to cool off.”
“Into the garden?”
Cayley looked down at the plate again.
“Yes. If you want to know if I saw anything-I didn’t. There were loads of people milling around. Dilbridges have some peculiar social tastes. But I suppose you’ve got a guest list? You’ll probably find it was some footman hired for the evening. Some people do hire carriages, you know, especially if they’re only up for the Season.” His face was suddenly very grave, and he looked at Pitt un-blinkingly. “I honestly haven’t an idea who could have murdered poor Fanny.” His face crumpled a little with a strange pain, subtler than simple pity. “I know most of the men on the Walk. I can’t say I care for all of them, but neither can I honestly believe any of them capable of sticking a knife into a woman, a child like Fanny.” He pushed his plate away with repugnance. “I suppose it could be the Frenchman, odd sort of fellow, and a knife sounds a French kind of thing. But it doesn’t really seem likely.”
“Murder often isn’t,” Pitt said softly. Then he thought of the filthy, teeming rookeries squatting just behind stately streets, where crime was the road to survival, infants learned to steal as soon as they could walk, and only the cunning or the strong made it to adulthood. But all that was irrelevant in Paragon Walk. Here it was shocking, alien, and naturally they sought to disown it.
Cayley was sitting quite still, eaten up with some inner moil of emotions.
Pitt waited. Outside, carriage wheels crunched on the gravel and passed.
At last Cayley looked up.
“Who on earth would want to do that to a harmless little creature like Fanny?” he said quietly. “It’s so bloody pointless!”
Pitt had no answer for him. He stood up.
“I don’t know, Mr. Cayley. Presumably she recognized the rapist, and he knew it. But why he assaulted her in the first place, only God knows.”
Cayley banged a hard, tight fist on the table, not loudly, but with tremendous power.
“Or the devil!” He put his head down and did not look up again, even when Pitt went out of the door and closed it behind him.
Outside the sun was warm and clear, birds chattered in the gardens across the Walk, and somewhere out of sight beyond the curve a horse’s hooves clattered past.
He had seen the first open grief for Fanny, and although it was painful, a reminder that the mystery was trivial, the tragedy real-that long after everyone knew who had killed her, and how, and why, she would still be dead-yet he felt cleaner for it.
He went to see Diggory Nash. It was the middle of the afternoon when he could no longer put off going back to Emily and George. He had learned nothing that would allow him to avoid asking the question. Diggory Nash had offered nothing positive either. He had been away from home, gambling, so he said, at a private party, and was reluctant to name the other players. Pitt was not prepared at this stage to insist.
Now he must see George. Not to do so would be as obvious and thereby as offensive as any questions he could ask.
Vespasia Cumming-Gould was taking tea with Emily and George when Pitt was announced. Emily took a deep breath and asked the parlormaid to have him shown in. Vespasia looked at her critically. Really, the girl was wearing her corset far too tightly for one in her stage of pregnancy. Vanity was all very well in its place, but child- bearing was not its place, as every woman should know! When the opportunity arose, she must tell her what apparently her own mother had neglected to. Or was the poor girl so fond of George, and so unsure of his affection,
