as to be trying still to capture his interest? If she had been a little better bred she would have been brought up to expect the weaknesses of men and take them in her stride. Then she could have treated the whole thing with indifference, which would have been far more satisfactory.
And now this extraordinary creature, the police inspector, was coming into the withdrawing room, all arms and legs and coattails, with hair like the scullery maid’s mop, falling in every direction.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Pitt said courteously.
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” she replied, extending him her hand without rising. He bent over and brushed it with his lips. It was a ridiculous gesture from a policeman, who after all was more or less a tradesman, but he did it without an iota of self-consciousness, even a kind of odd grace. He was not as uncoordinated as he appeared. Really, he was the oddest creature!
“Please sit down, Thomas,” Emily offered. “I shall send for more tea.” She rang the bell as she spoke.
“What is it you wish to know this time?” Vespasia enquired. Surely the fellow could not be paying a social call?
He turned a little to face her. He was uncommonly plain, and yet she found him not displeasing. There was great intelligence in his face and a better humor than she had observed in anyone else in Paragon Walk, except perhaps that marvelously elegant Frenchman all the women were making such fools of themselves about. Surely that could not be why Emily was tying herself in? Could it?
Pitt’s reply cut across her thoughts.
“I was not able to see Lord Ashworth when I called before, ma’am,” he answered.
Of course. Suppose the wretched man had to see George. It would appear odd if he did not.
“Quite,” she agreed. “I suppose you want to know where he was?”
“Yes, please?”
She turned to George, sitting a little sideways on the arm of one of the easy chairs. Wish he would sit properly, but he never had since he was a child. Always fidgeted, even on a horse; only saving grace was that he had good hands, didn’t haul an animal about. Got it from his mother. His father was a fool.
“Well!” she said sharply, turning to him. “Where were you, George? You weren’t here!”
“I was out, Aunt Vespasia.”
“Obviously!” she snapped. “Where?”
“At my club.”
There was something in the way he was sitting that made her feel uncomfortable and distrust his answer. It was not a lie, and yet it was somehow incomplete. She knew it from the way he shifted his bottom a little. His father had done exactly the same as a child when he had been in the butler’s pantry trying the port. The fact that the butler had imbibed the majority of it himself was immaterial.
“You have several clubs,” she pointed out tartly. “Which were you at on that occasion? Do you wish to send Mr. Pitt scouring all the gentlemen’s clubs in London asking after you?”
George colored.
“No, of course not,” he said with irritation. “I was at Whyte’s, I think, most of the evening. Anyway, Teddy Aspinall was with me. Although I don’t suppose he kept time, any more than I did. But I suppose you could ask him, if you have to?” He twisted to look at Pitt. “Although I’d rather you didn’t press him. He was pretty well soaked, and I don’t suppose he can remember much. Rather embarrassing for him. His wife is a daughter of the Duke of Carlisle, and a bit straitlaced. Make things rather unpleasant.”
The old Duke of Carlisle was dead, and anyway Daisy Aspinall was as used to her husband’s drinking as she had been to her father’s. However, Vespasia forbore from saying so. But why did George not want Pitt to ask? Was he nervous that Pitt would let fall that he was George’s brother-in-law? No doubt George would get ragged about it, but one was not accountable for the peculiar tastes of one’s relatives, as long as they were discreet about it. And so far Emily had been excellently discreet, as much as loyalty to her sister would allow. Vespasia admitted to a rapidly mounting curiosity about this sister she had never seen. Why had Emily not invited her? Since they were sisters, surely the girl had been tolerably well brought up? Emily certainly knew how to behave like a lady. Only someone of Vespasia’s immense and subtle experience would have known she was not-not quite.
She had missed some of the conversation. Hope to heavens she was not becoming deaf! She could not bear to be deaf. Not to hear what people were saying would be worse than being buried alive!
“-time you came home?” Pitt finished.
George scowled. She could remember the same expression on his face when doing sums as a child. He always chewed the ends of his pencils. Disgusting habit. She had told his mother to soak them in aloes, but the softhearted woman had refused.
“I’m afraid I didn’t look,” George answered after a few moments. “I think it was pretty late. I didn’t disturb Emily.”
“What about your valet?” Pitt enquired.
“Oh-yes,” George seemed uncertain. “I doubt he’ll remember. He’d fallen asleep in my dressing room. Had to waken him up.” His face brightened. “So it must have been pretty late. Sorry, I can’t help you. Looks as if I was miles away at the time that matters. Didn’t see a thing.”
“Were you not invited to the Dilbridges’ party?” Pitt asked with surprize. “Or did you prefer not to go?”
Vespasia stared at him. Really, he was a most unexpected person. He was sitting now on the couch, taking up more than half of it in pure untidiness. None of his clothes seemed to fit him properly, poverty, no doubt. In the hands of a good tailor and barber he might even have looked quite well. But there was a suppressed energy about him that was hardly decent. He looked as if he might laugh at any time, any inappropriate time. Actually, when she thought about it, he was quite entertaining. Pity it had taken a murder to bring him here. On any other occasion he would have been a distinct relief from the boredom of Eliza Pomeroy’s ailments, Lord Dilbridge’s excesses, as recited by Grace Dilbridge, Jessamyn Nash’s latest gown, Selena Montague’s current involvement, or the general decay of civilization as monitored by the Misses Horbury and Lady Tamworth. The only other diversion was the rivalry between Jessamyn and Selena as to who should attract the beautiful Frenchman, and so far neither of them had made any progress that she had heard about. And she would have heard. What was the point in making a conquest if one could not tell everybody about it, preferably one by one and in the strictest confidence? Success without envy was like snails without sauce-and, as any cultivated woman knew, the sauce is everything!
“I preferred not to go,” George said, his brow wrinkled. He also failed to see the relevance of the question. “It was not the sort of occasion to which I would wish to take Emily. The Dilbridges have some-some friends of decidedly vulgar tastes.”
“Oh, do they?” Emily looked surprised. “Grace Dilbridge always looks so tame.”
“She is,” Vespasia said impatiently. “She does not write the guest list. Not that I think she would object to it. She is one of those women who like to suffer; she has made a career of it. If Frederick were to behave properly, she would have nothing to talk about. It is the sole source of her importance-she is put upon.”
“That’s terrible!” Emily protested.
“It’s not terrible,” Vespasia contradicted. “She is perfectly happy with it, but it is extremely tedious.” She turned to Pitt. “No doubt that is where you will find your murderer, either among Frederick Dilbridge’s guests, or among their servants. Some of the most reprehensible persons can drive a carriage-and-pair extraordinarily well.” She sighed. “I can remember my father had a coachman who drank like a sot and bedded every girl in the village, but he could drive better than Jehu-best hands in the south of England. Gamekeeper shot him in the end. Never knew whether it was an accident or not.”
Emily looked helplessly at Pitt, anxiety driving the laughter out of her eyes.
“That’s where you’ll find him, Thomas,” she said urgently. “No one in Paragon Walk would have done it!”
There was still time for Pitt to see Fulbert Nash, the last brother, and he was fortunate to find him at home a little before five. Apparently, to judge from Fulbert’s face, he had been expected.
“So you are the police,” Fulbert looked him up and down with undisguised curiosity, as one might regard some new invention, but without the desire to purchase it.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Pitt said a little more stiffly than he had intended.
“Oh, good afternoon, Inspector.” Fulbert mimicked the tone very slightly. “Obviously you are here about Fanny, poor little creature. Do you want her life history? It’s pathetically short. She never did anything of note, and I don’t suppose she ever would have. Nothing in her life was as remarkable as her death.”
Pitt was angered by his flippancy, although he knew how often people covered grief they could not bear with
