by Anne Perry
“Yes! Oh, yes, I do.” Charlotte recalled herself to the present, the sunlit withdrawing room and the old lady in ecru-colored lace sitting opposite her. “I don’t speak to anyone except Thomas about it. But what else? I mean, what other secrets do you know?”
Vespasia snorted. “You won’t be told, will you!”
“Don’t you want to know?” Charlotte met her eyes squarely.
“Of course, I do!” Vespasia snapped. “And if I die for it, at my time of life it doesn’t matter! I shall almost certainly die soon anyway. If I had anything useful to say, don’t you think I would have said it? Not to you, but to your extraordinary policeman.” She coughed. “George has been dallying with Selena. I have no proof of it, but I know George. As a child he played with other children’s toys if he felt like it, and ate other children’s sweets. He always gave the toys back, and he was always generous with his own. Used to everything being his anyway. Trouble with an only child. You have a child, don’t you? Well, have another!”
Charlotte could think of no adequate reply to this. She had every intention of having another, when the good Lord should so choose. Anyway, her concern was for Emily now.
Vespasia guessed it.
“He knows that I know,” she said gently. “He is far too frightened at the moment to do anything foolish. In fact he turns decidedly green every time Selena comes anywhere near him. Which isn’t very often, except to try and show the Frenchman that she is sought after. Silly creature! As if he cared!”
“What other secrets?” Charlotte pressed.
“None of any value. I cannot think Miss Laetitia would harm anyone because they knew she had a scandalous love affair thirty years ago.”
Charlotte was stunned.
“Miss Laetitia? Laetitia Horbury?”
“Yes. Quite secret, of course, but very burning at the time. Haven’t you noticed Miss Lucinda always making cutting little remarks to her about morals, and so forth? The poor creature is so jealous it is eating her alive. Now, if Laetitia had been killed, I could understand it. I have frequently thought that Lucinda would poison her in a shot, if she dared. Except she would be lost without her. Devising new ways of observing her own moral superiority is her chief enjoyment in life.”
“But how can it hurt? Laetitia knows it is only envy?” Charlotte was fascinated.
“Good heavens, no! They never discuss it! They each imagine the other does not know! What would be the pleasure or the savor of it if it were all in the open?”
Again Charlotte was torn between pity and laughter. But then, as Vespasia had said, it was hardly a matter over which Fulbert could have lost his life. Even if all Society knew, it would do Miss Laetitia little harm; in fact it might rather enhance her interest. Miss Lucinda would be the one to suffer by comparison. Then her jealousy might well be unendurable.
Before she could pursue the matter any further, Emily returned from the kitchen hurt and in short temper. Apparently she had had some altercation with the scullery maid, who was frightened out of her wits that the bootboy was after her, and Emily had told her not to be so stupid. The girl was as plain as a coal scuttle, and the bootboy had his sights set a good deal higher.
Vespasia reminded her she had been advised not to go, which only added fuel to the fire of Emily’s temper.
Charlotte excused herself as soon as she could, and in ill-grace Emily ordered her a carriage to take her home.
Of course Charlotte had regaled Pitt with everything she had heard, plus her own evaluation of it, almost as soon as he had come in the door, and although he knew that most of it would be irrelevant, no more than trivia to the case, yet momentous to those concerned, still he bore them at the back of his mind when he went out the following day to continue his investigations.
There had been no trace of Fulbert anywhere. Seven bodies had been found in the river, two of women, almost certainly prostitutes, one child, probably fallen in by accident and too feeble to cry out or splash for help; probably an unwanted mouth to feed anyway, put out to beg as soon as it was old enough to speak intelligently. The other four had been men but, like the child, beggars and outcasts. Certainly none of them could conceivably have been Fulbert, however abused or molested. It had taken more than a few days to bring them to such a degree of emaciation.
All the hospitals and morgues had been checked, even the workhouses. The sector of the police who were most familiar with the opium rooms and the brothels had been asked to keep an eye and an ear open-to ask questions would be pointless-but there had been no glimmer of him at all. To search the rookeries, of course, was impossible. As far as every human inquiry could ascertain, Fulbert Nash had disappeared from the face of London.
So there was nothing to do but go back to the Walk and pursue it again from there. Accordingly nine o’clock in the morning found him in Lord Dilbridge’s morning room awaiting his lordship’s pleasure. It was some quarter of an hour before he appeared. He was extremely neat-his valet would have seen to that-but there was a vague and rather disheveled look about his face. Obviously he was either unwell, or had had a wild night immediately previous. He stared at Pitt, as if he had trouble recalling precisely who the footman had said he was.
“Inspector Pitt, from the police,” Pitt helped him.
Freddie blinked, then irritation focused in his eyes.
“Oh dear, is this still about Fanny? The poor child is gone, and the wretched creature who did it is miles away by now. I don’t know what on earth you think any of us can do about it? The back streets of London are full of thieves and blackguards. If you fellows did your jobs properly and cleaned up some of them, instead of asking damn fool questions around here, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen!” He blinked and rubbed something out of his eye. “Although I suppose, to be fair, we should be more careful who we hire as servants. But really, there isn’t anything more I can do about it now, and certainly not at this time in the morning!”
“No sir,” Pitt at last had the opportunity to speak without interrupting. “It isn’t about Miss Nash. I called with regard to Mr. Fulbert Nash. We still have no trace of him-”
“Try the hospitals, or the morgue,” Freddie suggested.
“We have done so, sir,” Pitt said patiently. “And the doss houses, the opium rooms, the brothels, and the river. Also the railway stations, the port, the lighter men as far down the river as Greenwich and as far up as Richmond, and most of the cab drivers. No one has told us anything.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Freddie said angrily. His eyes were bloodshot, and he kept blinking. Freddie screwed up his face in an effort to think clearly. “He’s got to be somewhere. He can’t have vanished!”
“Quite,” Pitt agreed. “So having searched everywhere I can to find him, I am obliged to come back here to see if I can deduce where he might have gone, or if not where, at least why.”
“Why?” Freddie’s face fell. “Well, I suppose he was-well-no-I don’t know what I suppose. Never really thought about it. Didn’t owe money, did he? Nashes have always been well off, so far as I know, but he is the youngest brother, so maybe he hadn’t so much.”
“We thought of that, sir, and we checked. His bank gave us access to their records, and he is in good funds. And his brother, Mr. Afton Nash, assures us that he had no financial problems. We have found no mention of any debt in any of the usual gambling clubs.”
Freddie looked worried.
“Didn’t know you people could get into that kind of thing! What a man gambles is his own affair!”
“Certainly, sir, but where a disappearance is concerned, possibly a murder-”
“Murder! Do you think Fulbert was murdered? Well,” he pulled a terrible face and sat down rather abruptly. He looked at Pitt through his fingers. “Well, I suppose we knew that, if we were honest. Knew too much, Fulbert, always was a bit too clever. Trouble is, he wasn’t clever enough to pretend to be a little less clever.”
“Very well put, sir.” Pitt smiled. “What we need to kno
w is which of all his clever remarks was the one that backfired on him? Did he know who raped Fanny? Or was it something else, possibly even something he didn’t actually know, but implied he did?”
Freddie frowned, but the high color in his face fled, leaving the broken veins standing out. He did not look at Pitt.
“Don’t know what you mean! If he didn’t actually know it, why should anyone kill him? Bit risky, isn’t it?”
Pitt explained patiently. “If he were to have said to someone, I know your secret, or words to that effect, he would not need to have spelled it out. If there really were something dangerous enough, the person would not wait to see if Fulbert would tell it or not.”
“Oh. I see. You mean, just kill him anyway, be on the safe side?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Rubbish! Few odd affairs, maybe, but no real harm in that. Good God! Lived in the Walk for years, every Season, of course, not in the winter, you understand?” The perspiration was standing out on his forehead and lip. He shook his head, as if he might at once clear it and drive out the loathsome idea. After a moment his face lit up. “Never thought of anyone like that. You’d better look at the Frenchman; he’s the only one I don’t know.” He waved his hand as if he could wash Pitt away like a petty annoyance. “Seems to have plenty of means, and decent enough manners, if you like that sort of thing, bit too precise for me. But no idea where the man comes from, could be anywhere. A sight too easy with the women. And come to think of it, he never told us who his family was. Always be spacious of a fellow when you don’t know who his family is. Look him up, that’s my advice to you. Try the French police, maybe they’ll help you?”
It was something Pitt had not thought of, and he mentally kicked himself for the oversight, the more so because it had taken a fool like Freddie Dilbridge to point it out to him.
“Yes sir, we shall do that.”
“Might have been a rapist in France for all we know!” Freddie’s own voice lifted as he warmed to the subject, pleased with his own sagacity. “Maybe Fulbert discovered it. Now that would surely be worth killing him for, wouldn’t it? Yes, you find out about Monsieur Alaric before he came here. Guarantee you’ll find the reason for your murder there! Guarantee it! Now, for heaven’s sake, let me go and have some breakfast! I feel perfectly awful!”
Grace Dilbridge had an entirely different outlook on the subject.
“Oh no!” she said immediately. “Freddie is not himself this morning, or I’m sure he would not have made such a suggestion. He is very loyal, you know. He would not wish to think of any of his friends as-as more than a little- indelicate. But I assure you, Monsieur Alaric is the most charming and civilized man. And Fanny, poor child, thought him quite devastating, as indeed did my own daughter, until quite lately when she has become fond of Mr. Isaacs. I really don’t know what I’m going to do about that!” Then she blushed at having mentioned so personal a thing in front of what was after all no more than a tradesman. “But no doubt it will pass,” she added hastily. “This is her first Season, after all, and it is natural she should be admired by a number of people.”
Pitt felt he was losing the thread. He tried to pull her back.
“Monsieur Alaric-”
“Nonsense!” she repeated firmly. “My husband has known the Nashes for years, so naturally he is loath to admit it, even to himself, but it is quite obvious that Fulbert has run away because he himself was guilty of molesting poor Fanny. I dare say in the dark he mistook her for a maid, or something, and then when he discovered who she was, and she of course saw him, there was nothing he could do but kill her to keep her silent. It is perfectly awful! His own sister! But then men are perfectly awful, at times, it is their nature, and has been ever since Adam. We are conceived in sin, and some of us never rise above it.”
Pitt searched his mind and found no answer to that, and anyway his thoughts were revolving on her earlier words and the thought that had never occurred to him before, that Fulbert could have mistaken Fanny for someone else, a maid, a kitchen girl, someone who would never dare to accuse a gentleman of forcing himself on her or, for that matter, might not even have minded, could possibly have encouraged him. And then, when he found it was his own sister, the horror and the disgrace not only of rape but of incest would have panicked many a man into murder! And that applied equally to all three of the Nash brothers! His brain was in a whirl with the enormity of it, the vast new dimensions it opened up. Vista upon vista swam into his imagination and fell away endlessly. The whole problem would have to be started again almost from the beginning.
Grace was still talking, but he was not listening anymore. He needed time to think, to be outside in the sun where he could rearrange all that he knew in this new light. He stood up. He knew he was cutting across her speech, but there was no other way to escape.
“You have been extraordinarily helpful, Lady Dilbridge. I am most grateful.” He smiled at her dazzlingly, leaving her a little startled, and swept out into the hallway and through the front door, coattails flapping, sending the maid on the step over backward, her broom at her shoulder like a guardsman presenting arms.
It was a long, hot and busy week later, when Charlotte announced to him that Emily was giving a soiree. He had very little idea what that was, except that it occurred in the afternoon, and that she had been invited to it. He was preoccupied with waiting for news from Paris about Paul Alaric and with the wealth of detail he had learned about the personal lives in the Walk, since he had begun, with Forbes’s wide-eyed and willing assistance, to inquire all over again in the totally new light of Grace Dilbridge’s suggestion. It seemed, if everyone was to be believed, that there were a great many more relationships of varying natures than he had suspected. Freddie Dilbridge was quite notorious. Something secret, and apparently thrilling to those who partook, was assumed to happen at some of his more riotous parties. And Diggory Nash had given way to temptation on more than a few occasions. There was much speculation about Hallam Cayley, especially since the death of his wife, but he had not yet sorted out the direct lies from the fantasies on that one, and had even less idea how much might actually be truth. Apparently George had at least had the good sense to keep his indulgences out of the servants’ quarters, although it was beyond doubt he had certainly entertained feelings toward Selena, heartily reciprocated, which would deeply hurt Emily if she ever had to know. But if there were anything but wishful thinking about Paul Alaric, no one was prepared to speak of it.
He would dearly like to have discovered something to the discredit of Afton Nash, as he found the man incredibly unpleasant. However, although none of the maids seemed to feel kindly toward him, there was not even the barest suggestion he had been in the least familiar with any.
As for Fulbert himself, there were whispers, suggestions, but since his disappearance even the mention of his name produced such hysteria that Pitt had no idea what to believe. The whole Walk seethed in overheated imagination. The mind-dulling monotony of daily chores that stretched from childhood to the grave was made bearable only by the penny romances and the giggling stories swapped in tiny attic bedrooms when the long day was done. Now murderers and lust-crazed seducers lurked in every shadow, and fear, half-desire, and reality were hopelessly entangled.
He did not expect Charlotte to learn anything of value at Emily’s party. He was convinced that the answer to the murders lay below stairs, far out of Charlotte’s or Emily’s reach, and all he said to her on the matter was in the nature of an exhortation to enjoy herself and a very firm command totally to mind her own business and make no inquiries or comments that might lead to anything but the most trivial of polite conversation.
She said, “Yes, Thomas,” very demurely, which, had he been less consumed in his own thoughts, would have struck him immediately as suspicious.
The soiree was a very formal affair, and Charlotte was totally swept off her feet with delight at the gown Emily had had made for her as a present. It was of yellow silk, and it fitted
her perfectly and was quite ravishingly beautiful. She felt like sunshine itself as she swept in through the doorway, head high, face glowing. She was surprised when no more than half a dozen people turned to look at her; she quite expected the whole room to fall silent and stare. However, she was conscious that Paul Alaric was one of those few who did look. She saw his elegant black head turn from Selena to where she stood on the step. She knew the color burned up her cheeks, and she lifted her chin a little higher.
Emily came over to welcome her straightaway, and she was pulled into the crowd, which must have numbered fifty or more, and drawn into conversation. There was no opportunity for any private exchange. Emily gave her a long, straight look, which said very plainly that she was to behave herself and think before she spoke, and the moment after she was called away to welcome another guest.
“Emily has asked a young poet to come and read us some of his work,” Phoebe said with brittle cheerfulness. “I have heard it is most provoking. Let us hope we can understand it. It will give us food for much discussion.”
“I hope it is not vulgar,” Miss Lucinda said quickly. “Or erotic. Have you seen those quite dreadful drawings of Mr. Beardsley’s?”
Charlotte would like to have commented on Mr. Beardsley, but since she had never seen any of his drawings, or indeed heard of him, she could not.
“I cannot imagine Emily choosing someone without doing all that one can to assure that he is neither,” she replied, with an immediate edge to her voice. “Of course,” she went on, “one is not able to control what one’s guests say or do once they come, only to judge to the best of one’s ability whom to invite.”
“Of course.” Lucinda colored faintly. “I did not mean to imply anything but mischance.”
Charlotte remained cool.
“I believe he is political rather than romantic.”
“That should be interesting,” Miss Laetitia said hopefully. “I wonder if he has written anything about the poor or social reform?”