Paragon Walk

by Anne Perry

  “You’ve been calling upon Jessamyn.”

  “Obviously!” she replied tartly. Really, he was becoming fatuous.

  “Most entertaining, isn’t it?” His smile widened. “Everyone is rushing back to their own private sins, to make sure they are still covered. If your policeman, Pitt, were the least interested in voyeurism, he would find this better than a peepshow. It is rather like undoing one of those Chinese boxes; each comes apart in a different way, and nothing is what it seems.”

  “I have no idea what you mean,” she said coldly.

  It was plain from his face that he knew she was lying. She understood him with exactness, even if she had no better than educated guesses as to what the sins in question might be. He did not seem to be offended. He was still smiling, and there was laughter in his face, even in the angle of his body.

  “There is a great deal goes on in this Walk you don’t dream of,” he said softly. “The carcass is full of worms, if you break it open. Even poor Phoebe, although she’s too frightened to speak. One of these days she’ll die of pure fright, unless, of course, someone murders her first!”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Now Vespasia hovered between fury at his adolescent pleasure in shocking and a chill of quite real fear that indeed he knew something beyond even the worst imaginings of her own.

  But he simply smiled and turned to walk up the driveway toward the door, and she was obliged to proceed on her way without an answer.

  It was nineteen days after the murder that Vespasia came to the breakfast table with a frown on her face and an extraordinary wisp of hair trailing across her head completely out of place.

  Emily stared at her.

  “My maid tells me a most peculiar story.” Vespasia seemed not quite sure where to begin. She never ate a heavy breakfast, and now her hand hovered over the toast rack, then the fruit, but could not settle for either.

  Emily had never seen her so out of countenance before. It was disturbing.

  “What sort of story?” she demanded. “Something to do with Fanny?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Vespasia’s eyebrows went up. “Not apparently.”

  “Well, what is it?” Emily was growing impatient, not sure whether to be afraid or not. George had put down his fork and was staring at her, his face tight.

  “It seems Fulbert Nash has disappeared,” Vespasia spoke as if she herself could hardly believe what she was saying.

  George breathed out in a sigh, and the fork clattered from his hand.

  “What on earth do you mean, disappeared?” he said slowly. “Where has he gone?”

  “If I knew where he had gone, George, I would hardly say he had disappeared!” Vespasia said with unusual acerbity. “No one knows where he is! That is the point. He did not come home yesterday, although he had no dinner engagement that anyone knows of, and he has not been home all night. His valet says he has no clothes with him other than the light suit he was wearing for luncheon.”

  “Are all the coachmen or footmen at home?” George demanded. “Did anyone take a message or call a cab for him?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Well, he can’t simply have vanished! He must be somewhere!”

  “Of course.” Vespasia frowned still more and at last took herself a piece of toast and spread it with butter and apricot preserve. “But no one knows where. Or, if they do, they are not prepared to say.”

  “Oh God!” George gasped at her. “You’re not suggesting he’s been murdered!”

  Emily choked on her tea.

  “I’m not suggesting anything.” Vespasia waved her arm at Emily, for George to do something about her. “Slap her, for goodness’ sake!” She waited while George obliged and Emily pushed him away, finding her breath again. “I simply don’t know,” Vespasia finished. “But doubtless there will be suggestions, all of them unpleasant, and that will be one of them.”

  And it was, although Emily did not hear it until the following day. She had called upon Jessamyn and found Selena already there. So soon after Fanny’s death, social visits were being kept very much within their own immediate circle, possibly as a matter of good taste, but more likely so that they might be freer to discuss it if they wished.

  “I suppose you have heard nothing whatever?” Selena asked anxiously.

  “Nothing,” Jessamyn agreed. “It is as if the ground had opened up and swallowed him into it. Phoebe came this morning, and naturally Afton has inquired as much as is possible, discreetly, but he is not at any of his clubs in town, and no one else can be found who has spoken to him.”

  “Is there no one in the country he might have visited?” Emily asked.

  Jessamyn’s eyebrows shot up.

  “At this time of the year?”

  “It’s the height of the Season!” Selena added, a little disparagingly. “Whoever would leave London now?”

  “Perhaps Fulbert,” Emily was stung to reply. “He seems to have left Paragon Walk without a word of explanation to anyone. If he were in London, why should he be anywhere but here?”

  “That makes sense,” Jessamyn admitted, “since he is not at any of the clubs, and he does not seem to be visiting any other friends up for the Season.”

  “The alternatives are too dreadful to contemplate.” Selena shivered, then instantly contradicted herself. “But we must.”

  Jessamyn looked at her.

  Selena was not going to draw back now.

  “We must face it, my dear. It is possible he has been done away with!”

  Jessamyn’s face was very pale, very fine.

  “You mean murdered?” she said quietly.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Emily’s mind raced. Who would murder Fulbert, and why? The other possibility was, at once, worse and also an infinite relief—except that she dared not say it—suicide. If he had after all been the one who killed Fanny, maybe he had taken this desperate way to escape.

  Jessamyn was still staring. In her lap her long slender hands were stiff, as if she could neither feel with them nor move them.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why would anyone murder Fulbert, Selena?”

  “Perhaps whoever killed poor Fanny killed him also?” Selena replied.

  Emily could not say what was in her mind. She must lead them to it, gently, until one of them had to say it for herself.

  “But Fanny was—molested,” she reasoned aloud. “She was only killed after that—perhaps because she recognized him, and he could not then let her go. Why should anyone kill Fulbert—if indeed he is dead? He is only missing, after all.”

  Jessamyn smiled very faintly, something like gratitude warming her pallor.

  “You are quite right. There is hardly anything to suggest it was the same person. In fact, there is not really anything to prove they are connected at all.”

  “They must be!” Selena exploded. “We could not have two entirely unconnected crimes in the Walk in the space of a month. That is straining credulity too far! We must face it—either Fulbert is dead, or he has run away!”

  Jessamyn’s eyes were very bright, her voice came slowly, as if from far away.

  “Are you saying that it was Fulbert who killed Fanny, and he has now run away in case the police find him?”

  “Someone did.” Selena would not be put off. “Perhaps he is mad?”

  Another thought occurred to Emily.

  “Or perhaps it was not him, but he knows who it was, and he is afraid?” she said it before she considered what effect it might have.

  Jessamyn sat absolutely still. Her voice was soft, almost sibilant. “I don’t think that’s very likely,” she said slowly. “Fulbert was never very good at keeping a secret. Nor was he especially brave. I don’t think that can be the answer.”

  “It’s ridiculous!” Selena turned on Emily sharply. “If he knew who it was, he would have said so! And enjoyed it! And why on earth should he protect them? After all, Fanny was his sister!”
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br />   “Perhaps he didn’t have the chance to tell anyone?” Emily was growing annoyed at being spoken to as if she were foolish. “Perhaps they killed him before he could get away?”

  Jessamyn took a deep breath and let it out in a long, silent sigh.

  “I think you must be right, Emily. I hate to say so—” Her voice faded for a minute, and she was obliged to clear her throat. “—but I think it is inescapable that either Fulbert killed Fanny and has run away, or else—” She shivered and seemed to shrink into herself. “—or else whoever so dreadfully murdered Fanny knew that poor Fulbert knew too much and killed him before he could speak!”

  “If that is true, then we have a very dangerous murderer living in the Walk,” Emily said quietly. “And I am very glad I have no idea who he is. I think we should all be extremely careful whom we speak to, what we say, and whom we find ourself alone with!”

  Selena gave a little whimper, but her face was flushed and there were very fine beads of sweat on her face. Her eyes were bright.

  The day seemed darker, the heat more suffocating. Emily rose to go home; the visit was no longer any pleasure.

  The day after, it was not possible to keep the matter from the police. Pitt was informed of it and returned to the Walk, feeling tired and unhappy. It was a mark of his failure that something so unforeseen should have happened, and he had no explanation to offer for it. Of course, there were volumes of theories. He had no niceties to keep his mind from coming first to the most obvious and the most ugly. He had seen far too much crime for anything to surprize him, even incestuous rape. In the rookeries and teeming slums incest was all too common. Women bore too many children and died young, often leaving fathers with elder daughters to bring up a brood of little ones. Loneliness and reliance slipped easily into something else more intimate, more urgent.

  But he had not expected to find it in Paragon Walk.

  Then there was the possibility that it was not escape, or suicide, but another murder. Perhaps Fulbert had known too much and been foolish enough to say so? Perhaps he had even tried blackmail and paid the ultimate price for it.

  Charlotte had told him something about Fulbert’s remarks, the sly, cutting cruelty of them, the “whited sepulchers.” Perhaps he had chanced on a secret more dangerous than he knew and been killed for that—nothing to do with Fanny at all? It would not be the first time one crime had planted the seed of an idea for another, where motives were completely unconnected. Nothing invites imitation like apparent success.

  The only place he could start was with Afton Nash, the person who had reported Fulbert as missing and who had lived in the same house. Pitt had already sent men to check on the clubs and houses of other sorts, where a 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.”

  “Un
less 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.