Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [11]
“Thank you, sir. I shall do my best not to distress her.”
Phoebe Nash was as different from Jessamyn as possible. If there had ever been fire in her, it long since had been damped. She was dressed in tired black, and there was no artificial color in her pale face. At another time she might have been pleasing enough, but now she looked very much the recently bereaved, eyes a little pink, nose puffed, her hair orderly but far less than elegant.
She refused to sit, and stood staring at him, holding her hands tightly together.
“I doubt I can help you, Inspector. I was not even at home that evening. I was visiting an elderly relative who had been unwell. I can give you her name if you wish?”
“I do not doubt you for a moment, ma’am,” he said, smiling as much as he dared without appearing to show undue levity in the face of death. He felt a nameless, sad pity for her. He wanted to put her at ease and did not know how. She was a sort of woman he did not understand. All her feelings were inward, tightly governed; gentility was everything.
“I wondered if perhaps Miss Nash might have confided in you,” he began, “being her sister-in-law, if perhaps someone had paid her unwelcome attention, or passed an offensive remark? Even if she had seen a stranger in the neighborhood?” He kept on trying, “Or if you have yourself?”
Her hands jerked into a knot, and she stared at him, appalled.
“Oh dear heaven! You don’t imagine he’s still here, do you?”
He hesitated, wanting to take away her fear, which at least was a familiar emotion, and yet he knew it was foolish to lie.
“If he’s a vagrant, I don’t doubt he’ll have moved on by now,” he settled for a truth that was without meaning. “Only a fool would stay, when the police are here and looking for him.”
She relaxed visibly, even permitting herself to sit down on the edge of one of the bulging chairs.
“Thank goodness. You’ve made me feel so much better. Of course I should have thought of that for myself.” Then she frowned, drawing her light brows together. “But I don’t recall seeing any strangers in the Walk, at least not of that type. Had I done so, I should have sent the footman to get rid of them.”
He would only terrify and confuse her if he tried to explain that rapists did not necessarily appear different from anyone else. Crime so often surprised people, as if it were not merely an outward act born from the inward selfishness, greed, or hate that had grown too big inside, the dishonesties suddenly without restraint. She expected it to be recognizable, different, nothing to do with the people she knew.
It would be pointless and hurtful to try to change her. He wondered why after so many years he even noticed it, still less allowed it to disturb him.
“Perhaps Miss Nash confided in you?” he suggested. “If anyone had distressed her, or made improper remarks?”
She did not even bother to consider it.
“Certainly not! If such a thing had happened, I should have spoken to my husband, and he would have taken steps!” Her fingers were winding round a handkerchief in her lap, and she had already torn the lace.
Pitt could imagine what Afton Nash’s “steps” might have been. Still he could not quite give up.
“She expressed no anxieties at all, mentioned no new acquaintance?”
“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,