Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [83]
“When did you last see Mr. Nash?” he asked.
Hallam looked up, surprised, his eyes bloodshot.
“Good God, I don’t know! It was weeks ago! I don’t remember when I saw him, but not the day he was killed. I do know that.”
Pitt raised his eyebrows slightly.
“You believe he was killed when he disappeared?” he asked.
Hallam stared at him. The color rushed up his face, then ebbed away again. The sweat stood out on his lip.
“Wasn’t he?”
“I should imagine so,” Pitt said wearily. “It’s not possible to tell now. I suppose he could have stayed up there indefinitely, as long as that room wasn’t used. The smell would have got worse, of course. Did you give the maids orders to clean in there?”
“For heaven’s sake, man, I don’t care about housekeeping! They clean when they want to. That’s what I have servants for—not to have to think about things like that.”
There was no point in asking him if his servants were acquainted with Fulbert in any personal way. That had all been gone into already, and everyone had denied it, which was to be expected.
It was Forbes who elicited a surprising new fact or at least a statement. The footman admitted now that he had opened the door to Fulbert on the afternoon of his disappearance, while Hallam was out, and Fulbert had gone upstairs, saying he wished to speak to the valet. The footman had assumed that he had let himself out afterward, but now it was obvious that he had not. He excused himself for the lie in his first account, by saying he did not believe it important and had not wished to implicate his master on so flimsy a coincidence, being naturally afraid for his employment.
It ended in an unsatisfactory impasse. The valet denied having seen Fulbert, and nothing could be proven. Forbes said there had long been all manner of rivalries and old feuds among the household staff, and he had no idea whom to believe. According to previous testimony, either of the manservants could conceivably have killed Fanny, if one or more were lying, and neither of them could have attacked Selena.
Finally Pitt went back to the station, posting a constable to see that none of the Cayley servants moved from the Walk. The whole thing left a sour and unfinished taste in his mouth, but he could accomplish no more with questions now.
Fulbert was buried immediately, and the funeral was a small and somber affair, almost as if the dreadful corpse were in full view, instead of discreetly nailed into a polished dark, wood box.
Pitt attended, this time not out of pity for the dead, but because he needed to observe the mourners. Charlotte had not come, and neither had Emily. They were both still suffering from the horror of discovering the body, and in truth Charlotte had known him so little, her presence might be interpreted not so much as respect but rather as mere curiosity. Emily’s condition gave her ample excuse to remain at home. George, grim and white-faced, body stiff against the wind, was the only representative of the family.
Pitt borrowed a black coat to cover his own rather multicolored clothes and stood discreetly at the back, half under the yew trees, hoping no one would do more than glance at him, possibly even assume him to be part of the undertaking party.
He waited as the cortege arrived, black crepe fluttering in the wind. No one spoke except the minister, and his sing-song voice floated over the hard clay and the withered grass between the gravestones.
There were no women except the immediate family, Phoebe and Jessamyn Nash. Phoebe looked appalling; her skin was ashen, and there were dark blotches under her eyes. She stood with shoulders hunched; from the back she might have been an old woman. He