Paragon Walk (26 page)

The day after, Pitt and Forbes went back to the Walk, quietly, going in by back doors and asking to see valets. No one’s clothes showed stains of damp or moss, and there was no discernible brick dust, just the general dust of a dry summer. There had been one or two small tears, but nothing unaccountable. But then one could so easily say one had caught it getting in or out of a carriage, or in one’s own garden. Rose thorns tore; one knelt on the grass to pick up a fallen coin or handkerchief.

He even went to Hallam Cayley’s garden and asked permission to look at the walls on both sides, and a highly nervous footman escorted him around step by step, watching him with increasing tension and unhappiness, as no mark or disturbance was found. If anyone had climbed over these walls lately, they had done it with a padded ladder placed so carefully it had not crushed the moss nor scratched a brick, and they had smoothed out the holes left by the feet of the ladder in the ground. Such care seemed impossible. How could he have hauled the ladder after him back to his own side without leaving great runnels in the moss on top of the wall? And once back, what then of the ladder marks in the ground? The summer had been dry, but the garden earth was still deep and friable enough to mark easily. He tried it with the weight of his own foot and left an unmistakable print.

There was a door in the farthest wall onto the path beyond the aspen trees at the end, but it was locked, and the gardener’s boy had the key and said it had never left him.

Hallam was out. Tomorrow Pitt would call and ask him about keys, if he had ever had another and given or lent it, but it was only a formality. He did not believe for a moment that anyone else had come along the pathway at the end and let themselves in to keep an appointment with Fulbert in Hallam’s house—and still less that it could have been a chance meeting.

He went home and told Charlotte nothing about it. He wanted to forget the whole affair and enjoy his own family, the peace and sureness of it. Even though Jemima was asleep, he demanded that Charlotte get her up, and then he sat in the parlor with her in his arms, while she blinked at him sleepily, unsure why she had been roused. He talked to her, telling her about his own childhood on the big estate in the country, exactly as if she understood him, and Charlotte sat opposite, smiling. She had some white sewing in her hands; he thought it looked like one of his shirts. He had no idea if she knew why he was talking like this—that it was to blot out Paragon Walk and what must be faced tomorrow. If she had, she was wise enough not to let him know.

There was nothing new at the police station. He asked to see his superior officers and told them what he intended to do. If there were no other explanation, no other key to the garden door, and no one had seen any other person, he would have to assume it was someone in Cayley’s household and interrogate them in that light, not only the footman and the valet, but Hallam Cayley himself.

They were unhappy with the idea, especially of accusing Hallam, but they conceded that it seemed unavoidable that it was someone in the house—most likely the valet or the footman.

Pitt did not argue with them or give them all the reasons why he thought it was Hallam. After all, most of it was deduction and the misery in the man’s face, the horror within him that was greater than anything outside. They could so easily have said it was simply the terrors of a man who drinks too much and cannot stop himself. And he could not have reasoned otherwise.

He arrived at the Walk in the late morning and went straight to the house. He rang at the front door and waited. Incredibly, there was no answer. He tried again, and again there was nothing. Had some domestic crisis occupied the footman to the neglect of his usual duties?

He decided to go around to the kitchen door. There surely would be servants there; there were always maids in a kitchen, at any time of the day.

He was still yards short of the door when he saw the scullery maid. She looked up and gave a yelp, grabbing at her apron front and staring at him.

“Good morning,” he said, trying to force a smile.

She stood frozen to the spot, speechless.

“Good morning,” he repeated. “I can’t make anyone hear at the front. May I come in through the kitchen?”

“The servants has got the day off,” she said breathlessly. “There’s just me and cook, and Polly. And Mr. Cayley in’t up yet!”

Pitt swore under his breath. Had that fool of a constable allowed them all to leave the Walk—including the murderer?

“Where have they gone?” he demanded.

“Well, ’oskins, that’s the valet, ’e’s in ’is own room, I reckon. I ain’t seen ’im today, but Polly took ’im a tray o’ toast and a pot o’ tea. And Albert, that’s the footman, I reckon as ’e’s probably gorn round to Lord Dilbridge’s, ’cos ’e’s got a fancy for their upstairs maid. Is anything wrong, sir?”

Pitt felt a wave of relief. This time the smile was real.

“No, I shouldn’t think so. But I’d like to come in all the same. I dare say someone could wake Mr. Cayley for me. I need to see him to ask him about one or two things.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t, sir. Mr. Cayley, well, ’e’s—’e won’t like it. ’E in’t very well in the mornings!” She looked anxious, as if she feared she would be blamed for Pitt’s arrival.

“I dare say not,” he agreed. “But this is police business, and it can’t wait. Just let me in, and I’ll wake him myself, if you prefer?”

She looked very dubious, but she knew authority when she heard it and led him obediently through the kitchens and stopped at the baize door to the rest of the house. Pitt understood.

“Very well,” he said quietly. “I’ll tell him you had no choice.” He pushed the door open and went into the hall. He had only got as far as the bottom stair when the barest movement caught his eye, just an inch or two, as of something unfixed among the straight wooden pillars of the stairway.

He looked up.

It was Hallam Cayley, swinging by his neck very, very slightly from his dressing gown cord, attached to the bannister where it ran along the landing.

Only for the first second was Pitt surprised. Then it all seemed dreadfully, tragically inevitable.

He started to climb up slowly until he reached the landing. Closer to, it was obvious Hallam was dead. His face was mottled but had not the purplish look of suffocation. He must have broken his neck as soon as he jumped. He was lucky. A man of his weight might easily have snapped the cord and ended up two stories below, broken-backed but still alive.

Pitt could not haul him up alone. He would have to send one of the servants for Forbes, and a police surgeon, the whole team. He turned around and went down slowly. What a sad, predictable end to a wretched story. There was no satisfaction in it, no sense of solution. He went through the baize door and told the cook and the girl simply that Mr. Cayley was dead and they were to go next door and ask one of the manservants to send for the police, a surgeon, and a mortuary coach.

There were fewer hysterics than he had expected. Perhaps, after the discovery of Fulbert’s body, they were not entirely surprised. Perhaps they had no more emotion left. Then he went back upstairs to look at Hallam again and see if there were any letter, any explanation or confession. It did not take him long; it was in the bedroom on a small writing table. The pen and ink were still beside it. It was open and not addressed to anyone.

I did assault Fanny. I left Freddie’s party and went out into the garden, then into the street. I found Fanny there quite by chance.

It all began as a flirtation, weeks before that. She pursued it. I realize now she did not understand what she was doing, but at the time I was beyond thinking.

But I swear I did not kill her.

At least the day afterward I would have sworn it. The day after I was stunned as anyone.

Nor did I touch Selena Montague. I would have sworn that. I don’t even remember what I was doing that night. I was drinking. But I never cared for Selena; even drunk I would not have forced myself on her.

I’ve thought about it till my mind reeled. I’ve woken in the night cold with terror. Am I losing my mind? Did I stab Fanny without even knowing what I was doing?

I didn’t see Fulbert alive the day he was killed. I was out when he called, and when I came back my footman told me he had shown him upstairs. I found him in the green bedroom, but he was already dead, lying on his face with the wound in his back. But, so help me God, I don’t remember doing it.

I did hide him. I was terrified. I did not kill him, but I knew they would accuse me. I put him up the chimney. It was large, and I am a great deal bigger than Fulbert. He was surprisingly light when I picked him up, even though he was dead weight. It was awkward getting him into the cavern of it, but there are niches up there for the sweeps’ boys, and I managed it at last. I wedged him in. I thought he might stay there forever, if I locked the room off. I never thought of spring cleaning, and of Mrs. Heath having a master key.

Perhaps, I am mad. Maybe I killed both of them, and my brain is so clouded with darkness or disease I don’t know it. I am two people, one tormented, lonely, full of regrets, not knowing the other half, and haunted by terrors of it—the other God, or the devil knows what? A savage, a madman, killing again and again.

Death is the best thing for me. Life has nothing but forgetfulness in drink between terrors of my other self.

I am sorry about Fanny, truly sorry. That I know I did.

But, if I killed her, or Fulbert, it was my other self, a creature I don’t know, but he will at least die with me.

Pitt put it down. He was used to feeling pity, the wrench inside of a pain one could not reach, for which there was no balm.

He walked back onto the landing. There were police coming in at the front door. Now there would be the long ritual of surgeon’s examination, search of his belongings, recording of the confession, such as it was. It gave him no sense of accomplishment.

He told Charlotte about it in the evening when he got home, not because he felt any ease over it, but because it concerned Emily.

For several moments she said nothing, then she sat down very slowly.

“Poor creature.” She let out her breath quietly. “Poor haunted creature.”

He sat down opposite her, looking at her face, trying to close Hallam and everything else to do with Paragon Walk out of his mind. For a long time there was silence, and it became easier. He began to think of things they might do, now that the case was over and he would have some time off. Jemima was big enough not to take cold; they might go for a trip up the river on one of the excursion boats, even pack a picnic and sit on the back and eat, if the weather stayed so fine. Charlotte would enjoy that. He could picture her now, her skirts spread around her on the grass, her hair bright as polished chestnuts in the sun.

Perhaps next year, if they were careful of every penny, they might even go to the country for a few days. Jemima would be old enough then to walk. She could discover all the beautiful things, pools of water in the stones, flowers under the hedges, perhaps a bird’s nest, all the things he had known as a child.

“Do you think it was the loss of his wife that started his madness?” Charlotte’s voice scattered his dream and brought him back rudely to the present.

“What?”

“The death of his wife,” she repeated. “Do you think grief and loneliness preyed on his mind till he drank too much and became mad?”

“I don’t know.” He did not want to think about it. “Maybe. There were some old love letters among his things. They looked as if they had been read several times, edges a bit bent, one or two tears. They were very intimate, very possessive.”

“I wonder what she was like. She died before Emily went there, so she never knew her. What was her name?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t bother to sign the letters. I suppose she just left them around the house for him.”

Charlotte smiled, a tight, sad little gesture.

“How dreadful, to love someone so intensely, and then for them to die. His whole life seems to have disintegrated since then. I hope, if I died, you would always remember me, but not like that—”

The thought was horrible, bringing the darkness of the night inside the room, void and immense, never ending, cold as the distance to the stars. Pity for Hallam overwhelmed him. There were no words for it, just the pain.

She moved to kneel on the floor in front of him, taking his hands gently. Her face was smooth, and he could feel the warmth of her body. She did not try to say anything, find words to comfort, but there was a sureness in her quiet beyond his understanding.

It was several days before Emily called, and when she came in with a swirl of dotted muslin she was glowing as Charlotte had never seen her before. She was quite noticeably heavier now, but her skin was flawless, and there was a new shine in her eyes.

“You look wonderful!” Charlotte said spontaneously. “You should have children all the time!”

Emily pulled a dreadful face, but it was in mock, and they both knew it. Emily sat down on the kitchen chair and demanded a cup of tea.

“It’s all over,” she said determinedly. “At least that part of it is!”

Charlotte turned slowly, her own thoughts hardening and finding shape even as she swung from the sink to the table.

“You mean you’re not happy about it either?” she asked carefully.

“Happy?” Emily’s face fell. “How could I be—Charlotte! Don’t you believe it was Hallam?” her voice was incredulous, her eyes wide.

“I suppose it must have been,” Charlotte said slowly, pouring water into the kettle and over the top, spilling into the sink without noticing. “He admitted assaulting Fanny, and there was no other reason for killing Fulbert—”

“But?” Emily challenged.

“I don’t know,” Charlotte turned off the tap and emptied the excess out of the kettle. “I don’t know what else.”

Emily leaned forward.

“I’ll tell you! We never discovered what it was that Miss Lucinda saw, and what it is that is going on in the Walk— and there is something! Don’t try to tell me it was all something to do with Hallam, because it wasn’t. Phoebe is still terrified. If anything, she is even worse, as if Hallam’s death were just one more thread in the ghastly picture she can see. She said the oddest thing to me yesterday, which is partly why I came today, to tell you.”