Paragon Walk Read Online Free PDF Page B

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, I shall do that. Oh,” he remembered the peculiar burn the surgeon had remarked, “do you happen to know if Miss Nash had had an accident recently, a burn?” He did not wish to describe the place of the injury if it was avoidable. He knew it would embarrass her exquisitely.
    “Burn?” she said with a frown.
    “Quite a small burn,” he described its shape as the police surgeon had described it to him. “But fairly deep, and recent.”
    To his amazement, every vestige of color fled from her face.
    “Burn?” her voice was faint. “No, I cannot imagine. I’m sure I know nothing of it. Perhaps—perhaps she had—” she coughed “—had taken some interest in the kitchen? You must ask my sister-in-law. I—I really have no idea.”
    He was puzzled. She was plainly horrified. Was it simply that she knew the site of the injury and was agonized with embarrassment by it because he was a man, and an infinitely inferior person in her social hierarchy? He did not understand her well enough to know.
    “Thank you, ma’am,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it is of no importance.” And with further polite murmurings he was shown out by the footman into the light and sun again.
    He stood for several minutes before deciding whom to call upon next. Forbes was somewhere in the Walk, talking to the servants, relishing his new importance in investigating a murder, and indulging a long cherished curiosity about the precise workings of the households of a social order beyond all his previous