Ragnall looked very faintly uncomfortable. His smooth, rather good-looking face flushed, so slightly it could have been no more than a change of the light, except that he had not moved.

“I suppose I am saying that-yes.” He made it sound like an apology. “I believe Miss Zakhari is very beautiful. At least that is what I have heard. One can become… obsessed.” He pursed his lips, giving himself a moment to seek exactly the right words to make Pitt understand. “She is Egyptian. There are unlikely to be many other Egyptian women in London. It is not as if she were ordinary, and easily replaceable. Some men are attracted to the exotic.”

“You saw Mr. Lovat regularly.” Pitt too was feeling his way. “Did you gather the impression that he was ’obsessed,’ as you put it?”

“Well…” Ragnall drew in his breath and then let it out again.

“Your protection of his reputation may condemn another man,” Pitt said grimly.

Ragnall looked puzzled for a moment.

“Another man?” Then his confusion cleared. “Oh… this nonsense in the newspapers about Ryerson? Surely it’s just…” He opened his palms to indicate a helplessness to describe exactly what he was thinking.

“I hope so,” Pitt agreed. “Was Lovat obsessed with her?”

“I… I really have no idea.” Ragnall was obviously uncomfortable. “I never knew of him being serious about a woman… at least for more than a short time. He…” Now there was distinct color in his face. “He seemed to find it rather easy to attract women and then… move on.”

“He had many affairs?” Pitt concluded.

“Yes… yes, I’m afraid he did. He was usually reasonably discreet, of course. But one does get to know.” Ragnall was acutely aware of discussing intimate subjects with a social inferior. Pitt had placed him in the position of betraying his own class, or his ethics. Either would be hard and cut across his deep convictions as to who and what he wished to be.

“With what sort of women?” Pitt asked, his voice still light and courteous.

Ragnall’s eyes widened.

Pitt maintained his steady gaze. “Mr. Lovat has been murdered, sir,” he reminded him. “I am afraid the reasons for such a crime are not often as simple as we should like, or as far from shame. I need to know more about Mr. Lovat and the people he knew well.”

“Surely the Egyptian woman, Miss Zakhari, killed him?” Ragnall said, his composure regained. “He may have been foolish in pursuing her when his attentions would seem to have been unwelcome, but there is no need to drag anyone else into it, is there?” He regarded Pitt with a look of distaste.

“It appears as though she did,” Pitt conceded. “Although she denies it. And as you say, it seems an extremely violent and unnecessary way to refuse an unwanted suitor. From what I have heard of her so far, she was a woman of more finesse. She must have had unwanted suitors before. Why was Lovat different?”

Ragnall’s face tightened, and there was a dull color in his cheeks again and a stiffness in his manner. “You are right,” he said grudgingly. “If she made her living that way, and I had assumed such was the case, then she must have been better at discarding the old, in order to improve her situation, than this would suggest.”

“Exactly,” Pitt agreed with feeling. For the first time a point had been made in Ayesha Zakhari’s favor. He was startled by how much it pleased him. “What was Lovat like? And you are not giving his obituary. Only the truth can be fair to all.”

Ragnall thought for several moments. “Frankly, he was a womanizer,” he said reluctantly.

“He liked women?” Pitt attempted to reach after exactly what Ragnall meant. “He fell in love? He used them? Might he have made enemies?”

Ragnall was distinctly unhappy. “I… I really don’t know.”

“What gives you the impression that he was a womanizer, sir?” Pitt said bluntly. “Men have been known to exaggerate their conquests to impress others. A lot of loose talk does not necessarily mean anything.”

A flick of temper crossed Ragnall’s face. “Lovat didn’t talk, Mr. Pitt, at least not that I heard. It is my own observation, and that of colleagues.”

“What sort of women?” Pitt repeated. “Ones like Ayesha Zakhari?”

Ragnall was slightly taken aback. “You mean foreigners? Or…” He did not wish to use the word whore. It spoke not only of the women but of the men who used them. “Not that I am aware of,” he finished abruptly.

“I meant women who have no husbands or families in London,” Pitt corrected. “And who are past the usual age of marrying, possibly who make their way as mistresses.”

Ragnall took a deep breath, as if reaching a decision that was difficult for him.

Pitt waited. Perhaps finally he was on the brink of something that did not implicate Ryerson.

“No,” Ragnall said at last. “I gathered he did not particularly care, and… and he had not the means to support a mistress, not in any style.” He stopped, still reluctant to commit himself any further.

Pitt stared at him. “Other men’s wives? Their daughters?”

Ragnall cleared his throat. “Yes… at times.”

“Who were his friends?” Pitt asked. “What clubs did he belong to? What were his interests, sports? Did he gamble, go to the theater? What did he do in his leisure time?”

Ragnall hesitated.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Pitt warned. “The man was in the diplomatic service. You could not allow yourself to be unaware of his habits. That would be incompetent. You must know his associates, his problems, his financial status.”

Ragnall looked down at his hands, spread on the desk, then up at Pitt again. “The man is dead,” he said quietly. “I have no idea whether that was pure misfortune or if he contributed to it in some way himself, greatly, or very little. He was good at his job. I am unaware of him owing anyone money or, as far as I know, favors. He came from a good family, and he kept his word once he had given it. He had an honorable career in the army and he never lacked either physical or moral courage. I never caught him in a lie, nor do I know anyone who did. He was loyal to his friends, and he knew how to conduct himself as a gentleman. He had a certain charm, and there was nothing mean-spirited in him.”

Pitt felt the wave of regret he always did when investigating a murder. Suddenly the truth of detail was overwhelmed by the loss of a life, the passion, the vulnerability, the virtues and the idiosyncrasies. The vitality of being was ended, not naturally in age, but without warning, and incomplete. The fault or the contributing sins of the person concerned seemed so unimportant as to be forgotten.

But emotion would cripple his analytical mind, and his job was to find the truth, easy or difficult, complicated and however painful.

“The names of his friends,” he said aloud. “I may find him innocent of all blame, Mr. Ragnall, but I cannot assume. If Miss Zakhari, or anyone else, is to be hanged for his murder, it will be because we know what happened, and why.”

“Yes, of course.” Ragnall pulled a piece of paper towards himself and picked up a pen, dipped it in the ink and began to write. He blotted it and pushed it towards Pitt.

“Thank you.” Pitt took it, glanced at it and read the names, and the clubs at which they might be found, then took his leave.

PITT SAW ONE or two of the people Ragnall had suggested, and learned very little more. No one was comfortable discussing a colleague who was dead, and unable to defend himself. It was not a matter of affection so much as loyalty to their own ideals, perhaps in the belief that to betray was to invite a similar betrayal yourself, when your own weaknesses were questioned.

By midafternoon Pitt had given up the hope of finding anything useful this way, and decided to go and see his brother-in-law, Jack Radley, who had now been a Member of Parliament for a number of years, some of it with particular interest in the Foreign Office.