Cardington Crescent

12

NELLIE LED PITT through a maze of cramped alleys and steps till they came to a small, squalid yard stacked with old furniture—much of it mildewed and worm-eaten—bits and pieces of old crockery, and scraps of fabric that not even the ragpickers would have bothered with. At the far side, beyond the ill-balanced piles and heaps, was the entrance down to a large cellar.

“This is w’ere I brung ’em,” Nellie said, looking up at Pitt anxiously. “I swear it, mister.”

“Who did you give them to?” he asked, staring round and seeing no one.

“Mr. Wigge.” She pointed to the steps down to the dark, gaping cellar.

“Come and show me,” he requested, “please.”

Reluctantly she picked her way through the rubbish to the edge of the stair, descending slowly. At the bottom she turned and knocked on the wooden door which stood open on rusted hinges. Her hands made hardly any sound.

“Mr. Wigge? Sir?”

A scrawny old man appeared almost immediately, clad in a filthy jacket, pockets torn by the weight of the junk he had piled in them over the years, trousers splashed with all manner of ordure. He wore fingerless mittens on his hands in spite of the warmth of the day, and on his thin, uncut hair was a shiny black stovepipe hat, completely unmarked. It might have left the hatter’s shop an hour since.

His lantern-jawed face split in an anticipatory leer, and he squinted up at Pitt.

“Mr. Wigge?” Pitt inquired.

The old man bowed jerkily; it was an affectation of gentility he liked. “Septimus Wigge at your service, sir. ’Ow may I ’elp yer? I got a lovely brass bedstead. I got a dancin’ lady in real porcelain.”

“I’ll come in and take a look.” Pitt had a premonition of disappointment. If Clarabelle Mapes had simply been selling off household goods, her own or others’, to raise a little money, it was not worth pursuing. And yet the knots had been peculiar, identical to those on that terrible parcel in the churchyard and all the others.

What should he do about Nellie? If he sent her back to Tortoise Lane would she tell Mrs. Mapes what he had asked her, and where she had taken him? He did not hold much hope that she would hold out against Mrs. Mapes’s inquisition if she were suspicious. Nellie lived in a cocoon of hunger and fear.

And yet if he kept her with him, what could he do with her? Tortoise Lane was her home—probably all she knew. He had already committed her. She knew about the parcels, and if Clarabelle Mapes had tied those bloody and dreadful ones as well as the innocent one, Nellie’s life was imperiled if she returned and told how she had led Pitt to Septimus Wigge. He had to keep her.

“Nellie, come in with me and help me look.”

“I daren’t, mister.” She shook her head. “I got chores. I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get ’ome in time. Mrs. Mapes’ll be that cross wi’ me.”

“Not if you go back with the money from Mrs. March,” he argued. “She’s in a hurry for that.”

Nellie looked doubtful. She was more afraid of the immediate than the problematical; her imagination did not stretch that far.

Pitt did not have time to argue. She was used to obedience.

“It’s an order, Nellie,” he said briskly. “You stay with me. Mrs. Mapes will be angry if her money is delayed.” He turned to the waiting man.”Now, Mr. Wigge, I’ll take a look at these brass beds of yours.”

“Very reasonable, sir, very reasonable.” Wigge turned and led the way inside the cellar. It was larger than Pitt had expected, higher-ceilinged and stretching back into the recesses of the building. Against one wall there was a large furnace with a metal door hanging open sending heat out into the stone spaces, and in spite of the mildness of the day, its warmth was agreeable under the ground level, where there was no sunlight.

The old man showed him several fine brass bedsteads, a few pieces of quite good china, and several other odds and ends in which Pitt affected to be interested, all the time peering and searching, finding nothing beyond what might or might not be stolen goods. But while haggling with him over a small green glass vase he eventually bought for Charlotte, he did make a very close observation of Mr. Septimus Wigge himself. By the time he left, still followed by Nellie, he could have described Mr. Wigge so closely an artist could have drawn him from the soles of his appalling boots up to the crown of his immaculate hat, and every feature of his smirking face.

He took his leave, holding the vase, taking Nellie with him. He had no choice. He must forget about Sybilla, whose connection with Clarabelle Mapes he could not understand and very probably was coincidental and had nothing to do with her murder. He must go back to the Bloomsbury churchyard, now that he knew who he was looking for, and try all the residents and habitues to see if even one of them could place Septimus Wigge there three weeks ago. It could be a long task.

First he must find a safe place to leave Nellie, where Mrs. Mapes would not discover her. It was after two, and they had not eaten.

“Are you hungry, Nellie?” He asked only out of politeness; from the child’s hollow eyes and the sunken, slack quality of her flesh he knew she was always hungry.

“Yes, mister.” She did not sound surprised that he should ask; she obviously believed him sufficiently eccentric to do anything.

“So am I. Let’s have luncheon.”

“I ain’t got nuffin.” This time she looked at him anxiously.

“You’ve been a great help to me, Nellie, I think you’ve earned luncheon.” She was fifteen, quite old enough to understand patronage, and she did not deserve it. She had little enough dignity and he was determined not to seduce that from her. Nor would he question her yet about the house in Tortoise Lane. He knew what it was; he did not need to lead her into betraying it. “I know a very good public house where they’ll give us fresh bread and cold meat and pickle and pudding.”

She did not yet believe it. “Thank you, mister,” she said, her expression unchanged.

The pub he had in mind was only half a mile away, and they walked to it in silence, quite companionable for his part. As soon as he went in, the landlord recognized him. He was a moderately law-abiding citizen, most of the time, and that area of his business which was questionable Pitt left alone. It was to do with game bought from poachers, the occasional avoidance of excise taxes on tobacco and similar goods, and a great deal of judicious blindness. Pitt was concerned with murder.

“Afternoon, Mr. Tibbs,” he said cheerfully.

“Afternoon, Mr. Pitt, sir.” Tibbs came hurrying towards him, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers, eager to keep on the right side of the law. “Luncheon for yer, Mr. Pitt, sir? Got a luvly piece o’ mutton—or a good Cheshire, or a Double Gloucester? An’ me best pickle, Mrs. Tibbs’s own, put it up last summer an’ it’s proper tasty. What’ll it be?”

“Mutton, Mr. Tibbs,” Pitt replied. “For me and the lady. And a jar of ale each. And then pudding. And Tibbs, there are some very unpleasant people who might come looking for the lady, to do her harm. I’d like you to keep her safe for a while. She’s a good little worker, when she’s fed. Find her a place out of sight in your kitchens. She can sleep by the stove. It won’t be for long, unless you decide to keep her. She’ll earn her way.

Tibbs looked doubtfully at Nellie’s skinny little body and pinched face. “Wot’s she done?” he asked, giving Pitt a narrow look.

“Seen something she shouldn’t,” Pitt replied immediately.

“All right,” Tibbs said reluctantly. “But you’ll answer fer anythin’ she takes, Mr. Pitt.”

“You feed her properly and don’t beat her,” Pitt agreed, “and I’ll answer for her honesty. And if I don’t find her here when I come back for her, you’ll answer with a lot more than money. Are we understood?”

“It’s a favor I’m doin’ yer, Mr. Pitt.” Tibbs wanted to make sure he was laying up future repayment.

“It is,” Pitt conceded. “I don’t forget much, Mr. Tibbs—good or bad.”

“I’ll get yer mutton.” Tibbs disappeared, satisfied.

Pitt and Nellie sat down at one of the small tables, he with relief, she gingerly, still confused.

“Why yer talkin’ abaht me wiv ’im fer?” she asked, screwing up her face and staring at him, a trace of fear in her eyes.

“Because I’m going to leave you here to work in his kitchen,” he answered. “You’re not safe in Tortoise Lane till I’ve finished learning what I have to.”

“Mrs. Mapes’ll turn me aht!” She was really frightened now. “I’ll ’ave nowhere ter go!”

“You can stay here.” He leaned forward. “Nellie, you’ve learned something you shouldn’t. I’m a policeman, a rozzer. Do you know what happens to people who know secrets they shouldn’t?”

She nodded silently. She knew. They vanished. She had lived fifteen years in St. Giles; she understood the laws of survival very well.

“You a rozzer, honest? You ain’t got no cape ner ’elmet, ner one o’ them little lights.”

“I used to have. Now I only deal with big, important crimes, and I have some of the rozzers with helmets to work for me.”

Tibbs brought their food himself: crusty bread, thick slices of cold saddle of mutton and rich, dark pickle, two mugs of ale, and two portions of spotted Dick—steamed pudding thick with currants. Nellie was speechless when a full half of it was placed in front of her. Pitt only hoped she would not be sick with the unaccustomed wealth of it. He might have been wiser to give her shrunken stomach a little at first, but there was no time, and he was hungry himself.

“Eat as much as you want,” he said graciously. “But don’t feel you have to finish it. There’ll be more tonight, and tomorrow.”

Nellie simply stared at him.

He collected a constable from the local beat and co-opted him into going from one door to another yet again. All afternoon they worked the areas within five hundred yards of where the hideous parcels had been found—first in the approaches to the Bloomsbury churchyard, then closer to the outskirts of St. Giles, where the later discoveries were made. He had given the constable a precise description of Septimus Wigge, both his person and the clothes he had seen him wearing in his cellar storehouse.

By six o’clock in the evening they met again at the churchyard gate.

“Well?” Pitt asked, although the answer mattered little; he already had what he needed. He had been too impatient, too angry, to be subtle. But in spite of his unusual clumsiness he had found a footman who had been up early returning from an assignation and had seen a scraggy, lantern-jawed old man in a stovepipe hat a hundred yards from the church, hurrying along, pushing a small handcart with one fairly large parcel in it. He had not mentioned it at the time of the torso’s discovery because he did not wish to admit being out; it would almost certainly mean his dismissal from his position, and he had thought the old man merely a peddlar, probably with something stolen, to be about at such an hour. It was too early even for costers in from the outlying districts with vegetables, or up from the docks or the river with winkles, eels, or other such delicacies.

But Pitt had bullied him into believing that to hide such knowledge now would make him accomplice to the murder, and that was infinitely worse than losing a position over a bit of flirtation with a housemaid a mile away.

And he had also chanced on a prostitute further toward St. Giles, where one of the gruesome parcels, a leg, had been found. Now that he could describe Septimus Wigge so precisely he knew what to ask, and, after several girls, he came upon one who had seen him with his handcart. She remembered the fine stovepipe hat, its sheen gleaming in the moonlight as he turned the corner. She had noticed it then but not considered the three paper-and-string-wrapped parcels in his cart.

And there had been others—men he would not like to call to a witness stand, but nonetheless all helping to seal the certainty: a squint-eyed little fence who had been keeping an eye open for dealers, a pimp in a knife fight over one of his whores, and a burglar busy star-glazing a window to break into a house.

“Two,” the constable answered. He was good at his job and knew the crime, but he had not Pitt’s anger and had been more circumspect in his threats. He looked disappointed, feeling he had let down his superior. “Not much use in court. A rat-faced little magsman coming home after a night cheating at cards, and a twelve-year-old snakesman, thin as a wire, on his way to climb in through someone’s back windows and let his master in. I know where to find them both again.”

“What did they see?” Pitt was not disconcerted; no citizen would be about respectable business at that time of night in St. Giles, except perhaps a priest or a midwife, and the first was little wished for, the second little afforded. God knew how many children died at the moment of birth through dirt and ignorance, and their mothers with them.

“A spindly old man with scruffy hair under a shiny stovepipe hat, wheeling a handcart and hurrying,” the constable answered. “The snakesman certainly saw him coming out of the alley where the head was found.”

“Good. Then we’ll go and arrest Septimus Wigge,” Pitt replied decisively.

“But we can’t call them to a court!” the constable protested, running a step or two to keep up with him. “No judge in London will take their word.”

“Won’t need to,” Pitt replied. “I don’t think Wigge killed the woman, he simply disposed of the parcels. If we arrest him and frighten the living daylights out of him, he’ll tell us who did—although I’m pretty sure I know. But I want him to swear it.”

The constable understood little of what Pitt was referring to, but he was satisfied if Pitt was. They strode rapidly along the narrow, refuse-strewn streets past sweatshops, tenements, and huddles of collapsing houses. Beggars stood idle or sat in doorways; children labored in endless dreary jobs, picking rags, running errands, stealing from pockets or barrows; women begged, toiled, and drank.

Pitt made only one wrong turn before finding Septimus Wigge’s cellar again, with its piles of junk and its furnace. He told the constable to wait out of sight while he made sure the old man was in, and that there was no back way out for him to escape, through a warren of passages heaven knew where.

He walked smartly across the yard and down the steps, keeping as quiet as he could. He came upon the old man going through a box of spoons, his head bent to pore over them, a huge smile on his face.

“Glad to find you in, Mr. Wigge,” Pitt said softly, waiting till he was within a yard before he spoke.

Wigge jerked up, startled and amazed until he saw it was a customer. His face ironed out and he smiled with brown, irregular teeth, more missing than present.

“Well, sir, an’ wot can I do for yer this time? I got some luvly siller spoons ’ere.”

“I daresay, but I don’t want them at the moment.” He moved to stand between Wigge and the back of the shop; the constable should be at the top of the steps and would prevent escape that way.

“Wotcher want then? I got all kinds o’ fings.”

“Have you got any brown paper parcels with bits of a woman’s body in them?”

Wigge’s face went slack, bloodless with terror, so the gray dirt stood out on it in smears. He tried to speak and his voice failed. His throat contracted, his larynx bobbed up and down. He gulped, choked, and gulped again. The smell of sweat was strong in the close, hot air.

“That ain’t f-funny!” he said hoarsely, trying desperately to control the panic racing through him. “It ain’t f-funny at all!”

“I know,” Pitt agreed, “I found one of them. The upper half of the torso, to be precise. Soaked with blood. Did you have a mother, Mr. Wigge?”

Wigge wanted to take offense, but the power did not reach his lips.

“Course I did!” he said wretchedly. “No call f-fer ... I ...” He subsided, staring at Pitt in mesmerized horror.

“She had a child,” Pitt answered, gripping his skinny shoulder. “That woman whose body you hacked to pieces and dropped around.”

“I didn’t!” Wigge wriggled under Pitt’s hand and his voice rose so high and shrill it was painful to hear. “Swelpme Gawd I didn’t! You gotta b’lieve me, I didn’t kill ’er!”

“I don’t believe you,” Pitt lied badly. “If you didn’t kill her you wouldn’t have cut her up and distributed her round half of London.”

“I didn’t kill ’er! She were already dead, I swear!” Wigge was so terrified Pitt was afraid he might have a seizure and pass out altogether, even die. He modified his expression to one of dawning interest.

“Come on, Wigge. If she was dead and you didn’t kill her, why would you slash her to bits and wrap her up, and put the parcels round in the middle of the night? And don’t try to deny that—we’ve got at least seven people who saw you and will swear to it. Took us a little while, but we’ve got them now. I can arrest you this minute and take you to Newgate, or Coldbath Fields.”

“No!” The little man shrieked and squirmed, glaring up at Pitt with a mixture of fury and impotence. “I’m an old man!—them places’d kill me! There ain’t no decent food, an’ the jail fever’d kill me, it would.”

“Maybe,” Pitt said dispassionately. “But they’ll probably top you before that. You don’t always get jail fever immediately, it’s only a few weeks before a hanging.”

“Gawd ’elp me, I didn’t kill ’er!”

“So why did you cut up the body and get rid of it?” Pitt persisted.

“I didn’t!” he squealed. “I didn’t cut ’er up! She come that way, I swear ter Gawd!”

“Why did you put her all round Bloomsbury and St. Giles?” Pitt glanced at the furnace. “Why didn’t you burn her? You must have known we’d find her. In a churchyard! Really, Wigge. Not very clever.”

“Course I knew yer’d find ’er, yer fool!” A shadow of his old contempt came back, quickly erased by the terror crawling in his belly. “But adult bones don’t burn away—not even in an ’ole ’ouse afire, let alone a furnace like mine.”

Pitt felt sick. “But infant bones do, of course,” he said very quietly. He gripped Wigge’s shoulder so hard he could feel the scrawny flesh crumple under his hands and the hard, flat old bones grind together underneath, but Wigge was too terrified to scream.

Wigge nodded. “I never took a live one, I swear ter Gawd! I just got rid o’ them as ’ad died, poor little things.”

“Suffocated. Or starved.” Pitt looked at him as one might the germs of some disease.

“I dunno, I just done it fer a favor. I’m innocent!”

“The word’s a blasphemy from you.” Pitt shook him till his feet lifted off the ground and his boots jittered on the floor. “You knew this wasn’t a child! Did you open the parcels to see?”

“No! Stop ’urtin’ me! Yer breakin’ me bones! Two o’ them parcels was all over blood when I went to put ’em in the fire. Fair gave me a turn, it did! Near killed me, wiv me ’eart! ’Twas then I knew as I ’ad ter get rid o’ them. Can’t bear things like that, and I don’t want nuffin ter do wiv ’em, not keepin’ ’em ’ere in my furnace for the pigs ter find, if they do me over fer loot. I gets some very good fings in ’ere, I do!” It was a grotesque moment for such perverse pride. “Real gold and siller, sometimes!”

“So you didn’t want to keep the bones in your furnace,” Pitt said viciously. “Very wise. We pigs take nastily to things like that—it needs a lot of explaining. In fact, as much as dumping bits of corpse round Blooms-bury.” His grip tightened so hard Wigge practically lifted himself off the ground again by his contortions to free himself without actually fighting back. “Where did they come from?”

“I ... I, er ...”

“I’m going to hang somebody for it,” Pitt said between his teeth. “If it isn’t whoever sent you those parcels, then you’ll do.”

“I didn’t kill ’er! It was Clarabelle Mapes! Swear ter Gawd! Number three, Tortoise Lane. She’s a baby farmer. Advertises fer infants to raise, illegitimate and the like. Says as she’ll raise ’em as ’er own, if she’s paid right fer their keep. Only sometimes they dies. Proper weakly, infants is. I jus’ get rid o’ the corpuses for ’er. Can’t afford no burials. We’re poor ’ere in St. Giles, you know that!”

“You’ll swear to that, before the judge? Clarabelle Mapes sent you those parcels?”

“Yeah! Yeah! I’ll swear. It’s Gawd’s truth, swelpme it is!”

“Good. I believe you. However, I wouldn’t want you disappearing when I need you. And it’s a crime to dispose of a human body, even if it is dead. So I’ll take you in charge anyway. Constable!”

The constable appeared down the steps, his face pale, rubbing the sweat off his hands on his trouser legs.

“Yes, Mr. Pitt, sir?”

“Take Mr. Septimus Wigge to the station and charge him with disposing of a corpse illegally, and see that you hold on to him tight. He’s a witness against a murderess—probably the murderess of a great many children, although we’ll never prove that. Be careful, constable, he’s a wriggly little bastard. You’d best cuff him.”

“I will, sir, I certainly will.” The constable pulled his manacles out from under his coat and fastened them on Wigge’s bony wrists. “Now you come along o’ me, an’ any trouble an’ I’ll ’ave ter be rough wiv yer, an we wouldn’t want that, now, would we, Mr. Wigge?”

Wigge gave a screech of alarm, and the constable hoisted him up the stairs with marked lack of gentleness, leaving Pitt alone in the cellar. The air suddenly seemed heavy, acrid with the smell of uncounted tiny bodies burning in the hot, gray furnace. He felt overpowered by it, sick.

He collected two more constables from the nearest station, just in case Mrs. Mapes were not alone and should put up some sort of struggle. She was a big woman and, Pitt judged, something of a fighter. It would be foolish to go to Tortoise Lane alone to search that large house, where there might well be male employees or dependents, as well as at least half a dozen girls that he knew of plus an unspecified number of infants.

It was after seven by the time he stood on the sloping pavement again and knocked on the heavy door. One constable was half hidden in an alley, a dozen feet away, another in the street roughly parallel, where Pitt judged the back entrance would open.

He lifted his hand and knocked once, then again. It was several minutes before it opened, at first only a crack. But as the child saw who it was and recognized him from the morning, it swung all the way back. It was the girl he had seen on the stairs with the infants.

“May I see Mrs. Mapes?” He stepped in, then stopped, remembering he must not show his anger or he would betray himself and perhaps lose her. “Please?”

“Yes, sir. Come this way, sir.” She turned and walked along the corridor, her feet bare and dirty. “We bin expectin’ yer.” She did not look back, or notice that the other constable had followed Pitt in and closed the door. At the end of the passage she came to the overfurnished sitting room where Pitt had been in the morning, and knocked tentatively.

“Come!” Mrs. Mapes’s voice called loudly. “Wot is it?”

“Mrs. Mapes, ma’am, there’s the gennelman wivva money ’ere ter see yer, ma’am.”

“Send ’im in!” Her voice softened noticeably. “Send ’im in, girl!”

“Thank you.” Pitt moved past the girl into the sitting room, closing the door so Mrs. Mapes would not see the constable pass on his way to the kitchen and the back door to let in his companion. They had orders to search the house.

Mrs. Mapes was in a puce dress stretched tight over her jutting bosom, and her voluminous skirts filled the entire chair with taffeta that rustled every time she breathed. That she corseted her flesh into such a relentlessly feminine shape was a monument to her vanity and her endurance of acute and persistent discomfort. Her fat fingers were bright with rings, and her ears dangled with gold under the black ringlets.

Her face gleamed with delight when she saw Pitt. He noticed there was a tray in a space cleared for it on the sideboard, a decanter of wine, Madeira from the depth of the color, and two glasses, the price of which, if they were as good as they looked, would have fed the entire house-hold for a fortnight on better than the gruel they were getting at the moment.

“Well, Mr. Pitt, sir, you were ’asty an’ no mistake,” she said with a broad smile. “Makes me think yer was awantin’ ter come back. Yer got my money, ’ave yer?”

She was so normal, so guilelessly greedy, he had to force to his mind the memory of the bloody parcels, the fact that she regularly wrapped in paper the corpses of infants taken in trust into her care, and sent them to Septimus Wigge to dispose of in his furnace. How many of them had died of natural causes, how many of starvation and disease brought about by neglect? How many had she actively murdered? He would never know, still less prove. But she was an abomination.

“I’ve just been to see a friend of yours,” he answered, sidestepping the question. “Or perhaps I should say an associate. In business.”

“I don’t ’ave no associates,” she said carefully, some of the glisten dying from her face. “Though there are some as’d like ter be.”

“This is one who does favors for you now and then—and no doubt you reward him for it.”

“I pays me way,” she agreed cautiously. “No time fer them as doesn’t. Life ain’t like that.”

“A Mr. Septimus Wigge.”

For a moment she was still as stone. Then she caught her breath and continued as though nothing had affected her. “Well, if I got suffin off ’im as was stolen, I bought it honest. I didn’t know the little weasel was bent.”

“I wasn’t thinking of goods, Mrs. Mapes, so much as services,” Pitt said distinctly.

“’E don’t do nobody no service!” Her mouth sloped downwards in disgust.

“He does you a considerable service,” he corrected her, still standing, and keeping himself carefully between her and the door. “He only failed you once.”

Her fat hands beside her monstrous skirt were clenched, but her eyes were still defiant. She stared up at him, her face heavy.

“He did not burn the body of the woman you sent him wrapped up in the usual parcels, which he expected to be babies who had died in your care. By the time he came to put the parcels in his furnace the blood had soaked through, so he undid one and discovered what it really was. Adult bones don’t burn that easily, Mrs. Mapes—not like those of a small child. It takes a very great heat to destroy a human thighbone, or a skull. Wigge knew that, and he didn’t want to be left with those in his furnace, so he dropped the parcels as far away from himself as he could carry them alone, in one night. He thought he would be safe, and he very nearly was.”

She was pale beneath her rouge, but she had not yet realized just how much he knew. Her body was tight, hard under the straining taffeta, and her hands shook a little, so little he could barely see it.

“If ’e’s killed some woman it’s nuffin ter do wiv me—an’ if ’e says it is, ’e’s a liar! You go an’ arrest ’im, don’t come around ’ere, bullyin’ me! You don’t look like no naffin’ rozzer—usually I can smell ’em. ’E ain’t murdered nobody from ’ere, so get on wiv yer business an’ leave me alone—’cept fer Mrs. March’s money. I don’t suppose yer got that, eh?”

“There is no money.”

“You lyin’ bastard!” Her voice rose shrilly and she lurched forward out of the chair to stand opposite him, eyes blazing. “Yer lyin’ son of a bitch! Yer bleedin’ swine!” Her hands came up as if she would strike him, but she recollected herself in time. She was a big woman, vastly heavy, but short; Pitt was a good deal taller than she, and strong. It was not worth the risk. “You lied!” she repeated incredulously.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “At first I simply wanted to find out what you knew about Mrs. March. Then I saw the parcel on the kitchen table, and recognized the paper and the knots. You wrapped the parcels that the pieces of the body were found in, not Septimus Wigge. He says he got them from you, and we believe him. Clarabelle Mapes, I am arresting you for the murder of the woman whose body was found in the churchyard of St. Mary’s in Bloomsbury. And don’t be foolish enough to fight me—I have two other constables in the house.”

She stared at him, a succession of emotions in her face; fear, horror, disbelief, and finally, hardening resolution. She was not yet beaten.

“Yer right,” she conceded grudgingly, “she died ’ere. But it weren’t no murder. It were in defense o’ meself, an’ yer can’t ’ardly blame me fer that! A woman’s entitled ter save ’erself.” Her voice grew more confident. “I’ll ignore yer charges against meself an’ me work carin’ fer infants wot their muvvers can’t keep, ’cos they ain’t married, or already got more’n they can feed. It’s a wicked charge, iggerant of all I do fer ’em.” She saw the look on Pitt’s face and hurried on. “But I ’ad no choice, or it’d be me lyin’ dead on the floor, so help me Gawd. Come at me like a mad thing, she did!” She looked up at Pitt, first through her lashes, then more boldly.

Pitt waited.

“Wanted one o’ the babes. Some women is like that. Lorst one of ’er own an’ come ’ere ter get another, like they was new dresses or suffin. Well, o’ course I couldn’t give ’er one.”

“Why not?” Pitt asked icily. “I would have thought you’d be only too pleased to find a good home for an orphan. Save you working yourself to the bone and stinting yourself to care for it anymore!”

She ignored his sarcasm; she could not afford to retaliate, but the anger was there in her eyes, hot and black.

“Them children is in my care, Mr. Pitt! An’ she didn’t want jus’ any one. Oh, no. She wanted a partic’lar one—one as’s mother was aht o’ means temporary, like, an’ jus’ ’avin’ me care for ’er little girl till she was better placed. An’ when this woman goes off ’er ’ead an insists on ’avin’ this one babe an’ no other, I ’ad ter refuse ’er. Well, she flew at me like a mad thing! I ’ad ter defend meself, or she’da cut me throat!”

“Oh, yes? What with?”

“Wiv a knife, o’ course! We was in the kitchen an’ she snatched up a carvin’ knife orff the table an’ went at me. Well, I ’ad ter fight fer me life, an’ I did! It was a sort o’ haccident she got killed—I merely meant ter save meself, like any person would!”

“So you cut her up and wrapped her in parcels, which you took to Septimus Wigge to burn,” Pitt said bitingly. “Why was that? Seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble.”

“You got a cruel tongue, Mr. Pitt.” She was gaining confidence. “An’ a nasty mind. ‘Cause I couldn’t take the risk o’ you bleedin’ rozzers not believin’ me—just like you don’t now. Sort o’ proves I was right, don’t it?”

“Absolutely, Mrs. Mapes. I don’t believe a word of it—except that you probably did stick the kitchen knife into her and killed her. And then carried on with the knife, and maybe a cleaver as well.”

“Yer may not believe me, Mr. Pitt.” She put her hands on her hips. “But there’s nuffin as you can prove. It’s my word ’gainst yours, and no court in Lunnon’s goin’ ter ’ang a woman on the misbelief o’ one o’ your kind, an’ that’s a fact.”

She was right, and it was a bitter taste to swallow.

“I shall still charge you with disposing of the body,” he said flatly. “And you’ll go down for a nice stretch for that.”

She let out a coarse expletive of denial. “’Alf the poor doesn’t tell the pigs o’ every death in places like St. Giles. People’s dyin’ all the time.”

“Then why didn’t you simply have her buried, like all these others you’re talking about?”

“Because she was knifed, o’ course, fool! Wot priest is goin’ ter bury a woman as ’as bin knifed? An’ she didn’t come from St. Giles. She was a stranger ’ere. There’d a’ bin questions. But the law’s the same—if yer charge me wiv that yer’ve gotta charge all the others. I reckon when the judge ears ’ow she came at me, an’ ’ow terrible sorry I was when she haccidental-like fell on the knife ’erself in the struggle, ’e’ll unnerstand why I lorst me ’ead an’ got rid of ’er.”

“Well, we’ll find out, Mrs. Mapes, I promise you,” he said bitterly. “Because you’ll have your chance to tell him.” He raised his voice. “Constable!”

Immediately the door opened and the burlier of the two constables came in. “Yes, sir?”

“Stay here with Mrs. Mapes and see she doesn’t leave—for anything. She’s a rare one with a knife—has accidents in which people who threaten her end up carved in little bits and dropped in parcels round half of London. So watch yourself.”

“Yes, sir.” The man’s face hardened. He knew St. Giles, and not much surprised him. “I’ll take good care of ’er, sir. She’ll be ’ere, safe as ’ouses, when yer gets back.”

“Good.” Pitt went out into the corridor and along to the kitchen. There were five girls sitting round, the other constable in their midst. He stood up as Pitt came in, and the girls did too, out of habit towards adults—not from respect, but from fear.

Pitt wandered in and sat casually on the edge of the big central wooden table, and one by one the girls resumed their seats, huddled together.

“Mrs. Mapes has told me a young woman came here about three weeks ago wanting a baby girl, and became very upset when she couldn’t have a particular one. Does anybody remember that?”

Their faces were blank, eyes wide.

“She was nice-looking,” he went on, trying to keep the anger out of his voice, the rasping edge of desperation. He had never wanted to convict anyone more than Clarabelle Mapes, and she would escape him if he did not prove murder. The story of self-defense he was almost sure was a complete fiction, but it was not impossible. A jury might believe it. His superiors would know that as much as Clarabelle herself. She might never even be charged. The thought burned like acid inside him. Seldom had he given in to personal hatred in his work, but this time he could not suppress it. If he was honest with himself, he was no longer trying.

“Please think,” he urged. “She was young and quite tall, with fair hair and a pretty skin. She didn’t come from round here.”

One of the girls nudged the girl next to her, avoiding Pitt’s eyes.

“Fanny ... !” she whispered tentatively.

Fanny looked at the floor.

Pitt knew what troubled her. Had he been a child in Mrs. Mapes’s care he would not have dared risk her anger.

“Mrs. Mapes told me she came here,” he said gently. “I believe her. But it would help if someone else could remember.” He waited.

Fanny twisted her fingers together and breathed deeply. Someone coughed.

“I remember ‘er, mister,” Fanny said at last. “She came ter the door an’ I let ‘er in.” She shook her head. “She weren’t from ’ere—she were all ‘andsome and clean. But terrible upset she was when she couldn’t ’ave the little girl. Said as she were ’er own, but Mrs. Mapes said she were mad, poor thing.”

“What little girl?” Pitt asked. “Do you know which one.

“Yes, mister. I remember ’cos she was real pretty, all fair ’air and such a smile. Called ’er Faith, they did.”

Pitt took a deep breath. “What happened to her?” he said so quietly he had to repeat it.

“She were adopted, mister. A lady wiv no children come and took ’er.”

“I see. And was this young woman who asked after Faith still upset when she left here?”

“Dunno, mister. None of us saw ’er go.”

Pitt tried to make his voice sound casual, gentle, so as not to frighten her, but he knew the edge was still there. “Did she tell you her name, Fanny?”

Fanny’s face remained glazed, her eyes faraway.

Pitt looked at the floor, willing her to remember, clenching his hands inside his pockets where she could not see.

“Prudence,” Fanny said clearly. “She said as ’er name were Prudence Wilson. I let ’er in an’ told Mrs. Mapes as she was ’ere. Mrs. Mapes sent me back ter aks ’er business.”

“And what was her business?” Pitt was buoyed up by a surge of hope, and yet at the same time, giving a name to the hideously used corpse, learning of her loves and hopes, made her death so much deeper an offense.

Fanny shook her head. “I dunno, mister, she wouldn’t say, ’cept to Mrs. Mapes.”

“And Mrs. Mapes didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

Pitt stood up. “That’s fine. Thank you, Fanny. Stay here and look after the little ones. The constable will stay too.”

“’Oo are yer, mister, an’ wot’s ’appenin’?” the eldest girl asked with her face screwed up. They were frightened of change; it usually meant the loss of something, the beginning of new struggle.

Pitt would like to have thought this time would be different, but he could not delude himself. They were too young to earn their way in any legal occupation—not that there were many for women except domestic service, for which they had no references; sweatshops barely afforded survival. And without Clarabelle Mapes to connive and cheat monthly money out of desperate women, on the pretense of minding children they were unable to keep themselves, there was no means to support this present group of infants in Tortoise Lane. It would probably mean the workhouse for most of them.

He did not know whether to lie to them and keep fear at bay a little longer, or if that only added to the patronage, the robbery of dignity. In the end cowardice won; he had simply worn out all the emotion he had.

“I’m a policeman, and until I’ve made a few more calls I don’t know for certain what’s happening. I’ve got to discover more about Prudence Wilson. Fanny, did she say where she came from?”

Fanny shook her head. “No.”

“Never mind, I’ll find out.” He went to the door, giving the constable instructions to remain there until he returned or sent relief.

Outside in Tortoise Lane he walked smartly towards Bloomsbury. It was the obvious place to begin. It was a reasonable assumption that Prudence Wilson had walked to the nearest such place as Mrs. Mapes’s, that she lived in at her own employment as housemaid or parlormaid, as the police surgeon had suggested.

Therefore Pitt went to the Bloomsbury Police Station, and by ten past eight he was facing a tired and short-tempered sergeant who had been on his feet all day and was so thirsty for a pint of ale he could taste dust in his mouth.

“Yes, sir?” he said without raising his eyes from the enormous ledger in front of him, where he was writing in a careful copperplate hand the details of a charge of vandalizing a fence, brought against a small boy.

“Inspector Pitt, Metropolitan Police,” Pitt said formally, to give the man time to correct his attitude accordingly.

“Not ’ere, sir. Don’t belong to this station. I’ve ’eard of ’im, does murders an’ the like. Try Bow Street, sir. If they don’t ’ave ’im, they maybe know ’oo ’as.”

Pitt smiled wearily. This pedestrian misunderstanding had a kind of sanity about it that was vaguely comforting. “I am Inspector Pitt, sergeant,” he replied. “And I am here about a murder. I would be obliged for your attention, if you please.”

The sergeant blushed a hot pink and stood up smartly, not even wincing as he banged the toe of his boot against the chair leg, aggravating his corns. He faced Pitt with wide eyes, inarticulate with apology.

“I am looking for record of a Miss Prudence Wilson, probably a maid in domestic service, maybe in this area. I am hoping she has been reported missing, about three or four weeks ago. Does the name sound familiar to you?”

“People don’t usually report ’ousemaids missin’, Mr. Pitt, sir.” The sergeant shook his head. “Terrible suspicious in their thoughts, people is—and usually right, too. Thinks they’s run off wiv some man, an’ like as not they ’ave, an’ ...” He let the sentiment remain unexpressed; it was indiscreet. Personally he wished them luck. His own marriage was a happy one, and he would not willingly have seen anyone bound to a life of service in someone else’s house rather than having their own. “But could ’a bin.” He showed his agreeability by going for the ledger where such things were noted and pulling it out. Dutifully he turned it back four weeks and began to read forward. After six pages he stopped with his finger on an entry. He looked up at Pitt, his eyes surprised and sad.

“Yes, sir, ’ere it is. Young man by the name o’ ’Arry Croft came an’ says as she was ’is betrothed, an she’d gone ter fetch ’er little girl from someone as was keepin ’er, lookin’ after ’er, like, an’ never came back. Terrible upset ’e was, sure as somethin’ ’ad ’appened to ’er, since they was ter be married and she was real ’appy about it. But o’ course we couldn’t do nuffin. Young women don’t ’ave ter be found by a man they ain’t married ter, ain’t daughters of, and ain’t employed by, not as if they don’t want ter. An’ we didn’t know different as she’d gone off on ’er own with the little girl.”

“No,” Pitt agreed. It was fair, and even if they had known, by then it was already too late. “No, of course you couldn’t.”

The sergeant swallowed. “Is she dead, sir?”

“Yes.”

The sergeant did not take his eyes from Pitt’s face. “Was she—was she the body wot was found in—in the parcels, sir?”

“Yes, sergeant.”

The sergeant gulped again. “’Ave you got the man wot done it, Mr. Pitt?”

“It was a woman, and yes, we’ve got her. I’m going to charge her now, and take her in.”

“I’m off duty any minute now, sir—I’d thank yer dearly if I could come along with yer, sir. Please.”

“Certainly. I may need an extra man; she’s a big woman, and there are a lot of children to be taken somewhere—I suppose, the workhouse.”

“Yes, sir.”

By the time they were back in Tortoise Lane it was fifteen minutes to nine. It was still a clear evening, and at this high-summer time of the year there was another hour of daylight and twenty minutes beyond that of fading dusk, while the color slowly ebbed away and the shadows joined themselves together into a solidity broken only by the gas lamps on the main streets and the occasional lantern or candle in St. Giles.

They stopped outside number 3 and Pitt went in without knocking. There was no sense of triumph; he felt only a vindictiveness uncharacteristic of him. He strode along the corridor to Mrs. Mapes’s sitting room and threw the door open. The constable was still standing, as uncomfortable as when he had left, and Mrs. Mapes was sitting in her own chair, her taffeta skirt spread round her, her black ringlets shining and a satisfied smile on her mouth.

“Well, Mr. Pitt?” she said boldly. “Wot now, eh? Yer goin’ ter stand ’ere all night?”

“No, none of us are going to be here all night,” he replied. “In fact, I doubt if we shall ever be here again. Clarabelle Mapes, I arrest you for the murder of Prudence Wilson when she came to collect her child, whom you had sold.”

For an instant she was still prepared to brazen it out.

“Why? Why should I kill ’er on purpose? Don’t make no sense!”

“Because she threatened to make your trade public!” he said bitterly. “You’ve killed too many babies entrusted to you, rather than feed them. You’d go out of business if that was known.”

This time she was shaken; sweat stood out on her upper lip and across her brow. Her skin was suddenly gray as the blood drained from it.

“Right, constable,” Pitt commanded. “Bring her along.” He turned and went out of the door again and along the passage to the kitchens. “Constable Wyman! I’ll send someone to relieve you. Get these children cared for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll have to inform the parish authorities.”

“You takin’ ’er away, sir?”

“Yes—for murder. She’ll not be back—”

Suddenly there was a cry from the front of the house, the thud of a body landing heavily, and then yells of outrage. Pitt spun on his heel and charged out.

In the passageway the constable was scrambling to his feet, dusty and with rushes sticking to him, his helmet in his hand, and through the open door were disappearing the coattails of the sergeant.

“She’s away!” the constable shouted furiously. “She ’it me!” He ran out with Pitt on his heels and fast overtaking him.

Already twenty yards down Tortoise Lane Clarabelle Mapes was running with surprising fleetness for one so immensely stout. Pitt ignored the sergeant and sprinted as hard as he could after her, scattering into the gutter an old woman with a bundle of rags and a coster returning for his supper. If he lost her now he might never get her back; the warrens and mazes of the London slums could hide a fugitive for years, if they were cunning enough, and had enough to lose by capture.

There was no point in shouting; it would only waste his breath. No one stopped a thief in St. Giles. She was still moving with the speed of terror and even as he watched she turned sharply and disappeared into an open doorway. Had he been ten yards further off he could not have told which one. He charged in after her, knocking into an old man and seeing him collapse with a shower of abuse, but he had no feeling left for anyone but the gross figure of Clarabelle Mapes, black curls flying, taffeta skirts like brilliant overblown sails. He followed her through a room he dimly saw was filled with people bent over a table, ran along a dark passage where his feet echoed, and out into the beer-sour space of a sawdust-strewn taproom.

She swung round and glared at him, her black eyes venomous, and knocked aside a serving girl, sending her sprawling onto the floor, covered in the ale she had been carrying. Pitt was forced to hesitate to avoid falling over her, his feet entangled in her thrusting legs. As it was, he tripped over a stool and all but measured his length, catching hold of the doorframe just in time to steady himself. There was a roar of laughter behind him, and another clatter as the sergeant appeared, buttons undone, helmet askew.

Out of the front door past a knot of idlers, Pitt saw her still running swiftly towards a side alley opposite, no more than a slit in the gray walls between houses. She was going deeper into the labyrinth of sweatshops, gin mills, and tenements, and if he did not catch her soon she would find a hundred natural allies and he would be lucky if he returned at all, let alone having captured her.

At the end of the alley was a flight of steps down into a wide, ill-lit room where women sat sewing by oil lamps. Clarabelle had no care whom she spilled onto the floor, whose shirts she tore or sent flying into the dust, and Pitt could not afford to look either. Outraged cries rang in his ears.

At the far side the door caught him in the chest and checked him for a moment, knocking the breath out of his lungs. But he was too hot in pursuit to care about pain; his mind was filled and possessed with the hunger to capture her, to feel her physically under his hand and to force her to walk ahead of him, hands manacled behind her, drenched in the knowledge she was on the last length of the unalterable journey towards the gallows.

In the areaway three old women shared a bottle of gin, and a child played with two stones.

“Help!” Clarabelle Mapes shouted piercingly. “Stop ’im! ’E’s after me!”

But the old women were too rubber-legged and bleary-eyed to respond as she wanted, and Pitt jumped over them without their offering any serious resistance. He was gaining on Clarabelle; another few yards at this pace and he would catch her. His legs were far longer, and he had no skirts to trammel him.

But she was among her own kind now, and she knew the way. The next door was slammed in his face and would not open when he pushed it. He was obliged to hurl his weight against it, bruising his shoulder. It was not till the sergeant caught up with him that they were able to force it together.

The room beyond was dimly lit and packed with humanity of all ages and both sexes; the smell of sweat, stale food, and animal grime caught in his throat.

They ran through, leaping and kicking at sprawled bodies, and out of the far door into a crumbling street so narrow the jettied upper stories almost met. The open drain down the middle was crusted with dry sewage. A score of squat doorways—she might have gone into any one of them. All the doors were closed. There were huddles of people already half asleep or sodden with drink propped up here and there. None of them took the slightest notice of him or the sergeant, except one old man who, watching the situation, yelled encouragement to Pitt, imagining him the fugitive. He threw an empty bottle at the sergeant, which missed him and shattered on the wall behind, sending splinters in an arc ten feet wide.

“Which way did she go?” Pitt shouted furiously. “There’s sixpence for anyone who helps me get her.”

Two or three stirred, but no one spoke.

He was so angry, so scalded with frustration he would have attacked them even in their stupor if he had thought it would achieve anything at all.

Then another, far brighter thought came to him. He had been only a couple of yards behind Clarabelle when she had gone into the large dormitory. Even with the few moments it had taken to break in the door he should have seen the far door swing, and caught a glimpse of her fuchsia skirt in this frowsy street.

He spun round and charged back into the great room, seizing the first person he could reach, hauling him up by the lapels and glaring at him. “Where did she go?” he said gratingly between his teeth. “If she’s still here I’ll charge you all with being accessory to murder, do you hear me?”

“She ain’t ’ere!” the man squeaked. “Let go o’ me, yer bleedin’ pig! She’s gawn, Gawd ’elp ’er! Fooled yer, yer swine!”

Pitt dropped him and stumbled back to the broken door, the sergeant still on his heels. Out in the alley again there was no sign of her, and the possibility that she had escaped brought him out in a sweat of fury and impotence. He could understand how children wept at their own powerlessness.

He must force himself to think more clearly; anger would solve nothing. She had a flourishing business and considerable possessions in Tortoise Lane. What would he seek to do in her place? Attack! Get rid of the only man who knew her crime. Would Clarabelle think that far? Or would escape be all that mattered now? Was panic greater than cunning?

He remembered the brilliant black eyes and thought not. If he looked vulnerable, offered himself as bait, she would come back to finish him; her instinct was all to attack, to kill.

“Wait!” he said curtly to the sergeant.

“But she’s not ’ere!” the sergeant hissed back. “She can’t ’ave got far, sir! I’d ’ate something rotten to lose this one! A right wicked woman.”

“So would I, sergeant, so would I.” Pitt looked up, searching the grimy windows in the flat walls above. It was growing dimmer, closer to true twilight. He had not long. Then he saw it—the pale glimmer of a face behind a window—and then it was gone again.

“Wait here!” he said tersely. “In case I’m wrong.” He turned and went in the nearest door, past the inhabitants, up a rickety stairway and along a dim passage. He heard movement at the end and a rustle of taffeta; a fat body squeezing through a narrow way. He knew it was her as if he could smell her. Only a few yards ahead of him she was waiting. What would she have? She had killed Prudence Wilson with a knife, and carved up her body as if it had been a side of meat.

He moved after her quietly now, walking on the sides of his feet; even so, the boards were rotten and betrayed him. He heard her ahead—or was it her? Was she crouched behind some half concealed door, waiting, all the weight of her thick body balanced to thrust the knife into his flesh, deep, to the heart?

Without realizing it he had stopped. Fear was tingling sharp, his throat tight, tongue dry. He could not stay here. He could hear someone further and further ahead of him, going on upwards.

Unwilling, pulse racing, he crept forward, one hand outstretched to touch the wall and feel its solid surface. He came to another flight of stairs, even narrower than the last, and knew she was close above him. He could feel her presence like a prickle on his skin; he even thought he could hear her breath wheezing somewhere in the gloom.

Then suddenly there was a thud, a cry of anger, and her footsteps at the top of the stepladder above him. He started up and saw for a moment her bulk bent over the square of yellow light at the top, where the attic opened out. She was half in shadow, but he could still see the shining eyes, the curls loose like bedsprings, the sweat gleaming on her skin. He almost had her. He was forewarned, expecting a knife. She moved back, as if she were afraid of him, startled to find him so close.

He could make the last four steps easily, in two strides, and be beside her before she had time to strike. If he moved to one side as soon as he was through that square—

Then with horror paralyzing him quite literally, leaving him frozen on the step, he remembered the secret of these old warrens—and deliberately let go the rail and fell backwards down to the floor, bruising and battering himself, just as the trapdoor came down with its spearsharp embedded blades slicing the air where he had been the instant before, followed by her shrill scream of laughter.

He scrambled to his feet, blood surging through him, pain forgotten, and swarmed up the stairs, striking his hand between the blades and shooting the trap open. He fell up and out of the hole onto the attic floor only a yard away from where she crouched. Before she had time even to register shock he hit her as hard as he could with his clenched fist—and all the stored up anger, the pain and loss of her victims—and she rolled over and lay senseless. He did not give a damn about the difficulty of getting her down, or even whether his superiors would charge him with breaking her jaw. He had Clarabelle Mapes, and he was satisfied.