Pentecost Alley

2

IT WAS nearly nine o’clock when Pitt alighted in Devonshire Street and went to the front door of number thirty-eight. The police station at Bow Street had sent him a messenger with FitzJames’s address and a note from Ewart to say that he would inform Pitt of any further evidence, should he discover it. He was about to question Ada McKinley’s pimp and see if he could locate her earlier clients of the evening, but he held little hope.

Pitt knocked on the door and stepped back. The wind from the east had risen and cleared some of the overcast. It was brighter, and warmer. The morning traffic was no more than the occasional hansom. It was too early for ladies to be making calls, even upon their dressmakers, so there were no private carriages out yet. An errand boy strode past, whistling and tossing a sixpenny piece, reward for his diligence.

The door opened to reveal a long-nosed butler with a surprisingly agreeable expression.

“Good morning, sir. May I help you?”

“Good morning,” Pitt said quickly, taken aback by such pleasantness. He pulled out his card, more elegant than his old ones, stating his name but not his calling. Police were never welcome, no matter how senior. “I am afraid a matter has arisen in which it is necessary I see Mr. Finlay FitzJames most urgently,” he explained.

“Indeed, sir.” The butler offered his tray. It was small and of most exquisitely simple Georgian silver, and Pitt dropped his card onto it. The butler stepped back to allow Pitt inside into the magnificently paneled hall, which was hung with portraits. Most of them were grim-faced men in the dress of the previous century. There were also one or two scenes of farmland and cows grazing under heavy skies, which Pitt thought, if they were originals, would be extremely valuable.

“I believe Mr. FitzJames is taking breakfast, sir,” the butler continued. “If you would care to wait in the morning room, it faces the garden and will not be disagreeable. Are you acquainted with Mr. FitzJames, sir?”

It was a polite way of asking if FitzJames had the slightest idea who Pitt was.

“No,” Pitt confessed. “Unfortunately the matter is urgent, and unpleasant, or I would not have called without making an appointment. I regret it cannot wait.”

“Just so, sir. I will inform Mr. FitzJames.” And he left Pitt in the cool blue-and-brown morning room filled with dappled light while he performed his errand.

Pitt looked around. He had already been aware, even before he had come into the house, that the FitzJames family had a great deal of wealth. Most of it had been acquired through speculation by Augustus FitzJames, using the money his wife had inherited from her godmother. Pitt had picked up this piece of information from Charlotte’s younger sister, Emily, who before her present marriage to Jack Radley had been married to the late Lord Ashworth. She had retained the money he had left her, and his aristocratic associates, and also an inveterate curiosity for details about people, the more intimate the better.

The FitzJames morning room was extremely comfortable, if a little chilly. It did not have the usual plethora of glass-cased trophies, dried flowers and stitched decorations which many families relegated to a room in which they spent little time. Instead there were two very good bronzes, one of a crouching lion, the other of a stag. Bookcases lined the farthest wall and the shafts of sunlight slanting in between the heavy brocade curtains showed not a speck of dust on the gleaming mahogany surfaces.

Pitt walked over and glanced at the titles. Probably the books FitzJames read were in the library, but still it would be interesting to note what he wished his guests to believe he read. He saw several histories, all of Europe or the Empire, biographies of politicians, religious discourses of an orthodox nature, and a complete edition of the works of Shakespeare, bound in leather. There were also translations of the works of Cicero and Caesar. There was no poetry, and no novels. Pitt smiled without being aware of it. This was how Augustus FitzJames wished to be perceived … a man of much learning and no levity or imagination.

It was no more than ten minutes before the butler returned, still smiling.

“Mr. FitzJames regrets he is extremely busy this morning, sir, but if the matter is as pressing as you say, perhaps you would care to join him in the dining room?”

It was not at all what Pitt wanted, but he had little alternative. Perhaps when he realized the nature of the enquiry, FitzJames would elect to discuss the matter alone.

“Thank you,” Pitt accepted reluctantly.

The dining room was splendid, obviously designed to accommodate at least twenty people with ease. The velvet curtains framed three deep windows, all looking out on to a small, very formal garden. Pitt glimpsed topiary hedges and box trees, and a walkway paved in an exact pattern. The table was laid with silver, porcelain and crisp, white linen. On the sideboard were dishes of kedgeree; another of bacon, sausage and kidney; and a variety of eggs, any one of which would have fed half a dozen people. The aroma of them filled Pitt’s nostrils, but his mind was forced back to Pentecost Alley, and he wondered if Ada McKinley had ever seen as much food as this at one time in her life.

He must remember FitzJames was not necessarily guilty.

There were four people at the table, and they commanded his attention. At the head sat a man of perhaps sixty years, narrow-headed with powerful features. It was the face of a self-made man, owing no obligation to the past and possibly little to the future. It was a face of courage and intolerance. He regarded Pitt with challenge for having interrupted the domestic peace of his breakfast.

At his side was a handsome woman, also of about sixty. Her features were marked by patience and a degree of inner control. She understood myriad rules and was used to obeying them. She might have assumed Pitt was a banker or dealer in some commodity. She inclined her head courteously, but there was no interest whatever in her wide-set eyes.

Her son resembled her physically. He had the same broad brow, wide mouth and squared jaw. He was about thirty, and already there was the beginning of extra weight about him, a fading of the leanness of youth. This must be Finlay, and his magnificent fair, wavy hair fitted exactly the description both Rose and Nan had given.

The last member of the party was quite different. The daughter must have inherited her looks from some ancestor further back. She had nothing of her mother in her, and little of her father except a rather long nose, but on her it was slender, giving her face just enough eccentricity to stop it from being ordinarily pretty. She had an air of daring and vitality. She regarded Pitt with acute interest, although that might be simply because he had interrupted the usual monotony of breakfast.

“Good morning, Mr. Pitt,” the senior FitzJames said coolly, looking at Pitt’s card, which the butler had offered him. “What is it that is so urgent you need to address it at this hour?”

“It is Mr. Finlay FitzJames I wish to see, sir,” Pitt replied, still standing, since he had not been invited to sit.

“You may address him through me,” the father replied without reference to Finlay. Possibly he had consulted him before Pitt was admitted.

Pitt controlled an impulse to anger. He could not yet afford to offend the man. This was just conceivably some form of error, although he doubted it. And if it should prove as he feared, and Finlay was guilty, it must be handled so that there would be not the slightest ground for complaint. He had no illusion that FitzJames would not fight to the bitter end to protect his only son, and his family name, and therein also himself.

Pitt began very carefully. He understood only too well why Ewart clung to the hope that some other evidence would be turned up to indicate any other answer.

“Are you acquainted with a group calling themselves the Hellfire Club?” he asked politely.

“Why do you wish to know, Mr. Pitt?” FitzJames’s eyebrows rose. “I think you had better explain yourself. Why should we give you any information about our business? This … card … offers your name and no more. Yet you say your business is urgent and unpleasant. Who are you?”

“Has there been an accident?” Mrs. FitzJames asked with concern. “Someone we know?”

FitzJames silenced her with a glare and she looked away, as though to tell Pitt she did not expect to be answered.

“I am a superintendent in the Metropolitan Police Force,” Pitt replied. “Presently in charge of the Bow Street Station.”

“Oh my goodness!” Mrs. FitzJames was startled and uncertain what she should say. She had obviously never been faced with such a situation before. She wanted to speak, and was afraid to. She looked at Pitt without seeming to see him.

Finlay was also quite openly amazed.

“I used to be a member of a club which used that name,” he said slowly, his brow furrowed. “But that was years ago. There were only four of us, and we disbanded about, oh, ’eighty-four, somewhere about then.”

“I see.” Pitt kept his voice level. “Will you give me the names of these other members please, sir?”

“Have they done something awful?” Miss FitzJames asked, her eyes bright with curiosity. “Why do you want to know, Mr.—Pitt, is it? It must be very terrible to have sent the head of a police station. I think I’ve only ever seen constables before.”

“Be quiet, Tallulah,” FitzJames said grimly. “Or you will excuse yourself and leave the room.”

She drew breath to plead, then saw his expression and changed her mind, her mouth pulled tight, her eyes down.

FitzJames dabbed his lips and laid down his napkin. “I don’t know why on earth you should concern me with such a matter at home, Mr. Pitt, and at this hour of the morning. A letter would have sufficed.” He made as if to stand from the table.

Pitt said with equal sharpness, “The matter is a great deal more severe than you think. I thought it would be more discreet here. But I can deal with it at Bow Street if you prefer. It may possibly be explained without that necessity, although if that is what you wish, of course I shall oblige you.”

The blood darkened FitzJames’s narrow cheeks, and he rose to his feet, as if he could no longer tolerate Pitt’s standing where he was obliged to look up at him. He was a tall man, and now they were almost eye to eye.

“Are you arresting me, sir?” he said through a tight jaw.

“It was not my intention, Mr. FitzJames,” Pitt replied. He would not be intimidated by the man. Once such a pattern was set it would be impossible to break. He was in charge of Bow Street and he owed this man nothing but courtesy and the truth. “But if that is the way you care to view it, then you may take it so.”

FitzJames drew in his breath sharply, was about to retaliate, then realized the matter must be far more serious than he had originally supposed or Pitt could not have had the audacity to speak so.

“I think you had better explain yourself.” He turned to his son. “Finlay! We shall retire to my study. We do not need to trouble your mother and sister with this.”

Mrs. FitzJames shot a pleading look at him, but she had been dismissed, and she knew better than to argue. Tallulah bit her lip in frustration, but she also kept her peace.

Finlay excused himself, then rose and followed his father and Pitt from the dining room, across the picture-hung hall and into a large book-lined study. There oxblood-red leather chairs surrounded a fireplace with a club fender in brass, leather bound also. It was a comfortable place for four or five people to sit, facing each other, and read or talk. There was a silver tantalus on a side table, and half a dozen books out of the glass-fronted cases.

“Well?” FitzJames said as soon as the door was closed. “Why are you here, Mr. Pitt? I assume there has been an offense or a complaint. My son was not involved in it, but if he knows anything that may be of assistance to you, then naturally he will inform you of such details as you require.”

Pitt looked at Finlay and could not tell whether he resented his father’s assumption of control or was grateful for it. His bland, handsome face revealed no deep emotion at all. Certainly he did not seem afraid.

There was no purpose in prevarication any longer. FitzJames had robbed him of any subtlety of approach and the surprise it might have given him. He decided to attack instead.

“There has been a murder—the East End,” he replied calmly, looking at Finlay. “A Hellfire Club badge was found on the site.”

He had expected fear, the flicker of the eyes when the blow falls, however expected, the sudden involuntary pallor of the skin. He saw none of it. Finlay was emotionally unmoved.

“Could have dropped at any time,” FitzJames said, dismissing the news of murder. He indicated a chair for Pitt to sit in, then himself sat directly opposite. Finlay took a third chair, between them, to Pitt’s left. “I assume you consider it necessary to speak to all those who are, or have been, members,” FitzJames continued coldly. “I dispute the necessity. Do you imagine one of them may have witnessed it?” His flat eyebrows rose slightly. “Surely if that were so they would already have reported the matter to some police station or other?”

“People do not always report what they see, Mr. FitzJames,” Pitt replied. “For various reasons. Sometimes they do not realize that it is important, other times they are reluctant to admit they were present, either because the place itself embarrasses them or else the company with whom they were there—or simply that they had said they were elsewhere.”

“Of course.” FitzJames relaxed a trifle in his chair, but he still sat forward in it, his elbows on either arm, his fingers over the ends. It was a position of command and control, reminiscent of the great statues of the Pharaoh Ramses, drawings and photographs of which were printed in the newspapers. “With what hours are we concerned?”

“Yesterday evening from nine until midnight, or a little later,” Pitt replied.

FitzJames’s face was under tight control, deliberately expressionless. He turned to his son. “We can end this matter very quickly. Where were you yesterday evening, Finlay?”

Finlay looked embarrassed, but resentful rather than afraid, as if he had been caught in an indiscretion, but no more. It was the first thread-thin whisper of doubt in Pitt’s mind as to his involvement.

“Out. I … I went out with Courtney Spender. Went to a couple of clubs, gambled a bit, not much. Thought of going to a music hall, and changed our minds.” He looked at Pitt ruefully. “Didn’t see any crimes, Inspector. And to be frank, haven’t had anything to do with the other club members in years. I’m sorry to be of no use to you.”

Pitt did not bother to correct him as to his rank. He was almost certain Finlay was lying, not only because of the badge but because he so perfectly answered the description of the man Rose and Nan had both seen. There was a faint flush in his cheeks, and his eyes met Pitt’s, steady and overbright.

FitzJames moved restively, but did not interrupt, and Finlay did not look at him.

“Would you be good enough to give me Mr. Spender’s address, sir?” Pitt asked politely. “Or better still, if he has a telephone, we can clear up the matter instantly.”

Finlay’s mouth fell slack. “I … I … can give you his address. No idea if he has a … if he has a telephone.”

“I daresay your butler would know,” Pitt said quickly. He turned to FitzJames. “May I ask him?”

FitzJames’s face froze.

“Are you saying that my son is telling you less than the truth, Mr. Pitt?”

“I had not thought so,” Pitt said, sitting in a mirror position in his own chair, hands on the arms. Finlay sat upright, on the edge of his seat.

FitzJames drew in his breath sharply, then changed his mind. He reached for the bell.

“I … I think that may have been the day before. Is it yesterday evening we are enquiring about?” Finlay looked confused. His cheeks were red and he clenched his hands, fidgeting and moving uncomfortably.

“Where were you last night, sir?” Pitt could not afford to relent.

“Ah … well … to tell you the truth, Inspector …” He looked away, then back at Pitt again. “I … I drank rather too much, and I can’t remember precisely. Around the West End. I know that. Weren’t anywhere near the East End. No reason. Not my sort of place, you know?”

“Were you alone?”

“No! No, of course not.”

“Then who was with you, sir?”

Finlay shifted in his seat a little.

“Oh—various people—different times. Good God, I don’t keep a list of everyone I see! Most fellows take a night out occasionally. Do the odd club and hall, you know? No, I don’t suppose you do know.” He was not sure whether he intended it as an insult or not; the uncertainty was clear in his face.

“Perhaps you will let me know if you should be fortunate enough to remember,” Pitt said with controlled politeness.

“Why?” Finlay demanded. “I didn’t see anything.” He laughed a little jerkily. “Wouldn’t make a decent witness in my state, anyway!”

FitzJames finally broke in. “Mr. Pitt, you have come into my home unannounced and at a most inconvenient hour. You said there has been a new murder somewhere in the East End … a large and nonspecific area. You have not told us who is dead nor what it has to do with anyone in this house, beyond the fact that a badge has been found of some club or other of which my son was a member several years ago and is not presently. To the best of our knowledge, it no longer exists. You require some better reason to continue to take of our time.”

“The murder was in Pentecost Alley, in Whitechapel,” Pitt answered. He turned again to Finlay. “When did the Hellfire Club last meet, Mr. FitzJames?”

“For God’s sake, man!” Finlay protested, still no more than irritated. “Years ago! What does it matter? Anyone could have dropped a badge in the street. Or—in a club, for that matter.” He gestured with his hands. “Doesn’t mean a thing! Could have been there for … I don’t know … months … even years!”

“There’s rather a sharp pin on it,” Pitt pointed out. “I think a prostitute would have noticed it in her bed in quite a short time, say five minutes at the outside. Less, in this particular circumstance, since she was lying on it.”

“Well, where did she say it came from?” FitzJames said angrily. “You aren’t going to take the word of a common whore over that of a gentleman, are you? Any gentleman, let alone my son.”

“She didn’t say anything.” Pitt looked from one to the other. “She was dead, her fingers and toes broken. She was drenched with water and then strangled with her own stocking.”

Finlay gagged and went putty gray, his body slack.

FitzJames took a very slow, deep breath and held it while he steadied himself, then let it out in a sigh. He was white around the mouth and there were two spots of color in his cheeks. He met Pitt’s eyes with a cold, defiant stare.

“How regrettable.” He had difficulty keeping his voice level and under control. “But it has nothing to do with us.” He did not take his eyes from Pitt’s, as if by strength of will he could mesmerize him. “Finlay, you will give the Inspector the names and addresses of all those you know to be members of this unfortunate association. Beyond that, we cannot be of assistance.”

Pitt looked at Finlay. “The badge we found has your name on it.”

“He has already told you that he has not associated with them for years,” FitzJames said, his voice rising. “No doubt the badge was handed back to whoever was the president in charge of the … club … and he has since misplaced it. It has nothing to do with the identity of whoever killed this unfortunate woman. I imagine with an occupation like hers it is a natural hazard.”

Pitt waited to allow his anger to subside, to make some remark that would crush the unthinking arrogance of the man and make him see Ada McKinley, and the women like her, as he did himself: not beautiful, not witty or innocent, but at least as human as anyone else. She had been as capable of hope or pain as his own daughter sitting in the dining room in her gorgeous muslin dress with its lace embroidery, her life before her in which she would probably never know hunger or physical fear, and her worst social sin wearing the same gown as her hostess or laughing at the wrong joke.

But there was nothing he could say that would hold any meaning. In all the ways they could understand, Ada McKinley was exactly what FitzJames thought she was.

“Of course,” he said coldly. “But police do not have the luxury of choosing whose murder they will investigate or where that investigation will lead them.” He allowed it to be as double-edged as he intended, even if neither man grasped it.

“Naturally,” FitzJames agreed with a frown. The conversation seemed to have become pointless. It was obvious from his expression. He turned to Finlay. “When did you last see this badge, if you can recollect?”

Finlay looked wretched. His extreme discomfort could be attributed to half a dozen possible reasons: his distress at being drawn into the murder of a woman of the streets, his embarrassment at having been so drunk he could not account for his movements last evening, fear at now being in a position where he was going to have to name his friends and draw them in also. Perhaps it was even the suspicion that one or several of them might actually be involved. Or simply anticipation of what his father would say to him once Pitt had gone.

“I … really … don’t know.” He faced Pitt squarely, but still sitting with his arms folded across his upper stomach. Perhaps it hurt after his indulgence. Certainly the skin around his eyes was puffy and Pitt could well believe his head ached. “It’s years ago. I’m sure of that,” he said unwaveringly. “Five at least.” He avoided his father’s cold gaze. “I lost it then. I doubt any of my friends had it, unless it was accidental, a jape or something.”

Pitt was perfectly sure there was a lie in it somewhere, but when he looked at FitzJames he met a blank wall of denial. There was not a shadow or flicker of surprise in him. He had expected this answer as if he had known the precise words. Was it rehearsed?

“The names of the other members?” Pitt asked wearily. Now his lack of sleep was catching up with him, his inner tiredness from too much misery, dark streets and alleys which smelled of refuse and hopelessness. “I require their names, Mr. FitzJames. Someone had that badge last night and left it under the body of a woman he murdered.”

FitzJames winced with distaste, but he did not move, except his fingers tightened a fraction on the arm of his chair.

Finlay still looked very pale, and white around the mouth, as if he might be sick.

In the corner a standing clock ticked steadily with a heavy, resonant tone. Outside the footsteps of a maid clicked softly across the parquet floor.

“There were only four of us,” Finlay said at last. “Norbert Helliwell, Mortimer Thirlstone, Jago Jones and myself. I can give you Helliwell’s last address, and Thirlstone’s. I have no idea where Jones is. I haven’t seen or heard of him in years. Someone said he’d taken up the church, but they were probably joking. Jago was a damn good fellow, as much fun as anyone. More likely gone abroad to America, maybe. He’s the sort of chap who might go west—Texas or the Barbary Coast.” He tried to laugh, and failed.

“If you would write the other two addresses for me,” Pitt requested.

“I don’t suppose they can help you!”

“Perhaps not, but it will be somewhere to start.” Pitt smiled. “The man was seen, you know? By at least two witnesses.”

He had expected to rattle Finlay, perhaps even to break him. He failed utterly.

Finlay’s eyes widened. “Was he? Then you know it wasn’t me, thank God! Not that I know such a woman,” he added hastily. It was a lie, and not even a good one. This time he colored and seemed about to withdraw it.

It was FitzJames whose face tightened with a lightning flash of uncharacteristic fear, gone again the instant it had come. His look at Pitt now was one of anger, perhaps because he thought Pitt might have recognized it. After all, he had caused it, and that he would not forgive.

“I doubt it was Helliwell or Thirlstone either,” Finlay went on to cover the silence. “But if you insist, then you’ll discover that. Jago Jones I can’t answer for, because you might find him a great deal harder to trace. I don’t even know if he has family. One doesn’t always ask these things, if it isn’t obvious. Kinder not to, if a fellow comes from nowhere in particular, as he seemed to.”

There was not a great deal more Pitt could do. He considered asking to see the coat Finlay had worn yesterday evening, but unless he destroyed it, the valet could always answer that later.

“There is the matter of a cuff link,” he said finally. “A rather distinctive one, dropped down the back of a chair in the woman’s room. It has ‘F.F.J.’ engraved on it, and is hallmarked. Not the sort of thing I think her average customers would possess.”

FitzJames went white, his knuckles shone where he gripped the chair arms. He swallowed with some difficulty. His throat seemed to have contracted as if his collar choked him.

Finlay, on the other hand, was totally at a loss. His handsome, blurred face showed nothing but confusion.

“I used to have a pair like that….” he mumbled. “My sister gave them to me. I lost one … but years ago. Never liked to tell her. Clumsy of me. Felt a fool, because I knew they were expensive. Always meant to get another one made, so she wouldn’t know.”

“How did it get in Ada McKinley’s chair, Mr. FitzJames?” Pitt said with a faint smile.

“God only knows,” Finlay answered. “As I said, I don’t frequent places like that! I’ve never heard of her! She is the woman who was killed, I presume?”

FitzJames’s face was dark with anger and contempt.

“For God’s sake, boy, don’t be such a damn fool. Of course you’ve used women like that in your time!” He turned to Pitt. “But that cuff link could have been there for years! You can’t connect it to last night or anything that happened then. Go and look for these other young men. See if you can find out something about the damned woman. She was probably killed in a quarrel over money, or by a rival in her trade. That’s where your job is.” He rose to his feet, his joints momentarily stiff, as if he had been constricting himself with such a tension of muscles his bones had locked. “We will write these addresses for you. Now I must be about my own affairs. I am overdue in the City. Good day to you, sir.” And he walked out without looking behind him, leaving Pitt alone with Finlay.

Finlay hesitated awkwardly. He was embarrassed by having not only been caught in a lie but reprimanded for it in front of Pitt. It was stupid and he had no excuse. It was an instinctive act of cowardice, the instant will to deny, to escape, not something for which any man could be proud. Now he was about to give his friends’ names and addresses to Pitt, and that also was something he could not avoid, and yet it sat ill with him. It would have been so much more honorable, more gentlemanly, to have been able to refuse.

“I’ve no idea where Jago Jones is,” he said with satisfaction. “Haven’t seen him for years. He could be anywhere. He was always a bit of an odd one.”

“I daresay someone will know,” Pitt replied with a bleak smile. “Army records, or the Foreign Office, perhaps.”

Finlay stared at him, his eyes wide. “Yes, possibly.”

“Mr. Helliwell?” Pitt pressed.

“Oh … yes. Taviton Street. Number seventeen I think, or fifteen.”

“Thank you.” Pitt took out his notebook and pencil and wrote it down. “And Mr. Thirlstone

“Cromer Street. That’s off the Grey’s Inn Road.”

“Number?”

“Forty-something. Can’t recall what. Sorry.”

Pitt wrote that as well. “Thank you.”

Finlay swallowed. “But they won’t have had anything to do with this, you know. I don’t know where that damned badge came from, but… but I’ll swear it wasn’t anything to do with them. It was a damn stupid club in the first place. A young man’s idea of a devilish good time, but all very silly, really. No harm in it, just … oh …” He shrugged rather exaggeratedly. “A little too much to drink, gambling rather more than we could afford to lose, drinking too much … that sort of thing. Immature … I suppose. But basically quite decent fellows.”

“I expect so,” Pitt agreed halfheartedly. A lot of people one presumed decent had darker, more callous sides.

“As I said, the badge could have gone missing years ago,” Finlay went on, frowning, staring at Pitt with a degree of urgency. “I can’t remember when I last saw mine. God knows.”

“Yes sir,” Pitt said noncommittally. “Thank you for the addresses.” And he bade him good-bye and took his leave, shown out by the still-genial butler.

Norbert Helliwell was not at home. He had gone riding in the Park early, so his butler informed Pitt, and after a large breakfast had decided to spend the morning at his club. That was the Regency Club, in Albemarle Street, although the butler expressed his doubt—not in his words, but in his expression—that it would be acceptable for Pitt to call upon him there.

Pitt thanked him and took a cab south, and then west towards Piccadilly. The more he thought about it, the less did he feel he would be likely to learn anything of use from Norbert Helliwell. There were aspects of his visit to the FitzJames house which had surprised him. He had expected evasion, anger, possibly embarrassment. He was not unprepared to find Augustus FitzJames a domineering man, willing to defend his son, guilty or innocent.

He sat back in the hansom as it bowled along the busy streets, passing all manner of other carriages in the mid-morning. It was now pleasantly warm, the breeze balmy. Ladies of fashion were taking the air, seeing and being seen. There was more than one open landau and several gigs. A brewer’s dray lumbered past, great shaggy horses gleaming in the sun, brasses winking, coats satin smooth. Businessmen about their affairs strode along the pavements, faces intent, raising their tall hats now and again as they passed an acquaintance.

It was Finlay FitzJames who confused Pitt. He was lying, of that he had no doubt at all, but not as he had expected him to lie. Of course he had known women like Ada McKinley. To deny it was merely a reflex reaction, a self-defense in front of a stranger. And he was profoundly afraid, but not of the things he should have been. The mention of Ada’s death produced no reaction in him at all, except the shallow regret such a thing might have evoked in any such young man. Could it really be that he regarded her as barely human, and the act of killing her produced no shame at all, not even the fear that he could in any way be brought to pay for it?

Was the use of a prostitute a little like riding the hounds, a gentlemanly sport—the chase was all, the kill merely the natural outcome? And perhaps foxes were vermin anyway?

His thoughts were interrupted by his arrival at the entrance of the Regency Club. He alighted, paid the cabby and crossed the pavement to go up the steps.

“Are you a member, sir?” the doorman enquired. His face was expressionless, but the overemphasized enquiry in his voice made it profoundly plain that he knew Pitt was not.

“No,” Pitt replied, forcing himself to smile. “I require to speak to one of your members about a matter of delicacy and extreme unpleasantness. Perhaps you would convey that message to him and then find some place where I may do it in private, and avoid the embarrassment for him of approaching him in public?”

The doorman regarded him as if he were a blackmailer.

Pitt kept his smile. “I am from the police,” he added. “The Bow Street Station.”

“I see.” The doorman did not see at all. Pitt was not what he expected of such persons.

“If you please?” Pitt said a trifle more sharply. “My business is with Mr. Norbert Helliwell. His butler informed me he was here.”

“Yes sir.” The doorman could see no other way of dealing with a deplorable situation which was threatening to get completely out of hand. He instructed the steward to show Pitt to a small side room, possibly kept for such needs. He could not be left in the hallway where he might speak to other members and make the matter even worse. The steward did so, then turned on his heel and went to inform Helliwell of his visitor.

Norbert Helliwell was in his early thirties, of very ordinary appearance. He could have been mistaken for any young man of good family and comfortable means.

“Good morning, sir.” He came in and closed the door. “Prebble tells me there has been some unpleasantness with which you think I can help you. Do sit down.” He waved directly to one of the chairs, and sat comfortably in the one opposite it. “What is it?”

Pitt had never seen a man look less guilty.

“I can give you ten minutes,” Helliwell went on magnanimously. “Then I am afraid I have to meet my wife and mother-in-law. They’ve been shopping. The ladies like to do that, you know?” He shrugged. “No, perhaps you don’t. But they can get very upset if left waiting. Not proper at all. Gets oneself misunderstood. Sure you can see that. Only two sorts of women, what.” He smiled. “At least waiting around the streets, there are. Remember that perfectly awful business of that perfectly respectable woman … arrested out shopping!” There was derision in his voice, and indeed the case did not reflect well on the police.

“Then I shall come immediately to the point,” Pitt replied, aware that he was gaining an opinion of this man too rapidly. He was allowing the man’s assumptions to make him also prejudge. “Were you once a member of a young gentlemen’s association known as the Hellfire Club?”

Helliwell was startled, but there was no alarm in his bland, self-confident face.

“A long time ago. Why? Has someone resurrected it?” He shrugged very slightly. “Not very original, I’m afraid. Rather obvious sort of name, when one thinks of it. Speaks of Regency dandies a bit, don’t you think?” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “Much more fashionable to be an aesthete now, if you have the emotional energy. Personally, I couldn’t be bothered to stir up so much passion about art. Too busy with life!” He laughed very slightly.

Was there an edge to his voice, or did Pitt imagine it?

“Used you to have a badge, about so big?” Pitt held up his finger and thumb half an inch apart. “Enamel on gold, with your name engraved on the back?”

“I really don’t recall,” Helliwell said, meeting his eyes unblushingly. “I suppose we might have. Why? What on earth can it matter now? It was years ago. Haven’t met since …” He drew in his breath. He was definitely a trifle paler now. “I don’t know … well before I was married. Six years at least.” He smiled again, showing excellent teeth. “Bachelor’s sort of thing, you know?”

“So I imagine,” Pitt agreed. “Do you still have your badge?” He overlooked Helliwell’s uncertainty as to whether there had been one at all.

“No idea.” He looked startled and even slightly amused. “Shouldn’t think so. Why? Look, you’d better explain what this is all about. So far you haven’t said anything remotely urgent or important. You told the doorman it was a matter of unpleasantness. Either come to the point or I shall have to leave you.” He took out a heavy gold watch on an equally heavy gold chain and looked at it ostentatiously. “I must go in three minutes anyway.”

“A woman was murdered last night, and a Hellfire Club badge was found underneath her body,” Pitt replied, watching his eyes, his face.

Helliwell swallowed convulsively, but he did not lose his composure. It was a moment or two before he answered.

“I’m very sorry. But if it is my badge, then I can assure you I had nothing whatever to do with it. I was dining with my father-in-law and went straight home in the carriage. My wife will attest to that, as will my own servants. Who was she?” His voice was growing firmer as he continued. His color was returning. “Was it my badge? The least I can do is to determine where I lost it, or if it was stolen. Although I doubt it will be much use. It could have been years ago.”

“No sir, it was not your badge. But …”

Helliwell rose to his feet, anger flushing his cheeks. “Then what in the devil are you doing bothering me?” he demanded. “This is outrageous, sir. So whose—” He stopped abruptly, one hand in the air.

“Yes?” Pitt enquired, rising to his feet also. “I’ll walk with you. You were going to say …?”

“Whose …” Helliwell gulped. “Whose badge was it?” He went a step towards the door.

“I understand there were only four of you,” Pitt continued. “Is that correct?”

“Ah …” Helliwell quite transparently considered lying, and then abandoned it. “Yes … yes, that’s right. At least in my time! I left, Inspector … er … Superintendent. More could have joined after … of course.” He forced a smile.

Pitt went to the door and opened it, holding it for him. “I mustn’t delay you from meeting your wife and mother-in-law.”

“No. Well … sorry I couldn’t help.” Helliwell went through and continued on across the hallway to the front door, nodding to the doorman.

Pitt followed him, half a step behind. “What can you tell me about the other members in your time?” he asked.

Helliwell went through the door and down the steps.

“Oh … nothing much. Decent fellows. All a bit older and wiser now, of course.” He dismissed the whole idea. He did not ask again whose badge it had been.

“Mortimer Thirlstone?” Pitt increased his step to keep up with him on the pavement as Helliwell strode out in the sun along Albemarle Street towards Piccadilly, walking so fast he all but bumped into passersby. A landau with three ladies taking the air did not outpace him.

“Haven’t seen him in a dog’s age,” Helliwell said breathlessly. “Really couldn’t say how he’s doing.”

“Finlay FitzJames?”

Helliwell stopped abruptly, causing a gentleman in striped trousers two paces behind him to trip and cannon into him.

“I’m sorry!” the man said, although it was manifestly Helliwell’s fault. “I say, sir, do take a little care!”

“What?” Helliwell was startled. He had been unaware of anyone but himself and Pitt. “Oh. In your way? For heaven’s sake, go around me!”

The man set his hat straight, glared for a moment, then, swinging his umbrella, proceeded on his way.

“Finlay FitzJames?” Pitt repeated.

“You’ll have to speak to him yourself,” Helliwell said, swallowing again. “I daresay he lost his badge years ago. No need to keep it. Now you really must excuse me. I can see my family on the corner there.” He swung his arm to where a carriage was indeed slowing up and a very well dressed young woman was looking towards them. An older couple of immense dignity sat well back, comfortably, in the seat beside her, the gentleman facing backwards, the ladies forwards.

Pitt inclined his head towards them and they nodded in reply.

Helliwell was left with no alternative but either to take Pitt forward and introduce him or to dismiss him with what could only be construed as the utmost rudeness, which he would then have had to explain.

Helliwell swore under his breath and made his decision. He strode forward, a fixed smile on his face, his voice artificially hearty.

“My dear Adeline. Mama-in-law, Papa-in-law. What an excellent day. May I introduce Mr. Pitt. We met by chance in my club. A few acquaintances in common—in the past, not the present. Mr. Pitt, my wife and my parents-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Alcott.”

Introductions performed, Helliwell made as if to climb into the carriage.

“And Mr. Jago Jones?” Pitt said cheerfully. “Can you tell me where I might be able to find him?”

“Not the slightest idea,” Helliwell said instantly. “Sorry, old chap. Haven’t seen him in years. A trifle eccentric. An acquaintance of chance rather than any common bond, you understand? Can’t help you at all.” He put his hand onto the carriage door.

“And Mr. Thirlstone,” Pitt pressed. “Was he an acquaintance of chance also?”

Before Helliwell could answer, his wife leaned forward, looking first at her husband, then at Pitt.

“Do you mean Mortimer Thirlstone, sir? No, not chance at all. We know him quite well. Indeed, wasn’t he at Lady Woodville’s soirée the other evening? He was with Violet Kirk, I remember distinctly. There is some talk that they may become betrothed quite soon. I know that, because she told me so herself.”

“You shouldn’t speak of it, my dear,” Helliwell said huskily, his face reddening. “Not until it is announced. It could cause profound embarrassment. What if it were not true, after all?” He opened the door and was about to climb in when his wife spoke across him again, still addressing Pitt. She had a charming face and the most beautiful brown hair.

“Did I hear you ask for the whereabouts of Mr. Jago Jones?” Adeline asked Pitt.

“Yes, ma’am,” Pitt said quickly. “Are you acquainted with him?”

“No, but I’m sure Miss Tallulah FitzJames could tell you. He used to be a close friend of her brother, Finlay, whom we all know.” She glanced at Helliwell, whose answering look should have frozen her. She kept her sunny smile on Pitt. “I am sure if you were to ask her, and explain to her how important it is to you, she would be able to help. She is a delightful creature, and most kind.”

“She is a flighty young woman with whom I should rather you did not associate,” Mr. Alcott said suddenly. “You are too generous in your opinions, my dear.”

“You should listen a little more to what people say,” Mrs. Alcott added. “Then you would know that her reputation is becoming less attractive as she grows older and does not marry. I am sure she must have had offers.” She made a delicate gesture with one gloved hand. “Her father has money, her mother has breeding, and the girl herself is certainly handsome enough, in her way. If she does not marry soon, people will begin to speculate as to why not.”

“I agree,” Helliwell said hastily. “Far better you are no more than civil to her, if you should happen to meet, which is unlikely. She moves with a set you would have nothing to do with. I think ‘flighty’ is a very kind word, Mama-in-law. I should have chosen one less flattering.” His tone was final. He turned to Pitt. “Delightful to have met you, sir.” He swung up into the carriage and closed the door. “Good day to you.” And he signaled the driver to proceed, leaving Pitt standing on the footpath in the sun.

Superficially, Mortimer Thirlstone was a vastly different man. He was tall and lean and affected a manner and dress of an artist. His long hair was parted in the center. He wore a soft silk shirt and widely flowing cravat tied meticulously, and a casual jacket. But he had the same easy air of confidence as Helliwell, as if he knew he looked well and was perfectly comfortable that his appearance would continue to earn him the courtesy to which he was accustomed.

He stood in the center of the pathway that wound gently through Regents Park towards the Botanical Gardens. He stared upwards into the hazy sunshine with a smile on his face. It had taken Pitt since mid-morning to find him, and only by dint of persistent enquiry had he succeeded.

“Mr. Thirlstone?” he enquired, although he was already certain of his identity.

“Indeed, sir,” Thirlstone answered without lowering his gaze. “Is it not a magnificent afternoon? Can you smell the myriad aromas of the flowers, indigenous and exotic, which lie just beyond our gaze? What a marvelous thing is nature. We appreciate it far too little. She has given us senses, and what do we do? Largely ignore them, sir, largely ignore them. What can I do for you, apart from bringing you to mind of your olfactory perceptions?”

“Some years ago I believe you used to belong to an organization known as the Hellfire Club …” Pitt began.

“Organization.” Thirlstone lowered his head, then looked at Pitt with amusement. “Hardly, sir. Organized it never was! I abhor organization. It is the antithesis of pleasure and creativity. It is man’s puny attempt to lay his mark on a universe he cannot begin to comprehend. It is pathetic.” A bumblebee meandered lazily by. He watched it with delight. “Nature organizes,” he continued. “We merely watch in profound ignorance, and usually fear. Awe, sir, that is proper. Fear is stultifying. The difference is the span of all pure feeling. What about it?”

Pitt was lost.

“The Hellfire Club, sir!” Thirlstone explained. “What about it? Folly of youth. Personally, I have moved on, woken to the better pursuits of life. Did you want to join?” He shrugged, his face lifted again to the sun. “I cannot help you. Start one of your own. Don’t wait for others. Begin anew! Try some of the gambling clubs, horse races, music halls, houses of ill repute and so on. You’ll find like-minded men. Pick and choose as you will.”

“That was the sort of place you frequented?” Pitt tried very hard to make his voice sound interested and yet not naive. He knew he failed. It was an impossible task.

Thirlstone lowered his gaze and stared at him as if he were some rare plant he had just observed.

“What else would you expect, sir? Horticulture? Poetry? If your taste is not to drinking, gambling, fine horses and willing women, what do you want with a Hellfire Club?”

The charade had been brief, and it was over.

“The names of the original members, a summary of their present whereabouts,” Pitt replied, still a trifle mendaciously.

Thirlstone’s eyes widened in amazement.

“My dear fellow, whatever for? It disbanded, or should I say dissolved of its own accord, years ago. It can be no possible use to you now.”

A butterfly drifted past them, fluttering in the sun. Far in the distance a dog barked.

“A Hellfire Club badge was found under the body of a murdered woman last night,” Pitt replied.

“Good God! How extraordinary!” Thirlstone’s black eyebrows shot up, wrinkling his brow dramatically. “Why does it concern you? Are you related to her? I’m fearfully sorry.” He extended his hand in a gesture of sympathy.

“No. No I’m not,” Pitt said with some awkwardness.

“Then … you’re not police, are you? You don’t look like police. You are!” He seemed almost amused, as if the fact had some esoteric humor of its own. “How unutterably squalid. What in heaven’s name do you want from me? I know nothing about it. Who was she?”

“Her name was Ada McKinley. She was a prostitute.”

Thirlstone’s face showed a trace of pity, something lacking in Finlay FitzJames and Helliwell. Then suddenly he was absolutely sober. The slight air of banter vanished completely. Under his superficial manner his concentration was total. His eyes were narrowed, his body motionless, so that suddenly Pitt was aware of the breeze and the slight stirring of the flowers.

“There were only four of us, Superintendent, and each badge had a name on it.” Thirlstone’s voice was so level it was unnatural. “Are you saying it was my badge you found?”

“No sir.”

Thirlstone’s body relaxed and he could not keep a flood of relief from his face.

“I’m glad. I haven’t seen it for years.” He swallowed. “But one never knows …” He regarded Pitt with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. “Whose was it? I … I cannot believe any of us would be so foolish as to …” He did not complete his sentence, but his meaning hung in the air, unmistakably.

A young couple walked past a dozen yards away, their footsteps crunching on the gravel.

“I have already spoken to Mr. FitzJames and Mr. Helliwell,” Pitt said almost casually. “But I have not been able to find Jago Jones.”

“It would hardly be Jago!” This time there was complete conviction in Thirlstone’s voice.

“Why not?”

“My dear fellow, if you knew Jago you wouldn’t need to ask.”

“I don’t know him. Why not?”

“Oh …” Thirlstone shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. “Perhaps I don’t know as much as I imagine. It’s your job to find out, thank God, not mine.”

“Where would I find Mr. Jones?” Pitt did not expect an answer.

He did not receive one, only a shrug and a bemused look.

“No idea, I’m afraid. None whatsoever. In the streets. In the slums. That’s the last thing I remember hearing him say, but I have no notion if he meant it.” Thirlstone lifted his face to the sun again, and Pitt was effectively dismissed.

He walked back past an army officer on leave, splendidly dressed in red coat and immaculate trousers, buttons gleaming, to the excitement of several young ladies in pastel dresses all muslin and lace, and the envy of a nursemaid in a white starched apron wheeling a perambulator. The noise of a barrel organ drifted from somewhere beyond the trees.

At four o’clock Pitt had eaten a late luncheon, but he was so tired his eyes felt gritty and his head ached from lack of sleep. He had no real belief that Jago Jones might somehow have dropped Finlay FitzJames’s belongings in Pentecost Alley, but he must prove it, were it only for elimination. It was not impossible.

He returned to Devonshire Street and asked the genial butler if he could speak to Miss Tallulah FitzJames. He knew it was a time of day when she might quite easily be at home, before dressing for the evening and going out to dine and be entertained.

She came into the morning room in a swirl of soft fabric of so pale a pink it was almost white, a blush pink rose at her waist, long satin ribbons hanging. Had her face been rounder, less full of intelligence and will, the effect would have been cloyingly innocent. As it was, it presented a challenging contrast, and from the way she stopped just inside the door and leaned against the knob, Pitt was quite certain she knew it.

“Well!” she said in surprise. “You back again? I heard about that poor creature’s death, but you can’t possibly imagine Finlay could have anything to do with it? It’s too preposterous. I mean, why should he? Mama would like to think he never goes near such places, but then one’s parents tend to be rather like the very best carriage horses, don’t they? Work excellently together as long as the harness lasts, look very good in town, are the admiration of one’s friends, and can’t see a thing except what’s directly in front of them! We blinker ours, to keep their attention from straying or have them take fright at things on the footpath.”

Pitt smiled in spite of himself.

“Actually it was the address of Mr. Jago Jones I came for.” He saw her body stiffen under its silk and muslin gown and her slim shoulders set rigid. He could imagine her hands clenched at the doorknob behind her. Very slowly she straightened up and came towards him.

“Why? Do you think Jago did it? You can’t know how ridiculous that is, but I assure you, I’d sooner suspect the Prince of Wales. Come to think of it—much sooner.”

“You have a very high regard for Mr. Jones?” Pitt said with surprise.

“Not … especially.” She turned away and the sunlight caught her unusual profile—nose a little too big, mouth wide and full of laughter and emotion, dark eyes bright.

“He’s … he’s rather proper, actually. Something of a bore.” She still looked studiously out of the window at the sun on the leaves beyond. “But he couldn’t do anything like that,” she went on. “He’s about Finlay’s age, and when Finlay was in his twenties and I was about sixteen, Jago was fun. He could tell the best jokes, because he could make his face look like all the different characters, and his voice too.” She shrugged elaborately, as if it could be of no possible interest to her. “But he’s religious now. All good works and saving souls.” She swung around to look at Pitt. “Why does the Church make people such crashing bores?”

“The Church?” Pitt did not hide his surprise.

“Didn’t you know? No, I suppose you didn’t. Finlay was stupid, pretending he didn’t know the Hellfire Club anymore. I suppose it might be his idea of protecting them. It must be Norbert Helliwell or Mortimer Thirlstone, if it’s any of them.” She shook her head slightly. “It wouldn’t be Jago, and of course it wasn’t Finlay. Most likely the woman stole it, and then someone else killed her. It seems fairly obvious, doesn’t it?” Her eyes challenged him. “Why would one of the other members have Finlay’s badge, anyway? If they wanted one, they had their own.”

“Not on purpose,” Pitt explained. “But the engraving on the back is very small and very fine. It would be easy enough to pick up someone else’s in error.”

“Oh.” She breathed in deeply, the sheer silk draped across her shoulders and bosom rising, the light gleaming in it. “Yes, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Where would I find Mr. Jones?”

“Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel.”

Pitt drew in his breath sharply. He knew St. Mary’s. It was a few hundred yards from Pentecost Alley. Old Montague Street ran parallel to the Whitechapel Road before it turned into Mile End.

“I see. Thank you, Miss FitzJames.”

“Why do you look like that? Saint Mary’s means something to you, I can see it in your face. You know it!”

There was no point in lying to her.

“The woman was killed in an alley off Old Montague Street.”

“Is that close?” She was too anxious to be offended that he might think her familiar with such an area.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She turned away again, presenting a silk-swathed shoulder to him. “Well, you won’t find Jago Jones involved. He couldn’t be after a woman like that except to save her soul.” There was a sudden hurt in her voice, almost bitterness. “I presume she wasn’t bored to death?”

“No, Miss FitzJames, she was strangled.”

She winced. “If I could help you, I would,” she said quietly. “But I really don’t know anything.”

“You’ve given me Mr. Jones’s address, which I appreciate. Thank you for seeing me at what must be an inconvenient time. Good evening.”

She did not reply, but stood in the middle of the floor staring at him as he went to the door and let himself out.

It took him until after six to get back to Whitechapel and the church of St. Mary’s. When he did, the verger told him the vicar was out, somewhere down Coke Street way, helping the sick. If Pitt did not find him there, he could go in the other direction and try Chicksand Street.

The lowering sun was hidden by the high, grimy tenement houses, but the pavements still gave back the claustrophobic heat and the sour smells of the day. The gutters ran sluggish trickles of waste. This was Whitechapel, where two years ago, about this season, a madman had murdered and ripped open five women, leaving their bleeding bodies in the street. No one had ever found him. He had disappeared as completely as if hell had opened up and swallowed him back.

Yet walking towards Coke Street Pitt could see women standing in doorways and alleyway entrances with that peculiar air of readiness that marked them as prostitutes. It was a directness in their eyes, an angle to the hips quite different from the weary dejection of women at the end of a day’s labor in a sweatshop or factory, or bringing wet laundry in and out of boilers, twisting the dolly, and heaving and wringing the sheets.

Were they afraid, but so hungry they did not care? Or had they already forgotten the Ripper and the terror of him which had paralyzed London?

A young woman approached him, her wide brown eyes looking him up and down, her skin still country fresh. He felt suddenly sick and angry for her that she was reduced to this, whether by circumstances beyond her or immorality within. He controlled himself with an effort.

“I’m looking for the Reverend Jones,” he said grimly. “Have you seen him?”

Her face settled in resignation. “Yeah, ’e’s ’round the corner.” She jerked her hand to indicate the direction. “Want your soul saved too, do you? Good luck to yer—I can earn me own dinner, and cheaper at the price.” And with that he lost her attention and she sauntered off towards the Whitechapel Road, and some likely custom.

Pitt did not know what he expected of Jago Jones—perhaps some dilettante priest, seeking a dramatic gesture; or a younger son unsuited for the military who had chosen the Church instead. This might be a first step towards a major preferment in the future.

Whatever dim prejudgment had been in his mind, he was unprepared for the man he met in Coke Street, ladling hot, thick soup out of a churn into tin mugs for a crowd of skinny children, several of them dancing from one foot to the other in anticipation.

Jago Jones was dressed in shapeless black clothes. No flash of white clerical collar was visible, but such things were immaterial anyway. His face was too arresting for a uniform of any sort to matter. He was lean to the point of being almost gaunt. His thick hair swept back above dark brows and eyes of extraordinary intensity. His nose was strong, high-bridged; his cheekbones accentuated by the deep lines around his mouth. It was the face of a man burning with his own emotions, and so certain of his course that nothing would deflect him. He looked across at Pitt with interest.

“Jago Jones?” Pitt asked, although he had no doubt.

“Yes. What can I do for you?” He did not stop ladling the soup and passing the full tin mugs to the children. “Are you hungry?” It was an offer, but not really an enquiry. One glance at Pitt’s clothes, not only their quality but their cleanliness and the fact that they were in good repair, placed him beyond the kind of need Jones’s parishioners knew.

“Thank you,” Pitt said. “But it would be better used as it is.”

Jago smiled and continued. He was nearly at the bottom of his supply and the end of his queue. “Then what is it you need me for?”

“My name is Thomas Pitt.” Then the minute he had said it he wondered why he had introduced himself that way, as if it were a friendship he was expecting, not a policeman on duty interviewing a witness, possibly a suspect.

“How do you do?” Jago Jones bowed very slightly. “Jago Jones. Reverend, at least in spirit, if not in manner. You don’t belong here. What brings you?”

“The murder of Ada McKinley in Pentecost Alley last night,” Pitt replied, watching his face.

Jago sighed and dispensed the last of the soup to a grateful urchin. The boy’s large eyes were on Pitt’s face, but hunger was more pressing than curiosity, even though he could sense a rozzer when he saw one.

“I was afraid so,” Jago said sadly, seeing the urchin off. “Poor creature. It’s a hard occupation, destructive of both body and soul, although not usually as quickly or as violently as this. And it seems on this occasion, at least, as if it were someone else’s soul in greater jeopardy than hers. She was not a bad woman. A little greedy at times, but she had courage, and laughter, and a kind of loyalty to her own. I’ll see she has a decent burial.”

“You’ll bury her from Saint Mary’s?” Pitt said with surprise.

Jago’s face hardened. “If you object to that, Mr. Pitt, I suggest you take it up with God. He will decide who can be forgiven their faults and weaknesses and who cannot. It is not your prerogative, and I know it is not mine.”

Pitt smiled quite honestly. “For which I am profoundly grateful,” he said. “But you are unusual, Mr. Jones. I hope your parishioners will not cause you difficulty. But perhaps they are too close to the questionable lines of survival and morality to judge one another.”

Jago snorted and made no comment, but his anger softened and he released the tension in his body as he put away the ladle and the soup container into the handcart behind him. Half a dozen urchins, mugs in hand, were creeping back to stand on the corner staring. The word had gone out there was a rozzer asking questions. Information was precious.

“Did you come to ask me about Ada?” Jago said after a moment or two. “I don’t know what I can tell you that would be of use. It was probably some customer whose own inner devils broke from their usual control and temporarily overcame him. Many of us deal badly with our pain or our need to feel as if we are in control of the world, even if we cannot control ourselves.”

Pitt was taken aback, not by the remark, but by the fierceness with which it had been made. There was a depth of feeling behind it, a perception, as if he were not angry with such a man for the senseless moment’s outrage but from a deep thought which had lain within him a long time. Was it perhaps a self-examination? The idea was suddenly and violently repugnant to Pitt, but he could not avoid it.

“It could have been,” he said quietly.

Jago was still looking at him, his eyes steady.

“Is that what you’re following?”

“It seems the most likely.”

“But not the only possibility?” Jago leaned against the cart. “Why are you telling me this, Mr. Pitt? All I can tell you about Ada is what you probably already guess. She was an ordinary prostitute, like a hundred thousand others in London. When girls are thrown out of domestic work, or unfit for it in the first place, can’t take the sweatshops and match factories, or don’t want to, then they sell the only thing they’ve got, their bodies.” His eyes did not waver from Pitt’s. “It’s a sin to me, a crime to you: but to them it’s survival. I don’t know whose fault this is, and frankly I’m too close to it to care. All I see is individual women battling for the next meal, this week’s roof, and not to get beaten by their customers or their pimps, or slashed by a rival from another patch, hope to God they can put off the time they get some disease. They’ll probably die young and they know it. Society despises them, half the time they despise themselves. Ada was just one more.”

A woman walked past with a bag of laundry on her hip.

“Did you know her personally?” Pitt moved over and leaned on his elbow, resting his weight on the other end of the barrow. He was appallingly tired. He should have accepted the soup.

“Yes.” Jago gave a tight smile. “But I’m not privy to her client list. Most of them are casual anyway. The one you’re looking for could be from anywhere. Occasionally she’d go to the West End. It’s not so far. She was handsome. She could have picked up someone from Piccadilly, or the Haymarket. Or for that matter it could be a sailor from the Port of London, passing through.”

“Thank you!” Pitt said tartly. It was time he said what he had really come for. The longer he evaded it, the harder it would be. “Actually, I came to you because you used to belong to a gentleman’s association called the Hellfire Club….”

Underneath his shapeless jacket Jago was rigid. His face in the waning light was curiously stiff.

“That was a long time ago,” he said quietly. “And not something of which I am proud. What has it to do with Ada’s death? The club disbanded six or seven years back. Ada wasn’t even here then.”

“When did she come?”

“About five years ago. Why?”

“I don’t think it really makes any difference,” Pitt confessed. “I think it is exactly as you say … a man whose violence and need is his own, and has nothing to do with her, except that she was the one to provoke it. Or perhaps she was merely there at the wrong time, and it would have happened to whoever the woman was. It might have been her face, her hair, a gesture, a tone in her voice that jarred loose some memory in him, and he lost control of the hatred there was inside him, and destroyed her.”

“Fear,” Jago said, his mouth tightening. “Fear of failure, fear of not being what you want, what other people want.” He saw Pitt’s face and thought he read something in it, or perhaps he expected to. “I don’t mean a simple fear of impotence. I mean a spiritual fear of being weak, to the very soul, the fear which makes you hate, because you are too self-obsessed to love, too consumed by rage that you are not what you wished, that the road is harder, the price tougher than you thought.”

Pitt said nothing. Ideas raced through his mind as to how much Jago Jones was speaking of himself, his demands and expectations of his role as priest. Had he needed a woman, and used a prostitute because all decent women were closed to him in his chosen role? Had she then mocked him in her own disillusion? He could hardly be the vehicle of God to her when she had seen his fall from his self-imposed virtue.

Was this strange confrontation a kind of admission of guilt?

“We found a Hellfire Club badge under her body,” he said in the pool of silence in the street. Noises of wheels, horses and a man shouting from beyond the crossroads sounded remote, in another existence.

“Not mine,” Jago said carefully. “I threw mine in the river years ago. Why have you come to me, Mr. Pitt? I don’t know anything about it. If I did, I should have come to you. You would not have needed to look for me.”

Pitt was not sure if he would or not. Jago Jones had the face of a man who followed his own conscience, whatever the law, and whatever the cost. Had it been one of his parishioners, confessing in terror or remorse, he doubted Jago Jones would have come with it to Bow Street, or anywhere else.

“I know it wasn’t yours,” he said aloud. “It was Finlay FitzJames’s.”

It was too dark to see the color of Jago’s face, but the sudden jerk of his head, the haggard look in his eyes and mouth betrayed the emotion which tore at him.

The silence was unbroken, heavy, like the gathering darkness. What horror was filling Jago’s mind? The death of a woman he knew made suddenly more vivid? Fear for his erstwhile friend’s peril, his embarrassment? Or guilt, because perhaps he had done as Thirlstone had suggested, and accidentally picked up Finlay’s badge instead of his own and left it at the scene of the crime?

“You don’t protest his innocence, Mr. Jones,” Pitt said very quietly. “Does that mean you are not surprised?”

“It … it doesn’t …” Jago swallowed. “It doesn’t mean anything, Mr. Pitt, except that I was grieved. I don’t believe Finlay guilty, but I can’t offer any explanation that would be of value to you, and certainly not any you won’t already have thought of yourself.” He shifted his weight a little. “Perhaps Finlay was there at some other time and dropped the badge, although I’m surprised he still wore it, very surprised indeed! Perhaps he even gave it to Ada in … in payment? The fact that she had it does not necessarily mean she obtained it that night.”

“You are struggling to be loyal to a friend, Mr. Jones,” Pitt replied wearily. “Which I respect, but I do not agree. Of course I shall pursue every piece of evidence, and every meaning it could have. If you should think of anything more about Ada McKinley, or anything that happened last night, please let me know. Leave a message at the Bow Street Station.”

“Bow Street?” Jago’s dark eyebrows rose. “Not Whitechapel?”

“I work from Bow Street. Superintendent Pitt.”

“A Bow Street superintendent. Why are you concerned with the murder of a Whitechapel prostitute?” His voice dropped and there was a ripple of fear in it. “Do you fear we have another Ripper?”

Pitt shivered, cold in the center of his stomach.

“No. I was called in because of the evidence implicating Mr. FitzJames.”

“It’s too slender …” Jago swallowed hard again, his eyes on Pitt’s face, almost pleading.

“A man answering his description was seen, by two witnesses, at exactly the right time, and with Ada.”

Jago looked as if Pitt had struck him.

“Oh, God!” he sighed—a prayer, not a blasphemy.

“Reverend Jones, do you know something which you should tell me?”

“No.” The word came from a dry throat, stiff lips.

Pitt wanted to believe him, and could not. The honesty which had been between them had vanished like the yellow in the sky over the rooftops. The lamplighter had passed unnoticed. The gaslit moons made bright intervals along the way back towards the Whitechapel Road and the route home.

“Can I help you with the cart?” Pitt said practically.

“No … thank you. I’m used to it, and it isn’t heavy,” Jago refused, moving at last and bending to pick up the handles.

They walked side by side up Coke Street and turned the corner towards St. Mary’s. Neither of them spoke again until they reached it and parted, then it was a simple farewell.

Pitt arrived home in Bloomsbury tired and unusually depressed. He ate the dinner which Charlotte had kept for him, then afterwards sat in the parlor with the French doors to the garden ajar, the warmth of the day fading rapidly and the smell of cut grass filling the air.

Charlotte sat under the lamp sewing. She had asked him about the case which had taken him out so early and kept him so late. He had told her only that it was a murder in Whitechapel and that the evidence implicated someone of importance and therefore was politically explosive.

He sat watching her now, the light on her hair, which was clean and bright, coiled on her head, shining like mahogany in the highlights, almost black in the shadows. Her skin was smooth, a faint blush in her cheek. She looked comfortable. Her gown was old rose, and became her as much as anything she owned. Her fingers worked, stitching and pulling, threading back into the cloth again, the needle catching silver as it moved. They were only a few miles from Whitechapel as the sparrow flew, yet it was a world so distant it was beyond imagination. Charlotte’s world was safe, clean, its values secure; honesty was easy, and chastity hardly a challenge. She was loved, and she could surely never have doubted it. She had no compromises to make, no judgments of value against survival, no weariness of soul, endless doubt and fear and self-disgust.

No wonder she smiled as she sat! What would Jago Jones think of her? Would he find her unendurably self-satisfied—unforgivably comfortable in her ignorance?

Charlotte pulled the needle in and out, watching because she could not work otherwise. She wanted to have something to do with her hands. It was easier. The day had been long. She had woken when Pitt did, and not really gone back to sleep again.

Her sister, Emily, had called in the middle of the morning. She had said little of any importance, but there was a restlessness in her which was uncharacteristic. It was not one of unused energy but rather of seeking something she could not find, or perhaps even name. She was critical, and had taken offense at several remarks which were not meant unkindly. That was unlike her.

Charlotte had wondered if it was the difficulty of having their grandmother resident in the house since their mother had remarried. Grandmama had refused to stay under the same roof with Caroline’s new husband. He was an actor, and several years Caroline’s junior. The fact that they were extremely happy only added to the offense.

But Emily’s dissatisfaction was not particular, and she left without explaining herself.

Now Pitt was sitting brooding silently, his brow furrowed, his mouth pulled down. She knew it was the case which troubled him. His silence had a particular quality she had grown used to over the years. He was sitting crookedly in his chair, one leg crossed over the other. When he was relaxed he put his feet on the fender, whatever the time of the year, and whether the fire was lit or not. On a summer evening like this, were he not absorbed in his thoughts, he would have walked to the end of the lawn, under the apple tree, and stood there breathing in the quiet, scented air. He would have expected her to go with him. If they had talked at all, it would have been of trivia.

Several times she had considered asking him about it, but his expression was closed in, and he had offered nothing. He did not want to speak of it. Perhaps he did not want its ugliness or its threat to intrude into their home. This was the one place where he could be free of it. Or if not totally free, then at least if it were mentioned at all, it would be of his own choosing, and not hers.

She knew he had been to Whitechapel, and she knew what it was like. He could not have forgotten the numerous times when she had seen slum tenements, smelled the stinking gutters, the dark, narrow houses with their generations of filth seeped into the walls, the tired, hungry and anxious people.

But in order to help, one had to keep one’s own strength. Agonizing for people accomplished nothing useful. To help the masses one needed laws, and change of heart in those with power. To affect an individual one needed knowledge, and perhaps money, or some appropriate skill. Above all one needed nerve and judgment, one needed all one’s own emotional strength.

So she sat quietly and sewed, waiting until Pitt was ready to share with her whatever it was that bothered him, or to deal with it by at least temporarily forgetting and allowing himself to restore his spirit with what was good.