Pentecost Alley

4

AT THE TIME Emily was talking to Tallulah at the stairhead, and Finlay was taking his hat and stick from the footman and going out of the door, Pitt was sitting in a hansom on the far side of Devonshire Street with Rose Burke beside him. As the door to number thirty-eight opened and Finlay came out, she leaned forward, peering out of the side, her body stiff. She remained watching, her head turning very slowly to follow his path along the pavement until he disappeared around the corner of Upper Wimpole Street, then she sat back again.

“Well?” Pitt asked. He did not know what he wanted her to say. If she identified him it would be the beginning of a very unpleasant gathering of facts for an arrest and prosecution. The FitzJames family would muster all its resources to fight back. There would certainly be accusations of police incompetence. Rose herself would be attacked and every attempt would be made to undermine her resolve, slander her character—which would not be hard—and generally discredit her testimony.

On the other hand, if she did not identify him (or worse than that, said it was not him), then they were thrown back to the cuff link and the badge, and to searching for any resolution which explained their presence but excluded Finlay from the murder itself.

Rose turned and looked at him. She might have relished her moment of power. He expected to see it in her eyes. Instead there was only anger and a bright, hard hatred.

“Yeah, it was ’im,” she said in a tight, harsh voice. “That’s ’im wot I saw goin’ in ter Ada just afore she were killed. Arrest ’im. Get ’im tried so they can ’ang ’im.”

Pitt felt his chest constrict and his heart beat harder.

“Are you sure?”

She swung around to glare at him. “Yeah, I’m sure. You gonna argue, ’cos ’e lives in a posh ’ouse in a fancy street an’ got money ter pay ’is way abaht?” Her lip curled with disgust close to hatred.

“No, Rose, I’m not,” he said softly. “But when I go after him, I want to be sure I have everything exactly right. I don’t want any clever lawyer finding mistakes and getting him off because of them.”

“Yeah …” She settled back, mortified. “Yeah … well … I suppose so. But yer got ’im this time.”

“This time?” he asked, although with a little twist of misery he knew what she was going to say.

“Yeah. Well, yer never got Jack, didjer?” Her body was stiff, her shoulders rigid under her shawl. “ ’E’s still around, fer all we know, waitin’ in some dark doorway ter cut someone again. Well, get this bleedin’ murderer an’ top ’im before ’e does another poor cow.”

He would have liked to tell her this was not another serial murderer, that that would never happen again, that it was only one hideous aberration. But he was not sure. There was an air of compulsion about this murder, an inward rage that had been momentarily beyond control. If it could happen once, it could, perhaps would, happen again.

“It’s no help to you, Rose, if we get the wrong man,” he said, watching her face. Its hard, handsome lines were set rigid with hate and fear, her skin still smooth across her cheekbones. If it were not for a certain brashness in her expression, and the quality of her clothes, she could have been a lady like any of the others along Devonshire Street, or this part of Mayfair.

“ ’E in’t the wrong one,” she replied. “Now I in’t got all day ter sit ’ere talkin’ ter you. I charge fer me time.”

“You charge for your services, Rose,” he corrected her. “And I don’t want them. You’ll give me as much time as I need. I’m taking the cab back to Bow Street. You can have it from there, if you want.”

“ ’Oo’s payin’ fer it?” she said immediately.

“I will,” he offered with a smile. “This once. You can credit me, for next time I want to speak to you!”

She said nothing. She would not commit herself to words, but there was the slightest of smiles.

He leaned forward and gave the driver instructions, and when they were at Bow Street he alighted and paid for the rest of the way to Whitechapel.

He had learned nothing more from Rose on the journey. She was frightened. She remembered the outrage of 1888 far too sharply, the fear that had gripped London so tightly that even the music halls, which laughed at everything and everyone, made no jokes about the Whitechapel Murderer. She needed the police, and she hated that. She saw them as part of an establishment which used her and at the same time despised her.

Four years ago new laws had been passed, initially intended to protect women and curb pornography and prostitution. In effect they had only meant that the police had harassed and arrested more women, and while some brothels had been closed down, others opened up. Many men still believed that any woman who walked along in certain areas, including some in the West End, was by definition doing so to invite trade. Pornography flowed as freely as ever. It was all one giant hypocrisy, and Rose saw it as such and hated all those who supported it or benefited from it.

Pitt went into Bow Street Station, nodded to the desk sergeant, and went on up to his office. Tellman was waiting for him, his lantern-jawed face sardonic, his eyes hard.

“Morning, sir. There’s a report from a Dr. Lennox on your desk. Came about fifteen minutes ago. Couldn’t tell him when you’d be in, so he didn’t stay. Looked wretched, like he’d got an invitation to his own funeral. It’s this Whitechapel murder. I s’pose yer toff is guilty?”

“Looks like it,” Pitt agreed, reaching across his desk with its beautiful green leather inlay and picking up the sheet of paper covered in generous, sloping handwriting.

Tellman shrugged. “That’ll be ugly.” There was some satisfaction in his voice, although it was not possible to judge whether it was at Pitt’s discomfort or at the prospect of a family like the FitzJameses being exposed to such a public indignity. Tellman had risen from the ranks and was only too familiar with the bitter reality of hunger, humiliation and the knowledge that life would never offer him its great rewards.

Pitt sat down and looked at the report Lennox had left him. Ada McKinley had died of strangulation between ten o’clock and midnight. There were no bruises or scratches to indicate that she had fought her attacker. Her fingers had been broken, three on her left hand, two on her right. Three toes had been dislocated on her left foot. On her right hand one fingernail was broken, but that was probably from her attempt to tear the stocking from around her neck. The only blood under her fingernails was almost certainly from the scratches on her own throat.

There were stretch marks on her abdomen from the child she had borne, one or two old bruises on her thighs and one on her shoulder which was yellowish green, and obviously had predated the night of her death. Other than that, she was in good enough health. As far as Lennox could judge, she was in her middle twenties. There was little else to say.

Pitt looked up.

Tellman was waiting, his long, harsh face grim.

“You’re still in charge here,” Pitt said dryly. “I’m going to see the assistant commissioner.”

“Enough for an arrest?” Tellman asked, looking very directly at Pitt, an edge of surprise and challenge in his voice.

“Close,” Pitt replied.

“How difficult for you,” Tellman observed without sympathy. He smiled as he turned and went to the door. “I suppose you’d better be sure. Don’t want it to fail in court because you didn’t get everything right.” He went out with his shoulders square and his head high.

John Cornwallis had been assistant commissioner a very short time—in fact, a matter of a month or so. He had been appointed to fill the vacancy left by the dramatic departure of his predecessor, Giles Farnsworth, at the conclusion of the Arthur Desmond case. He was a man of average height, lean, broad-shouldered, and he moved with grace. He was not handsome. He had strong brows. His nose was too powerful, his mouth too wide and thin, but he had a commanding presence, a quality of stillness which was a kind of inner confidence. One barely noticed that he had no hair whatever.

“Good morning, sir,” Pitt said as he closed the office door and walked in. This was only the second time he had been back since his battle with Farnsworth. The room was the same in all essentials: the tall windows facing the sun, the large polished oak desk, the armchairs. Yet the stamp of a different personality was on it. The faint odor of Farnsworth’s cigars was gone, and in its place was a smell of leather and beeswax, and something vaguely aromatic. Perhaps it came from the carved cedarwood box on the low table. That was new. The brass telescope on the wall was also new, and the ship’s sextant hung beside it.

Cornwallis was standing as though he had been looking out of the window. He had been expecting Pitt. He was there by appointment.

“Good morning. Sit down.” Cornwallis waved towards the chairs spread out comfortably, facing each other. The sunlight made a bright pool on the red patterned carpet. “I’m afraid this business in Pentecost Alley is turning very ugly. Did he do it? Your opinion …”

“Rose Burke identified him,” Pitt replied. “The evidence is strong.”

Cornwallis grunted and sat down.

Pitt sat also.

“But not conclusive?” Cornwallis asked, searching Pitt’s face. He had caught the hesitation in his voice and was probing it.

Pitt was not sure what he thought. He had been turning it over in his mind since leaving Rose. She had seemed certain beyond doubt at all. She had described him before she had seen him again in Devonshire Street; so had Nan Sullivan. There were the cuff link and the Hellfire Club badge.

“It’s pretty tight,” he answered. “And so far there’s no one else indicated.”

“Then why do you hesitate?” Cornwallis frowned. He did not know Pitt except by reputation. He was seeking to weigh his judgments, understand what held him from a decision. “Never mind the ugliness. If he’s guilty I’ll back you. I don’t care whose son he is.”

Pitt looked at his tense, candid face and knew it was the truth. There was none of Farnsworth’s deviousness in him, none of his evasive self-interest. But it was possible there was also not his diplomatic skill either, or his ability to persuade and cajole those in power. Because Farnsworth was ambitious and capable of lies, he understood others who had the same nature. Cornwallis might be more easily outflanked and misled.

“Thank you,” Pitt said sincerely. “It may come to that, but I’m not sure yet.”

“She identified him,” Cornwallis pointed out, sitting forward in the chair. “What worries you? Do you think the jury will disbelieve her because of what she is?”

“It’s possible,” Pitt conceded thoughtfully. “What worries me more is that she may be overkeen to catch a man because she’s afraid and angry, and she’ll identify anyone, out of her own need. Whitechapel hasn’t forgotten the Ripper. Two years is not long. Memories come back too easily, especially to women of her trade. She may have known Long Liz, or Mary Kelly, or any of his other victims.”

“And the badge you found?” Cornwallis pressed. “She didn’t imagine that.”

“No,” Pitt agreed cautiously. “But it is possible someone else left it there, or he lost it at some other time. I agree, it’s not likely, but that is what he is claiming … that he has not had it in years, or the cuff links either.”

“Do you believe him?” Cornwallis’s eyebrows were high, his eyes wide.

“No. He’s lying. But he’s not as afraid as I would have expected.” Pitt tried to analyze his impressions as he spoke. “There is something I don’t yet know, something important. I want to investigate it a little further before I arrest him.”

Cornwallis sat back. “There’s going to be a great deal of pressure, of course,” he warned. “It’s already started. I’ve had someone from the Home Office calling this morning, half an hour ago. Warned me about making mistakes, being new to the position and not understanding things.” His lips tightened and there was anger in his eyes. “I understand a threat when I hear it, and the sound of the establishment closing ranks to protect one of its own.” He pressed his lips together. “What do you know about Finlay FitzJames, Pitt? What sort of a young man is he? I don’t want to press charges, then discover he’s a model of every virtue. Perhaps we need more than the circumstantial evidence of his presence at the scene. Is there any suggestion of a motive, other than the private vice of a weak and violent man?”

“No,” Pitt said quietly. “And if it is FitzJames, I don’t imagine we’ll ever find anything. If he’s ever abused a woman before, or indulged in a touch of sadism, the family will make very sure there is no evidence of it now. Anyone who knew will have been paid off, or otherwise silenced.”

Cornwallis stared across the room at the empty fireplace, his brows drawn down in thought. The August sun was hot in the bright patch between them and a wasp bounced furiously on the windowpane.

“You’re right,” Cornwallis agreed. “Anyone involved, anyone who knew, would be in his own circle, and they wouldn’t betray him to us.” He looked at Pitt suddenly. “What did you think of his father? Does he believe him innocent?”

Pitt paused for a moment, remembering Augustus’s face, his voice, and the speed with which he had taken control of the interview.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think he’s convinced of his innocence. Either that or he has no trust in us at all, and believes we may lie or misinterpret the evidence.”

“That surprises me,” Cornwallis admitted. “He’s a self-made man, but he has great respect for the establishment. He should have. He has a great many friends highly placed in it. I’ve heard it said he expects Finlay to achieve supreme office, even possibly the premiership one day. He’ll want him cleared of even a whisper against his name. It will be the destruction of his dreams if this goes against him. It could be that fear you saw.”

“Or the will to protect him, regardless,” Pitt pointed out. “He may consider the death of one London prostitute no more than a regrettable accident in an otherwise well-planned life. I don’t know. You say he has powerful friends?”

Cornwallis’s expression quickened. “You think he might have powerful enemies as well?”

Pitt sighed. “Finlay? No. I think he’s an arrogant young man who takes his pleasures whenever he wants to,” he answered. “One night, in his hunger to feel powerful, in control of other people, he went a little too far and killed a prostitute. When he saw what he had done he panicked and left her. I think he’s not as frightened as he should be because he imagines his father will somehow get him out of it in order to preserve his own dreams.” His voice hardened. “He doesn’t feel the guilt he should because he barely thinks of Ada McKinley as of the same species as himself. It’s a bit like running over a dog. It’s regrettable. You wouldn’t do it on purpose. But then neither would you allow it to ruin your life.”

Cornwallis sat motionless for several moments, his face filled with thought and a certain sadness.

“You are probably right,” he said at last. “But my God, if we charge him we’d better be sure we can prove it. Is there anything more I should know?”

“No sir, not yet.” Pitt shook his head.

“Where are you going next?”

“Back to Pentecost Alley. If the evidence still stands up, and it’s a slim hope there’s anything new, then I’ll start enquiring into the character and the past of Finlay FitzJames. I don’t want to do it until I have to. He’s bound to learn of it.”

Cornwallis smiled bleakly. “He’s already expecting it, and he’s begun taking appropriate steps.”

Pitt was not surprised, although it was sooner than he had foreseen. Perhaps he should have. He rose to his feet.

“Thank you for warning me, sir. I’ll be careful.”

Cornwallis rose also and held out his hand. It was a spontaneous gesture, and one Pitt found peculiarly attractive. He grasped Cornwallis’s hand hard for a moment, then turned and left with a new warmth inside him.

Ewart was already at the house in Pentecost Alley. In the daylight he looked tired and harassed. His receding hair had gray threads in it and his clothes were crumpled, as though he had had no time or interest to spend on his appearance.

“Anything new?” Pitt asked as he joined the inspector on the steps going up to the door.

“No. Did you expect anything?” Ewart stood back for Pitt to go up first.

“Rose Burke identified FitzJames,” Pitt said as he reached the top. It was hot, the air stale, smelling of old food and used linen.

Ewart climbed up behind him in silence.

“Are you going to arrest him on that?” he said when they were inside the door. His voice was tense, rasping, as though he were out of breath. “You shouldn’t. The jury’s not likely to believe her over a man like FitzJames. We’ll lose.”

Pitt faced him. In the dim light of the passage it was harder to see, but there was no mistaking the urgency in him, almost panic.

“Do you think he’s guilty?” Pitt asked, almost casually.

Ewart stared at him. “That isn’t the point. What I think is irrelevant….”

There was a bang as someone slammed a door at the end of the passage, and behind them in the street a carter was shouting at someone who was blocking his way.

“Not to me …” Pitt said quietly.

“What?” He looked disconcerted.

“It’s not irrelevant to me,” Pitt repeated.

“Oh …” Ewart let out his breath in a rush. “Well, I don’t know. I just go by the facts. So far it looks as if he did, but we don’t have enough yet. I mean … why would he? Far more likely someone she knew personally.” His voice gathered conviction. “You’ve got to consider the life of a woman like that. She could have made all kinds of enemies. They told us she was greedy. She changed her pimp, you know? And one should look more into money, property. Who owns this house, for example?”

What Ewart said was true, but Pitt felt it was irrelevant in this case. Of course prostitutes got killed for a variety of reasons, most of them to do with money, one way or another, but the broken fingers and toes, the water and the boots buttoned together had no part in a crime of greed. Surely Ewart must know that as well?

“Who does?” he asked aloud.

“A woman called Sarah Barrows,” Ewart replied with satisfaction. “And three other houses too, farther west. This is just rented out, but at least two of the others are run as regular brothels. She rents the dresses out as well in them. The women here say they don’t rent their clothes, but that’s beside the point. Ada didn’t have to work only from here. Several of them don’t, you know? They live one place and use shilling-an-hour rooms up the Haymarket and Leicester Square area. She could have skipped from there, with dress, money an’ all.”

“And some man followed her here and strangled her?” Pitt said with disbelief.

“Why not?” Ewart retorted. “Some man followed her from somewhere and strangled her. What is more likely: a pimp she bilked or a gentleman customer like FitzJames, I ask you!”

“Let me put it differently,” Pitt answered, still keeping his voice low. “Which is more likely: that she used other rooms and cheated the owner, who then followed her—and I grant that brothel owners do have people hired to follow girls … although it’s more often a prostitute past her working days than a young, strong man.”

One of the women came out of a door to their left and looked at them curiously for a moment, then walked past and disappeared around the corner at the end of the passage.

“But let us grant that she took a dress,” he continued. “And her earnings, and came back here, and was followed. This man, instead of warning her, taking the money and the dress, perhaps knocking her around a bit to teach her a lesson, he breaks her fingers and toes….” He noticed Ewart wince and saw the distaste in his face, but ignored it. “He takes off the stocking and strangles her with it,” he went on. “He ties her garter ’round her arm and then, after she is dead, buttons her boots to each other, throws a pitcher of cold water over her, and leaves?”

Ewart opened his mouth to protest, but was too filled with disgust and confusion to find the words.

“Or alternatively,” Pitt suggested, “a customer does these things as part of his particular fetish. He likes to threaten, cause a little pain or fear. That’s what excites him. But this time it goes too far, and the girl is really dead. He panics and leaves. What do you think?”

Ewart’s face was sullen and there was a flicker of unmistakable fear in his dark eyes. The passageway was hot and the air close. There was sweat on his skin, and on Pitt’s also.

“I think we’ve got to be damned careful we don’t make a mistake,” he said harshly. “FitzJames won’t deny he was here sometime, if it comes to facing him with it. His lawyer’ll advise him to do that. Lots of respectable men use prostitutes. We all know it. You can’t expect a young man to curb his natural feelings all his youth, and he might not be able to afford a good marriage until he’s in his late thirties, or more. It’s better not talked about, but if we force it into the open, no one’ll be surprised, just angered by the bad taste of speaking about it.” He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his hand across his brow. The carter was still shouting outside.

“He’ll say he was here, but not that night. She must have stolen the badge. He’d not be the first man to have something pretty stolen at a brothel. Good God, man, in times past there were places in Bluegate Fields and Saint Giles where a man’d be lucky to get out with his skin whole!” He gestured sharply with his arm. “I’ve seen ’em running out without shirt or trousers, naked as a jaybird and scared out of their wits. Covered in bruises and scars.”

“Nor would he be the first to go back in a temper and beat the thief,” Pitt pointed out. “I don’t think he’d be well advised to try that story.”

“But there wasn’t a fight,” Ewart said with a sudden smile. “Lennox said that, and we saw it for ourselves.”

“Which proves what?”

Ewart’s eyes opened wide.

“That … that he took her by surprise, of course. That he was someone she knew and wasn’t afraid of.”

“Not a customer from whom she’d just stolen something.”

Ewart was losing his patience. “I don’t know what it proves, except we’ve a long way to go yet.” He turned away and pushed the door to Ada’s room. It swung open and Pitt followed him inside. It was exactly the same as when they had first come, except that the body of Ada was no longer there. The window was closed and it was oppressively hot.

“I’ve searched right through it,” Ewart said wearily. “There’s nothing here except exactly what you’d expect. It doesn’t tell us anything about her. No letters. If she had anyone, either they didn’t write or she didn’t keep them.”

Pitt stood in the middle of the floor.

“They probably couldn’t write,” he said sadly. “Many people can’t. No way to keep in touch. Any pictures?” That was a forlorn hope too. People like Ada would have little money for photographs or portraits.

“No.” Ewart shook his head. “Oh, there’s a pencil sketch of a woman, but it’s fairly rough. It could be anyone. There’s nothing written on it.” He walked over and took it out of a small case inside the chest where it was kept with a few handkerchiefs, pins and a comb. He gave it to Pitt.

Pitt looked at the piece of paper. It was bent around the edges, a little scarred across one corner. The sketch was simple, as Ewart had said, of a woman of perhaps thirty with a gentle face, half smiling, her hair piled on her head. It had a grace in the lines, but it was only a rough sketch, the work of a few moments by an unskilled hand. Perhaps it was Ada’s mother … all she had of her past, of a time and place where she belonged.

Suddenly he was so choked with anger he could have beaten Finlay FitzJames black and blue himself, whether he had killed Ada or not, simply because he did not care.

“Sir?” Ewart’s voice broke across his thoughts.

“What?” he said, looking up sharply.

“I’ve already asked around and learned a lot about her life, the sort of customers she had, where she went regular, if she could have crossed up someone. It’s always possible, you know, that the boots and the garter were from her last customer, and not necessarily to do with whoever killed her.”

“Have you!” Pitt asked. “And what did you discover?”

Ewart looked profoundly unhappy. His face was puckered and the sweat on his skin gleamed wet.

“She was cheeky. A bit too much brass for her own good,” he said slowly. “Changed her pimp a short while ago. Chucked him over and got someone new. Now he could be taking it hard. She was a nice bit of income for him. And he could have had a personal interest. Not impossible. She was handsome.”

“What did he look like?” Pitt asked, trying to quell the flicker of hope inside him.

Ewart’s eyes avoided his. “Thin,” he answered. “Dark …” He tailed off; the pimp was nothing at all like the man Rose Burke and Nan Sullivan had described. It was pointless to discuss it any further. Of course they must know all they could about Ada’s life, and then about Finlay FitzJames’s as well.

“Well, you’d better follow up the new pimp,” Pitt said wearily. “I’ll speak to these women again.”

In fact, Pitt had considerable trouble raising anyone, but a quarter of an hour later he was sitting on a hard-backed wooden chair in the kitchen with Nan Sullivan, who looked exhausted, blowsy and bleary-eyed. Every time he changed his balance the chair tilted and threatened to tip over. He asked her to tell him again what she remembered of the night Ada had been killed. It was not that he expected any new evidence; he wanted to weigh up what impression she might make on a jury and whether anyone would believe her rather than Finlay FitzJames.

She stared at Pitt, her eyes blinking, unfocused.

“Describe the man you saw going into Ada’s room,” Pitt prompted, steadying himself on the chair again. A couple of flies droned lazily around the window. There were two pails standing with cloths over them. Probably water.

“Fair hair, he had,” Nan answered him. “Thick. And a good coat, that’s all I can say for sure.” She looked away, avoiding Pitt’s eyes. “Wouldn’t know him again. Only saw his back. Expensive sort of coat. I do know a good coat.” She bit her lip and her eyes filled with tears. “I used to work in a shop, making coats, after me man died. But you can’t keep two little ones alive on what they pay you. Worked all day and half into the night, I did, but still only made six shillin’s a week, an’ what’ll that get you? Could’ve kept me virtue, an’ put the baby to one o’ them farms, but I know what happens to them. Sell ’em they do, into Holy Mother knows what! Or if they’re sickly, let the poor souls die. Leave them to starve, so they do.”

Pitt said nothing. He knew what she said was true. He knew sweatshop wages, and he had seen baby farms.

There was no sound in the rest of the house. The other women were out or asleep. From outside in the street came the distant noise of wheels and hooves on the stones, and a man calling out. The sweatshop opposite was busy, all heads bent over the needle. They were already five hours into their day.

“Or I could have gone to the workhouse,” Nan went on slowly. “But then they’d have taken the little ones away from me. I couldn’t bear that. If I went on the streets I could feed us all.”

“What happened to your children?” he asked gently, then instantly wished he had not. He did not want to be compelled to share her tragedy.

She smiled, looking up at him. “Grew up,” she answered. “Mary went into service and done well for herself. Bridget got married to a butcher out Camden way.”

Pitt did not ask any more. He could imagine for himself what two girls would do to keep the precious gift their mother had given them. They might think of her now and again, might even have some idea of what their well-being had cost, but nothing would bring them back here to Pentecost Alley. And it was probably better so. She could imagine their happiness, and they could carry only early memories of her, before she became worn out, shabby and stained by life.

“Well done,” he said, and meant it profoundly, steadying himself on the chair as it tilted dangerously.

“Ada’s child died, poor thing.” She did not say whether her pity was for the child or for Ada herself. “I’d tell you who did it, if I knew, mister, but I don’t. Anyway”—she shrugged her wide shoulders—“as Mr. Ewart said, who’d believe me anyway?”

Pitt felt a wave of anger again.

“Did Mr. Ewart say that?”

“Not in them words, but that’s what he meant. An’ he’s right, in’t he?”

“That depends on several things,” Pitt said, evading the question. He could tell the truth; she would not have thanked him for it. “But if you aren’t sure, then it doesn’t matter anyway. Tell me more about Ada. If it wasn’t FitzJames, who do you think it was?”

She was silent so long he thought she was not going to answer. Flies droned against the glass. There was a banging upstairs and along the corridor someone swore.

Finally she spoke. “Well, if it weren’t for the boots all buttoned up, I’d have said Costigan, he’s her new pimp. Nasty piece of work, he is, an’ no mistake. Pretty.” She said the word with condemnation. “Thinks every woman should want after him. Temper like a mousetrap. All cheese one minute, an’ then bang! Takes off your legs.” She shrugged. “But he’s a coward. I know that sort. The moment he’d seen she was dead, he’d have taken off, scared for his life. He’d never have stopped to do up the boots an’ put the garter ’round her arm.” She looked at Pitt blankly. “So I reckon as it was her customer, FitzJames or not.”

She had not mentioned the broken fingers and toes, but then she did not know about them.

“Perhaps it was the customer who did the boots and the garter?” he suggested. “And then Costigan came in before she had time to undo them?” It was a reasonable thought.

Nan shook her head. “Me or Rosie’d have seen him, if there’d have been two. Or Agnes. It may look as if no one sees who comes and goes in these rooms, but it isn’t that way. We look out for each other. Have to. Mostly it’s old Madge who watches. Never know what a customer might do. Some of them have too much to drink and get nasty. Some want you to do things a sane person wouldn’t ever think of.” She blinked and sniffed hard, wiping her nose on a piece of rag. “That’s what’s funny about it. You’d have thought she’d have shouted out, wouldn’t you? She can’t have had any idea until the stocking was ’round her throat, poor little bitch.”

“That doesn’t sound like a first-time customer,” Pitt reasoned. “Rather someone she’d had before, and expected to do something odd like that. Was Costigan her lover as well as her pimp?” He leaned forward, forgetting the chair, which tipped violently.

“He’d like to have been,” she said with a curl of her lip. She ignored the chair. She was used to it. “Don’t think he was, but then I don’t know everything. Maybe. But if she let him, why’d he kill her?”

“I don’t know. Thank you, Nan. If you think of anything else, tell me—or Mr. Ewart.”

“Yeah, yeah, course I will.” She watched as he stood up and the chair righted itself with a clatter.

Pitt spent several hours tracing all he could of Ada’s daily life, and found nothing different in it from the pattern of most women who made their living on the streets. She rose in the middle of the afternoon, dressed, ate her main meal, then started to walk the pavements. Very often she stayed in the Whitechapel area. There were plenty of customers. But sometimes if it was a fine evening, and especially in the summer, she would go up to the traditional areas for picking up wealthier men: Windmill Street, the Haymarket, Leicester Square. There the theater crowds, elegant ladies and men about town, paraded side by side with prostitutes of all classes and ages, from the well-dressed, expensive courtesans down to the ten- or twelve-year-old children who ran along, tugging at sleeves, whispering obscene offers, desperate for a few pence.

Ada had been beaten the occasional time, usually by her former pimp, a man named Wayland, a mean-faced, part-time drayman who supplemented his income by sometimes bullying, sometimes protecting, girls in the Pentecost Alley area. He had lodgings opposite and spent much of his time lounging around, watching to see that the girls were not actually molested in the open. Once they were inside, any restraint of a violent or dishonest client was up to them. There was a woman, old Madge, the one Nan had referred to, who had been a prostitute herself in her better days and who roomed in the back of the house, and she would come if anyone screamed. Her sight was poor, but her hearing was excellent, and she could wield a rolling pin with accuracy and the full benefit of her twenty stone. She had half killed more than one client whose demands she had considered unreasonable.

But like anyone else, even Agnes in the next room, she had heard nothing from Ada the night of her death.

Wayland could be accounted for all that night by one of his new acquisitions, a plain-faced girl of eighteen or so whose extremely handsome figure earned them both a comfortable income. And as Ewart had admitted, he looked nothing whatever like the man Rose and Nan had described. He was small and thin, with dark straight hair like streaks of black paint over his narrow skull.

There had been hasty quarrels in Ada’s life, flares of temper, and then quick forgiveness. She had not been one to hold a grudge. There were impetuous acts of kindness: the sharing of clothes; the gift of a pound when times were hard; praise, sometimes when it was least merited.

She had sat up all night with old Madge when she was sick, fetching and carrying for her, washing her down with clean, hot water, emptying slops, all when she could have been out earning. And sitting back in the kitchen again on the same rickety chair, looking at Madge’s worn-out, red face, Pitt thought that if they found who had killed Ada, he would be better off with the law than left to Madge.

“Looked arter me good, she did,” she said, staring at Pitt fixedly. “I should ’ave ’eard ’er! W’y din’t I ’ear ’er call out, eh? I’d ’a’ killed the swine afore I’d ’a’ let ’im ’urt ’er. I in’t no use no more.” Grief puckered her huge cheeks, and her voice, high for so vast a woman, was thick with guilt. “Look wot I done for ’er—nuffink! W’ere were I w’en she needed me? ’Ere, ’alf asleep, like as not. Great useless mare!”

“She didn’t cry out,” Pitt said quietly. “And it could all have been over quite quickly anyway.”

“Yer lying ter me,” she said, forcing a smile. “Yer mean ter be kind, which in’t nuffink bad, but I seen folk choked afore. They don’t die that quick. An’ leastways I might’ve caught the bastard. I’d ’ave finished ’im with me pin.” She gestured towards the rolling pin on the table near her right hand. “Then you could’ve topped me fer it, an’ I’d’ve gorn glad.”

“I wouldn’t have topped you for it, Madge,” he said honestly. “I’d have called it self-defense and looked the other way.”

“Yeah, mebbe yer would an’ all.”

But even though he also went and found Albert Costigan—a brash man of about thirty, sharply dressed and with thick, brown hair—Pitt learned nothing either to confirm or disprove his belief in Finlay FitzJames’s guilt.

* * *

Pitt decided to learn all he could about Finlay himself. It would be difficult, and he was afraid of prejudicing any information he might acquire simply by the act of having sought it. Had there been time, it was the type of investigation Charlotte would have helped with, and had done so excellently in the past. It needed subtlety and acute observation. Simple questions were not going to uncover what he wanted to know.

Pitt had already asked discreetly in the Force about Finlay—and learned nothing. Other police superintendents knew only his name, and then only in connection with his father. Pitt had made an appointment to see Micah Drummond, who had been his superior before he had inherited the position. Drummond had gone to live abroad with his new wife, finding London social life intolerable for her after the scandal of her first husband’s death. Micah returned home from time to time, and fortunately this investigation coincided with one of those occasions. He would at least be honest with Pitt and have the courage to disregard the political implications.

Perhaps Emily was the one to ask. She moved in society and might hear whispers which would at least tell him in which direction to look. Jack would not be pleased that she should be given even the slightest encouragement to meddle again. But all Pitt wanted was information.

He thought of Helliwell and Thirlstone. They were the ones who would know Finlay best, but they would close ranks, as they had begun to already. It was part of the creed of a gentleman that he did not betray his friends. Loyalty was the first prerequisite. Pitt was an outsider. They would never speak ill of Finlay to him, no matter what they thought privately, or possibly even knew.

At the Foreign Office he went in and gave the name of the man with whom he had made his first appointment. He was shown upstairs and along a wide, gracious corridor into an outer office where he was obliged to wait for nearly a quarter of an hour.

Eventually a handsome gray-haired man came in, his face composed, his dress faultless. He closed the door behind him.

The room was charming. A French Impressionist painting, all sunlight and shadows, hung on one of the paneled walls. There was a tree beyond the window.

“Do sit down, Superintendent Pitt. I’m so sorry for having kept you waiting, but you explained your errand in your letter, and I wished to have ready for you all the information you could possibly find useful.” He looked at Pitt pointedly. “I do hope you will be able to clear up this matter quickly. Most unfortunate.”

Pitt sat down, as if he had every intention of remaining for some time.

“Thank you, Mr. Grainger. I hope so too.” He crossed his legs and waited for Grainger to sit also.

He did so reluctantly, towards the edge of his chair.

“I don’t know what I can tell you of relevance,” he said, frowning. “Mr. FitzJames has never given cause for anxiety as to his private life. Of course, before considering him for an ambassadorial post it would be most satisfactory if he were to make a fortunate marriage.” He shrugged very slightly. “But no doubt he will. He is young….”

“Thirty-three,” Pitt pointed out.

“Quite. A good age to consider such a step. And he is most eligible. What has any of this to do with your investigation?”

“You are considering him for an ambassadorial appointment?”

Grainger hesitated, unwilling to commit himself when he was beginning to sense the possibility of something embarrassing.

“You are not?” Pitt concluded. “You have found him not entirely suitable after all?”

“I did not say that,” Grainger replied tartly, stung to be so bluntly interpreted. “I really do not wish to discuss it with you so freely. It is a highly confidential matter.”

Pitt did not move. “If you considered him, Mr. Grainger,” Pitt went on, “then you will have made your own enquiries into his personal life.” He made it a statement, not a question. “I realize your findings are confidential, but it would be a great deal pleasanter for Mr. FitzJames if I were to learn what I need from you, who enquired for the most honorable of reasons, rather than on my own behalf, when I am investigating a particularly sordid murder in Whitechapel.”

“You make your point, Mr. Pitt,” Grainger said with a sudden tightening of his face. “I should be reluctant to have you do that, for the embarrassment to his family and for the shadow it would cast on his career … which I am sure you understand?”

“Of course. That is why I came to you.”

“Very well.” Grainger began resignedly. “Six or seven years ago he was a very raw and arrogant young man who took his pleasures wherever he wished. He drove far too fast. His father had bought him a very fine pair of horses, which he raced against other young men, frequently in the public streets.” He stared at Pitt with cold, blue eyes. “But no one was ever seriously hurt, and it is something many rich young men do. Hardly a matter for comment.” He made a steeple of his fingers. “He gambled, but always paid his debts—or his father did. Anyway, he left no dishonor, no one with ill feeling. And he certainly never cheated, which of course would be unforgivable.”

“I assumed that,” Pitt agreed with a smile. “What about women?”

“He flirted, naturally, but I never heard that anyone had cause for offense. Left a few broken hearts, and was occasionally disappointed himself. At one time his name was linked with one of Rutland’s daughters, I believe, but nothing came of it. But there was no talk, nothing against either of them. I daresay she just received a better offer.”

“Altogether a faultless young man,” Pitt said a trifle sarcastically.

Grainger drew in a deep breath, keeping the irritation from his features with an obvious effort. “No, of course not. You know, Mr. Pitt, that that is not so, or I would merely have stated it and left you to your investigation. He frequented a good few houses of ill repute. He spent his share of time in the Haymarket and the surrounding areas, and a lot of nights a great deal more drunk than sober. His tastes were at times rather more lurid than one would wish, and his self-indulgence something better forgotten.” He leveled his stare at Pitt. “But it has been forgotten, Superintendent. I daresay as a young man you had a few episodes you would prefer were not raised again, and perhaps of which your wife remains ignorant? Of course you have. So have I.” He said it like a rehearsed speech, without a shadow of humor.

Pitt felt himself blush and it surprised him. There was nothing in his past which was shocking—simply clumsy and extremely selfish, things he would far rather Charlotte never knew. They would alter the way she saw him.

Could that really be all there was to Finlay FitzJames?

As if reading his thoughts, Grainger went on. “You understand, Superintendent? There are parts of all our lives which fate usually allows us to bury decently. It is only when some other circumstance arises which compels us to face examination that they can be raised again, for a few of us unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong moment. Or, of course, to have enemies …?” He left it in the air, more than a suggestion, less than a statement, something Pitt could complete for himself more effectively in his own imagination.

He thought about it for a moment. Was it conceivable that Finlay, or his father, had enemies clever enough and unscrupulous enough to have planted Finlay’s badge at the scene of a murder? It would be an extraordinary coincidence.

He looked at Grainger’s smooth face. He was a diplomat, used to thinking of death far away, in other countries, of other sorts of people whom he never saw. Perhaps to a man like him, dealing with men only as names and pieces of paper, such an enemy was not unimaginable.

There was a bird on the tree he could see through the window.

“Enemies who would murder a woman in order to embarrass FitzJames?” he said with heavy doubt in his voice.

“Not Finlay, perhaps,” Grainger conceded, “but his father. Augustus FitzJames is a very wealthy man, and he was ruthless in the early days of his climb. I agree that to murder someone simply to incriminate someone else is very extreme, but it is not impossible, Mr. Pitt, if hatred and ambition both run deep enough.” He held his hands apart, then put them together again gently. “It seems to me at least as likely as the probability that a man such as Finlay FitzJames, who has everything to lose and nothing whatever to gain, should visit a Whitechapel prostitute and murder her, Superintendent. I am sure you want to see justice done as much as I do, not only in the courts but in the broader sense as well. A reputation ruined, a promotion lost, cannot be set right again with an apology or a retraction. I imagine you are as aware of that as I?” He stared at Pitt with wide eyes and a very slight smile.

Pitt left the Foreign Office with new shadows in his mind. He lunched with Micah Drummond, then the two of them walked slowly up the Mall past ladies in beautiful dresses with narrow, almost nonexistent bustles; just a clever draping of the fabric. That was the fashion of the moment. Their sweeping hats added an impossible grace. Parasols were folded and used elegantly, almost like sticks. He was here to talk about Finlay FitzJames, but even so he could not help occasionally glancing sideways with admiration and a distinct pleasure.

Other men did the same, gentlemen in beautifully cut suits and tall, shiny hats, soldiers in uniform, ribboned and medaled. There was laughter in the warm air, and faraway snatches on the breeze of a barrel organ, and children shouting in the park. Their feet made a slight crunch on the gravel.

“A ruthless man,” Micah Drummond said, using the same word Grainger had. He was speaking about Augustus FitzJames. “Of course he had enemies, Pitt, but hardly the sort who would frequent Whitechapel, or find themselves in a Pentecost Alley tenement. Most of them are his own age, for a start.”

“Elderly gentlemen use prostitutes as much as anyone else,” Pitt said with impatience. “And you must know that!”

“Of course I know it,” Drummond conceded, wrinkling his nose. He looked extremely well, not quite as thin as in the past, and his skin had the warmth of the sun on it. “But not in the Whitechapel area. Think about it, Pitt!” He raised his hat as he passed a lady who was apparently an acquaintance and then turned back to Pitt. “If the sort of man you are describing were to kill a prostitute in order to implicate FitzJames, he’d choose one of the better class of women, the sort he would use himself, around Windmill Street or the Haymarket. He wouldn’t enter into an area he didn’t know and where he’d be remembered as different.”

“But he was remembered.” Pitt half turned towards him. “That’s just the point! Perhaps he was afraid he’d be recognized in his own haunts?”

“And when did he get the Hellfire Club badge?” Drummond added.

“I don’t know. Perhaps he got it by chance, and that gave him the idea?”

“Opportunism?” Drummond was skeptical.

“Perhaps,” Pitt agreed. “And maybe the chance to use the murder was opportunism as well?”

Drummond looked sideways at him, his long face full of wordless disbelief.

“Although,” Pitt conceded, “I’m listening to the evidence. It probably was Finlay. I daresay he has a vicious streak in him which he’s kept under control pretty well until now, and this time he went too far. He wouldn’t be the first well-bred man to enjoy hurting people and be willing to pay for his entertainment.” He took a deep breath. “Or the first to lose control and end in killing someone.”

A small black dog trundled past them, nose to the ground, tail high.

“No,” Drummond said sadly. “And I’m afraid it fits in with what little I know of him from my days in Bow Street.”

Pitt stopped abruptly.

Drummond put his hands in his pockets and continued walking, but more slowly.

Pitt increased his pace to catch up with him.

“We had to cover up one or two unpleasantries a few years ago,” Drummond went on. “Seven or eight years, almost. One incident was a brawl in one of the alleys off the Haymarket. Several young men had drunk too much and it ended in a very nasty affray. One of the women was fairly badly beaten.”

“You said one or two,” Pitt prompted.

“The other I recall was a fight with a pimp. He said FitzJames had asked for something unusual, and when it wasn’t given had refused to pay. Apparently he’d already had the regular services, and when she wouldn’t do whatever it was, he became very unpleasant. Unusually, the pimp came off quite badly. There was a knife, but both of them seem to have been cut with it. Not seriously.”

“But that was hushed up too?” Pitt was not sure whether he was surprised or not. The picture was becoming uglier, more into the pattern both he and Ewart feared.

“Well, there wasn’t a crime,” Drummond pointed out, touching his hat absentmindedly to another acquaintance passing by. “Unless you want to call disturbing the peace a crime. It didn’t seem worth a prosecution. He’d have fought against it, and the pimp was hardly a good witness.”

“What was it FitzJames wanted the girl to do?” Pitt remembered the boots buttoned together in Pentecost Alley, the cold water and the garter around Ada McKinley’s arm. He assumed the broken fingers were a cruelty peculiar to this particular incident.

“I don’t know,” Drummond confessed.

“What was the pimp’s name?” Pitt went on. “What date was it? I can look it up in the records. You did keep a record, didn’t you?”

“No I didn’t.” Drummond looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Pitt. I think I was a little more naive then.” He did not say any more about it, but they both knew the world of experience they had seen since then, the corruption and the ugliness of influence misused, the inner dishonesties.

They walked in silence for fifty yards, no sound but their feet on the gravel of the path.

“Do you remember his name?” Pitt asked at length.

Drummond sighed. “Yes. Percy Manker. But it won’t do any good. He died of an overdose of opium. The river police pulled him out of Limehouse Reach. I’m sorry.”

Pitt said nothing. They walked a little farther in the sun, then turned and retraced their steps. They did not speak any more about FitzJames, choosing instead to think of pleasanter things, domestic and family matters. Drummond asked after Charlotte, and told Pitt about his own wife’s happiness in their new home and the small businesses of daily life.

Pitt had no hope of learning anything of value about Finlay FitzJames from Helliwell or Thirlstone. He had thought he might persuade Jago Jones that truth, in this case, was a higher good than personal loyalty. Jones’s parishioners had the right to expect a certain loyalty from him as well, and Ada had been a parishioner, in however loose a sense.

He found Jago alone in the church itself, the sunlight streaming in through the windows into bright patterns on the stone floor and across the worn pews. He turned in surprise when he saw Pitt walking up the aisle.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. Pitt knew he did not mean this occasion but the brief half hour he had spent at Ada’s funeral two days before.

He smiled. There was no answer to make.

“What brings you now?” Jago asked, walking down towards where a long-handled broom was resting against the first pew. “Do you know who killed Ada?”

“I think so….”

Jago’s eyebrows rose. “But you are not sure? That means you don’t have proof.”

“I have a very strong indication, it just seems such a stupid thing to have done. I need a clearer picture of the man in order to believe it. I already have a picture of Ada.”

Jago shook his head. “Well, Ada I could have helped you with. The man I doubt I know.” He picked up the broom and began to sweep the last area of the floor which still needed doing. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Pitt conceded, sitting on the pew and crossing his legs. “You’re wrong. You do know the man, or at least you did.”

Jago stopped, still standing with the broom in his hands, his shoulders back. He did not turn to look at Pitt.

“You mean Finlay?”

“Yes.”

“Because of the badge? I told you, he could have lost that years ago.”

“Possibly. But he didn’t leave it in Ada McKinley’s bed years ago, Reverend.”

Jago said nothing. The unlikelihood of someone else’s having stolen the badge, or found it by accident, and chancing to have left it by the dead woman’s bed, and the cuff link also, lay unspoken between them. Jago continued sweeping the floor, carefully directing the dust and grit into a little pile. Pitt watched him. The sunlight slanted in through the windows in bright, dusty bars.

“You knew him well a few years ago,” Pitt said at last. “Have you seen him at all since then?”

“Very little.” Jago did not look up. “I don’t frequent the places he does. I never go to Mayfair or Whitehall, and he doesn’t come to Saint Mary’s.”

“You don’t say that he doesn’t come to Whitechapel,” Pitt pointed out.

Jago smiled. “That’s rather the matter at issue, isn’t it?”

“Have you ever seen him here?”

“No.”

“Or heard that he was here?”

Jago straightened up. “No, Superintendent. I have never heard of Finlay being here, nor have I reason to suppose that he has been.”

Pitt believed him. Yet there was something in Jago’s attitude which disturbed him. There was a pain in him, an anxiety which was more than merely sadness for the violent death of someone he had known, however slightly. When he had first told him they had found Finlay’s badge he had looked like a man in a nightmare.

He changed his approach. “What was Finlay like when you knew him?”

Jago swept up the dust in a pan and set it aside before he answered, propping the broom up against the wall.

“Younger, and very much more foolish, Superintendent. We all were. I am not proud of my behavior in those times. I was extremely selfish, I indulged my tastes whenever I could, with disregard for the consequences to others. It is not a time I look back on with any pleasure. I imagine it may well be the same for Finlay. One grows up. One cannot undo the selfishness of youth, but one can leave it behind, learn from its mistakes, and avoid too quick or too cruel a judgment on those who in their turn do likewise.”

Pitt did not doubt his sincerity, but he also had the feeling it was a speech he had prepared in his mind for the time he should be asked.

“You have told me a lot about yourself, Reverend, but not about Finlay FitzJames.”

Jago shook his head very slightly.

“There’s nothing to tell. We were all self-indulgent. If you are asking me if Finlay has also changed, grown up, then since I have not seen him above a couple of times in the last three years, I cannot answer you from my knowledge. I imagine so.”

“I learned where to find you through his sister. Presumably you are still acquainted with her?” Pitt pressed.

Jago laughed very slightly. “Tallulah? Yes, in a manner of speaking. She is still in that stage of selfishness and the all-consuming pursuit of pleasure that the members of the Hellfire Club indulged in six or seven years ago. She has yet to see the purpose of any other kind of existence.” He said no more in words, but the expression of weariness in his face, the slight tightness to his lips, showed vividly how little regard he had for her. It was as if he did not wish to despise her but could not help himself. He despised his own past life at the same time as he asked compassion for Finlay.

Why? Was it a fear that Finlay had not, in fact, grown beyond it at all but, like Tallulah, still placed his pleasures above honor or responsibility?

“Why has your friendship lapsed so completely?” Pitt asked as if he were no more than mildly curious.

Jago did not move. He stared at Pitt without speaking. He drew in his breath as if to reply, then let it out again.

Somewhere beyond the church a woman called out to a child and a dog scampered past the open door.

Pitt waited.

“I suppose … I suppose our paths just … diverged,” Jago said at last, his eyes wide and dark. He was saying something far less than the truth, and even as he did so he knew that Pitt knew it.

Pitt did not bother to argue.

“I admire your loyalty, Reverend,” he said very quietly. “But are you sure that it is as commendable as you think? What about your loyalty to Ada McKinley, who was one of your parishioners, whatever her trade? What about the other women like her? They may be whores, but if you have set yourself as their shepherd, don’t you also have a loyalty to the truth, and to the path you’ve chosen?”

Jago’s face was white, the flesh seemed to be pulled tight as though by some desperate inner strain.

“I do not know who killed Ada, Superintendent. I tell you before God, I do not. Nor do I have any reason to believe that Finlay was here in Whitechapel that night, or any other. If I did, I would tell you.” He took a deep breath. “As to my friendship with the FitzJames family, it lapsed because of a difference of opinion—of purpose, if you like. Finlay could not understand my taking this calling, nor my wish to devote my life to it. It is not something I could explain, except in terms he did not believe or respect. He thinks I am eccentric, as does his sister.”

“Eccentric?”

Jago laughed; this time there was real amusement in his voice. “Oh, not in any admirable sense! She admires the aesthetes, men like Oscar Wilde and Arthur Symons, or Havelock Ellis, who are endlessly inventive, always saying or doing … or believing … something new. Their purpose is to shock and cause comment … and I suppose possibly also to make people think. They see me as an utterly different kind of eccentric. I am a bore … the only thing even their moral tolerance will not forgive. It is the one sin that cannot be overlooked.”

Pitt searched, but he could see no self-pity in Jago’s face, no bitterness whatsoever. For him they had missed the real happiness, not he.

And yet there was still the shadow behind his smile, the awareness of something he would not tell Pitt, something which was full of darkness and pain. Was it knowledge of Finlay FitzJames, or of himself? Or was it possibly one of the other members of the Hellfire Club, either the sensual Thirlstone or the self-satisfied Helliwell?

“Are you still friendly with any of the other members of the Hellfire Club?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” Jago seemed surprised. “Oh! No. No, I am afraid not. I see Thirlstone from time to time, but by chance, not design. I haven’t seen Helliwell in a couple of years. He’s done nicely for himself, I hear. Married and became respectable—and very well-off. It was what he always wished, once he had had his fling.”

“What does Finlay want?”

Jago smiled again, this time with patience. “I’m not sure if he knows. Probably to fulfill his father’s ambitions for him, without the hard work and the pressure which they must inevitably involve. I don’t think he really wants to be Foreign Secretary, still less Prime Minister. But then I suppose Augustus will die before it comes to that anyway, and he’ll be able to relax and be what he truly wants … if he can still remember what that is.” He stopped. “Maybe Tallulah will marry well and become a duchess, or a great countess. I doubt she has the intelligence to be a great political wife. That requires considerable skill and tact, and a profound understanding of the issues and of human nature, as well as fashion and etiquette and how to be entertaining. She hasn’t the discretion, for one thing.”

“Might she not acquire it?” Pitt asked. “She’s still very young.”

“There’s no good acquiring discretion once you’ve marred your own reputation, Superintendent. Society doesn’t forget. At least that’s not exactly true. It will to a certain extent if you are a man, but not if you are a woman. Depends what you do.” He leaned against the pew, relaxing a little at last.

“I’ve known young men to behave really badly, being drunk and extremely offensive, and their comrades will hold a trial and decide he is guilty of a breach of behavior which cannot be overlooked. Then he will be advised that he should volunteer for some foreign service, say in Africa, or India, for example, and not return.”

Pitt stared at him, stunned.

“And he will do so,” Jago finished. “Society will discipline its own. Some things are not accepted.” He stood upright. “Of course others are, sometimes things you or I might find abhorrent. It depends on how public the outrage is, and against whom. If you want me to say Finlay never visited a prostitute, I can’t. But then you know that already. If that were a crime, you could charge half the gentlemen in London. Where else are they to take their appetites? A decent woman would be ruined, and they themselves would not want her afterwards.”

“I know that,” Pitt agreed. “Is that the issue?”

“No,” Jago conceded, looking at Pitt thoughtfully. “But old Augustus has made a great many enemies, you know, people he used and threw away in his rise to power, people who lost because he won. There’s more than one family owes its misfortune to him, and a great house doesn’t forgive its ruin. There are a few political ambitions which would be helped along if it were known they had destroyed FitzJames. Power is cruel, Superintendent, and envy is crueler. Before you commit yourself to any action against Finlay, be sure it really was he who left the badge in Pentecost Alley and not one of his father’s enemies. I … I find it terribly difficult to believe it was the man I knew … and I knew him well then.”

Pitt searched his face, trying to read in it the emotions behind his words, and saw too many conflicting currents, but through them all a certainty of gentleness, and even in his eyes a restraint from judgment.

He rose to his feet.

“Thank you, Reverend. I can’t say that you have helped me greatly, but then I shouldn’t have expected it.” He bade him good-bye and walked out into the hot street with its noise and traffic, its horses and scurrying people on foot, the clatter of hooves, voices and film of dirt. He felt an even deeper liking for Jago Jones than before, and a conviction that in some fundamental way, he was lying.

“Well, have you learned anything else about FitzJames?” Cornwallis said in exasperation. It was the end of the day, and the sun had already set in an orange ball behind the wreath of chimney smoke that lay over the rooftops. The heat still burned up from the pavements and the smell of horse droppings was pungent where crossing sweepers had shoveled it to one side but no carts had been by to pick it up.

Carriages still bowled along the streets as the lamps came on, electric now along the Thames Embankment. People were beginning to think of the theater and the opera, restaurant dinners and evening parties. The lights of pleasure boats were visible on the river, and the sound of music drifted up.

“No,” Pitt answered wearily, standing beside Cornwallis at the window. “Jago Jones won’t say more than that they were all wild half a dozen years ago and that he hasn’t kept more than casual touch since then. And that’s easy to believe, since he’s now a priest in Whitechapel….” He smiled for an instant. “Not exactly FitzJames’s territory. The Foreign Office says he’s able, diligent, behaves as well as most young men and better than some. And as soon as he marries suitably, he is likely to get a very good embassy post. He certainly has talent in that direction, and a good deal of charm.”

“But you have Rose Burke’s identification of him!” Cornwallis insisted, turning away from the window to stare at Pitt. “And the badge, and the cuff link. Have you had that identified as his?”

“Yes.”

Cornwallis’s face was grave.

“Then, what’s troubling you, Pitt? Have you some evidence you haven’t told me of? Or are you worried about political pressure?” He shook his head slightly. “FitzJames’s friends are increasing their pressure, but it will never stop me from backing you totally—if you are sure he’s guilty and you can prove it.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pitt meant it profoundly. It was a gift beyond price to have a superior whose nerve held under fire, even when his own position might be threatened. He was less certain of his judgment. Did he really have an understanding of how powerful Augustus FitzJames’s friends might be and how little innocence or guilt might matter to them, so long as there was every chance it would never be exposed? And had he also considered that FitzJames might also have enemies who were equally powerful? Jago Jones’s words rang in his mind and he could not ignore them.

“You haven’t answered me.” Cornwallis broke the train of his thoughts.

“I wish I had someone else who had seen Finlay in Whitechapel … anyone else at all,” Pitt replied. “I can’t find any evidence of his having been there, that night or at any other time. I’ll put Tellman on it tomorrow, as discreetly as possible.”

“Doesn’t prove anything,” Cornwallis continued. “He may usually do his whoring in the Haymarket, doesn’t mean to say he didn’t go to Whitechapel this time. Have you tried cabbies? Other street women? Local constables on the beat?”

“Ewart has. No one has seen him. But they know him farther west.”

“Damn,” Cornwallis swore under his breath. “When were the cuff link and the badge last seen by his valet, or anyone whose evidence is reasonably unprejudiced?”

“Valet’s been with him for years and has never seen either,” Pitt replied.

Cornwallis digested this in silence.

The carriage lamps moved slowly along the street towards them and the sound of wheels and hooves came up through the still air.

“What do you think, Pitt?” he said at last.

“I think he’s guilty, but I don’t think we’ve proved it yet,” Pitt replied, surprising himself as he said it. “But I’m not sure,” he added.

“Well, you’d better make sure,” Cornwallis said grimly. “Within the next week.”

“Yes sir,” Pitt agreed. “I’ll try.”