Pentecost Alley

6

WHILE EMILY was involved with helping Tallulah, Pitt had been searching further into the character and associations of the FitzJames family. He had sent Tellman to learn what he could to add to their knowledge of the history of the other members of the Hellfire Club, as being those most likely to have had the badge, either intentionally or by accident. In spite of their appearance of a life far removed from frequenting the brothels of Whitechapel, it was quite possible that they did so. Married men of Helliwell’s status had been known to. Thirlstone was certainly not beyond suspicion.

And much as Pitt would like to have believed that Jago Jones was all he proclaimed, he might have all too human weaknesses, and if he gave in to them, where better to turn than to a prostitute whose company would be so natural in his pastoral labors; no one would question it. He could explain it even to himself. He would be far from the first man of the cloth to find his relationship with a beautiful and intelligent parishioner slipping helplessly beyond the bounds of propriety into a physical hunger which he had not denied. He lived an abstemious life, lonely and full of hardship and self-discipline. It was not difficult to understand. He had been a man of both appetite and indulgence in his Hellfire days. What had changed him, and so completely?

And what had gone so hideously wrong that he had killed Ada? Had she said or done something unforgivable? Had she laughed at him … mocked him with his own frailty? Was she the instrument by which he had betrayed himself, the serpent and Eve in one? Or had she simply threatened to expose him? Had she asked for money, continuous blackmail money? Rose Burke and Nan Sullivan had both said she was greedy, with an eye to opportunity.

It was possible, and the more Pitt thought about it, the more the idea hurt him. He had liked Jago Jones, admired him, but the possibility could not be ignored. He had liked other men before and found them guilty.

He could not like Augustus FitzJames, and the further he delved into the probability of his having enemies who might hate him enough to have gone to these lengths to ruin him, the less did he find to like.

The further back Pitt went in the search into Augustus’s past, the less easy it became to trace with any clarity. He had apparently inherited no money from his father, a somewhat feckless landowner in Lincolnshire who had mortgaged his holdings to the hilt. Augustus had served a short time in the merchant navy, largely on the Far Eastern routes. He had returned home shortly after the Second Opium War in 1860 with sufficient money to begin investing, an art which he exercised with skill amounting at times to genius.

Now he possessed a financial empire of enormous size and complexity, with tentacles stretching across the breadth of the Empire. He had investments in India, Egypt, the African expeditions of Cecil Rhodes, and the new expansions in Australia. Frequently his interests cut across those of others to their disadvantage.

Pitt heard several stories both of Augustus’s generosity and of his ruthlessness. He seemed never to forget a friend or an enemy, and there were anecdotes of his cherishing a grudge over decades and repaying it when the perfect opportunity presented itself.

He lacked polish. He had no social grace, but even so he had been attractive to women. Aloysia had married him for love, and he had been far from her only suitor. Other men, with more humor, with more charm, had sought her hand. She certainly had not needed the money. At that time her own fortune was greater than his. Perhaps there was something in his energy, his driving ambition and the inner power that drove him which attracted her.

Finlay had not only his mother’s broader face and easier, more graceful manner, it seemed he also had her more malleable nature and slower intellect. He appeared altogether a more likable man, a little self-indulgent, but that was not unnatural at his age, or with the pressure of expectation placed upon him.

Ewart grew more insistent that Finlay was innocent and that it was some enemy of Augustus who had deliberately implicated him. And where he had dismissed it before, Pitt now began to entertain the idea with some seriousness.

“The valet said he’s never seen the cuff links,” Ewart argued as they were sitting in Pitt’s office in Bow Street. “They could have gone missing years ago, as Finlay says.”

“How did one get down the back of the chair in Ada’s room?” Pitt asked, although he knew what Ewart would answer.

Ewart screwed up his face. He still looked tired and harassed. His suit was rumpled and his tie a little crooked. There were shadows around his dark eyes as though he habitually slept poorly.

“I know he said he’d never been to Whitechapel,” he replied, shaking his head. “But it was an understandable lie, in the circumstances. He could well have been there years ago. He could have been drunk at the time, and completely forgotten it.”

That was true—Pitt did not argue. He could also understand Ewart’s reluctance to think Finlay guilty. The evidence was not conclusive, and if they charged him it would be a hard fight and a very ugly case. To lose it would be an embarrassment from which neither of their careers would recover easily.

“And the badge?” Pitt was almost thinking aloud, Charlotte’s words to him the previous evening turning over in his mind.

“He said he’d lost it years ago,” Ewart reminded him. “I daresay that’s true. Certainly we can’t prove the club has ever met in, say, five … six years. All the members say it hasn’t, and I’m inclined to believe them. They don’t seem to have any connection anymore. Helliwell is married and doing well in the City. Thirlstone has taken up with the aesthete group. And Jones has taken the cloth and gone to the East End. Frankly, if it isn’t one of Augustus FitzJames’s enemies, I’m inclined to think it could be Jones. Perhaps he and Finlay had some old quarrel?”

Pitt leaned farther back in his large chair. The desk was between them, meticulously polished, and inlaid with green leather.

“And he waited six years to murder a prostitute and blame Finlay for it?” He raised his eyebrows.

“All right, that’s ridiculous, put like that. The cuff link’s an accident. Finlay was there once. The badge was put there deliberately by someone, for whatever reason we’ll discover in time.”

Pitt put forward Charlotte’s idea. “If someone really hated Augustus FitzJames enough, perhaps the badge we found was not the original one, but a copy someone had made in order to implicate him?”

Ewart’s face lit up. His clenched fist thumped very gently on the desktop. “Yes! Yes, that’s the most likely solution so far! It could well be what happened.” Then his eyes shadowed. “But how could we prove that? I’ll start my men searching for a jeweler straightaway, but he’ll probably have been well paid to keep silent.”

“We’ll start by searching Finlay’s rooms again for the original,” Pitt replied, although he had scant hope of succeeding. “I’ve no idea whether it’s the truth or not, but any good defense counsel would put it forward as a suggestion, to indicate reasonable doubt. That may be its main relevance to us.”

Far from being disheartened, Ewart was elated.

“But it is reasonable doubt!” he said fervently. “Unless we have more, there’s no point in arresting him, whatever we believe.”

“No,” Pitt conceded, and it was a concession. He could not help wondering how much Ewart’s unwillingness was belief in the possibility of Finlay’s innocence, and how much merely cowardice, a dread of the battle that lay ahead, even the threat to his own career, the myriad small struggles and unpleasantnesses which would lie ahead if they pursued Finlay FitzJames for the murder. Augustus would be fighting for his social and political life. There would be no mercy, and no rules, except those forced upon him by circumstance.

He went personally to supervise the further search of the FitzJames house for the original badge. He took two constables with him, and was admitted at first with reluctance, then with appreciable surprise when he explained his purpose.

It took them a little under three quarters of an hour, then the badge was discovered in the inside pocket of a jacket the valet said he could not remember Mr. Finlay’s having worn, which was extremely thin at the elbows and a little frayed at the collar. It was apparently kept only for sentimental reasons, and then at the back of the wardrobe. It was comfortable, something for him to use on summer walks, when it did not matter if it were to get torn or grass stained. He had not had opportunity for such indulgence in some time. It could have been there all the time. There was fluff caught on the pin, and a tiny scratch across the face of the enamel.

The explanation was given by Miss Tallulah FitzJames, who happened to be there that morning, writing letters to certain of her friends and answering invitations.

Pitt stood in the morning room turning it over in his hand. It was exactly like the one in police custody. Certainly as he looked he could see no difference, except a slight variation in the careful copperplate writing of the name, Finlay FitzJames, under the pin at the back. It was written by a different hand. But then it would be. What he really needed was one of the other club badges to compare it with, to see which was the original and which the copy. There was no other way of telling.

But the other members denied still having theirs.

“What’s the matter, Superintendent?” Tallulah asked, looking at him with a faint flicker of concern in her face.

“I now have two badges for your brother, Miss FitzJames. One of them is a duplicate. I need to know which one, and why it was made, and by whom.”

She stared at him without blinking. “This one is the original. The one you found in Pentecost Alley is a duplicate, made by one of my father’s enemies in order to ruin us.”

He looked at her. She was dressed in white with ribbons and an underskirt of pale blue. She was a trifle thin, and it made her look fragile and very feminine, until one saw the strength of her features and the burning will in her eyes.

“Do you really believe your father has enemies who would murder a woman in order to revenge themselves on him?” he asked.

Apparently she had already considered the question. Her answer was quiet, her voice grating with pent-up emotion, but nonetheless unhesitating.

“Yes, Superintendent, I do. I think perhaps you do not realize quite how powerful he is, or how much money he has made in the last thirty years. Envy can be very cruel. It can take you over and swallow up any decent judgment and feeling you have. And … and some people do not …” She bit her lip. “Do not consider the death of a prostitute to be a great sin. I’m sorry, that is a horrible thing to say.” She winced, and he had a sudden conviction that she meant it. “But it is true,” she finished.

He knew it was true. Had it not been in Whitechapel, so soon after those other, most fearful of all murders, the newspapers would hardly have bothered with it.

“Perhaps you had better make a list of these people, Miss FitzJames, and what you know, or believe, of their reasons. I shall ask your father also for a similar list.”

“Of course.”

Pitt thanked the two constables who had helped in the search, then left the FitzJames house and walked along Devonshire Street towards the Park. He bought two ham sandwiches from a seller on the corner and ate them as he crossed the Marylebone Road and turned up York Gate, across the Outer Circle and through the trees. It was a balmy day. The Park was full of people strolling and fashionable ladies parading, and courting couples. Children were playing with hoops and riding sticks with horses’ heads and several tried to fly kites in the lazy air, but there was too little wind to lift them.

Nursemaids in prim uniforms wheeled perambulators or took their small charges by the hand. Some of them sat on seats together, swapping gossip while children ran around. Old gentlemen sat in the sun and relived past glories. Young girls giggled and talked about each other. In the distance a band was playing songs from the music halls.

Pitt could not have argued with Ewart as to why he found it hard to believe that any enemy of Augustus FitzJames should murder a prostitute and lay the blame on Finlay in order to exact a revenge on his father. There was no single argument against it. He simply did not believe in such deliberate machination. In his experience robberies were sometimes carried out this way, but not murder. With violence, the convolutions, the attempts to lay blame elsewhere, came afterwards. However callous this supposed enemy, Pitt found it hard to conceive of him deliberately committing a crime for which he himself could be hanged, could it be traced to him.

And yet he also had to admit that there was something deliberate about it. The badge and the cuff link were extraordinary. How could a man be careless enough to leave two such pieces of evidence behind him?

He must try harder with Helliwell and Thirlstone and, much against his will, with Jago Jones. Finding another badge to compare with the two he had now might be crucial to Finlay’s guilt or innocence.

“Good heavens, Superintendent!” Helliwell said irritably when Pitt approached him as he was walking down Birdcage Walk after a long and excellent luncheon in Great George Street. “I really cannot help you. I have no idea about Finlay FitzJames and his current behavior.” His expression darkened. “I thought I had already explained to you that we were friends in the past, but the present is an entirely different matter. I wish I could tell you some definitive fact that would clear his name, but I am not in a position to. Now I have business for which I am a trifle late. You must excuse me.” He quickened his pace.

Pitt quickened his also.

“I have found a second Hellfire Club badge,” he said at Helliwell’s elbow.

“Indeed.” Helliwell kept on walking and did not turn. He did not ask where it had been found. “I cannot see how that concerns me. If it is mine, it was lost years ago, and it could be anywhere.”

Pitt studied his face, but in the afternoon sun it looked a little red with exertion, and perhaps self-indulgence over the port, but there was not the discomfort of lying on it. He was annoyed, but if he was afraid, he hid it with consummate skill, a subtlety quite different from the rest of his character.

“No,” Pitt replied. “It was not yours. It was apparently also Mr. FitzJames’s.”

This time Helliwell did stop, swinging around. “What? That makes no sense! We had only one each. What … what are you saying?”

“That someone has made a second badge, Mr. Helliwell. I would very much like to see yours so I can tell which is the original.”

“Oh!” Helliwell let out his breath in a gusty sigh. “Yes. I see. Well, I still can’t help you, and frankly I am beginning to find this constant questioning a trifle irritating.” He turned to look at Pitt to allow him to understand that he was not apprehensive, but his anger was very real and increasing. “FitzJames was a friend of my rather immature days, which I have now left behind me, and what he may or may not be doing now is none of my concern. Although I find it almost impossible to believe he had anything to do with the death of a prostitute in the East End. It can only be a catalog of mischance that has led you even to imagine such a thing. You would be far more profitably employed looking into the unfortunate woman’s own acquaintances, her enemies, or debtors.

“Now, as I said, I have an appointment, and I must hurry, or I shall keep Sir Philip waiting. Good day, Superintendent.” And with that he swiveled smartly on his heel and strode away without looking back, or to either side of him.

Mortimer Thirlstone was harder to find. He was not involved in political or public life, and his comings and goings were dependent only upon his whim of the moment. Pitt discovered him at an artist’s studio in Camberwell, and it was mid-afternoon before he was able to speak with him. It was a bright, airy room, and several young men and women sat around in earnest discussion. There were paintings on every stretch of wall, and windows in most unexpected places, never as intended by the original architect. Nevertheless the impression was surprisingly pleasant, one of startling color and space, splashes of yellows and blues, shimmering scenery. And it was more an impression, as if seen through half-closed eyes, than a photographic image.

“Oh dear,” Thirlstone said wearily, leaning against a windowsill and staring at Pitt. He was dressed in a loose-sleeved white shirt with a floppy collar and an enormous bow at the neck. It was all very affected, but he seemed quite unconscious of it.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Thirlstone.” Pitt was about to continue when Thirlstone straightened up.

“Not you again,” he said, his eyes darting around the room as if to seek a way of escape. “This is getting frightfully tedious, my dear fellow.” He faced Pitt suddenly. “What am I possibly to tell you? I knew Finlay years ago. He was a decent young man, but a bit of a rake. I suppose we all were … then. But I see nothing of him now, not a thing. Pleasant enough, you know, but a complete Philistine. Doesn’t know old gold from plate. Sometimes I think he’s color-blind!”

“I wanted to know if you could find your old Hellfire Club badge, sir,” Pitt asked, looking at his agitated face and wondering why he was so uncomfortable. This should not be embarrassing. Pitt was not recognizable as police.

“I told you, I haven’t got it anymore!” Thirlstone replied with a frown, his voice sharpening with exasperation. “What can it matter now?”

Pitt told him about the two badges with Finlay’s name on them.

“Oh.” Thirlstone looked disconcerted. He swallowed, seemed about to speak again, then changed his mind. He moved uncomfortably, as if something in his loosely fitting shirt still scratched his skin. “Well … if I … if I have it, I’ll bring it to you. But it’s not likely.” He shook his head abruptly. “I really can’t imagine Finlay would do such a thing, but people change….”

A statuesque young woman walked by, running her fingers through her mane of hair. A man by the farther window was sketching her, and she knew it. “I think you’ll find us … oh …” Thirlstone shrugged. “I don’t know. Really. I have no idea.” He glanced at the woman, and back to Pitt. “Not pleasant to be disloyal, but I can’t tell you anything.”

Pitt wished he could think of some question which would crack the façade and let him see beneath to what these men really knew of each other, what relationships there had been, the rivalries, the bonds which held, and the jealousies which divided, the secret feelings underlying the outward behavior.

“Did Finlay have one particular friend among you?” he asked casually, as if he had thought of it only as he was about to leave.

“No,” Thirlstone said instantly. “We were all together … well … er, possibly he was a little closer to Helliwell. More in common, maybe.” Then he blushed, as if it had been a hand of betrayal, but it was too late to take it back.

“Did he have more money than the rest of you?” Pitt enquired. “His father is extremely wealthy.”

Thirlstone looked relieved.

“Ah … yes. Yes, he did. Certainly more than Jago or I. And I suppose more than Helliwell too.”

“Was he generous?”

A curious expression crossed Thirlstone’s face, a mixture of bitterness and wry, almost careful regret. He obviously disliked talking about it at all, and that might have been some kind of guilt, or simply that Thirlstone regarded that as an aesthetically wasted time and preferred to live in the present.

“Was he generous?” Pitt repeated.

Thirlstone shrugged. “Yes … quite often.”

“He gambled?” It did not matter, except as a blight on his character, but Pitt wanted to keep the conversation going.

A burst of laughter interrupted his thought, and they all turned to look at the little group who had occasioned it.

“Yes. We all did,” Thirlstone replied. “I suppose he gambled rather more. It was in his nature, and he could afford it. Look, Superintendent, none of that is relevant now. I really have no idea who killed this woman in Whitechapel. I find it difficult to believe it could have been Finlay. But if you have proof that it was, then I shall have to accept it. Otherwise I think you are wasting your time—which is your privilege—but you are also wasting mine, and that is precious. I have not seen my old club badge in years, but if I should come across it, I shall bring it to Bow Street and pass it in.”

“I would appreciate it if you could look for it, Mr. Thirlstone. It may prove Mr. FitzJames’s innocence.”

“Or guilt?” Thirlstone said, staring at Pitt with an intense gaze.

Charlotte had visited her mother during the day, and was full of news to tell Pitt when he returned home. Most of it cheerful and interesting, variations of the colorful gossip about the theater relayed by Caroline.

But when Charlotte saw Pitt’s face as he came in at a quarter past seven, tired, hot and struggling with a confusion of thoughts, she realized this was not the time.

“Did you look again for the badge?” she asked as they sat over dinner. The children had already eaten and were upstairs getting ready for bed. Gracie, with her newly learned reading skill, was preparing to share with them the next chapter of Alice Through the Looking Glass. It was their favorite time of the day.

Both kittens were asleep in the laundry basket in the corner of the kitchen by the cooker, and everything was tidy and cleared away, except the dishes they were actually using, and they could wait until Gracie came down again.

“Yes,” Pitt answered, looking up and meeting her eyes across the table. The sunlight was low, coming straight in through the large windows onto the table and the scrubbed floor. It made bright patterns on the far wall and gleamed where it caught the china on the Welsh dresser. It shone red on one of the copper-bottomed saucepans hanging up. “And we found it.”

Charlotte swallowed. “Does that mean he is innocent?”

He smiled. “No, it just means there are two badges, so one of them is presumably a fake.”

“Well, mustn’t it be the one that was found in Pentecost Alley? The other one must have been where you found it, mustn’t it? Where did you find it?”

“In the pocket of an old jacket he apparently hasn’t worn for years.”

“Well then?”

He ate another mouthful of the cold chicken pie. It was very good indeed; so were the fresh tomatoes with it, and the cucumber.

“Thomas?” she prompted, her face puckered.

“Somebody had a copy made and put it either in Ada McKinley’s bed in Pentecost Alley or else in Finlay FitzJames’s pocket in Devonshire Street,” he replied with his mouth half full.

“And don’t you know which?” She was beginning to remember Emily’s words yesterday, and her eagerness that Pitt should search again. Most unpleasant thoughts crossed her mind. She forced them away. “Surely you can tell, can’t you?” she said more urgently, her own pie now forgotten.

“No, I can’t.” He frowned at her. “Not unless I can compare them with one of the original ones belonging to the other members. The writing is just a little different on the two I have. Presumably the first ones were all made by the same jeweler. The writing which does not match will be the copy.”

“Doesn’t it have …” she began, then realized the answer to her own question, and stopped.

“What?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any sense,” she denied.

“Either someone had a copy made to prove him guilty when he was innocent,” he explained. “Or to prove him innocent when he is guilty, or they fear he is. That could be any member of his family, or Finlay himself.”

“Yes,” she said cautiously, then looked down at her plate. “Yes, of course it could.” She did not add what was in her thoughts. It was screaming in her mind, but she did not dare put words to it, even to herself. “Would you like another tomato?” She half moved from the table. “I have several more. They’re really very good.”

As soon as Pitt had left the following morning, and she had given Gracie instructions for the day, Charlotte took a hansom cab to Emily’s house. By quarter past nine she was being shown into the morning room by a startled parlor maid, who said she would go and see if Mrs. Radley was at home. That meant she was. Had she been out riding she would have said so immediately. Although Charlotte was prepared to wait even if Emily were out for the entire day.

Emily appeared within ten minutes, still in a loose satin peignoir and with her fair hair loose in curls Charlotte had envied all their lives. She came towards Charlotte smiling, as if to kiss her on the cheek.

“Emily!” Charlotte said quickly.

Emily blinked. “Yes? You look very fierce. What’s happened? Is it something to do with Grandmama?”

“No, it is not. Why did you ask me to have Thomas search the FitzJames house again for that Hellfire Club badge?” She faced Emily with a stare which should have turned her to stone.

Emily hesitated only a moment, then sat down casually in one of the green chairs.

“Because if he found it, it would prove that Finlay FitzJames is innocent, which will be much better for Thomas,” she answered blandly, looking up at Charlotte standing above her. “Wouldn’t it? Augustus FitzJames is a very powerful man, and not fearfully pleasant. Of course, if Finlay is guilty, then he should be arrested and tried, and all that. But if he isn’t, then it would be much better for everyone, and for Thomas in particular, if it could be proved so before any charges are made. Isn’t that all fairly plain?”

“Very plain indeed.” Charlotte did not back away an inch. “Do you know him?”

Emily’s eyes widened, very clear and blue in the morning sun coming through the long windows.

“Who? Augustus FitzJames? Only by repute. But I’m sure I’m right. Jack has mentioned him several times. He is very powerful, because he has a great deal of money.”

“Finlay FitzJames?” Charlotte kept her voice under control with an effort.

“No,” Emily answered, still with an air of innocence. “I’ve met him once, but only very briefly. Just to say how do you do, not much more. I doubt that he would recognize me again.”

Charlotte was looking for the connection. It had to be somewhere. She knew Emily well enough to tell when she was being evasive. There was guilt in every line of her body, the wide gaze of her eyes. She sat down on the seat opposite and faced her.

“Is he betrothed to anyone?”

“I don’t think so; I haven’t heard that he is.” Emily did not ask why Charlotte wanted to know. In Charlotte’s mind, that was the final piece of evidence. She was lying about something. Her fears were confirmed.

“Tallulah?” she said between her teeth. “Do you care really about her so much you would coerce me into asking Thomas to search again on her account?”

Emily blushed. “I told you, Charlotte … if Finlay is innocent, it will be—”

“Rats! You knew that badge was there, because you or Tallulah put it there! Have you any idea of what you’ve done?”

Emily hesitated on the verge of admitting or denying. She still had not given herself away, not completely.

“Augustus FitzJames does have some very ruthless enemies, you know.”

“And some very ruthless friends as well, it seems!” Charlotte said furiously. “Did you have the badge made yourself, or did you just suggest it to … Tallulah?”

Emily squared her shoulders. “I really think that as a policeman’s wife, Charlotte, I should not discuss that with you. You would feel obliged to tell Thomas anything I told you, and then I might place myself, or my friends, in an embarrassing situation. I am quite certain Finlay is innocent, and I did what I believed to be right—for him, and for Thomas. You know that the identification is nonsense.”

“What identification?” Suddenly Charlotte was less confident. Emily was certainly irresponsible, probably even criminal, and totally stupid; but it seemed she also knew something which Charlotte did not, and perhaps Pitt did not either. “What identification?” she repeated.

Emily relaxed. The sun through the morning room windows made an aureole of gold around her hair. The pleasant clatter of domestic chores sounded from beyond the door. Somewhere a girl was giggling … probably a between-maid.

“The identification of the other prostitute who said she saw Finlay there in Pentecost Alley the night of the murder,” Emily answered.

“What?” Charlotte felt her stomach tighten and for a moment she could hardly breathe. “What did you say?”

“It wasn’t a proper identification,” Emily explained. “She doesn’t really know if it was Finlay or not. She would be perfectly willing to say it was the butler, if it came to trial.”

“What butler?” Charlotte was stunned, and now confused as well. “Whose butler? Why would she say it was a butler?”

“The butler who got Ada pregnant,” Emily explained. “Which was how she lost her position and finished up on the streets,” Emily explained.

“And just how do you know that?” Charlotte’s voice dropped and became icy.

It was too late for any possible retreat.

“Because I spoke to her,” Emily replied in a small voice.

Charlotte sat down abruptly. She felt a little dizzy.

“You shouldn’t be so disturbed,” Emily said reasonably. “You and I have both involved ourselves in cases before, and it has always ended more or less right. Remember the Hyde Park Headsman—”

“Don’t!” Charlotte winced. “Have you forgotten what Jack said to you after that?”

Emily paled. “No. But he doesn’t know about this. And I didn’t do anything dangerous … well, not really. There wasn’t anybody violent around. I was only looking for information to clear Finlay. I wasn’t pressing anyone who could be guilty.”

“Don’t be idiotic!” Charlotte said. “If you clear Finlay, then someone else is guilty. It may be someone around there. In fact, it probably is. Except, of course,” she added scathingly, “since you put the club badge there, Finlay could be as guilty as Jack the Ripper. The real badge was the original one, found with the poor woman’s body. Or didn’t you think of that?”

“Yes, of course I did. But that didn’t mean that Finlay put it there!” Emily said. “We both know that he was nowhere near Whitechapel that night. He was at a party in Chelsea.”

“We don’t both know it!” Charlotte said. “All we really know is that Tallulah says she was there, and she says she saw him!”

“Well, I believe her! And without an identification it’s the only piece of evidence that connects him with Whitechapel at all. Anyone could have stolen it, or found it years ago, and used it to revenge themselves on Augustus. After all, why on earth would Finlay kill a woman like Ada McKinley? Or anybody else, for that matter?”

“Somebody did,” Charlotte said pointedly.

“Far more probably someone who knew her,” Emily argued, leaning forward a trifle. “A rival, or someone she stole from or someone she hurt. She may have quarreled with someone, one of the other women, or some man she made fun of, maybe someone who was once in love with her, and she betrayed him by doing what she did.” She took a deep breath. “Charlotte …”

Charlotte stared at her, waiting.

“Charlotte … please don’t tell Thomas about the badge. He’d never forgive me. And he might not understand why I did it. I really do believe that Finlay is innocent.”

“I know you do,” Charlotte said gravely. “You wouldn’t do anything so absolutely idiotic otherwise.”

“Are you going to tell Thomas?” Emily asked in a very small voice.

“No,” Charlotte answered, more out of pity than good sense. “At least, not unless I have to. He … he may discover whatever he needs to know before there’s any need.”

“Thank you.”

Indeed, Pitt did discover at least part of it when he and Ewart went back to Pentecost Alley late in the afternoon. Nan Sullivan was as indecisive as on the previous time Pitt had seen her, but he still had every confidence in Rose Burke. The change in her stunned him.

“I dunno,” she said, looking first at Pitt, then away. They were sitting in the kitchen, a large, chipped enamel pot of tea on the table, odd pottery cups around. The cooking range made the place hot and airless. No one wanted to open the window onto the stinking yard below with the fumes from the midden and the pigsty next door.

“What don’t you know?” Pitt demanded. “You were quite sure when you saw him from the hansom in Devonshire Street. You were certain enough then you were ready to hang him yourself.”

“I were ready to ’ang whoever done ’er,” Rose corrected stubbornly. “That in’t ter say it were ’im. I only saw ’im fer a minute, an’ the light weren’t good.”

“Are you afraid, Rose?” Pitt tried to keep the anger out of his voice, or the stinging contempt he wanted to put into it.

“No!” She glared at him, ignoring Ewart completely. “No, I in’t afraid. Wot’s ter be afraid of?”

“Threats from someone,” he replied. “The man you identified belongs to a very powerful family.”

“ ’E may do, but ’e in’t spoken ter me,” she said with a curl of her lip. “If that’s wot yer think, yer wrong … dead wrong. I jus’ want yer ter get the right man, the man wot really done ’er, poor little cow.” She fiddled with her spoon, slicking it against the cup. “An’ I think as it could be the butler wot got ’er into trouble in the first place. ’E done it again, an’ this time ’is mistress might not be so quick ter believe ’im. ’E got reason ter wanner get rid o’ Ada. Geezers like the one wot yer showed me in Devonshire Street don’ come down ter Whitechapel. They get their bits o’ pleasure up the ’Aymarket way, an’ Windmill Street.”

“That’s true,” Ewart conceded.

“You said Ada sometimes went up there,” Pitt pointed out.

“Sure. But I never said as she brought ’em ’ome ’ere!” she said with derision. “She in’t that daft. If she ’ad ’a’, like as not that Costigan’d ’a’ took more’n ’alf ’er money. An’ why would one o’ them gents foller ’er ’ere? Wot for? She weren’t that good. There are plenty more w’ere she come from, an’ ter them, one tart’s as good as another.”

“Are you now saying it was this butler you saw?” Ewart interrupted quickly, leaning forward over the table. “Describe him!”

“No I in’t sayin’ it were ’im,” she said cautiously. “I’m sayin’ as it might ’a’ bin. Geez! Don’t yer care ’oo yer top, long as it’s someone?”

“I care very much,” Pitt replied between his teeth, holding on to his temper. “I find your certainty then, and your change of mind now, suspicious. It makes me wonder if someone has been changing it for you, either with threat or with promise.”

“You sayin’ as I bin paid ter lie?” she asked angrily.

“No.” Ewart was placating. “Nobody’s saying you’re lying, Rose. We simply have to be sure. Nothing can bring back Ada, and it’s a man’s life we are talking about. A wrongful accusation would be in its way a second murder.”

“Well, mebbe I could lie ’baht somethin’ as don’t matter,” she said carefully, this time looking at Ewart. “But not ter get some poor sod cropped, ’ooever ’e is. Ter tell the truth, I were upset that Ada were killed.” She lifted her shoulders very slightly, a gesture of apology and resignation. “I were sort o’ angry an’ scared, an’ too quick ter make up me mind. I wanted someone caught an’ topped, ’cos it made it feel better fer the rest o’ us. Safer, like.” She took a breath and turned to Pitt again. “I wan’ed ter think as I knew ’oo it were. Now I’ve ’ad time ter think better, I can see as that’s stupid. It’s gotta be the right sod, not just any poor bastard as looks a bit like ’im. ’Asn’t it?”

“Yes,” Pitt conceded grimly. “Yes, it has to be the right one.”

“Of course.” Ewart moved his arm as if to pat her shoulder, then changed his mind. “Of course it has,” he added gently.

They left Pentecost Alley and Pitt rode back in the hansom with Ewart.

“We’d better find this butler,” he said wearily. “Even if it is only to eliminate him.”

“I think he’s our man,” Ewart replied, his voice loud with conviction, his face set hard, staring straight ahead as they moved west along the Whitechapel High Street. “Stands to reason. He got Ada with child. That time he got away with it. Lied to his employers. Now he’s done it again and she was going to come back and tell the whole story. Finish him.”

“She told the whole story the first time,” Pitt pointed out. “What had she to gain from telling it again?”

“Revenge,” Ewart replied, as if the answer were obvious. “He was responsible for her ruin. Oldest motive in the world.”

Pitt looked sideways at him. Ewart was a good policeman. His record was excellent. He was in line for more promotion. This was an extraordinary lapse in his thinking. He had been laboring under some emotion right from the start. Was it pity or disgust? Or was it some fear that Augustus FitzJames would set out to ruin whoever accused his son of such a crime, guilty or innocent, and even Ewart’s long-standing reputation would not be enough to save him?

Of course it would be unpleasant. But bringing a charge against anyone had its tragedy. There were always innocent people hurt, people who simply loved a husband or a son. They would be overwhelmed by events, and then when all the tumult and the public pain was over, they would be left with its grief.

“What good would that do?” Pitt asked him, watching Ewart’s face with its black eyes and the lines of anxiety around his mouth. “Ada had already told her story. Dead, she simply reinforces it. If he killed anyone, it would be the present girl, before she tells her employer. The judgment had already been made between Ada and this man, and she had lost. She might have killed him, but he had no cause to kill her.”

Ewart’s expression hardened, and a flicker of something like fear shadowed across his features, or perhaps it was anger. He was very tired. His hands shook a little. He must hate having a superior like Pitt put in to take over his case because he was deemed incapable of handling a politically sensitive case. Any man would, and Pitt would have himself.

And Ewart was doing a better job of being politically appropriate than Pitt was. He was searching for any answer but the explosive one.

In his position Pitt would have resented both the man who was brought in and the superior who made the decision.

“I agree with you,” he said quietly. “The evidence against FitzJames is poor. The identification is useless. The cuff links were lost years ago, and the club badge is suspect. It won’t stand alone, now we’ve found a second one in his possession. We’ve got to go back to the beginning. We should look more closely at Ada’s life, and also at FitzJames’s, to see who could be implicated.”

Ewart turned to face him. “Implicated?” he asked slowly. He seemed almost too tired, too stunned by blow after blow to think.

“If FitzJames has enemies so virulent they would put evidence at the scene of the murder to incriminate him,” Pitt started to explain, “then …”

Ewart straightened up a little, realization in his face.

“Oh yes. Of course. Do you want me to do that? I’ll start tomorrow.”

“Good,” Pitt agreed. “I’ll continue with Ada.” It was all ugly, and confusing. He must, as he had said, go right back to the beginning.

Pitt arrived home late, and was startled to find Emily’s great-aunt by her first marriage, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, sitting in his parlor sipping a tisane and talking to Charlotte. He had flung the door open, about to speak, until he saw her, and he stopped.

“Good evening, Thomas,” Aunt Vespasia said coolly, her silver eyebrows raised. As always, she looked exquisite; her face, with its marvelous bones and hooded eyes, had been refined by time and her character marked into it. It was no longer the mere loveliness of youth but a beauty which was the whole structure of a life, fascinating and unique.

She had given him permission to call her by name as a relative. He used it with pleasure.

“Good evening, Aunt Vespasia. How very pleasant to see you.”

“And surprising also, to judge by the expression upon your face,” she retorted. “No doubt you are hungry, and would like to dine. I believe Gracie has your meal prepared.”

He closed the door and came into the room. He was hungry and extremely tired, but he was not willing to forgo the pleasure of her company, nor the interest of her conversation. She would not simply have called because she was passing by. Vespasia never did anything casually, and she did not pass by Bloomsbury on the way to anywhere. He sat down, glanced at Charlotte, then faced Vespasia.

“Are you acquainted with Augustus FitzJames?” he said candidly.

She smiled. “No, Thomas, I am not. I should be offended if you imagined I had called upon you because I was a friend of his and aware that you were investigating that sordid affair in Whitechapel which seems to implicate his son.”

“No one who knew you would suppose you would try to exert influence, Aunt Vespasia,” he said honestly.

Her silver-gray eyes widened. “My dear Thomas, no one who knew me would suppose me a friend of a nouveau riche bully like Augustus FitzJames. Please do sit down. I find it most uncomfortable staring up at you.”

He found himself smiling in spite of his weariness and the confusion in his mind, the sense of having achieved nothing in all the time and effort he had spent. He sat down opposite her.

“But I do have some compassion for his wife,” she went on. “Although that is not why I called. My principal interest is in you, and after that, in John Cornwallis.” She frowned very slightly. “Thomas, if you charge Finlay FitzJames, be extremely careful that you can prove your case. His father is a man of great power and no clemency at all.”

Pitt had judged as much, but it was chilling to hear it from Vespasia. She was not a woman too arrogant or too foolish to be afraid, but it was a very rare occurrence indeed, and when he had seen it in the past, it had been of the power of secret societies rather than of individuals. It increased his sense of misery and the darkness of thought which surrounded the murder in Pentecost Alley.

Charlotte was looking at him anxiously.

“It begins to appear,” he began carefully, “as if Finlay FitzJames may not be guilty. Certainly the evidence against him has largely been withdrawn, or explained away.”

“That is very unclear. I think you had better say what you mean,” Vespasia commanded.

He told her about the badge, and then finding the second one in Finlay’s possession, and his inability to obtain any of the other original ones with which to compare them to identify the copy. He did not notice Charlotte’s pink cheeks or averted eyes, he was too absorbed with laying out the evidence for Vespasia.

“Hmm,” she said as he concluded. “Not very satisfactory, but I suppose rather obvious, except for one thing.”

“What thing?” Charlotte said quickly.

“One wonders why Augustus did not have the copy made immediately,” Vespasia answered. “And then require a more thorough search. It could have been done within the first couple of days. If he were going to do it at all, why wait until the discomfort increased? Unless, of course, it was to teach Finlay a lesson, make him thoroughly frightened for a while, and so perhaps more obedient.”

“Why couldn’t Finlay have done it himself?” Charlotte asked, then looked down as if she regretted having spoken.

“Because he panicked and hasn’t the brains,” Vespasia replied simply.

Pitt recalled his first meeting with Finlay.

“But he didn’t seem panicked,” he said honestly. “He was startled, upset, even shocked, but he didn’t seem in a sweat of fear at all. If anything, I would say his fear grew as time went by, and we continued to suspect him.”

“Curious,” Vespasia admitted. “What other evidence had you?”

Pitt noted that she spoke of it in the past, and smiled ruefully.

“Identification by witness,” he replied, then told her the story of Nan Sullivan and Rose Burke and their subsequent retraction.

Vespasia considered for several moments before she commented.

“Not very satisfactory,” she agreed. “That could mean any of several things: possibly she spoke the truth in the beginning and has been persuaded to withdraw it by pressure from someone else, threat of injury or promise of reward; or that her own sense of self-preservation has overcome her hatred or her anger; or conceivably she has decided the information is worth more if kept to herself and used at some future date for profit.” She frowned. “Or it is possible she is telling the truth, and it was a mixture of fear and desire to see someone caught and punished for Ada’s death which made her act impulsively in the first place, and on reflection she realized she was not prepared to perjure herself with an identification she was genuinely not sure of. The story of the butler is tragic, and no doubt true, but obviously irrelevant to her death.”

“Do you still think Finlay did it?” Charlotte asked very quietly, anxiety puckering her brows. “I mean … is the evidence really wrong, or has his father very carefully removed it, or invalidated it?”

Pitt considered for several moments.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I think if I have to make a decision I would say he did not, but I’m not certain.”

“That is most unfortunate.” Vespasia was simply stating a fact, but not without sympathy. “If he is innocent, then either he has an exceedingly vicious enemy or an extraordinary series of events has combined to make him appear guilty, which, my dear Thomas, seems unlikely.”

“Yes, it does,” Pitt confessed. “I suppose I return to the very unpleasant task of trying to find the FitzJames family’s enemies.” He sighed. “I wish I even knew whether it was Finlay’s own enemy or his father’s. He seems a fairly harmless young man, a great deal more ordinary than he would probably wish to be….”

“A great deal,” Vespasia agreed with a rueful smile. “I think his sister has more chance of doing something genuinely interesting, but she may well be married out of that before she has the chance. At the moment she is singularly flighty and doesn’t appear to have a thought in her head except to enjoy herself, preferably without thinking of anything with the least meaning beyond the following day. But she does it with such fervor, I have hope she may stumble upon something she will care about, and that will make all the difference.”

Charlotte opened her mouth and then closed it again.

Pitt wondered what she had been going to say. Usually when it was tactless, it was also pertinent. He could ask her after Vespasia had left.

“But he has the arrogance of those who sense their limitations,” Vespasia went on, regarding Pitt seriously, “and who fear they may be smaller than their ambitions, or the expectations of others for them. Who were the other members of this rather juvenile club? One of them would seem to be in the ideal position to provide the model for the badge, and also to be familiar with Finlay’s habits to the degree where he could implicate him successfully.”

Pitt repeated their names.

Vespasia looked blank. “Thirlstone means nothing to me. I have heard of a James Helliwell. He might have a son by the name of Herbert….”

“Norbert,” Pitt corrected.

“Indeed. Or Norbert either,” she conceded. “But he is a very pedestrian sort of man. Sufficient means to be comfortable, and too little imagination to be uncomfortable, unless he sat upon a tack! And Heaven knows, there are as many Joneses as there are Browns or Robinsons. Jago Jones could be anyone at all … or no one.”

Pitt found himself smiling. “Helliwell sounds like the man I met, very concerned with how he was perceived by others, particularly his parents-in-law, and as you say, beginning to be very comfortable, and unwilling to let anything disturb that. He is no longer so keen to defend Finlay, in case some of the notoriety sticks to him as well. Although he certainly did not wish me to continue investigating Finlay.”

“An enemy?” Charlotte said dubiously.

“Insufficient nerve,” Vespasia dismissed him, looking at Pitt, her eyes wide.

“I think so,” Pitt agreed, remembering Helliwell’s red face and his fidgeting manner, his keenness to disclaim any association. “Certainly he hasn’t the honor to be loyal once it becomes costly.”

“Thirlstone?” Charlotte asked.

“Possibly.” As he said it he was seeing Jago Jones’s passionate face. He was a man who had the courage, the fire and the conviction. But had he the cause? “I think …” he said slowly, “that I should look more closely into why Ada was the victim. Why was it someone in Whitechapel, rather than the West End? It seems irrational. Perhaps there is a reason there which may lead us to who it was.”

Vespasia rose to her feet, and Pitt stood instantly also, offering her his hand.

She accepted it, but leaned no weight on it at all.

“Thank you, my dear. I wish I could say I felt easier in my mind, but I do not.” She regarded him very gravely, searching his eyes. “I fear this is a most ugly case. Be careful, Thomas. You may trust John Cornwallis’s honor and his courage absolutely, but I suspect that his understanding of the deviousness of the political mind has a long way to go. Do not allow him to let you down by expecting of him a skill he does not possess and a loyalty which he does. Good night, my dear.”

“Good night, Aunt Vespasia,” he replied as he stood watching while she kissed Charlotte lightly on the cheek. Then, head high, she swept through the parlor door towards the front entrance and her waiting carriage.

He began early the next morning, not exactly with enthusiasm, but with a renewed determination. Ewart was already directed to pursue further details of both Augustus and Finlay FitzJames. Tellman was investigating the other members of the Hellfire Club. Pitt himself went back to Pentecost Alley to speak again with the women who had known Ada last.

It was an inappropriate hour of the morning to find them, but he could not afford the time or the patience to wait until the afternoon, when they would naturally get up to begin the day.

Of course, the sweatshop over the road was thrumming with industry, doors open because they had been at work for several hours by nine o’clock, and it was already hot.

Pitt went up the steps to the wooden door of the tenement and knocked. He had to repeat it several times before the door was finally opened by a bad-tempered-looking Madge, her large face creased with irritation and weariness, her eyes almost disappeared in the folds of fat in her cheeks.

“What the ’ell time o’ day jer think this is?” she demanded. “Ain’t yer got no …” She squinted at him. “Oh, it’s you! Wotjer want this time? I dunno nuffink more ter tell yer. An’ neither do Rose ner Nan, ner Agnes.”

“You might do.” Pitt pushed against the door, but her vast weight was rocklike.

“Yer in’t goin’ ter crop that bastard, so wot’s it matter,” she said contemptuously. “Yer show o’ duty don’t impress me none.”

“Somebody killed Ada,” he insisted. “And he’s still out there. Do you want me to find him, or not?”

“I wanna be young an’ pretty an’ ’ave a nice ’ouse an’ enough ter eat,” she said sarcastically. “W’en the ’ell did wot I want matter a sod ter anyone?”

“I’m not going away, Madge, until I know everything about Ada that I can,” he said levelly. “If you want a little peace to conduct your business and turn a profit, you’ll humor me, whether you think it’s worth it or not.”

She did not need to weigh the issue. Wearily she stepped back and opened the door. She heard him close it with a heavy thud, and led him back into the small room she used as a kitchen, sewing room, and somewhere from which she could listen for calls of distress or sounds of violence.

Pitt asked her every question he could think of about Ada’s life. What time she got up, how she dressed, when she came and went, if Madge knew where to, or where from, who with, whom she had met. He wanted any mention of friends or enemies, however vague, any names of clients or of possible allies. He asked her to estimate Ada’s income from her wardrobe, her behavior, her gifts to anyone else.

“Well,” Madge said thoughtfully, sitting on a stool and staring down at the stained table. “She were generous, w’en she ’ad it, I’ll give ’er that … anyone’d give ’er that. An’ she done well in the last couple o’ months. Got them new boots the day she were killed. Pleased as punch she were wi’ them. Marched up an’ down in ’em showin’ ’em orff. Lifted ’er skirts ter let me see ’em. Mother-o’-pearl buttons they ’ad.” Her face tightened. “But I s’pose yer know that, seein’ as ’ow yer came ’ere that night an’ found ’er!”

Pitt thought back to the boots which had been so laboriously buttoned together. They were beautifully made. He had not given a thought then to their cost.

“Yes, I remember them. Did she usually have boots of such quality?”

She laughed sharply. “Course not! Make do and mend, like the rest o’ us. No, she done well recent, like I told yer.” Her eyes narrowed till the fat in her cheeks almost obscured them. “ ’Ere, are yer sayin’ as she done summink wrong ter get that money?”

“No,” he assured her. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “But I’d like to know where it came from. Did it start when she changed from her old pimp to her new one?”

“Yeah,” she conceded. “Abaht then. Why? Bert Costigan in’t that much better, if that’s wot yer thinkin’. ’E’s a fancy-lookin’ sod, but ’e in’t that clever. Never liked ’im meself.” She shrugged. “But then I never liked any o’ them. They’re all swine, w’en it comes ter it. Bleed yer dry. An’ w’ere was ’e w’en she needed ’im, eh?” She sniffed and the slow tears trickled down her enormous cheeks. “Gawd knows. Not ’ere!”

He woke Rose and Nan also, and asked them all the same questions, and received the same answers. By that time Agnes was up anyway, and he asked her too, but she contributed nothing to his knowledge, except when he demanded a physical description of Ada, whose face he had never seen except disfigured by death. Her hesitant words were of limited use, but he discovered in Agnes a ready pencil which produced a sketch which was more of a caricature than a portrait, but highly evocative. He could see the character of a woman of humor, even spirit. It was extraordinarily alive, even on the lined notebook page. He could imagine her walk, the angle of her head, even her voice. It made her death immeasurably worse, and her torture something he could not bear to think of.

He went back to Bow Street and ate a cold mutton sandwich and a mug of tea at about six o’clock. He wrote down carefully in order the notes he had taken, and he began to see a pattern in Ada’s behavior. She had obviously worked her own patch in Old Montague Street and then the Whitechapel Road in the early evenings, and sometimes late as well, but there were regular times when she was absent, excellent times for her trade when one would have expected her to take full advantage of the opportunities.

One answer leaped to mind. She had gone to a more profitable area. Was this the influence of Albert Costigan, a more ambitious man, and she had been only too willing to try to improve her situation? Was it possible that in this new guise she had met either one of Finlay’s enemies or one of his father’s? Was it even remotely worth searching?

So far neither Tellman nor Ewart had discovered anything of relevance.

He spent the evening, and the later part of the following day and the one after that, walking the prostitutes’ beats around the West End, Windmill Street, the Haymarket, Leicester Square and the streets and alleys close by. He saw thousands of women much like Ada, some gorgeously dressed, parading like peacocks, others less so, some in little more than gaudy rags. Many, even in the gaslight after dark, still looked long past their prime, raddle-cheeked, slack-bodied. Some were country fresh, come to the city to seek their fortune and finding it in the accommodation rooms in hasty fornication with strangers, often their fathers’ or even grandfathers’ ages.

And there were also children, eight or ten years old, running after men, pulling at their sleeves and whispering dirty words in hope of exciting their interest, or thrusting into their hands lurid, pornographic pictures.

Side by side with them were the theater crowds, respectable women, even wealthy ladies on their husbands’ arms, arriving at or leaving the performance of some play or concert.

Pitt tried every contact he had in the rooming houses, the pimps and madams he knew, but no one owned to recognizing his picture of Ada or knowing her name other than from the news that she was dead. Since Finlay FitzJames’s connection had not been mentioned, the newspapers had made little of it. No one knew of the broken fingers and toes except Lennox, Ewart, Cornwallis and himself.

He was close to defeat when it occurred to him to try away from the West End and into the Hyde Park area. He had one more personal acquaintance to try, a huge, complacent and unctuous figure known as Fat George. He ruled his prostitutes with a rod of iron and the threat of his right-hand man, Wee Georgie, a vicious dwarf with a filthy temper, and quick to use the long, thin-bladed knife he always carried.

He found Fat George in his own house, an extremely well-appointed, classically proportioned building off Inverness Terrace.

Fat George did not rise; his enormous body was almost wedged into his chair. It was a warm day and he wore a loose shirt, newly laundered, his greasy gray curls sitting on the collar.

“Well now, Mr. Pitt,” he said in his whispering, wheezy voice. “What brings you to call on me so urgently? Must be something terrible important to you. Sit down! Sit down! Haven’t seen you since that ugly business in the Park. Long time solving that, you were. Not very clever, Mr. Pitt. Not very efficient.” Fat George shook his head and his curls caught on his collar. “Not what we pay our police force for. You’re supposed to keep us safe, Mr. Pitt. We should sleep easy in our beds, knowin’ as you’re out there protectin’ us.” If there was humor in Fat George’s black eyes, it barely showed.

“We can only solve crimes after they’ve happened, George, not before,” Pitt replied, accepting a seat. “There are a good many around here you could have prevented. Do you know anything about this woman?” He passed over Agnes’s sketch.

Fat George took it in his pale-skinned, freckled hand, his fingers swollen so the bones were invisible.

“Yeah, I’ve seen her,” he said after several seconds. “Smart girl, ambitious. Like to have her meself, but she’s greedy. Wants all her money for ’erself. Dangerous, that, Mr. Pitt. Very dangerous. She the one that got killed up Whitechapel? Should’ve seen that coming. Don’t have far to look, likely.”

“Don’t I?”

“Not clever, Mr. Pitt.” George wagged his head, pushing out his lower lip. “Losin’ your touch, are you? Try ’er pimp, fellow called Costigan, so I hear.”

“Very public-spirited of you, George, and very quick to blame one of your own,” Pitt said dryly.

“Gives me a bad name,” George wheezed sententiously. “Bit o’ discipline is all very well. Necessary, or you’d be walked all over. Can’t ’ave that. Girls’d be cheatin’ you left and right. But stranglin’ is overdoin’ it. Brings people like you around, an’ that’s all very nasty.” He coughed and his vast chest rumbled with congestion. The room was hot, the high windows all closed, giving it a musty air in spite of its cool colors, gracious lines and at least half a dozen potted palms placed here and there.

“So why didn’t Costigan discipline her?” Pitt asked, eyebrows raised. “Killing her would seem to defeat his own purpose. Only a fool destroys his own livestock.”

George made a gesture of distaste. “Oh, very crudely put, Mr. Pitt, very crude indeed.”

“It’s a crude trade, George. What makes you think this Costigan even knew Ada was sneaking up west occasionally and then keeping her earnings?”

Fat George shrugged, and his ripples of fat shook all down his body. “Maybe he followed her? Natural thing to do.”

“If he was following her,” Pitt reasoned, “he’d have known the first time she left Whitechapel, which was several weeks ago.”

Fat George rolled his eyes. “How do I know?”

“Maybe someone told him?” Pitt suggested, watching George’s face.

There was a very slight flicker, a tightening of the sallow skin, enough for Pitt.

“You told him, didn’t you, George.” It was not a question but a statement. “She was on your patch, but refusing to pay you either, so rather than let Wee Georgie at her, and risk unpleasantness for yourself, you told her own pimp and let him deal with it. Only he went too far. Not your fault, of course,” he finished scathingly. “When did you tell him?”

The room was becoming suffocating, like a jungle.

George raised colorless eyebrows. “The day she were killed, but I’m hardly to blame, Mr. Pitt. Your tone in’t polite. In fact, most unjust. You’re an unjust man, Mr. Pitt, and that isn’t right. Expect the police to be just. If justice itself don’t …”

Pitt stood up and shot him a look of such contempt Fat George left the rest of his complaint unfinished.

“Costigan a trouble to you, was he?” Pitt said bitterly. “A threat?”

“Hardly!” Fat George tried to laugh, broke into a wheeze, and ended coughing again, his massive chest heaving as he fought for breath.

Pitt had no sympathy for him at all. He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving George purple in the face, gasping for air, and furious.

Pitt took Constable Binns with him when he went to see Albert Costigan later that afternoon. He knew the area and found him without difficulty in the rooms he rented in Plumbers Row, just the other side of the Whitechapel Road from Pentecost Alley. It was narrow and gray on the outside, like all the other tenements, but inside was well furnished, even comfortable. Costigan liked to do nicely for himself, and his expensive tastes showed in the small extras: engraved glass gas mantels, a new carpet, a very nice oak gate-legged table.

Costigan himself was of average height, with large, pale blue eyes, good nose and white teeth. His brown hair was brushed back in waves from his brow. At a glance, before one noticed the defensive, aggrieved expression in his face, the aggressive angle of his body, he was not unlike Finlay FitzJames. Had chance given him the same wealth and self-confidence, the education of manner, they could have passed for cousins.

Pitt had no evidence against Costigan, except Fat George’s words, which were worth nothing as testimony. What was the oath of one pimp against the oath of another? And even a search of Costigan’s rooms would be unlikely to reveal anything of use. It would be natural enough for him to have Ada’s possessions, and very easily explained.

“Yer still lookin’ fer ’oo killed poor Ada?” Costigan said accusingly. “Yer got nothing, ’ave yer?” His contempt was quite open.

“Well, I’ve got some ideas,” Pitt answered, sitting down on the largest and most comfortable armchair and leaving Binns standing by the door.

Costigan remained standing also, looking resentfully down at Pitt. “Oh yeah? What’s that then?”

“We think it’s something to do with her going up towards Hyde Park,” Pitt replied.

Costigan stopped fidgeting from one foot to the other and stared at Pitt.

“ ’Oo said she went up there? I never did.”

“Are you going to tell me you didn’t know?” Pitt asked innocently. “Not very efficient of you, Mr. Costigan. One of your girls going up to the expensive end of town, getting custom up there, and you didn’t know about it? Don’t suppose you saw much of the money then?” He smiled. “That would be good for a few laughs around here!”

“Course I knew!” Costigan said quickly, lifting his chin a little. “Take me for a fool! I’d beat the ’ell out o’ any girl wot cheated me like that! But I wouldn’t kill ’er! That’d be stupid. Can’t sell a girl wot’s dead, now can yer?” His large, bright eyes did not leave Pitt’s. They were aggressive and triumphant, as if he had won some contest between them.

Pitt glanced around the room and back at Costigan again. It was not difficult to believe he had made a good deal of money out of someone. He could be telling the truth, except for what Fat George had said, and that could be a lie, simply to damage a business rival.

“Did you send any other girls up there?” Pitt asked, his hope beginning to fade.

Costigan hesitated, trying to decide whether to lie or not.

“No … just Ada. She ’ad class, she ’ad.” He looked sorry for himself. He glanced at Binns in the doorway, scribbling down what he said.

“Class?” Pitt said dubiously.

“Yeah!” Costigan’s head jutted forward. “Dressed nice. ’Ad ’er ’air nice. Could make men laugh. They like that. Some girls is pretty, but stupid. Ada ’ad brains, an’ a quick tongue.” He squared his shoulders, staring at Pitt, bragging. “An’ like I said, she dressed nice. Good enough fer up west. Not like some o’ them tarts around ’ere wot look like they in’t got no idea wot a lady looks like.”

At the doorway Binns let out a grunt. Costigan took it for disbelief.

“She did, an’ all!” he said angrily. “Red an’ black dress, she ’ad, good as any o’ them tarts up the ’Aymarket way, an’ new boots wi’ pearly buttons on ’em. Cost a fortune, boots like that. Tarts around ’ere don’t ’ave nothin’ like them.”

“Boots?” Pitt said very slowly, a sudden lift of excitement in his chest, at the very same moment as the weight of tragedy struck him.

“Yeah, boots,” Costigan snapped, quite unaware of what he had said.

“When did you see them, Mr. Costigan?” Pitt asked, glancing at Binns to make sure he was writing everything down.

“Wot? I dunno. Why?”

“Think!” Pitt ordered. “When did you see the boots?”

“ ’Oo cares? I seen ’em.” Costigan was flushed now, his eyes overbright. His hands were clenched at his sides and there was a thin line of perspiration on his upper lip.

“I believe you saw them,” Pitt accepted. “I think you went up to the Hyde Park area, perhaps with a view to breaking into trade there, or perhaps you already suspected Ada was doing a little independent work, and you saw Fat George. And Fat George told you that Ada was indeed working up there, and doing quite well. You realized she was cheating you, and you came back here and faced her with it. She told you she didn’t need you and to whistle for your share. You tried hurting her a little bit, only she defied you. You lost your temper and in the quarrel you killed her. Possibly you didn’t intend to when you started, but your vanity was wounded. Maybe she laughed at you. You held her too hard, and before you thought about it, she was dead.”

Costigan stared at him, too appalled to speak, his face contorted with fear.

“And when you realized she was dead,” Pitt went on, “you put a garter ’round her arm and buttoned the new boots to each other, to make it look like some customer with a fetish, a taste for sadism or ritual, and you left.”

Costigan swallowed convulsively. His mouth and lips were dry, his skin ashen.

“You were seen,” Pitt went on, wanting now to finish it as quickly as possible. “I think if we ask Rose Burke, she’ll identify you. And perhaps Nan Sullivan will remember your coat. She used to be a seamstress and she has a very good eye for a cotton. Albert Costigan, I’m arresting you for the murder of Ada McKinley ….”

Costigan let out his breath in a gasp of despair and collapsed into the chair, still too horrified to speak.