Pentecost Alley

7

“THANK HEAVEN.” Cornwallis leaned back in his seat in the box at the theater and glanced across at Pitt. Charlotte and her mother, Caroline, were sitting on the farther side, both leaning forward over the balcony watching the people coming and going in the stalls below them. The performance was halfway through. Caroline’s new husband, Joshua Fielding, was the star. Pitt had been uncertain how Cornwallis would react to the news that Pitt’s mother-in-law had remarried, and to an actor so much her junior. But if Cornwallis found it extraordinary, he was too courteous to show it.

It was also impossible to tell what he thought of the play itself, a deeply emotional and rather daring drama which raised several controversial issues. If Pitt had been aware of that in advance, he would not have invited his superior. With Micah Drummond it had been different. He knew him well enough, both his passions and his vulnerabilities, to be quite aware what would offend him and what would not. Cornwallis was still a stranger. They had shared far too little, only this one case, which, as it now turned out, seemed to be very ordinary and to have delivered none of the dangers it had threatened at first. Pitt really need not have been called in. But of course they could not have known that initially.

Cornwallis ran his hand over his head and smiled ruefully. “I confess, I thought this case was going to be most unpleasant,” he said with a sigh of relief. “We were extremely fortunate it turned out to be the poor woman’s own pimp—in a sense, almost a domestic matter.” There was a very fine wrinkle across his brow. He did not look as at ease as his words suggested. He was immaculately dressed in evening suit and snow-white shirt, but through his elegant clothes there was a tension visible in his body, as though he were not entirely comfortable.

Charlotte and Caroline were still peering over the balcony rail, shoulder to shoulder, staring down.

“Was it just mischance that we were led to suspect FitzJames?” Cornwallis asked quietly, so his words would not be overheard. It was as if he did not want to discuss the subject but felt compelled to.

“I’m not sure I believe in mischance of that sort,” Pitt replied thoughtfully. He too was relieved it had in the end so easily proved to be Costigan, but there were facets of the case which were troubling, too many questions Costigan’s arrest and charge did not answer.

“Which was the real badge?” Cornwallis asked, as if reading his thoughts. “The first or the second? Or were they both, in the sense that FitzJames had them both made?”

There was laughter from the next box, and an exclamation of surprise. From everywhere came the buzz of conversation.

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. “Helliwell had the first badges made, and he says he has forgotten who the jeweler was and cannot find his own.”

“And the other two members?” Cornwallis pressed.

“They also claim never to have known the name of the original jeweler and to have lost their own badges.” Pitt shrugged. “I rather suspect FitzJames had the second one made to try to prove his innocence, or at least to throw question on his guilt.”

“Then the badge you found in Pentecost Alley was his?” Cornwallis said quickly, swiveling around to face Pitt, all attempt at casualness abandoned. “What has that to do with Costigan? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” Pitt admitted. He was about to continue, when there was a knock on the door of the box and a moment later Micah Drummond came in. He greeted Charlotte and Caroline, then as soon as formalities were over, turned to Pitt and Cornwallis. He was a tall, lean man with a gentle, aquiline face. Grace of manner and long habit of command masked a natural shyness.

“Congratulations,” he said warmly to both men. “A potentially very unpleasant case handled smoothly. And you managed to keep most of it out of the papers, which was just as well. I’ve heard murmurs that FitzJames is very pleased.” He laughed abruptly. “I suppose ‘grateful’ would be too strong a word for such a man, but he’ll remember it. He may prove an ally in the future.”

“Only if our enemies happen also to be his,” Cornwallis said dryly. “He’s a man to remember an offense and forget a service. Not that our conduct of the case was in any sense intended to be a service to him!” he added quickly. “If Pitt had proved his son guilty, I’d have had him arrested as soon as Costigan, or anyone else.”

Micah Drummond smiled.

“I’m sure you would. I’m still delighted it didn’t prove necessary.” He glanced at Pitt, and then back again at Cornwallis. “There is nothing we can do if tragedy strikes one of the prominent families, but it’s a most wretched thing to have to deal with.”

Pitt’s mind flew back to the tragedy which had affected Eleanor Byam, who was now Drummond’s second wife. The tension and the pain of that experience, the ultimate terrible outcome, and Pitt’s understanding of Drummond’s own emotions, had forged a bond between them which was still absent from his respect for Cornwallis.

Drummond swung around to exchange a few words with Charlotte and compliment Caroline on Joshua’s performance, then he excused himself and left.

Pitt turned to Cornwallis and was about to resume their conversation when there was another brief tap on the door and Vespasia sailed in with her head high. She looked marvelous. She had chosen to make a great occasion of the event, and was dressed in lavender and steel-gray silk. On anyone else it might have been cold, but with her silver hair and the diamonds at her ears and throat, it was magnificent.

Pitt and Cornwallis automatically rose to their feet.

“Quite fascinating, my dear,” Vespasia said to Caroline. “What an entrancing man. Such a presence.”

Caroline blushed, realized she was doing it, and blushed the more.

“Thank you,” she said almost hesitantly. “I think he is doing it rather well.”

“He is doing it superbly,” Vespasia admonished. “The part could have been written for him. I daresay it was! Good evening, Charlotte. Good evening, Thomas. No doubt you are pleased with yourself? Good evening, John.”

“Good evening, Lady Vespasia.” He bowed very slightly to her. He looked at once pleased and uncomfortable. Pitt glanced at him, and saw from his expression that he was already aware that Vespasia was in some distant way related at least to Charlotte. He was not surprised to see her, as he must otherwise have been.

“Quite extraordinary,” Vespasia went on, with a very slight lift of one shoulder and without offering any explanation of what she was referring to. She turned back to Caroline with a charming smile. “I’m so glad I came. Please don’t consider it in the slightest way a reflection on the fact that the alternative was the opera, which was something Wagnerian and fearfully portentous, to do with gods and destiny. I prefer my doomed love affairs in Italian, and to do with human frailty, which I understand, rather than fate, which I do not, and predestination, which I do not believe in. I refuse to. It negates all that humanity is, if it is to be worth anything whatever.”

Caroline opened her mouth to say something polite and changed her mind. It was not necessary, and no one, least of all Vespasia, expected it.

“And I could not abide to sit and watch Augustus FitzJames preen himself,” Vespasia continued. “I don’t know whether he is really fond of Wagner or only considers it the correct mark of good taste, but he attends every one, and always on the first night, with his wife wearing half a South African diamond mine ’round her neck. The sight of his face would be worse than sitting in a box listening to Brünnhilde screaming for four hours, or Sieglinde, or Isolde, or whoever it is. But it would be interesting to look around the audience and see if anyone is in a particularly filthy mood.”

“Would it?” Pitt said confusedly.

She looked at him with shadowed silver eyes. “Well, my dear Thomas, someone has tried very hard to ruin Mr. FitzJames’s family and has apparently failed. That wretched little man Costigan may have killed the girl, but do you really suppose it was his own idea to implicate young FitzJames? Where on earth would such a man acquire a club badge and a cuff link with which to do it? Do you imagine they could be acquainted?” She did not ask it sarcastically. She was considering the possibility.

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. “It doesn’t seem likely, but there is a lot yet unanswered. I’m going back to question him again tomorrow. From what we have at the moment, it doesn’t seem to make sense that Finlay FitzJames had anything to do with it at all, either directly or indirectly.”

“Then how did his badge and cuff link get there?” Charlotte asked curiously. “Do you suppose Ada stole them?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt repeated. “Perhaps Finlay left them behind some other time, or someone else did.” Jago Jones’s face flitted into his mind with a sharp, unhappy thought.

“I wish I felt it was purely a mischance,” Vespasia said with a little shake of her head. “At least I think I do. I really find Augustus FitzJames one of the most displeasing men I have ever known. There is much in him I can understand, but he has the soul of a bully.”

There was a faint tinkling of a warning bell. Here and there a box door opened. A dozen women moved in a drift of colored silks. A score of men rose to their feet, and slowly the audience began to make their way back to their seats. The noise of chatter dropped to an intermittent hum.

Vespasia smiled. “It has been delightful to see you, but for once I have come to the theater principally to see the performance. I intend to be seated when the curtain rises again.” And she bade them all farewell and left in a rustle of shadow-dark silk and the scent of jasmine.

Cornwallis sat down again and turned to Pitt.

“We need to know where those possessions of FitzJames came from and how they got to Ada’s room,” he said just above a whisper. “Now that Costigan is charged, FitzJames is going to want to know who tried to implicate him and whether they used Costigan or not. Your job isn’t over, I’m afraid.” He frowned and leaned a little closer as the lights went down. “It was a pretty wild chance, implying FitzJames was in a place like Pentecost Alley. How did he even know he couldn’t account for his time? Most young men of his age and station spend their evenings in company. The chance that he was alone, and couldn’t remember where he was, was … God knows … one in a hundred!”

He dropped his voice even lower as the curtain rose on the stage. “I have a very unpleasant feeling, Pitt, that it was someone close to him. And you had better find out, if you can, which of the two badges was the original.” He sighed. “And if Finlay had the second one made, or his father did continue to overlook it, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.” His tone was sharp with anger and regret. He did not need to say how deeply he hated the compromise of his principles it required.

Further conversation was prevented by the necessity of courtesy that he watch the second act. Not to have done so would have hurt Caroline. They settled down to enjoy it, Charlotte glancing at Pitt, her eyes anxious, Caroline absorbed in the stage, and Cornwallis sitting back, his brow smoothed out, the Pentecost Alley case temporarily set aside.

“I dunno!” Costigan said desperately. “I dunno anyfink abaht it!”

He was sitting in his cell in Newgate and Pitt was standing by the door staring at him, trying to fathom whether he was speaking the truth or still lying—either by habit or with some hope of evading punishment. It was pointless. He would hang for having killed Ada. Anything else would simply be for the record, to solve the remaining mystery.

His dejected figure was hunched up and seemed far smaller without his well-cut clothes and crisp shirt. He wore an old gray jacket now and it was rumpled, as if he had not bothered to hang it up while he slept. Looking at him, Pitt found it hard to be brutal and tell him the truth, which was foolish. He must know it. There could never have been any other outcome, once he had admitted seeing the boots. He was caught, and he had understood that, with all it meant, when he had seen Pitt’s face and realized his own admission.

Even so, there was something of a different level of reality once it was put into words. All hope was killed, even the faint whisper thread of denial, of not having faced it yet.

“I dunno,” Costigan repeated, staring at the ground between his feet. “I never saw the bleedin’ badge, or the cuff link. I swear ter Gawd.”

“The cuff link was down the back of the chair,” Pitt agreed. “But the badge was underneath her body, on the bed. Come on, Costigan! How long could it have lain there without anyone noticing it? The thing had a pin on it half an inch long, and it was unfastened.”

Costigan’s head came up. “So it were ’er last customer! Stands ter reason. ’Ow do I know ’ow it got there? Mebbe ’e showed it to ’er? Or she were braggin’ as ’ow she nicked it, and were showin’ it ter ’im!”

Pitt thought about it for a moment. The first suggestion was not likely, simply because it required the extraordinary coincidence of someone’s placing Finlay’s belongings in Ada’s room the very night she was murdered, and by Costigan, without premeditation. Costigan’s discovery of her cheating, and his loss of temper, could not have been foreseen.

Or could they? Could someone possibly have paid Fat George to tell Costigan that day, specifically? And then watched Costigan to see what he would do, followed him back to Whitechapel and …

“Wot?” Costigan demanded, watching Pitt’s face. “Wot is it? Wot d’yer know?”

No. No one of power and intelligence, no matter how they hated FitzJames, would place themselves into the hands of Fat George by using him in such a way. It was far too convoluted, depending on too many people: Fat George, Costigan himself, and some other person to place the evidence. No one would take that risk.

“Nothing,” he said aloud. “Did Ada steal? You suggested maybe she was showing the badge to someone. Didn’t you teach her not to steal? It’s dangerous. Bad for business.”

Costigan stared up at him, his skin white, eyes frightened.

“Yeah, course I did. But that don’t mean she always listened, do it? I taught her not to cheat neither, but she still did. Stupid cow!” His face filled with regret, which was more than self-pity. There was a genuine sadness in it. Perhaps old Madge was right and he had been attracted to Ada himself, perhaps even fond of her. That would have made her betrayal hurt the more, a personal issue, not just a financial one. It would explain why his temper had been so violent, the sense of having the emotions he gave so rarely twisted and turned against him. It was truly a domestic affair.

“Did you ever know her to steal before?” Pitt asked, the edge of anger gone from his voice.

Costigan was staring at the floor again. “No. No, she were smart, Ada were, too smart to steal from a customer. Treated ’em well, she did. Lot of ’em came reg’lar. She were fun. Made ’em laugh. She ’ad class.” Tears spilled over his eyes and ran down his cheeks. “She were good, the stupid bitch. I liked ’er. She should never ’a’ cheated me. I were good ter ’er. Why’d she make me do it? Now she’s finished both o’ us.”

Pitt was sorry. It was a stupid, futile tragedy of greed and wounded feelings, the ungoverned temper of a foolish man whose ambitions outstripped his ability. And both of them had been used by a cleverer and crueler man in Fat George, and perhaps an even subtler and more callous man beyond him.

“Do you know FitzJames?” he asked.

“No …” Costigan was too sunk in his misery to be angry. He did not even look up. He was no longer interested.

“Did anyone ever mention him to you? Think!”

“No one ’cept you,” Costigan said wearily. “Wot is it with you an’ FitzJames? I dunno ’ow ’is things got inter Ada’s place. Somebody stole ’em an’ left ’em there, I s’pose. ’Ow do I know? Go ask ’is friends, or ’is enemies. I only know it in’t me.”

And Pitt could get no more from him. There was no punishment he could possibly receive worse than that for which he was already destined. And there was no reward that would be of the slightest use to him now. Apart from that, Pitt believed him that he had no further knowledge.

He left Newgate and walked out of the humid stone building into the heat of the August afternoon. But it was a long time before the sense of chill left him, the deep coldness inside from the presence of despair and unreachable misery.

By half past five he was back in Devonshire Street and requesting the cheerful butler for the opportunity to speak to Mr. Finlay FitzJames. He was granted it immediately, and was conducted over yards of finely polished parquet floor into the library, where both Finlay and Augustus were sitting near the open window which looked onto the garden. Past the tangle of honeysuckle flowers and stems, it was easy to see a glimpse of pale muslin as Tallulah pushed herself gently back and forth in a swing seat, her eyes closed, her face up towards the sun in a most unfashionable manner. No wonder her complexion had far more color than was deemed fit.

“Something further, Superintendent?” Augustus said curiously. He closed his book, a heavy tome whose lettering was too small for Pitt to read upside down, and left it on his lap, as though to resume any moment.

“Very little,” Pitt replied, glancing at Finlay, who was watching him with interest. Now that Costigan had been arrested and charged, he was completely relaxed, almost arrogant again. He was very casually dressed, his thick hair brushed back from his face in heavy waves, his expression polite and confident.

“Then why have you come, Mr. Pitt?” he asked, looking up without moving or offering Pitt a seat. “We know nothing whatsoever about the whole miserable business; which, if you remember, is what we told you in the first instance. I’m sure neither my father nor I wish to be informed detail by detail of your progress, or lack of it. It is all very pedestrian, and rather shabby.”

“It is shabby,” Pitt agreed, resenting Finlay’s arrogance bitterly, almost as if he himself had not despised Costigan just as much. He sat down uninvited. “But it is not pedestrian,” he added. “It is most unusual.”

“Is it?” Finlay’s eyebrows rose. “I would have thought prostitutes were quite often beaten or killed, especially in the East End.”

Pitt had difficulty in controlling his voice so it did not show. The indifference to death infuriated him: anyone’s death, Ada’s, Costigan’s, anyone’s at all.

“That sort of motive is quite common, Mr. FitzJames.” He tried to speak unemotionally, but he could not keep the shadow of sarcasm out of his voice. “But it is extraordinary to find at the scene of such a murder the personal possessions of a man like yourself, when you have no connection whatever with the victim or with the crime.”

“Well, as you now know, Superintendent, I do have no connection with it.” Finlay was smiling, his eyes bright. “It was her own pimp. I thought we had agreed that was beyond question. If you’ve come here to ask me how a badge, which looks like mine, came to be there, I had no idea in the beginning, and I still have no idea.”

Pitt clenched his teeth.

“And does that not bother you, sir?” he asked, staring levelly at Finlay’s handsome face and wide, complacent gaze. “The badge was in the bed, with the pin open. It could not have been there more than a very short time, half an hour at the very most.”

“If you are suggesting that Finlay was there half an hour before the murder,” Augustus interrupted icily, “then you are not only mistaken, Superintendent, but you are impertinent, and beginning to exceed your authority and trespass upon our goodwill.”

“Not at all,” Pitt answered. Finlay might not know why Pitt had come, but surely Augustus must now guess. Why was he pretending to be angry and obtuse? Pitt had not expected thanks, but neither had he expected this prickly pretense. “I am quite satisfied his account of his day was exactly true. The mistaken identification of him as having been in Pentecost Alley is easy enough to understand….”

Augustus was not interested, and certainly not about to be placed in obligation to an inferior who had done no more than his duty.

“If you have a point, Superintendent, please arrive at it. If you wish my thanks, I am obliged you handled the matter with discretion. I trust you do not expect further of me than that?”

It was grossly offensive.

“I did not expect even that!” Pitt snapped. “I perform my duty for myself, for no one else. There was no personal favor involved to consider. Similarly, I find it my duty to discover who could have placed your son’s belongings at the scene of a crime, presumably with the intention of having him at the very best involved in a scandal and his reputation damaged—at the worst hanged.” He said the word distinctly and with pleasure. “I would have expected you to wish the answer known even more fervently than I do.”

Augustus’s eyes narrowed. He had obviously not anticipated such a retort, and his reaction was unprepared.

“And if the Hellfire Club badge which was discovered in your pocket, sir,” Pitt went on, turning to Finlay, “was your original one, then someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to see you blamed. It also raises the question not only why they had a second badge made with your name on it, but how they knew to make it so exactly similar to the first! The only way even a jeweler can tell them apart is by the very slight variation in the script behind the pin.”

Finlay’s composure disappeared. He looked pale and the confidence went from his eyes, leaving them glittering and nervous. He turned slowly and looked at his father.

For a moment Augustus was also caught off balance. He had no answer ready. His resentment that Pitt should have caused him discomfort was hard in his mouth, the tightening of his lips.

Finlay drew breath to speak, looked back at Pitt, then at his father again, and changed his mind.

“Did you have the badge made yourself, sir?” Pitt asked. “It would be understandable in the circumstances, and not require any explanation before the law.”

“N-no,” Finlay stuttered, then swallowed. “No, I didn’t.” He looked profoundly unhappy now.

A long clock by the far wall chimed the quarter hour. Through the window Tallulah was still visible in the swing seat.

“I did, Superintendent,” Augustus said at last. “As to the first badge, I can only presume it was lost or stolen years ago, as my son has already said. Similarly the cuff link. No one has seen that in five years either. One can only presume the same person had both of them.”

“And chanced to use Ada McKinley’s services and leave them both there, either on the same occasion or on two separate occasions?” Pitt finished, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice.

Augustus’s features were expressionless, except for a swift flicker of rage there, and then gone again.

“It would seem so,” he said coldly.

Pitt turned to Finlay.

“Then that narrows down the possibilities a great deal,” he reasoned. “There cannot be many of your acquaintances who had the opportunity to find by chance, or to steal from you, two such intimate articles and then accidentally to lose them in Pentecost Alley the night of Ada’s murder.”

“The cuff link could have been there for any amount of time,” Augustus pointed out, his face tight with anger. “You said it was hidden from view, down the back of a chair. It might have been there for years.”

“Exactly,” Pitt agreed. “And the badge could only have been there since the previous customer. Any new person in the bed must have felt it.”

“All very puzzling,” Augustus granted. “But it is not a problem with which anyone in my family can assist you. And frankly, since you know beyond question who killed the wretched woman, I would have thought you had better pursuits with which to occupy your time. Are you not rather a senior officer to be concerned with the possible theft of a cuff link and a badge, neither of them intrinsically worth more than a guinea or two, and perfectly easily replaced? My son is not pressing charges against anyone, nor have we at any time even reported the loss, much less requested that you investigate the matter.” He picked up his book again, although he kept it closed. “Thank you for your concern, but we would all rather you bent your efforts towards preventing some of the violence that mars our streets, or protecting our more valuable property from thieves. I am obliged to you for calling, Superintendent.” He reached with the other hand towards the bell to summon a servant to show Pitt out.

“I am not concerned with the property,” Pitt answered, still sitting where he was. “Only with the use made of it, to try to incriminate you.” He looked at Finlay. “You appear to have a very powerful and very bitter enemy, sir. The police would like to give you all possible assistance in discovering who that is and, if necessary, prosecuting them.”

Finlay was white, a fine beading of sweat on his skin. He swallowed as if he had something caught in his throat.

“I have many enemies, Superintendent,” Augustus cut across him, but his tone was guarded. “It is the price of success. It is unpleasant, but I am not afraid of it. The attempt to ruin my son has failed. Should they try anything further, I will deal with it myself with whatever defense is appropriate to its nature. I always have. I appreciate your concern for our well-being and your interest in justice.” This time he reached the bell. “The footman will show you out. Good day to you.”

Pitt remained unsatisfied about the issue, but he could not afford the time to pursue it any further, nor could he think of any useful line of enquiry. If Augustus had had the second badge made, that was explained, but not how the first one had been put in the bed in Pentecost Alley, or how it had come into the possession of whoever had left it there. Pitt could not believe both that and the cuff link had ended in the same room accidentally.

Possibly it was an enemy of Augustus FitzJames who sought this brutal and devious way to have his revenge, but it seemed more likely the opportunity had arisen for an enemy of Finlay. The other members of the Hellfire Club seemed the obvious choice. Why had they disbanded? Tedium? A sudden maturity? Some opportunity for one of them to advance himself, for which sobriety and a better reputation were necessary, and that had brought all of them to a realization that it was time to abandon such self-indulgence?

Or had there been a quarrel?

Pitt could not get rid of the idea that it was a quarrel, and that Jago Jones was the one with the obvious opportunity to leave anything in Ada’s rooms. Yet Jago’s face when he had first questioned him about the murder still sprang to his eye, and the horror in it when he had told him that Finlay’s badge had been found in the bed.

Did Finlay actually know who had tried to incriminate him, and did he also know why? Was it possible that he planned his own revenge, perhaps with his father’s help?

Why would he not simply tell Pitt and allow him to deal with it? A prosecution for theft, or even for simply leaving another man’s belongings in a prostitute’s room, would ruin Jago Jones. It would ruin Helliwell. His very proper parents-in-law would be scandalized by such a thing. Polite society would cease to know him. It would be long, drawn out and acutely painful. The victim would suffer every moment of it, both in anticipation and in retrospect. What punishment could be crueler or more effective than that?

If Augustus did not choose to effect it, then there must be some reason. To stay his hand and hold the threat forever over someone? To ask for some favor in return, something so big it would be worth forgoing the present pleasure?

Could taking his vengeance rebound upon himself or his family? Was the glamorous and flighty Tallulah in some way vulnerable?

It did not occur to Pitt as a possibility that Augustus would forgive the offense.

August ended in suffocating heat and passed into early September. The trial of Albert Costigan was due to begin. Two evenings before it opened, Pitt went back to Whitechapel to see Ewart and the police surgeon, Lennox. They met, not in the police station, but in a public house off Swan Street, and ate a supper of cold pigeon pie washed down with cider and followed by plum cake.

They talked of agreeable things. Lennox told a funny story about one of his patients a little farther west who had recently acquired a bathtub and invited all the neighbors to behold it.

Ewart was elated because his eldest son had won a place at University and passed his first-year exams. Pitt was surprised that the boy had had sufficient education in Whitechapel for such a thing to be possible, but he forbore from saying so. Then Ewart explained that he had been able to send him to boarding school, where he had received excellent tuition.

“Makes all the difference to a man, education,” he said with a sad little smile, both bitter and sweet, and Pitt wondered what wealth of sacrifice had made it possible for a man on Ewart’s pay. His wife too must have forfeited a great deal. It gave him a view of Ewart he had not even considered before, and he admired him for it. He must have saved all his life. But he did not comment on it. It would have been intrusive. He smiled at Ewart, and Ewart looked away and avoided his eyes, as though embarrassed. The murder in Pentecost Alley was not even touched upon until they left the public house and walked gently towards the river and the shadows cast by the huge edifice of the Tower of London. The evenings were drawing in. The air was still balmy but night came far sooner and there was a sense of autumn approaching, a fading of flowers, a dustiness of the ground too long without hard, soaking rain.

They stopped on the grass mound under the Tower and stood looking towards the river. The pall of soot and smoke was behind them. The light was soft and apricot gold over the shining sheet of water, hazy in the distance, softening the line of the farther shore. Tower Bridge was just above them. Downstream there was nothing more barring the way to the open sea.

“Are you going to mention the badge and the cuff link?” Pitt asked Ewart. The subject had to be discussed. They were to testify the day after tomorrow.

“Don’t see any point,” Ewart replied guardedly, looking sideways at Pitt. “Doesn’t seem to have any relevance to what happened.”

“I went back to FitzJames,” Pitt said, squinting into the sun. The reflection off the water was becoming brighter, a vivid daub of color, almost silver where it touched the slight ripples of a passing pleasure boat, darker at the widening edges where it spilled across the shore. “I asked him if he had made the second badge himself.”

“Always thought he had.” Lennox pursed his lips. His face still looked melancholy, even in the calm, golden air of evening. The light picked out the fine lines around his mouth and eyes, worn into his flesh by the strain of pity or distress. Pitt wondered what private life he had; where his home was; if he had anyone there to care for, anyone with whom he could laugh and share the beautiful and good things, or to whom he could tell at least some of the things that hurt him.

Ewart was talking to him, and he had not heard.

“What did you say? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“FitzJames admitted it?” Ewart pressed. “Then that solves it, doesn’t it! Stupid, perhaps, but understandable. There’s no point in making any mention of it. It only raises questions we can’t answer, and which don’t matter now. I daresay he did go there sometime, and lost them then. Point is: it wasn’t that night, and that’s all that matters.”

“It wasn’t Finlay who had it made,” Pitt argued. “It was his father.”

“Comes to the same thing.” Ewart dismissed it, but a look of loathing crossed his face for an instant and was suppressed.

“Costigan swears he doesn’t know anything about them,” Pitt said quietly into the balmy stillness. It still bothered him. It did not make any sense. He could understand Ewart’s feeling. He shared it.

“Maybe he doesn’t,” Lennox said quietly. “I still think FitzJames had something to do with Ada—if not her death, then at least as a customer. I don’t believe anyone stole those things from him. Who would? Except Ada herself.”

“One of his friends, or supposed friends,” Ewart responded after a moment. “Maybe one of the original club members. We don’t know what they really felt about each other. Could have been a lot of envy there. Finlay had more money than any of them, more opportunities in life. He’s going on to hold high office someday. They are not.” There was an anger, almost a viciousness, in his voice that was startling in the golden summer evening. Pitt thought of how easily Finlay’s opportunities had been bought, and at what cost Ewart’s son’s had been, the countless small things that had been given up to pay for it. It was not surprising Ewart felt resentful at Finlay’s waste of it.

“We’ll never know.” Ewart caught himself and the emotion died out of his voice. It became bland again, professional. “We never do know all of a case. There are motives, small actions unexplained in even the best of them. We have the right man. That’s all that really matters.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and stared over the water. One or two barges had already lit riding lights and they drifted, almost without undulation.

“It’s part of the crime,” Pitt said, unsatisfied. “Someone put those things there, which means if it wasn’t Costigan, then someone else was present. A good defense counsel is going to ask who it was and raise reasonable doubt.”

Lennox stared at him, his face half shadowed, half gold in the dying sunlight. There was surprise in him and a mixture of alarm.

Ewart frowned, his mouth tight, eyes black.

“They’d never get him off,” he said slowly. “He’s guilty as the devil. It’s all perfectly plain. She cheated him and he found out. He went to her to have it out, she wasn’t giving in, maybe told him to take himself off. They quarreled and he lost his temper. Sadistic little swine. But then what kind of man lives off the prostitution of women anyway?”

Lennox let out a little grunt, sad and savage. His shoulders were hunched hard, as if all his body muscles were locked. There was utter loathing in every part of his face in the half the sun caught. The other half was almost invisible.

Pitt guessed what he felt. He was the one who had examined Ada’s body, touched her, seen precisely what had been done to her. He must have imagined her alive, perhaps he even knew what pain she had experienced with the wrenched and dislocated joints, the broken bones, the terror as she struggled for breath. His own pity for Costigan drained away as he watched the younger man’s emotions raw in his face.

Pitt sighed. “What I’m really thinking of is that FitzJames knows who it was who tried to incriminate him, or believes he does, and will take his own revenge,” he said quietly.

Ewart shrugged. “If we can’t work it out, why should they?” He laughed with surprising bitterness. “And if he succeeds, and gets caught, I, for one, shall not mind.”

The western sky was burning with the last embers, spilling fire across the water and casting them into black shadows from the Tower and the span of the bridge. The tide was running faster. But the air was still warm, and there were just as many people out strolling, some alone, some arm in arm with others. The sound of laughter came from somewhere just beyond sight.

Ewart shrugged. “We can’t stop them, sir.” The “sir” distanced him from Pitt, in a sense closing the subject. “If they know that much, they’ll almost certainly have the right person, and I’d say they deserve it. It’s a filthy thing to do, trying to get a man hanged for a crime he didn’t commit.”

His face was hard and weary, the light accentuating the lines. “Anyway, if you think you can stop Augustus FitzJames from executing his own form of justice on his enemies, pardon me for saying it, sir, but you just aren’t living in the world as it is. If there’s a crime committed, and we know about it, it is our job to try to sort it out. But a private hatred between gentlemen is not our business.”

Pitt said nothing.

“We can’t take the whole world on our backs,” Ewart went on, hunching himself as if he had become cold. “And it would be overstepping ourselves if we imagined we can do anything about it, or that we even should.”

“He refused our help,” Pitt said. “I offered and he refused, very firmly.”

“Doesn’t want you looking into the family too closely,” Lennox said with an abrupt laugh. “Costigan might have killed the girl, but Finlay’s conduct won’t bear too close an investigation if he wants an ambassadorship.” He spat the word out as if his teeth were clenched, although it was now too dark to see, and he had turned away from the light.

“Well, if that’s so,” Ewart said tartly, “you’d be best to leave it alone. He won’t thank you for ferreting around in Finlay’s life to find out who has cause to hate him, and why. You’d no doubt turn up some pretty shabby behavior, and Augustus’ll direct his vengeance at you. And perhaps the law too. You’ve no cause to investigate Finlay now. We’ve got our man. Leave it alone, sir, for everybody’s sake!”

Lennox let out a little gasp as if he had stubbed his toe on a stone, but he was not moving.

Ewart was right. There was no legal ground for pursuing the subject, and Augustus FitzJames had made it unmistakably clear that he did not wish police assistance. Unless Pitt could deduce the answer from the information he already possessed, he was not going to resolve it.

“Then I’ll see you in court the day after tomorrow,” he said resignedly. “Are you going back that way?” He gestured towards the Queen’s Stairs.

“No, no, I’ll go home,” Ewart answered. “Thank you, sir. Good night.”

“Yes, I’ll come.” Lennox moved with Pitt, and they walked in companionable silence over the grass and down towards the steps and the water, then back up again to Great Tower Hill. It was almost dark.

They gave the evidence as precisely and exactly as they could, trying to rob it of emotion, and failing. Lennox in particular was white-faced, his voice high-pitched with the tension in his throat, his lips dry. Ewart was more practical, but a sense of triumph and relief came through his composure, and a hatred for the viciousness and the greed and the stupidity of it all.

There was not a large crowd. It was not a particularly interesting case. Albert Costigan was a name unknown outside the immediate area of the Whitechapel Road. Ada McKinley was merely an unfortunate woman who ran the risks of her trade and had met with a fate no one would have wished on her; but at the same time, no one was surprised, and only a few grieved. Pitt saw Rose Burke there the first day, and Nan Sullivan, surprisingly handsome in black. He did not see Agnes. If she came, he missed her in the crowd. Nor was old Madge there. Perhaps, as she had said, she never left the house.

None of the FitzJameses attended, but then he had not thought that they might. As far as they were concerned, as soon as Finlay was exonerated that was the end of the matter. Thirlstone and Helliwell had never wanted anything to do with it from the first.

But Jago Jones was there, his startling face with its intensity making him extraordinary, in spite of his faded clothes, and no mark to distinguish him as a priest, no high white collar, no cross or sign of office. His cheeks were gaunt, hollowed under the high bones, and his eyes were shadowed as if he had slept badly for weeks. He listened intently to every witness. One might have thought from the attention he gave it that judgment was his, not the jurors’, and he in the end must answer for it.

It crossed Pitt’s mind to wonder if Jago was the priest chosen to try to save Costigan’s soul before his last, short walk. Would he be the one to seek a confession from him in the hours before execution, then to go those terrifying final steps to the gallows at eight o’clock in the morning? It was a task he would not have wished on anyone at all.

What were they to say? Something about the love of God, the sacrifice of Christ for all men? What would the words mean to Costigan? Had he ever in his life known what love was—passionate, unconditional, wide as the heavens, love which never faded or withdrew and yet was still just? Did he even understand the concept of sacrificing in order that someone else might benefit? Would Jago be speaking in a language that Costigan had never heard, of an idea as remote to him as the fires that burned in the stars?

Perhaps there was nothing more to do than speak quietly, look at him and meet his eyes without contempt and without judgment, simply as another human being aware of his terror and caring about it.

As Pitt stared across the courtroom at the inexorable process of the law, there was a ruthlessness about it which frightened him also. The wigs and gowns seemed as much masks for the men behind them as symbols of the majesty of justice. It was supposed to be anonymous, but it seemed merely inhuman.

There was very little defense Costigan’s lawyer could offer. He was young, but he made a considerable effort at suggesting mitigating circumstances, a woman who was greedy and who cheated, even by the standards of behavior accepted by her own trade. He suggested it was a quarrel which had gone beyond control. Costigan had not meant to kill her, only to frighten her and dissuade her from her behavior, bring her back to their bargain. When he saw that she was insensible, he had panicked and thrown water over her to try, vainly, to bring her back to consciousness, not realizing at first that he had killed her.

The broken bones, the dislocations?

The cruelty and perversion of a previous customer.

No one believed it.

The verdict was never truly in doubt. Pitt knew that, looking at the jurors’ faces. Costigan must have known it too.

The judge listened, picked up his black cap and pronounced the sentence of death.

Pitt left the courtroom without any sense of achievement, simply a relief that it was finished. He would never know all that had happened, never know who had placed Finlay FitzJames’s belongings in the room in Pentecost Alley or why so many lies were told about them. He would never know what thoughts were so harrowing in the mind of Jago Jones.

After the statutory three weeks Albert Costigan was hanged. The newspapers reported it but made no further comment.

The Sunday after that Pitt was in the Park with Charlotte and the children. Jemima was dressed in her very best frock, Daniel in a smart new navy-and-white suit. It was mid-October and the leaves were beginning to turn. The chestnuts, the first to break into bud in spring, were already limpid gold. The softer sunlight of early autumn flickered through them. The beeches showed fans of bronze amid the green. It would not be long till the first frosts, the raking up of leaves and the smell of wood smoke as bonfires consumed the waste. In the country, rose hips would be scarlet in the hedges, and hawthorn berries crimson. The grass would not need cutting anymore.

Pitt and Charlotte walked slowly side by side, indistinguishable from a hundred other couples enjoying one of the last really warm days of the year. The children ran around, laughing and chasing each other, largely pointlessly, simply because they had energy and it was fun. Daniel found a stick and threw it for a puppy that was dancing around them, apparently lost by its owner, at least for the time being. The dog ran for it and brought it back triumphantly. Jemima seized the stick and took a turn, hurling it as far as she could.

Over in the distance near the road a barrel organ was playing a popular tune. A running patterer abandoned the news and sat on the grass eating a sandwich he had just bought from a peddler a hundred yards farther along. An old man sucked on a pipe, his eyes closed. Two housemaids on their day off told each other tall stories and giggled. A lawyer’s clerk lay under a tree and read a “penny dreadful” magazine.

Charlotte took Pitt’s arm and walked a little closer. He shortened his step so she could keep pace with him.

It was several minutes before Pitt recognized in the distance, striding across the grass, the upright, military figure of John Cornwallis making his way purposefully between the strollers. When he was within twenty yards the expression on his face made Charlotte stop and turn anxiously to Pitt.

Pitt felt a chill run through him, but knew of no reason why he should be afraid.

Cornwallis reached them.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Pitt,” he apologized to Charlotte, then looked at Pitt, his face pale and tight. “I’m afraid I must interrupt your Sunday afternoon.” He obviously intended it to be the cue for Charlotte to excuse herself and leave them alone, withdraw to a discreet distance, out of earshot.

She did not do so, but instead held more tightly to Pitt’s arm, her fingers curling around and gripping.

“Is it a matter of confidence of state?” Pitt enquired.

“Dear God, I wish it were!” Cornwallis said with passion. “I am afraid by tomorrow everyone else in London will know.”

“Know what?” Charlotte whispered.

Cornwallis hesitated, looking at Pitt with concern. He wanted to protect Charlotte. He was unused to women. Pitt guessed he was acquainted with them only at a distance. He did not know other than convention taught him to expect.

“Know what?” Pitt repeated.

“Another prostitute has been murdered,” Cornwallis said huskily. “Exactly like the first … in every particular.”

Pitt was stunned. It was as if suddenly he had lost his balance, and the grass and trees and sky dissolved and shifted around him.

“In a tenement on Myrdle Street,” Cornwallis finished. “In Whitechapel. I think you had better go there, immediately. Ewart is on the scene. I shall find Mrs. Pitt a hansom to take her home.” His face was ashen. “I’m so sorry.”