Pentecost Alley

8

PITT STOOD in the doorway of the room where the body had been found. Ewart, gray-faced, was already there. From down the corridor came the sound of hysterical weeping, shock and terror still in the rising, desperate tones, long drawn out as a woman lost control.

Pitt met Ewart’s eyes and saw in them reflection of the horror he felt himself, and the sudden knowledge of guilt. He looked away.

On the bed lay a young woman, small, almost like a child. Her hair spilled out around her, one arm flung over her head, her wrist tied With a stocking to the left corner bedpost. There was a garter with a blue ribbon around her arm. Her yellow-and-orange dress was drawn up, exposing her thighs. Her legs were naked. Like Ada McKinley, there was a stocking knotted tightly around her throat. Her face was purple, mottled and swollen. And like Ada, the top half of her body and the bed around it was soaked with water.

With knowledge sick in his stomach, Pitt looked down at the floor. Her boots, black and polished, were buttoned to each other.

He lifted his eyes and met Ewart’s.

The weeping along the corridor was calmer, the fear subsiding into the long, broken sobs of grief.

Ewart looked like a man who awoke from a nightmare only to find the same events playing themselves out in reality, from which there is no more awakening. There was a muscle twitching in his temple, and he clenched his hands to keep them from shaking.

“Are her fingers and toes broken?” Pitt found his voice creaking, his throat was tight, his mouth dry.

Ewart swallowed. He nodded imperceptibly, not trusting himself to speak.

“Any … other evidence?” Pitt asked.

Ewart took a deep breath, his eyes on Pitt’s, wide, filled with knowledge of what they both dreaded.

“I … I haven’t looked.” His voice shook. “I sent for you straightaway. As soon as Lennox told me it was the same, I … I just left it. I …” He took another breath. “I went outside. I felt sick. If there’s anything here, I want you to be the one to find it, not me. At least … not me alone. I …” Again his eyes searched Pitt’s. There was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and on his brow. “I did look around a bit. I didn’t see anything. But I haven’t searched, not properly, not combed it, down the backs of chairs, under the bed.”

The unasked questions hung in the air between them, the consuming fear and guilt that they had made an appalling, irretrievable mistake, and Costigan had not killed Ada, and whoever had had struck again, here in this room. Was it Finlay FitzJames? Or Jago Jones? Or someone else they had not even thought of, out there in the darkness of the October streets, waiting to strike again, and again … like the madman who had called himself Jack the Ripper two years ago.

Pitt turned and looked at the girl on the bed. She had thick, dark hair, naturally curly. She was small-boned, almost delicate. Her skin was very white, unblemished over her shoulders where the top of her dress was low cut, creamy white on the flesh of her thighs. She must have been young, seventeen or eighteen.

“Who was she?” Pitt asked, surprised at the catch in his voice.

“Nora Gough,” Ewart replied from just behind him. “Don’t know much about her yet. Can’t get any sense out of the other women here. All hysterical. Lennox is trying to calm them down now. Poor devil. But I suppose that’s what doctors are for. He was just along the street, half a mile away. Been there all evening with a patient.” He sniffed. “At least he’s not too late to help them, for what it’s worth.”

They could both still hear the sobbing from the room along the passage, but it was muted now, the high note of hysteria gone from it. Better to let Lennox go on doing what he could than to go now and try to gain evidence from women too terrified to make any sense.

“Then we’d better look through this room,” Pitt said wearily. It was a job he hated, and it was unlikely to provide anything he wanted to know. In fact, he dreaded what he might find. The one man who could not possibly be guilty was Costigan.

“I’ll start with the bed,” he said to Ewart. “You start over there with the cupboard and the box chest. Anything unusual, anything at all. Any letters, papers, anything that might not have belonged to her, borrowed or stolen. Anything expensive.”

Ewart did not move. Pitt wondered for a moment if he was so drowned by his horror he was incapable of functioning. His skin was bleached of color, as if he were already dead, a sort of waxen look.

“Ewart,” he said more gently. “Start with the box chest.” At least that way he could keep his back to the body.

“No … I’ll … I’ll do the bed,” Ewart replied, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s … my job. I’m … all right.” His voice was thick, fighting so many emotions he seemed torn apart by them, sharp and high among them a white-hot anger.

“Begin with the box chest,” Pitt repeated. “I’ll do the bed and the chairs.”

Ewart still remained motionless. He seemed to want to speak, and yet he was unable to find the words, or perhaps to make the decision to say whatever it was. He looked like a man facing despair.

They stood a few feet away from each other in the quiet room, the girl’s body almost within arm’s length. The air was stale, closed in. Dusty light coming in through the window showed the bare places on the rug.

Out in the street an old-clothes seller was shouting.

“Do you know something about the death of Ada McKinley that you haven’t told me?” Pitt asked, hating doing it.

Ewart’s eyes widened a little. “No.”

Pitt believed him. Whatever he had been fearing, it was not that question; his surprise was too genuine.

“Are you afraid Costigan was the wrong man?”

“Aren’t you?” Ewart asked.

“Yes, of course I am. Who was it? Finlay FitzJames?” Ewart winced. “No …” he said quickly, too quickly for thought.

Pitt turned away and began to search the bed. Lennox had already examined the body. It did not matter if he disturbed her now. It was irrational to be gentle but it came automatically, as if somehow the shell that was left was still a human being, capable of knowing pity or dignity.

He found a handkerchief under the pillow on the farther side, white, like the sheet, and to begin with he thought it was merely the corner of a slip a little crookedly on. Then he pulled and it came away. It was of fine lawn, the hand-stitched hem rolled to a tiny edge, embroidered with letters in one corner. The writing was Gothic, hard to decipher at first glance. Pitt made it out. “F.F.J.” He had almost known it would be, but it still gave him a lurching sensation high in his stomach and a tightening in his throat.

He looked across at Ewart, but he had his back turned, going through the contents of the chest, linen and clothes piled on the floor beside him. He was apparently unaware that Pitt had stopped.

“I’ve found a handkerchief,” Pitt said in the silence.

Ewart turned slowly, his face expectant. He met Pitt’s eyes and saw in them what he dreaded.

“Initials,” Pitt said, answering the question that had not been asked. “F.F.J.”

“That’s … that’s ridiculous!” Ewart said, stumbling over his tongue. “Why on earth would he leave a handkerchief behind? Who leaves a handkerchief in a prostitute’s bed? He didn’t live here!”

“I suppose someone who had occasion to blow his nose while he was with her,” Pitt replied. “A man with a cold, or whom something caused to sneeze. Dust, perhaps, or her perfume?”

“And he put it under the pillow?” Ewart said, still fighting against it.

“Well, he wouldn’t have a pocket conveniently,” Pitt rejoined. “Anyway, it is not ours to reason why at the moment. Keep on looking. There may be something else.”

“What? Are you saying he left something else here too?” Ewart’s voice rose, almost in panic. “He’d have nothing left if he went on leaving things around Whitechapel at this rate.”

“Not something belonging to Finlay FitzJames,” Pitt said as calmly as he could. “Anything else at all. Perhaps something to indicate another man. We’ve got to search the whole room.”

“Oh. Yes, of course we have. Er …” Ewart turned back to the box chest without saying anything more and resumed taking the things out and opening them up, shaking them, running his fingers through them, then folding them and placing them on the pile beside him.

Pitt finished searching the bed and moved on to the floor around it. He lit the candle on the table, then placed it in the shadows on the floor and knelt down to peer beneath. There was very little dust, a few threads of cotton, mostly white, and a boot button which he only found by running his fingers carefully over the surface of the floor, searching the cracks of the boards. There were also two hairpins and a straight pin such as dressmakers use. Towards the foot of the bed he found a piece of bootlace, a button such as might come off any man’s white cotton shirt, and another button, leather, handmade, unlikely to belong to anyone in Whitechapel unless he had been given a man’s casual coat from some charity collection.

He straightened up with them in his hand.

Ewart had finished the box chest and was looking through the small dresser, his hands searching quickly, expertly.

Pitt began on the chairs, lifting up the cushions, exploring down the back and sides and finally turning them upside down and examining the bottoms. He found nothing more to which he could connect any meaning.

“Anything?” Ewart asked him.

Pitt held out the buttons.

“Shirt,” Ewart said to the first. “Could belong to anyone at all. And it could have been there for months.” He took the second, rolled it between his fingers and thumb, then looked up and met Pitt’s eyes. “Quality,” he said dubiously. “But again, could be anybody’s. Could be a tramp in a charity coat.” There was a challenge in his voice, daring Pitt to say it was FitzJames’s. “Are you going to see the women here? They seem to be in control of themselves now.”

Indeed it was considerably quieter. The light had almost gone and there was no sound from the bottle factory over the road. A horse and trap went by. Someone shouted.

“Yes,” Pitt replied. “We’ll see what they know.”

He led the way along the passage to the kitchen at the back of the house. It was surprisingly large with a black stove in the center of the far wall and a grimy window facing straight onto the backs of houses in the next street. There was a table with odd legs in the center, patched together from two previous pieces of furniture, and half a dozen assorted chairs. Four of them were now occupied by women ranging in age from approximately twenty to over fifty, although with age, drink and paint, it was impossible to be sure. They all looked tragic and absurd, with powder and rouge streaked by tears, hair falling out of pins, eyes swollen with weeping. And at the same time they looked younger, and more human and individual with the shell of business cracked away.

Lennox was standing half behind one of the women, one hand on her shoulder, a cup of tea in the other, holding it out for her. He looked pale and tired, his nose accentuated by the deep lines scored down the sides of his mouth. He stared at Pitt warningly. His voice was hoarse when he spoke.

“Good evening, Superintendent. If you want to question these women, they are ready to answer you. Just don’t tell them details you don’t have to, and be a little patient. It isn’t easy to remember, or to find words, when you are terrified.”

Pitt nodded and turned to Ewart. “You could try the neighborhood. See if anyone else has noticed anything unusual, if they can remember a face, someone coming or going at about …?” He looked at Lennox enquiringly.

“Between four and five,” Lennox answered, then smiled in bitter mockery of himself. “Not medical brilliance, Superintendent. Observation of witnesses. Pearl heard Nora calling out in the corridor at about four o’clock. She’d just got up and was asking Edie if she could borrow a petticoat.”

Pitt looked at the women Lennox indicated. Pearl was pale-faced with flaxen hair of extraordinary beauty, sheer as spun glass and reflecting the light of the candles like wheatsilk, a patch of luminosity in the room. Edie was heavy and dark with olive skin and handsome, liquid brown eyes.

“And you lent her a petticoat?” Pitt asked.

Edie nodded. “She ’ad ter pin it, as she in’t ’alf my size, but she took it any’ow.” She sniffed and controlled herself with an effort.

“And the other time?” Pitt asked Lennox.

Lennox turned to another woman, dark, narrow-eyed, with a pretty mouth. She looked ashen, the rouge standing out on her cheeks, her hair lopsided where she had run her fingers through it, pins sliding out.

“Mabel can answer that.”

“Me first customer’d just gorn,” Mabel replied, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “I were goin’ past Nora’s door an’ I looked in. Dunno ’ow I knew she were by ’erself. Quiet, I s’pose.” She frowned, as though the puzzle mattered. “I saw ’er lyin’ on the bed wif ’er ’and up ter the post. I reckoned as ’er customer’d bin keen on that kind o’ thing, an’ left ’er like that. I even said summink to ’er….” She sniffed and swallowed with a painful constriction of her throat. Her body was shaking so uncontrollably her fingers skittered on the table.

Lennox moved across behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, holding her against him as if to give her of his own strength. It was a gesture of extraordinary gentleness. She might have been a friend of long standing, not a street woman he had only just met.

It steadied her, like a ray of sanity in the chaos.

“Then I saw ’er face,” she said quietly. “An’ I know as it ’ad ’appened to ’er too. The same one as got Ada McKinley’d got ’er too. I s’pose I must ’a’ yelled. Next thing everyone were there, an’ all yellin’ an’ callin’ out.”

“I see. Thank you.” Pitt turned to Ewart. “You’d better find out what men were seen coming or going from this building between four and five. Get descriptions of all of them and compare them with each woman and her customers. Get times as near as you can. Any man at all. I don’t care if they’re residents, pimps, or the lamplighter! Everyone.”

“Yes sir.”

Ewart departed and Pitt concentrated on the four women present. The last one, Kate, was still sobbing, pushing a wet handkerchief into her mouth and gasping for breath. Lennox went back to the stove and made another cup of tea, passing it to her, closing her stiff fingers around it awkwardly as Pitt began questioning Pearl, sitting on a rickety chair at right angles over the table from her.

“Tell me all you can remember from just before you saw Nora at almost four o’clock,” he prompted.

She stared at him, then began hesitantly.

“I ’eard Nora come inter ’er room an’ call ter Edie abaht a petticoat, but I din’ ’ear wot Edie said. I were busy doin’ me ’air ready fer the evenin’. I finished, and went aht. I got a customer real quick, one o’ me reg’lars….”

“Who was that?”

“Wot?”

“Who was he? What does he look like?”

She hesitated only a moment, glancing at Edie, then at Mabel.

“Jimmy Kale,” she answered. “ ’E come ’ere most Sundays. Not always ter me. Sometimes one o’ the other girls.”

“And what does he look like?”

“Tall, skinny. Got a long nose. Always sniffin’.”

“Did he come to Nora?” Pitt asked.

“Yeah, I reckon so. But ’e wouldn’t’ve ’urt ’er! W’y would ’e? ’E don’t even know ’er, ’cepting ter …” She stopped.

Pitt accepted that that was not knowing her in any sense that mattered.

“Go on. How long was Jimmy Kale with you?”

“ ’Alf hour.”

“Then what?”

“I ’ad a cup o’ tea wi’ Marge over the road. She come ’ere sometimes. ’Er old man knocks ’er around summink terrible.”

“Was she here between four and five o’clock? Would she come in through the door at the front and past Nora’s room?”

She shook her head.

“Nah, she come across the wall an’ up them areaway steps on the outside. That way ’er ’usband don’ see ’er, and nob’dy takes ’er for one o’ us.” She laughed abruptly. “Poor cow. She’d be better orff if she was! Anybody beat me like ’e do ’er, I’d stick a shiv in ’is guts.”

“When did she go?” Pitt ignored the reference to knives.

“When Mabel started ter yell. Rest o’ the noise don’t matter, but she knew that were different. We all did….”

She swallowed and her throat tightened. She started to cough and Lennox moved to her side, taking her hand and patting her firmly on the back. The human contact seemed to comfort her, the warmth of touch which demanded nothing of her. She took a shuddery breath. For a moment she hovered on the edge of abandoning herself to the comfort of weeping and clinging to someone.

Lennox removed his hand and passed over the cup of tea.

She straightened up again.

“We knew as summink were terrible wrong,” she said levelly. “Nora ’ad Syd Allerdyce wif ’er. ’E come ter the door wif ’is pants rahnd ’is ankles. Proper fool ’e looked too, fat as a pig and red in the face. In’t ’alf so la-di-da caught like that, ’e weren’t.” The dislike was heavy in her face. She did not forget a condescension, or forgive it. “Angie from upstairs were at the end o’ the alley wi’ a pail o’ water. She dropped it and it went all over the place. I suppose someone cleared it up. I dunno. I din’t. An’ Kate come out o’ ’er room wif a shawl rahnd ’er. S’pose ’er customer were still there. Edie went inter Nora’s room an’ saw ’er there, an’ Mabel still yellin’. Edie ’it ’er rahnd the face ter stop ’er, then come out an’ sent Kate fer the rozzers.”

“Did you see Nora’s customer?”

“Nah. I were busy meself.”

“Where is your room, compared with hers?”

“Next ter it.”

“What did you hear?”

“ ’Ear? Everythink! ’Eard Syd wheezin’ an’ groanin’ like ’e was climbin’ a mountain. ’Eard them two bloody cats fightin’ in the alley—”

“Do you mean cats or women?” Pitt interrupted.

She glared at him. “Cats! Furry thin’s wot eat mice an’ squeals like all the devils in ’ell ’alf the night. Geez! Don’t they ’ave cats up west w’ere you come from? ’Ow d’yer keep the mice down? Or don’t you ’ave them neither?”

“Yes, we have them. I have two cats, actually.” He thought with a sudden surge of pleasure of Angus and Archie curled up asleep in their basket by the kitchen range. But they didn’t have to battle anyone for their food and milk. “What else?”

“ ’Eard Shirl upstairs screamin’ at someone out the front,” Pearl replied. “Yellin’ like a stuck pig, she were. Worse’n the cats. Reckon someone bilked ’er. An’ someone dropped a tray down the stairs. ’Ell of a row. Then there was Mabel an’ ’er customer, laughin’ like fools they was. Reckon as ’e were drunk out o’ ’is wits. ’Ope yer got paid well, Mabel?”

“Course,” Mabel said with conviction.

It flicked through Pitt’s mind that she had probably taken all the man had, but that was his affair, if he chose to take chances. He imagined the cacophony of sound that must have gone on during the hour Nora Gough was murdered. She could probably have screamed herself hoarse and been lucky to have been heard above the general clamor.

And yet Mabel’s screams of horror had been distinguished quickly enough.

He looked at Lennox.

Lennox pursed his lips and shook his head very slightly.

“No way to tell,” he said quietly. “She may have known him, and by the time she realized what was happening, it was too late.”

Pitt said nothing. He turned to the other girls.

“The names of your customers?” he asked. “Kate?”

“Bert Moss come just before five. Early, but Sundays is different. ’As ter get ’orne fer ’is tea. Then Joe ’Edges. ’E were still ’ere, like, w’en Mabel started to yell.”

“With you at that moment?”

“Yeah. Look, ’e din’t do it! I brung ’im in! ’E weren’t never by ’isself ’ere!”

Pitt nodded and turned to Mabel.

“Dunno. I never asked.” She shrugged. “Don’t matter.”

“He wasn’t anybody you’ve had before?”

“No. Never seen ’im in me life.”

“When did he come, and when did he leave?”

“ ’E come at quarter after four, near enough, an’ left abaht ten minutes afore five. I were jus’ takin’ ’im aht an’ goin’ back ter the street w’en I saw Nora’s customer goin’….” Her face blanched. “Gawd Almighty! D’yer think that were …”

She slumped forward suddenly and Pitt thought she was going to be sick. She started to gasp for breath and her chest heaved.

“Stop it!” Lennox said smartly. “There!” He grabbed the tea from Pearl and thrust it into Mabel’s hands. “Drink it slowly. Don’t gulp it.”

She tried to take it but she was shaking so badly, her fingers stiff, that she could not hold it.

Lennox steadied it, his hands over hers, keeping it from spilling.

“Drink it,” he told her firmly. “Concentrate, or you’ll get it all over you. Hold it still!”

She obeyed, sipping slowly, focusing her attention on it. Gradually her breathing began to subside and become normal again. After several minutes she sat up and put the now empty mug on the table in front of her.

“What did he look like?” Pitt asked her more gently.

“Look like?” She stared across the table at him. “ ’E were, I dunno. Orn’ry. ’E ’ad fair ’air, all sort o’ wavy.”

“What kind of clothes?” Pitt could feel himself cold inside. “What was he wearing, Mabel?”

“Din’t really look much.” She stared at him in horror, and he knew the other pictures that were in her mind, herself on the bed in Nora’s place.

“Expensive?” Lennox said, his voice cutting the silence.

Pitt glanced at him, but it was the same question he would have asked. It was in all their minds, it had to be.

“Yeah. Men around ’ere in’t got nuffink like that.”

“Would you know him if you saw him again?” Pitt asked, thinking back to Rose Burke, and her face as she had stared at Finlay FitzJames coming out of the front door in Devonshire Street.

“I dunno.” Mabel was terrified. It was there in her white, clammy skin and shivering body. “I sees ’undreds o’ men. In’t their faces wot I look at. It’s money wot matters at the end, i’n it? It’s only money as gets yer food an’ yer rent.”

“Thank you,” Pitt acknowledged, rising to his feet and pacing three steps across the kitchen floor, and back again. “Do you know anything else about your regular customers? Where do they live? What do they do? How can I find them?”

“Wo’ for?” Kate looked at him narrowly.

“In case they seen ’oo done Nora, yer stupid cow!” Edie said. “Wot yer think?” She swung around to Pitt. “It’s yer job to get this bastard wot’s doin’ girls ’round ’ere! Please, mister! First ’e done poor Ada over on Pentecost Alley, now ’e done Nora. ’Oo’s next? An’ next arter that?”

Pearl began to cry again, softly, like a lost child.

“Geez, Edie!” Mabel said desperately. “Why yer gotter say summink like that?”

Edie swung around. “Well, it weren’t that rotten little swine Costigan, were it? ’E bin ’anged by the neck till ’e were dead and stuck six feet under, in’t ’e?” She jabbed her fingers towards the wall and the darkness outside. “It’s some bastard wot’s still aht there, i’n it? Some bastard wot could come in ’ere an’ be yer next customer, eh? Poor Nora’s, weren’t it? ’Oo’s gonner ’elp us if the rozzers don’t, eh? I dunno ’oo ’e is. D’you?”

“Did anybody see anyone else here this afternoon?” Pitt asked one more time. “Anyone at all?”

Pitt took down everything else they had to say, but it added nothing more. At midnight he left Ewart and a white-faced Constable Binns to continue searching for the customers the women had named and question them as to who they had seen and what they had heard. That was work for the local station.

Lennox had taken the body of Nora Gough in the mortuary wagon, and tomorrow he would perform an autopsy on her. Not that Pitt expected it to tell him anything different from the brief, sad story he already knew.

He arrived home at five minutes to one to find Charlotte standing in the hall, the parlor door open behind her, her face pale, eyes wide.

He closed the door. He had forgotten until this moment that he was still dressed in his Sunday best and had no coat with him. He had expected to be home long before this. Neither had he eaten.

“Was it the same?” she asked huskily.

He nodded. “Exactly the same.” He walked past her into the parlor and sat down in his easy chair, but forward, leaning on his knees, not relaxing.

She came in and closed the door with a click, then sat opposite him.

“You never told me what the first was like,” she said quietly. “Perhaps you should.”

He knew she did not mean that she could see any answer he did not, simply that the process of explaining would clarify his own mind, as it had so often before. There was no better way to learn what one meant than by trying to explain it to someone else who was not afraid to say they did not understand.

Carefully, hating every detail, he told her about finding the body of Ada McKinley, what it was like, what had been done to her. He watched her face, and saw the pain in it, but she did not look away.

“And this time?” she asked. “What was her name?”

“Nora Gough.”

“And it was exactly the same?”

“Yes. Broken fingers and toes. Water. Garter with the ribbon ’round her arm, the boots buttoned together.”

“That couldn’t be chance,” she said. “Who knew about all those things, apart from whoever did it?”

“Ewart, Lennox, he’s the police surgeon, Cornwallis, and the constable who was first called. And Tellman,” he answered. “No one else.”

“Newspapers?”

“No.”

“The women in the same house could have talked,” she pointed out. “People do, especially about something that frightens them. To share it diminishes it … sometimes.”

“Even they didn’t have all the details,” he said, remembering what Rose Burke had actually seen. “They didn’t know about the fingers and toes. In fact, Binns and Tellman didn’t either.”

She was sitting forward also, her knees close to his, her hands only inches away.

“Then it was the same person, wasn’t it,” she said softly. There was no criticism in her voice, nor did he see fear in her eyes, only sorrow.

“Yes,” he answered, biting his lip. “It must have been.” Neither of them added that it could not then have been Costigan, but it hung in the air between them, with all its dark pain and guilt.

Charlotte put her hands over his and held them.

“Was it Finlay FitzJames?” she asked, searching his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I found a handkerchief under Nora Gough’s pillow with his initials on it. They aren’t common. But it doesn’t prove he was there tonight.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “But her one customer tonight was seen. He was fair-haired and well-dressed. In other words, a gentleman.”

“Does Finlay FitzJames have fair hair?”

“Yes. Very handsome hair, thick and waving. And they mentioned that particularly tonight.”

“Thomas …”

Her voice had changed. He was aware she was about to tell him something he would not like, something which she found extremely difficult.

“What?”

“Emily was absolutely sure Finlay FitzJames was innocent. She knows his sister….”

He waited.

“She saw him the night Ada was killed, you know?” She looked up, her brow furrowed, her eyes dark and wide.

“Emily saw Finlay?” He was incredulous. “Why on earth didn’t she say so?”

“No … no, Tallulah saw him!” she corrected him. “She couldn’t say so because she had already lied to her father about where she was, saying she was somewhere else!” She was speaking more and more rapidly. “It was a pretty debauched affair. People were drinking too much and smoking opium, or taking cocaine and things like that. It was in Chelsea, on Beaufort Street. She wasn’t supposed to be there. Her father would have taken an apoplexy if he’d known.”

“That I can believe,” Pitt said fervently. “But Tallulah saw Finlay there? Are you sure?”

“Well, Emily is sure. But Tallulah didn’t think anyone would believe her anyway, when she is his sister and had already told everyone she was at Lady Swaffham’s party.”

“But someone else must have seen him!” Pitt said with a strange, almost frightening sense of exhilaration. Perhaps at least he had not been wrong about Finlay. “Who else was there?”

“That’s it. Tallulah didn’t know anyone, except the person she went with, and she hardly knew him. He was drunk half out of his senses, and doesn’t even remember going.”

“Well, people must have seen Tallulah!” he insisted, gripping her hands without realizing it.

“She doesn’t know who to ask. Parties like that are … well, they are held in private houses. Apparently people drift from one room to another. There are screens for privacy, potted palms, people half drunk … you could come and go and no one would know who you were, or care. Even the host himself didn’t know who was there.”

“How on earth do you know that?” he demanded, trying to envision such an affair. “Did Emily tell you? And I suppose Tallulah FitzJames told her?”

Her face fell. “You don’t believe it, do you?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I believe Tallulah could have been to such an affair, and so could Finlay. But I don’t believe she saw him at one the night Ada McKinley was killed. As proof of his innocence, it’s worth nothing.”

“That’s what Tallulah thought. But it proved it to Emily.”

Suspicion in his mind was sharpening.

“Why are you telling me this now, Charlotte? Are you saying Finlay has to be innocent? You said it proved it to Emily—not to you!”

“I don’t know,” she said candidly, looking down and then up at him again. She was very pale, very unhappy. “Thomas … it was Emily who had the second Hellfire Club badge made, and Tallulah put it in Finlay’s belongings so you would find it.”

“She did what?” His voice rose to a shout. “What did you say?”

She was very pale, but her eyes did not waver. She spoke very quietly indeed, almost a whisper.

“Emily had a second badge made so Tallulah could put it in Finlay’s wardrobe.”

“God Almighty!” he exploded. “And you helped her! And then had me go and look for it! How could you be so deceitful?” That was what hurt, not the laying of false evidence, the muddying of a case, but the way she had deliberately deceived him. She had never done such a thing before. It was a betrayal from the one place he had never expected it.

Her eyes widened in horror, almost as if he had slapped her.

“I didn’t know she’d done that!” she protested.

He was too tired to be angry, and too aware of his own guilt over Costigan, and his need for Charlotte and the loyalty, the comfort, she could give him, even the sheer warmth of her physical presence.

She was waiting, watching his face. She was not afraid, but there was hurt and anxiety in her eyes. She understood the pain in him. Her fingers crept over his, soft and strong.

He leaned forward and kissed her, and then again, and again, and she answered him with the confidence and the generosity she had always had.

He sighed. “Even if I’d known, it wouldn’t have altered the evidence against Costigan,” he said at last. “Actually, Augustus FitzJames said he’d had the damn thing made. I wish I knew why he said that.”

“To stop you investigating any further,” she answered, sitting back again.

“But why?” He was puzzled. To him it made no sense.

“Scandal.” She shook her head. “It’s scandalous having the police in the house, whatever they are doing there. I suppose you have to go back and see him tomorrow?”

“Yes.” He did not want to think of it.

She rose to her feet. “Then we’d better go to bed while there’s still some of tonight left. Come …”

He rose also and turned off the gas, then put his arm around her, and together they went up the stairs. At least for a few hours he did not have to think of it.

In the morning Pitt got up early and went to the kitchen while Charlotte woke the children and began the chores of her own day. Gracie cooked him breakfast, glancing at him every now and then, her eyes narrowed, her little face pinched with anxiety. She had already seen the morning newspapers and heard there had been a second murder in Whitechapel. Charlotte had quite recently taught her to read, so she also knew most of what was being written, and she was ready to defend Pitt against anyone and everyone.

The afternoon editions would probably be worse, when there was more news to relate, more details, more accuracy from which to draw blame.

She clattered around, banging the crockery and leaving the kettle to whistle, because she was furious with the people who blamed Pitt, and frightened in case they made things even harder for him, and frustrated because she did not know what she could do to help. She did not even know whether she should mention it or not.

“Gracie, you’ll break it,” Pitt said gently.

“Sorry, sir.” She dropped the kettle with a crash. “It just makes me so mad, sir. It in’t fair! What’ve they done about it? Nuffink! They wouldn’t know Ow ter begin, they wouldn’t. Stupid little article, ’e is, ’ooever wrote them things. It in’t responsible.” She was using longer words these days. Reading had changed quite a lot of her vocabulary.

Pitt smiled in spite of the way he felt. Gracie’s loyalty was peculiarly warming. He hoped he could live up to the high image she had of him. But the more he thought of it, the more afraid he was that he had made an irreparable mistake with Costigan, that it was something he had overlooked, that he should have seen and understood, which had sent him to an unjust execution.

He ate his breakfast without even being aware of what it was, and rose to leave just as Charlotte and the children came in. Gracie had hidden the newspapers. Even so, Jemima at least was aware that something was wrong. She looked from Charlotte to Pitt, then sat down.

“I don’t want any breakfast,” she said immediately.

Daniel hitched himself onto his chair, reached for the glass of milk provided for him and drank half of it, wiped the white ring off his mouth with his hand, then announced that he did not want any either.

“Yes you do,” Charlotte said quickly.

“There’s a man out in the street,” Jemima said, looking at Pitt. “He knocked on the door and Mama told him to go away. She was very rude. You told me I should never speak to anyone like that. She didn’t say please … or thank you.”

Pitt looked up at Charlotte.

“A man from one of the newspapers.” She forced a smile. “He was impertinent I told him to go away and not to knock on the door again or I’d bring the dog.”

“And she told a fib,” Jemima added. “We haven’t got a dog.”

Daniel looked frightened. “You wouldn’t give him Archie, would you? Or Angus?” he said anxiously.

“No, of course I wouldn’t,” Charlotte assured him. Then, as his face did not clear, she went on. “I wasn’t going to give him a dog, darling, I was going to tell it to bite him!”

Daniel smiled and reached for his milk. “Oh, that’s all right. Archie could scratch him,” he said hopefully.

Charlotte took his glass from him. “Don’t drink all that now or you won’t eat your porridge.”

He forgot about not wanting breakfast, and when Gracie passed him his porridge bowl he was happy enough to take it.

Jemima was more concerned. She sensed the unhappiness in the air. She fiddled with her food, and no one chastised her.

Suddenly there was a ring on the doorbell, and the instant after, a loud knocking. Gracie slammed down the kettle and marched towards the hall.

Charlotte looked at Pitt, ready to go after her.

Pitt rose to his feet. “I’ve got to face them sometime,” he said, wishing he could put it off until he had something to say that would explain it, some answer or reason. There were no excuses.

Charlotte started to speak, then stopped.

“What is it?” Jemima asked, looking at her mother, then at her father. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

Charlotte put her hand on Jemima’s shoulder. “Nothing you need to worry about,” she said quickly. “Finish your breakfast.”

The front door opened and they heard a man’s voice, then Gracie’s answer, high-pitched and furious. A moment later the door banged shut, and then Gracie’s feet marched back down the corridor. For a small creature, she could make a lot of noise when she was angry.

“Cheek of them!” she said, coming into the kitchen, her face white, eyes blazing. “Who do they think they are? Write a few words and think they have all the brains in London! Nothing but a tuppenny upstart.” She turned the tap full on and the jet hit the spoon in the sink and rebounded back, soaking the top half of her dress. She drew in her breath to swear, then remembered Pitt was in the room and choked it back.

Charlotte stifled a laugh that was too close to hysteria.

“I assume that was a reporter from the newspaper, Gracie?”

“Yes,” Gracie conceded, dabbing at herself with a tea towel and not making the situation appreciably better. “Worthless little item!”

“You’d better go and put on a dry dress,” Charlotte suggested.

“Don’t matter,” Gracie responded, putting the tea towel down. “It’s warm enough in ’ere. Won’t come to no ’arm.” And she began rummaging furiously in the flour bin and then the dried fruit bin, looking for ingredients for a cake which would not be baked until mid-morning, but the physical activity was a release for the pent-up tension in her. She would probably pound the dough for bread to within an inch of flattening it altogether.

Pitt smiled a trifle weakly, kissed Charlotte good-bye, touched Jemima on the top of the head and Daniel on the shoulder as he passed and went out to begin the day’s investigation.

Jemima turned wide eyes to Charlotte. “What is it, Mama? Who’s Gracie angry with?”

“People who write things in the newspapers when they don’t know the whole story,” Charlotte replied. “People who try to make everyone upset and frightened because it sells more papers, regardless of the fact that it may make a lot of other things worse.”

“What things?”

“What things?” Daniel echoed. “Is Papa frightened and upset? Is he people?”

“No,” Charlotte lied, wondering frantically how to protect them. Which was worse: trying to pretend everything was all right when it obviously was not, and only making them feel more frightened because they were lied to; or telling them something of the truth, so at least it made sense and they were part of the family? They would be worried and frightened, but not by the formless horrors of imagination and the feeling that they were alone and not trusted.

Without having made a conscious decision, she found herself answering.

“There has been another lady died in Whitechapel, just the same as the one a little while ago. It looks as if perhaps the wrong man was punished. People are very upset about it, and sometimes when you are angry or frightened, you want to blame someone. It makes it feel less difficult.”

Jemima was puzzled. “Why does it?”

“I don’t know. But you remember when you walked into the chair and stubbed your toe?”

“Yes. It went all blue and yellow and green.”

“Do you remember how you felt?”

“It hurt.”

“You said it was my fault.” Daniel’s eyes narrowed and he looked at his sister accusingly. “It wasn’t my fault. I never put the chair there! You weren’t looking where you were going.”

“I was!” Jemima said indignantly.

“You see?” Charlotte interrupted. “It’s easier to be angry than to admit you were clumsy.”

Daniel beamed with triumph. For once his mother had actually taken sides and he had won the argument.

Jemima looked cross. A flash of temper lit her eyes and she glared at him.

“The point is,” Charlotte went on, realizing her example had not been a fortunate one, “that when people are upset, they get angry. They are upset now because another lady has died, and they are frightened that they may have punished the wrong man, so they feel guilty as well. They are looking for someone to be angry with, and Papa seems like a very good person, because he was the one who thought the man they punished was the one who did it. Now it looks as if he wasn’t.”

“He made a mistake?” Jemima asked, the furrow deep between her fine, soft brows.

“We don’t know yet. It’s too difficult to understand. But it is possible. We all make mistakes sometimes.”

“Papa too?” Jemima asked gravely.

“Of course.”

“Will they get very angry with him?”

She hesitated. Was it better to be forewarned? Would a comforting lie rebound on her later and make the hurt even worse? Or was she adding an unnecessary fear, expecting far too much of them? She wanted above everything to protect them. But what was protection? Was it lies or truth?

“Mama?” There was the beginning of fear in Jemima’s voice. Daniel was watching her carefully.

“They may do,” she said, meeting the solemn eyes. “But they will be wrong, because he has done the best anyone can do. And if there has been a mistake, then it was everybody’s, not just his.”

“Oh,” Jemima replied. “I see.” She turned back to her breakfast and continued eating, very thoughtfully.

Daniel looked at her, then back at Charlotte, took a deep breath, and resumed his meal also.

“I’ll walk to school with you today,” Charlotte said decisively. “It’s a lovely day, and I’d like to.” If there were other newspapermen waiting outside, or remarks of any sort in the street, she would not have Gracie involved in a full-scale battle with Daniel and Jemima in the middle. She would have to keep a very firm bridle on her own temper.

And as it happened the real unpleasantness did not occur until the afternoon editions were out, and then it was extremely ugly. Someone had given the press a very lurid account of Nora Gough’s murder, with a detailed description of the signs and symptoms of asphyxiation by strangling. This time the broken bones, the boots and the water were not omitted. Nothing was spared, and all was naturally likened to the murder of Ada McKinley as well. There were large pictures of Costigan looking frightened and sulky, only now instead of interpreting his scowl as viciousness, they called it terror of the judgment of the law, as used to crush the common man before the wheels of perjured justice. Pitt’s name was sprinkled liberally in every article and he carried the blame for Costigan’s hanging far more prominently than he had ever won the praise for his original arrest.

Charlotte walked out of the front door and along the road bitterly aware of curtains twitching and whispered words behind them. The tea parties she would not be invited to, the people who would not see her in spite of her being directly in front of them, the sudden urgent engagements declared when she approached, did not worry her. All her fury was for Pitt and the children. She would have defended them to the last blow, if only there were someone to strike at!

As it was, she strode along the road with her head high, ignoring anything to the right or left of her, and swung around the corner almost knocking over old Major Kidderman, who was taking his dog for a stroll.

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I beg your pardon.” She was about to continue when he spoke.

“Tribulations of command, my dear,” he said quietly, touching his hat. “Hard, but there we are.” And he smiled at her shyly.

“Thank you, Major. That’s very …” She did not know what she meant … wise … kind. Both sounded wrong. “Thank you,” she said lamely, but she smiled back at him with a sudden and very real warmth.

She collected Daniel and Jemima from the school and made the return journey. A pinch-faced young woman crossed the road away from them, her expression one of acute distaste. A woman with three children hurried past, avoiding Charlotte’s eyes. The little girl, in a frilly dress, stopped to speak to Jemima and was told sharply to come along and not waste time.

On the corner a newsboy was shouting the latest headlines.

“Police ’ang the wrong man! New murder in Whitechapel! Costigan innocent! Read all abaht it! Another ’orrible murder in Whitechapel!”

Charlotte hurried past him, averting her eyes. Not that he would have offered her a newspaper or expected her to buy one. She was walking so rapidly both children had to run to keep up with her, and she raced up the steps and pushed the door open with such force it swung back and banged against the stopper on the floor.

Gracie stood at the kitchen door, a rolling pin in her hand. She was so angry she could hardly speak. Her face filled with relief when she saw Charlotte.

Charlotte burst out laughing, and the instant after it turned to tears. It was several frightening moments for the children before she could control herself and wipe the tears away. She sniffed, and searched for a handkerchief.

“Go and wash your hands ready for tea,” she ordered. “Then you can read a story. I’ll find The Wind in the Willows for you.”

Pitt’s day was far less pleasant. He went first to the Whitechapel police station, to see if any more news had come in, before he went to see Finlay FitzJames. There was nothing. Everyone he saw looked pale-faced and unhappy. They had all been equally sure Costigan was guilty. Few of them actually liked the rope, but they accepted it. It had always been the price of crime. Now they felt a peculiar kind of guilt by association. It was their force which was being blamed, not only in newspapers, but by ordinary people in the street. A constable had been spat on, another shouted at and followed by a crowd of angry youths. Someone had thrown a beer bottle and it had shattered on the wall beyond Constable Binns’s head.

This morning in the sharp, chilly daylight, they were very sober, and very confused.

Ewart came in badly shaven, a cut on his cheek and dark circles under his eyes, the skin paper-thin and looking bruised.

“Anything new?” Pitt asked him.

“No.” Ewart did not even turn his head to meet Pitt’s eyes.

“Any report from Lennox?”

“Not yet. He’s working on it now.”

“What about the other witnesses?”

“Found two of them. Very unhappy.” Ewart smiled bitterly. “Not easy to explain to your wife—or your sister, in Kale’s case—that the police want to talk to you because you might have been witness to a murder in a brothel. Don’t imagine Sydney Allerdyce will have a decent supper on the table for years!” There was no regret in his voice; in fact, there was a kind of satisfaction.

“Did they see anyone?” Pitt pressed the only point which mattered.

Ewart hesitated.

“Who did they see?” Pitt demanded, wondering what Ewart was hiding and fearing he knew. “FitzJames?”

Ewart let his breath out in a sigh. “A young man with thick, fair hair, well dressed, average height,” he replied. He looked quickly at Pitt, trying to read his face. “Doesn’t have to be him,” he added, then a look of anger flickered for a moment, anger with himself for having voiced the thought.

“Well, it wasn’t Albert Costigan,” Pitt said, before anyone else could. “Did they see any other people coming or going?”

. “No. Anyway, not that they could remember. Just the women who live there.”

“What about other nearby residents, people out in the street, coming or going? Any peddlers, other prostitutes? Did anyone see anything?” Pitt pressed.

“Nothing that helps,” Ewart said irritably. “Questioned a drayman who was loading a few yards along most of the time. He only saw people in the street. No one go in or out. Spoke to a couple of prostitutes, Janie Martins and Ella Baker, who were out looking for custom. They saw no one except the men they picked up, and they weren’t close to the house—in fact, Ella’s wasn’t in Myrdle Street at all.”

“Well, someone both came and went! Nora Gough didn’t do that to herself! Go back and try again. I’m going to see the FitzJameses. I imagine they’ll be expecting me.”

Ewart laughed sharply, and there was anger and fear in it. He turned his back, as if conscious of having left his emotions naked, and continued writing the report he had been working on when Pitt came in.

The door in Devonshire Street was opened by the same highly agreeable butler as before, but this time he looked very grave, although it did not mar the pleasantness of his features.

“Good morning, Mr. Pitt, sir,” he said, opening the door wide to allow Pitt in. “The weather is delightful, is it not? I think October is my favorite month. I imagine it is Mr. FitzJames you wish to see? He is in the library, sir, if you will come this way?” And without waiting for a reply he led the way across the parquet floor and past a magnificent painting of a Dutch harbor scene of the city of Delft, and then into a smaller hallway off which was the library. He knocked at the door and entered immediately.

“Mr. Pitt, sir,” he announced, then stood aside for Pitt to enter.

Augustus was standing in front of the fireplace, although there was no fire lit. Pitt had never seen him on his feet before. He had always conducted their conversations without rising. He looked round-shouldered and was beginning to run a little to paunch. His suit was extremely well cut, his collar high and stiff, and his long face with its dominant nose wore a belligerent expression.

“Come in,” he ordered. “I assumed you’d be ’round here, so I waited for you. Now you are going to tell me you hanged the wrong man. Or are you going to protest that last night’s crime was committed by someone else, a second lunatic in our midst?”

“I am not going to claim anything, Mr. FitzJames.” Pitt held his temper with great difficulty. Seldom had he wanted to lash back at anyone so much. It was only the absolute knowledge that it would rebound on him which held him from it.

“I’m surprised you gave so much to the newspapers,” Augustus said tartly, his eyes wide, a curious mocking in them. “I would have thought that for your own protection you would have told them as little as possible. You’re more of a fool than I took you for.”

Pitt heard the fear threaded through his voice. It was the first time it had been audible, and he wondered if Augustus knew it himself. Perhaps that was why he was so angry.

“I have not spoken to the press at all,” Pitt replied. “I don’t know who has, and if it was one of the women who live in the house in Myrdle Street, there is nothing anyone can do about it. We would be better employed in discovering the truth, and proving it, than in regretting the public knowledge of this second crime and its likeness to the first.”

Augustus stared at him, startled as much by his abruptness as by the bitter truth of what he said. It jarred him from the present confrontation back to facing his own jeopardy and the reality of it. There was no time to waste in recrimination, especially against the one person who could most hurt or help him. The effort it cost him to cover his feelings was obvious in his stubborn features.

“I assume it was like the first?” he said slowly, his eyes searching Pitt’s. “I did not hear all those details in the reports of the McKinley woman’s death.”

“They were not published,” Pitt replied.

“I see.” He straightened his shoulders. “Who else would know of them?”

“Apart from whoever killed her”—Pitt allowed a shadow of irony to pass over his face—“myself, Inspector Ewart, the constable who was first on the scene, and the police surgeon who examined her.”

“Other women in the house?”

“Not so far as we know. They would have no occasion to go into her room.”

“Are you sure?” Augustus demanded, a lift in his voice, as if it could have been hope. “They were there. Perhaps they saw her, and told … I don’t know …” He twitched his shoulder irritably. “Whatever men they associate with! Perhaps this was deliberately copied?”

“Why? Costigan couldn’t be blamed for it,” Pitt pointed out. “Out of all the people involved in the entire story, he is the only one who is unquestionably innocent of Nora Gough’s death.”

“Sit down, man!” Augustus waved his hand in a sharp gesture, like hitting something. However, he remained standing, his back to the empty fireplace, his hands behind him. “I don’t know the reason. Maybe it’s no more than to discredit the police and make fools of them.”

“People don’t murder women in order to make fools of the police,” Pitt answered, remaining on his feet. “There’s a personal reason for killing her, very personal indeed. Her fingers and toes were dislocated or broken, Mr. FitzJames. That is acutely painful. It is a form of torture.” He ignored Augustus’s wince of distaste. “It was done while she was tied up with her own stocking. Then she was doused with water, and her boots were buttoned together, and her garter slid up onto her arm. You don’t do that to someone without a very violent passion burning inside you, not some secondhand reason of wanting to make someone else look foolish.”

Augustus’s face was very pale, almost gray, and his heavy nose and narrow mouth were pinched, as though in a matter of hours he had aged a decade.

“I agree, Superintendent, it is obscene. Not the behavior of a civilized man. You are looking for some animal who is less than human. I wish I were able to help you more than I can, but it is not my area of knowledge. I assume this time you did not find anything belonging to my son?” There was certainty in his voice. The question was rhetorical.

“I am sorry, Mr. FitzJames, but we found this.” Pitt pulled the monogrammed handkerchief out of his pocket and held it out so Augustus could see the lettering.

For a moment he thought Augustus was going to faint. He swayed a little on his feet and let go his clasped hands to grasp the handkerchief in one hand, then had to extend the other hand also, to maintain his balance. He did not touch it.

“I … I see the letters, Superintendent,” he said in a hard, tight voice. “I acknowledge they are unusual. That does not mean the article belongs to my son. It most certainly does not mean that he was the person who placed it there. I hope you perceive that as clearly as I do?” For once there was no threat in his tone, instead a mixture of pleading and defiance, a will to do all he could to avert the disaster which now hung so closely over his family.

Pitt had it in his heart to be sorry for him, despite his own personal dislike. He wished he could be surer of what he felt about Finlay’s guilt.

“I know that, Mr. FitzJames,” he acknowledged quietly. “The difficulty is to discover who could have put your son’s possessions so deliberately first at the scene of Ada McKinley’s murder, and now at the scene of Nora Gough’s … and why. I am afraid it may be necessary to look far more closely at those people who consider themselves your enemies. It is beyond reason to suppose your son was selected by chance.”

Augustus drew in his breath, then let it out again in a sigh.

“If you say so, Superintendent.” Then his eyes narrowed. “May I ask you how it has happened that you were able to obtain a conviction against Albert Costigan when it now appears he cannot have been guilty? I … I do not mean to imply criticism. I believe it is something we require to know … I require to know. This tragedy now threatens my family imminently.”

“I am afraid it does.” Pitt took the button out of his pocket and proffered that also.

Augustus picked it up and examined it.

“Very ordinary,” he pronounced, looking up at Pitt. “I don’t think I have any like that myself, but I know a dozen men who do. It proves nothing, except possibly that someone of good taste was there.” His face tightened. “Sartorial good taste, anyway.”

“There were also witnesses,” Pitt said, adding the final blow. “The dead woman’s last customer was a young man of average height with thick, fair hair, and he was well dressed.”

Augustus did not bother to argue or point out how many young men might answer that description.

“I see. Naturally I have already asked my son where he was yesterday late afternoon. I assume you will wish to hear it from him in person?”

“If you please.”

Augustus rang the bell and, when the butler appeared, sent him to fetch Finlay.

They waited in silence.

Finlay arrived within moments. He came in and closed the door behind him. He was casually dressed; obviously he had changed since returning from the Foreign Office, if indeed he had been there at all. He looked frightened, his face blotchy, as if he had drunk too much the previous evening and still suffered the aftereffects. He glanced first at his father, then at Pitt.

“Good afternoon, Mr. FitzJames,” Pitt said quietly. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I am afraid it is necessary I ask you to tell me where you were yesterday afternoon from approximately three o’clock until six.”

“Well, I wasn’t in Myrdle Street!” There was a catch in Finlay’s voice, as if he were undecided whether to be angry, indignant, self-pitying, or to try to play it lightly, as if he were basically unconcerned. Only fear came through.

“Where were you?” Pitt repeated.

“Well, at three o’clock I was still in the Foreign Office,” Finlay answered. “I left at about half past, or a trifle after. I went for a walk in the Park.” His chin came up and he met Pitt’s eyes so directly Pitt was almost sure it was a lie. “I intended to meet someone, on business, but he didn’t turn up. I waited around for a while, then I walked to a restaurant where I had an early supper before going to the theater. I was nowhere near Whitechapel.”

“Can you substantiate any of that, sir?” Pitt asked, almost certain before he spoke that he could not. If he could, Augustus would have said so at the outset, and he would have done so triumphantly. He could have dismissed Pitt, not sought for help. The fear in his voice was his answer.

“No, I don’t think so. The … the matter was a favor for a friend, a rather stupid matter he had got himself into,” Finlay overexplained. “Money, and a woman, all very sordid. I was trying to help him settle the matter once and for all without ruining anyone’s reputation. I didn’t particularly want to be seen by anyone I knew. Didn’t stop and speak to anyone.”

“I see.” All Pitt saw was the futility of it. “Is this your handkerchief, Mr. FitzJames?” He offered him the handkerchief found under Nora Gough’s pillow.

Finlay did not touch it.

“It might be. I have at least half a dozen like that, but so has almost everyone I know.”

“With ‘F.F.J.’ in the corner?”

“No, of … of course not. But … one can …” He swallowed. “One can have any initials sewn into a handkerchief one wishes. It doesn’t mean it was mine. I suppose you found it somewhere near this new corpse? I thought so. I can see it in your face.” His voice was rising. “Well, I didn’t kill her, Superintendent! I’ve never heard of her, and I’ve never been to Myrdle Street! Some … madman … is trying to ruin me, and before you ask, I haven’t the faintest idea who … or why! I …” He did not finish what he had been going to say. “Perhaps you should look at Albert Costigan’s friends? Someone is trying to incriminate both of us, Superintendent. Make us look like murderers, and you as an incompetent … indirecüy a murderer too.” There was challenge in his eyes and a small, bright victory. “I think it is as much in your interest as in mine to find out who it is and bring him to justice. If I could help you, I would, but I have no idea where to begin. I’m sorry.”

“We’ll begin with a reconsideration of anyone who might believe they have cause to dislike you, Mr. FitzJames,” Pitt answered. “And proceed with those in whose professional or personal way you might stand. And perhaps a reexamination of the original members of the Hellfire Club.”

“I can’t do that!” Finlay said intensely, all the momentary elation vanished. “We were good friends. They simply are not that kind of person, not remotely. Friends of one’s youth are … well … it is not one of them, I assure you. I’ll consider all the other possibilities, and then make a list for you.”

“So shall I,” Augustus added. “You will have our fullest cooperation, Superintendent.” The ghost of a smile touched his humorless mouth. “Our interests are common, at least in this instance.”

Pitt could only agree.

“And somewhat urgent,” he added wryly. “Thank you, sir.” He turned to Finlay. “Mr. FitzJames, good day.”