Pentecost Alley

12

PITT RETURNED HOME late and tired, but it was the weariness of victory, even if there were still aspects of the case which puzzled him profoundly and which he feared he would now never resolve. It was already dark and the gas lamps were haloed with mist. There was a damp in the air, and a smell of rotting leaves, turned earth and the suggestion of the first frost.

He opened his front door and as soon as he came in the hallway he saw Charlotte at the top of the stairs. She was dressed in a very plain skirt and blouse, looking almost dowdy, and her hair was coming out of its pins. She came down so quickly he was afraid she was going to slip and fall.

“What is it?” he asked, seeing the eagerness in her face. “What’s happened?”

“Thomas.” She took a deep breath. She was too full of her own news to notice that he also had something urgent to say. “Thomas, I did a little investigating myself. It was all quite safe….”

The very fact that she mentioned safety told him immediately that it was not.

“What?” he demanded, facing her when she was on the bottom step. “What did you do? I assume Emily was with you?”

“Yes.” She sounded relieved, as if that were a good thing, something in mitigation. “And Tallulah FitzJames. Listen to me first, then be furious afterwards if you must, but I found out something really important, and terrible.”

“So did I,” he retorted. “I discovered who killed Nora Gough, and why, and obtained a confession. Now, what did you discover?”

She was startled.

“Who?” she demanded. “Who, Thomas?”

“Another prostitute. A woman named Ella Baker.” He outlined how they had assumed it was a man because of the coat, and how she had been able to disappear without anyone’s seeing her. They were still standing in the hall at the bottom of the stairs.

“Why?” she asked, her face reflecting none of the sense of victory he expected.

“Because Nora took the man she was going to marry, her escape from the life she had. And maybe she even loved him as well.” He put his hands up and touched her shoulders, holding her gently. “I’m sorry if I spoiled your news. I know you want to investigate for my sake, and I am not ungrateful.” He bent to kiss her, but she pulled away, frowning.

“Why did she kill Ada McKinley?”

“She denies it,” he replied, aware as he said it of the weight of dissatisfaction heavy inside him. It was a thin victory, and the substance of it seemed weaker every hour he thought of it.

“Why?” she asked. “That doesn’t make any sense, Thomas. They can’t hang her twice!” Her face was very pale, even in the glow of the gaslight from the hall chandelier. “Or three times.”

“No, of course they can’t,” he agreed. “What do you mean ‘three times’? There were only two murders.”

“No there weren’t.” Her voice was barely audible. “That’s what I was going to tell you that we found out. There was a third, about six years ago … a young girl, just a beginner. She had only been on the streets for a week or two. She was killed in Mile End, exactly the same way as the others … the garter, the fingers and toes, the cross-buttoned boots, even the water … everything. They never found who did it.”

He was stunned. For long seconds he stood motionless, as if he had not truly understood what she had said, and yet it filled his mind. Another crime, six years ago, in Mile End. It had to be the same person. Hadn’t it? There could not possibly be two … three people who would commit exactly the same gruesome, senseless murder, three people unconnected? And who was the first victim? Why had he not heard of her? Why had Ewart not known, and told him?

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said very quietly. “It doesn’t help, does it?”

He focused his eyes again, looking at her.

“Who was she? Do you know anything about her?”

“No. Only that she was new on the streets. I didn’t learn her name.”

His mind was still whirling.

“Couldn’t Ella Baker have killed her too?” Charlotte asked. “Maybe she tried to take something from her? Did she say why she wanted to implicate Finlay?”

“No.” He turned and walked towards the parlor. He was suddenly cold standing in the hall, and very tired. He wanted to sit down as close to the fire as he could.

She followed him and sat opposite, in her usual chair.

The fire was burning a little low. He put more coal on it, banking it high and prodding it with the poker to make it burn up more rapidly.

“No,” he went on. “She denied it. Claimed she had never heard of the FitzJameses, and Augustus said he had never heard of her.” He sat back in his chair again. The flames were mounting in the fireplace as the new coal caught, the heat growing, tingling the skin. “And Ewart doesn’t care,” he added. “He’s so damned glad it’s over, without having to arrest FitzJames, he doesn’t want to know anything more about it.”

“And Mr. Cornwallis?”

“I haven’t seen him yet. It was late by the time I’d been to the FitzJameses’. I’ll tell him in the morning. And speak to Ella Baker again. Perhaps I’d better find out about the other crime first. Six years ago?”

“Yes, about that.”

He sighed.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. “Or cocoa?”

“Yes … yes please.” He left her to decide which to bring, and sat hunched in his chair in the slowly increasing warmth while the fire strengthened and flames leaped up the chimney.

In the morning he was in the bitter chill of Newgate asking to see Ella Baker, memories of Costigan’s face, white and frightened, filling his mind. Of all the duties he ever had to perform, this was perhaps the worst. It was a different kind of pain from that of going to tell the relatives of a victim. That was appalling, but it was a cleaner thing. It would eventually heal. This wrenched him in a way that was always sickeningly real and new. Time did not dull it or inure him in any measure at all.

Ella was sitting in her cell, still dressed in her own clothes, although they were not particularly different from prison garb. He had arrested her before she was dressed for work.

“What you want?” she said dully when she saw him. “Come ter gloat, ’ave you?”

“No.” He closed the cell door behind him. He looked at her pale face, hollow hopeless eyes and the glory of hair over her shoulders. Curiously, although he had seen both Ada and Nora, and seen their broken hands, their dead faces, disfigured in the last struggle, all he could see now was Ella and her despair. “I have no pleasure in it,” he told her. “A certain relief because it’s over, but that’s all.”

“So wot yer come for?” she said, still half disbelievingly, although something in his eyes, or his voice, touched her.

“Tell me about the first one, Ella,” he replied. “What did she do to you? She was only young, a beginner. Why did you kill her?”

She stared at him with total incomprehension.

“Yer mad, you are! I dunno wot yer talkin’ abaht! I ’it Nora, then we fought an’ I throttled ’er. I never broke ’er fingers ner toes, ner chucked water over ’er, ner did up ’er boots! I never touched Ada McKinley. I never ’eard of ’er till she were killed. An’ as fer another, I dunno wot yer on abaht. There weren’t no other, far as I knowed.”

“About six years ago, in Mile End,” he elaborated.

“Six year ago!” She was incredulous, then she started to laugh, a high, harsh sound, full of pain, dark with fear beyond control. “Six year ago I were in Manchester. Married an’ went up there. Me ’usband died. I come ome an’ took ter the streets. On’y way ter keep a roof over me ’ead, ’ceptin’ the match factory. ’Ad a cousin ’oo died o’ phossie jaw. Ter ’ell wi’ that. Sooner be ’anged.” Suddenly tears filled her eyes. “Jus’ as well, eh?”

Pitt ached to be able to say something to comfort her. He felt the terrors closing around her, the darkness from which there was no escape, but there was nothing. Pity was no use now and to talk of hope was a mockery.

He smiled in answer to her bitter humor. There was some courage in it. He could admire that.

“What was your husband’s name?” he asked.

“Joe Baker … Joseph. You gonna check on me?” She sniffed. “A good man, Joe were. Drunk too much, but ’e weren’t bad. Never ’it me, jus’ fell over ’isself. Stupid sod!”

“What did he do?”

“ ’E worked the canals till ’e ’ad an accident an’ drowned. Drunk again, I s’pose.”

“I’m sorry,” Pitt said quietly. He meant it.

She shrugged. “Don’ matter now.”

Pitt went from Newgate to the Mile End police station and asked to see the most senior officer present who had been there over six years. He was shown, by a somewhat puzzled young sergeant, up to the cramped office of Inspector Forrest, a lean man with receding black hair and sad, dark eyes.

“Superintendent Pitt,” he said with surprise, rising to his feet. “Good morning, sir. What can we do for you?”

“Good morning, Inspector.” Pitt closed the door behind him and took the proffered seat. “I understand you were here in Mile End six years ago?”

“Yes. I see in the newspapers you got our murderer.” Forrest sat down behind his desk. “Well done. Damn sight more than we ever managed. Mind, I was only a sergeant then.”

“So you did have one exactly the same?” Pitt found it difficult to keep the anger out of his voice.

“Yes. Far as I can tell,” Forrest agreed, sitting forward in his chair. “Right down to the last detail. Weren’t much in the papers about ours, but I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. Poor little thing. Can’t ’ave been more than fifteen or sixteen. Pretty, they say, before he did that to her.”

“She,” Pitt corrected.

“Oh.” Forrest shook his head. “Yes … she. Sorry, I just had it fixed in my mind all these years that it was a man. Looked like a crime rooted in sex to me, the kind of perverted sex of a man that has to hurt and humiliate before he can get any pleasure. Sort of person who has to have power over someone, see them totally helpless. Evil. Still can’t believe it was a woman. Though, s’pose it must be, if she confessed.”

“No, she didn’t confess, except to the last one, Nora Gough. In fact, she said she was in Manchester six years ago.”

Forrest’s eyes widened. “Well, it has to have been the same person. Even in London, sink that it is, we can’t have two lunatics going around doing that to women.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your case?” Pitt asked, trying not to sound accusatory, and failing.

“Me?” Forrest looked at him with surprise. “Why didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes. For heaven’s sake, it might have helped us! We should at least have known! We could have found out what they had in common and who might have known all three.”

“I didn’t tell you because … Didn’t Inspector Ewart tell you? He was on the case!”

Pitt froze.

“I took it for granted that he’d have told you,” Forrest said reasonably. “You saying he didn’t?” There was disbelief in his face and in his voice. He was watching Pitt as if he could scarcely believe him.

Pitt could scarcely believe it himself. Images of Ewart filled his mind, memories of his anger, his misery, the fear in him.

But there was no point in lying. The truth was obvious anyway.

“No, he never mentioned it.”

Now it was Forrest’s turn to sit in silence.

“Do you know Ella Baker?” Pitt asked him. “Or know of her? Have you ever heard her name?”

Forrest looked blank. “No. And I know most of the women on the streets around here. But I’ll ask Dawkins. He’s been here for years and he knows ’em all.” He rose to his feet and went out, excusing himself, and returned a few minutes later with a large, elderly sergeant with gray hair. “Dawkins, have you ever heard of a woman, a tart around here, called Ella Baker?” He turned to Pitt. “What did she look like, sir?”

“Tall, ordinary sort of face,” Pitt answered. “But very beautiful fair hair, thick and wavy.”

Dawkins thought carefully for a moment, then shook his head. “No sir. Nearest to that description is Lottie Bridger, an’ she died o’ the pox sometime early this year.”

“You’re absolutely sure, Dawkins?” Forrest urged.

“Yes sir. Never ’eard the name Ella Baker, an’ never ’ad a girl on the streets ’round ’ere like you said.”

“Thank you, Dawkins,” Forrest dismissed him. “That’s all.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.” Dawkins left, looking puzzled, closing the door behind him with a sharp click.

“What does that mean?” Forrest regarded Pitt with open confusion. “Are we saying as this woman didn’t do our killing then?”

“I don’t know what we’re saying,” Pitt confessed. “Have you got records of this case I can look at?”

“Course. I’ll have them sent for.” Forrest excused himself again, and it was a long, frustrating quarter of an hour before he returned with a slim folder of papers. “This is it, sir. Isn’t a lot.”

“Thank you.” Pitt took it, opened it and read. Forrest was right; there was very little indeed, but the details were the same as in the deaths of Ada McKinley and Nora Gough. It was all set out clinically, unemotionally, in fine copperplate handwriting. The name of the victim had an air of unreality: Mary Smith. Was that really her name? Or did they simply not know what to call her? She was new in the area, new to prostitution. There was nothing else said about her, no place of origin, no family mentioned, no possessions listed.

Pitt read carefully from the description of objects found on the premises. No mention was made of anything which could be called a clue. Certainly there was nothing belonging to Finlay FitzJames, or any other gentleman.

He read the statements of witnesses, but they conveyed little. They had seen men come and go, but what else were they to expect in the room of a prostitute. There were no personal details, only that they were fairly young.

It was all insubstantial. No wonder the officer in charge had failed to find the killer. And the officers were Constable Trask, and Constable Porter, with Ewart the inspector in charge. The surgeon who had examined the body both at the scene of the crime and later was Lennox.

Why had neither of them mentioned it to Pitt? He could think of no justifiable answer.

“I don’t remember this in the papers,” he said to Forrest, who had sat silent throughout, his face furrowed with anxiety.

“It wasn’t in,” he replied. “Only ’er death, that’s all. None o’ the details. You know how it is: keep it back, might help to trap someone. They knew something, let something slip….”

“Yes, I know,” Pitt agreed, but the answer troubled him deeply. It made inescapable the darkest fears in his mind.

When he faced Ewart with it in his office in Whitechapel two hours later, Ewart stared at him blankly, his face stunned, eyes as if mesmerized.

“Well?” Pitt demanded. “For God’s sake, man, why didn’t you tell me about the first case?”

“We didn’t solve it,” Ewart said desperately. “There wasn’t anything in it that could have helped.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Pitt turned on his heel and walked over to the window, then swung around and stared back at Ewart. “You can’t know whether it would have helped or not! Why would you conceal it?”

“Because it only obscures the present.” Ewart’s voice was rising too. “There’s nothing to say it was the same person. It was Mile End, and six years ago. People copy crimes, especially mad people, wicked, stupid people who read about something and it sits in their brains, and they—”

“What newspapers?” Pitt asked curtly. “Most of those details were never released to the papers, which you know as well as I do. I never heard of the case, neither had any of the other people here working on this one. Nobody in Whitechapel connected it with the first one—but you must have. And Lennox!”

“Well, they weren’t related, were they?” Ewart said with triumph of logic. “Are you saying now that you aren’t sure it was Ella Baker who killed the Gough woman?”

“No I’m not.” Pitt swung around and gazed out of the window again, at the gray buildings and the darkening October sky. “She confessed to it. And I found her hair in Nora’s bed, long fair hair. Nora must have pulled it out when they struggled.”

“So what’s the matter?” Ewart demanded with growing confidence. “I was right. The two cases are unconnected.”

“How do you know that Ella Baker didn’t kill the first girl, Mary Smith, or whatever her name really was?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she did. It hardly matters. We can’t prove the first one was her, and she’ll hang for this one anyhow.”

“And she says she’s never heard of Finlay FitzJames,” Pitt added.

Ewart hesitated. “She’s lying,” he said after a moment.

“And Augustus FitzJames says he’s never heard of her, either,” Pitt went on.

Ewart said nothing. He drew in his breath, and then let it out again silently.

“Was there anything at the scene of the first murder to incriminate Finlay?” Pitt asked curtly.

Ewart looked straight back at him. “No, of course not. If there had been I’d have mentioned it. That would have been relevant. We never had any idea who did it. There was nothing to go on … nothing at all.”

“I see.”

But Pitt did not see. He traveled from Whitechapel back to the center of the City, and went straight to Cornwallis’s office.

Cornwallis welcomed him, striding forwards with his hand out, his face alight.

“Well done, Pitt. This is brilliant! I admit, I had lost hope we should have such a satisfactory outcome—and a confession, to boot.” He dropped his hand, suddenly realizing something was wrong. The smile faded from his lips. His eyes clouded. “What is it, man? What now? Sit! Sit down.” He gestured to one of the large, leather-covered easy chairs, and sat in the other himself. He leaned forwards, his face grave, his attention total.

Pitt told him about the crime in Mile End.

Cornwallis was stunned. “And Ewart has only just told you? That’s beyond belief!”

Pitt could think of no easy way to recount what had actually happened without implicating Charlotte, and this was not a time for lies or evasions of any sort.

“Ewart didn’t tell me at all,” he said grimly. “My wife discovered it, and she told me.” He noticed the look on Cornwallis’s face, but perhaps Vespasia had made some reference or other, because he did not question what Pitt said.

“But you have spoken to Ewart?” he affirmed, his eyes dark with foreboding.

“Yes,” Pitt replied. “He said he didn’t mention it because he thought it irrelevant.”

“That is inconceivable.” Cornwallis was very earnest, his whole face filled with distress. “And Lennox was involved as well?”

“Yes. Although that is easier to understand. He may well have assumed Ewart had told me. It was Ewart’s job, not his.”

“But why?” Cornwallis said with exasperation. “I can’t begin to understand it! Why would Ewart hide that first murder?” His hands were clenched, fidgeting. “All right, he failed to solve it, but that’s no shame to him. From what you say, there were no clues to follow. The witnesses saw nothing of value. There was nothing further he could have done. Pitt …” He looked wretched, hardly able to bring himself to say what he meant.

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied to the question that had not been asked. “I can’t believe Ewart was involved in a murder, let alone three. But I have to know. I’m going back to the original witnesses to the Mile End case. I know their names and the address where it happened. But it’s not my station, and it’s not my crime. I need your permission to question Inspector Forrest about Ewart’s duties that night.”

Cornwallis’s face was tight with pain. He had been in command too many years not to know the weaknesses and the fallibilities of man, that courage and temptation can work side by side, and loyalty and self-deceit.

“You have it,” he said quietly. “We must know. Go back to the first murder, Pitt. I can’t believe Ewart is guilty himself. He certainly wasn’t of the second or third, we know that. But if Ella Baker didn’t do it, then for God’s sake, who did?” He frowned. “Do you believe it is really credible that we have three extraordinary murders, all with the same features of torture and fetishism, the cross-buttoned boots, the water, committed by three different people?”

“It looks like it,” Pitt replied. “But no, I don’t believe it. It’s preposterous. There is something fundamental that we don’t yet know, and I have no idea what it is.” He stood up.

Cornwallis rose also and went to his desk, writing Pitt a brief note of permission. He gave it to Pitt wordlessly, gripping his hard hand, his own body stiff. He held Pitt’s eyes, wanting to speak, to communicate some of the emotion he felt, but there was nothing to say. He took a deep breath, hesitated, then let it out again.

Pitt nodded, then turned and left, going out into the sharp October air to hail a hansom and return once again to Mile End. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

By quarter past five he had seen the duty rosters for the day of Mary Smith’s death. There was no way in which Ewart could have been involved in her murder, just as he could not have been involved in the murders of Ada McKinley and Nora Gough.

Next he left and went to the house in Globe Road where Mary Smith had died. He asked the grayly unshaven landlord for the first witness named in the statements.

“Is Mr. Oliver Stubbs here?”

“Never ’eard of ’im,” the landlord said abruptly. “Try somew’ere else.” He was about to close the door on Pitt when Pitt put his foot in it and glared at him with such ferocity he hesitated.

“ ’Ere, wos’ matter wiv you, then? Get yer foot outer me door or I’ll set the dog on yer!”

“Do that and I’ll close you down,” Pitt said without hesitation. “This is a murder enquiry, and if you want to avoid the rope as an accomplice, you’ll do all you can to help me. Now, if Oliver Stubbs isn’t here, where is he?”

“I dunno!” The man’s voice rose indignantly. “ ’E scarpered two years gorn. But ’e never done no murder as I knows of.”

“Mary Smith,” Pitt said tersely.

“ ’Oo?” The man’s eyes widened. “C’mon! D’yer know how many Mary Smiths there are ’rahnd ’ere? Every tart wot tries ’er hand is Mary Smith.”

“Not all of them end up tortured, strangled and tied to a bed,” Pitt grated between his teeth.

“Geez! That Mary Smith.” The man paled under his stubble beard. “Bit late, aren’t yer? That were six, seven years gorn.”

“Six. I need to see the original witnesses. Get in my way and I’ll find something to arrest you for.”

The man turned away and yelled into the dim passageway behind him. “ ’Ere! Marge! Come ’ere!”

There was no reply.

“Come ’ere, yer lazy sow!” He raised his voice even more.

There was another moment’s silence, then a fat woman with ginger hair emerged from one of the back rooms and came forward.

“Yeah? Wot yer want?” She looked at Pitt with minimum curiosity.

“Weren’t yer ’ere six years ago?” the man asked her.

“Yeah,” she answered. “So?”

“This rozzer wants ter talk to yer. An’ be nice to ’im, Marge, or ’e’ll do the lot of us.”

“Fer wot?” she said with a sneer. “I in’t done nuffink agin the law.”

“I don’t care,” the man replied, coughing hoarsely. “Jus’ tell ’im, yer stupid mare. Yer was ’ere. Tell ’im!”

“Are you Margery Williams?” Pitt asked her.

“Yeah.”

“You were one of the witnesses the police spoke to about the murder of Mary Smith six years ago?”

She looked uncomfortable, but her eyes did not waver. “Yeah. I told ’em everythin’ I know. Wot yer want ter know fer now? Yer sure as ’ell in’t gonna catch him.”

“You said ‘him.’” He looked at her closely. “Are you taking it for granted it was a man who killed her, or could it have been a woman?”

Contempt filled her face. “Wot kind o’ woman does that ter ’nother woman? Geez, where do you come from, mister? Course it were a man! Din’t yer look at wot I said? They wrote it all down on their little bits o’ paper. Always scribblin’, they was.”

The man stood beside her, looking from her to Pitt and back again.

“They can’t have kept it,” Pitt said, realizing with surprise how much must have been thrown away once it was regarded as of no use, and the case marked “unsolved” and forgotten. “Tell me what you can remember of the man you saw, and with as much detail as possible.”

“Wot in ’ell do it matter now?” She screwed up her face, eyeing him with suspicion and curiosity. “Yer never sayin’ yer got someone, ’ave yer? After all them years?” She hesitated another moment, deep in thought. “ ’Ere! You sayin’ as it were the same one wot done Mary Smith as done the other women in Whitechapel?”

For a moment it seemed such a glaringly obvious conclusion Pitt wondered at the woman’s stupidity. Then he remembered with a jolt that the details of this first death had not been published in the newspapers. If she had not seen the body herself, and the police, specifically Ewart, had not told her, then maybe she was unaware of the exact sameness of the method, even to the most bizarre detail.

“Yes,” he said simply. “It is possible.”

“I ’eard as it was a woman wot done ’em. In’t that true then?” She swung around to the unshaven man. “That Davey Watson’s a liar! ’E said as it were another tart wot done ’em. Wait till I catch ’im, the bleedin’ little sod!”

“It was a woman who killed Nora Gough,” Pitt said soothingly. “Now please describe this man for me as closely as you can remember, but don’t add anything or leave anything out. Please.”

“Right.” She shrugged heavy shoulders. “There were four of ’em. All come together. One were dark an’ kind o’ fancy, arty-lookin’, nothin’ special abaht ’is face as I can remember. Jus’ ordinary, ’cept ’e fancied ’isself or summink. Painter, mebbe!”

There was a clatter somewhere inside the building. A woman swore.

“The second man?” Pitt prompted.

“Pompous as a prater, ’e were, all airs like ’e thought ’e were summink.”

“What did he look like?” Urgency was mounting inside him.

“Nuffin’ much. Orn’ry as muck, w’en it comes ter it.” She stared at him, trying to work out why he cared so much his voice was cracking. “Wouldn’t know him agin if he walked in be’ind yer.”

“And the third?” he pressed.

“ ’Nother self-satisfied sod wot thinks ’e runs the world,” she answered. “ ’Andsome, though. ’Andsome face, lov’ly ’air, all thick an’ waves. Would o’ done a woman good, that ’air.”

“Fair or dark?” Pitt felt a curious sensation of anticipation as he said it, a clenching in his stomach. Ewart had known all this. He had heard this six years ago. What terror or stupidity had kept him silent?

“Fair,” she said without hesitation.

“A gentleman?”

“Yeah, if talk an’ clothes makes a gent, then ’e was a gent. I wouldn’t ’a’ give yer tuppence fer ’im. Nasty little swine. Summit mean abaht ’im, sort o’ … excited, like ’e were … I dunno.” She gave up.

“And the last one?” Pitt did not want to know, but he had to, there was no evading it. “Can you remember him?”

“Yeah. ’E really were diff’rent.” She shook her head a little, the ginger hair waggling from side to side. “On the thin side, but wi’ one o’ them faces as yer never forgets. Eyes like ’e were on fire. Inside ’is ’ead …”

“You mean a little mad? Or drunk? What?”

“No.” She waved a fat hand impatiently. “Like ’e knew sommat inside ’isself wot were so important ’e ’ad to tell everyone. Like ’e were a poet, or one o’ them musicians, or summink. ’E din’t belong wi’ them lot.”

“I see. And what happened? Are you saying they came together, or one by one, or how?” He asked even though he knew the answer.

“All come together,” she replied. “Then all went ter different rooms. All went orff tergether arter. Close, they was. White as paper. Thought they was sick drunk, till I knew wot they done … or wot one o’ them done. Reckon as they all knew abaht it, though.”

“I see. And do you know which one went in to Mary Smith?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “They all started tergether wif ’er. Then the one wi’ the ’air stayed wif ’er. Then they all went back agin. I dunno which one o’ them killed ’er, but I’d lay me money it were the one wi’ the ’air. ’E ’ad a look in ’is eyes.”

“I see.” Pitt felt numb, a little sick. “Thank you, Mrs. Williams. Would you testify to that, if necessary?”

“Wot, in a court?”

“Yes.”

She thought about it for a moment. She did not consult the man, who stood by sullenly, unimportant.

“Yeah,” she said at last. “Yeah, if yer wants. Poor Mary. She din’ deserve that. None o’ my girls ever did, nor anybody else’s neither. I’ll see the bastard ’ang, if yer can get ’im, that is!” She gave a harsh, derisive laugh. “That all, mister?”

“Yes, for now. Thank you.”

Pitt walked away slowly. It was now nearly six in the evening, and growing dark with the heavy clouds moving in from the east, a sharper wind behind them, smelling of the river, salt and dead fish and human effort.

There was no evasion possible. Margery Williams had described the four young men too precisely for there to be any but the faintest doubt, driven by hope, not reason. It had been the Hellfire Club: Thirlstone, Helliwell, Finlay and Jago Jones. Pitt was crushed by an inner misery. He walked slowly away from Mile End and towards Whitechapel. It would take him half an hour to reach Coke Street. He wished it could be longer.

He was passed by all sorts of people on their way home from offices: clerks with ink-stained fingers and stiff shoulders, some with squinting eyes after staring all day at the black letters on the white page. Shop clerks passed in twos and threes. Laborers would be finishing soon, going home to the piled tenements, each having their own narrow little place where their own people were, their own few belongings.

He crossed the street and only just avoided being struck by a hansom. It was getting dark, and considerably colder.

He turned his coat collar up and increased his pace without being aware of it. He did not intend to get there any faster; he was drawn by emotion, an anger and urgency within.

He was going straight down the Mile End Road, which would become the Whitechapel Road as it crossed Brady Street. From reluctance he had changed to wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible. He was striding along, barely seeing people on either side. The streetlamps were lit. Orange lights were brilliant through the gathering darkness, carriages mere looming shapes with riding lamps on either side, horses’ hooves clattering on the wet stones, wheels hissing.

He turned left down Plumbers Row, which led into Coke Street. It was the one time and place he was almost sure of finding Jago Jones, and he had a deep, perhaps irrational belief that Jago would not lie to him if he was faced with the truth.

He swung around the last corner and saw the cart under the gas lamp, the light shining on its handles, polished smooth where hands had gripped it day after day perhaps for generations. Jago Jones’s lean figure in his shabby clothes was still serving hot soup to the last ragged figures. Beside him, working in silent unison, was Tallulah FitzJames.

Pitt watched, leaning against the wall in the shadows, until they were finished and turned to start putting it all away. There was nothing left; there never was.

“Reverend Jones.” Pitt moved forward and spoke softly.

Jago looked up. He was no longer surprised to see Pitt. He had been here too often over the last weeks and months.

“Yes, Superintendent?” he said patiently.

“I’m sorry.” Pitt meant it. Seldom had he regretted any necessity so much. “I cannot let the matter rest.” He glanced at Tallulah, still tidying and packing away.

“What is it now?” Jago asked, his brow furrowed with puzzlement. “I don’t know anything else. I have spoken to Ella Baker once or twice, but she was a very self-sufficient woman. She had no need of my counsel.” He smiled ruefully. “At least, shall I say, she had no desire for it. I did not know her well enough to be aware of her agony. Perhaps that is my shortcoming, but at least for her, it is too late now.”

His face in the lamplight showed nothing but sorrow and a sense of defeat. He moved farther away so Tallulah could not overhear them. “Please don’t ask me to question her, Superintendent. Even if she could speak to me, whatever she said would be between her and God. All I could offer would be some shred of human comfort, and the promise that God is sometimes a kinder judge than we expect, if we are honest. And I think too, perhaps, harsher, if we are not.”

“Honest, Reverend?” Pitt heard the catch in his own voice.

Jago stared at him. Perhaps he heard more of the irony, some deeper understanding, and pain than before. He half turned towards Tallulah, then changed his mind, or perhaps his belief in what he could accomplish.

“What is it, Superintendent? You say the word as if it had some greater meaning for you.”

Pitt had not expected Tallulah to be there. His first instinct had been to have her leave, to face Jago with his knowledge alone. It was a matter of decency, not to confront the man before someone who obviously had the utmost respect for him. Now he realized Tallulah would have to know. It concerned her too closely. Finlay was her brother. Whatever was said here in the dark and the damp of Coke Street would eventually be just as devastating in the withdrawing room of Devonshire Street. The delay would not save her from misery.

“It does, when spoken between the two of us regarding the deaths of Ada McKinley and Nora Gough,” Pitt answered his question.

Jago’s eyes were unwaveringly steady.

“I know nothing about them, Superintendent.”

Tallulah had finished the packing away and moved closer.

“What about Mary Smith?” Pitt asked, and neither did he flinch. “Off Globe Road, in Mile End, about six years ago. Are you going—” He stopped. Jago’s face was ashen. Even in the yellow-white glare of the gas lamp he looked like a death’s-head. There was no point in finishing the sentence. Jago was not going to lie. A lie would have been grotesque now, an indignity beyond redeeming.

“You were there,” Pitt said quietly, trying to ignore Tallulah’s eyes, staring at him with dawning horror. “You, Thirlstone, Helliwell, and Finlay FitzJames.” He did not make it a question, and his voice left no room for doubt.

Jago closed his eyes very slowly. He was controlling himself with a supreme effort. He looked as if he might fall if for an instant he let go.

“I will answer for myself, Superintendent, but for no one else.” He swallowed hard. His clenched hands shook. “Yes, I was there. In my younger days I did many things of which I am ashamed, but none as much as that. I drank too much, I wasted my time and valued things which were of no worth. I cared what people thought of me, not for love. Not respect or honor.” He said the words bitterly. “Not whether I hurt people. Not whether my example was good or bad, only to posture and parade, wanting to be smarter and wittier than the next man.”

Tallulah was still staring at him, but he seemed oblivious of her, drenched in loathing of the man he had been. She moved a step closer, but still he was unaware.

“Globe Road,” Pitt said, bringing him back to the issue, not only because it was what mattered to him but because Jago’s other sins, whatever they had been, were not his to judge, nor did he wish to know them.

“I was there,” Jago admitted again. “I did not kill Mary Smith.” His voice sank to a whisper, hoarse, as if the memory of it were still before his eyes. “But I know what was done to her, God forgive me. I have spent the rest of my life since then trying to repay—”

“Who killed her?” Pitt said gently. He believed it was not Jago, not only because he wanted to, but there was a passion in his face, a torture of guilt and memory, a self-disgust, but also a courage that he had at last spoken the truth and at the same time kept his own kind of honor.

“I will not tell you, Superintendent. I’m sorry.”

Pitt hesitated only a moment. There was no real decision to make.

“Reverend …” He used the title intentionally. “Mary Smith was not only killed, she was tortured first and humiliated. She was tied to her own bed, with her stocking, intimate garments …” He saw the naked pain in Jago’s face, but he did not stop. “She was terrified and hurt. Her fingers and toes were either wrenched out of their joints or the bones were broken. She wasn’t a practiced whore!” He heard his own voice grating hard. “She was a young girl, just started—”

“Superintendent!” The cry was wrung from Tallulah. She stepped forward and was standing beside Jago, staring at Pitt. “You don’t need to go on. We know what happened to the girls in Whitechapel. We accept that Mary Smith was the same, and that it was very terrible. Nobody, no living creature, should be treated that way, and you must find out who did it, and they must be punished—”

“Tallulah!” Jago gasped, trying to push her away. His face was streaked in the damp of the evening, or in the sweat of inner pain. “You don’t …” He stopped, unable to go on. “You …” He drew in a long, shuddering breath, then turned to Pitt. “Superintendent, I understand what you are saying, and I know even better than you do just how … how fearful it was. I admit my part in it. I was there, and I helped conceal what was done. For that I am guilty. But I will not say more than that.

“I have done all I can in the years since then to become a man worthy of forgiveness. I began from my own sense of remorse. Now I do it for the love of the task itself. Someone has to care for these people, and my reward in it has been greater than any bound or measure. But I understand that I was an accessory after the fact in a murder, and an accomplice in concealing the truth. There is always a price. May I please take the cart back to the kitchen before I come with you? They will need it tomorrow. Someone will take over what I cannot.”

“I will,” Tallulah said immediately. “Billy Shaw will help me, if I ask him, and Mrs. Moss.”

“Thank you.” Jago acknowledged this without looking at her.

“I am not taking you, Reverend,” Pitt said slowly. “I don’t believe you murdered Mary Smith, and I know you didn’t murder either of the two women here at Whitechapel.”

Jago stood without moving, confused. Still, he could not bring himself to look at Tallulah. He kept his head turned away from her, unable to bear what he might see in her eyes.

Pitt hesitated.

“Jago,” Tallulah said softly, taking him by the arm. “You cannot protect him anymore. It was Finlay, wasn’t it? Somehow Papa managed to have it hidden, covered over. He must have bought the policeman.”

A rush of memory flooded over Pitt, a score of small impressions. Ewart’s pride in his son, the carefully bought education, the daughter who had married well. Such an achievement! But at what price?

He recalled Ewart’s eagerness to blame someone else, the look on his face when Augustus’s name was mentioned, the strange mixture of fear and hatred. It was hideously obvious now why he had destroyed the statements of the witnesses to the Globe Street murder and marked the case unsolved, and why he had not mentioned it to Pitt. What nightmares he must have endured when he thought Finlay had committed the same crime again, and Ewart again had to conceal it for him, but this time with a superior officer called in and handed the investigation over his head. No wonder he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, came into the station looking like a man who had opened a door on hell.

And then Pitt had arrested Albert Costigan, and it had seemed indubitable that he was guilty. He had not even denied it himself. Ewart must have thought himself free.

Then there was another crime, in Myrdle Street. A second nightmare for Ewart … a second torture of trying to prove Finlay had not done it, of guiding Pitt step by step away from Finlay and towards some other explanation, any other at all!

And Pitt had found Ella Baker. And she too had not denied her guilt.

Tallulah was standing very close to Jago, her arm around him, almost as if she were supporting him. Her face was wet with the settling mist, shadows around her eyes. Shock and misery were stamped deep into the lines of her features. But there was also a strength in her which had never shown itself before, almost a luminosity, as if she had found within herself something which she knew was precious, and indestructible, and, in time, of greater beauty than anything Devonshire Street could give her, or take from her.

“You cannot protect him,” she repeated, searching Jago’s face.

“Neither can I betray him,” Jago whispered, but he leaned a little towards her, half unwillingly, as if he did it against his will but could barely help himself. “I gave my word. I was also to blame. I went. I knew what was in him, the anger, the need for power, and I still went.”

“In Finlay FitzJames?” Pitt said.

Jago did not answer him.

Pitt knew there was no more purpose in pressing him. He had not yet sufficient evidence to arrest Finlay for the murder of Mary Smith, not if Jago would not speak. Margery Williams might recognize the four men, but six years had passed. And what was such a woman’s testimony against that of Finlay FitzJames and the weight of his father’s power?

Would Tallulah go home to Devonshire Street and warn Finlay? Might Pitt even get there and find Finlay gone, possibly to Europe, or even farther? Perhaps to America?

The three of them stood under the gaslight in Coke Street, motionless, Jago and Tallulah close, her arm around him, Pitt opposite. They were all cold. The damp had settled with a clinging, biting chill. Down on the river a foghorn sounded, thin and miserable, echoing across the water.

“Who put Finlay’s cuff link and club badge in Ada McKinley’s room?” Pitt asked curiously. “Was that you? Or one of the other two?”

“It wasn’t me,” Jago said with surprise. “I’d stake all I possess, which admittedly isn’t much, that it wasn’t either of them. Helliwell is terrified he’ll be tarred with the brush of disrepute, never mind murder. Thirlstone simply wants to forget the whole thing. The Hellfire Club broke up, and we swore never to see each other again.”

Tallulah looked from Jago to Pitt, her brow furrowed.

“It doesn’t make sense, Superintendent. The people whom you say killed the women live in Whitechapel. They can’t ever have heard of Finlay, much less have his possessions. And why would it be Mortimer, or Norbert either?” Her face was very white, her eyes hollow. “The one person it couldn’t be is Finlay himself.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “He was guilty the first time, but not the second. I know that, Superintendent, I swear I really know it! I did see him at the party!”

“I believe you, Miss FitzJames. Nor was it Ewart. He was desperate that Finlay should not even be seriously suspected, let alone charged. He may hate your father, he may hate Finlay, but he has everything to lose—his livelihood, his family, even his freedom—if Finlay is proved guilty. And I have a feeling that if that were to happen, your father, far from protecting him, would be the first to destroy him for having failed.”

Tallulah said nothing. She could not deny it, but it was too painful to agree. It was one step beyond what she could endure.

Jago’s arm tightened around her.

“There is something fundamental that you don’t know,” Jago said, almost as much to himself as to Pitt. “Something upon which this all turns.”

“What is it?” Pitt and Tallulah spoke at once.

“I don’t know,” Jago confessed. “I just know it exists, it matters terribly.”

But as he spoke, Pitt realized the thing that had been unresolved at the back of his own mind.

“Mary Smith,” he said aloud. “Such an ordinary name. Too ordinary. Who was she? Who was she really?”

Jago closed his eyes again. “I don’t know. She was young. She was very pretty, and very unhappy. God forgive us….”

“But it still doesn’t make any sense!” Tallulah protested, turning to Pitt. “You found Finlay’s things in the women’s rooms! Who could have put them there except whoever killed them? Had Mary Smith something to do with both Costigan and Ella Baker?” Her face wrinkled up with confusion. “But they wouldn’t kill two women just to blame Finlay! That’s insane.”

As he stood in the deepening chill, the mist now a halo of light around the gas lamp, another answer came to Pitt’s mind, absurdly simple, and tragic. If it was the truth, it would explain everything.

“I must go back to the police station,” he said. His voice sounded exactly as it had done moments before, yet he felt utterly different. It was an answer he did not want, and yet it intruded more and more fiercely into his mind, even the few seconds he stood there.

“I will take Tallulah … Miss FitzJames … back with me to Saint Mary’s,” Jago said, his face composed, his shoulders straight.

Pitt smiled, very slightly. It was a warm gesture, but a glimmer where he would have wished a beacon.

“That’s a good idea, Reverend. It may be the very best place for her. May I suggest you keep her there, if decency permits?”

“But …” Jago started.

“I know where to find you if I should need you,” Pitt cut him short. “But I don’t think I shall. I know you won’t testify against Finlay, and there is no one to testify against you. Keep on with your work here. It does much good. Good night.” And he swiveled around and walked away towards the corner. He turned once and looked back. He saw two figures under the lamp, but so closely entwined they could have been one, a man and a woman locked in an embrace for which each had imagined and dreamed and waited, until the reality was sweet beyond hope.

Ewart was startled to see Pitt. He looked up from his desk, his face calm, no suspicion in it, no dread of what was to come.

“Is Dr. Lennox in?” Pitt asked. “If not, please send for him.”

“Are you ill?” Even as he asked it, the light died out of Ewart’s face. He could see Pitt was not ill, only hurt and darkened in spirit.

“Get me Dr. Lennox,” Pitt repeated. “How well do you know him?”

“Er … moderately.” Ewart’s face was pale, the blood slipping out of his cheeks. “Why?”

“What did his father do?”

“What?”

“What did his father do for a living?” Pitt said again.

“I … I don’t think … I’ve no idea! Why?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Has he done something he shouldn’t? What’s the matter, Pitt? You look dreadful. Sit down, man. I’ll get you a glass of brandy. Dr. Lennox!”

“I don’t want brandy.” Pitt hated this. Ewart was being considerate, in spite of the fear which was beginning to take hold of him. Pitt despised a bought man. Ewart had concealed a brutal murder, one of the vilest Pitt had heard of. God knows how many other things he had done at Augustus FitzJames’s behest. One coercion, one blackmail, led to another. One fall, and there was no road back, except by admission—and payment in full. And the police would not forgive one of its own for such an act of corruption. Mary Smith, or whoever she was, deserved better than that.

“Get me Lennox!” Pitt repeated between his teeth.

White-faced, Ewart went to the door and disappeared along the passage. He came back a moment later. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” he said, uncertain whether to sit or to stand, watching Pitt with apprehension.

“I’ve just been speaking with the Reverend Jago Jones,” Pitt said slowly.

“Oh?” Ewart did not know whether to be interested or not.

“About the murder of Mary Smith,” Pitt went on. “In Globe Road, six years ago.”

Ewart went sheet-white. He struggled for breath and gagged. Very slowly he collapsed back into the chair behind him, feeling for it with fumbling hands.

“Why did you destroy the witnesses’ records?” Pitt asked. “I know the answer, but I’ll give you the chance to say it yourself, if you have that shred of honor left.”

Ewart sat in silence. The torment was plain in his face, as naked as hate and grief and failure and the inner terror that one can never escape, the knowledge of self.

“He offered me money,” he said so quietly Pitt could barely hear him. “Money to make a better life for my family. My sons for his. He said it was an accident. Finlay never meant to kill the girl. When he realized what he had done he tried to revive her. That was why they threw the water over her. But of course he’d gone too far. The game had got out of hand and he had choked the life out of her. He must have gagged her before she screamed. The marks of it were on her cheeks.”

He leaned down and hid his face in his hands. “But he didn’t kill the others.” His voice was thick, half muffled. “You had the right man. Costigan was guilty, I’d swear to that! And Ella Baker too! God knows how Finlay’s things got there. That was one of the worst days of my life, when I saw them. It was like hell opening up in front of me.”

Pitt said nothing. He could imagine it: the sudden, sick horror, the fear, the desperate writhing of the mind to find escape, the relentless terror as fact piled upon fact, and the sheer incomprehensible mystery of it.

There was no sound from the passageway outside, nothing but a blur of sounds from the street.

It was a full fifteen minutes of agonized silence in the room before the door opened and Lennox came in. He looked tired. He saw Ewart first, slumped over the desk, then Pitt in the chair opposite it.

“What is it?” he asked. “Is Inspector Ewart ill?”

“Probably,” Pitt answered. “Come in and close the door.”

Lennox obeyed, still puzzled. Pitt remained where he was.

“You were the first at the scene of Ada McKinley’s death after Constable Binns, weren’t you, Doctor?”

“Yes. Why?” He did not look troubled, only surprised.

“And of Nora Gough’s death also?”

“Yes. You know I was.”

“You examined the bodies before anyone else?”

Lennox stared at him curiously, the dawn of understanding in his weary hazel eyes.

“You know that too.”

“Then you went through to comfort the witnesses before we spoke to them?” Pitt continued.

“Yes. They were … upset. Naturally.”

“Were you first on the scene of Mary Smith’s death also?”

Lennox paled, but he kept his composure.

“Mary Smith?” He frowned.

“In Globe Street, six years ago,” Pitt said softly. “A young girl, only just taken to the streets, about fifteen or sixteen years old. She was killed in exactly the same way. But was she, Dr. Lennox?”

For seconds no one moved. There was not even the sound of breathing. Then Ewart looked up at Lennox, his face haggard.

But the pain in his eyes was a shadow, a ghost compared with that in Lennox’s face, in his whole thin body.

“My sister,” he whispered. “Mary Lennox. She was sixteen when that animal did that to her!” He looked down at Ewart. “And you had the evidence and you let him go! What did he pay you that was worth that, Ewart? What in God’s name was worth that?”

Ewart said nothing. He was too numb with despair and self-loathing to feel another blow.

“So when you found a prostitute murdered, without the use of a knife,” Pitt went on, speaking to Lennox, “and you were the first on the scene, you put Finlay FitzJames’s belongings under the body and broke her fingers and toes to look like Mary’s, and tied the garter, cross-buttoned the boots, threw water over her, and waited for us to do the rest, hoping Finlay FitzJames would be blamed,” Pitt said carefully.

“Yes.”

“Where did you get the badge and the cuff link?”

“I stole them from Ewart. He kept them, so they wouldn’t be in the evidence,” Lennox replied.

“And when Finlay wasn’t blamed, and we hanged Costigan, you were first on the scene of Nora Gough’s death, so you did it again,” Pitt went on. “Did you coach the witnesses too? Persuade them they had seen a man like Finlay at the house?”

“Yes.”

Ewart rose to his feet, swayed and almost overbalanced.

Neither of the others moved to help him.

“I must get out,” he said hoarsely. “I’m going to be sick.”

Lennox stepped back to let him pass. Ewart fumbled for the doorknob, threw the door open and went out, leaving it swinging behind him.

Lennox faced Pitt.

“He deserved to be hanged for what he did to Mary,” he said in a low, husky voice. “Are you going to charge Finlay now, or is he still going to get away with it?” The words were torn out of him.

“I haven’t enough evidence to charge him,” Pitt said bitterly. “Unless Ewart confesses, which he may, or he may recover his composure and realize I have very little proof.”

“But …” Lennox was desperate.

“I can see if Margery Williams will identify Finlay,” Pitt went on. “She might. So might the other two witnesses who saw him. Or there is the possibility Helliwell and Thirlstone may be sufficiently frightened they will speak, especially if they are identified as well.”

“You must!” Lennox leaned forward and grasped Pitt, his grip so hard it pinched the flesh. “You must …”

He got no further because the door opened and a very worried Constable Binns put his head in.

“Sir … Mr. Ewart just went out of ’ere lookin’ like ’e ’ad the devil be’ind ’im, sir, an’ ’e took them sticks o’ dynamite as we took from the—”

Pitt shot to his feet, almost knocking Lennox over, and charged past Binns and out into the corridor. Then he spun around, face-to-face with the two men who were hard on his heels.

“Binns, go and get a hansom. Commandeer one if you have to. Go—now!”

Binns obeyed, ran down the stairs, and they heard his feet clattering on the boards below.

Pitt looked at Lennox. “Give your resignation to the sergeant immediately. Be gone by the time I get back. Just don’t tell me where, and I shan’t look for you.”

Lennox stood motionless, gratitude flooding his face, softening the harsh lines, filling his eyes with tears.

Pitt had no time to say anything further. He plunged down the stairs after Binns and ran through the entrance hall and down the steps into the street. Binns was waiting with a very angry cabdriver standing by the open door of a hansom.

“Number thirty-eight Devonshire Street!” Pitt shouted, and swung himself up and into it with Binns a step behind. “Fast as you can, man! Lives depend on it!”

The cabby caught the tension and the urgency. He cracked the whip and the cab lurched forward. In a few moments it was charging through traffic at considerable risk to everything in its way.

Neither Pitt nor Binns spoke. They were thrown from side to side and clinging onto the handles, in peril of being injured, and there was too much noise to hear anything clearly above the hooves, the wheels, the creak of straining woodzx and the yells of outraged coachmen.

When they slowed to a halt in Devonshire Street, Pitt threw the door open and was out onto the pavement, Binns a yard behind him. He raced up the steps and yanked the doorbell, almost pulling it out of its socket, then beat his fists on the door.

Binns was shouting something, but he took no notice.

The door swung open and the agreeable butler looked alarmed.

“Is Ewart here?” Pitt demanded. “Policeman … Inspector Ewart! Dark, thinning hair, carrying something, probably a bag!”

“Yes, sir. He arrived a few minutes ago. Called to see Mr. FitzJames.”

“Where?”

The butler paled. “In the library, sir.”

“Is there a fire there?” Pitt’s voice cracked with the unbearable tension.

“Yes sir. What is wrong, sir? If I can—”

He never completed his sentence. The blast from the explosion tore out the fireplace and the outer wall of the library. It hurled the door off its hinges into the hallway and the force of heat and air knocked the men to the floor, bruised and wounded. Pitt was driven back and crashed into the hall table, Binns fell to his knees. There were books and loose papers everywhere and a cloud of gray ash.

There were seconds of silence, except for the settling of stones and rubble, then the screaming started.

Pitt climbed to his feet, unsteadily, dizzy and hurt, unaware of his bleeding hands or the scratches and smears of blood on his face. He stumbled towards the library and peered in. The wreckage of books littered everything except a space in the center where live coals were burning on the carpet. The body of Ewart lay crumpled, drenched with blood, and less than a yard away what was left of Augustus FitzJames sprawled across the pile of splinters which had been the table. One jagged end speared through his chest, but he would no longer care.

Pitt turned back and saw the butler rise to his knee, his face gray with shock. Binns moved forward slightly to help him.

Somewhere beyond the landing a maid was screaming, over and over again.

Aloysia FitzJames stood at the head of the stairs.

Finlay came from the withdrawing room. He looked incredulous, as if he did not believe what he saw. He faced Pitt with anger.

“What in God’s name have you done?” he said abruptly. “Where … where’s my father?”

“He’s dead,” Pitt answered quietly, the smoke catching in his throat. “So—is—Inspector Ewart. But his records remain. Finlay FitzJames, I arrest you for the torture and murder of Mary Lennox, on the twelfth of September, 1884.”

Finlay looked once, in desperation, towards the wreckage of the library.

“He cannot help you this time,” Pitt said. “Nor can Ewart. You can put off the time, Mr. FitzJames, but it always comes, one day or another. Have the courage now to face it. It is still not too late at least for dignity.”

Finlay stared at him, then his eyes swung wildly, seeking an escape, help, anything but Pitt standing in front of him.

“I can’t! I won’t! I …” His voice rose higher, more shrill. “You can’t prove—”

“Ewart confessed before he died.”

Aloysia came slowly down the staircase and stood by her son, but without touching him. She looked at Pitt.

“He will come with dignity, Superintendent,” she said very quietly. “I will come with him. In the last few moments I have lost everything that I have lived my whole life believing I possessed. But I will not go out of here weeping, and whatever I feel, no one else will know it.”

Finlay stared at her, incomprehension turning into rage.

“You can’t let him …” he began. “Do something!” His voice rose in terror and accusation. “Do something! You can’t let him take me! They’ll hang me!” He started to struggle, but Binns had hold of him so hard by the arm he would have wrenched it out of the socket had he continued to struggle. “Mother! You …”

Aloysia was not listening. She walked slowly down the steps and Binns followed with Finlay, his features tearstained and twisted with rage.

Behind them then, grimed and smeared, but still with an agreeable face, the butler staggered to the door and pulled it closed.