Bluegate Fields (15 page)

“That’s right. Describe him for me.” He would have to allow some leniency. Customers to places like these often did not wish to be seen closely. They preferred the lights dim, and came in heavily muffled even in summer. It would be cool enough down in these dark, riverside streets any night. It would not be remarked. “Well?”

“Fairly tall.” Albie did not seem hesitant or confused. “On the lean side, dark hair that was always short and neat, mustache. Sort of pinched face, sharp nose, pursed-up mouth as if he smelled something bad, brown eyes. I can’t describe his body because he always liked the lights off before that part, but he felt strong, and sort of bony—”

Pitt’s stomach lurched, his imagination was too vivid. This boy had been thirteen when it started!

“Thank you,” he stopped Albie. It was Jerome, exactly; he could not have phrased it better himself. He took half a dozen photographs out of his pocket, including one of Jerome, and passed them over one by one. “Any one of these?”

Albie looked at them each until he came to the right one. He hesitated only for a moment.

“That one,” he said with certainty. “That’s him. I’ve never seen any of the others.”

Pitt took it back. It was a picture taken in the police cells, stiff and unwilling, but it was a clear likeness.

“Thank you. Did he ever bring anyone else with him when he came?”

“No.” Albie smiled very slightly, a wan ghost of expression full of self-knowledge. “People don’t, when they come to places like this. With women they might—I don’t know many women. But they come here alone, especially the gentry, and they’re mostly the ones who can afford it. Others with that sort of taste exercise it with whoever they can find with the same inclination. Usually the higher they are, the quieter they come, the lower their hats and the tighter their collars to their chins. There’s more than one wears false whiskers till he gets inside, and always wants the lamps so low he’s fallen over the furniture before now.” His face was cold with scorn. In his opinion, a man should at least have the courage of his sins. “The more I accommodate them, the worse they hate me for it,” he went on harshly, suddenly finding anger because he was despised and knew it, for all their begging and added money. Sometimes, when he had had a good week and he did not need the funds, he turned someone away for the sheer luxury of humiliating him, of stripping naked his need and exposing it. Next time, and perhaps even for a month or two, the man remembered to say please and thank you, and did not drop the guineas quite so offhandedly on the table.

It was not necessary to put his thoughts into words for Pitt. Similar ideas had been running through Pitt’s imagination: the two bodies locked together in passionate intimacy, the physical need of the man and Albie’s need to survive—each despising the other, and in their hearts hating! Albie, because he was used like a public convenience in which you relieve yourself and then leave for the next man; the other, whatever dim figure it was, because Albie had seen his dependence—his naked soul— and he could not forgive that. Each was master and slave, and each knew it.

Pitt felt a sudden pity and anger—pity for the men, because they were imprisoned in themselves, but anger for Albie, because he had been made into what he was not by nature but by man, and for money. He had been taken as a child and set into this mold. He would almost certainly die in it, probably within a few years.

Why couldn’t Jerome have stayed with Albie, or someone like him? What was it Jerome felt for Arthur Waybourne that Albie had not been able to satisfy? He would probably never know.

“Is that all?” Albie asked patiently. His mind was already somewhere else.

“Yes, thank you.” Pitt stood up. “Don’t go away, or we’ll be obliged to look for you and keep you safe in jail so we have you for the trial.”

Albie looked uncomfortable. “I gave Sergeant Gillivray a statement. He wrote it all down.”

“I know. But we’ll need you all the same. Don’t make things harder for yourself—just be here.”

Albie sighed. “All right. Where have I got to go, anyway? I have clients here. I couldn’t afford to start all over again somewhere else.”

“Yes,” Pitt said. “If I thought you would go, I’d arrest you now.” He walked to the door and opened it.

“You don’t want to do that.” Albie smiled with wan humor. “I’ve too many other clients who wouldn’t like it if I was arrested. Who knows what I might say—if I was questioned too hard? You’re not free either, Mr. Pitt. All sorts of people need me—people far more important than you are.”

Pitt did not grudge him his brief moment of power.

“I know,” he said quietly. “But I wouldn’t remind them of it, Albie—not if you want to stay safe.” He went out and closed the door, leaving Albie sitting on the bed, his arms wrapped around his body as he stared at the prisms on the gaslight.

When Pitt got back to his office, Cutler, the police surgeon, was waiting for him, his face wrinkled in puzzlement. Taking his hat off and flinging it at the stand, Pitt closed the office door. The hat missed and fell on the floor. He pulled his muffler undone and threw it as well. It hung over the antler like a dead snake.

“What is it?” he asked, undoing his coat.

“This man of yours,” Cutler replied, scratching his cheek. “Jerome, the one who is supposed to have killed your body from the Bluegate Fields sewer—”

“What about him?”

“He infected the boy with syphilis?”

“Yes—why?”

“He didn’t, you know! He doesn’t have it. Clean as a whistle. Given him every test I know of—twice. Difficult disease, I know. Goes dormant—can stay like that for years. But whoever gave it to that boy was infectious within the last few months—even weeks—and this man is as clean as I am! I’d swear to that in court—and I’ll have to. Defense will ask me—and if they don’t, I’ll damn well tell them!”

Pitt sat down and shook off his coat, leaving it sprawled over the back of his chair.

“No possibility of a mistake?”

“I told you—I did it twice, and had my assistant check me. The man has not got syphilis or any other venereal disease. Done all the tests on him there are.”

Pitt looked at him. He had a strong face but it was not overbearing. There were lines of humor around the mouth and eyes. Pitt found himself wishing he had time to know him better.

“Have you told Athelstan?”

“No.” This time there was a smile. “I will if you like. I thought you might prefer to do that yourself.”

Pitt stood up and reached out his hand for the written report. His coat slid to the floor in a heap but he did not notice it.

“Yes,” he said, without knowing why. “Yes, I would. Thank you.” He went to the door, and the doctor left to go back up to his work.

Upstairs in his polished and gleaming room, Athelstan was leaning back in his chair contemplating the ceiling when he gave Pitt permission to come in.

“Well?” he said with satisfaction. “Good job young Gillivray did turning up the prostitute, eh? Watch him—he’ll go a long way. Wouldn’t be surprised if I have to promote him in a year or two. Treading on your tail, Pitt!”

“Possibly,” Pitt said without pleasure. “The police surgeon has just given the his report on Jerome.”

“Police surgeon?” Athelstan frowned. “What for? Fellow’s not ill, is he?”

“No, sir, he’s in excellent health—not a blemish, apart from a little dyspepsia.” Pitt felt satisfaction welling up inside him. He looked straight at Athelstan, meeting his eyes. “Perfect health,” he repeated.

“God dammit, man!” Athelstan sat upright sharply. “Who cares if he has indigestion or not! The man perverted, contaminated, and then murdered a decent boy, a good boy! I don’t give a fig if he’s doubled up in agony!”

“No, sir, he’s in excellent health,” Pitt repeated. “The doctor gave him every test he knows of, and then did it again to make sure.”

“Pitt, you’re wasting my time! As long as he’s kept alive and fit for trial, and then hanging, his health is of no interest to me whatsoever. Get on with your job!”

Pitt leaned forward a little, keeping the smile from his face with an effort.

“Sir,” he said carefully. “He doesn’t have syphilis—not a trace!”

Athelstan stared at him; it was a second or two before the meaning of the statement dawned on him.

“Not got syphilis?” he repeated, blinking.

“That’s right. He’s clean as a whistle. Hasn’t got it now— never has had.”

“What are you talking about? He must have it! He gave it to Arthur Waybourne!”

“No, sir, he can’t have. He doesn’t have it,” Pitt repeated.

“That’s absurd!” Athelstan exclaimed. “If he didn’t give it to Arthur Waybourne, then who did?”

“I don’t know, sir. That’s a very interesting question.”

Athelstan swore viciously, then colored with anger because Pitt had seen him lose control of himself and sink to obscenity.

“Well, get out and do something!” he shouted. “Don’t leave everything to young Gillivray! Find out who did give it to that wretched boy! Someone did—find him! Don’t stand there like a fool!”

Pitt smiled sourly, his pleasure sharply diluted with the knowledge of what lay ahead.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do what I can.”

“Good! Get on with it then! And close the door behind you— it’s damn cold out there in the passage!”

The end of the day brought the worst experience of all. He arrived home late, to find Eugenie Jerome waiting in the parlor again. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa with Charlotte, who was pale-faced and, for once, obviously uncertain what to do or say. She stood up the moment she heard Pitt at the door, and rushed to greet him—or perhaps to warn him.

As Pitt entered the room, Eugenie stood up, her body tense, her face composed with an effort that was painful.

“Oh, Mr. Pitt, it is so kind of you to see me!”

He had no choice; he would like to have avoided her. That knowledge made him feel guilty. He could see nothing in his mind’s eye but Albie Frobisher—what a ridiculous name that was for a prostitute!—sitting in the gaslight in his disgusting room. He felt obscurely guilty for that, too, although it was nothing to do with him. Perhaps the guilt was because he knew about it, and had done nothing to fight it, to wipe it out forever.

“Good evening, Mrs. Jerome,” he said gently. “What can I do for you?”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she had to struggle for several seconds to master herself before she could speak distinctly.

“Mr. Pitt, there is no way that I can prove that my husband was at home with me all the night that poor child was killed, because I was asleep and I cannot truly say I know where he was—except that I have never known Maurice to lie about anything, and I believe him.” She pulled a little face as she recognized her own naïveté. “Not that I suppose people would expect the to say anything else—”

“That’s not so, Mrs. Jerome,” Charlotte interrupted. “If you believe he was guilty, you might feel betrayed and wish to see him punished. Many women would!”

Eugenie turned around, her face aghast.

“What a dreadful thought! Oh, how terrible! I do not for even an instant believe it to be true. Certainly Maurice is not an easy man, and there are those who dislike him, I know. He holds very definite opinions, and they are not shared by everyone. But he is not evil. He has no—no appetites of the vile nature they are accusing him of. Of that I am perfectly sure. It is just not the sort of person he is.”

Pitt hid his feelings. She was remarkably innocent for a woman married eleven years. Did she really imagine that Jerome would have permitted her to learn of it if he had?

And yet it surprised him also. Jerome seemed too—too ambitious, too rational to fill the picture that was emerging of him as an emotional, sensual man. Which proved what? Only that people were far more complex, more surprising than it was so easy to suppose.

There was no point in hurting her the more by arguing. If it was better for her to go on believing in his innocence, cherishing the good in what she had had, then why insist on trying to shatter it?

“I can only uncover evidence, Mrs. Jerome,” he said weakly. “It is not in my power to interpret it, or to hide it again.”

“But there must be evidence to prove him innocent!” she protested. “I know he is! Somewhere there must be a way to show that! After all, someone did kill that boy, didn’t they?”

“Oh, yes, he was murdered.”

“Then find who really did it! Please, Mr. Pitt! If not for the sake of my husband, then for the sake of your own conscience—for justice. I know it was not Maurice, so it must be somebody else.” She stopped for a moment, and a more forceful argument came to her mind. “After all if he is left to go free, he may abuse some other child in the same manner, may he not?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But what can I look for, Mrs. Jerome? What other evidence do you think there could be?”

“I don’t know. But you are far cleverer at that sort of thing. It is your job. Mrs. Pitt has told the about some of the marvelous cases you have solved in the past, when it seemed quite hopeless. I’m sure if anyone in London can find the truth, it is you.”

It was monstrous, but there was nothing he could say. After she had gone, he turned on Charlotte furiously.

“What in God’s name have you been telling her?” he demanded, his voice rising to a shout. “I can’t do anything about it! The man’s guilty! You have no right to encourage her to believe—it’s grossly irresponsible—and cruel. Do you know who I saw today?” He had not planned to tell her anything about it. Now he was smarting raw, and he did not want to be alone in his pain. He lashed out with all the clarity of new memory. “I saw a prostitute, a boy who was probably sold into homosexual brothels when he was thirteen years old. He sat there on a bed in a room that looked like a cheap copy of a West End whorehouse—all red plush and gilt-backed chairs, and gas lamps dim in the middle of the day. He was seventeen, but his eyes looked as old as Sodom. He’ll probably be dead before he’s thirty.”

Charlotte stood silent for so long that Pitt began to regret having said what he had. It was unfair; she could not have known what had happened. She was sorry for Eugenie Jerome, and he could hardly blame her for that. So was he—painfully so.