Bluegate Fields (29 page)

Pitt had seen dozens of clerks like that, pale-faced, starch-collared, models of rectitude because they dared not be anything else. Economic necessity, together with the need to live by society’s rules, was a total taskmaster.

So people like Abigail Winters made a living.

The arson inquiry proved surprisingly fruitful. To be honest, he had expected Gillivray’s leads to be the real ones, and it gave him a perverse satisfaction when his own turned up the answer. He took a statement, wrote it carefully, and put it in his pocket. Then, since he was only two streets away and it was still early, he walked to the house where Abigail Winters lived.

The old woman at the door looked at him with surprise.

“My, you’re an early one!” she said with a sneer. “Can’t yer let them girls get any sleep?”

“I want to talk to Abigail Winters,” he replied with a slight smile, hoping it would soften her.

“Talk, eh? That’s a new one,” she said with heavy disbelief. “Well, it don’t matter wot yer do—time’s time just the same. Yer pays by the hour.” She held out her hand, rubbing her fingers together.

“Why should I pay you?” He made no move.

“ ’Cause this is my ’ouse,” she snapped. “And if yer wants to come in an’ see one o’ my girls, then yer pays me. Wot’s the matter wiv yer—’aven’t yer never bin ’ere before?”

“I want to talk to Abigail, nothing more, and I have no intention of paying you for that,” he replied sternly. “I’ll talk to her in the street, if necessary.”

“Oh, will yer then, Mr. Fancy?” she said with a hard edge to her voice. “We’ll see abaht that!” And she started to slam the door.

Pitt was very much larger than she was, and stronger. He put his foot next to the frame and leaned on the door.

“ ’Ere!” she said angrily. “You try ter force yer way in ’ere, an’ I’ve got boys as’ll do yer over till yer own muvver won’t knew yer! Yer no beauty now—but yer’ll be a rare sight when they’ve finished, and that’s a promise!”

“Threatening me, are you?” Pitt inquired calmly.

“Now you’ve got it!” she agreed. “An’ I’ll do it yer better believe!”

“That’s a pretty serious offense—threatening a police officer.” He met her sharp old eyes squarely. “I could have you up for that and put in Coldbath Fields for a spell. How would you like that? Fancy picking oakum for a while?”

She paled under the grime on her face.

“Liar!” she spat. “Yer no fuzz!”

“Oh, yes, I am. Investigating a case of arson.” That was true, if not the completely so. “Now where’s Abigail Winters?—before I get unpleasant, and come back with force!”

“Bastard!” she said. But the venom had gone out of her voice, and there was a certain satisfaction underlying it. Her mouth widened into a stump-toothed smile. “Well, you can’t see ’er, Mr. Fuzz—’cause she ain’t ’ere! Left here after that there trial. Gorn to see ’er cousin or suffink, up in the country. An’ it’s no use yer askin’ where to, ’cause I dunno, and nor do I care! Could be any place. If’n yer wants ’er that bad, yer’d better go an’ look.” She gave a dry little laugh. “Course yer can come and search the place—if yer wants?” She pulled the door wider, invitingly. An odor of cabbage and drains hit his nose, but he had smelled it too often before for it to make him sick.

He believed her. And if his persistent, almost silenced suspicions were right after all, it was not unlikely Abigail had gone. All the same, it would be negligent not to make sure.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’ll come and look.” Please God her bullyboys were not inside waiting to beat him in the privacy of this warren of rooms. She might have them do it—just in revenge for the insult. Then, on the other hand, if she believed he was a police officer, such an act would be stupid, even ruinous to her business—a luxury she could most definitely not afford. The very name of Coldbath Fields was enough to sober anyone from the intoxication of revenge.

Pitt followed her inside and along the corridor. The place had a dead look about it, almost unused, like a music hall in daylight when all the tinsel and laughter has gone, and the kindness of concealing shadows.

She opened the rooms for him, one after another. He peered in at the rumpled beds, shabby in the dim light, and girl after girl turned over and stared at him out of blurred eyes, faces still smudged with paint, and swore at him for disturbing them.

“Rozzer come ter take a look atcher,” the old woman said maliciously. “ ’E’s lookin’ fer Abbie. I tell’d ’im she ain’t ’ere, but ’e wants ’er that bad ’e’s come ter look fer ’isself. ’E don’t believe me!”

He did not bother to argue. He had believed her, but he could not afford to take the one chance in a hundred that she was lying. For his own sake, he had to be sure.

“There now!” she said triumphantly at the end. “Believe me now, do yer? Owes me an apologizement, Mr. Rozzer! She ain’t ’ere!”

“Then you’ll have to do instead, won’t you!” he said acidly, and was pleased to see the start of surprise in her face.

“I dunno nuffink! Yer don’t fink no toff comes ’ere and lies wiv me, do yer? Toffs ain’t no diff’rent to no one else wiv their trousers orf! They likes ’em all sorts, ’ceptin’ old.”

Pitt wrinkled his nose at her crudity. “Rubbish!” he said sharply. “You’ve never seen a real gentleman in your life—and certainly not here!”

“It’s wot Abigail said, an’ I ’eard ’er,” the old woman argued, looking at him closely. “An’ said in a court o’ law she did, too. I was read it out o’ the newspapers. Got a girl ’ere wot can read, I ’ave. She was in service till she lost ’er character.”

An idea materialized in Pitt’s mind, suddenly and without warning.

“Did Abigail say it to you before she said it in the court, or afterwards?” he asked quietly.

“Afterwards, the thievin’ little cow!” The old woman’s face creased with anger and outrage. “Wasn’t goin’ ter tell me abaht it, she wasn’t! Goin’ ter keep it all fer ’erself—when I provides ’er room and lodgin’ and protection! Ungrateful bitch!”

“You’re getting careless.” Pitt looked at her with contempt. “Letting a couple of well-heeled gentlemen in here and not collecting your share. And you must have known men dressed like that could pay—and well, too!”

“I never saw them—you fool!” she spat. “Yer fink I’d ’a let ’em walk past me if’n I ’ad, do yer?”

“What’s the matter—fall asleep at your post?” Pitt’s lip curled. “You’re getting too old—you should give it up and let someone with a more careful eye take over. You’re probably being robbed every night of the week.”

“No one comes through this door wivout I knows it!” she shouted at him. “I got you quick enough, Mr. Rozzer!”

“This time,” he agreed. “Any of the other girls see these gentlemen you missed?”

“If they did and didn’t tell me, I’ll ’ave their thievin’ ’ides!”

“You mean you haven’t asked them? My, but you
are
losing your hold on the game,” he jeered.

“O’ course I arst ’em!” she shouted. “An’ vey didn’t! Nobody takes me for a fool! I’ll ’ave my boys beat the skin orf any girl as takes advantage—and they knows it!”

“But still Abigail did.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or did you have your boys beat her for it already—maybe a little too hard— and she ended up dead in the river? Maybe we should have a better look for Abigail Winters, do you think?”

Her skin went white under the rime of dirt.

“I never touched the thievin’ cow!” she shrieked. “An’ neither did the boys! She gave the ’arf the money and I never touched ’er! She went into the country, I swear on the muvver’s grave! You’ll never prove I ’armed an ’air on ’er ’ead, ’cause I never did—none of us never did.”

“How often did these particular toffs come and see Abigail?”

“Once—as I knows of—just once—that’s wot she said.”

“No, she didn’t. She said they were regular customers.”

“Then she’s a liar! You think I don’t know the own ’ouse?”

“Yes—I’m beginning to think so. I’d like to talk to the rest of your girls, especially this one that can read.”

“You got no right! They ain’t done nuffink!”

“Don’t you want to know if Abigail was stealing you blind, and they were helping her?”

“I can find art the own ways—I don’t need yer ’elp!”

“Don’t you? Seems like you didn’t even know about it at all before.”

Her face narrowed with suspicion. “Wot’s it to you anyway? Why should you care if Abigail cheated me?”

“Nothing at all. But I do care how often those two came here. And I’d like to know if any of your other girls recognize them.” He fished in his pocket and brought out a picture of the suspected arsonist. “That him?”

“Dunno,” she said, squinting at it. “So wot if it is?”

“Fetch me the girl who can read.”

She obeyed, cursing all the way, and brought back a tousle-headed girl, half asleep, still looking like a housemaid in her long white nightshirt. Pitt handed her the picture.

“Is that the man who came to see Abigail, the one who brought the boy she told about in court?”

“You answer ’im, my girl,” the old woman warned. “Or I’ll ’ave Bert tan yer ’ide fer yer till it bleeds, you ’ear me?”

The girl took the picture and looked at it.

“Well?” Pitt asked.

The girl’s face was pale, her fingers shook.

“I don’t know—honest. I never saw them. Abbie just told me about it after.”

“How long after?”

“I dunno. She never said. After it all came out. I s’pose she wanted to keep the money.”

“You never saw them?” Pitt was surprised. “Who did, then?”

“No one that I know of. Just Abbie. She kept them to herself.” She stared at Pitt, her eyes hollow with fear, although he did not know whether it was him she was afraid of or the old woman and the unseen Bert.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, giving her a sad little half smile, all he could afford of pity. To have looked at her closely, thought about her, would have been unbearable. She was only a miniscule part of something he could not change. “Thank you—that was what I wanted to know.”

“Well, I’m damned if I can tell why!” the old woman said derisively. “No use—that is!”

“You’re probably damned anyway,” Pitt replied coldly. “And I’ll have the local rozzers keep an eye on your place—so no beating the girls, or we’ll shut you down. Understand?”

“I’ll beat who the ’ell I want to!” she said, and swore at him, but he knew she would be careful, at least for a while.

Outside in the street, he started back toward the main thoroughfare, and an omnibus that would take him to the station. He did not look for a hansom; he wanted time to think.

Brothels were not private places, and a procuress like the old woman did not allow men to pass in and out without her knowing; she could not afford to. The levy on their passage was her livelihood. If her girls started sneaking in customers and not paying her share of the takings, word would get around and in a month she would be out of business.

So how was it possible that Jerome and Arthur Waybourne had been there and no one had seen them? And would Abigail, with her future to think of, a roof over her head—would she have dared keep a customer secret? Many a girl had been scarred for life for retaining too much of her own earnings. And Abigail had been in the business long enough to know that; she would know of “examples” that had been made of the greedy and the overambitious. She was not stupid; neither was she clever enough to carry off such a fraud, or she would not have been working for that evil old woman.

Which left the question that had been burning at the back of his mind, inching its way forward till it came into sharp, clear focus. Had Jerome and Arthur Waybourne ever been there at all?

The only reason to suppose they had was Abigail’s word. Jerome had denied it, Arthur was dead; and no one else had seen them.

But why should she lie? She had appeared out of nowhere; she had nothing to defend. If Jerome had not been there, then she had had to share with the old woman a good portion of money that she had never received.

Unless, of course, she had received it for something else. For what? And from whom?

For the lie, of course. For saying that Jerome and Arthur Waybourne had been there. But who had wanted her to say that?

The answer would be the name of Arthur’s murderer. Which Pitt now clearly thought was not Maurice Jerome.

But all this conjecture was still not proof. For even a doubt reasonable enough to reopen the case, he must have the name of someone besides Jerome who might have paid Abigail. And of course he would also have to see Albie Frobisher and look a good deal more closely into his testimony.

In fact, he thought, that would be a good thing to do now.

He walked past the omnibus stop, turned the corner, and hurried down the long, drab street. He hailed a hansom and climbed in, shouting directions.

Albie’s rooming house was familiar: the wet matting just past the door, then the bright red beyond, the dim stairs. He knocked on the door, aware that there might be a customer already there. But his sense of urgency would not let him wait to make a more convenient arrangement.

There was no answer.

He knocked again, harder, as if he meant to force it if he were not admitted.

Still there was no reply.

“Albie!” he said sharply. “I’ll push this door in if you don’t answer!”

Silence. He put his ear to the door and there was no sound of movement inside.

“Albie!” he shouted.

Nothing. Pitt turned and ran down the stairs, along the red-carpeted hallway to the back where the landlord had his quarters. This establishment was different from the brothel where Abigail worked. Here there was no procurer guarding the door. Albie paid a high rent for his room; customers came and went in privacy. But then it was a richer, different class of clientele, far more guarded with their secrets. To visit a woman prostitute was an understandable lapse, a little indiscretion that a man of the world turned a blind eye to. To pay for the services of a boy was not only a deviation too disgusting to be condoned, it was also a crime, opening one to all the nightmares of blackmail.

He knocked sharply on the door.

It opened a crack and a bilious eye looked out at him.

“ ’Oo are yer? Wot d’yer want?”