“Good afternoon.” Pitt understood the process exactly, and with a touch of amusement he played it all the way, using his most courteous manner. “I came here by recommendation.” He made sure he stood perfectly straight-shouldered, as if his disastrous clothes were an attempt at passing for a native of the Acre-as indeed they were, but for an entirely different reason. “I have heard from various of my friends”-could Squeaker Harris be termed a friend? — “that you have ladies of far greater quality than any of your competitors.”
The man’s face relaxed. He decided Pitt was a gentleman, after all. His voice, not his clothes, betrayed the man: that beautiful diction, and the bearing.
“That is perfectly true, sir. What kind of quality had you in mind? We have both quality of experience and, if you prefer, quality of breeding-although that, of course, does require a little special arrangement.”
So business was proceeding as usual, in spite of Max’s dramatic demise!
Pitt flared his nostrils a little and widened his eyes, looking very slightly down at the man. “Quality of breeding,” he replied in a tone that suggested there could have been no other answer.
“Quite, sir,” the man replied. “If you would care to make an appointment in advance, I will see that it is arranged. You understand, we can make less deference to individual tastes in such circumstances. But if you care to tell me what coloring, what figure, you prefer, we will endeavor to accommodate you.”
Yes, Max had had more than talent. He had had genius!
“Excellent,” Pitt answered easily. “I like auburn coloring”-automatically he pictured Charlotte-“or, next to that, dark. And I do not care for fat women, nor yet too thin. Don’t give me someone whose bones I can feel!”
“Quite, sir,” the man said again, bowing. “An excellent taste, if I may say so.” He could have been a butler commenting upon a choice of wine for the table. “If you will return in three days’ time, we will provide you with something that will be to your satisfaction. Our financial settlement will be fifty guineas-payable in advance-upon your meeting the lady and believing her acceptable, of course.”
“Naturally,” Pitt replied. “I must say, my friend was correct. You would appear to be by far the most superior establishment in the area.”
“We have no rival, sir,” the man said simply. “Those like Mr. Mercutt, who imagine they can imitate us, are quite inferior-as perhaps you have already heard.”
“Mercutt?” Pitt repeated, frowning a little. “I don’t think I have heard the name?” He let his voice rise, inviting explanation.
“Ambrose Mercutt,” The man’s eyebrows lifted fractionally in disdain. “A most indifferent person, I assure you, sir, but with pretensions.” A duchess might have spoken of a social climber with just such a tone of weary condescension.
Pitt had the name he wanted. He had accomplished all he could here. The local station would know where to find Mr. Mercutt.
“No.” He shook his head. “I cannot think that anyone has mentioned his name to me. He cannot be of any account.” Better to leave the man flattered and secure. Comfortable people betray far more than those who are suspicious.
The man smiled with satisfaction. “Quite, sir-of no account at all. If you care to return at about this time in the afternoon, in three days’ time?”
Pitt inclined his head in agreement and took his leave, equally satisfied.
Inspector Parkins received Pitt with a look of expectant pleasure. The case of Max Burton had been handed over and Parkins was delighted to be rid of it. There were already more than enough unsolved crimes within his responsibility, and this particular one promised little joy.
“Ah! Mr. Pitt, come in. Wretched day. What can I do for you?”
Pitt took off his coat and the appalling hat, then ran his fingers through his hair, making it look as if he had had a bad fright. He sat down in the chair opposite Parkins.
“Ambrose Mercutt?” he asked.
Parkins’ face relaxed into a dry smile. “Ambrose Mercutt,” he repeated. “An elegant pimp with ambitions. You think he might have murdered Max out of a business rivalry?”
“Max was taking his trade.”
Parkins shrugged and raised his eyes. “Do you know how many brothels there are in this area?” It was a rhetorical question.
Pitt took it literally. “About eighty-five thousand prostitutes in London,” he answered.
Parkins put his hands up to his face. “Oh, God-is it that many? I look at them sometimes and wonder how they came to it. Stupid, isn’t it? But there are a couple of thousand at least, here on my patch. We can’t clean them out-and what good would it do anyway? They’d only start up somewhere else. We don’t call it the oldest profession for nothing. And a lot of the patrons are men with money-and power. I dare say you know that as well as I do. A police inspector who made things embarrassing for them would have a good deal more courage than sense.”
Pitt knew it was all ugly and painfully true. “So you didn’t take a lot of interest in Max-or Ambrose Mercutt?”
Parkins pulled a face. “We can’t do everything. Better to concentrate on crimes where there are obvious victims and we can imprison someone, if we catch them-theft, forgery, robbery, assault. There are enough of them to use all our time.”
“Then what is the gossip about Ambrose Mercutt and Max?”
Parkins relaxed again, leaning back in his chair. “Mercutt used to have the carriage trade till Max came along. But Max could provide a better class of women-I’ve heard even a few of distinct breeding. God knows what they’re doing it for!” His face mirrored his complete mystification, an attempt to understand, and defeat. “Yes, Mercutt had good reason to hate Max. But I wouldn’t have thought he was the only one, by any means! Pimping is a very cutthroat business-” He stopped, remembering the literal use of the knife in the crimes.
“Where would Max get women like that?” Pitt spoke his thoughts aloud. “Society is quite capable of providing its own diversions, if some of their women want a little adultery.”
Parkins looked at Pitt with interest. He had worked all his professional life in the Acre or areas like it: White-chapel, Spitalfields, places where he never even spoke to “the Quality.” “Is that so?” Parkins glimpsed a world beyond his own.
Pitt tried very hard not to sound condescending. “I’ve known a few cases that have shown it,” he answered with a small smile.
“Not women?” Parkins was shocked.
Pitt hesitated. Parkins worked in the Devil’s Acre amid its filth and despair; most of its inhabitants were born to live hard and die young. We all need to believe in some ideal, even if it is forever out of reach-dreams are still necessary.
“A few.” He spoke less than the truth. “Only a few.”
Parkins seemed to relax, and the anxiety died out of his face. Perhaps he also knew it was fairyland he imagined, but he wanted it all the same. “Do you want to know where to find Ambrose Mercutt?” he offered.
“Yes, please.” Pitt noted the address Parkins gave him, talked a little longer, then took his leave into the bitter evening. The sky had cleared and the east wind was so sharp on his face that it stung his skin.
The following day, he went first to his office to see if there was any further information, but there was nothing beyond the autopsy report on Hubert Pinchin, which told him only what he already knew. Then he went back to the Acre to find Ambrose Mercutt.
It proved a less easy task than he had first supposed. Ambrose supervised most of his business himself; at eleven o’clock in the morning he was not up, nor did he wish to receive visitors of any sort, least of all from the police. It was half an hour before Pitt prevailed upon his manservant, and Ambrose was brought, protesting, into the pale-carpeted dining room, with imitation Sheraton furniture and erotic paintings from the new “decadent” artists on the walls. He was lean and elegantly effete, clad in a silk dressing robe, his wavy hair falling over half his face, hiding rather wispy eyebrows and pale, puffy-lidded eyes.