“And what about the woman?” he said scathingly. “He just bundled her up and took her back home again? I’m sure he wanted her-after that!”
“I don’t suppose so for a moment.” She sniffed and looked at him impatiently. “But he couldn’t divorce her, could he?”
“Why not? God knows, he would have cause!”
“Oh, Thomas, don’t be ridiculous! No man is going to admit he found his wife in the Devil’s Acre working as a whore! Even if the police weren’t looking for someone with a motive for murder, it would ruin him forever! If there is anything worse than death for a man, it is to be laughed at and pitied at the same time.”
He could not argue. “No,” he said irritably. “He’ll probably kill her, too, but quietly, when he’s ready.”
Her face paled. “Do you think so?”
“Damn it, Charlotte! How should I know? If he’s capable of cutting up her pimp and her lovers, what would stop him leaving her in some more respectable gutter when he’s ready? So you bear that in mind, and stop meddling in things you don’t understand-where you can only do damage by stirring up a lot of suspicions. Remember-if you’re right, he’s got precious little left to lose!”
“I haven’t been-”
“For heaven’s sake, do you think I’m stupid? I don’t know what you’ve been doing with Emily, but I most assuredly know why!”
She sat perfectly still, color high in her cheeks. “I haven’t been anywhere near the Devil’s Acre, and to the best of my knowledge I haven’t spoken to anyone who has!” she said righteously.
He knew from the brilliance of her eyes that she was speaking the literal truth. Anyway, he did not think she would lie to him, not in so many words.
“Not for want of trying,” he said acidly,
“Well, you don’t appear to have got very far either,” she retorted. “I could give you the names of half a dozen women to try. How about Lavinia Hawkesley? She is married to a boring man at least thirty years older than she is. And Dorothea Blandish and Mrs. Dinford and Lucy Abercorn, and what about the new widow Pomeroy? I hear she is very pretty, and she knows one or two people in the fast set.”
“Adela Pomeroy?” He was momentarily startled out of his anger.
“Yes,” she said with satisfaction, seeing his face. “And there are others. I’ll write them down for you.”
“Write them down, then forget the whole thing. Stay at home! This is murder, Charlotte, very ugly and violent murder. And if you go meddling in it you may very well end up dead in a gutter yourself. Do as you are told!”
She said nothing.
“Do you hear me?” He had not meant to, but he was raising his voice. “If you and Emily go blundering about, God knows what lunatic you’ll disturb-presuming you get anywhere near the truth! Far more likely it’s a business vengeance in the Acre and nothing to do with society at all.”
“What about Bertie Astley?” she demanded.
“What about him? He owned a block of buildings in the Acre, a whole street. That’s where the Astley money comes from, their own private slum.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes! Perhaps he had a brothel as well, and he was removed by a rival.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go back and look again, of course! What else?”
“Thomas, please be careful!” She stopped, unsure what more to say.
He knew the dangers, but the alternatives were worse: another murder; public outrage reaching hysteria; Athelstan, afraid for his position, putting more and more pressure on Pitt to arrest someone, anyone, to satisfy Parliament, the church, the patrons of the Acre and other whorehouses all over London. And then terror, fury, and guilt when there was yet another atrocity.
But, perhaps foremost in his own mind, he felt the need to solve this case himself, to solve it before Charlotte, unwinding some thread from Emily’s society connections, started to follow it from the other end and ran into something she could not handle. He had forbidden her to meddle not only because her life could be in great danger, but also because he must demonstrate that he did not need her help.
“Of course I shall be careful,” he said stiffly. “I’m not a fool!”
She gave him a sidelong look and held her tongue.
“And you stay at home and keep out of it!” he added. “You’ve plenty to attend to here without interfering where you can only get into trouble.”
Nevertheless, when he went into the Acre the next day, he took even more care than usual to dress inconspicuously, and to walk with that mixture of sureness of where he was going and the furtive, beaten air of someone whose journey is futile and who knows it.
The day was cold, with gloomy skies and a hard wind blowing up from the river. There was every excuse to pull his hat down and wind his muffler over the bare skin of his face. The sparse gaslights of the Acre glimmered in the murky morning air like lost moons in a sunken, crooked world.
Pitt had a good likeness of Pomeroy, and he intended to find out everything he could about the brothels that catered to customers who liked children. Somewhere in this cesspit he expected to find Pomeroy’s reason for being here, and he believed it had to do with a need the man could not or dared not satisfy in Seabrook Walk. Nothing else would have brought such a prim, almost obsessively meticulous creature into this world.
He had begun the day in Parkins’ office, gathering all the information the local police could give him about brothels that were known to employ children. He was even offered the names of snouts, and small personal secrets that might allow him to exert a little pressure to assure the truth.
But no one was prepared to say that he knew Pomeroy, or had ever catered to him.
By ten that night Pitt was cold, bone-aching tired; he intended to try one more house before going home. There was no point in lying about who he was this time; Ambrose Mercutt’s doorman knew him. It was his job to remember faces.
“Wotcher want?” he demanded angrily. “Yer can’t come ’ere nah, it’s business hours!”
“I’m on business!” Pitt snapped. “And I’m perfectly happy to come and go quietly, and not disturb your customers, if you’ll treat me civilly and answer a few questions.”
The man considered for a moment. He was long and lean and he had half an ear missing. He was dressed in a modishly cut jacket, with a silk kerchief tied around his throat. “Wot’s it worth to yer?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Pitt said immediately. “But I’ll tell you what it’s worth to you: continued employment and a nice pretty neck-no ugly rope burns! Can ruin a man’s future, a hemp collar.”
The man snorted. “I ain’t murdered no one. Duffed up a few wot didn’t know w’en they’d ’ad their money’s worth.” He tittered, showing his long teeth. “But they ain’t makin’ no complaints. Gentlemen as comes to these parts never do! And there ain’t nothin’ you can do, rozzer, as’ll make ’em. Rather the than lay a complaint against a pimp, they would!” He struck a pose and his voice rose to a falsetto. “Please Yer Honor, Mr. Beak, there’s this whore I used, an’ I want to complain as she didn’t give me value fer me money! I wants as yer should make ’er be more obligin’, me lud!” He switched position and put his other hand on his hip, looking down his nose. “Why, certainly, Lord Mud-in-Yer-Eye. You just tell me ’ow much yer paid this ’ere whore, and w’ere I can find ’er, and I’ll see as she gives yer satisfaction!”
“Ever thought of going on the halls?” Pitt asked cheerfully. “You’d have them in the aisles with that.”
The man hesitated; all sorts of glittering possibilities appeared in his mind. He was flattered in spite of himself. He had expected abuse, not appreciation, let alone such a golden idea.
Pitt pulled out the picture of Pomeroy.
“What’s that?” the man asked.
“Know him?” Pitt passed it over. There had been no picture of him in the newspapers.
“What of it? What d’you care?”
“That’s none of your business. Just believe me, I do care-so much so that I shall go on looking until I find someone who catered for his particular tastes. And if I keep on coming round here, that won’t be good for business, now, will it?”