She had rooms at a comfortable address; she made no trouble, paid her rent, and if she had gentlemen callers, what of it? She would admit to no husband, lover, or protector, still less to anything resembling a pimp or a procurer, and the confidence with which she said it made it impossible for Pitt seriously to doubt her.
He walked into his own office weary and disappointed. The best hope seemed the ambitious little maid, and she admitted to the existence of no man who might have cared, except perhaps her employer. Certainly she would be anxious, even desperate not to lose her position and the roof over her head.
The constables were waiting for him.
“Well?” Pitt sat down heavily and took his boots off. His socks were wet enough to wring out. He must have trodden in a puddle, or several.
“Not much,” one of them replied grimly. “Only what you’d expect, poor devils. Can’t see any of them murderin’ anyone, least of all the only bloke what paid ’em a decent bit o’ money. Reckon ’e was like Christmas to them.”
The other one sat up a little straighter. “Mostly the same, but I turned up a couple o’ really experienced bits, addresses what I wouldn’t mind even visitin’, let alone livin’ in. Reckon any feller what goes to them for ’is fun must ’ave money to burn.”
Pitt stared at him, one wet sock in his hand, the dry ones in the drawer forgotten. “What addresses?” he demanded.
The constable recited them. One was the same as that of the women Pitt had found; the other was different, but in the same area. Three prostitutes in business for themselves, and a coincidence? Or at least one very discreet bawdy house?
Up to that point Pitt had had every intention of going straight home. In half his mind he was already there, feet dry, hot soup in his hand, Charlotte smiling at him.
The constables saw the change in his face and resigned themselves. They were constables and he was an inspector; there was nothing else they could do. Brothels did their trade largely at night.
Charlotte had long ago disciplined herself to accept Pitt’s late and erratic hours, but when he was not home by eleven o’clock she could no longer pretend to herself that she was not worried. All sorts of people had accidents, were struck down in the street; policemen especially invited attack by interfering in the affairs of those who made a business of violence. A murdered body could be dumped in the river, dropped down a sewer, or simply left in the rookeries where it might never be found. Who would know one pauper corpse from another?
She had almost convinced herself that something appalling had happened when at midnight she heard the door. She flew down the hallway and flung herself at him. He was thoroughly wet.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “It’s the middle of the night! Are you hurt? What happened to you?”
He heard the rising fear in her voice and swallowed back his instinctive answer. He put both arms around her and held her close, ignoring the fact that he was wetting her dress with the rain still sliding off him.
“Watching a very high-class brothel,” he replied, smiling into her hair. “And you’d be surprised who I saw going in there.”
She pushed him away but still gripped his shoulders. “Why do you care?” she demanded. “What case are you on now?”
“Still Godolphin Jones. Can we go into the kitchen? I’m frozen.”
“Oh!” She looked at herself in disgust. “And you’re soaking!” She turned and led the way smartly back to the kitchen and threw another piece of coal on the stove. One by one she took his wet outer clothes, then his boots and his new socks. Lastly, she made tea with the kettle that had been simmering all evening. Five times she had got up and put more water in it, waiting his return.
“What has Godolphin Jones got to do with brothels?” she asked when she sat down opposite him at last.
“I don’t know, except that most of the women he photographed also work in brothels.”
“You think one of them killed him?” Her face was full of doubt. “Wouldn’t it be pretty hard for a woman to strangle a man, unless she drugged him or hit him first? And why should she, anyway? Didn’t he pay them?”
“He was a blackmailer.” He had not told her about Gwendoline Cantlay or Major Rodney. “Blackmailers often get killed.”
“I’m not surprised. Do you think one of them might have received an offer of marriage, or something of that sort, and wanted her pictures destroyed?”
It was a motive that had not occurred to him. Prostitutes quite often did marry, in their heyday, before their looks were gone and they slowly drifted to lower and lower brothels, earning less and less, and disease began to catch up with them. It was a decided possibility.
“Why were you watching a brothel?” she continued. “What could that tell you?”
“First of all, I wasn’t sure that it was a brothel—”
“But it was?”
“Yes, or, more correctly, a set of apartments used for that purpose; rather more luxurious than a regular brothel, less communal.”
She screwed up her face but said nothing. “I thought I might find a procurer, or a pimp. He could have an excellent motive for getting rid of Godolphin Jones. Maybe Jones was poaching on his women, paying them higher rates and not giving the pimp his cut.”
She looked at him very steadily. The polished pans gleamed on the dresser behind her. One of them was a little askew, and she had missed the handle.
“I think that’s where we’ll find the murderer.” He stretched and stood up, easing his feet now that they were free of their boots. “It’ll have nothing to do with Gadstone Park at all. Or the grave robbers, for that matter, except that he made use of them. Come on up to bed. Tomorrow’ll come too soon as it is.”
In the morning she dished the porridge solemnly, then sat down opposite him instead of getting her own or bothering with Jemima.
“Thomas?”
He poured milk on the porridge and began to eat; there was no time to waste. They had been a little late up anyway.
“What?”
“You said Godolphin Jones was a blackmailer?”
“So he was.”
“Whom did he blackmail, and over what?”
“They didn’t kill him.”
“Who?”
The porridge was too hot, and he was obliged to wait. He wondered if she had done that on purpose.
“Gwendoline Cantlay, over an affaire, and Major Rodney because he was a customer. Why?”
“Could he blackmail a pimp or a procurer? I mean, what would they be afraid of?”
“I don’t know. I should think greed, professional rivalry is far more likely.” He tried the porridge again, a smaller spoonful.
“You said the houses where these women worked were better than ordinary brothels?”
“So they were. Pretty good addresses. What are you getting at, Charlotte?”
She opened her eyes very wide and clear. “Who owns them, Thomas?”
He stopped with the spoon halfway to his mouth.
“Owns them?” he said very slowly, the thought mushrooming in his mind as he stared at her.
“Sometimes the oddest people own property like that,” she went on. “I remember Papa knew someone once who made his money from property leased out as a sweatshop. We never had anything to do with him after we found out.”
Pitt poured milk on the rest of the porridge and ate it in five mouthfuls; pulled on his boots, still damp; grabbed his coat, hat, and scarf; and left the house as if it were a sinking ship. Charlotte did not need an explanation. Her mind was with him, and she understood.
It took him three hours to discover who owned those properties, and six more like them.
Edward St. Jermyn.
Lord St. Jermyn made his money from the rent of brothels and a percentage from each prostitute—and Godolphin Jones knew!