Bluegate Fields (21 page)

“All right, we have only Godfrey and Titus’s word for it,” he argued. “But there was no doubt about Arthur. The police surgeon was positive about it. It couldn’t be a mistake. And why should the other boys lie? It doesn’t make sense! Charlotte, however much you don’t like it, you are standing reason on its head to get away from Jerome! Everything points to him.”

“You are interrupting.” She put the sewing things on the table beside her and pushed them away. “Of course Arthur had a relationship—probably with Albie Frobisher—why not? Maybe that’s where he got his disease. Did anyone test Albie?”

She knew instantly that she had struck home; it was in her face, a mixture of triumph and pity. Pitt felt a cold tide rush up inside him. No one had thought to test Albie. And since Arthur Waybourne was dead, murdered, Albie would naturally be loath to admit having known him! He would be the first suspect; if Albie could have been guilty, it would have suited everyone. None of them had even thought to test him for venereal disease. How stupid! How incredibly, incompetently stupid!

But what about Albie’s identification of Jerome? He had picked out the likeness immediately.

But then what had Gillivray said when he first found Albie? Had he shown him pictures then, perhaps led him into identifying Jerome? It could so easily be done: just a little judicious suggestion, a slight turn of the phrase. “It was this man, wasn’t it?” In his eagerness, Gillivray might not even have been aware of it himself.

Charlotte’s face was puckered, a flush that could have been embarrassment on her cheeks.

“You didn’t, did you.” It was barely a question, more an acknowledgment of the truth. There was no blame in her voice, but that did nothing to assuage the void of guilt inside him.

“No.”

“Or the other boys—Godfrey and Titus?”

The thought was appalling. He could imagine Waybourne’s face if he asked for that—or Swynford’s. He sat upright.

“Oh, God, no! You don’t think Arthur took them—?” He could envision Athelstan’s reaction to such an unspeakable suggestion.

She went on implacably. “Maybe it wasn’t Jerome who molested the other boys—maybe it was Arthur. If he had a taste for it, perhaps he used them.”

It was not impossible, not at all. In fact, it was not even very improbable, given the original premise that Arthur was as much sinning as sinned against.

“And who killed him?” he asked. “Would Albie care about one customer more or less? He must have had hundreds of people come and go in his four years in business.”

“The two boys,” she answered straightaway. “Just because Arthur had a liking for it doesn’t mean they did. Perhaps he could dominate them one at a time, but when they each learned that the other was being similarly used, maybe they got together and got rid of him.”

“Where? In a brothel somewhere? Isn’t that a little sophisticated for—”

“At home!” she said quickly. “Why not? Why go anywhere else?”

“Then how did they get rid of the body without family or servants seeing? How did they get it to a manhole connected with the Bluegate sewers? They live miles from Bluegate Fields.”

But she was not confused. “I daresay one of their fathers did that for them—or perhaps even both, although I doubt it. Probably the father in whose house it happened. Personally, I rather favor Sir Anstey Waybourne.”

“Hide his own son’s murder?”

“Once Arthur was dead, there was nothing he could do to bring him back,” she said reasonably. “If he didn’t hide it, he would lose his second son as well, and be left with no one! Not to mention a scandal so unspeakable the family wouldn’t live it down in a hundred years!” She leaned forward. “Thomas, you don’t seem to realize that in spite of not being able to do up their own boot buttons or boil an egg, the higher levels of society are devastatingly practical when it comes to matters of survival in the world they understand! They have servants to do the normal things, so they don’t bother to do them themselves. But when it comes to social cunning, they are equal to the Borgias any day!”

“I think you’ve got a lurid imagination,” he answered very soberly. “I think I should take a closer look at what you are reading lately.”

“I’m not a pantry maid!” she said with considerable acidity, the temper rising in her face. “I shall read what I please! And it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see three young boys playing around at a rather dangerous game of discovering appetites, and being drawn into perversion by an older boy they trust—and then finding it degrading and disgusting, but being too frightened to deny him. Then joining forces together, and one day, perhaps meaning to give him a good fright, they end up going too far and killing him instead.”

Her voice gathered conviction as she pictured it. “Then of course they are terrified by what has happened, and appeal to the father of one of them, and he sees that the boy is dead and that it is murder. Perhaps it could have been hushed up, explained as an accident, but perhaps not. Under pressure, the ugly truth would come out that Arthur was perverted and diseased. Since nothing could be done now to help him, better to look to the living and dispose of the body where it will never be found.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “Then, of course, when it was found, and all the ugliness comes out, someone has to be blamed. The father knows Arthur was perverted, but maybe he does not know who first introduced him to such practices, and does not wish to believe it was simply his own nature. If the other two boys—frightened of the truth, of saying that Arthur took them to prostitutes—say that it was Jerome, whom they do not like, it is easy enough to believe them, in which case then Jerome is morally to blame for Arthur’s death—let him take the literal blame as well. He deserves to be hanged—so let him be! And by now the two boys can hardly go back on what they have said! How could they dare? The police and the courts have all been lied to, and believed it. Nothing to do but let it go on.”

He sat and thought about it and the minutes ticked by. There was no sound but the clock and the faint hiss of the fire. It was possible—quite possible—and extremely ugly. And there was nothing of any substance to disprove any of it. Why had it not occurred to him before—to any of them? Was it just that it was more comfortable to blame Jerome? They would risk no disturbing reactions by charging him, no threat to any of their careers, even if by mischance they had not, at the last, been able to prove it.

Surely they were better men than that? And they were too honest, were they not, simply to have settled on Jerome because he was pompous and irritating?

He tried to recall every meeting he had had with Waybourne. How had the man seemed? Was there anything in him at all, any shadow of deceit, of extra grief or unexplained fear?

He could remember nothing. The man was confused, shocked because he had lost a son in appalling circumstances: He was afraid of scandal that would further injure his family. Wouldn’t any man be? Surely it was only natural, only decent.

And young Godfrey? He had seemed open, as far as his shock and fear would allow him to be. Or was his singular guilelessness only the mask of childhood, the clear skin and wide eyes of a practiced liar who felt no shame, and therefore no guilt?

Titus Swynford? He had liked Titus, and unless he was very much mistaken, the boy was grieved by the whole course of events—a natural grief, an innocent grief. Was Pitt losing his judgment, falling into the trap of the obvious and the convenient?

It was a distressing thought. But was it true?

He found it hard to accept that Titus and Godfrey were so devious—or, frankly, that they were clever enough to have deceived him so thoroughly. He was used to sifting lies from truth; it was his job, his profession, and he was good at it. Of course he made mistakes—but seldom was he so totally blinded as not even to suspect!

Charlotte was looking at him. “You don’t think that’s the answer, do you?” she said.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “No—it doesn’t feel right.”

“And do you feel right about Jerome?”

He looked at her. He had forgotten lately how much her face pleased him, the line of her cheek, the slight upward wing of her brow.

“No,” he said simply. “No, I don’t think so.”

She picked up the sewing again. The thread slipped out of the needle and she put the end in her mouth to moisten it, then carefully rethreaded it.

“Then I suppose you’ll have to go back and start again,” she said, looking at the needle. “There’s still three weeks’ time left.”

The following morning, Pitt found a pile of new cases on his desk. Most of them were comparatively minor: thefts, embezzlement, and a possible arson. He detailed them to various other officers, one of the privileges of his rank that he made the most of; then he sent for Gillivray.

Gillivray came in cheerfully, his face glowing, shoulders square. He closed the door behind him and sat down before being asked, which annoyed Pitt quite out of proportion.

“Something interesting?” Gillivray inquired eagerly. “Another murder?”

“No.” Pitt was sour. He had disliked the whole case, and he disliked even more having to open it up again, but it was the only way to get rid of the crowding uncertainties in his mind, the vague possibilities that intruded every time his concentration lapsed. “The same one,” he said.

Gillivray was perplexed. “The same one? Arthur Waybourne? You mean someone else was involved? Can we do that? The jury found its verdict. That closes the case, doesn’t it?”

“It may be closed,” Pitt said, keeping his temper with difficulty. He realized Gillivray annoyed him so much because he seemed invulnerable to the things that hurt Pitt. He was smiling and clean, and he walked through other people’s tragedies and emotional dirt without being scathed by them at all.

“It may be closed for the court,” Pitt said, starting, “but I think there are still things we ought to know, for justice’s sake.”

Gillivray looked dubious. The courts were sufficient for him. His job was to detect crime and to enforce the law, not to sit in judgment. Each arm of the machinery had its proper function: the police to detect and apprehend; the barristers to prosecute or to defend; the judge to preside and see that the procedures of the law were followed; the jury to decide truth and fact. And in due course, if necessary, the warders to guard, and the executioner to end life rapidly and efficiently. For any one arm to usurp the function of another was to put the whole principle in jeopardy. This was what a civilized society was about, each person knowing his function and place. A good man fulfilled his obligation to the limit of his ability and, with good fortune, rose to a better place.

“Justice is not our business,” Gillivray said at last. “We’ve done our job and the courts have done theirs. We shouldn’t interfere. That would be the same as saying that we don’t believe in them.”

Pitt looked at him. He was earnest, very composed. There was a good deal of truth in what he said, but it altered nothing. They had been clumsy, and it was going to be painful to try to rectify it. But that did not alter the necessity.

“The courts judge according to what they know,” he answered. “There are things they should have known, that they did not because we neglected to find them out.”

Gillivray was indignant. He was being implicated in dereliction of duty, and not only him, but the entire police force above him, even the lawyers for the defense, who ought to have noticed any omission of worth.

“We didn’t explore the possibility that Jerome was telling the truth,” Pitt began, before Gillivray interrupted him.

“Telling the
truth?
” Gillivray exploded, his eyes bright and furious. “With respect, Mr. Pitt—that’s ridiculous! We caught him in lie after lie! Godfrey Waybourne said he interfered with him, Titus Swynford said the same. Abigail Winters identified him! Albie Frobisher identified him! And Albie alone has to be damning. Only a perverted man goes to a male prostitute. That’s a crime in itself! What else could you want, short of an eyewitness? It isn’t even as if there was another suspect!”

Pitt sat back in his chair, and let himself slide down till he was resting on the base of his spine. He put his hands into his pockets and touched a ball of string he carried, a lump of sealing wax, a pocketknife, two marbles he had picked up in the street, and a shilling.

“What if the boys were lying?” he suggested. “And the relationship was among themselves, the three of them, and had nothing to do with Jerome?”

“Three of them?” Gillivray was startled. “All—” He did not like to use the word, and would have preferred some genteelism that avoided the literal. “All perverted?”

“Why not? Perhaps Arthur was the only one whose nature it was, and he forced the others to go along.”

“Then where did Arthur get the disease?” Gillivray hit on the weak point with satisfaction. “Not from two innocent young boys he drove into such a relationship by force! They certainly didn’t have it!”

“Don’t they?” Pitt raised his eyebrows. “How do you know?”

Gillivray opened his mouth; then realization flooded his face, and he closed it again.

“We don’t—do we!” Pitt challenged. “Don’t you think we should find out? He may have passed it on to them, however innocent they are.”

“But where did he get it?” Gillivray still held to his objection. “The relationship can’t have involved only the three of them. There must have been someone else!”

“Quite,” Pitt conceded. “But if Arthur was perverted, perhaps he went to Albie Frobisher and contracted it there. We didn’t test Albie either, did we?”

Gillivray was flushed. There was no need of admission; he saw the neglect immediately. He despised Albie. He should have been aware of the possibility and put it to the proof without being told. It would have been easy enough. And certainly Albie would have been in no position to protest.

“But Albie identified Jerome,” he said, going back to more positive ground. “So Jerome must have been there. And he didn’t recognize the picture of Arthur. I showed him one, naturally.”

“Does he have to be telling the truth?” Pitt inquired with an affectation of innocence. “Would you take his word in anything else?”