Death in the Devil's Acre (12 page)

Pitt wanted to be equally rude in return, to tell her what be believed good taste really was: a matter of self-mastery, of consideration so that you did not avoidably discomfort others, least of all those unable to retaliate. “I shall try to, ma’am,” he said simply. “Mr. Beau Astley tells me that Sir Bertram expected to dine here yesterday evening. Did he in fact do so?”

They did not invite him to sit down, and Mrs. Woolmer still remained standing, on guard. “Yes he did,” she answered bluntly.

“What time did he leave?”

“A little after eleven. I cannot tell you precisely.”

“Was he in good health, and good spirits?” It was almost a meaningless question. If they had had a furious quarrel, neither of these women would be in the least likely to tell him.

“Excellent.” Mrs. Woolmer lifted her chin. “Sir Bertram was always most happy here. He was devoted to my daughter. In fact, he had approached me with a view to asking for her hand.” She took a breath, and a shadow of indecision flickered across her face.

Was that a lie that no one could now disprove? No—Beau Astley had said much the same. Then why the doubt? Had there been some ill-feeling last night, a change of mind?

“I am most distressed for you, ma’am,” he said automatically. “Did Sir Bertram say anything about where he intended to go after he left here?”

Her eyebrows went up. “Why—home, I assume!”

“I can’t understand it.” May spoke for the first time. She had a pleasant voice, a little soft, but agreeably low. “I simply cannot understand it at all.”

“Of course you can’t!” Mrs. Woolmer said irritably. “It is incomprehensible to any person of decency. One may only assume he was kidnapped. That is the course you should follow, Mr.—” She disregarded his name, hunching one shoulder to indicate its unimportance. “Poor Sir Bertram must have been abducted. Then when the perpetrators of this crime became aware of whom they had taken, they were afraid—”

“Perhaps Bertie fought them?” May suggested. Tears came to her eyes. “How brave of him! He would!”

Mrs. Woolmer liked that explanation. “It is perfectly dastardly! That is what must have occurred, I am sure of it. I don’t know why we pay the police, when they allow such things to happen!”

Pitt had already questioned the Astley coachman over luncheon. “Sir Bertram did not leave in his own carriage?” he said aloud.

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Woolmer had expected an apology or an attempt at defense, not this extraordinary question.

“No,” May answered for her. “He dismissed his own brougham, and then had Willis call him a hansom. We offered to have our carriage take him, but he would not hear of it. He was most considerate.” She dabbed at her cheek with her handkerchief. “Most.”

“If only we had been more persuasive, he might not have been abducted!” Mrs. Woolmer still directed the accusation at Pitt; it was the police who were at fault. People of quality should not have to protect themselves from blackguards in the streets.

It was possible that Astley had been abducted, but extremely unlikely. Still, if the Woolmers did not know of his habit of occasionally slumming in the Devil’s Acre, there was no point in telling them now. They would probably not believe him anyway. And perhaps this anger was their way of encountering grief; it was not uncommon. In illness it was the doctor who could not save who received the blame; in crime it was the police.

Pitt looked at them; May still adhered to the rules for a young lady’s behavior. None of the awkwardness of real grief showed yet. Her feet were tucked carefully on the chaise longue, her skirt draped in the most modestly becoming folds. Her hands were twisted a little in her lap, but they were still beautiful; the lines were composed, serene. She could have sat just so for a neoclassical painter, had they removed three-quarters of the decoration from the tables and the pianoforte behind her.

Mrs. Woolmer was bracing herself like Britannia to repel the foe. They were both gathering their thoughts out of the confusion, and would betray nothing yet. There was no point in pressing them. They had not really understood. In time, it would come—perhaps a memory of some word or gesture that mattered.

“He left in a hansom about eleven,” he repeated. “And, as far as you know, he was in good health and spirits, and intended returning directly home.”

“Precisely,” Mrs. Woolmer agreed. “I do not know what else you imagined we could tell you.”

“Only the time, ma’am, and the means of transport. And that as far as you know, he had no intention of calling upon anyone else.”

She blew down her nose with a little snort, reminding him of a dray horse. “Then if that is all, perhaps you would be kind enough to take your leave, and permit us to be alone.”

He went outside, past the footman and down the step into the street. He started to walk east again, facing into the wind. He wondered what May Woolmer was like when her mother was not present. Had Bertram Astley loved her? She was undoubtedly handsome, and well mannered enough to make any gentleman a wife acceptable to Society. Did she also have wit and courage, the honesty to laugh at herself and to praise others without grudge? Was she gentle? Or had Bertie Astley even considered such things? Perhaps beauty and a temperate disposition were enough. They were for most men.

And what was it he had seen in Beau Astley’s face at the instant thought of May, even in the moment of his own bereavement? Had that been love also?

He would have to remember next time he saw him that he was now Sir Beau! And presumably a considerably wealthier man. After the appropriate interval, would he step into his brother’s shoes and marry May Woolmer as well? It was not unlikely that Mrs. Woolmer would do her best to see that he did. There were not so many eligible young men around with titles and money, and it was late in the year—the next Season was almost on them.

Pitt pulled his coat collar up; the east wind had a breath of sleet in it. He hated the thought of examining the private failures and weaknesses of the Astleys’ lives.

In the morning he was sent for by his superior.

Dudley Athelstan was standing in his office. His suit fit him as immaculately as the tailor’s art could contrive, but his tie was askew and his collar seemed too tight for him. The morning’s newspapers lay spread over his great desk.

“Pitt! Pitt, come in. We’ve got to do something about this—it’s appalling! Commissioner’s been to see me about it, came here himself. Next thing I’ll be getting letters from the Prime Minister!”

“Over three murders in a slum?” Pitt looked at the chaos on the desk and at Athelstan’s flushed face. “There’ll be a new society scandal for them to talk about in a day or two, and they’ll forget it.”

“You swear that?” Athelstan’s eyes bulged and he threw his hands up. “You’ll arrange one, will you? Great heaven, man, have you got any idea what this latest murder has done? Decent men are terrified to—” He stopped abruptly.

“To go into the Devil’s Acre?” Pitt finished for him, smiling.

Athelstan grunted. “It’s all very well for you to be pious, Pitt. You don’t have to explain yourself to these people—thank God!—or we’d have the whole police force thrown out on its ear! Some very influential men find the odd entertainment in establishments like Max Burton’s. They accept the risk of being overcharged, even robbed outright in the street, or the occasional roughing up. But being murdered and emasculated! God—it doesn’t bear thinking of! And the scandal, the shame!”

“Perhaps it’s an ardent reformer trying to put the whorehouses out of business,” Pitt said, his tongue in his cheek.

“Damn your impertinence,” Athelstan replied without heat. “This is no time for levity, Pitt.” He ran his fingers inside his collar to ease it. “I’ve got to get this solved and the maniac responsible in Bedlam, where he belongs. And I don’t care if he’s a demented clergyman trying to clear up hell single-handed, or a greedy pimp who thinks he can carve himself an empire. What have you got so far?”

“Very little, sir—”

“Don’t make excuses, damn it! Facts, witnesses—what do we know?”

Pitt repeated the few medical facts.

“That’s not much use!” Athelstan said desperately.

“No witnesses,” Pitt added.

“None at all?”

Pitt shrugged with a faint smile. “Did you expect any? Do any of your outraged correspondents say they were there?”

Athelstan gave him a filthy look. “What about other pimps—whores, vagrants—anyone?”

“No.”

Athelstan shut his eyes. “Damn! Damn! Damn! We’ve got to get this tidied up, Pitt.” He put his hands to his face. “Can you imagine what they’ll do to us if the next victim is one of the nobility, or a member of Parliament? They’ll crucify us!”

“What do they expect us to do? Patrol the streets of the Acre where the whorehouses are?”

“Don’t be idiotic! They want us to get rid of this lunatic and get things back to normal.” He stared at Pitt, his eyes pleading. “And we’ve got to do it! Find your snouts, your informers—use money if necessary. Not much, mind! Don’t lose your head! Someone’ll talk, someone knows. Look for motives, rivalries, jealousy. See who was losing money. My advice is find who killed the pimp Max, and the rest will follow. What is the connection between Max and this Dr. Pinchin?”

“We haven’t found one yet.” Pitt, aware of his failure, felt his face tighten.

“Well, get out there and look for it!” Athelstan clenched his fists. “And for God’s sake find it, Pitt! Lock someone up. We’ve got to stop this—this—” His hand knocked the nearest newspaper onto the floor, exposing a pile of letters on embossed notepaper. “They’re panicking! Important people are very upset!”

Pitt shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yes—I’m sure they are.”

“Well, get on with it!” Athelstan shouted in exasperation. “Get out there and do something!”

“Yes, sir.”

Accordingly, Pitt went back to the Devil’s Acre to question Ambrose Mercutt more precisely over his rivalry with Max. He found him dressed in a scarlet robe with velvet collar and cuffs, and in a remarkably ill humor.

“I don’t know what on earth you expect of me!” he said exasperatedly. “I’ve no idea who killed the wretched man! I’ve already told you everything I can think of. Good heavens, he had enough enemies!”

“You seem to be the most obvious among them, Mr. Mercutt.” Pitt was armed with the additional research of two more constables, and was in no frame of mind to be patronized by an effete pimp dressed in a red robe at ten o’clock in the morning. “Max Burton had taken a considerable amount of your custom, and at least four of your best whores. He was a very great threat to your livelihood.”

“Nonsense!” With a wave of his long fingers, Ambrose dismissed the idea as ludicrous. “I told you before, women come and go. And in time they’d have left Burton and gone to someone else anyway. It was nothing out of the ordinary. If you were remotely competent at your job, Inspector, you would start looking at some of those married women he used! Try Louisa Crabbe! I’ll wager you haven’t even thought of that, have you?” His eyes gleamed with malicious satisfaction as he saw Pitt’s surprise. “No—I thought not! I wonder what Albert Crabbe thought of Max? I’ll wager he’d have been delighted to cut him to pieces in the most disgustingly intimate way!” He screwed up his face. Such vulgarity was offensive. He made a more than comfortable living out of the physical appetites of others, but he found such things distasteful himself. He sat down and crossed his legs.

The thought flickered through Pitt’s mind that Louisa Crabbe was an invention, but Ambrose’s face was too secure, too satisfied.

“Indeed,” Pitt said with as little expression as he could. “And where do I find this Albert Crabbe?”

Ambrose smiled. “My dear Inspector, are you completely incapable? How in God’s name do I know? Look through Max’s books—there’s bound to be some record of how he contacted her. He suited the women to the client, you know. This is not a merely haphazard business. One has to have a certain flair! We at this end of the market are not common, take-your-chance whorehouses!”

“Thank you,” Pitt said sarcastically. “I confess I had not fully appreciated your entrepreneurial art.”

“What?”

Pitt did not bother to explain. He felt a flicker of satisfaction, but it was a poor victory, and he knew it. The aftertaste was thin.

“I imagine Louisa Crabbe was not the only one—simply the only one whose name you care to give me,” Pitt said.

“I told you, Inspector, Max Burton was of no importance to me.” Ambrose’s face was smooth again, unconcerned. “I didn’t bother to keep up with his comings and goings. Why should I? I have a steady clientele and I do very nicely. Naturally there were those he hurt in the way of taking their business. If I were you, I’d ask the Daltons. They’re in the cheap end of the trade. I dare say they had cause to be upset with Max.”

Pitt could go back to the police station and find out about the Daltons, but he could not be bothered to pretend. His pride was not worth it. “Where are they?” he asked.

A smile of superiority touched Ambrose’s mouth. “Crossgate Street. Really, Inspector, what would you do without me?”

“Ask someone else,” Pitt replied. “Don’t tempt me to think. If the Devil’s Acre were not such a cesspit, I’d be inclined to work for one whorehouse the fewer.” He glanced round the pale room. “But what difference would it make? Have you ever read of the labors of Hercules?”

Ambrose knew he was being insulted both directly and obscurely. He resented the one he did not understand the more.

“No, perhaps not,” Pitt answered his own question. “Look up the Augean Stables sometime. We might consider diverting the Thames!”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about!” Ambrose snapped. “Hadn’t you better get on with your job? It doesn’t strike me you’ve made so much progress that you can afford to stand around here wasting your time—and mine!”

It was hurtfully true. And with Hubert Pinchin and Bertie Astley also dead, the motive for the murder of Max was becoming less and less important anyway.

“Was Sir Bertram Astley ever a customer of yours?” Pitt asked as a parting shot from the doorway.