Death in the Devil's Acre (7 page)

“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.

Pitt could see instantly why Max had succeeded him as the proprietor for the carriage trade. Max had had a sensuality himself that would attract the women who worked for him, and a taste of his own to appreciate and select the best new whores for the trade—perhaps even teach them a little? Nature had given him an advantage that Ambrose, with all his intelligence, could not hope to emulate.

“I’ve never heard of you!” Ambrose said, his eyes wide, looking Pitt up and down. “You must be new in the Acre. I can’t imagine what you want here. I have some very good custom. You’d be foolish to make life—awkward—for me, Inspector.” His paused as if to see if Pitt had the mental agility to understand him.

Pitt smiled. “I believe you do have some very good custom,” he agreed coolly. “But perhaps not as much as you had before Max Burton moved into the trade?”

Ambrose was shaken. His hand moved down his body and tightened on his silk robe, pulling it a little further around himself. “Is that what you’re here about, Max’s murder?”

So he was not going to pretend to be stupid. That was a relief. Pitt was not in the frame of mind to play games with him. “Yes. I’m not interested in your other affairs. But Max took a lot of your business, and maybe some of your women as well—and don’t waste time in denying it.”

Ambrose shrugged and turned away. “It’s a chancy trade. You do better one year, worse another—depends on your girls. Max was doing well now—his girls would have left in time. High-class women always do. Either they get bored, or settle their debts, or they marry someone and get out of it altogether. He wouldn’t have lasted.”

Perhaps Ambrose had talked himself into believing this, but personally Pitt thought Max would have been well able to replace any women that left.

Ambrose must have sensed his doubts. He turned back and stared at Pitt defiantly. “Ever wondered—Inspector”—his voice was very delicately sarcastic, as if the title were ill-deserved—“ever wondered just how Max got the quality of women he did? Women like his don’t take to whoring in the Devil’s Acre, you know, just for a little diversion! There’s plenty of whoring to be had in their own circle, if that’s all they want. Surprises you, that, does it?” He looked into Pitt’s eyes and saw that it did not. His face hardened.

“If you want to find out who murdered Max and then castrated him, look among the husbands or lovers of some of the highborn women he’s brought in here! Believe me, if I simply wanted a business rival removed, I should stick a knife into him, by all means, and then throw him into the river—or put him in one of the rat holes deep inside the Acre. I wouldn’t cut him about and then leave him where he’d be found by you lot! No, Inspector”—again he hesitated fractionally, making the title an insult—“look at some man he cuckolded, or whose wife or daughter he’s seduced into whoredom.”

Pitt led him further. “And how would he seduce a wellborn woman into whoredom?” he asked with a trace of doubt. “For that matter, where would he even meet one?”

“He used to be a footman somewhere. He probably knew other ‘menservants.’” Ambrose used the word to convey all his hatred and contempt for Max and his class in general. “Probably blackmail. That’s where your murderer is, believe me!”

“Perhaps,” Pitt conceded with an affectation of far more reluctance than he felt. Much as he disliked Ambrose, what he said made excellent sense. “Then what about Dr. Hubert Pinchin?”

Ambrose threw up his hands theatrically. “God knows! Perhaps he was the one who did the blackmailing. Maybe he used his medical practice to find these women, or to discover their secrets. Maybe they were partners. How should I know? Do you want me to do your entire job for you?”

Pitt smiled and saw a trace of irritation on Ambrose’s face; he had meant to offend, not amuse.

“I’m always glad of a little expert help,” Pitt replied softly. “I’ve worked on a few murders, one sort and another. Arson, burglary—know a lot about fine art—but keeping a whorehouse is outside my experience.”

Ambrose drew a sharp breath to retort, but he did not find the words before Pitt had turned and left the elegant room of pale décor and Ambrose himself standing in his silk robe in the middle of it.

Pitt went out into the rainy, gray-walled street. He felt a glow of satisfaction for at least having been thoroughly rude.

And there was also a strong possibility that Ambrose was right.

L
ADY
A
UGUSTA
BALANTYNE
was not looking forward to the morning. She had decided that she could no longer put off visiting her daughter Christina to discuss her behavior in the frankest terms. Christina and Alan Ross would be at the family dinner party this evening, but what Augusta had to say required uninterrupted privacy. As in the past when dealing with Christina’s indiscretions, Augusta intended to keep the entire matter from General Balantyne’s knowledge. He might be an excellent military tactician when he had cannon and horses to dispose, but when the battle concerned emotions and the possibility of scandal, he was a babe in arms.

Over breakfast she maintained a civilized conversation about the usual trivialities. General Balantyne, of course, did not mention the murders in the Devil’s Acre that filled the newspapers, in case he should distress her—not realizing that she had read them for herself. And she was perfectly happy to leave him in his ignorance, if it pleased him.

At ten o’clock Lady Augusta called the carriage and gave the coachman instructions to take her to her daughter’s house. She was received with some surprise.

“Good morning, Mama!”

“Good morning, Christina.” She walked in, for once not bothering to notice if the flowers were fresh or if there were new ornaments—not even if Christina’s gown was the very latest. She had already made her comments on extravagance; from now on it was Alan Ross’s affair. Today something infinitely more serious filled her mind.

Christina still looked surprised. “I have only just finished breakfast. Would you care for a dish of tea, Mama?”

“No, thank you. I do not wish to be interrupted by servants coming and going, or the inconvenience of fiddling about with cups.”

Christina opened her mouth to say something, then decided against it. She sat down on the sofa and picked up a piece of embroidery. “I hope you have not been obliged to cancel this evening’s dinner?”

“I have footmen to send on errands like that,” Augusta said dryly. “I wish to talk to you privately, and the opportunity will not present itself tonight.” She looked at her daughter’s charming profile, her soft chin and wide, tilted eyes. How could anyone have such a passionate will and at the same time so little sense of survival? Augusta had tried all her life to impart to her her own understanding of the possible and the impossible, and she had failed. This was going to be unpleasant, but it was unavoidable.

“Will you please put that down—I wish for your attention! A situation has arisen which means that I can no longer allow you to continue with your present behavior.”

Christina’s blue eyes widened in surprise at the questioning of her conduct. She was a married woman and accountable to her husband, but certainly not to her mother!

“My behavior, Mama?”

“Don’t treat me as if I were foolish, Christina. I am perfectly aware that you have been amusing yourself in some most unsavory places. I can understand boredom—”

“Can you?” Christina said scathingly. “Have you really the faintest idea what it is like to be so bored you feel as if your whole life is sliding away and you might as well be asleep for all you do with it?”

“Of course I have. Do you imagine you are the only woman to find her husband tedious and her usual acquaintances infinitely predictable, till she could recite every word of their conversation before they begin?”

“But, Papa—” A shadow darkened Christina’s face. Was it pain or merely irritation? “At least he must have been exciting when he was young, when he was in the army, fighting?”

“My dear girl, how many times do you think I wish to hear the exact detail of the disposition of the guns at Balaclava—or anywhere else? He considered it disloyal to talk about other officers’ faults or ambitions, and vulgar to discuss their love affairs in front of women. Good God! There were times when he bored me till if I had not been a lady I would have screamed at him and slapped his face out of sheer desire to jolt him out of his damned satisfaction! But it would have served no purpose at all. He would not have understood. He would merely have thought I was having hysterics, and ordered me rest and a soothing tisane. So I learned to adjust my expression to look interested and to occupy my mind with something else. A little self-discipline would improve you a great deal, and would provide a rather better understanding of what is really important to you to keep. Alan spoils you—”

“Spoils me? He provides everything I need and then treats me like a social entity, someone to be polite to!” Christina’s face flushed with temper. “He is so pious he is insufferable! He should have married a nun! Sometimes I wonder if he has any passion in him at all—real passion!”

Augusta felt a stab of pity and dismissed it. This was not the time. “Do not confuse passion with mere excitement,” she said coolly. “Excitement is like playing cards for matchsticks—win, lose, or draw, you have nothing left at the end but a pile of splinters.”

Christina’s face set, her chin hard. “Don’t patronize me! I shall do as I choose.”

Augusta changed her approach. “Do you read the newspapers?”

“What of it? If Alan doesn’t mind, it is none of your concern.”

“Then you cannot be unaware that there have been two particularly unpleasant murders in the Devil’s Acre,” Augusta continued.

The color faded from Christina’s cheeks. Max Burton had been footman in the house before she had married Alan Ross. It hurt Augusta to have to recall anything of that painful affair, but Christina’s present foolishness, and now her stubbornness in denying it, left her no alternative. “One of the victims used to be employed as a servant in our house.”