Pentecost Alley (19 page)

“I think so….”

Jago’s eyebrows rose. “But you are not sure? That means you don’t have proof.”

“I have a very strong indication, it just seems such a stupid thing to have done. I need a clearer picture of the man in order to believe it. I already have a picture of Ada.”

Jago shook his head. “Well, Ada I could have helped you with. The man I doubt I know.” He picked up the broom and began to sweep the last area of the floor which still needed doing. “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Pitt conceded, sitting on the pew and crossing his legs. “You’re wrong. You do know the man, or at least you did.”

Jago stopped, still standing with the broom in his hands, his shoulders back. He did not turn to look at Pitt.

“You mean Finlay?”

“Yes.”

“Because of the badge? I told you, he could have lost that years ago.”

“Possibly. But he didn’t leave it in Ada McKinley’s bed years ago, Reverend.”

Jago said nothing. The unlikelihood of someone else’s having stolen the badge, or found it by accident, and chancing to have left it by the dead woman’s bed, and the
cuff link also, lay unspoken between them. Jago continued sweeping the floor, carefully directing the dust and grit into a little pile. Pitt watched him. The sunlight slanted in through the windows in bright, dusty bars.

“You knew him well a few years ago,” Pitt said at last. “Have you seen him at all since then?”

“Very little.” Jago did not look up. “I don’t frequent the places he does. I never go to Mayfair or Whitehall, and he doesn’t come to Saint Mary’s.”

“You don’t say that he doesn’t come to Whitechapel,” Pitt pointed out.

Jago smiled. “That’s rather the matter at issue, isn’t it?”

“Have you ever seen him here?”

“No.”

“Or heard that he was here?”

Jago straightened up. “No, Superintendent. I have never heard of Finlay being here, nor have I reason to suppose that he has been.”

Pitt believed him. Yet there was something in Jago’s attitude which disturbed him. There was a pain in him, an anxiety which was more than merely sadness for the violent death of someone he had known, however slightly. When he had first told him they had found Finlay’s badge he had looked like a man in a nightmare.

He changed his approach. “What was Finlay like when you knew him?”

Jago swept up the dust in a pan and set it aside before he answered, propping the broom up against the wall.

“Younger, and very much more foolish, Superintendent. We all were. I am not proud of my behavior in those times. I was extremely selfish, I indulged my tastes whenever I could, with disregard for the consequences to others. It is not a time I look back on with any pleasure. I imagine it may well be the same for Finlay. One grows up. One cannot undo the selfishness of youth, but one can leave it behind, learn from its mistakes, and avoid too quick or too cruel a judgment on those who in their turn do likewise.”

Pitt did not doubt his sincerity, but he also had the feeling it was a speech he had prepared in his mind for the time he should be asked.

“You have told me a lot about yourself, Reverend, but not about Finlay FitzJames.”

Jago shook his head very slightly.

“There’s nothing to tell. We were all self-indulgent. If you are asking me if Finlay has also changed, grown up, then since I have not seen him above a couple of times in the last three years, I cannot answer you from my knowledge. I imagine so.”

“I learned where to find you through his sister. Presumably you are still acquainted with her?” Pitt pressed.

Jago laughed very slightly. “Tallulah? Yes, in a manner of speaking. She is still in that stage of selfishness and the all-consuming pursuit of pleasure that the members of the Hellfire Club indulged in six or seven years ago. She has yet to see the purpose of any other kind of existence.” He said no more in words, but the expression of weariness in his face, the slight tightness to his lips, showed vividly how little regard he had for her. It was as if he did not wish to despise her but could not help himself. He despised his own past life at the same time as he asked compassion for Finlay.

Why? Was it a fear that Finlay had not, in fact, grown beyond it at all but, like Tallulah, still placed his pleasures above honor or responsibility?

“Why has your friendship lapsed so completely?” Pitt asked as if he were no more than mildly curious.

Jago did not move. He stared at Pitt without speaking. He drew in his breath as if to reply, then let it out again.

Somewhere beyond the church a woman called out to a child and a dog scampered past the open door.

Pitt waited.

“I suppose … I suppose our paths just … diverged,” Jago said at last, his eyes wide and dark. He was saying something far less than the truth, and even as he did so he knew that Pitt knew it.

Pitt did not bother to argue.

“I admire your loyalty, Reverend,” he said very quietly. “But are you sure that it is as commendable as you think? What about your loyalty to Ada McKinley, who was one of your parishioners, whatever her trade? What about the other women like her? They may be whores, but if you have set yourself as their shepherd, don’t you also have a loyalty to the truth, and to the path you’ve chosen?”

Jago’s face was white, the flesh seemed to be pulled tight as though by some desperate inner strain.

“I do not know who killed Ada, Superintendent. I tell you before God, I do not. Nor do I have any reason to believe that Finlay was here in Whitechapel that night, or any other. If I did, I would tell you.” He took a deep breath. “As to my friendship with the FitzJames family, it lapsed because of a difference of opinion—of purpose, if you like. Finlay could not understand my taking this calling, nor my wish to devote my life to it. It is not something I could explain, except in terms he did not believe or respect. He thinks I am eccentric, as does his sister.”

“Eccentric?”

Jago laughed; this time there was real amusement in his voice. “Oh, not in any admirable sense! She admires the aesthetes, men like Oscar Wilde and Arthur Symons, or Havelock Ellis, who are endlessly inventive, always saying or doing … or believing … something new. Their purpose is to shock and cause comment … and I suppose possibly also to make people think. They see me as an utterly different kind of eccentric. I am a bore … the only thing even their moral tolerance will not forgive. It is the one sin that cannot be overlooked.”

Pitt searched, but he could see no self-pity in Jago’s face, no bitterness whatsoever. For him they had missed the real happiness, not he.

And yet there was still the shadow behind his smile, the awareness of something he would not tell Pitt,
something which was full of darkness and pain. Was it knowledge of Finlay FitzJames, or of himself? Or was it possibly one of the other members of the Hellfire Club, either the sensual Thirlstone or the self-satisfied Helliwell?

“Are you still friendly with any of the other members of the Hellfire Club?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” Jago seemed surprised. “Oh! No. No, I am afraid not. I see Thirlstone from time to time, but by chance, not design. I haven’t seen Helliwell in a couple of years. He’s done nicely for himself, I hear. Married and became respectable—and very well-off. It was what he always wished, once he had had his fling.”

“What does Finlay want?”

Jago smiled again, this time with patience. “I’m not sure if he knows. Probably to fulfill his father’s ambitions for him, without the hard work and the pressure which they must inevitably involve. I don’t think he really wants to be Foreign Secretary, still less Prime Minister. But then I suppose Augustus will die before it comes to that anyway, and he’ll be able to relax and be what he truly wants … if he can still remember what that is.” He stopped. “Maybe Tallulah will marry well and become a duchess, or a great countess. I doubt she has the intelligence to be a great political wife. That requires considerable skill and tact, and a profound understanding of the issues and of human nature, as well as fashion and etiquette and how to be entertaining. She hasn’t the discretion, for one thing.”

“Might she not acquire it?” Pitt asked. “She’s still very young.”

“There’s no good acquiring discretion once you’ve marred your own reputation, Superintendent. Society doesn’t forget. At least that’s not exactly true. It will to a certain extent if you are a man, but not if you are a woman. Depends what you do.” He leaned against the pew, relaxing a little at last.

“I’ve known young men to behave really badly, being
drunk and extremely offensive, and their comrades will hold a trial and decide he is guilty of a breach of behavior which cannot be overlooked. Then he will be advised that he should volunteer for some foreign service, say in Africa, or India, for example, and not return.”

Pitt stared at him, stunned.

“And he will do so,” Jago finished. “Society will discipline its own. Some things are not accepted.” He stood upright. “Of course others are, sometimes things you or I might find abhorrent. It depends on how public the outrage is, and against whom. If you want me to say Finlay never visited a prostitute, I can’t. But then you know that already. If that were a crime, you could charge half the gentlemen in London. Where else are they to take their appetites? A decent woman would be ruined, and they themselves would not want her afterwards.”

“I know that,” Pitt agreed. “Is that the issue?”

“No,” Jago conceded, looking at Pitt thoughtfully. “But old Augustus has made a great many enemies, you know, people he used and threw away in his rise to power, people who lost because he won. There’s more than one family owes its misfortune to him, and a great house doesn’t forgive its ruin. There are a few political ambitions which would be helped along if it were known they had destroyed FitzJames. Power is cruel, Superintendent, and envy is crueler. Before you commit yourself to any action against Finlay, be sure it really was he who left the badge in Pentecost Alley and not one of his father’s enemies. I … I find it terribly difficult to believe it was the man I knew … and I knew him well then.”

Pitt searched his face, trying to read in it the emotions behind his words, and saw too many conflicting currents, but through them all a certainty of gentleness, and even in his eyes a restraint from judgment.

He rose to his feet.

“Thank you, Reverend. I can’t say that you have helped me greatly, but then I shouldn’t have expected it.” He bade him good-bye and walked out into the hot street
with its noise and traffic, its horses and scurrying people on foot, the clatter of hooves, voices and film of dirt. He felt an even deeper liking for Jago Jones than before, and a conviction that in some fundamental way, he was lying.

“Well, have you learned anything else about FitzJames?” Cornwallis said in exasperation. It was the end of the day, and the sun had already set in an orange ball behind the wreath of chimney smoke that lay over the rooftops. The heat still burned up from the pavements and the smell of horse droppings was pungent where crossing sweepers had shoveled it to one side but no carts had been by to pick it up.

Carriages still bowled along the streets as the lamps came on, electric now along the Thames Embankment. People were beginning to think of the theater and the opera, restaurant dinners and evening parties. The lights of pleasure boats were visible on the river, and the sound of music drifted up.

“No,” Pitt answered wearily, standing beside Cornwallis at the window. “Jago Jones won’t say more than that they were all wild half a dozen years ago and that he hasn’t kept more than casual touch since then. And that’s easy to believe, since he’s now a priest in Whitechapel….” He smiled for an instant. “Not exactly FitzJames’s territory. The Foreign Office says he’s able, diligent, behaves as well as most young men and better than some. And as soon as he marries suitably, he is likely to get a very good embassy post. He certainly has talent in that direction, and a good deal of charm.”

“But you have Rose Burke’s identification of him!” Cornwallis insisted, turning away from the window to stare at Pitt. “And the badge, and the cuff link. Have you had that identified as his?”

“Yes.”

Cornwallis’s face was grave.

“Then, what’s troubling you, Pitt? Have you some evidence you haven’t told me of? Or are you worried about
political pressure?” He shook his head slightly. “FitzJames’s friends are increasing their pressure, but it will never stop me from backing you totally—if you are sure he’s guilty and you can prove it.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pitt meant it profoundly. It was a gift beyond price to have a superior whose nerve held under fire, even when his own position might be threatened. He was less certain of his judgment. Did he really have an understanding of how powerful Augustus FitzJames’s friends might be and how little innocence or guilt might matter to them, so long as there was every chance it would never be exposed? And had he also considered that FitzJames might also have enemies who were equally powerful? Jago Jones’s words rang in his mind and he could not ignore them.

“You haven’t answered me.” Cornwallis broke the train of his thoughts.

“I wish I had someone else who had seen Finlay in Whitechapel … anyone else at all,” Pitt replied. “I can’t find any evidence of his having been there, that night or at any other time. I’ll put Tellman on it tomorrow, as discreetly as possible.”

“Doesn’t prove anything,” Cornwallis continued. “He may usually do his whoring in the Haymarket, doesn’t mean to say he didn’t go to Whitechapel this time. Have you tried cabbies? Other street women? Local constables on the beat?”

“Ewart has. No one has seen him. But they know him farther west.”

“Damn,” Cornwallis swore under his breath. “When were the cuff link and the badge last seen by his valet, or anyone whose evidence is reasonably unprejudiced?”

“Valet’s been with him for years and has never seen either,” Pitt replied.

Cornwallis digested this in silence.

The carriage lamps moved slowly along the street towards them and the sound of wheels and hooves came up through the still air.

“What do you think, Pitt?” he said at last.