Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 05]

by Bluegate Fields

  Charlotte stood still, waiting, staring at him.

  He took a deep breath. “Charlotte, you do not know all the evidence. If you did, then you would know that there is enough to convict Maurice Jerome, and there is none at all—do you hear me?—none at all to indicate anyone else knew anything, or had any guilt or complicity in any part of it. I cannot help Mrs. Jerome. I cannot alter or hide the facts. I cannot suppress witnesses. I cannot and will not try to get them to alter their evidence. That is the end of the matter! I do not wish to discuss the subject any further. Where is my dinner, please? I am tired and cold, and I have had a long and extremely unpleasant day. I wish to be served my dinner, and to eat it in peace!”

  Unblinking, she stared at him while she absorbed what he had said. He stared straight back at her. She took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Yes, Thomas,” she answered. “It is in the kitchen.” She swished her skirts sharply and turned and led the way out and down the hallway.

  He followed with a very slight smile that he did not intend her to see. A little Eugenie Jerome would not hurt her at all!

  Just short of a week later, Gillivray came up with his second stroke of brilliance. Admittedly—and he was obliged to concede it—he made the discovery following an idea Pitt had given him and insisted he pursue. All the same, he contrived to tell Athelstan before he reported to Pitt himself. This was achieved by the simple stratagem of delaying his return to the police station with the news until he knew Pitt would be out on another errand.

  Pitt came back, wet to the knees from the rain, and with water dripping off the edge of his hat and soaking his collar and scarf. He took off his hat and scarf with numb fingers and flung them in a heap over the hatstand.

  “Well?” he demanded as Gillivray stood up from the chair opposite. “What have you got?” He knew from Gillivray’s smug face that he had something, and he was too tired to spin it out.

  “The source of the disease,” Gillivray replied. He disliked using the name of it and avoided it whenever he could; the word seemed to embarrass him.

  “Syphilis?” Pitt asked deliberately.

  Gillivray’s nose wrinkled in distaste, and he colored faintly up his well-shaven cheeks.

  “Yes. It’s a prostitute—a woman called Abigail Winters.”

  “Not such an innocent after all, our young Arthur,” Pitt observed with a satisfaction he would not have cared to explain. “And what makes you think she is the source?”

  “I showed her a picture of Arthur—the photograph we obtained from his father. She recognized it, and confessed she knew him.”

  “Did she indeed? And why do you say ‘confessed’? Did she seduce him, deceive him in some way?”

  “No, sir.” Gillivray flushed with annoyance. “She’s a whore. She couldn’t ever find herself in his society.”

  “So he took himself to hers?”

  “No! Jerome took him. I proved that!”

  “Jerome took him?” Pitt was startled. “Whatever for? Surely the last thing he would want would be for Arthur to develop a taste for women? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Well, whether it makes sense or not—he did!” Gillivray snapped back with satisfaction. “Seems he was a voyeur as well. He liked to sit there and watch. You know, I wish I could hang that man myself! I don’t usually go to watch a hanging, but this is one I won’t miss!”

  There was nothing for Pitt to say. Of course he would have to check the statement, see the woman himself; but there was too much now to argue against. It was surely proved beyond any but the most illusory and unrealistic of doubts.

  He reached out and took the name and address from Gillivray’s hand. It was the last piece necessary before trial.

  “If it amuses you,” he said harshly. “Can’t say I ever enjoyed seeing a man hanged, myself. Any man. But you do whatever gives you pleasure!”

  6

  THE TRIAL OF Maurice Jerome began on the second Monday in November. Charlotte had never before been in a courtroom. Her interest in Pitt’s cases had been intense in the past; indeed, on several occasions she had actively and often dangerously engaged herself in discovering the criminal. But it had always come to an end for her with the arrest; once there was no mystery left, she had considered the matter finished. To know the outcome had been sufficient—she did not wish to see it.

  This time, however, she felt a strong need to attend as a gesture of support to Eugenie in what was surely one of the worst ordeals a woman could face—whatever the verdict. Even now, she was not sure what she expected the verdict to be. Usually she had entire confidence in Pitt, but in this case she had sensed an unhappiness in him that was deeper than his usual distress for the tragedy of crime. There was a sense of dissatisfaction, an air of something unfinished—answers he needed to have, and did not.

  And yet if it was not Jerome, then who? There was no one else even implicated. All the evidence pointed to Jerome; why should everyone lie? It made no sense, but still the doubts were there.

  She had, in her mind, formed something of a picture of Jerome, a little blurred, a little fuzzy in the details. She had to remind herself it was built on what Eugenie had told her, and Eugenie was prejudiced, to say the least. And, of course, on what Pitt had said; perhaps that was prejudiced too? Pitt had been touched by Eugenie as soon as he had seen her. She was so vulnerable; his pity was reflected in his face, his desire to protect her from the truths he knew. Charlotte had watched it in him, and felt angry with Eugenie for being so childlike, so innocent, and so very, very feminine.

  But that was not important now. What was Maurice Jerome like? She had gathered that he was a man of little emotion. He displayed neither superficial emotions nor the emotions that smolder beneath an ordinary face, surfacing only in privacy in moments of unbearable passion. Jerome was cold; his appetites were less sensual than intellectual. He possessed a desire for knowledge and the status and power it afforded, for the social distinctions of manner, speech, and dress. He felt proud of his diligence and of possessing skills that others did not. He was proud, too, in an obscure way, of the satisfying totality of such branches of mental discipline as Latin grammar and mathematics.

  Was that all merely a superb mask for ungovernable physical hungers beneath? Or was he precisely what he seemed: a chilly, rather incomplete man, too innately self-absorbed for passion of any sort?

  Whatever the truth, Eugenie could only suffer from it. The least Charlotte could do was to be there, so that the crowd of inquisitive, accusing faces would contain at least one that was neither, that was a friend whose glance she could meet and know she was not alone.

  Charlotte had put out a clean shirt for Pitt, and a fresh cravat, and she sponged and pressed his best coat. She did not tell him that she intended to go as well. She kissed him goodbye at quarter past eight, straightening his collar one last time. Then, as soon as the door closed, she whirled around and ran back to the kitchen to instruct Gracie in meticulous detail on the duties of caring for the house and the children for every day that the trial should last. Gracie assured Charlotte that she would perform every task to the letter, and be equal to any occasion that could arise.

  Charlotte accepted this and thanked her gravely, then went to her room, changed into the only black dress she possessed, and put on a very beautiful, extravagant black hat that was a cast-off from Emily. Emily had worn it at some duchess’s funeral, and then, on hearing of the woman’s excessive parsimony, had taken such a dislike to her that she got rid of the hat immediately and bought another, even more expensive and stylish.

  This one had a broad, rakish brim, plenty of veiling, and quite marvelous feathers. It was wildly flattering, accenting the bones of Charlotte’s face and her wide gray eyes, and was as glamorous as only a touch of mystery could be.

  She did not know if one was supposed to wear black to a trial. Decent society did not attend trials! But after all it was for murder, and that necessarily had to do with death. Anyway, there was no one
she could ask, at this late date. They’d probably say she should not attend at all, and make it difficult for her by pointing out to Pitt all the excellent reasons why she should not. Or they’d say that only women of scandalous character, like the old women who knitted at the foot of the guillotine in the French Revolution, attended such things.

  It was cold, and she was glad she had saved enough from the housekeeping money to pay for fare in a hansom cab both ways, every day of the week, should it be necessary.

  She was very early; hardly anyone else was there—only court officials dressed in black, looking a little dusty like summer crows, and two women with brooms and dusters. It was bleaker than she had imagined. Her footsteps echoed on the wide floors as she followed directions to the appropriate room and took her seat on the bare wooden rows.

  She stared around, trying to people the room in her mind. The rails around the witness box and the dock were dark now, worn by the hands of generations of prisoners, of men and women who had come here to give evidence, nervous, trying to hide private and ugly truths, telling tales about others, evading with lies and half lies. Every human sin and intimacy had been exposed here; lives had been shattered, deaths pronounced. But no one had ever done the simple things here—eaten or slept, or laughed with a friend. She saw only the anonymous look of a public place.

  Already there were others coming in, with bright, sneering faces. Hearing snatches of conversation, she instantly hated them. They had come to leer, to pry, to indulge their imaginations with what they could not possibly know. They would come to their own verdicts, regardless of the evidence. She wanted Eugenie to know there was at least one person who would keep pure friendship, whatever was said.

  And that was odd, because her feelings for Eugenie were still very confused. Charlotte was irritated by her saccharine femininity; not only did it scrape Charlotte raw, but it was a perpetuation of all that was most infuriating in men’s assumptions about women. She had been aware of such attitudes ever since the time her father had taken a newspaper from her, and told her it was unsuitable for a lady to be interested in such things, and insisted she return to her painting and embroidery. The condescension of men to female frailty and general silliness made her temper boil. And Eugenie pandered to it by pretending to be exactly what they expected. Perhaps she had learned to act that way as a form of self-protection, as a way of getting what she wanted? That was a partial excuse, but it was still the coward’s way out.

  And the worst thing about it all was that it worked—it worked even with Pitt! He melted like a complete fool! She had watched it happen in her own parlor! Eugenie, in her own simpering, self-deprecating, flattering way, was socially quite as clever as Emily! If she had started from as good a family and had been as pretty as Emily, perhaps she too might have married a title.

  What about Pitt? The thought sent a chill throughout her body. Would Pitt have preferred someone a little softer, a little subtler at playing games; someone who would remain at least partly a mystery to him, demanding nothing of his emotions but patience? Would he have been happier with someone who left him at heart utterly alone, who never really hurt him because she was never close enough, who never questioned his values or destroyed his self-esteem by being right when he was wrong and letting him know it?

  Surely to suspect Pitt of wanting such a woman was the most supreme insult of all. It assumed he was an emotional child, unable to stand the truth. But we are all children at times, and we all need dreams—even foolish ones.

  Perhaps she would be wiser if she bit her tongue a little more often, let truth—or her understanding of the truth—wait its time. There was kindness to consider—as well as devotion to honesty.

  The court was now full. In fact, when she turned around there were people being refused entrance. Curious faces crowded at the doorways, hoping for a glimpse of the prisoner, the man who had murdered an aristocrat’s son and stuffed his naked body down a manhole to the sewers!

  The proceedings began. The clerk, somber in old black, wearing a gold pince-nez on a ribbon around his neck, called for attention in the matter of the Crown versus Maurice Jerome. The judge, his face like a ripe plum beneath his heavy, horsehair wig, puffed out his cheeks and sighed. He looked as if he had dined too well the evening before. Charlotte could imagine him in a velvet jacket, with crumbs on his waistcoat, wiping away the last remnants of the Stilton and upending the port wine. The fire would be climbing the chimney and the butler standing by to light his cigar.

  Before the end of the week, he would probably put on the black three-cornered cap and sentence Maurice Jerome to be hanged by the neck until he was dead.

  She shivered and turned to look for the first time at the man standing in the dock. She was startled—unpleasantly so. She realized what a precise mental picture she had built of him, not so much of his features, but of the sense of him, the feeling she would have on seeing his face.

  And the picture vanished. He was larger than her pity had allowed; his eyes were cleverer. If there was fear in him, it was masked by his contempt for everyone around him. There were ways in which he was superior—he could speak Latin and considerable Greek; he had read about the arts and the cultures of ancient peoples, and this rabble below him had not. They were here to indulge a vulgar curiosity; he was here by force, and he would endure it because he had no choice. But he would not descend to be part of the emotional tide. He despised the vulgarity, and in his slightly flared nostrils, his pursed mouth that destroyed any lines of softness or sensitivity, in the slight movement of his shoulders that prevented him from touching the constables at either side, he silently made it understood.

  Charlotte had begun with sympathy for him, thinking she could understand, at least in part, how he could have come to such a depth of passion and despair—if he was guilty. And surely he was deserving of every compassion and effort at justice if he was innocent?

  And yet looking at him, real and alive, only yards away, she could not like him. The warmth faded and she was left with discomfort. She must begin all over again with her feelings, build them for an entirely different person from the one her mind had created.

  The trial had begun. The sewer cleaner was the first witness. He was small, narrow as a boy, and he blinked, unaccustomed to the light. The counsel for the prosecution was a Mr. Bartholomew Land. He dealt with the man quickly and straightforwardly, drawing from him the very simple story of his work and his discovery of the corpse, the body surprisingly unmarked by injury or attacks by rats—and the fact that, remarkably, it had kept none of its clothes, not even boots. Of course he had called the police immediately, and certainly not, the lud, he had removed nothing whatsoever—he was not a thief! The suggestion was an insult.

  Counsel for the defense, Mr. Cameron Giles, found nothing to contest, and the witness was duly excused.

  The next witness was Pitt. Charlotte bent a little to hide her face as he passed within a yard of her. She was amused and felt a small quake of uncertainty when, even at a time like this, he glanced for a moment at her hat. It was beautiful! Though of course he did not know it was she who was wearing it! Did he often notice other women with that quick flash of appreciation? She drove the idea from her mind. Eugenie had worn a hat.

  Pitt took the witness stand and swore to his name and occupation. Though she had pressed his jacket before he left the house, it sat slightly lopsided already, his cravat was crooked, and, as usual, he had run his fingers through his hair, leaving it on end. It was a waste of time even trying! Heaven only knew what he had in his pockets to make them hang like that! Stones, by the look of it!

  “You examined the body?” Land asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And there was no identification on it whatsoever? How did you then learn who he was?”

  Pitt outlined the process, the elimination of one possibility after another. He made it sound very routine, a matter of common sense anyone might have followed.

  “Indeed.” Land nodded. “And
in due course Sir Anstey Waybourne identified his son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did you do then, Mr. Pitt?”

  Pitt’s face was blank. Only Charlotte knew that it was misery that took away his normal expression, the consuming interest that was usually there. To anyone else he might simply have appeared cold.

  “Because of information given the by the police surgeon”—he was far too used to giving evidence to repeat hearsay— “I began to make investigations into Arthur Waybourne’s personal relationships.”

  “And what did you learn?”

  Everything was being dragged out of him; he volunteered nothing.

  “I learned of no close relationships outside his own household that fitted the description we were looking for.” What a careful answer, all in words that gave nothing away. He had not even implied there was any sort of sexuality involved. He could have been talking of finance, or even some trade or other.

  Land’s eyebrows shot up and his voice showed surprise.

  “No relationships, Mr. Pitt! Are you sure?”

  Pitt’s mouth curled down. “I think you will have to ask Sergeant Gillivray for the information you are fishing for,” he said with thinly concealed acidity.

  Charlotte closed her eyes for a moment, even behind her veiling. So he was going to make Gillivray tell all about Albie Frobisher and the woman prostitute with the disease. Gillivray would love that. He would be a celebrity.

  Why? Gillivray would make it all so much more florid, so full of detail and certainty. Or was it that Pitt simply did not want to be part of it and this was his way of escaping—at least from saying the words himself, as if that made some difference? Left to Gillivray, they would be the more damning.

  She looked up. He was terribly alone there in that wood-railed box; there was nothing she could do to help. He did not even know she was here, understanding his fear because some part of him was still not entirely satisfied of Jerome’s guilt.

  What had Arthur Waybourne really been like? He was young, well-born, and a victim of murder. No one would dare to speak ill of him now, to dig up the mean or grubby truths. Maurice Jerome, with his cynical face, probably knew that, too.