Athelstan stared at him. “Possibly,” he said coldly. “But no doubt their fathers are better acquainted with their aberrations than we are, and it is most certainly their business! There is no conceivable way, Pitt, in which it is yours!”
“It would put rather a different light on Arthur Waybourne, sir!”
“I have no desire to put any light on him whatever!” Athelstan snapped. “The case is closed!”
“But if Arthur had relationships with the other two boys, it would open up all kinds of possibilities!” Pitt pressed, taking a step forward to lean over the desk.
Athelstan sat as far away as he could, resting against the back of his chair.
“The private—habits—of the gentry are no business of ours, Pitt. You will leave them alone!” He spat out the words. “Do you understand me? I don’t care if every one of them got into bed with every other one—it doesn’t alter the fact that Maurice Jerome murdered Arthur Waybourne. That is all that matters to us. We have done our duty and what happens now is their own concern—not yours and not mine!”
“But what if Arthur had relationships with the other boys?” Pitt clenched his fist on the desk, feeling the nails dig into his flesh. “Maybe it had nothing to do with Jerome.”
“Rubbish! Absolute nonsense! Of course it was Jerome—there’s evidence! And don’t tell me we haven’t proved where he did it. He could have hired a room anywhere. We’ll never find it and no one expects us to. He is homosexual! He had every reason to kill the boy. If it came out, the best he could hope would be to be thrown onto the street without a job or a good reputation. He’d be ruined.”
“But who says he is homosexual?” Pitt demanded, his voice rising as loudly as Athelstan’s.
Athelstan’s eyes were wide. There was a bead of sweat on his lip—and another.
“Both boys,” he said with a catch in his voice. He cleared his throat. “Both boys,” he repeated, “and Albert Frobisher. That’s three witnesses. Good God, man, how many do you want? Do you imagine the creature went about exhibiting his perversion?”
“Both boys?” Pitt said again. “And what if they were involved themselves, wouldn’t that be just the lie they would tell? And Albie Frobisher—would you take the word of a seventeen-year-old male prostitute against that of a respectable scholastic tutor at any other time? Would you?”
“No!” Athelstan was on his feet now, his face only a hand-span from Pitt’s, his knuckles white, arms shaking. “Yes!” he contradicted himself. “Yes—if it fits with all the other evidence. And it does! He identified him from photographs—that proves Jerome was there.”
“Can we be sure?” Pitt urged. “Can we be sure we didn’t put the idea into his mind, prompt him? Did we suggest the answer we wanted by the way we asked the questions?”
“No, of course we didn’t!” Athelstan’s voice dropped a little. He was regaining control of himself. “Gillivray is a professional.” He took a deep breath. “Really, Pitt, you are allowing your resentment to warp you. I said Gillivray was treading on your heels, and now you’re trying to discredit him. It’s not worthy of you.” He sat down again, straightening his jacket and stretching his neck to ease his collar.
“Jerome is guilty,” Athelstan said. “He has been found guilty by the courts, and he will be hanged.” He cleared his throat again. “Don’t stand over me like that, Pitt—it’s insolent! And the health of Godfrey Waybourne is his father’s affair—similarly Titus Swynford. As far as the prostitute is concerned, he’s lucky we didn’t prosecute him for his filthy trade. He’ll probably die of some disease or other in the end anyway. If he hasn’t got it now, he soon will have! Now I warn you, Pitt, this matter is closed. If you insist on pursuing it any further, you will be jeopardizing your own career. Do you understand me? These people have suffered enough tragedy in their lives. You will now pursue the job you are paid for—and leave them alone. Have I made myself clear?”
“But, sir—”
“I forbid it! You do not have permission to harass the Waybournes any further, Pitt! The case is closed—finished! Jerome is guilty and that is the end of it. I don’t want you to mention it again—to me or to anyone else. Gillivray is an excellent officer and his conduct is not open to question. I am perfectly satisfied he did everything necessary to determine the truth, and that he did determine it! I don’t know how to make it any plainer to you. Now get on with your job—if you want to keep it.” He stared at Pitt in challenge.
Suddenly it had become a test between them whose will would prevail, and Athelstan could not afford to let it be Pitt’s. Pitt was dangerous because he was unpredictable; he did not give respect where he ought to, and when his sympathies were engaged, his good sense, even his self-preservation, went out the window. He was a most uncomfortable person to have about; at the first available opportunity, Athelstan decided, he would promote him to someone else’s area. Unless, of course, Pitt were to press on in this wretched business of the Waybourne case, in which event he could be reduced to walking the beat again and Athelstan would be as easily rid of him.
Pitt stood still as the seconds ticked by. The room was so silent he imagined he could hear the workings of the gold watch hanging from Athelstan’s waistcoat on the thick, gold link chain.
To Athelstan, Pitt was a disturbing person because he did not understand him. Pitt had married above himself, and that was offensive as well as incomprehensible. What did a wellborn woman like Charlotte want with an untidy, erratic, and imaginative paradox like Pitt? A woman with any dignity would have stuck to her own class!
Gillivray, on the other hand, was quite different; he was easy to understand. He was an only son with three sisters. He was ambitious, but he accepted that one must climb the ladder rung by rung, everything in order, each advance earned. There was comfort, even beauty, in observing order. There was safety in it for everyone, and that was what the law was for—preserving the safety of society. Yes, Gillivray was an eminently sane young man, and very pleasing to have around. He would go far. In fact, Athelstan had once even remarked that he would not mind if one of his own daughters were to marry a young man of such a type. He had already proved he knew how to conduct himself with both diligence and discretion. He did not go out of the way to antagonize people, or allow his own feelings to show, as Pitt so often did. And he was extremely personable, dressed like a gentleman, neat and without ostentation—not a veritable scarecrow like Pitt!
All this passed through Athelstan’s mind as he stared at Pitt, and most of it was plain in his eyes. Pitt knew him well. He ran the department satisfactorily. He seldom wasted time pursuing pointless cases; he sent his men into the witness box well prepared—it was a rare day they were made to look foolish. And no charge of corruption had been leveled against any man in his division for over a decade.
Pitt sighed and stood back at last. Athelstan was probably right. Jerome was almost certainly guilty. Charlotte was bending the facts to suppose otherwise. While it was conceivable that it could have been the two boys, it was not remotely likely; and quite honestly, he did not believe they had been lying to him. There was an innate sense of truth about them, and he could feel it, just as he could usually tell a liar. Charlotte was letting her emotions rule her head. That was unusual for her, but it was a feminine characteristic, and she was a woman! Pity was no bad thing, but it should not be allowed to distort the truth till it became disproportionate.
He resented Athelstan’s use of force to prevent him from going back to Waybourne, but he was probably right in principle. Nothing would be served by it but to prolong the pain. Eugenie Jerome was going to suffer; it was time he accepted it and stopped trying to evade it, like some child that expects a happy ending to every story. False hope was cruel. He would have to have a long talk with Charlotte, make her see the harm she was doing by rigging up a preposterous theory like this. Jerome was a tragic man, tragic and dangerous. Pity him, by all means, but do not try to make other people pay even more dearly than they already hav
e for his sickness.
“Yes, sir,” he said aloud. “No doubt Sir Anstey will have his own physician make such checks as are advisable, without our saying anything.”
Athelstan blinked. It was not the answer he had expected.
“No doubt,” he agreed awkwardly. “Although I hardly think—well—that—be that as it may, it’s none of our affair. Family problem—man has a right to his privacy—part of being a gentleman, the respecting of other men’s privacy. Glad you understand that!” His eyes still held the last trace of uncertainty. It was a question.
“Yes, sir,” Pitt repeated. “And, as you say, there’s not much point in checking someone like Albie Frobisher—if he hasn’t got it today, he could have by tomorrow.”
Athelstan’s face wrinkled in distaste.
“Quite. Now I’m sure you have something else to get on with? You’d better be about it, and leave me to deal with my appointment. I have a great many things to do. Lord Ernest Beaufort has been robbed. His town house. Bad thing to happen. I’d like to get it solved as soon as possible. Promised him I’d see to it myself. Can you spare me Gillivray? He’s just the type to handle this.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly I can,” Pitt said with satisfaction sharply colored with spite. In the unlikely event they would ever find the thieves, the goods would be long gone by then, dispersed into a warren of silversmiths, pawnshops, and scrap dealers. Gillivray was too young to know them, too conspicuously clean to pass unremarked in the rookeries—as Pitt could, if he chose. The word would spread before Gillivray, with his pink face and white collar, as loudly as if he carried a bell around his neck. Pitt was ashamed of his satisfaction, but it did not stop the feeling or its warmth.
He walked out of Athelstan’s office and back to his own. Passing Gillivray in the hallway, he sent him, face glowing in anticipation, up to Athelstan.
He went into his own office and sat down, staring at the statements and reports. Then, half an hour later, he threw all of them into a wire basket marked “in,” snatched his coat from the stand, jammed his hat on his head, and strode out the door.
He caught the first hansom that passed, and clambered in, shouting at the driver, “Newgate!”
“Newgate, sir?” the cabbie said with a slight lift of surprise.
“Yes! Get on with it. Newgate Prison,” Pit said. “Hurry!”
“Ain’t no ’urry there,” the cabbie said dryly. “They ain’t goin’ nowhere. Less o’ course they goin’ ter be ’ung! And nobody due to be ’ung yet—not for near on three weeks. Always knows when there’s an ’angin’. Guess there’ll be farsands out fer vis ’un. I’ve seen ’em an ’undred farsand thick in years past, I ’ave.”
“Get on with it!” Pitt snapped. The thought of a hundred thousand people milling around, pressing close to see a man hanged, was revolting. He knew it was true; it was even regarded as something of a sport by a certain set. Someone owning a room with a view over the front of Newgate could rent it out for twenty-five guineas for a good hanging. People would picnic with champagne and delicacies.
What is there in death, he wondered, that is so fascinating—in someone else’s agony that is acceptable as public entertainment? Some sort of catharsis of all one’s own fears—a kind of propitiation to fate against the violence that hangs over even the safest lives? But the idea of taking pleasure in it made him sick.
It was raining gently when the cabbie dropped him outside the great rusticated front of Newgate Prison.
He identified himself to the turnkey at the gate, and was let in.
“Who did you say?”
“Maurice Jerome,” Pitt repeated.
“Goin’ to be ’anged,” the turnkey said unnecessarily.
“Yes.” Pitt followed him into the gray bowels of the place; their feet echoed hollowly on the stone. “I know.”
“Knows something, does ’e?” the turnkey went on, leading the way to the offices where they would have to obtain permission. Jerome was a man under sentence of death; he could not be visited at will.
“Maybe.” Pitt did not want to lie.
“Mostly when you got ’em this far, I likes to see you rozzers leave them poor sods alone,” the turnkey remarked, and spat. “But I can’t stand a man wot kills children. Uncalled for, that is. Man’s one thing—and there’s a lot of women as can ask for it. But children’s different—unnatural, that is.”
“Arthur Waybourne was sixteen,” Pitt found himself arguing. “That’s not exactly a child. They’ve hanged people less than sixteen.”
“Oh, yeah!” the turnkey said. “When they’d earned it, like. And we’ve ’ad ’em in the ’ouses o’ correction for a spell, for being a public nuisance. And more than one in for spinnin’ ’is top in the marketplace. Set a lot o’ people a mess o’ trouble. ’Ad ’em in the ‘Steel’—down Coldbath Fields.”
He was referring to one of the worst jails in London, the Bastille, where men’s health and spirits could be broken in a matter of months on the treadmill or the crank, or the shot drill, passing iron cannonballs endlessly from one to the other along a line till their arms were exhausted, backs strained, muscles cracking. Picking oakum until the fingers bled was easy by comparison. Pitt made no reply to the turnkey—there were no words that would suffice. The Bastille had been like that for years, and it was better than it had been in the past; at least the stocks and the pillories were gone, for any difference that made.
He explained to the chief warder that he wanted to see Jerome on police business, because there were still a few questions that should be asked for the sake of the health of innocent parties.
The warder was sufficiently aware of the case not to need more detailed explanation. He was familiar with disease, and there was no perversion known to man or beast he had not encountered.
“As you wish,” he agreed. “Although you’ll be lucky if you get anything out of him. He’s going to be hanged in three weeks, whatever happens to the rest of us, so he’s got nothing to gain or lose either way.”
“He has a wife,” Pitt replied, although he had no idea if it made any difference to Jerome. Anyway, he was answering the warder out of the necessity for appearance. He had come to see Jerome from a compulsion within himself, a need to try one more time to satisfy his own mind that Jerome was guilty.
Outside the office, another turnkey led him along the gray vaulted corridors toward the death cells. The smell of the place closed over him, creeping into his head and throat. He was assaulted by staleness, a dirt that carbolic never washed away; by a sense that everyone was always tired, and yet could not rest. Did men with the knowledge of certain death—at a given hour, a given minute—lie awake terrified lest sleep rob them of a single instant of the life left? Did they relive the past—all the good things? Or repent, full of guilt, beg forgiveness of a suddenly remembered God? Or weep—or revile?
The turnkey stopped. “ ’Ere we are,” he said with a little snort. “Give me a shout when you’ve finished.”
“Thank you.” Pitt heard his voice answer as if it were someone else’s. Almost automatically, his feet took him through the open door and into the dark cell. The door shut behind him with a sound of iron on iron.
Jerome was sitting on a straw mattress in the corner. He did not immediately look around. The key turned, leaving Pitt locked inside. At last Jerome appeared to register that it was not an ordinary check. He raised his head and saw Pitt; his eyes showed surprise, but nothing strong enough to be called emotion. He was oddly the same—the stiffness, the sense of aloofness as if the past few weeks were something he had merely read about.
Pitt, dreading a change for the worse in him, had been prepared for all kinds of embarrassment. And now that it was not there, he was even more disconcerted. Jerome was impossible to like, but Pitt was forced into a certain admiration for his total self-control.
How very odd that such a man, seemingly untouched by such appalling circumstances, by physical deprivation, public shame, and the certain knowledge
of one of the worst of human deaths only weeks away—how extraordinary that such a man should have been carried away by appetite and panic to his own destruction. So extraordinary that Pitt found himself opening his mouth to apologize for the squalid cell, the humiliation, as if he were responsible, and not Jerome himself.
It was ridiculous! It was the evidence. If Jerome felt nothing, or showed nothing, then it was because he was perverted, deranged in mind and body. One should not expect him to behave like a normal man—he was not normal. Remember Arthur Waybourne in the Bluegate sewers, remember that young, abused body, and get on with what you came for!
“Jerome,” he began, taking a step forward. What was he going to ask now that he was here? It was his only chance; he must find out everything he wanted to know, everything that Charlotte had so unpleasantly conjured up. He could not ask Waybourne or the two boys; it must all come from this solitary interview, here in the gray light that filtered through the grating across the high window.
“Yes?” Jerome inquired coldly. “What more can you possibly want of me, Mr. Pitt? If it is ease of conscience, I cannot give it to you. I did not kill Arthur Waybourne, nor did I ever touch him in the obscene manner you have charged me with. Whether you sleep at night or lie awake is your own problem. I can do nothing to help you, and I would not if I could!”
Pitt responded without thought. “You blame me for your situation?”
Jerome’s nostrils flared; it was an expression at once of resignation and great distaste.
“I suppose you are doing your job within your limitations. You are so used to dealing with filth that you see it everywhere. Perhaps that is the fault of society at large. We must have police.”
“I discovered Arthur Waybourne’s body,” Pitt answered, curiously unangered by the charge. He could understand it. Jerome would want to hurt someone, and there was no one else. “That’s all I testified to. I questioned the Waybourne family, and I checked the two prostitutes. But I didn’t find them, and I certainly didn’t put words in their mouths.”
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