Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 05]

by Bluegate Fields

  Waybourne’s face darkened. “Is that absolutely necessary? Surely now that you know what Jerome’s nature is, you will be able to find all the other information you need without questioning the boy. It is all most unpleasant, and the less said about it to him, the sooner he may forget it and begin to recover from the tragedy of his brother’s death.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but a man’s life may depend on it.” There was no such easy escape for either of them. “I must see Godfrey myself. I shall be as gentle as I can with him, but I cannot accept a secondhand account—even from you.”

  Waybourne glared at the floor, weighing in his mind one danger against another; Godfrey’s ordeal against the possibility of the case dragging on, further police investigations. Then he jerked his head up to face Pitt, trying to judge if he could prevail on him by force of character if necessary. He knew it must fail.

  “Very well,” he said at last, his anger rasping through his voice. He reached for the bell and pulled it hard. “But I shall not permit you to harass the boy!”

  Pitt did not bother to answer. Words were of no comfort now; Waybourne would not be able to believe him. They waited in silence until the footman came. Waybourne told him to fetch Master Godfrey. Some moments later, the door opened and a slender, fair-haired boy stood in the entrance. He was not unlike his brother, but his features were finer; when the softness of childhood was gone, Pitt judged they would be stronger. The bones in the nose were different. He would like to have seen Lady Waybourne, just from curiosity, to complete the family, but he had been told she was still indisposed.

  “Close the door, Godfrey,” Waybourne ordered. “This is Inspector Pitt, from the police. I’m afraid he insists that you repeat to him what you have told me about Mr. Jerome.”

  The boy obeyed, but his eyes were on Pitt, wary. He walked in and stood in front of his father. Waybourne put his hand on the boy’s arm.

  “Tell Mr. Pitt what you told me yesterday evening, Godfrey, about Mr. Jerome touching you. There is no need to be afraid. You have done nothing wrong or shameful.”

  “Yes, sir,” Godfrey replied. But he hesitated and seemed unsure how to begin. He appeared to think of several words and discard them all.

  “Did Mr. Jerome embarrass you?” Pitt felt a rush of sympathy for the boy. He was being asked to recount to a stranger an experience that was profoundly personal, confusing, and probably repellent. It should have been allowed to remain a secret within his family, a secret to be told or not as he chose, perhaps a little at a time, at whatever moments it came easily. Pitt hated having to extract it this way.

  The boy’s face showed surprise; his blue eyes widened into a frank stare.

  “Embarrass?” he repeated, considering the word. “No, sir.”

  Apparently, Pitt had chosen the wrong word, although it seemed a particularly appropriate one to him.

  “He did something that caused you to feel uncomfortable because it was overfamiliar, unusual?” he said, trying again.

  The boy’s shoulders lifted and tightened a little.

  “Yes,” he said very quietly, and for a second his eyes went up to his father’s face, but for so short a time that there was no communication between them.

  “It’s important.” Pitt decided to treat him as an adult. Perhaps candor would be less distressing than an attempt to skirt around the issue, which would make it seem that there was shame or crime attached to it, leaving the boy to seek his own words for something he did not understand.

  “I know,” Godfrey replied soberly. “Papa said so.”

  “What happened?”

  “When Mr. Jerome touched me?”

  “Yes.”

  “He just put his arm around me. I slipped and fell, and he helped me up.”

  Pitt curbed his impatience. For all his confusion perhaps a natural denial, a retreat, the boy must be embarrassed.

  “But it was unusual this time?” he encouraged.

  “I didn’t understand.” Godfrey’s face puckered. “I didn’t know there was anything wrong—till Papa explained.”

  “Of course,” Pitt agreed, watching Waybourne’s hand clench on his son’s shoulder. “How was it different from other times?”

  “You must tell him,” Waybourne said with an effort. “Tell him that Mr. Jerome put his hand on a most private part of your body.” His face colored with his own discomfort.

  Pitt waited.

  “He touched me,” Godfrey said reluctantly. “Sort of felt around.”

  “I see. Did that only happen once?”

  “No—not really. I—honestly, sir—I don’t understand—”

  “That’s enough!” Waybourne said harshly. “He’s told you—Jerome interfered with him, more than once. I cannot permit you to pursue it any further. You have what you need. Now do your job. For heaven’s sake, arrest the man and get him out of my house!”

  “Of course, sir, you must dismiss him from your employ, if you think fit,” Pitt answered with unhappiness growing inside him. A feeling of certainty was drawing close in a sad, imprisoning circle. “But I have not yet enough evidence to charge him with murder.”

  Waybourne’s face convulsed, the muscles of his body knotting. Godfrey winced under his hand.

  “Good God, man! What more do you want? An eyewitness?”

  Pitt tried to keep calm. Why should this man understand police necessities? One son had been murdered, the other distressed by perverted attentions, and the offender was still under his roof. Why should he be reasonable? His emotions were raw. His whole family had been violated in one way after another, robbed and betrayed.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” He was apologizing for the whole crime: for its nature, its obscenity, for his own intrusion into it, for the grief still to come. “I’ll be as quick and as discreet as I can. Thank you, Godfrey. Good day, Sir Anstey.” He turned and went out of the library into the hall where the parlormaid was waiting, still serene and unknowing, with Pitt’s hat in her hand.

  Pitt was dissatisfied without reason. There was not yet enough known for grounds to arrest Jerome, but there was too much to justify keeping it from Athelstan any longer. Jerome had said he spent the evening at a musical recital, and had had no idea where Arthur Waybourne had been or intended to be. Perhaps if it was carefully checked, Jerome’s time could be accounted for. It was possible an acquaintance had seen him, and if he had returned home with someone—perhaps his wife—it would be impossible to prove beyond a very reasonable doubt that he had then gone out to some unknown place and murdered Arthur Waybourne.

  That was a weakness in the case. They had no idea whatsoever where the murder had taken place. There was without question much to do before they had grounds for arrest.

  He quickened his step. He could face Athelstan with a report; there was progress, but they were a long way from certainty.

  Athelstan was smoking an excellent cigar, and his room was pungent with the smell of it. The furniture gleamed a little in the gaslight, and the brass doorknob was bright, without a fingermark.

  “Sit down,” Athelstan invited comfortably. “Glad we’re getting this thing tidied up. Very nasty, very painful. Well, what did Sir Anstey have to tell you? Deciding factor, he said. What was it, man?”

  Pitt was surprised. He had not known that Athelstan was even aware of the call from Waybourne.

  “No,” he said quickly. “Not that. Indicative, certainly, but not enough for an arrest.”

  “Well, what was it?” Athelstan said impatiently, leaning forward over the desk. “Don’t just sit there, Pitt!”

  Pitt found himself inexplicably reluctant to tell him, to repeat the sad, frail story. It was nothing, and everything—indefinite and at the same time undeniable.

  Athelstan’s fingers drummed with irritation on the burgundy leather surface.

  “The younger brother, Godfrey,” Pitt replied wearily. “He says that the tutor Jerome was overfamiliar with him, that he touched him in a homosexual manner.” He took a breath and let
it out slowly. “More than once. Of course he did not mention it at the time because—”

  “Of course, of course.” Athelstan dismissed it with a wave of his thick hand. “Probably didn’t realize at the time what it meant—only makes sense in the light of his brother’s death. Dreadful—poor boy. Take a while to get over it. Well!” He spread his hand flat on the desk, as if closing something, the other hand still held the cigar. “At least we’ll be able to tidy it all up now. Go and arrest the fellow. Wretched!” His face curled in distaste and he let out his breath in a little snort through his nose.

  “We haven’t enough for an arrest,” Pitt argued. “He may be able to account for his time the whole night.”

  “Nonsense,” Athelstan said briskly. “Says he was out at a musical event of some sort. Went alone, saw no one, and came back alone after his wife had gone to bed. And he didn’t wake her. No account at all! Could have been anywhere.”

  Pitt stiffened.

  “How do you know?” He had not known that much himself, and he had told Athelstan nothing at all.

  A slow smile touched the corners of Athelstan’s mouth.

  “Gillivray,” he answered. “Good man, that. He’ll go a long way. Has a good manner about him. He makes the whole investigation as civilized as possible and gets on with what really matters—gets to the core of a case.”

  “Gillivray,” Pitt repeated with a tightening at the back of his neck. “You mean Gillivray checked up on where Jerome said he was that night?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” Athelstan said casually. “Should have done. Bit keen—can’t blame him. Felt for the father—very nasty case this.” He frowned to show his own sympathy. “Still, glad it’s over now. You can go and make the arrest. Take Gillivray with you. He deserves to be in at the kill!”

  Pitt felt hopelessness and anger boil up inside him. Jerome was probably guilty, but this was not sufficient. There were still too many other possibilities unexplored.

  “We haven’t got a good enough case,” he said sharply. “We don’t know where the crime took place! There’s no circumstantial evidence, nothing to put Jerome anywhere but where he says he was. Where did this relationship take place—in Jerome’s house? Where was his wife? And why, of all things, should Arthur Waybourne be taking a bath in Jerome’s house?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Pitt!” Athelstan interrupted angrily, clenching his hand on the cigar till it bent. “These are details! They can be found out. Perhaps he hired a room somewhere—”

  “With a bath in it?” Pitt said with scorn. “Not many bawdy houses or cheap rooms have a private bath where you can comfortably murder someone!”

  “Then it won’t be hard to find, will it?” Athelstan snapped. “It’s your job to unearth these things. But first you’ll arrest Jerome and put him where he can’t escape and do any more harm! Or next thing we know he’ll be on the Channel steamer and we’ll never see him again! Now do your duty, man. Or must I send Gillivray to do it for you?”

  There was no point in arguing. Either Pitt did it or someone else would. And, in spite of the case being far from proved, there was justice in what Athelstan said. Other answers were possible, even though Pitt knew in his mind they were unlikely. Jerome had every likely trait; his life and his circumstances were susceptible to the emptiness, the warping. It needed only the physical hunger—and no one could explain whence that might grow or whom it might tempt.

  And if Jerome had been driven to murder once, he could, as he felt the police coming closer to him, easily be forced to panic, to run or, far worse, to kill again.

  Pitt stood up. He had nothing to fight Athelstan with, but then, perhaps there was nothing to fight him about either.

  “Yes, sir,” he acceded quietly. “I’ll take Gillivray and go tomorrow morning, as soon as it won’t cause a stir.” He looked at Athelstan wryly, but Athelstan saw no humor in Pitt’s statement.

  “Good,” he said, sitting back with satisfaction. “Good man. Be discreet—family’s been through a bad time, very bad. Get it over with now. Warn the man on the beat to keep an eye tonight, but I don’t suppose he’ll run. Not close enough yet.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pitt said, going to the door. “Yes, sir.”

  4

  PITT SET OUT THE following morning with Gillivray, bright and spring-stepped beside him. He hated Gillivray for his demeanor. An arrest for so intimately personal a crime was only the middle of a tragedy, the time when it became public and the wounds were stripped of their privacy. He wanted to say something to lacerate Gillivray’s comfortable, clean-faced satisfaction, something to make him feel the real, twisting pain in his own belly.

  But no words came to mind that were broad enough to encompass the reality, so he strode on in silence, faster and faster with his long, gangling legs, leaving Gillivray to trot inelegantly to keep up. It was a small satisfaction.

  The footman let them in with an air of surprise. He had the look of a well-bred person who observes someone else commit a gross breach of taste, but whose own code obliges him to pretend not to have noticed.

  “Yes, sir?” he inquired without permitting them inside.

  Pitt had already decided he ought to inform Waybourne before actually making the arrest; it would be easier as well as courteous, a gesture that might well repay itself later—they were far from the end. There was high suspicion, justification that necessitated arrest. There was only one reasonable solution, but there were hours of investigation before they could expect proof. There were many things still to be learned, such as where the crime had taken place, and why precisely now? What had precipitated the explosion into violence?

  “It is necessary that we speak to Sir Anstey,” Pitt replied, meeting the footman’s eyes.

  “Indeed, sir?” The man was flat-faced, as expressionless as a china owl. “If you care to come in, I shall inform Sir Anstey of your request. He is at breakfast at the moment, but perhaps he will see you when he is finished.” He stepped back and permitted them to pass, closing the door behind him with smooth, silent weight. The house still smelled of mourning, as though there were lilies somewhere just out of sight, and baked meats left over. There was a dimness from half-drawn blinds. Pitt was reminded of the pain of death again, that Waybourne had lost a son, a boy scarcely out of childhood.

  “Will you please tell Sir Anstey that we are ready to make an arrest,” he said. “This morning. And we would prefer to acquaint him fully with the situation beforehand,” he added less coldly. “But we cannot afford to wait.”

  The footman was startled out of his calm at last. Pitt was irritably pleased to see his jaw sag.

  “An arrest, sir? In the matter of Mr. Arthur’s death, sir?”

  “Yes. Will you please tell Sir Anstey?”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.” He left them to make their own way into the morning room, went smartly toward the dining room doors, and knocked and went in.

  Waybourne appeared almost immediately, crumbs in the folds of his waistcoat, a napkin in his hand. He discarded it and the footman picked it up discreetly.

  Pitt opened the morning room door and held it as Waybourne walked in. When they were all inside, Gillivray closed the door and Waybourne began urgently.

  “You’re going to arrest Jerome? Good. Wretched business, but the sooner it’s over the better. I’ll send for him.” He reached out and yanked at the bellpull. “I don’t suppose you need me here. Rather not be. Painful. I’m sure you understand. Obliged you let me know first, of course. You will take him out through the back, won’t you? I mean he’ll be somewhat—well, er—don’t want to make a scene. Quite—” His face colored and there was a blurring of distress over his features, as if at last his imagination had pierced the misery of the crime and felt a brush of its invading coldness. “Quite unnecessary,” he finished lamely.

  Pitt could think of nothing appropriate to say—in fact nothing that was even decent, when he thought about it.

  “Thank you,” Waybourne fumbled on. “Y
ou’ve been most—considerate, all things—well—taken into account, the—”

  Pitt interrupted before he thought. He could not stand the comfortable ignorance.

  “It’s not over yet, sir. There will be much more evidence to collect, and then of course the trial.”

  Waybourne turned his back, perhaps in some attempt at momentary privacy.

  “Of course.” He invested his reply with certainty, as if he had been aware of it all along. “Of course. But at least the man will be out of my house. It is the beginning of the end.” There was insistence in his voice, and Pitt did not argue. Perhaps it would be simple. Maybe now that they knew so much of the truth, the rest would follow easily, in a flood, not an extraction forced piece by piece. Jerome might even confess. It was possible the burden had grown so heavy he would be relieved, once there was no hope of escape anymore, just to be able to share it, to abandon the secrecy and its consuming loneliness. For many, that burden was the worst pain of all.

  “Yes, sir,” Pitt said. “We’ll take him away this morning.”

  “Good—good.”

  There was a knock on the door, and on Waybourne’s command Jerome came in. Gillivray automatically moved closer to the door, in case he should try to get out again.

  “Good morning.” Jerome’s eyebrows rose in surprise. If it was feigned, it was superbly well done. There was no uncertainty in him, no movement of eye or muscle, no twitch, not even a paleness to the skin.

  It was Waybourne’s face that glistened with sweat. He looked at one of the dozen photographs on the wall as he spoke.

  “The police wish to see you, Jerome,” he said stiffly. He then turned and left, Gillivray opening the door and closing it behind him.

  “Yes?” Jerome inquired coolly. “I cannot imagine what you want now. I have nothing to add.”

  Pitt did not know whether to sit or remain standing. It seemed vaguely irreverent to tragedy itself to be comfortable at such a moment.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he said quietly. “But we have more evidence now, and I have no choice but to make an arrest.” Why did he still refuse to commit himself? He was keeping the man hanging like a fish safe on the hook, not yet feeling the tear in the mouth, not aware of the line and its long, relentless pull.