Blood vessels stood out in Swynford’s neck.
“Do you leave my house of your own will?” he shouted furiously. “Or must I call a footman to have you escorted? Mrs. Swynford is forbidden to see you again—and if you call here you will not be admitted.”
“Mortimer!” Callantha whispered. She reached out to him, then dropped her hands helplessly. She was transfixed with embarrassment.
Swynford ignored her. “Do you leave, Mrs. Pitt, or shall I be obliged to ring for a servant?”
Charlotte turned to Titus, standing rigid and white-faced.
“You are in no way to blame,” she said clearly. “Don’t worry about what you have said. I shall see for you that it reaches the right people. You have discharged your conscience. You have nothing now to be ashamed of.”
“He had nothing at any time!” Swynford roared, and reached for the bell.
Charlotte turned and walked to the door, stopping a moment when she had opened it.
“Goodbye, Callantha, it has been most pleasant knowing you. Please believe I do not bear you any grudge, or hold you responsible for this.” And before Swynford could reply she closed the door and collected her cloak from the footman, then went outside to Emily’s carriage, stepped in, and gave the coachman directions to take her home.
She debated whether or not to tell Pitt about it. But when he came in she found that, as always, she was incapable of keeping it to herself. It all came out, every word and feeling she could remember, until her dinner was cold in front of her and Pitt had completely eaten his.
Of course there was nothing he could do. The evidence against Maurice Jerome had evaporated until there was none left that would have been sufficient to convict him. On the other hand, there was no other person to put in his place. The proof had disappeared, but it had not proved his innocence, nor had it given the least indication toward anyone else. Gillivray had connived at Abigail’s lies because he was ambitious and wished to please Athelstan—and possibly he had genuinely believed Jerome to be guilty. Titus and Godfrey had not lied in any intentional sense; they were merely too naive, as any young boys might be, to realize what their suggestions meant. They had agreed because they did not understand. They were guilty only of innocence and a desire to do what was expected of them.
And Anstey Waybourne? He had wanted to find the least painful way out: He was outraged. One of his sons had been seduced; why should he not believe the other had been also? It was most probable he had no idea that, by his own outrage and his leap to conclusions, he had led his son into the statement that damned Jerome. He had expected a certain answer, conceiving it in his wounded imagination first, and made the boy believe there had been an offense that he was simply too young to understand.
Swynford? He had done the same—or had he? Perhaps he now guessed that it had all been a monumental catastrophe of lies; but who would dare admit such a thing? It could not be undone. Jerome was convicted. Swynford’s fury was gross and offensive, but there was no reason to believe it was guilt of anything but connivance at a lie to protect his own. Accessory perhaps to the death of Jerome? But not the murder of Arthur.
So who—and why?
The murderer was still unknown. It could be anyone at all, someone they had never even heard of—some anonymous pimp or furtive customer.
It was some days before Charlotte learned the truth, which was waiting for her when she returned home from a visit to Emily. They had been working on their crusade, which had by no means been abandoned. There was a carriage pulled up in the street outside her door, and a footman and a driver were huddled in it as if they had been there long enough to grow cold. Of course, it was not Emily’s, since she had just left Emily, nor was it her mother’s or Aunt Vespasia’s.
She hurried inside and found Callantha Swynford sitting by the fire in the parlor, a tray of tea in front of her and Gracie hovering anxiously, twisting her fingers in her apron.
Callantha, her face pale, stood up as soon as Charlotte came in.
“Charlotte, I do hope you will forgive my calling upon you, after—after that distressing scene. I—I am most deeply ashamed!”
“Thank you, Gracie,” Charlotte said quickly. “Please bring me another cup, and then you may leave to attend to Miss Jemima.” As soon as she had gone, Charlotte turned back to Callantha. “There is no need to be. I know very well you had no desire for such a thing. If you have called because of that, please put it out of your mind. I bear no resentment at all.”
“I am grateful.” Callantha was still standing. “But that is not my principal reason for coming. The day you spoke with Titus, he told me what you had said to each other, and ever since then I have been thinking. I have learned a great deal from you and Emily.”
Gracie came in with the cup and left in silence.
“Please, would you not care to sit down?” Charlotte invited. “And perhaps take more tea? It is still quite hot.”
“No, thank you. This is easier to say if I am standing.” She remained with her back half toward Charlotte as she looked out the French windows into the garden and the bare trees in the rain. “I would be grateful if you would suffer me to complete what I have to say without interrupting me, in case I lose my courage.”
“Of course, if you wish.” Charlotte poured her own tea.
“I do. As I said, I have learned a great deal since you and Emily first came to my house—nearly all of it extremely unpleasant. I had no idea that human beings indulged themselves in such practices, or that so many people lived in poverty so very painful. I suppose it was all there for me to see, had I chosen to, but I belong to a family and a class that does not choose to.
“But since I have been obliged to see a little, through the things you have told me and shown me, I have begun to think for myself and to notice things. Words and expressions that I had previously ignored have now come to have meaning—even things within my own family. I have told my cousin Benita Waybourne about our efforts to make child prostitution intolerable, and I have enlisted her support. She, too, has opened her eyes to unpleasantness she had previously allowed herself to ignore.
“All this must seem very pointless to you, but please bear with me—it is not.
“I realized the day you spoke to Titus that both he and Godfrey had been beguiled into giving evidence against Mr. Jerome which was not entirely true, and certainly not true in its implication. He was deeply distressed about it, and I think a great deal of his guilt has come to rest upon me also. I began to consider what I knew of the affair. Up until then, my husband had never discussed it with me—indeed, Benita was in the same circumstance—but I realized it was time I stopped hiding behind the convention that women are the weaker sex, and should not be asked even to know of such things, far less inquire into them. That is the most arrant nonsense! If we are fit to conceive children, to bear and to raise them, to nurse the sick and prepare the dead, we can certainly endure the truth about our sons and daughters, or about our husbands.”
She hesitated, but Charlotte kept her word and did not interrupt. There was no sound but the fire in the grate and the soft patter of rain on the window.
“Maurice Jerome did not kill Arthur,” Callantha went on. “Therefore someone else must have—and since Arthur had had a relationship of that nature, that also must have been with someone else. I spoke to Titus and to Fanny, quite closely, and I forbade them to lie. It is time for the truth, however unpleasant it may be. Lies will all be found out in the end, and the truth will be the worse for having been festering in our consciences and begetting more lies and more fears until then. I have seen what it has done to Titus already. The poor child cannot carry the weight alone any longer. He will grow to feel he is guilty of some complicity in Mr. Jerome’s death. Heaven knows, Jerome is not a very pleasant man, but he does not deserve to be hanged. Titus awoke the other night, having dreamed of hanging. I heard his cry and went to him. I cannot let him suffer like that, with his sleep haunted by visions of guilt and death.” H
er face was very white, but she did not hesitate.
“So I began to wonder, if it was not Jerome, then with whom did Arthur have this dreadful relationship? As I told you, I asked Titus many questions. And I also asked Benita. The further we progressed in our discoveries, the more did we find that one single fear became clearer in our minds. It was Benita who spoke it at last. It will do you no good”—she turned to look at Charlotte—“because I do not think there is any way you will ever be able to prove it, but I believe it was my cousin Esmond Vanderley who was Arthur’s seducer. Esmond has never married, and so of course he has no children of his own. We have always considered it most natural that he should be extremely fond of his nephews, and spend some time with them, the more with Arthur because he was the eldest. Neither Benita nor I saw anything amiss—thoughts of a physical relationship of that nature between a man and a boy did not enter our minds. But now, with knowledge, I look back and I understand a great deal that passed by me then. I can even recall Esmond having a course of medical treatment recently, medicine he was obliged to take which he did not discuss and which Mortimer would not tell me of. Both Benita and I were concerned, because Esmond appeared so worried and short in temper. He said it was a complaint of the circulation, but when I asked Mortimer, he said it was of the stomach. When Benita asked the family doctor, he said Esmond had not consulted him at all.
“Of course, you will never be able to prove that either, because even if you were to find the doctor concerned—and I have no idea who he might be—doctors do not allow anyone else to know what is in their records, which is perfectly proper.
“I’m sorry.” She stopped quite suddenly.
Charlotte was stunned. It was an answer—it was probably even the truth—and it was no use at all. Even if they could prove that Vanderley had spent a lot of time with Arthur, that was perfectly natural. No one could be found who had seen Arthur the night he was killed; they had already looked, long and pointlessly. And they did not know which doctor had seen Vanderley when the symptoms of his disease had first appeared, only that it was not the family doctor, and either Swynford did not know what it was or he knew and had lied—probably the former. It was a disease that aped many others, and its symptoms, after the initial eruptions, frequently lay dormant for years, even decades. There was amelioration, but no cure.
The only thing they might possibly do would be to find proof of some other relationship he had had, and thus show that he was homosexual. But since Jerome had been found guilty and condemned by the court, Pitt could not investigate Vanderley’s private life. He had no reason.
Callantha was right; there was nothing they could do. It was not even worth telling Eugenie Jerome that her husband was innocent, because she had never believed him to be anything else.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said quietly, standing up. “That must have been extremely difficult for you, and for Lady Waybourne. I am grateful for your honesty. It is something to know the truth.”
“Even when it is too late? Jerome will still be hanged.”
“I know.” There was nothing more to say. Neither of them wished to sit together and discuss it anymore, and it would have been ridiculous, even obscene, to try to talk of anything else. Callantha took her leave on the doorstep.
“You have shown me much that I did not wish to see, and yet now that I have, I know it is impossible to go back. I could not be the person that I was.” She touched Charlotte on the arm, a quick gesture of closeness, then walked across the pavement and accepted her footman’s hand into her carriage.
The following day Pitt walked into Athelstan’s office and closed the door behind him.
“Maurice Jerome did not kill Arthur Waybourne,” he said bluntly. When Charlotte had told him the previous evening, he had made up his mind then, and had forced it from his thoughts ever since, lest fear should make him draw back. He dared not even think of what he might lose; the price might rob him of the courage to do what his first instinct told him he must, however uselessly.
“Yesterday, Callantha Swynford came to my house and told my wife that she and her cousin Lady Waybourne knew that it was Esmond Vanderley, the boy’s uncle, who had killed Arthur Waybourne but they could not prove it. Titus Swynford admitted he did not know what he was talking about in the witness box. He merely agreed to what his father had suggested to him, because he believed his father might be right—Godfrey the same.” He allowed Athelstan no chance to interrupt him. “I went to the brothel where Abigail Winters worked. No one else ever saw either Jerome or Arthur Waybourne in the place, not even the old woman who keeps the door and watches it like a hawk. And Abigail has suddenly vanished to the country, for her health. And Gillivray admits he put the words into her mouth. And Albie Frobisher has been murdered. Arthur Waybourne had venereal disease and Jerome has not. There is no longer any evidence against Jerome at all—nothing! We can probably never prove Vanderley killed Arthur Waybourne—it appears to have been an almost perfect crime—except that for some reason or other he had to kill Albie! And by God I intend to do everything I can to get him for that!
“And if you don’t ask Deptford for the case back, I shall tell some very interesting people I know that Jerome is innocent, and we shall execute the wrong man because we accepted the words of prostitutes and ignorant boys without looking at them hard enough—because it suited us to have Jerome guilty. It was convenient. It meant we did not have to tread on important toes, ask ugly questions, risk our own careers by embarrassing the wrong people.” He stopped, his legs shaking and his chest tight.
Athelstan stared at him. His face had been red, but now the color drained and left him pasty, beads of sweat standing out on his brow. He looked at Pitt as if he were a snake that had crawled out of a desk drawer to menace him.
“We did everything we could!” He licked his lips.
“We did not!” Pitt exploded, guilt running like fire through his anger. He was even more guilty than Athelstan, because part of him had never entirely believed Jerome had killed Arthur, and he had suppressed that voice with the smooth arguments of reason. “But God help me, we shall now!”
“You’ll—you’ll never prove it, Pitt! You’ll only make a lot of trouble, hurt a lot of people! You don’t know why that woman came to you. Maybe she’s a hysteric.” His voice grew a little stronger as hope mounted. “Maybe she has been scorned by him at some time, and she is—”
“His sister?” Pitt’s voice was thick with contempt.
Athelstan had forgotten Benita Waybourne.
“All right! Maybe she believes it—but we’ll never prove it!” he repeated helplessly. “Pitt!” His voice sank to a moan.
“We might be able to prove he killed Albie—that’ll do!”
“How? For God’s sake, man, how?”
“There must have been a connection. Somebody may have seen them together. There may be a letter, money, something. Albie lied for him. Vanderley must have thought he was dangerous. Perhaps Albie tried a little blackmail, went back for more money. If there is anybody or anything at all, I’m going to find it—and I’m going to hang him for Albie’s murder!” He glared at Athelstan, daring him to prevent him, daring him to protect Vanderley, the Waybournes, or anyone else any longer.
This was not the time; Athelstan was too shaken. In a few hours, perhaps by tomorrow, he would have had a chance to think about it, to balance one risk against another and find courage. But now he had not the resolve to fight Pitt.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “Well, I suppose we must. Ugly—it’s all very ugly, Pitt. Remember the morale of the police force, so—so be careful what you say!”
Pitt knew the danger of argument now. Even a hint of indecision, of vacillation, would allow Athelstan the chance to gather his thoughts. He gave him a cold, withering look.
“Of course,” he said sharply, then turned and went to the door. “I’m going to Deptford now. I’ll tell you when I learn something.”
Wittle was surprised to see him. “Morni
ng, Mr. Pitt! You’re not still on about that boy as we got out o’ the river, are you? Can’t tell you anythin’ more. Goin’s to close the case, poor little sod. Can’t waste the time.”
“I’m taking the case back.” Pitt did not bother to sit down; there was too much emotion and energy boiling inside him to permit it. “We discovered Maurice Jerome did not kill the Waybourne boy, and we know who did, but we can’t prove it. But we may be able to prove he killed Albie.”
Wittle pulled a sad, sour face. “Bad business,” he said softly. “Don’t like that. Bad for everybody, that is. ’Anging’s kind o’ permanent. Can’t say you’re sorry to a bloke as you’ve already ’anged. Wot can I do to ’elp?”
Pitt warmed to him. He seized a chair and swung it around to face the desk, then sat down close, leaning his elbows on the littered surface. He told Wittle all he knew and Wittle listened without interruption, his dark face growing more and more somber.
“Nasty,” he said at the end. “Sorry for the wife, poor little thing. But wot I don’t understand—why did Vanderley kill the Waybourne boy at all? No need, as I see it. Boy wouldn’t a’ blackmailed ’im—was just as guilty ’isself. Who’s to say ’e didn’t like it anyway?”
“I expect he did,” Pitt said. “Until he discovered he had contracted syphilis.” He recalled the lesions the police surgeon had found on the body, enough to frighten any youth with the faintest clue of their meaning.
Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 05] Page 29
