by Anne Perry
The painted rouge stood out on her cheeks. Without it she would still have been handsome.
“I don’t know anything about no murder!”
“Godolphin Jones knew about this house and its business because he photographed a few of your girls.”
“So what if he did?”
“Blackmail, Mrs. Philp.”
“He couldn’t blackmail me! What for? Whom would he tell? You? What can you do about it? You’re not going to shut me down. Too many rich and powerful people come here, and you know it.”
“Not blackmail you, Mrs. Philp. You are what you are and don’t pretend to be anything else. But who owns this building, Mrs. Philp?”
Her face went white, but she said nothing.
“Whom do you pay rent to, Mrs. Philp?” he went on. “How much do you take from the girls? Fifty percent? More? And how much do you give him at the end of the week, or the month?”
She swallowed and stared at him. “I dunno! I dunno ’is name!”
“Liar! It’s St. Jermyn, and you know it as well as I do. You wouldn’t pay a landlord you didn’t know; you’re too fly by half to do that. You’ll have an agreement all detailed out, even if it isn’t written.”
She swallowed again. “So?” she demanded. “What if it is? What about? You can’t do nothing!”
“Blackmail, Mrs. Philp.”
“You goin’ to blackmail ’im? St. Jermyn? You’re a fool, a crazy man!”
“Why? Because I’d wind up dead? Like Godolphin Jones?”
Her eyes widened, and for a moment he thought she might faint. There was a funny dry rattle in her throat, a gasping.
“Did you kill Jones, Mrs. Philp? You look strong enough. He was strangled, you know.” He looked at her broad, well-padded shoulders and her fat arms.
“Mother of God—so I did not!”
“I wonder.”
“I swear! I never went near the little sod, except to give him the money. Why would I kill him? I keep a house, it’s my business, but I swear to God I never killed anyone!”
“What money, Mrs. Philp? Money from St. Jermyn to keep him quiet?”
A look of cunning came into her face, then vanished again in uncertainty. “No, I didn’t say that. Far as I know, it was money for a whole lot o’ pictures Jones was going to paint, all of St. Jermyn’s children and himself. ’Alf a dozen or more. Jones wanted the money in advance, and this was the best place to get the ready cash. It was several weeks’ earnings. St. Jermyn couldn’t get all of that much out of ’is regular bank.”
“No,” Pitt agreed. “I’ll bet he couldn’t, nor would he want to. But you see, we never found it on Jones’s body or in his shop in Resurrection Row or in his house, nor was it paid into his bank.”
“What do you mean? He spent it?”
“I doubt it. How much was it?—and you’d better be right. One lie, and I’ll arrest you as an accessory to murder. You know what that means—the rope.”
“Five thousand pounds!” she said instantly. “Five thousand, I swear, and that’s God’s truth!”
“When? Exactly?”
“Twelfth of January, midday. ’E was here. Then ’e went straight to Resurrection Row.”
“And was murdered by St. Jermyn, who took back the five thousand pounds. I think if I check with his bank, which will be easy to do now with your information, I shall find that five thousand pounds, or something near it, was deposited again, which will prove beyond any reasonable man’s doubt that his lordship murdered Godolphin Jones, and why. Thank you, Mrs. Philp. And unless you want to dance at the end of a rope with him, you’ll be prepared to come into court and tell the same story on oath.”
“If I do, what will you charge me with?”
“Not murder, Mrs. Philp; and if you’re lucky not even keeping a bawdy house. Queen’s evidence, and you might find us prepared to turn a blind eye.”
“You promise?”
“No, I don’t promise. I can’t. But I can promise no charge of murder. As far as I know, there’s nothing at all to prove you ever knew anything about it. I don’t so far intend to look.”
“I didn’t! As God is my judge.”
“I’ll leave that to God, as you suggest. Good day, Mrs. Philp.” And he turned and went out, allowing the maid to open the door for him into the street. The light snow had stopped, but there was a watery, blue-white sunshine.
The next thing he did was return to Gadstone Park, not to St. Jermyn’s house but to Aunt Vespasia’s. He needed only one final piece of evidence, a statement from St. Jermyn’s bank, if the money was there, or alternatively a warrant to search his house, although it was highly unlikely he would keep that amount of cash in a household safe. It was more than most men earned in a decade, more than a good servant would earn in a lifetime.
Also, there would be a withdrawal of capital from the bank before the payment, or the sale of some property; either would be easily traceable. As Mrs. Philp had said, he could not have immediately laid his hands on that kind of cash; he certainly would not have sought a loan.
But before Pitt did anything so final, he wanted to know from Vespasia when, the precise day, the bill was coming up before Parliament. If there was any way at all he could put off his last, irreparable task, he would—at least that long.
She received him without her usual acid humor. “Good afternoon, Thomas,” she said with a touch of weariness. “I presume this is business; you have not called for luncheon?”
“No, ma’am. I apologize for the inconvenient hour.”
She brushed it aside with a slight gesture. “Well, what is it you wish to ask this time?”
“When does St. Jermyn’s bill go before Parliament?”
She had been staring at the fire; now she turned to face him slowly, her old eyes bright and tired. “Why do you want to know?”
“I believe you already know the answer to that, ma’am,” he said quietly. “I cannot let him get away with it, you know.”
She gave a little shrug. “I suppose not. But can you not leave it at least until after the bill? It will be over by tomorrow evening.”
“That is why I came here to ask you.”
“Can you?”
“Yes, I can leave it that long.”
“Thank you.”
He did not bother to explain that he was doing it because he believed in it and cared just as much as she or Carlisle, and probably more than St. Jermyn himself. He thought she knew that.
He did not stay. She would not do anything, not communicate with St. Jermyn. She would just wait.
He went back to the police station, obtained the warrants for the house and the bank, and contrived to get them too late to execute them that day. He was home by five o’clock and sat by the fire, eating muffins and playing with Jemima.
In the morning he started late, moved slowly, and it was the end of the afternoon before he had assembled all his evidence to his entire satisfaction and made out an appropriate warrant for St. Jermyn’s arrest.
He took only one constable and proceeded to the House of Lords at Westminster to wait in one of the anterooms until the voting was finished and their lordships left for the night.
He saw Vespasia first, dressed in dove gray and silver, head high. But he knew from the tightness in her, the rigid walk, the unblinking eyes that they had failed. He should have had more sense, more knowledge of reality than to hope; it was too early, too soon. Yet the disappointment rose up inside him like sickness, a tangible pain.
They would go on fighting, of course, and in time, five years, ten years, they would win. But he wanted it now, for the children it would be too late to save in ten years’ time.
Behind Vespasia was Somerset Carlisle. As if drawn by the misery Pitt was feeling, he turned and caught Pitt’s eye. Even in this moment of defeat there was a bitter irony in him, something like a smile. Did he, like Vespasia, know what Pitt had come for?
He moved through the crowd toward them, only dimly aware of the constable comin
g from the other side. St. Jermyn was behind them. He showed the least mark of hurt. He had fought a good battle, and it would be remembered. Perhaps that was all that had ever really mattered to him.
Vespasia was talking to someone, leaning a little. She looked older than Pitt had ever seen her before. Perhaps she knew she would not live to see the bill passed. Ten years for her was too long.
Pitt moved sideways to see whom she was talking to, who held her arm and supported her. He hoped it was not Lady St. Jermyn.
They were within yards now. He could see the constable moving to cut off any retreat.
He was almost in front of them.
Vespasia turned and saw him. It was Charlotte beside her!
Pitt stopped. They were facing each other, the constable and Pitt in front of St. Jermyn, Carlisle, and the two women.
For a wild moment Pitt wondered if Charlotte had known all along who had killed Godolphin Jones. Then he dismissed it. There was no way she could have. If she had guessed lately, then he would never know it.
“My lord,” he said quietly, meeting St. Jermyn’s eyes. He looked surprised; then, reading Pitt’s face, the certainty in it, the relentless, unturnable knowledge, he showed a trace of fear at last.
There was only one thing incomplete in Pitt’s mind. Looking at St. Jermyn—the recognition of defeat in him while the arrogance remained, the hatred, even now a contempt for Pitt, as if it were chance that had beaten him, ill luck and not anyone else’s skill—he could not see in him any trace of the bizarre imagination, the black grave-wit that had draped Horrie Snipe over his own tombstone, or had set old Augustus in his family pew, Porteous on the park bench, and the unfortunate Albert Wilson to drive a hansom. He must have known the grave of Wilson would eventually be found, with Godolphin Jones in it. He could not have hoped to escape forever. And his ambitions were long-term. This bill was only a step on the way to high office and all it meant; he did not care about it for itself.
To have changed those graves required a man of passion, a man who cared enough for the bill to exercise all his black humor to hold off the arrest just long enough—
His eyes move to Carlisle.
Of course.
St. Jermyn had killed Godolphin Jones—but Carlisle had known about it, perhaps even feared it and followed him, finding the body. It was he, after St. Jermyn had gone, who had buried him in Albert Wilson’s grave and moved the bodies one by one, to keep Pitt confounded just long enough. That explained why St. Jermyn had been so confused when Jones had turned up in Wilson’s grave and not Resurrection Row!
Carlisle was staring back at him, a small, bleak smile in his eyes.
Pitt returned the shadow of the smile and then looked back at St. Jermyn. He cleared his throat. He could never prove Carlisle’s part, and he did not wish to.
“Edward St. Jermyn,” he said formally. “In the name of the Queen, I arrest you for the willful murder of one Godolphin Jones, artist, of Resurrection Row.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1981 by Anne Perry
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4532-1904-1
This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
