Pentecost Alley tp-16

by Anne Perry

  “We’ll start by searching Finlay’s rooms again for the original,” Pitt replied, although he had scant hope of succeeding. “I’ve no idea whether it’s the truth or not, but any good defense counsel would put it forward as a suggestion, to indicate reasonable doubt. That may be its main relevance to us.”

  Far from being disheartened, Ewart was elated.

  “But it is reasonable doubt!” he said fervently. “Unless we have more, there’s no point in arresting him, whatever we believe.”

  “No,” Pitt conceded, and it was a concession. He could not help wondering how much Ewart’s unwillingness was belief in the possibility of Finlay’s innocence, and how much merely cowardice, a dread of the battle that lay ahead, even the threat to his own career, the myriad small struggles and unpleasantnesses which would lie ahead if they pursued Finlay FitzJames for the murder. Augustus would be fighting for his social and political life. There would be no mercy, and no rules, except those forced upon him by circumstance.

  He went personally to supervise the further search of the FitzJames house for the original badge. He took two constables with him, and was admitted at first with reluctance, then with appreciable surprise when he explained his purpose.

  It took them a little under three quarters of an hour, then the badge was discovered in the inside pocket of a jacket the valet said he could not remember Mr. Finlay’s having worn, which was extremely thin at the elbows and a little frayed at the collar. It was apparently kept only for sentimental reasons, and then at the back of the wardrobe. It was comfortable, something for him to use on summer walks, when it did not matter if it were to get torn or grass stained. He had not had opportunity for such indulgence in some time. It could have been there all the time. There was fluff caught on the pin, and a tiny scratch across the face of the enamel.

  The explanation was given by Miss Tallulah FitzJames, who happened to be there that morning, writing letters to certain of her friends and answering invitations.

  Pitt stood in the morning room turning it over in his hand. It was exactly like the one in police custody. Certainly as he looked he could see no difference, except a slight variation in the careful copperplate writing of the name, Finlay FitzJames, under the pin at the back. It was written by a different hand. But then it would be. What he really needed was one of the other club badges to compare it with, to see which was the original and which the copy. There was no other way of telling.

  But the other members denied still having theirs.

  “What’s the matter, Superintendent?” Tallulah asked, looking at him with a faint flicker of concern in her face.

  “I now have two badges for your brother, Miss FitzJames. One of them is a duplicate. I need to know which one, and why it was made, and by whom.”

  She stared at him without blinking. “This one is the original. The one you found in Pentecost Alley is a duplicate, made by one of my father’s enemies in order to ruin us.”

  He looked at her. She was dressed in white with ribbons and an underskirt of pale blue. She was a trifle thin, and it made her look fragile and very feminine, until one saw the strength of her features and the burning will in her eyes.

  “Do you really believe your father has enemies who would murder a woman in order to revenge themselves on him?” he asked.

  Apparently she had already considered the question. Her answer was quiet, her voice grating with pent-up emotion, but nonetheless unhesitating.

  “Yes, Superintendent, I do. I think perhaps you do not realize quite how powerful he is, or how much money he has made in the last thirty years. Envy can be very cruel. It can take you over and swallow up any decent judgment and feeling you have. And … and some people do not …” She bit her lip. “Do not consider the death of a prostitute to be a great sin. I’m sorry, that is a horrible thing to say.” She winced, and he had a sudden conviction that she meant it. “But it is true,” she finished.

  He knew it was true. Had it not been in Whitechapel, so soon after those other, most fearful of all murders, the newspapers would hardly have bothered with it.

  “Perhaps you had better make a list of these people, Miss FitzJames, and what you know, or believe, of their reasons. I shall ask your father also for a similar list.”

  “Of course.”

  Pitt thanked the two constables who had helped in the search, then left the FitzJames house and walked along Devonshire Street towards the Park. He bought two ham sandwiches from a seller on the corner and ate them as he crossed the Marylebone Road and turned up York Gate, across the Outer Circle and through the trees. It was a balmy day. The Park was full of people strolling and fashionable ladies parading, and courting couples. Children were playing with hoops and riding sticks with horses’ heads and several tried to fly kites in the lazy air, but there was too little wind to lift them.

  Nursemaids in prim uniforms wheeled perambulators or took their small charges by the hand. Some of them sat on seats together, swapping gossip while children ran around. Old gentlemen sat in the sun and relived past glories. Young girls giggled and talked about each other. In the distance a band was playing songs from the music halls.

  Pitt could not have argued with Ewart as to why he found it hard to believe that any enemy of Augustus FitzJames should murder a prostitute and lay the blame on Finlay in order to exact a revenge on his father. There was no single argument against it. He simply did not believe in such deliberate machination. In his experience robberies were sometimes carried out this way, but not murder. With violence, the convolutions, the attempts to lay blame elsewhere, came afterwards. However callous this supposed enemy, Pitt found it hard to conceive of him deliberately committing a crime for which he himself could be hanged, could it be traced to him.

  And yet he also had to admit that there was something deliberate about it. The badge and the cuff link were extraordinary. How could a man be careless enough to leave two such pieces of evidence behind him?

  He must try harder with Helliwell and Thirlstone and, much against his will, with Jago Jones. Finding another badge to compare with the two he had now might be crucial to Finlay’s guilt or innocence.

  “Good heavens, Superintendent!” Helliwell said irritably when Pitt approached him as he was walking down Birdcage Walk after a long and excellent luncheon in Great George Street. “I really cannot help you. I have no idea about Finlay FitzJames and his current behavior.” His expression darkened. “I thought I had already explained to you that we were friends in the past, but the present is an entirely different matter. I wish I could tell you some definitive fact that would clear his name, but I am not in a position to. Now I have business for which I am a trifle late. You must excuse me.” He quickened his pace.

  Pitt quickened his also.

  “I have found a second Hellfire Club badge,” he said at Helliwell’s elbow.

  “Indeed.” Helliwell kept on walking and did not turn. He did not ask where it had been found. “I cannot see how that concerns me. If it is mine, it was lost years ago, and it could be anywhere.”

  Pitt studied his face, but in the afternoon sun it looked a little red with exertion, and perhaps self-indulgence over the port, but there was not the discomfort of lying on it. He was annoyed, but if he was afraid, he hid it with consummate skill, a subtlety quite different from the rest of his character.

  “No,” Pitt replied. “It was not yours. It was apparently also Mr. FitzJames’s.”

  This time Helliwell did stop, swinging around. “What? That makes no sense! We had only one each. What … what are you saying?”

  “That someone has made a second badge, Mr. Helliwell. I would very much like to see yours so I can tell which is the original.”

  “Oh!” Helliwell let out his breath in a gusty sigh. “Yes. I see. Well, I still can’t help you, and frankly I am beginning to find this constant questioning a trifle irritating.” He turned to look at Pitt to allow him to understand that he was not apprehensive, but his anger was very real and increasing. �
�FitzJames was a friend of my rather immature days, which I have now left behind me, and what he may or may not be doing now is none of my concern. Although I find it almost impossible to believe he had anything to do with the death of a prostitute in the East End. It can only be a catalog of mischance that has led you even to imagine such a thing. You would be far more profitably employed looking into the unfortunate woman’s own acquaintances, her enemies, or debtors.

  “Now, as I said, I have an appointment, and I must hurry, or I shall keep Sir Philip waiting. Good day, Superintendent.” And with that he swiveled smartly on his heel and strode away without looking back, or to either side of him.

  Mortimer Thirlstone was harder to find. He was not involved in political or public life, and his comings and goings were dependent only upon his whim of the moment. Pitt discovered him at an artist’s studio in Camberwell, and it was mid-afternoon before he was able to speak with him. It was a bright, airy room, and several young men and women sat around in earnest discussion. There were paintings on every stretch of wall, and windows in most unexpected places, never as intended by the original architect. Nevertheless the impression was surprisingly pleasant, one of startling color and space, splashes of yellows and blues, shimmering scenery. And it was more an impression, as if seen through half-closed eyes, than a photographic image.

  “Oh dear,” Thirlstone said wearily, leaning against a windowsill and staring at Pitt. He was dressed in a loose-sleeved white shirt with a floppy collar and an enormous bow at the neck. It was all very affected, but he seemed quite unconscious of it.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Thirlstone.” Pitt was about to continue when Thirlstone straightened up.

  “Not you again,” he said, his eyes darting around the room as if to seek a way of escape. “This is getting frightfully tedious, my dear fellow.” He faced Pitt suddenly. “What am I possibly to tell you? I knew Finlay years ago. He was a decent young man, but a bit of a rake. I suppose we all were … then. But I see nothing of him now, not a thing. Pleasant enough, you know, but a complete Philistine. Doesn’t know old gold from plate. Sometimes I think he’s color-blind!”

  “I wanted to know if you could find your old Hellfire Club badge, sir,” Pitt asked, looking at his agitated face and wondering why he was so uncomfortable. This should not be embarrassing. Pitt was not recognizable as police.

  “I told you, I haven’t got it anymore!” Thirlstone replied with a frown, his voice sharpening with exasperation. “What can it matter now?”

  Pitt told him about the two badges with Finlay’s name on them.

  “Oh.” Thirlstone looked disconcerted. He swallowed, seemed about to speak again, then changed his mind. He moved uncomfortably, as if something in his loosely fitting shirt still scratched his skin. “Well … if I … if I have it, I’ll bring it to you. But it’s not likely.” He shook his head abruptly. “I really can’t imagine Finlay would do such a thing, but people change….”

  A statuesque young woman walked by, running her fingers through her mane of hair. A man by the farther window was sketching her, and she knew it. “I think you’ll find us … oh …” Thirlstone shrugged. “I don’t know. Really. I have no idea.” He glanced at the woman, and back to Pitt. “Not pleasant to be disloyal, but I can’t tell you anything.”

  Pitt wished he could think of some question which would crack the facade and let him see beneath to what these men really knew of each other, what relationships there had been, the rivalries, the bonds which held, and the jealousies which divided, the secret feelings underlying the outward behavior.

  “Did Finlay have one particular friend among you?” he asked casually, as if he had thought of it only as he was about to leave.

  “No,” Thirlstone said instantly. “We were all together … well … er, possibly he was a little closer to Helliwell. More in common, maybe.” Then he blushed, as if it had been a hand of betrayal, but it was too late to take it back.

  “Did he have more money than the rest of you?” Pitt enquired. “His father is extremely wealthy.”

  Thirlstone looked relieved.

  “Ah … yes. Yes, he did. Certainly more than Jago or I. And I suppose more than Helliwell too.”

  “Was he generous?”

  A curious expression crossed Thirlstone’s face, a mixture of bitterness and wry, almost careful regret. He obviously disliked talking about it at all, and that might have been some kind of guilt, or simply that Thirlstone regarded that as an aesthetically wasted time and preferred to live in the present.

  “Was he generous?” Pitt repeated.

  Thirlstone shrugged. “Yes … quite often.”

  “He gambled?” It did not matter, except as a blight on his character, but Pitt wanted to keep the conversation going.

  A burst of laughter interrupted his thought, and they all turned to look at the little group who had occasioned it.

  “Yes. We all did,” Thirlstone replied. “I suppose he gambled rather more. It was in his nature, and he could afford it. Look, Superintendent, none of that is relevant now. I really have no idea who killed this woman in Whitechapel. I find it difficult to believe it could have been Finlay. But if you have proof that it was, then I shall have to accept it. Otherwise I think you are wasting your time-which is your privilege-but you are also wasting mine, and that is precious. I have not seen my old club badge in years, but if I should come across it, I shall bring it to Bow Street and pass it in.”

  “I would appreciate it if you could look for it, Mr. Thirlstone. It may prove Mr. FitzJames’s innocence.”

  “Or guilt?” Thirlstone said, staring at Pitt with an intense gaze.

  Charlotte had visited her mother during the day, and was full of news to tell Pitt when he returned home. Most of it cheerful and interesting, variations of the colorful gossip about the theater relayed by Caroline.

  But when Charlotte saw Pitt’s face as he came in at a quarter past seven, tired, hot and struggling with a confusion of thoughts, she realized this was not the time.

  “Did you look again for the badge?” she asked as they sat over dinner. The children had already eaten and were upstairs getting ready for bed. Gracie, with her newly learned reading skill, was preparing to share with them the next chapter of Alice Through the Looking Glass. It was their favorite time of the day.

  Both kittens were asleep in the laundry basket in the corner of the kitchen by the cooker, and everything was tidy and cleared away, except the dishes they were actually using, and they could wait until Gracie came down again.

  “Yes,” Pitt answered, looking up and meeting her eyes across the table. The sunlight was low, coming straight in through the large windows onto the table and the scrubbed floor. It made bright patterns on the far wall and gleamed where it caught the china on the Welsh dresser. It shone red on one of the copper-bottomed saucepans hanging up. “And we found it.”

  Charlotte swallowed. “Does that mean he is innocent?”

  He smiled. “No, it just means there are two badges, so one of them is presumably a fake.”

  “Well, mustn’t it be the one that was found in Pentecost Alley? The other one must have been where you found it, mustn’t it? Where did you find it?”

  “In the pocket of an old jacket he apparently hasn’t worn for years.”

  “Well then?”

  He ate another mouthful of the cold chicken pie. It was very good indeed; so were the fresh tomatoes with it, and the cucumber.

  “Thomas?” she prompted, her face puckered.

  “Somebody had a copy made and put it either in Ada McKinley’s bed in Pentecost Alley or else in Finlay FitzJames’s pocket in Devonshire Street,” he replied with his mouth half full.

  “And don’t you know which?” She was beginning to remember Emily’s words yesterday, and her eagerness that Pitt should search again. Most unpleasant thoughts crossed her mind. She forced them away. “Surely you can tell, can’t you?” she said more urgently, her own pie now forgotten.

  “No, I c
an’t.” He frowned at her. “Not unless I can compare them with one of the original ones belonging to the other members. The writing is just a little different on the two I have. Presumably the first ones were all made by the same jeweler. The writing which does not match will be the copy.”

  “Doesn’t it have …” she began, then realized the answer to her own question, and stopped.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make any sense,” she denied.

  “Either someone had a copy made to prove him guilty when he was innocent,” he explained. “Or to prove him innocent when he is guilty, or they fear he is. That could be any member of his family, or Finlay himself.”

  “Yes,” she said cautiously, then looked down at her plate. “Yes, of course it could.” She did not add what was in her thoughts. It was screaming in her mind, but she did not dare put words to it, even to herself. “Would you like another tomato?” She half moved from the table. “I have several more. They’re really very good.”

  As soon as Pitt had left the following morning, and she had given Gracie instructions for the day, Charlotte took a hansom cab to Emily’s house. By quarter past nine she was being shown into the morning room by a startled parlor maid, who said she would go and see if Mrs. Radley was at home. That meant she was. Had she been out riding she would have said so immediately. Although Charlotte was prepared to wait even if Emily were out for the entire day.

  Emily appeared within ten minutes, still in a loose satin peignoir and with her fair hair loose in curls Charlotte had envied all their lives. She came towards Charlotte smiling, as if to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Emily!” Charlotte said quickly.

  Emily blinked. “Yes? You look very fierce. What’s happened? Is it something to do with Grandmama?”

  “No, it is not. Why did you ask me to have Thomas search the FitzJames house again for that Hellfire Club badge?” She faced Emily with a stare which should have turned her to stone.

  Emily hesitated only a moment, then sat down casually in one of the green chairs.