Pentecost Alley tp-16

by Anne Perry

  “But prostitution is quite different, my dear Mrs. Pitt,” Aloysia said with conviction. “It is utterly immoral. It is the ruination of good men, the betrayal of women, of families. It is unbelievably sordid! I cannot believe you really know what you are talking about….” She took a deep breath. “Neither do I, of course.”

  “I hold no advocacy for it, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte replied, suffocating an intense desire to giggle. Tallulah was so furious she could scarcely contain herself. “I simply believe it is impossible to prevent. If we really wished to do so, we would have to address the issues which cause prostitution, both the women who practice it and the men who use them.”

  Aloysia stared at her.

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  Charlotte gave up. “Perhaps I am not very good at explaining myself. I apologize.”

  Aloysia smiled charmingly. “I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Perhaps you will come again one day? It was charming to have met you, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt.” And with that she made some comment about the weather and excused herself.

  Tallulah glared at Emily, pointedly ignoring Charlotte.

  “How could you?” she said furiously. “I suppose you contrived my acquaintance right from the beginning. You must have found my confidences very entertaining, if not particularly instructive.”

  She swung around on Charlotte. “It still hasn’t cleared your husband of the blame for hanging the wrong man, has it? Are you here now trying to help him hang the person you believe to be the right one this time?”

  Emily opened her mouth to explain, but Charlotte cut in before her. “If what you say is true-and I believe you-then it is certainly not your brother. Is it not as much in your interest as mine that he should be cleared, and that beyond question? Proving he was somewhere else the first time would be an excellent start, but proving that someone else is definitely guilty would be even better. That would remove the slightest speculation.” She took a deep breath. “I would have thought you would also be very keen to know who it is that is so determined to incriminate him. I would, if he were my brother … or indeed anyone I cared about.”

  Tallulah regarded her with intense dislike, which only gradually softened as she realized the truth of what Charlotte had said.

  “We all have the same interests, even if it is for slightly different reasons,” Emily pointed out practically. “And I assume we all believe that Finlay is innocent?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte answered.

  “I know he is,” Tallulah agreed.

  Emily smiled charmingly. “Then shall we pretend that we are still friends, at least for the time being?”

  Tallulah accepted with surprising grace, considering her rage only a few moments earlier.

  When Finlay arrived home he came almost immediately to the boudoir and was startled to see two other women there. He did not know Charlotte, and he did not remember Emily. Tallulah introduced them, omitting Charlotte’s surname but being surprisingly gracious about her, speaking of her desire to help as if she had been aware of it from the beginning.

  Finlay looked doubtful, although there was a flicker of humor in his eyes.

  Charlotte returned his gaze, trying not to peer at him with the curiosity she felt. He must already be sensitive to the speculative thoughts of others, intrusive, on occasion prurient, considering the crime of which he was suspected.

  He was a handsome man, but he had not the kind of looks she found appealing. She could not see in him the strength she admired, or the width of imagination which excited her. She thought she saw something vulnerable in him, something which should be guarded from injury, because it would not recover, would not heal.

  He turned away from Charlotte. The name meant nothing to him, and she herself did not spark his interest.

  “Thank you for your confidence,” he said dryly, touching Tallulah lightly on the shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, but one of affection, and perhaps gratitude. “Are you really prepared to face what Papa will say if you tell him you were there? It may not be very easy to find anyone else willing to admit it. I can’t remember anything. Except I know perfectly well I wasn’t anywhere near Pentecost Alley. The first thing I can remember clearly was having a cracking headache the next morning. It could be that most other people will feel the same way.” His face looked bleak. “I couldn’t swear before a jury as to who was there.”

  “Some of the others might have been soberer than you, Fin,” Tallulah pointed out.

  He gave a halfhearted laugh, glancing at Emily with a smile. “Well, I can give you a list of the sort of people who were likely to have been there. I can ask them if they were and if they remember seeing me. I daresay one of them might own up to it.”

  “It’s me they need to have seen,” Tallulah pointed but. “Then people will believe me when I say I saw you. It won’t have to be public. At least …” She looked at Charlotte. “Will it? I mean, it is not as if the whole of society will have to know?”

  “Or the Foreign Office?” Finlay added. “Although I’m not sure how much difference that will make now.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and paced across the floor and back again. “None at all, if they charge me with killing Nora Gough. Or even if they suspect me of it and no one else is charged.” He looked hopeless. There was a kind of blank fear in his eyes, as if he knew disaster was inevitable but he still did not understand where it had come from, or how it had happened to him.

  “Someone is very determined to incriminate you, Mr. FitzJames,” Charlotte said gravely. “They took your belongings and put them at the scenes of two murders. It must be someone who hates you with almost insane passion-”

  “Or hates my father,” Finlay interrupted. “I can’t imagine anyone hating me so much. A few people dislike me, naturally. And quite a few might be envious of the family wealth, or opportunity. I daresay there are several who don’t think I deserve my position, let alone an ambassadorship in the future.” He looked at Charlotte, then at Emily. “But I haven’t ravished anybody’s wife, welched on any debts, stolen anything, or … well, anything.” He stood at the far side of the room staring at them, defiant and helpless, as if an ugly reality had come to him, drying up what he had been going to say.

  “Well, perhaps it is your father,” Charlotte agreed. “But there is another point, Mr. FitzJames. Whoever it is has considerable knowledge of you. He had your original club badge and your cuff link. And not only that, but he knew you were unable to account for where you were that night. There would have been little point in trying to blame you if you had been at dinner with your family, or with friends, or at the opera, for example. All of which were pretty likely. How did he know that you weren’t?”

  Finlay stared at her, a terrible comprehension dawning in his face.

  Charlotte waited.

  Emily stared at him too. No one spoke.

  “What?” Tallulah demanded, her voice high and sharp. “Who is it, Fin?”

  Finlay looked straight ahead of him, his face pasty, his eyes full of fear.

  “Who?” Tallulah said even more sharply.

  “Jago,” Finlay replied in a whisper, then coughed, avoiding turning his head towards her. “I saw Jago Jones that afternoon, and I mentioned to him that I was going to a party in Chelsea. I said where it was. Joked about it not being the sort of thing he would go to, being so self-righteous these days. He-”

  “That’s impossible!” Tallulah said abruptly. “That’s a wicked thing to say … and stupid. You know perfectly well Jago would never hurt anyone … let alone …” She stopped. Her voice filled with tears, and her face was so white she looked about to collapse.

  “Of course not,” Emily said quickly, and without conviction. “But he may have mentioned it, unwittingly, to someone else….”

  “Who?” Tallulah demanded, swinging around in panic, her eyes glittering with tears. “Why would he tell anyone about Finlay going to some drunken party? Who would Jago know that had ever even heard of Fin?” She tur
ned back to her brother again. “Who else did you tell? Someone must have invited you? Think!” Her voice was rising, angry and raw with pain. “Don’t stand there like a … a fool. Anyone could have seen you there and left early. For the love of heaven, Fin, use your brains!”

  “I don’t know!” He shouted back at her. “If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you? For God’s sake, Tallulah, I’m the one they’ll hang … not bloody Jago!”

  “Stop it!” Charlotte said sharply. “They aren’t going to hang you if we can prove you couldn’t be guilty. But we’ve got to use our wits. Turning on one another won’t accomplish anything. Control yourself, and think.”

  Finlay stared at her, his mouth open.

  “She’s right,” Tallulah said grudgingly. “Anyone who was there could have seen you and the state you were in. Or simply known you well enough to be sure you couldn’t remember the night, and neither would most other people.”

  “And there’s also the fact that most people would be unwilling to admit they were there either,” Emily added.

  “Try your friends,” Charlotte instructed. “Surely one of them at least will have the honor to own up to you having been there, and having seen you, if not at the relevant time, at least earlier. He may know who else was there at the beginning.”

  “What are you going to do?” Tallulah asked, mainly of Charlotte, but including Emily.

  Charlotte’s mind was racing ahead.

  “I assume you are going to do something?” Tallulah continued. “After all, the question is as urgent for you as it is for us … at least almost.”

  “Hardly,” Finlay said bitterly.

  “Oh, yes it is,” Tallulah argued with a flash of temper. “If we never find who did it, you will be ruined because of the mystery and the whispers. Nothing bad will happen to you, but neither will anything good.”

  “I know that!” Finlay said, self-pity sharp in his voice and his face.

  “And Mrs. Pitt’s husband will be ruined as well,” Tallulah finished. “Because he hanged the wrong man and never caught the right one.”

  Finlay looked up at Charlotte, his eyes wide, then a tide of scarlet rushed up his cheeks.

  “Pitt! Pitt-of course.” His voice was thick. “I never connected it! I never even thought of policemen as having wives, let alone ones who could pass for ladies!” And he began to laugh, a thin, sharp note of hysteria creeping into it and rising up the scale, louder and more shrill.

  Tallulah looked as if she would like to have hit him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Charlotte, her face pink. “I shall send a message as soon as I learn anything which could be of value.”

  “So will we,” Emily promised a trifle mendaciously, then she and Charlotte took their leave.

  “He’s frightened,” Emily said as soon as they were seated in her carriage and moving along Devonshire Street.

  “So would I be,” Charlotte replied vehemently, “if I knew I had an enemy prepared to go to these lengths to have me hanged.” She shivered, for a moment uncontrollably, cold deep inside her. “He has tortured and killed two women just to destroy Finlay. To hate anyone that much is insane.”

  Emily hugged her arms around herself.

  “What are we going to do next?” she asked very quietly.

  “I don’t know. Try to see if there is any connection between Ada McKinley and Nora Gough, I suppose. Why did he choose them? Why not somebody else?”

  “Maybe it didn’t matter who it was,” Emily said miserably. “Maybe there isn’t a reason. It could just as easily have been anyone.” She looked even more wretched. “What if it is Jago Jones?”

  “If it is, it will be terrible,” Charlotte replied. “But we shall have to live with it.”

  10

  Emily returned home determined to do all she could against the injustice she felt hung over the head of Finlay FitzJames. Perhaps it was more for Tallulah’s sake than for his, but she had sensed the fear in him, and the complete bewilderment. She would have sworn before any authority in the land that he had no idea how his belongings had come to be in Ada McKinley’s room, nor who had put them there. That it had been done in order to see him blamed for her death was the only certainty in the grim, chaotic picture.

  There was an enemy somewhere, just out of sight, an implacable enemy, verging on insanity with hatred. Over what? It did not seem as if Finlay had any idea, and the more she considered that, the more did it seem certain that it must be his father’s enemy rather than his own.

  The following morning she approached Jack over breakfast, beginning as soon as he sat down.

  “I have been thinking a great deal about Thomas’s present case,” she said before he had even reached for the dish with the bacon. “I feel we must do anything whatever that we can to help.” She took a small serving of scrambled eggs and a slice of toast. “Finlay FitzJames is not guilty, we know that-”

  “No we don’t,” he said sharply. “He may very well be guilty. The only person we know is innocent is Albert Costigan, poor devil.”

  With a sudden sinking inside, Emily realized she had led herself into a trap. Naturally she had told Jack nothing whatever about her trip to Beaufort Street. He would disapprove fiercely, he would have to. In the past he might very well have attended such a party himself, but things were very different now; he was a Member of Parliament and a respectable family man with a reputation which was of great value.

  “Oh.” She tried hastily to think of some way to retreat. No argument to justify her statement came to her mind. There was nothing but to deny it. “Perhaps I spoke more in hope than reality. I …” She had better not mention Tallulah. That could lead to complications. “I cannot believe Thomas would make such a mistake….”

  He lifted two poached eggs out of the dish onto his plate.

  “You mean Costigan was guilty?” he asked, raising his eyes and looking very directly at her. She was still taken aback by how very beautiful his eyes were.

  “No … no, what I meant was that Thomas wouldn’t let Finlay FitzJames go just because of who he is. He wouldn’t think he had to be innocent, and not follow it up, because …” She stopped. He was looking at her with patient disbelief.

  “Do you know Finlay FitzJames?” he asked.

  “I’ve met him.” She never lied outright. There was all the world of difference between deceit and discretion. “But only twice, and both times by chance. I don’t know him.”

  “But there is no doubt in your mind that he is innocent.” He made it a statement, not a question.

  “I …” She held a quick debate with herself. Justice and help for Tallulah were extremely important. It was a question of right and wrong. Her honesty with Jack, the trust between them, was also important, more important than she had thought even five minutes ago. “I know his sister,” she added.

  “And she has told you something which makes you believe his innocence,” he observed.

  She had not expected him to be so perceptive.

  “Yes,” she agreed with considerably less confidence.

  “What?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What did she tell you, Emily?”

  “Oh! Just that she saw him somewhere else at the time. Thomas knows about it. It isn’t exactly proof.”

  “Obviously,” he said with a tight smile. He took a mouthful of egg and bacon.

  She relaxed a little and ate some of her own scrambled eggs, and buttered her toast. There was no sound but the faint, crisp sound of the knife.

  “Where did she see him?” he asked.

  Her heart sank.

  “At a party.”

  “That’s hardly an explanation. Don’t make me pull teeth, Emily. What sort of a party? A drunken one, I presume, and no one else remembers whether they were there themselves, let alone who else was?”

  “Yes.” She kept the answer simple. Everything new she added only got her into further trouble. She was realizing with surprise how much it would hurt if Jack were
to lose his trust for her, or his respect. Perhaps she should confess to going to Beaufort Street before he found out?

  “Did she tell Thomas this?” he asked.

  “She didn’t think anyone would believe her. She’d already lied about being somewhere else.”

  “But you believe her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would there be any point in asking why?”

  “Not really.”

  He returned to the bacon and eggs. She was not sure whether he believed her or not.

  “Do you know Augustus FitzJames?” she asked hopefully.

  He did not look up, but his lips curved in amusement, almost as if he were about to laugh.

  “Fishing?” he enquired.

  “Yes, fishing,” she admitted. “Do you?”

  “Slightly. And no, I don’t know who it is who hates him so passionately he is prepared to sink to this level to revenge himself on him. But I shan’t stop looking, for Thomas’s sake.”

  “Thank you.” She took a deep breath. “Is he really so awful?”

  “Augustus? Yes, I think so. From everything I can learn, he’s not gratuitously cruel, he simply doesn’t care. He has a great sense of family-of dynasty, if you like. Which is odd for one who comes from such a relatively ordinary background. Perhaps that’s why. Money has bought him all he has, and he thinks it can buy everything. He’s right more often than I would wish.”

  “But you are finding out who his greatest enemies are?”

  “Of course. Do you think I don’t care about Thomas as much as you do? But there is also a pretty grave job of defense to be made in the House. The attacks are mounting.” His eyes were troubled, dark shadows behind the honesty.

  “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” Now she was really afraid, not for Tallulah or Finlay FitzJames, but for Charlotte, perhaps even for Jack too, if he made his connection obvious. She could not ask him how far he was prepared to go. Anyway, looking at his face she knew the answer. There would be no limit. If necessary, Jack would jeopardize his own career, even lose it, before he would deny Pitt.