Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [102]
There was nothing else to do but go back to the police station. Pitt was already late, and he had no business being here.
Gillivray was jubilant about the arsonist, and it was a quarter of an hour before he bothered to ask Pitt what had taken him so long.
Pitt did not want to reply directly with the truth.
“What else do you know about Albie Frobisher?” he asked instead.
“What?” Gillivray frowned as though momentarily the name made no sense to him.
“Albie Frobisher,” Pitt repeated. “What else do you know about him?”
“Else than what?” Gillivray said irritably. “He’s a male prostitute, that’s all. What else is there? Why should we care? We can’t arrest all the homosexuals in the city or we’d do nothing else. Anyway, you’d have to prove it, and how could you do that without dragging in their customers?”
“And what’s wrong with dragging in their customers?” Pitt asked bluntly. “They are at least as guilty, maybe more so. They’re not doing it to live.”
“Are you saying prostitution is all right, Mr. Pitt?” Gillivray was shocked.
Usually hypocrisy enraged Pitt. This time, because it was so totally unconscious, it overwhelmed him with hopelessness.
“Of course I’m not,” he said wearily. “But I can understand how it has come about, at least for many people. Are you condoning those who use prostitutes, even boys?”
“No!” Gillivray was affronted; the idea was appalling. Then the natural corollary of his own previous statement occurred to him. “Well—I mean—”
“Yes?” Pitt asked patiently.
“It’s impractical,” Gillivray blushed as he said it. “The men who use people like Albie Frobisher have money—they’re probably gentlemen. We can’t go around arresting men of that sort for something obscene like perversion! Think what would happen.”
There was no need for Pitt to comment; he knew the expression on his face spoke for him.
“Lots of men have all sorts of—of perverted tastes.” Gillivray’s cheeks were scarlet now. “We can’t go meddling into everyone’s affairs. What’s done privately, as long as no one is forced, is—” He took a breath and let it out heavily. “Well, it’s best left alone! We should concern ourselves with crimes, with frauds, robberies, attacks, and things like that—where someone’s been offended. What a gentleman chooses to do in his bedroom is his own business, and if it’s against the law of God—like adultery—still best leave it to God to punish!”
Pitt smiled and looked at the window and the rain running down it, and at the gloomy street beyond.
“Unless, of course, it’s Jerome!”
“Jerome wasn’t prosecuted for unnatural practices,” Gillivray said quickly. “He was charged with murder!”
“Are you saying that if he hadn’t killed Arthur, you would have turned a blind eye to the other?” Pitt asked incredulously. Then suddenly, almost like an afterthought, he realized that Gillivray had said Jerome was charged with murder, not that he was guilty of it. Was that merely a clumsy choice of words, or an unintentional sign of some thread of doubt that ran through his mind?
“If he hadn’t killed him, I don’t suppose anyone would have known!” Gillivray had the perfect, reasoned answer ready.
Pitt gave no argument; that was almost certainly true. And of course if there had been no murder, Anstey Waybourne would certainly not have prosecuted. What man in his right mind exposes his son to such a scandal? He would simply have discharged Jerome without a character reference, and let that be vengeance enough. Hint, innuendo that Jerome’s morals were unsatisfactory, without any specific charge, would have ruined his career, and Arthur’s name would never have entered into it.
“Anyway,” Gillivray continued, “it’s all over now and you’ll only cause a lot of unnecessary trouble if you keep on about it. I don’t know anything else about Albie Frobisher, and I don’t choose to. Neither will you, if you know what’s good for you—with respect, sir!”
“Do you believe Jerome killed Arthur Waybourne?” Pitt said suddenly, surprising even himself with such a naively blunt question.
Gillivray’s blue eyes were hot, curiously glazed