Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [114]
“No—hell for the indifferent,” Charlotte corrected. “God can do as He pleases with the wicked. It is the ones who don’t damn well care that I want to see burn!”
Emily pulled the rug a little tighter.
“I’ll help,” she offered.
Callantha Swynford was not in the least surprised to see them; in fact, the usual etiquette of afternoon calling was not observed at all. There was no exchange of polite observations and trivia. Instead, they were conducted immediately into the withdrawing room set for tea and conversation.
Without preamble Emily launched into a frank description of conditions in workhouses and sweatshops, the details of which she and Charlotte had learned from Somerset Carlisle. They were gratified to see Callantha’s distress as there opened up before her a whole world of misery that she had never conceived of before.
Presently they were joined by other ladies, and the wretched facts were repeated, this time by Callantha herself while Emily and Charlotte merely added assurance that what Callantha said was indeed true. By the time they left, late in the afternoon, they were both satisfied that there were now a number of women of wealth and influence who were sincerely concerned in the matter, and that Callantha herself would not forget, or dismiss easily from her thoughts, the abuse of children such as Albie, however much it distressed her.
While Charlotte was occupied with her crusade against child prostitution in general, trying to inform and horrify those who could change the climate of social opinion, Pitt was still concerned with the murder of Albie.
Athelstan kept him occupied with a case of embezzlement that involved thousands of pounds abstracted from a large company over a period of years. The incessant checking of double entries, receipts, and payments, and the questioning of innumerable frightened and devious clerks, was a kind of punishment to him for having caused so much embarrassment over the Jerome affair.
The body of Albie had not been moved from Deptford, so Pitt had nothing to act on. Deptford still had charge of the case—if there was to be a case. In order to learn even that much, he would have to go to Deptford on his own time, after his duties on the embezzlement were over for the day, and his inquiries would have to be sufficiently discreet that Athelstan would not learn of them.
It was a black evening after one of those flat, lightless days when fires do not draw because the air is too heavy, and every moment one expects the sky to fling a barrage from clouds so leaden they hang low across the city roofs and drown the horizon. Gas lamps flickered uneasily without dispelling the intensity of the darkness, and the drift of air from the river smelled of the incoming tide. There was a rime of ice on the stones of the street; the cab Pitt rode in moved briskly along while the cabbie kept up a steady hacking cough.
He stopped the cab at the Deptford police station, and Pitt had not the heart to ask him to wait, even though he knew he might not be long. No man or beast should be required to stand idle in that bitter street. After the heat of movement it could kill the horse; the cabbie, whose livelihood depended on the animal, would have to walk it around and around at no profit merely to keep the sweat from freezing and chilling the animal to death.
“Night, sir.” The cabbie touched his hat and moved off into the gloom, disappearing before he had passed the third gas lamp.
“Good night.” Pitt turned and walked into the shelter of the station and the frail warmth of the potbellied stove. It was a different constable on duty this time, but the usual steaming mug of tea was by his elbow. Perhaps it was the only way to keep warm in the enforced stillness of desk duty. Pitt introduced himself and mentioned his earlier visit to identify Albie’s body.
“Well, Mr. Pitt, sir,” the constable said cheerfully. “Wot can we do for yer tonight? No more corpses as’d interest you, I reckon.”
“I don’t want any, thank you,” Pitt replied. “I didn’t even get that one. Just wondered how you were doing