Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [39]
“Inspector,” he said with a return to seriousness. “Still chasing up that wretched business about young Arthur?”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid there is a lot more we need to know yet.”
“Oh?” Vanderley’s face showed slight surprise. “For example?”
Swynford made a slight movement with his arm. “You may leave us now, thank you, Titus, Fanny! If your Latin requires improvement, then you had best be about studying it.”
“Yes, sir.” Titus excused himself to Vanderley, then a little self-consciously to Pitt, aware it was a socially unmapped area. Did he behave as if Pitt were a tradesman, and take his departure as a gentleman would? He decided on the latter, and collecting his sister’s hand, much to her annoyance because her curiosity was overwhelming, he escorted her out.
When the door was closed, Vanderley repeated his question.
“Well, we have no idea where the crime took place,” Pitt began, hoping that with their knowledge of the family they might have some idea. A new thought occurred to him. “Did the Waybournes ever possess any other property that might have been used? A country house? Or did Sir Anstey and Lady Waybourne ever travel and leave the boys behind with Jerome?”
Vanderley considered for a moment, his face solemn, brows drawn down.
“I seem to remember them all going to the country in the spring.... They do have a place, of course. And Anstey and Benita came back to town for a while and left the boys up there. Jerome must have been there—he does go with them, naturally. Can’t ignore the boys’ education. Poor Arthur was quite bright, you know. Even considered going up to Oxford. Can’t think what for—no need to work. Rather enjoyed the classics. Think he was meaning to read Greek as well. Jerome was a good scholar, you know. Damn shame the fellow was a homosexual—damn shame.” He said it with a sigh, and his eyes looked into some distance Pitt could not see. His face was sad, but without anger or the harsh contempt Pitt would have expected.
“Worse than that.” Swynford shook his head, his wide mouth somewhat curled, as if the sourness of it were in the room with them. “More than a damn shame. Anstey said he was riddled with disease. Gave it to Arthur—poor beggar!”
“Disease?” Vanderley’s face paled a little. “Oh, God! That’s awful. I suppose you are sure?”
“Syphilis,” Swynford clarified.
Vanderley stepped backward and sat down in one of the big chairs, putting the heels of his hands over his eyes as if to hide both his distress and the vision that leaped to his mind.
“How bloody wretched! What—what a ghastly mess.” He sat silent for a few more moments, then jerked up and stared at Pitt, his eyes as gray as Fanny’s. “What are you doing about it?” He hesitated, fished frantically for words. “God in heaven, man—if all this is true, it could have gone anywhere—to anyone!”
“We are trying to find out everything about the man that we can,” Pitt answered, knowing it was not enough, not nearly enough. “We know he was overfamiliar with other children, other boys, but we can’t find out yet where he conducted the intimacies of this relationship with Arthur—or where Arthur was killed.”
“What the hell does that matter?” Vanderley exploded. He shot to his feet, his clean, chisel-boned face flushed, his muscles tight. “You know he did it, don’t you? For pity’s sake, man, if he was that far demented in his obsession he could have hired rooms anywhere! You can’t be naïve enough not to know that—in your business!”
“I do know it, sir.” Pitt tried to keep his own voice from rising, from betraying his revulsion or his growing sense of helplessness. “But I’d still feel we had a better case if we could find it—and someone who has seen Jerome there—perhaps the landlord, someone who took money—anything more definite. You see, so far all we can prove is that Jerome interfered with Godfrey Waybourne and with Titus.”
“What do you want?” Swynford demanded. “He’s hardly likely to have seduced the boy with witnesses! He’s perverted, criminal, and spreading that filthy disease God knows where! But he’s not foolish