Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [47]
Pitt looked at Gillivray’s smooth, clean face and hated it. What he said might well be true, but his satisfaction in it, the ease with which the words came out between his perfect teeth, was disgusting. He was talking of obscenity, of intimate human degradation, with no more pain or difficulty than if they had been items on a bill of fare. Shall we have the beef or the duck tonight? Or the pie?
“You seem to have thought of every aspect of it,” he said with a curl of his lip, at once bracketing Gillivray with Jerome in intent—in nature of thought, if not in act. “I should have dwelt on its possibilities longer, then maybe I would have thought of these things for myself.”
Gillivray’s face flamed as sharp red as the blood rose, but he could think of no reply that did not involve language that would only confirm Pitt’s charge.
“Well, I suppose you have an address for this prostitute?” Pitt went on. “Have you told Mr. Athelstan yet?”
Gillivray’s face lightened instantly, satisfaction returning like a tide.
“Yes, sir, it was unavoidable. I met him as I was coming in, and he asked the what progress we had made.” He allowed himself to smile. “He was delighted.”
Pitt could imagine it without even looking at the pleasure in Gillivray’s eyes. He made an immense effort to hide his own feelings.
“Yes,” he said. “He would be. Where is this Albie Frobisher?”
Gillivray handed him a slip of paper and he took it and read it. It was a rooming house of known reputation—in Bluegate Fields. How appropriate, how very suitable.
The following day, late in the afternoon, Pitt finally found Albie Frobisher at home and alone. It was a seedy house up an alley off one of the wider streets, its brick front grimy, its wood door and window frames peeling and spongy with rot from the wet river air.
Inside there was a hempen mat for a distance of about three yards, to absorb the mud from boots, and then a well-worn carpet of brilliant red, giving the hallway a sudden warmth, an illusion of having entered a cleaner, richer world, an illusion of promises behind the closed doors, or up the dim stairs to the gaslit higher floors.
Pitt walked up quickly. In spite of all the times he had been inside brothels, bawdy houses, gin mills, and workhouses, it made him unusually uncomfortable to be visiting a house of male prostitution, especially one that employed children. It was the most degrading of all human abuses, and that anyone, even another customer, should imagine for an instant that he had come for that purpose made his face flush hot and his mind revolt.
He took the last stairs two at a time and knocked sharply on the door of room 14. He was already shifting his weight and turning his shoulder toward the door in preparation to force it if it was not opened. The thought of standing here on the landing begging for admittance sent the sweat trickling down his chest.
But it was unnecessary. The door opened a crack almost immediately, and a light, soft voice spoke.
“Who is it?”
“Pitt, from the police. You spoke to Sergeant Gillivray yesterday.”
The door swung wide without hesitation and Pitt stepped inside. Instinctively he looked around, first of all to make sure they were alone. He did not expect violence from a protector, or the procurer himself, but it was always possible.
The room was ornate, with fringed covers and cushions in crimson and purple, and gas lamps with faceted pendants of glass. The bed was enormous, and there was a bronze male nude on the marble-topped side table. The plush curtains were closed, and the air smelled stale and sweet, as though perfume had been used to mask the smells of bodies and human exertion.
The feeling of nausea Pitt experienced lasted only for an instant; then it was overtaken by a suffocating pity.
Albie Frobisher himself was smaller than Arthur Waybourne had been—perhaps as tall, although it was hard to tell, since Pitt had never seen Arthur alive—but far lighter. Albie’s bones were as fragile as a girl’s, his skin white,