Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [51]
“Good evening, Mrs. Jerome,” he said gently. “What can I do for you?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she had to struggle for several seconds to master herself before she could speak distinctly.
“Mr. Pitt, there is no way that I can prove that my husband was at home with me all the night that poor child was killed, because I was asleep and I cannot truly say I know where he was—except that I have never known Maurice to lie about anything, and I believe him.” She pulled a little face as she recognized her own naïveté. “Not that I suppose people would expect the to say anything else—”
“That’s not so, Mrs. Jerome,” Charlotte interrupted. “If you believe he was guilty, you might feel betrayed and wish to see him punished. Many women would!”
Eugenie turned around, her face aghast.
“What a dreadful thought! Oh, how terrible! I do not for even an instant believe it to be true. Certainly Maurice is not an easy man, and there are those who dislike him, I know. He holds very definite opinions, and they are not shared by everyone. But he is not evil. He has no—no appetites of the vile nature they are accusing him of. Of that I am perfectly sure. It is just not the sort of person he is.”
Pitt hid his feelings. She was remarkably innocent for a woman married eleven years. Did she really imagine that Jerome would have permitted her to learn of it if he had?
And yet it surprised him also. Jerome seemed too—too ambitious, too rational to fill the picture that was emerging of him as an emotional, sensual man. Which proved what? Only that people were far more complex, more surprising than it was so easy to suppose.
There was no point in hurting her the more by arguing. If it was better for her to go on believing in his innocence, cherishing the good in what she had had, then why insist on trying to shatter it?
“I can only uncover evidence, Mrs. Jerome,” he said weakly. “It is not in my power to interpret it, or to hide it again.”
“But there must be evidence to prove him innocent!” she protested. “I know he is! Somewhere there must be a way to show that! After all, someone did kill that boy, didn’t they?”
“Oh, yes, he was murdered.”
“Then find who really did it! Please, Mr. Pitt! If not for the sake of my husband, then for the sake of your own conscience—for justice. I know it was not Maurice, so it must be somebody else.” She stopped for a moment, and a more forceful argument came to her mind. “After all if he is left to go free, he may abuse some other child in the same manner, may he not?”
“Yes, I suppose so. But what can I look for, Mrs. Jerome? What other evidence do you think there could be?”
“I don’t know. But you are far cleverer at that sort of thing. It is your job. Mrs. Pitt has told the about some of the marvelous cases you have solved in the past, when it seemed quite hopeless. I’m sure if anyone in London can find the truth, it is you.”
It was monstrous, but there was nothing he could say. After she had gone, he turned on Charlotte furiously.
“What in God’s name have you been telling her?” he demanded, his voice rising to a shout. “I can’t do anything about it! The man’s guilty! You have no right to encourage her to believe—it’s grossly irresponsible—and cruel. Do you know who I saw today?” He had not planned to tell her anything about it. Now he was smarting raw, and he did not want to be alone in his pain. He lashed out with all the clarity of new memory. “I saw a prostitute, a boy who was probably sold into homosexual brothels when he was thirteen years old. He sat there on a bed in a room that looked like a cheap copy of a West End whorehouse—all red plush and gilt-backed chairs, and gas lamps dim in the middle of the day. He was seventeen, but his eyes looked as old as Sodom. He’ll probably be dead before he’s thirty.”
Charlotte stood silent