Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [53]
“Charlotte!” Indignation welled up inside him. She was being wildly unfair. Jerome was guilty; everything pointed to it, and nothing whatsoever pointed to anyone else. She was sorry for Eugenie and she was upset over the boy prostitute; she was letting her emotions run all over the place. It was his fault; he should not have told her about Albie. It was stupid and self-indulgent of him. Worse than that, he had known it was stupid all the time, even as he heard his own voice saying the words.
Charlotte stood still, waiting, staring at him.
He took a deep breath. “Charlotte, you do not know all the evidence. If you did, then you would know that there is enough to convict Maurice Jerome, and there is none at all—do you hear me?—none at all to indicate anyone else knew anything, or had any guilt or complicity in any part of it. I cannot help Mrs. Jerome. I cannot alter or hide the facts. I cannot suppress witnesses. I cannot and will not try to get them to alter their evidence. That is the end of the matter! I do not wish to discuss the subject any further. Where is my dinner, please? I am tired and cold, and I have had a long and extremely unpleasant day. I wish to be served my dinner, and to eat it in peace!”
Unblinking, she stared at him while she absorbed what he had said. He stared straight back at her. She took a deep breath and let it out.
“Yes, Thomas,” she answered. “It is in the kitchen.” She swished her skirts sharply and turned and led the way out and down the hallway.
He followed with a very slight smile that he did not intend her to see. A little Eugenie Jerome would not hurt her at all!
Just short of a week later, Gillivray came up with his second stroke of brilliance. Admittedly—and he was obliged to concede it—he made the discovery following an idea Pitt had given him and insisted he pursue. All the same, he contrived to tell Athelstan before he reported to Pitt himself. This was achieved by the simple stratagem of delaying his return to the police station with the news until he knew Pitt would be out on another errand.
Pitt came back, wet to the knees from the rain, and with water dripping off the edge of his hat and soaking his collar and scarf. He took off his hat and scarf with numb fingers and flung them in a heap over the hatstand.
“Well?” he demanded as Gillivray stood up from the chair opposite. “What have you got?” He knew from Gillivray’s smug face that he had something, and he was too tired to spin it out.
“The source of the disease,” Gillivray replied. He disliked using the name of it and avoided it whenever he could; the word seemed to embarrass him.
“Syphilis?” Pitt asked deliberately.
Gillivray’s nose wrinkled in distaste, and he colored faintly up his well-shaven cheeks.
“Yes. It’s a prostitute—a woman called Abigail Winters.”
“Not such an innocent after all, our young Arthur,” Pitt observed with a satisfaction he would not have cared to explain. “And what makes you think she is the source?”
“I showed her a picture of Arthur—the photograph we obtained from his father. She recognized it, and confessed she knew him.”
“Did she indeed? And why do you say ‘confessed’? Did she seduce him, deceive him in some way?”
“No, sir.” Gillivray flushed with annoyance. “She’s a whore. She couldn’t ever find herself in his society.”
“So he took himself to hers?”
“No! Jerome took him. I proved that!”
“Jerome took him?” Pitt was startled. “Whatever for? Surely the last thing he would want would be for Arthur to develop a taste for women? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Well, whether it makes sense or not—he did!” Gillivray snapped back with satisfaction. “Seems he was a voyeur as well. He liked to sit there and watch. You know, I wish I could hang that man myself! I don’t usually go to watch a hanging, but this is one I won’t miss!”
There was nothing for Pitt to say. Of course he would have to check the statement, see the woman himself; but there was too much now to argue against. It was surely proved beyond any but the most