Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [75]
Pitt stood motionless on the bright carpet.
“And Godfrey Waybourne and Titus Swynford also, sir.”
For a second there was silence; then Athelstan raised his eyes very slowly. His face was purple; veins appeared that Pitt had never noticed before, plum-colored, on his nose.
“What did you say?” he demanded, sounding every word distinctly, as though he were talking to someone slow-witted.
Pitt took a deep breath. “I want to make sure that no other people have been infected by the disease,” he said, rephrasing it more tactfully. “Not only Frobisher, but the other two boys.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Athelstan’s voice rose, a note of hysteria creeping into it. “Where on earth would boys like that contract such a disease? We’re talking about decent families, Pitt—not something out of your bloody rookeries. Absolutely not! The very idea is an insult!”
“Arthur Waybourne had it,” Pitt pointed out quietly.
“Of course he did!” Athelstan’s face was suffusing with blood. “That perverted animal Jerome took him to a damned prostitute! We’ve proved that! The whole damnable affair is closed! Now get on with your job—get out and leave me to do some work myself!”
“Sir,” Pitt persisted. “If Arthur had it—and he did—how do we know he didn’t give it to his brother, or his friend? Boys of that age are full of curiosity.”
Athelstan stared at him. “Possibly,” he said coldly. “But no doubt their fathers are better acquainted with their aberrations than we are, and it is most certainly their business! There is no conceivable way, Pitt, in which it is yours!”
“It would put rather a different light on Arthur Waybourne, sir!”
“I have no desire to put any light on him whatever!” Athelstan snapped. “The case is closed!”
“But if Arthur had relationships with the other two boys, it would open up all kinds of possibilities!” Pitt pressed, taking a step forward to lean over the desk.
Athelstan sat as far away as he could, resting against the back of his chair.
“The private—habits—of the gentry are no business of ours, Pitt. You will leave them alone!” He spat out the words. “Do you understand me? I don’t care if every one of them got into bed with every other one—it doesn’t alter the fact that Maurice Jerome murdered Arthur Waybourne. That is all that matters to us. We have done our duty and what happens now is their own concern—not yours and not mine!”
“But what if Arthur had relationships with the other boys?” Pitt clenched his fist on the desk, feeling the nails dig into his flesh. “Maybe it had nothing to do with Jerome.”
“Rubbish! Absolute nonsense! Of course it was Jerome—there’s evidence! And don’t tell me we haven’t proved where he did it. He could have hired a room anywhere. We’ll never find it and no one expects us to. He is homosexual! He had every reason to kill the boy. If it came out, the best he could hope would be to be thrown onto the street without a job or a good reputation. He’d be ruined.”
“But who says he is homosexual?” Pitt demanded, his voice rising as loudly as Athelstan’s.
Athelstan’s eyes were wide. There was a bead of sweat on his lip—and another.
“Both boys,” he said with a catch in his voice. He cleared his throat. “Both boys,” he repeated, “and Albert Frobisher. That’s three witnesses. Good God, man, how many do you want? Do you imagine the creature went about exhibiting his perversion?”
“Both boys?” Pitt said again. “And what if they were involved themselves, wouldn’t that be just the lie they would tell? And Albie Frobisher—would you take the word of a seventeen-year-old male prostitute against that of a respectable scholastic tutor at any other time? Would you?”
“No!” Athelstan was on his feet now, his face only a hand-span from Pitt’s, his knuckles white, arms shaking. “Yes!” he contradicted himself. “Yes—if it fits with all the other evidence. And it does! He identified him from photographs—that proves Jerome was there.”
“Can we be sure?” Pitt urged. “Can we be sure we didn’t put the idea into his mind, prompt him? Did we suggest the answer we wanted by the way we asked the questions?”
“No, of course