Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [87]
Emily smiled. “Well, if you know Mrs. Swynford,” she said hopefully, “perhaps we can call on her? We may learn something.”
“That would be a distinct advantage!” Aunt Vespasia answered sharply. “I have learned precious little so far! For goodness’ sake, continue, Charlotte! And come to some point or other!”
Charlotte forbore from mentioning that it was Vespasia who had interrupted her.
“Apart from the two boys,” she resumed, “no one else in either family had anything ill to say about Jerome, except that they did not like him much—which nobody else does either.” She took a breath and hurried on before Aunt Vespasia could break in again. “The other main evidence came from a woman”—she hesitated for an acceptable term that was not open to complete misunderstanding—“of loose behavior.”
“A what?” Aunt Vespasia’s eyebrows shot up again.
“A—a woman of loose behavior,” Charlotte repeated rather awkwardly. She had no idea how much a lady of Aunt Vespasia’s generation might know about such things.
“Do you mean a street woman?” Aunt Vespasia inquired. “Because if you do, then for goodness’ sake girl, say so! ‘Loose behavior’ could mean anything! I know duchesses whose conduct could well be described by such a term. What about this woman? What has she to do with it? Surely this wretched tutor did not kill the boy in jealousy over some whore?”
“Really!” Emily said under her breath, more in amazement than any moral comment.
Aunt Vespasia gave her a chilly glance.
“It is quite repellent, I agree,” she said bluntly. “But then so is the idea of murder at all. It does not become nice merely because the motive is something like money!” She turned back to Charlotte. “Please explain yourself a little more clearly. What has this woman to do with it? Has she a name? I am beginning to forget whom I am speaking about.”
“Abigail Winters.” There was no point whatever in trying to be delicate anymore. “Arthur Waybourne was found by the police surgeon to have a disease. Since the tutor did not have it, he must have contracted it elsewhere.”
“Obviously!”
“Abigail Winters said that the tutor, Jerome, had taken Arthur to her. He was a voyeur as well! Arthur contracted the disease from her—she does have it.”
“How singularly unpleasant.” Aunt Vespasia wrinkled her long nose very slightly. “Still, an occupational risk, I imagine. But if the boy has it, and this Jerome person was meddling with him—why did he not also have it? You say he did not?”
Emily sat upright suddenly, her face alight.
“Charlotte?” she said with a sharp lift of her voice.
“No,” Charlotte said slowly. “No—and that doesn’t make sense, does it! If the affair was still going on, he should have. Or are some people immune to it?”
“My dear girl!” Vespasia stared, fumbling for her pince-nez to observe Charlotte more closely. “How on earth should I know? I imagine so, or a great deal of society would have it who apparently do not—from what one is told. But it would bear thinking on! What else? So far, we have the words of two youths of a most unreliable age—and a woman of the streets. There must be more?”
“Yes—a—a male prostitute, aged seventeen.” Her anger about Albie came stinging through her voice. “He began when he was thirteen—he was doubtless more or less sold into it. He swore Jerome had been a regular customer of his. That was the chief way we know that he is ...” She avoided the word “homosexual” and left its meaning hanging in the air.
Aunt Vespasia was happy to allow her the liberty. Her face was somber.
“Thirteen,” she repeated, frowning. “That is truly one of the most obscene offenses of our society, that we permit such things to happen. And the youth—he too has a name, presumably?