Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [44]
But, by convention, men chose to believe that women were different. Only harlots took pleasure in the bedroom. To sell one’s body was sin unto damnation. And when these women of Max’s saw their safety—their marriages—imperiled, what did they do? Did Max allow them to leave quietly, as secretly as they had come, and then obliterate their names from his memory? Or did he keep an eternal whip held over them?
The reasons for murder were legion!
Victoria Dalton was still regarding him soberly. He had no idea how much of his thought she had guessed.
“Have you ever heard of a Dr. Hubert Pinchin?” he asked her.
“He was murdered also, wasn’t he.” It was a statement, not a question. “That was some distance from here. No, I don’t think I knew anything about him.” She hesitated. “Not under that name, anyway. People here don’t always give their own names, you know.” She kept all but a shadow of her contempt out of her voice.
“He was stocky, running to paunch,” Pitt said, starting to describe Pinchin as he had seen him dead in the slaughterhouse yard, yet trying to re-create him alive in his mind’s eye. “He had thinning gray-brown hair, a broad, rather squashy nose, mouth apparently good-humored, small eyes, and a plum-colored complexion. He wore baggy clothes. He liked Stilton cheese and good wine.”
She smiled. “There are a lot of gentlemen in London like that, and a great many of them, with unfriendly wives of forbidding virtue, find their way here at some time or another.”
That described Valeria Pinchin remarkably well. It would not be surprising if Hubert Pinchin had found his way to Victoria Dalton’s house, a place of considerable laughter and purchased pleasure, fat pillows, soft bosoms, lush hips, and obliging habits.
“Yes, I imagine so,” he said unhappily. “What about Sir Bertram Astley—young, fair, good-looking, quite tall?” He had forgotten to ascertain the color of his eyes, but the description was useless anyway. There must be several hundred young men in London, even with breeding and money, who would answer it.
“Not by name,” she answered patiently. “And we do not pry. It’s bad for business.”
That was unarguable.
It began to look more and more as if it were a random lunatic with some passionate hatred of masculinity, perhaps some man injured or impotent himself, tormented by it until his mind had turned. That was an unsatisfactory answer. But so far he had discovered no connection, however tenuous, between Max, Dr. Pinchin, and Sir Bertram Astley.
Perhaps if he pursued Max’s conquests something would emerge, some woman known to all of them—perhaps used by all of them. Yes ... a revenge-crazed husband was not impossible. Or even if the woman herself had been blackmailed, she might have hired some ruffian to blot out all traces of her aberration. There were plenty in the Devil’s Acre who would do such a thing for a small fee, small compared to the ruin that might face her. And if she spoke to the ruffian anonymously, well cloaked and hooded, she might be safe enough afterward.
But why the terrible mutilation? His stomach tightened and he felt sick again at the memory of Pinchin with his dismembered genitals. Perhaps it was a husband who had done it, after all. Or a father. There was too much hate involved for something as cold as money.
The speculation was useless until he had more information. He stood up.
“Thank you, Miss Dalton, you have been most helpful.” Why was he being so polite, almost deferential to this woman? She was a bawdy-house keeper, like Ambrose Mercutt and Max himself. Maybe it was a mark of his own worth, and had nothing to do with her. “If I can think of anything