Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [113]
He looked across at Ewart, but he had his back turned, going through the contents of the chest, linen and clothes piled on the floor beside him. He was apparently unaware that Pitt had stopped.
“I’ve found a handkerchief,” Pitt said in the silence.
Ewart turned slowly, his face expectant. He met Pitt’s eyes and saw in them what he dreaded.
“Initials,” Pitt said, answering the question that had not been asked. “F.F.J.”
“That’s … that’s ridiculous!” Ewart said, stumbling over his tongue. “Why on earth would he leave a handkerchief behind? Who leaves a handkerchief in a prostitute’s bed? He didn’t live here!”
“I suppose someone who had occasion to blow his nose while he was with her,” Pitt replied. “A man with a cold, or whom something caused to sneeze. Dust, perhaps, or her perfume?”
“And he put it under the pillow?” Ewart said, still fighting against it.
“Well, he wouldn’t have a pocket conveniently,” Pitt rejoined. “Anyway, it is not ours to reason why at the moment. Keep on looking. There may be something else.”
“What? Are you saying he left something else here too?” Ewart’s voice rose, almost in panic. “He’d have nothing left if he went on leaving things around Whitechapel at this rate.”
“Not something belonging to Finlay FitzJames,” Pitt said as calmly as he could. “Anything else at all. Perhaps something to indicate another man. We’ve got to search the whole room.”
“Oh. Yes, of course we have. Er …” Ewart turned back to the box chest without saying anything more and resumed taking the things out and opening them up, shaking them, running his fingers through them, then folding them and placing them on the pile beside him.
Pitt finished searching the bed and moved on to the floor around it. He lit the candle on the table, then placed it in the shadows on the floor and knelt down to peer beneath. There was very little dust, a few threads of cotton, mostly white, and a boot button which he only found by running his fingers carefully over the surface of the floor, searching the cracks of the boards. There were also two hairpins and a straight pin such as dressmakers use. Towards the foot of the bed he found a piece of bootlace, a button such as might come off any man’s white cotton shirt, and another button, leather, handmade, unlikely to belong to anyone in Whitechapel unless he had been given a man’s casual coat from some charity collection.
He straightened up with them in his hand.
Ewart had finished the box chest and was looking through the small dresser, his hands searching quickly, expertly.
Pitt began on the chairs, lifting up the cushions, exploring down the back and sides and finally turning them upside down and examining the bottoms. He found nothing more to which he could connect any meaning.
“Anything?” Ewart asked him.
Pitt held out the buttons.
“Shirt,” Ewart said to the first. “Could belong to anyone at all. And it could have been there for months.” He took the second, rolled it between his fingers and thumb, then looked up and met Pitt’s eyes. “Quality,” he said dubiously. “But again, could be anybody’s. Could be a tramp in a charity coat.” There was a challenge in his voice, daring Pitt to say it was FitzJames’s. “Are you going to see the women here? They seem to be in control of themselves now.”
Indeed it was considerably quieter. The light had almost gone and there was no sound from the bottle factory over the road. A horse and trap went by. Someone shouted.
“Yes,” Pitt replied. “We’ll see what they know.”
He led the way along the passage to the kitchen at the back of the house. It was surprisingly large with a black stove in the center of the far wall and a grimy window facing straight onto the backs of houses in the next street. There was a table with odd legs in the center, patched together from two previous pieces of furniture, and half a dozen assorted chairs. Four of them were now occupied by women ranging in age from approximately twenty to over fifty, although with age, drink and paint, it was impossible to be sure. They all looked tragic and absurd,