Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [169]
Pitt told him about the crime in Mile End.
Cornwallis was stunned. “And Ewart has only just told you? That’s beyond belief!”
Pitt could think of no easy way to recount what had actually happened without implicating Charlotte, and this was not a time for lies or evasions of any sort.
“Ewart didn’t tell me at all,” he said grimly. “My wife discovered it, and she told me.” He noticed the look on Cornwallis’s face, but perhaps Vespasia had made some reference or other, because he did not question what Pitt said.
“But you have spoken to Ewart?” he affirmed, his eyes dark with foreboding.
“Yes,” Pitt replied. “He said he didn’t mention it because he thought it irrelevant.”
“That is inconceivable.” Cornwallis was very earnest, his whole face filled with distress. “And Lennox was involved as well?”
“Yes. Although that is easier to understand. He may well have assumed Ewart had told me. It was Ewart’s job, not his.”
“But why?” Cornwallis said with exasperation. “I can’t begin to understand it! Why would Ewart hide that first murder?” His hands were clenched, fidgeting. “All right, he failed to solve it, but that’s no shame to him. From what you say, there were no clues to follow. The witnesses saw nothing of value. There was nothing further he could have done. Pitt …” He looked wretched, hardly able to bring himself to say what he meant.
“I don’t know,” Pitt replied to the question that had not been asked. “I can’t believe Ewart was involved in a murder, let alone three. But I have to know. I’m going back to the original witnesses to the Mile End case. I know their names and the address where it happened. But it’s not my station, and it’s not my crime. I need your permission to question Inspector Forrest about Ewart’s duties that night.”
Cornwallis’s face was tight with pain. He had been in command too many years not to know the weaknesses and the fallibilities of man, that courage and temptation can work side by side, and loyalty and self-deceit.
“You have it,” he said quietly. “We must know. Go back to the first murder, Pitt. I can’t believe Ewart is guilty himself. He certainly wasn’t of the second or third, we know that. But if Ella Baker didn’t do it, then for God’s sake, who did?” He frowned. “Do you believe it is really credible that we have three extraordinary murders, all with the same features of torture and fetishism, the cross-buttoned boots, the water, committed by three different people?”
“It looks like it,” Pitt replied. “But no, I don’t believe it. It’s preposterous. There is something fundamental that we don’t yet know, and I have no idea what it is.” He stood up.
Cornwallis rose also and went to his desk, writing Pitt a brief note of permission. He gave it to Pitt wordlessly, gripping his hard hand, his own body stiff. He held Pitt’s eyes, wanting to speak, to communicate some of the emotion he felt, but there was nothing to say. He took a deep breath, hesitated, then let it out again.
Pitt nodded, then turned and left, going out into the sharp October air to hail a hansom and return once again to Mile End. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.
By quarter past five he had seen the duty rosters for the day of Mary Smith’s death. There was no way in which Ewart could have been involved in her murder, just as he could not have been involved in the murders of Ada McKinley and Nora Gough.
Next he left and went to the house in Globe Road where Mary Smith had died. He asked the grayly unshaven landlord for the first witness named in the statements.
“Is Mr. Oliver Stubbs here?”
“Never ’eard of ’im,” the landlord said abruptly. “Try somew’ere else.” He was about to close the door on Pitt when Pitt put his foot in it and glared at him with such ferocity he hesitated.
“ ’Ere, wos’ matter wiv you, then? Get yer foot outer me door or I’ll set the dog on yer!”
“Do that and I’ll close you down,” Pitt said without hesitation. “This is a murder enquiry, and if you want to avoid the rope as an accomplice, you’ll