Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [52]
Ewart was already at the house in Pentecost Alley. In the daylight he looked tired and harassed. His receding hair had gray threads in it and his clothes were crumpled, as though he had had no time or interest to spend on his appearance.
“Anything new?” Pitt asked as he joined the inspector on the steps going up to the door.
“No. Did you expect anything?” Ewart stood back for Pitt to go up first.
“Rose Burke identified FitzJames,” Pitt said as he reached the top. It was hot, the air stale, smelling of old food and used linen.
Ewart climbed up behind him in silence.
“Are you going to arrest him on that?” he said when they were inside the door. His voice was tense, rasping, as though he were out of breath. “You shouldn’t. The jury’s not likely to believe her over a man like FitzJames. We’ll lose.”
Pitt faced him. In the dim light of the passage it was harder to see, but there was no mistaking the urgency in him, almost panic.
“Do you think he’s guilty?” Pitt asked, almost casually.
Ewart stared at him. “That isn’t the point. What I think is irrelevant….”
There was a bang as someone slammed a door at the end of the passage, and behind them in the street a carter was shouting at someone who was blocking his way.
“Not to me …” Pitt said quietly.
“What?” He looked disconcerted.
“It’s not irrelevant to me,” Pitt repeated.
“Oh …” Ewart let out his breath in a rush. “Well, I don’t know. I just go by the facts. So far it looks as if he did, but we don’t have enough yet. I mean … why would he? Far more likely someone she knew personally.” His voice gathered conviction. “You’ve got to consider the life of a woman like that. She could have made all kinds of enemies. They told us she was greedy. She changed her pimp, you know? And one should look more into money, property. Who owns this house, for example?”
What Ewart said was true, but Pitt felt it was irrelevant in this case. Of course prostitutes got killed for a variety of reasons, most of them to do with money, one way or another, but the broken fingers and toes, the water and the boots buttoned together had no part in a crime of greed. Surely Ewart must know that as well?
“Who does?” he asked aloud.
“A woman called Sarah Barrows,” Ewart replied with satisfaction. “And three other houses too, farther west. This is just rented out, but at least two of the others are run as regular brothels. She rents the dresses out as well in them. The women here say they don’t rent their clothes, but that’s beside the point. Ada didn’t have to work only from here. Several of them don’t, you know? They live one place and use shilling-an-hour rooms up the Haymarket and Leicester Square area. She could have skipped from there, with dress, money an’ all.”
“And some man followed her here and strangled her?” Pitt said with disbelief.
“Why not?” Ewart retorted. “Some man followed her from somewhere and strangled her. What is more likely: a pimp she bilked or a gentleman customer like FitzJames, I ask you!”
“Let me put it differently,” Pitt answered, still keeping his voice low. “Which is more likely: that she used other rooms and cheated the owner, who then followed her—and I grant that brothel owners do have people hired to follow girls … although it’s more often a prostitute past her working days than a young, strong man.”
One of the women came out of a door to their left and looked at them curiously for a moment, then walked past and disappeared around the corner at the end of the passage.
“But let us grant that she took a dress,” he continued. “And her earnings, and came back here, and was followed. This man, instead of warning her, taking the money and the dress, perhaps knocking her around a bit to teach her a lesson, he breaks her fingers and toes….” He noticed Ewart wince and saw the distaste in his face, but ignored it. “He takes off the stocking and strangles her with it,” he went on. “He ties her garter ’round her arm and then, after she is dead, buttons her boots to each other, throws a pitcher