Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [96]
It took him three hours to discover who owned those properties, and six more like them.
Edward St. Jermyn.
Lord St. Jermyn made his money from the rent of brothels and a percentage from each prostitute—and Godolphin Jones knew!
Was that the reason St. Jermyn had bought the picture from him? And then refused to pay him again—and again? That was most certainly a motive for murder.
But could Pitt prove it?
They did not even know what day the murder had been committed. Proving St. Jermyn had been in Resurrection Row would mean little. Jones had been strangled—any fit man, and many women, could have done it. There was no weapon to trace.
Jones was a pornographer and a blackmailer; there could be dozens of people with motives. St. Jermyn would know all these things, and Pitt would never even get as far as a warrant.
What he needed was a closer link, something to tie the two men together more irredeemably than Major Rodney or Gwendoline Cantlay or any of the women in the pictures.
The largest house had a landlady, no doubt the madame who kept the money, took the rents and the percentages and passed them to St. Jermyn, or whoever was his agent.
Pitt was outside in the street now, walking briskly. He knew where he was going and what he intended to do. He hailed a cab and climbed in. He gave the driver the address and slammed the door.
Then he sat back in the seat and planned his attack.
The house was silent in the empty street. A rising wind blew sleet out of a gray sky. A maid came up the areaway steps and then disappeared again. It could have been one of any number of well-to-do residences just before the midday meal.
Pitt dismissed the cab and went up to the front door. He had no warrant, and he did not think he could get one merely on the strength of his beliefs. But he did believe, with something growing toward certainty, that St. Jermyn had killed Godolphin Jones, and the reason had been Jones’s knowledge of the source of his income. It was certainly motive enough, especially if St. Jermyn was seeking to earn a high office for himself in government as a great reformer with his workhouse bill.
Pitt lifted his hand and knocked sharply on the door. He did not like what he was about to do; it was not his usual manner. But without it there was no proof, and he could not let St. Jermyn go, in spite of the bill. Although the thought was in his mind to put off collating the final evidence, if he should find it, until after the bill had been through the House. One murderer, even of St. Jermyn’s order, was not worth all the children in all the workhouses in London.
The door was opened by a smart girl in black with a white lace cap and apron.
“Good morning, sir,” she said with total composure, and it flashed through Pitt’s mind that perhaps the place did business even at midday.
“Good morning,” he replied with a bitter smile. “May I speak to your mistress, the landlady of these apartments?”
“None of them are to lease, sir,” she warned, still standing in the doorway.
“I don’t imagine so,” he agreed. “Nevertheless, I wish to speak to her, if you please. It is a matter of business, with regard to the owner of the property. I think you had better permit me to come in. It is not something to be discussed on the front steps.”
She was a girl of some experience. She knew what the house was used for and perceived the possibilities of what Pitt said. She made way for him immediately.
“Yes, sir. If you come this way, I will see if Mrs. Philp is at home.”
“Thank you.” Pitt followed her into a remarkably comfortable room, discreetly furnished, with a strong fire burning in the grate. He had only a few minutes to wait before Mrs. Philp appeared. She was buxom, growing a little fat now but handsomely dressed; even at this hour her face was rouged and mascaraed as if for a ball. He did not need to be told she was a successful prostitute a little over the hill, promoted now from worker to management. Her clothes were expensive, her jewelry flashy, but Pitt judged it to be