The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [30]
“What is it you wish to know?” she said coldly.
He smiled charmingly.
“The name and whereabouts of the lunatic who is garotting young women in the streets of this neighbourhood,” he replied. “Of course that is presuming it is one person, and not a crime, and then another crime in imitation.”
She was surprised into facing him, meeting his eyes.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“That sometimes people hear of a crime, especially if it is a gruesome one, and it gives them the idea to solve their own problems in the same manner: to dispose of someone that is in the way, from whose death they could benefit, financially or otherwise, and,” he snapped his fingers, “you have a second murder, or a third, or whatever. The second murderer hopes the first will be blamed.”
“You make it sound so matter-of-fact,” she said with distaste.
“It is a matter of fact, Miss Ellison. Whether it is this fact or not, I have to enquire—but not until I have exhausted some of the more obvious possibilities.”
“What possibilities do you mean?” she asked and then wished she had not. She did not desire to encourage him. And to be honest, she was a little afraid of the answer.
“Three young women have been garotted in this area over the last few months. The first thing that comes to mind is that there is a maniac loose.”
“I would have thought that was the answer,” she said with some relief. “Why should you imagine any other? Why don’t you take your enquiries to the sort of place where you will find such people—I mean the sort of people who are likely to—” she fumbled for the exact phrase she wanted “—the criminal classes!”
“The underworld?” he smiled a little derisively. There was bitter amusement and a little patronage in his tone. “What sort of a place do you imagine the underworld is, Miss Ellison? Something I find by opening a sewer manhole?”
“No, of course not!” she snapped. “I have no knowledge of it myself, of course. It hardly comes within my social sphere! But I know perfectly well that there is a world of criminal classes whose standards are totally different—” she raked him up and down with a withering stare, “—at least from mine!”
“Oh, very different, Miss Ellison,” he agreed, still smiling, but there was a hardness in his eyes. “Although whether you are referring to moral standards, or standards of living you didn’t say. But perhaps it doesn’t matter—they are not as far apart as the words imply. In fact I have come to think they are usually symbiotic.”
“Symbiotic?” she said in disbelief.
He misunderstood her, supposing she did not know the meaning of the word.
“Each dependent upon the other, Miss Ellison. A relationship of coexistence, of mutual feeding, interdependence.”
“I know what the word means!” she said furiously. “I question your choice of it under the circumstances. Poverty does not necessarily produce crime. There are plenty of poor people who are as honest as I.”
At that he broke into a genuine grin.
“You find that amusing, Mr. Pitt?” she said icily. “I spoke forgetting that you do not know me well enough for that to be any standard. But at least you know that I do not garotte young women in the street!”
He looked at her, at her waist, at her slender hands and wrists.
“No,” he agreed. “I doubt you would have the strength.”
“Your sense of wit is impertinent, Mr. Pitt.” She tried to stare him down, but since he was well over six feet and she was half a foot shorter, she failed. “And not in the least amusing,” she finished.
“It was not intended to amuse, Miss Ellison, nor to be wit. I meant it quite literally.” Now he was serious again. “And I doubt you have ever seen real poverty in your life.”
“Yes, I have!”
“Have you?” His disbelief was quite apparent. “Have you seen children abandoned when they are six or seven years old to beg or steal to keep alive, sleeping in gutters and doorways, soaked to the skin by rain,