Anne Perry: Pentecost Alley

She was handsomely built, of roughly average height. As far as he could tell her features had been regular, pleasing in their way. The bones under the puffy flesh were difficult to see, but the brow was good, the nose neat, the hairline gently curved. Her teeth were even and only just beginning to discolor. In another walk of life she might have been a married woman looking forward to a comfortable maturity, perhaps with three or four children and thinking of more.

“What is this evidence?” he asked, still looking down at her. Nothing he had seen so far suggested anything more than some man’s taste for pain and fear having gone too far.

“A badge from a gentleman’s private club,” Ewart answered, then stopped and drew in his breath. “With a name on it. And a pair of cuff links.”

Pitt swiveled around to look at him.

Lennox was watching, his eyes wide, almost mesmerized.

“What name?” Pitt’s voice fell into the silence.

Ewart put up his finger and eased his collar, his face white.

“Finlay FitzJames.”

Outside the constable’s footsteps creaked on the floorboards and river fog dripped beyond the dark windows. The weeping in the other room had started again, but fainter, muffled.

Pitt said nothing. He had heard the name. Augustus FitzJames was a man of considerable influence, a merchant banker with political ambitions, and a close friend of several noble families who had held high office. Finlay was his only son, a young diplomat rumored to be in line for an embassy in Europe in the not-too-distant future.

“And witnesses,” Ewart added, his eyes on Pitt’s face.

Pitt stared back at him. “To what?” he asked guardedly.

Ewart was obviously profoundly unhappy. His body was tense, his shoulders tight, his mouth dragged down at the corners.

“He was seen,” he answered. “Not by people who know him, of course, and the description could fit more than him. Ordinary enough. But it was obviously someone of position….” He seemed about to add something more, perhaps about gentlemen who frequented such places, then decided it did not matter. They both knew there were men bored with their wives, frightened of censure or commitment if they used women nearer their own class, or simply excited by the forbidden, the frisson of danger. Or there were a hundred other reasons why they might choose to purchase their pleasures in alleys and rooms like this.

“And the cuff links as well,” Lennox added from the doorway, his voice still husky. “Gold.” He laughed abruptly. “Hallmarked.”

Pitt looked slowly around the room, trying to imagine what had happened here only a few hours ago. The bed was rumpled, as though it had been used, but nothing was torn that he could see. There was a slight smear of blood close to the center, but it could have come from anyone, tonight or a week ago. He would ask Lennox, after he had examined it, if he thought it meant anything.

His gaze moved around the walls and the sparse furniture. Nothing else was disturbed. But unless a fight was very violent, and between people of something like equal weight or strength, it would hardly mark this ancient wallpaper or overturn the chair or the wooden washstand with its bowl and cracked and mended blue jug.

As if reading his thoughts, Ewart broke in.

“There’s nothing interesting in the wardrobe, just half a dozen dresses, petticoats and an outdoor cape. There are underclothes, two towels, and a clean pair of sheets and pillow covers in the chest. Chamber pot under the bed, and one black stocking. Daresay she dropped it some time ago and couldn’t see it in the dark. We wouldn’t have found it without two of us, and the bull’s-eye.”

“Where did you find the cuff links and the badge?” Pitt asked. “Not under the bed?”

Ewart pushed out his lip. “One cuff link, actually-at least the two halves for one sleeve. Behind the cushion in the chair.” He pointed towards it. “Jammed down between the seat and the upright. Suppose he took off his shirt and put it over the back, and maybe it got caught. Perhaps he sat on it or something. Left in a panic, and never thought of it until too late. Of course, there’s nothing to say it was left here last night….” He looked at Pitt, waiting for his answer.

“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. They both knew how unpleasant it would be if they had to pursue a man of FitzJames’s rank. It would be so much easier if it could be some ordinary man, someone local, with no defenders, no power behind him.

Yet the evidence was there and had to be followed, and it was Pitt who would have to do it. Ewart’s trying to evade the issue was understandable, but it was no real help.

“It proves someone was here with expensive tastes,” Pitt said wearily. “And the badge proves either that FitzJames was here himself, at some time, or someone who knew him was. Where did you find it? Was that down the chair as well?”

Suddenly Ewart’s urgency evaporated, leaving him sad and anxious, his face heavily lined, weariness in every crease. His dark eyes were almost black in the candlelight, puckered at the corners.

“On the bed,” he replied, his voice little more than a whisper. “Under the body.” There was no need to add that it could not have been there before. It was too wretchedly obvious.

Pitt put out his hand.

Ewart fished in his coat pocket and brought out a small, round piece of gold, enamel faced, a pin across the back of it. He dropped it into Pitt’s open palm.

Pitt turned it over, looking at it carefully. It was about half an inch across, the sort of thing a man might wear on his lapel. The enamel was gray, discreet, easily lost against the fabric of a suit. On it were written in gold two words, “Hellfire Club,” and the date “1881”-nine years ago. He turned it over towards the light. Even so it took him several moments before he could discern the very faint, hair-fine writing on the back, behind the bar of the pin-“Finlay FitzJames.” But once he read it there could be no argument.

He looked up at Ewart, then at Lennox, still standing just inside the doorway, his face white, drained of life and color, his eyes full of pain.

“Did you find it?” Pitt asked Ewart.

“Yes. The constable didn’t move her. He says he didn’t touch anything. He could see she was dead and he raised the alarm.”

“Why did he come in? What brought him here in the first place?” It might not matter, but he should ask. “Did he know her?”

“By sight,” Ewart replied with a shrug. “Her name’s Ada McKinley. Worked this area the last half dozen years or so. Constable Binns says he saw a man come running out in a panic and he stopped him. There could have been something wrong. Made him go back in, thinking he may have got mixed up in a scuffle, tried to cheat one of the girls, or something. Seems that he was a customer of one of the other girls, Rose Burke, and on his way out from her saw Ada’s door open, and being a nosy sort of bastard, took a look in. Hoping to catch someone in the act, I suppose. Anyway, saw more than he bargained for.” Ewart’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Came running out as if the devil were after him. But he couldn’t have done it. He was with Rose till seconds before Constable Binns saw him. Rose’ll swear for that. She’s one of the witnesses who saw the man go in, whoever he was. We’ve got her waiting for you.”

“And the man?”

“Him too.” Ewart let out his breath in a little grunt. “Cross as two sticks, but still here. Swearing fit to turn the air blue. They’re all cross, for that matter. Bad for business.” He pulled a sour face.

“Isn’t it a bit late for business?” Pitt asked ruefully. “When did all this happen?”

“When Binns saw him come out.” Ewart’s eyes widened. “About midnight. I got here just after one. I took a look around, then as soon as I saw that badge I knew we were going to have to get you in, so I sent Constable Wardle for you. Sorry, but the way I see it, it’s going to get nasty whatever we do. No way out of it.” He took a deep breath. “Of course FitzJames may be able to give us a proper explanation, and then we can look elsewhere.”