Anne Perry - Resurrection Row

“Thank you, Froggy.”

“That all?”

“Yes, thank you, that’s all.”

“Does it ’elp?”

“I’ve no idea. But I think I’m glad to know it all the same.”

On his return to the police station before the end of the day, Pitt was greeted by the sergeant who had previously met him with news of one corpse after another. His heart sank as soon as he saw the wretched man’s face flushed with excitement again.

“What is it?” he snapped.

“That plate, sir, the photographic plate from the dead artist’s house.”

“What about it?”

“You sent it to be developed, sir.” He was practically fidgeting in his fever.

“Naturally-” Sudden hope seized Pitt. “What was on it? Tell me, man, don’t stand there!”

“A picture, sir, of a naked woman, naked as a babe, but nothing like a babe, if you get my meaning, sir?”

“Where is it?” Pitt demanded furiously. “What have you done with it?”

“It’s in your office, sir, in a brown envelope, sealed.”

Pitt strode past him and slammed the door. With shaking fingers he picked up the envelope and tore it open. The photograph was as the constable had said, an elegant but highly erotic pose of a woman without a shred of clothing. The face was perfectly clear. He had never seen her before, either in life or in paint. She was a total stranger.

“Damn!” he said fiercely. “Damnation!”

Pitt spent the next day trying to discover the identity of the woman in the photograph. If she was a person of social standing at all, the picture alone was motive for murder. He gave the sergeant a copy and had him try all the police stations in the inner city to see if anyone recognized her, and he took another copy himself, this time with the body carefully blocked out, to see if anyone in society knew her. She did not have to be a lady; even a maid, seeking to make a little money on the side with such things, would lose not only her present employment but any hope of future employment with all its security, clothes, regular meals, companionship, and certain status of belonging. That, too, could be cause for murder.

Of course, he went back to Vespasia.

She hesitated a long time before replying, weighing her answer so carefully he was more than half prepared for a lie.

“She reminds me of someone,” she said slowly, her head a little to one side, still considering it. “The hair is not right; I seem to feel it was done differently, if indeed I do know her. And perhaps it was a little darker.”

“Who is it?” he demanded, impatience boiling inside him. She might actually have the last clue to murder on the back of her tongue, and she was havering like a nervous bride.

She shook her head. “I don’t know-I just feel a certain familiarity.”

He let out his breath in a sigh of exasperation.

“There’s no use trying to goad me, Thomas,” she replied. “I am an old woman-”

“Rubbish!” he snapped. “If you are going to plead infirmity of mind-I’ll charge you with perjury!”

She smiled at him bleakly. “I do not know who it is, Thomas. Perhaps it is someone’s daughter, or even someone’s maid. Maybe I have normally seen that face under a lace cap? Hair makes a lot of difference, you know. But if I see her again, I shall send a messenger to you within the hour. You said you found this photograph in Godolphin Jones’s house, in his camera? Why is it so important?” She glanced at the picture still in her hand. “Is the rest of it indecent? Or is there some other person in it? Or perhaps both?”

“It is indecent,” he replied.

“Indeed.” She raised her eyebrows a little and handed it back to him. “Motive for murder then. I presumed so. Poor creature.”

“I must know who it is!”

“I appreciate your desire,” she said calmly. “You have not need to reinforce it.”

“If everyone were to go around murdering witnesses to indiscretion-” He was frustrated almost beyond the stretch of his temper. He was now nearly sure she was concealing something from him, if not knowledge, at least strong suspicion.

She cut across him. “I do not approve of murder, Thomas,” she said staring up at him. “If I remember who it is, I shall say so.”

He had to be content with that. He knew perfectly well she would say no more. He took his leave with as much grace as he could muster and went out into the thickening fog.

He spent most of the rest of the day inquiring, with the picture in his hand, but no one else was prepared to admit having known the woman, and by dusk he was cold, his legs and feet ached, there was a blister on his heel, and he was hungry and thoroughly miserable.

Then, as the fourth hansom cab passed him without stopping and left him islanded under the gas lamp in a sea of icy vapor, he had a sudden idea. He had temporarily forgotten all about the other corpses, presuming them incidental. They had all died naturally; only Godolphin Jones was murdered. But perhaps there was some bizarre connection? Horatio Snipe had been a procurer of women. Could his clientele have included Godolphin Jones-either for his own appetite or as subjects to photograph? Perhaps that was his particular fetish-lewd photography.

He ran out into the street, shouting at the next cab as it approached, and reluctantly it pulled to a halt.

“Resurrection Row!” he bellowed at the driver.

The man pulled a fearsome face but wheeled his horse round and started back, muttering angrily under his breath about darkness and graveyards, and what he hoped would happen to residents of such places if they hired cabs they could not pay for.

Pitt almost fell out at the other end, shoving coins at the alarmed driver, and strode down along the barely lit pavement to find number fourteen, where Horrie Snipe’s widow lived.

He had to knock and shout loudly enough to make a nuisance and send windows opening along the street with cries of abuse before she came to the door.

“All right!” she said furiously. “All right!” She opened it and glared at him; then, as she recognized him, her expression changed. “What do you want?” she said incredulously. “ ’Orrie’s dead, and buried twice! You oughta know that! It was you w’ot came wiv ’im the second time. Don’t say someone’s dug ’im up again?”

“No, Maizie, everything’s fine. Can I come in?”

“If you ’ave to. What do you want?”

He squeezed in past her. The room was small, but there was a fire burning strongly, and it was much cleaner than he would have expected. There was even rather a good pair of candlesticks on the mantel shelf, polished pewter, and lace antimacassars over the backs of the chairs.

“Well?” she demanded impatiently. “I ain’t got nuffink in ’ere as isn’t mine-if that’s what you’re thinking!”

“It wasn’t what I was thinking.” He pulled out the picture. “Do you know her, Maizie?”

She took it between her finger and thumb gingerly. “An’ what if I do?”

“There’s ten shillings in it for you,” he said rashly. “If you give me her name and where I can find her.”

“Bertha Mulligan,” she said, without hesitation. “Lodges with Mrs. Cuff, down at number one thirty-seven, straight down on the left-’and side. But you won’t find ’er at ’ome this time o’ the evening. I shouldn’t wonder. Beginning work about now.”

“Doing what?”

She gave a snort of disgust at his stupidity for asking. “On the streets, o’ course. Probably up in one of them cafes near the ’Aymarket. Good-lookin’ girl, Bertha.”

“I see. And does Mrs. Cuff have other lodgers?”

“If you mean does she run an ’ouse, then I says go and look for yourself. I don’t talk about me neighbors, same as I don’t expect no gossip about me, nor poor ’Orrie, when ’e was alive.”