Death in the Devil's Acre (11 page)

Constable Dabb straightened a little. “West side of the street, sir,” he replied.

“West side?”

“Wind’s from the east, sir. And bin rainin’, too. Nobody, even a drunk, is goin’ to sleep in the wet when there’s shelter twenty feet away on the other side.”

Pitt gave him a smile of appreciation, then picked up the cape and handed it back to him. He bent over the corpse. Bertram Astley had been a handsome man: regular features, good nose, fair hair and side whiskers, and very slightly darker mustache. His eyes were closed, and it was impossible to guess what vitality he might have possessed in life.

Pitt looked down and opened the coat where Constable Dabb’s sense of decency had compelled him to close it over the wound. This one was peremptory, a single slash, not deep. There was not a great deal of blood. He lifted the shoulders enough to see the back. The coat was cut and there was a long, dark stain a little to the left of the spine. This was the death wound, the same as the others. He let the body ease back to its position.

“Have you sent for the surgeon?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.” Of course he had; his professional pride would not permit him to forget such a primary task.

Pitt looked around the street. There was nothing else unusual. It was narrow, lined with houses that sagged as timbers rotted and plaster grew mold and bulged, crumbling away. Drains overflowed. Would anyone have noticed a man carrying a corpse, or two people righting? He doubted it. If there had been a witness entering or leaving the brothel, would they ever be found—or speak if they were? Hardly. Homosexuality was a crime carrying a long penalty of imprisonment, and social ruin for life. Of course to practice it discreetly was common enough, but to force people to admit they were aware of it was utterly different.

“See what else you can do here,” he instructed. “Do you have the address of the family?”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant handed it to him on a slip torn from his notebook.

Pitt sighed. “Then I’d better go and tell them before the newspapers have time to print a late extra. No one should learn of this sort of thing from a paper.”

“No, sir. I’m afraid there was reporters ’ere over an hour ago. I don’t know ’ow they ’eard—”

It was not worth discussing. There were eyes and ears everywhere!—people accustomed to death, and keen for a sixpence to let some newshound be the first to run to Fleet Street with material for glaring headlines.

Pitt climbed back into the hansom and gave the driver the address of the Astleys’ London house.

There was faint light in the sky when he stepped out and dismissed the cab. He had no idea how long he would be.

The street was almost deserted. A kitchenmaid carried out rubbish; a bootboy slammed a back door. Only the servants’ quarters were alive. He climbed the steps to the front door and knocked. A footman, looking sur- prised, answered. Pitt did not give him time to make judgments.

“Good morning,” he said firmly. “I am from the police. I am afraid I have very serious news to deliver. Will you please conduct me to a suitable place, and inform the head of the family? And you had better bring brandy, or whatever you consider best for the treatment of shock.”

The footman was stunned. He made no protest as Pitt stepped in past him and closed the door.

“Sir Bertram—” he began.

“Is not at home. I know,” Pitt interrupted quietly. “I am afraid he is dead.”

“Oh.” The footman attempted to collect himself, but the situation was beyond him. “I had—” He swallowed. “I had better fetch Mr. Hodge, the butler—and Mr. Beau, Sir Bertram’s brother.” And before Pitt could speak, the footman flung open the door of the cold morning room where a maid had cleaned the grate but not yet lit the fire. “Sir.” He left Pitt to fend for himself, and disappeared toward the back of the dark hallway, the green baize door, and safety.

Pitt stared around the room. It was full of rich furniture, much of it exotic: lacquered Japanese tables, inlaid ebony, intaglio, French watercolors on the wall. The Astleys lacked neither taste nor money to indulge themselves, and their choice was exceedingly catholic.

An elderly butler came in, sober-faced, a silver tray with brandy and French lead-crystal glasses in his hand.

“Is Frederick correct, sir, that Sir Bertram has met with an accident and is dead?”

There was no purpose in lying; the butler would be the one who would have to control the staff and see that during the first days’ distress of the family all the necessary duties of the household were continued. “I am sorry, it was not an accident. Sir Bertram was murdered.”

“Oh dear.” Hodge set the brandy down sharply on the table. “Oh dear.”

He had not managed to think of anything else to say when a few moments later a young man opened the door and stood staring. He was still dressed in night attire and robe. His fair hair was damp from his morning ablutions, but he was not yet shaved. There was a marked resemblance between his features and those of the dead man: the same good nose and broad brow. But this face, even in the tight expectancy of fear, was animated; there were lines of humor about the mouth, and the eyes were wide and blue.

He closed the door. “What is it?”

Pitt realized how fortunate he had been with Mullen and Valeria Pinchin. He thought he had remembered how hard it was, but the impact was there all over again.

“I am sorry, sir,” he replied very quietly. It was easier to say it all at once, more merciful than spinning it out a detail at a time. “I have to tell you that we have just discovered the body of your brother Sir Bertram, in the Devil’s Acre. I am afraid he has been murdered, in a similar manner to Dr. Hubert Pinchin, although he was far less mutilated—” He stopped; there seemed nothing more to say. “I’m sorry, sir,” he repeated.

Beau Astley stood perfectly still for several seconds, then straightened his shoulders and walked over to the table. Hodge offered him the brandy, but he ignored it. “In the Devil’s Acre?”

Was it worse to ask now, in the numbness of shock, or later, when the anesthesia had worn off and the wound was raw and inescapable? Either way, there was only one answer Pitt could act on.

“Do you know what Sir Bertram might have been doing in that area?”

Beau Astley looked up. Then at last he took Hodge’s brandy and drank it in two gulps. He poured himself two more fingers, and drank it also.

“I suppose there is no point in lying, Inspector. Bertie gambled occasionally, not much, and I don’t think he ever lost. In fact, I think he won most of the time. Usually he went to one or the other of the gentlemen’s clubs. But once in a while he liked to go slumming somewhere like Whitechapel, or the Acre. Can’t think why—disgusting places!” He paused, as if the incomprehensibility of it might yet make it untrue.

Pitt was surprised; in his state of shock, Beau Astley was so jarred out of his normal composure that he seemed not even to resent a policeman in his own morning room, asking him personal questions about his family. There was no condescension in his voice.

“And Sir Bertram went gambling yesterday evening?” Pitt pursued.

Beau reached for a chair and Hodge pulled it in position for him immediately. He sat down. Hodge retreated silently and closed the door behind him.

“No.” Beau put his head in his hands and stared at the table. “No, that’s it. He went to call upon May. He was invited there to dinner.”

“May?”

“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know. Miss Woolmer, she and Bertie were to be betrothed—at least I think so. Oh, God! I’d better go and tell her. I can’t let her find out from the police, or some idiotic gossip.” He looked up without hope. “I suppose there’s no chance of keeping it out of the newspapers? My father is dead—but Mother lives in Gloucestershire. I’ll have to write ...” His voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry, the newspapers had already been there by the time I was called myself,” Pitt replied. “In an area like that, sixpence is a lot of money.” He thought he did not need to explain further.

“Of course.” Beau was suddenly terribly tired, his face leached of the animation that had been there only minutes before. “Do you mind if I get dressed and go to Miss Woolmer immediately? I don’t want her to hear it from anyone else.”

“No, sir, that would be by far the best thing,” Pitt said. He watched as Beau stood up. He must tell him the rest; it would be common knowledge by late morning. “I—I’m afraid there is one more thing, sir. He was found in a most”—he searched for the right word—“a most unfortunate place.”

“You said. The Devil’s Acre.”

“Yes, sir—but in the doorway of a brothel, for men only.”

Beau’s face tightened in an attempt at a smile. He was past any further shock. “Surely brothels are, Inspector?”

Pitt hated telling him; already he liked the man. “No,” he said very quietly. “In most brothels the staff are female... .” He let it hang.

Beau’s dark blue eyes widened. “That’s ridiculous... . Bertie wasn’t—”

“No,” Pitt said quickly. “He was near—I expect that was merely where his attacker caught up with him. But I had to warn you—the newspapers will possibly mention it.”

Beau ran his hand through the hair that was falling forward over his brow. “Yes, I suppose they will. They can’t leave the Prince of Wales alone, so they certainly won’t have any compunction about Bertie. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and get dressed. Hodge will get you a brandy, or something.” He was gone before Pitt could thank him.

Pitt decided to ask for hot tea, and perhaps a slice of toast. The thought was enough to make him even more conscious of the cold void inside him. To look at a corpse was grim, but the dead were beyond feeling. It was telling the living that hurt Pitt, and made him feel guilty and helpless. He was the bringer of pain, the onlooker, shielded from everything but its mirror image.

He would take his tea in the kitchen. There was nothing else he could ask Beau Astley at the moment, but there might be something to be learned in the servants’ quarters, even inadvertently. Then later, when the first news had been broken, he would have to see Miss May Woolmer, who apparently had been the last person they knew of to talk with Bertram Astley before he left for the Devil’s Acre.

During that brief respite in the kitchen’s warmth, nursing a mug of tea, Pitt learned a great deal of detail from Hodge, the footman, the valet, and from several of the maids. Later he had an excellent luncheon with the entire staff, very sober, at their long table. Housemaids were sniffling, footmen silent, cook and kitchenmaid red-nosed.

But none of it, as far as he could judge, amounted to anything other than the outline of an ordinary young man of title, of very much more than adequate means and extremely pleasing looks. His character had not been unusual: a little selfish, as one might expect in an elder son who had known from birth that he had the exclusive right of inheritance. But if he had practiced either malice or outward greed, it appeared his household had been blind to it. His personal habits had been typical: a little high-spirited gambling now and then—but who did not, if he could afford it? Occasionally he drank rather too much, but he was neither quarrelsome nor licentious. None of the maids had complained, and he was not niggardly with the expenses of the house. Altogether he was a fine gentleman.

A little after two o’clock, Pitt was permitted into the Woolmer house, again reluctantly and only in order to keep him from being observed importuning on the doorstep by inquisitive neighbors. No one wished it known that there were police in the house, whatever the reason!

“Miss Woolmer will be unable to see you,” the footman said coolly. “She has received news of a bereavement, and is indisposed.”

“I am aware of the bereavement,” Pitt answered. “Unfortunately, because Sir Bertram apparently dined here yesterday, I am obliged to ask Miss Woolmer what she may know of his frame of mind, any remark he may have made as to his intentions... .”

The man stared at him, abhorring his crassness. “I’m sure if Miss Woolmer knows anything of value to you, she will be happy to inform you when she is recovered,” he said coldly.

All day Pitt had felt nothing but grief; now at last he found release for it in anger. “I am afraid the pursuit of murder cannot wait upon the convenience of Miss Woolmer,” he retorted. “There is an insane creature loose in the Devil’s Acre. Three people have been murdered and mutilated already, and if we do not catch him, there is no reason to doubt there will be a fourth and a fifth. There is no time to wait upon indisposition! Will you please inform Miss Woolmer that I regret the necessity of disturbing her at such a time,” Pitt continued, “but she may be able to give me information that will assist us to arrest whoever killed Sir Bertram.”

The footman’s face was white. “Yes—if it is unavoidable,” he conceded grudgingly. He left Pitt alone and went down the hall searching in his mind for words to relay the order.

More than half an hour passed before Pitt was shown into the withdrawing room, a place crowded with pictures, ornaments, lace, crochetwork, and embroidery. A brilliant fire burned and all the lamps were lit. Of course the curtains were lowered, as suited a house suffering a violent bereavement.

May Woolmer was a remarkably handsome girl with a fine figure, now draped in elegant grief on a chaise longue. She was dressed in dove gray—neither too colorful for such a delicate moment nor yet an ostentatious display of her feelings. Her hair was thick and shining like honey, and her features were regular. She stared at Pitt with her large, wide-spaced eyes, and held a handkerchief in one white hand.

Mrs. Woolmer stood behind her like a sentry, her large bosom encased in beaded purple, suitable for half mourning, very appropriate in such awkward circumstances. Her hair was as fair as her daughter’s, but faded in patches, and her face was heavier, her chin too soft, her throat thick. Without question, she was grossly offended, and Pitt was the obvious target for her wrath. He was here, and she assumed he was without defense. She glared at him.

“I cannot imagine why you feel it necessary to intrude upon our distress,” she said icily. “I trust you have sufficient good taste to be brief.”