Death in the Devil's Acre (2 page)

“How did it happen, sir?”

“He was attacked, stabbed in the back. I think he probably knew very little pain. I’m sorry.”

The butler stared at him in a moment of immobility; then he swallowed. “Murdered?”

“Yes. I’m sorry,” Pitt repeated, “Is there someone who can identify the body—perhaps someone other than Mrs. Pinchin? It will be distressing.” Should he mention the mutilation now?

The butler had regained his self-possession; he was in command of himself and of the household. “Yes, sir. I will inform Mrs. Pinchin of Dr. Pinchin’s death. She has an excellent maid who will care for her. There is another doctor in the neighborhood who will attend her. The footman, Peters, has been with us for twelve years. He will go and identify the body.” He hesitated. “I suppose there is no doubt? Dr. Pinchin was a little less than my height, sir, very well built, clean-shaven, and of a rich complexion... .” He let the vague hope hang in the air. But it was pointless.

“Yes,” Pitt answered. “Did Dr. Pinchin have a suit of rough brown tweed, I should judge of some years’ wear?”

“Yes, sir. That is what he was wearing when he left home yesterday.”

“Then I am afraid there can be little doubt. But perhaps your footman should make sure before you say anything to Mrs. Pinchin.”

“Yes, sir, naturally.”

Pitt gave him the address of the mortuary, and then advised him of the nature of the other wounds, and that the newspapers would inevitably make much of it. It would be a kindness to keep the reporters out of the house for as long as possible, until some other event superseded the murder in the public eye.

Pitt left without meeting the widow at all. She had not risen from her bed, and only in his imagination did he see her shock, followed by disbelief, slow acceptance, and finally the beginning of overwhelming pain.

He must, of course, go to see the officer dealing with the other murder that appeared to be so similar. The two crimes may or may not be connected, but to ignore the possibility would be absurd. Perhaps he would even find himself relieved of the case. He would not mind in the least; he felt no sense of proprietorship, as he had in some cases. Whoever had committed this crime had entered a realm far outside the ordinary world of offense and punishment.

As he trod on against the squally wind fluttering rubbish off the pavements, he reflected that he would not mind in the least if they took this one away from him. He crossed the road just before a hansom cab clopped past. A boy who was sweeping a clear path from the horse droppings stopped and rested on his broom. His small hands were chapped red, and his fingers jutted out of the ends of his gloves. A brougham swished by and splattered them both with a mixture of mud and manure.

The boy grinned to see Pitt’s irritation. “Oughter’ve walked on me parf, mister,” he said cheerfully. “Then yer’d not get yerself mucked.”

Pitt handed him a farthing and agreed with him wryly.

At the police station he was greeted with an unexpected warmth. “Inspector Pitt? Yes, sir. I suppose as you’ve come about our murder, sir—it being the same as your one this morning, like?”

Pitt was taken aback. How did this young constable know about Hubert Pinchin? His face must have reflected his thoughts, as it often did, because the constable answered the question before Pitt asked it.

“It’s in the afternoon extras, sir. Screaming about it, they are. Downright ’orrible. Course I know they write up things something chronic, adding bits to shock people into ’ysterics. But all the same—!”

“I doubt they added anything to this one,” Pitt replied dryly. He unwound his muffler and took off his hat. His coat flapped loose, one side longer than the other; he must have done it up on the wrong buttons again. “May I speak to whoever is in charge of your murder, if he’s in?”

“Yes, sir, that’ll be Inspector Parkins. I reckon as ’e’ll be real glad to see you.”

Pitt doubted it, but he followed the constable willingly enough into a warm, dark office that smelled of old paper and wax polish. It was larger than his own, and there was a photograph of a woman and four children on the desk. Parkins was a dark, dapper man; he sat dismally looking at a sheaf of papers in his hand. The constable introduced Pitt with a flourish.

Parkins’ face lost its lugubrious expression immediately. “Come in,” he said heartily. “Come in—sit down. Here, move those files—make yourself comfortable, man. Yes, disgusting affair. You want to know all about it? Found him in the gutter! Dead as mutton. Quite cold—of course no wonder, weather we’ve been having! Filthy! And it’ll get worse. He’d been stabbed in the back, poor devil—long, sharp blade, probably kitchen knife, or something like it.” He paused for breath and pulled a face, running his hands through his sparse hair. “Man was a procurer—corpse found by a local prostitute. At any other time, I would have said that was not inappropriate. I suppose you’ll want to take the case now, since it’s almost certainly connected with yours.” He made it a statement.

Pitt was startled. “No!” he said involuntarily. “I thought you—”

“Not at all.” Parkins waved his arms as if declining some favor. “Not at all. Senior officer, much more experience than I have. Admired you for the way you handled that Bluegate Fields business.” He saw Pitt’s surprised expression. “Oh, we get to hear the odd thing, you know. Friends, a word here, word there.” He held up a finger and waved it in some vague gesture of understanding.

Pitt was surprised and flattered. He was vulnerable enough to like having his courage admired—it was a singularly warming feeling. And he had been afraid during the Bluegate Fields investigation; he had risked more than he could afford to lose.

“Our fellow was only a pimp,” Parkins went on. “Better off without him—not that it’ll make any difference, of course. Soon as he’s gone, someone else’ll step into his place—probably have already. Like taking a bucket of water out of the river. Tide comes and goes just the same—can’t see where it’s been. No, not at all! Your fellow was a doctor? Decent chap. You better have all the papers we’ve got—autopsy report, and so on. And I suppose you’ll want to see the body.”

“You still have it?” Pitt asked.

“Oh, yes—only a week ago, you know. Weather like this, cold enough to keep bodies for ages. Yes, you’d better see it. Never know, might be able to tell if it’s the same maniac.”

Pitt followed him silently to the mortuary. Parkins opened the door and had a quiet word with the attendant, then conducted Pitt inside. The room was chilly and dry, with a faint musty smell, like old medicine.

Parkins went to one of the white, sheet-covered tables and pulled the cloth off entirely, showing not only the face but the whole naked body. It was a curiously indecent gesture, even toward the dead. Pitt’s instinct was to seize the sheet and cover the lower part again, but he knew it was ridiculous. After all, that was what he had come to see.

But the wound was not identical. This was a messy and extremely inexpert castration. The glands had been removed and the organ all but severed.

“All right.” Pitt swallowed, his throat rough.

Parkins replaced the sheet and looked at Pitt, his mouth twisted with wry, sad humor. “Nasty, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “Makes you feel sick. Don’t suppose you know him, by any chance? Not likely, but you can never tell.” He turned the sheet back at the top.

Pitt had not even looked at the face. Now he did so, and instantly felt a prickling sense of shock. He had seen those dark, surly features before, the heavy eyelids and curling, sensuous mouth. At least he was almost sure he had.

“Who is he?” he asked.

“Max. Used two or three different surnames: Bracknall, Rawlins, Dunmow. Kept more than one establishment. Very enterprising fellow. Why? Do you know him?”

“I think so,” Pitt replied slowly. “At least he looks like someone I dealt with a few years ago—murders in Callander Square.”

“Callander Square?” Parkins was surprised. “Hardly the area for a creature of this sort. Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. He was a footman. His name was Max Burton then—if it is the same man.”

Parkins’ voice lifted with curiosity. “Can’t you find out? It could be important.” Then his tone fell again and he smiled bleakly at himself. “Although I hardly suppose so. He’s changed his style of living more than somewhat since then!”

“I expect I can,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “Shouldn’t be too hard. Oh, where was the wound that caused his death?”

“Here,” Parkins replied, as if he too had momentarily forgotten it. “Stab in the back, about so.” He indicated on Pitt’s body a place close to the spine, an inch or two to the left. It was lower than the wound in Pinchin’s back, but only by a fraction, and on the same side. But then Max had been taller than Pinchin.

“What kind of weapon? How long? How broad?”

“About eight inches long, and an inch and a half broad at the hilt. Could have been a kitchen knife. Everybody has one, ordinary enough. Sorry.” Parkins raised one eyebrow, understanding perfectly. “Same as yours, is it?”

Pitt disliked the reference to Pinchin as “his,” but he knew what Parkins meant. “Yes,” he conceded. “Almost exactly.” He was compelled to add, “Only, in today’s case, the man’s entire genital organs were slashed away, and placed between his knees.”

Parkins’ face tightened. “Catch him,” he said quietly. “Catch this bastard, Mr. Pitt.”

Pitt had not been back to Callander Square since the murders three years ago. He wondered if the Balantynes still lived there. He stood in the bitter afternoon under the bare trees; the bark was wet with rain gathering on the wind. It would be dark early. He was only twenty feet away from the place where the bodies had been found that had first brought him here to question the residents of these elegant Georgian houses, with their tall windows and immaculate façades. These were people with footmen to answer doors, parlormaids to receive, and butlers to keep their pantries, guard their cellar keys, and rule with rods of iron their own domains behind the green baize doors.

He pulled his collar up higher, set his hat a trifle rakishly on his head, and plunged his hands into his pockets, which already bulged with odd bits of string, coins, a knife, three keys, two handkerchiefs, a piece of sealing wax, and innumerable scraps of paper. He refused to go to the tradesmen’s entrance, as he knew would be expected of him, but instead presented himself at the front door, like any other caller.

The footman received him coldly. “Good afternoon ... sir.” The hesitation was slight, but sufficient to imply that the title was a courtesy, and in his opinion one not warranted.

“Good afternoon,” Pitt replied with complete composure. “My name is Thomas Pitt. I would like to see General Balantyne on a matter of business that is most urgent. Otherwise I would not have called without first making sure it was convenient.”

The footman’s face twitched, but he had been forestalled in the argument he had prepared.

“General Balantyne does not receive callers merely because they happen by, Mr. Pitt,” he said, even more coldly. He looked Pitt up and down with an expert eye. Obviously, dressed like that, he was not a person of quality, in spite of his speech. Such clothes were surely the product of no tailor, and as for a valet—any valet worthy of his calling would cut his own throat rather than let his master appear in public in such total disarray. That waistcoat should not have been matched with that shirt, the jacket was a disaster, and the cravat had been tied by a blind man with two left hands.

“I am sorry,” he repeated, now quite sure of his ground. “General Balantyne does not receive callers without appointment—unless, of course, they are already of his social acquaintance. Perhaps if you were to write to him? Or get someone else to do it for you?”

The suggestion that he was illiterate was the final straw.

“I am acquainted with General Balantyne,” Pitt snapped. “And it is police business. If you prefer to discuss it on the doorstep, I shall oblige you. But I imagine the general would rather have it pursued inside! Considerably more discreet—don’t you think?”

The footman was startled, and he allowed it to show. To have police at the house—and at the front of it—was appalling. Damn the man’s impertinence! He composed his face, but was annoyed that Pitt was taller than he by some inches, so even with the advantage of the step he could not adequately look down on him.

“If you have some problem of theft or the like,” he replied, “you had better go round to the tradesmen’s entrance. No doubt the butler will see you—if it is really necessary.”

“It is not a matter of theft,” Pitt said icily. “It is a matter of murder, and it is General Balantyne I require to speak to, not the butler. I cannot imagine he will be best pleased if you oblige me to come back with a warrant!”

The footman knew when he was beaten. He retreated. “If you will come this way.” He refused to add the “sir.” “Perhaps if you wait in the morning room, the general will see you when he is able.” He walked smartly across the hall and opened the door of a large room whose grate held the embers of a fire that took the chill from the air but was not hot enough to thaw Pitt’s hands or warm his body through his clothes.

The footman looked at the ashes and smirked with satisfaction. He turned and went out, closing the polished wooden door with a click. He had not offered to take Pitt’s hat or coat. Five minutes later, he was back, his face pinched with anger. He took Pitt’s outer clothes and ordered him to follow the parlormaid to the library.

In that room a fire was blazing, reflecting bright scarlet in the leather bindings of books and glinting off the polished trophies on the far wall, The general stood behind a great desk littered with inkstands, pens, paperweights, open books, and a miniature field cannon in brass—a perfect replica of a Crimean gun. He had not changed outwardly since Pitt saw him last: the same broad, stiff shoulders, the proud face, the light brown hair perhaps graying a little, although Pitt was not sure. It was a face dominated by strength of bone, and the coloring was incidental.

“Well, Mr. Pitt?” he said formally. He was a man who did not know how to be casual. All his life had been spent observing rules, even in the face of terror or extremity of pain. As a boy soldier, he had stood appalled on the ridge above Balaclava and seen the charge of the Light Brigade. The carnage of the Crimea was indelible in his memory. He knew the men of the “thin red line” who had held against all the might hurled at them by the Russian Army, men who had kept their ground in face of the impossible. Hundreds had fallen, but not a man had broken ranks.