The major sniffed. Tears started running down his cheeks, and he was furious with himself for showing weakness, hating Pitt for seeing it.
“I did-I did not kill him!” he said between gulps to control himself. “Before God, I did not kill him!”
Pitt did not doubt it for a moment. The major would never have killed him-he needed him for his private dreams, his pictures and fantasies where he could live out the mastery he could never achieve in life. Jones was doubly precious to him since Horrie Snipe had died just before him, cutting the major off from his brief, wild adventure into the realms of live women.
“No,” Pitt said quietly. “I don’t suppose you did.” He stood up, looking down on the rigid little man, wanting to get out into the fog and drizzle, and escape from the despair inside. “I’m sorry it has been necessary to discuss this. It need not be mentioned again.”
The major looked up, his eyes watering. “Your- report?”
“You are not a suspect, sir. That is all I shall say.”
The major sniffed. He could not bring himself to thank Pitt.
Pitt let himself out and breathed in the bitter fog with a sense of release, almost of warmth within him.
But it was not a solution. Suddenly the little notebook seemed much less promising. Without searching the drawing rooms of London, he knew of no way of finding all the rest of the pictures that carried the hieroglyphic insects. And there was no proof that the owners were all victims of blackmail, or any other sort of pressure. Possibly they were simply customers for the photographs as well, and Godolphin Jones had chosen this disguised and highly profitable way of collecting his fee. To have his art paid for at such inflated prices was a double reward, because it enhanced his professional reputation in a way his skill never could. Pitt was obliged to admire his ingenuity, if nothing else about him.
But if they were customers for his pornographic pictures, they would be the last people to wish him dead! One did not cut off one’s source of supply, especially of something that one desperately wished to be kept secret and that was presumably, in its own way, addictive.
There was, of course, another possibility: a rival in the market. That was a thought that had not occurred to him before. Jones’s work was good; at least he had a better eye than most practitioners in the field that Pitt had come across, although admittedly his experience was slight. He had not worked in the vice areas by choice, but it fell to the lot of every policeman now and again. And all the photographs he had seen before had been pathetic and obvious in their banality: portrayals of nakedness, and very little more. These of Jones’s had at least some pretensions to art, of a decadent sort. There was a little subtlety in them, a use of light and shade, even a certain wit.
Yes, very possibly some other merchant in the same trade had found himself squeezed out of the market and had rebelled in the only way he knew how; effective-and permanent.
Pitt spent the rest of that day and all the following one questioning his colleagues in all of the stations within three or four miles of either Gadstone Park or Resurrection Row to catch up on whatever was known about current dealers in pornographic pictures. When he finally reached home after seven o’clock and found Charlotte waiting for him a little anxiously, he was beyond giving her an explanation and inside himself blessed her for not asking one. Her silence was the most companionable thing he could think of. He sat all evening in front of the fire without speaking. She was wise enough to occupy herself with knitting, making no sound but the clicking of her needles. He did not wish to relive the squalor he had seen, the twisting of minds and emotions until all affections became mere appetites, and the titillation of those appetites for financial gain. So many sad little people clutching paper women, fornicating in and dominated by fantasies: all flesh and prurient, frightened mind, and no heart at all. And he had learned nothing of use, except that no one knew of a rival with either the need or the imagination to have killed Godolphin Jones and buried him in Albert Wilson’s grave.
In the morning he set out again with nothing left but to return to the shop in Resurrection Row and the photographs. The two constables were there when he arrived. Both of them leaped up, red-faced, as he opened the door.
“Oh! It’s you, Mr. Pitt,” one of them said hastily. “Didn’t know who it might be!”
“Does anyone else have a key?” Pitt asked with a twisted smile, holding up the one he had had cut.
“No, sir, not exceptin’ us, o’ course. But you never know. “ ’E might ’ave ’ad-” He trailed off; the idea of an accomplice was never likely, and the look on Pitt’s face told him it was useless. “Yes, sir.” He sat down again.
“We just about got ’em all sorted,” his companion said proudly. “I reckon as there’s about fifty-three different girls, all told. Lot of ’em ’e used a fair number o’ times. I suppose there aren’t that many women as can do this sort o’ thing.”
“And not for long,” Pitt agreed, his amusement vanishing. “A few years on the streets, a few children, and you can’t strip off in front of the camera any more. Unkind thing, the camera; doesn’t tell any comfortable lies. Do you know any of the girls?”
The constable’s back went rigid and his ears burned red. “Who, me, sir?”
“Professionally.” Pitt coughed. “Your profession, not theirs!”
“Oh.” The other constable ran his fingers round his collar. “Yes, sir, I ’ave seen one or two. Cautioned ’em, like. Told ’em to move on, or go ’ome and be’ave theirselves.”
“Good.” Pitt smiled discreetly. “Put them on one side, with names if you remember them. Then give me the best picture of each, and I’ll start checking.”
“The best one, sir?” The constable’s eyes opened wide, his eyebrows almost to the roots of his hair.
“The clearest face!” Pitt snapped.
“Oh-yes, sir.” They both started sorting rapidly and in a few moments handed Pitt about thirty photographs. “That’s all we’re sure of so far, sir. We should ’ave ’em all by lunchtime.”
“Good. Then you can start round the brothels and rooming houses as well. I’ll begin in Resurrection Row, going north. You can go south. Be back here by six o’clock, and we’ll see what we have.”
“Yes, sir. What are we looking for, sir, really?”
“A jealous lover or husband, or more likely a woman who had a great deal to lose if people found out she posed for this sort of picture.”
“Like a society woman?” The constable was dubious, picking up one of the photographs and squinting at it.
“I doubt it,” Pitt agreed. “Possibly middle-class, after something a little daring to do, more likely respectable working-class hard up, or a servant with aspirations.”
“Right, sir. We’ll get this lot sorted and be on our way.”
Pitt left them to it and went out into the Row to begin. The first rooming house got rid of three on his list. They were handsome, professional prostitutes who had been glad of the extra money and rather amused by the whole thing. He was about to leave when, on a sudden chance, he decided to show them the rest of the pictures.
“Oh, now, love.” A big blond one shook her head at him. “You wouldn’t expect me to go around naming other people, would you? What I do meself is one thing, but talkin’ about other girls is something else.”
“I’m going to find them, anyway,” he pointed out.
She grinned. “Then good luck to you, love. You ’ave fun lookin’.”
He did not want to say anything about murder. He had not said anything about it to the landlady, either. It was a crime for hanging, and everyone knew it. The shadow of the gallows closed even the most garrulous moths. If they did not know, so much the better.
“I’m only looking for one girl,” he said reasonably. “Just have to eliminate all the rest.”
She narrowed bright blue painted eyes at him. “Why? What’s she done? Somebody made a complaint?”
“No.” He was perfectly honest, and he hoped it showed. “Not at all. As far as I know, all your customers are perfectly satisfied.”
She gave him a wide smile. “You got a quid to spare then, love?”
“No.” He smiled back good-naturedly. “I want to know how many of the rest of these are regular working girls who don’t have any objection to anyone knowing what they do.”
She was quick. “A touch o’ the black, is it?”
“That’s right.” He was startled by her perception. He must not underrate her again. “Blackmail. Don’t like blackmailers.”
She screwed up her face. “Give us them again, then.”
