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That in itself did not mean a lot. There were thousands of beggars, prostitutes, petty thieves drifting from one area to another. Most of them died young, but in the sea of humanity they were no more missed than one wave in an ocean, and no more distinguishable. One knew occasional names or faces, because their owners gave information, provided steady leaks from the underworld that made most police detection possible, but the vast majority stayed brief and anonymous.
But Albie, like Abigail Winters, had disappeared.
The next day, with no plan in his head, Pitt went back to Newgate Prison to see Maurice Jerome. As soon as he stepped through the gates, he was met by the familiar smell; it was as if he had been gone only a few moments since last time. Only a few moments since the vast, dripping walls had enclosed him.
Jerome was sitting on the straw mattress in exactly the same position he'd been in when Pitt had left him. He was still shaven, but his face was grayer, his bones more visible through the skin, his nose more pinched. His shirt collar was still stiff and clean. That would be Eugenie!
Suddenly, Pitt found his stomach heave at the whole slow, obscene affair. He had to swallow and breathe deeply to prevent himself from being sick.
The turnkey slammed the door behind him. Jerome turned to look. Pitt was jarred by the intelligence in the man's eyes; he had lately been thinking of him merely as an object, a victim. Jerome was as intelligent as Pitt himself, and immeasurably more so than his jailers. He knew what was going to happen; he was not some trapped animal, but a man with imagination and reason. He would probably die a hundred times before that final dawn. He would feel the rope, experience the pain in some form or other, every moment he could not concentrate enough to drive it out of his mind.
Was there hope in his face?
How incredibly stupid of Pitt to have come! How sadistic! Their eyes met and the hope vanished.
'What do you want?' Jerome said coldly.
Pitt did not know what he wanted. He had come only because time was short, and if he did not come soon, he could not come
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at all. Perhaps there was still a thought somewhere in his mind that Jerome would even now say something that would give him a new line to follow. To say so, to imply that there was any chance at all, would be a refinement of torture that was unforgivable.
'What do you want?' Jerome repeated. 'If you are hoping for a confession to ease your sleep, you are wasting your time. I did not kill Arthur Waybourne, nor did I have, or desire'-his nostrils widened with disgust-'any physical relationship with him, or either of the other boys.'
Pitt sat down on the straw.
'I don't suppose you went to Abigail Winters either, or Albie Frobisher?' he asked.
Jerome looked at him suspiciously, expecting sarcasm. It was not there.
'No.'
'Do you know why they lied?'
'No.' His face twisted. 'You believe me? Hardly makes any difference now, does it.' It was a statement, not a question. There was no lift in him, no lightness. Life had conspired against him, and he did not expect it to change now.
His self-pity provoked Pitt.
'No,' he said shortly. 'It makes no difference. And I don't know that I do believe you. But I went back to talk to the girl again. She's disappeared. Then I went to look for Albie, and he's disappeared too.'
'Doesn't make any difference,' Jerome replied, staring at the wet stones on the far side of the cell. 'As long as those two boys keep up the lie that I tried to interfere with them.'
