He straightened up and began to walk along the row of lights. He walked faster than the strollers, muffled against the bitter air, carriages beside them to pick them up when they were tired of their diversion. It was not long before he hailed a hansom and made his way home.
The following day at noon, a constable anxiously knocked on Pitt's door and told him that Mr. Athelstan required him to report upstairs immediately. Pitt went unsuspectingly, his mind currently engaged on a matter of recovering stolen goods. He thought Athelstan would be inquiring into the likelihood of a conviction in the case.
'Pitt!' Athelstan roared as soon as Pitt was inside the door. He was already standing and a cigar lay squashed in the big polished stone ashtray, tobacco bursting out of its sides. 'Pitt, by God I'll break you for this!' His voice rose even higher. 'Stand to attention when I talk to you!'
Pitt obediently drew his feet together, startled by Athelstan's scarlet face and shaking hands. He was obviously on the edge of completely losing control of himself.
'Don't just stand there!' Athelstan came around the side of the desk to face him. 'I won't have dumb insolence! Think you can get away with anything, don't you? Just because some jumped-up country squire had the ill-judgment to have you educated with his son, and you think you speak like a gentleman! Well, let me disabuse you, Pitt-you are an inspector of police, and you are subject to the same discipline as any other policeman. I can promote you if I think you are fit, and I can just as easily put you down to sergeant-or to constable, if I see a rea-
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son. In fact, I can have you dismissed altogether! I can have you thrown out onto the street! How would you like that, Pitt? No job, no money. How would you keep your lady wife then, with her highborn ideas, eh?'
Pitt almost laughed; this was ridiculous! Athelstan looked as if he might have a fit if he wasn't careful. But Pitt was also afraid. Athelstan might look ludicrous standing in the middle of the floor with crimson face, bulging eyes, neck like a turkey's over his strangle-stiff white collar, but he was just close enough to the borders of his control that he might very well dismiss him. Pitt loved his job; untangling the threads of mystery and discovering truth-sometimes an ugly truth-held a certain value. It gave him his sense of worth; when he woke every morning, he knew why he got-up, where he was going, and that he had a purpose. If anyone stopped him and asked 'Who are you?' he could give them an answer that summed up what he was, and why-not merely the vocational label, but the essence. To lose his job would rob him of far more than Athelstan could comprehend.
But, looking at Athelstan's purpled face, he knew that some measure of its importance to him was very well understood. Athelstan meant to frighten him, meant to cow him into obeying.
It had to be Albie again, and Arthur Waybourne. There was nothing else important enough.
Athelstan suddenly reached out his hand and slapped the flat of his palm across Pitt's cheek. It stung sharply; but Pitt felt foolish to have been surprised. He stood perfectly still, hands' by his sides.
'Yes, sir?' he said steadily. 'What is it that has happened?'
Athelstan seemed to realize he had lost every shred of dignity, that he had allowed himself to indulge in uncontrolled emotion in front of a subordinate. His skin was still suffused with blood, but he drew in his breath slowly and stopped shaking-
'You have been back to the Deptford police station,' he said in a much lower voice. 'You have been interfering in their
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inquiries, and asking for information about the death of the boy prostitute Frobisher.'
'I went in my own time, sir,' Pitt replied, 'to see if I could offer them any help, since we already know a good deal about him and they do not. He lived nearer our area, if you remember?'
'Don't be insolent! Of course I remember! He was the perverted whore that that man Jerome patronized in his filthy habits! He deserved to die. He brought it on himself! The more vermin like that that kill each other off, the better for the decent people of this city. And it is the decent people we are paid to protect, Pitt! And don't you forget it!'
Pitt spoke before he thought. 'The decent ones being those who sleep only with their wives, sir?' He allowed the sarcasm to creep into his voice, although he had intended it to
