Thomas Pitt Bluegate Fields

jerking up sharply. 'I'll see you are reprimanded for this, Inspector. You can have no possible grounds for this charge, and if I were a man of private means, you would not dare do this to me! You are a coward-as I said! A coward of the most contemptible sort!'

Was there truth in that? Was the feeling Pitt had mistaken for compassion for Waybourne and his family really only relief at finding an easy answer?

Walking side by side, they took Jerome along the hallway, through the green baize door, the passage, and the kitchen, then up the area way steps and into the waiting cab. If it was noticed that the police had come in by the front and left by the back, it might just have been attributed to the fact that they had asked first for Sir Anstey himself. And one had more control over the way by which people exited than entered. The cook nodded in approval. It was past time persons like the police were taught their place. And she had never cared for that tutor with his airs and criticisms, acting as if he was a gentleman just because he could read Latin-as if that was any use to a person!

They rode in silence to the police station, where the arrest was formally entered and Jerome was taken to the cells.

'Your clothes and toiletries will be sent for,' Pitt said quietly.

'How very civili/ed-you make it sound almost reasonable!' Jerome snapped. 'Where am I supposed to have committed this murder? In whose bath, pray, did I drown the wretched boy? Hardly his own-even you could not imagine that! I do not care to ask you why. Your mind will have conjured up enough obscene alternatives to make me sick. But I should like to know where? I should like to know that!'

'So should we, Mr. Jerome,' Pitt replied. 'The reasons are obvious, as you say. If you would care to talk about it, it might help.'

'I should not!'

'Some people do-'

'Some people are no doubt guilty! I find the whole subject 68

disgusting. You will very soon find out your mistake, and then I shall expect reparation. I am not responsible for Arthur Way-bourne's death, or anything else that happened to him. I suggest you look among his own class for that sort of perversion! Or do I expect too much courage of you?'

'I have looked!' Pitt bit back at last, stung beyond control. 'And all I have found so far is an allegation from Godfrey Waybourne that you interfered with him! It would seem you have the weakness which would provide the motive, and the opportunity. The means was simply water-anyone has that.'

There was fear in Jerome's eyes this time-quick, before reason overrode it, but real enough. The taste of it was unique, unmistakable.

'Nonsense! I was at a musical recital.'

'But no one saw you there.'

'I go to musical recitals to listen to the music, Inspector, not to make idiotic conversation with people I barely know, and interrupt their pleasure by requiring them to mouth equal inanities back to me!' Jerome surveyed Pitt with contempt as one who listened to nothing better than public-house songs.

'Are there no intervals in your recitals?' Pitt asked with exactly the same chill. He had to look a little downward at Jerome from his superior height. 'That's uncommon, surely?'

'Are you fond of classical music, Inspector?' Jerome's voice was sharp with sarcastic disbelief. Perhaps it was a form of self-defense. He was attacking Pitt, his intelligence, his competence, his judgment. It was not hard to understand; part of Pitt, detached, could even sympathize. A greater part of him was stung raw by the patronage.

'I am fond of the pianoforte when it is well played,' he replied with open-eyed candor. 'And I like a violin, on occasions.'

For an instant there was communication between them, a little surprise; then Jerome turned away.

'So you spoke to no one?' Pitt returned to the pursuit, the ugliness of the present.

'No one,' Jerome answered.