Thomas Pitt Bluegate Fields

tomorrow.

'Mrs. Jerome.' He began with the only thing he could think of: 'We had to arrest him, but he is perfectly well and not hurt in any way. You will be permitted to visit him-if you wish.'

'He didn't kill that boy.' The tears shone in her eyes and she blinked without moving her gaze from his. 'I know-I

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know he is not always very easy'-she took a deep breath, steeling herself for the betrayal-'not very easy to like, but he is not an evil man. He would never abuse a trust. He has far too much pride for that!'

Pitt could believe it. The man he thought he had seen beneath that mannered exterior would take a perverse satisfaction in his moral superiority in honoring a trust of those he despised, those who, for entirely different reasons, despised him equally-if they gave him any thought at all.

'Mrs. Jerome-' How could he explain the extraordinary passions that can suddenly arise and swamp all reason, all the carefully made plans for behavior? How could he explain the feelings that could drive an otherwise sane man to compulsive, wide-eyed self-destruction? She would be confused, and unbearably hurt. Surely the woman had more than enough to bear already? 'Mrs. Jerome,' he tried again, 'a charge has been made against your husband. We must hold him under arrest until it has been investigated. Sometimes people do things in the heat of the moment that are quite outside their usual character.'

She moved closer to him and he caught a waft of lavender, faint and a little sweet. She had an old-fashioned brooch in the lace at her neck. She was very young, very gentle. God damn Jerome for his cold-blooded, bitter loneliness, for his perversion, for ever having married this woman in the first place, only to tear her life apart!

'Mrs. Jerome-'

'Mr. Pitt, my husband is not an impulsive man. I have been married to him for eleven years and I have never known him to act without giving the matter consideration, weighing whether it would be fortunate or unfortunate.'

That also Pitt found only too easy to accept. Jerome was not a . man to laugh aloud, dance on the pavement, or sing a snatch of song. His was a careful face; the only spontaneity in it was of the mind. He possessed a sour appreciation for humor, but never impulse. He did not even speak without judging first what effect it would have, how it would profit or harm him. What extraordinary passions must this boy have tapped to break the dam of years in a torrent that ended in murder?

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If Jerome were guilty . . .

How could so careful, so self-preserving a man have risked a clumsy fondling of young Godfrey for the few instants of slight gratification it might have afforded him? Was it a facade beginning to crack-a first breach of the wall that was soon going to explode in passion and murder?

He looked at Mrs. Jerome. She was close to Charlotte's age, and yet she looked so much younger, so much more vulnerable, with her slender body and delicate face. She needed someone to protect her.

'Have you parents near to you?' he asked suddenly. 'Someone with whom you can stay?'

'Oh, no!' Her face puckered with consternation and she screwed up her handkerchief, absently letting her reticule slide down her skirt to the floor. Charlotte bent and picked it up for her. 'Thank you, Mrs. Pitt, you are so kind.' She took it back and clutched it. 'No, Mr. Pitt, I couldn't possibly do that. My place is at home, where I can be of as much support to Maurice as I am able. People must see that I do not for a single moment believe this dreadful thing that has been said about him. It is completely untrue, and I only beg that for justice's sake you will do everything you can to prove it so. You will, won't you?'

«'!_••

'Please, Mr. Pitt? You will not allow the truth to be buried in such a web of lies that poor Maurice is-' Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away with a sob to rest in Charlotte's arms. She wept like a child, lost in her own desperation, unconscious of anyone else's thoughts or judgments.

Charlotte slowly patted her, her eyes meeting Pitt's helplessly. He could not read what she thought. There was anger, but was it at him, at circumstances, at Mrs. Jerome for intruding and disturbing them with her distress, or at their inability to do anything for her?