thing I'd say on speculation?'
'I'm sorry,' Pitt said. It was stupid-the boy was dead now anyway. Perhaps that was why Pitt was so upset by Cutler's information. 'How long?' he asked.
'Not long, about eight or ten hours when I saw him, as far as I can tell.'
'Sometime die night before we found him,' Pitt remarked. 'I suppose dial was obvious. I imagine you've no idea who he was?'
'Upper middle class,' Cutler said, as if thinking aloud. 'Probably privately educated-a little ink on one of his fingers. Well fed-shouldn't think he'd gone hungry a day in his life or done a day's hard work widi his hands. The odd sports, probably cricket or something of that kind. Last meal was
8
expensive-pheasant and wine and a sherry trifle. No, very definitely not Bluegate Fields.'
'Damnation,' Pitt said under his breath. 'Someone must miss him! We'll have to find out who he was before we can bury him. You'll have to do the best you can to make him fit to be seen.' He had been through it all before: the white-faced, stomach-clenched parents coming, ravaged by hope and fear, to stare at the dead face; then the sweat before they found the courage to look, followed by the nausea, the relief, or the despair-the end of hope, or back again into unknowing, waiting for the next time.
'Thank you,' he said formally to Cutler. 'I'll tell you as soon as we know anything.'
Cutler stood up and took his departure silently, also aware of everything that lay ahead.
It would take time, Pitt thought, and he must have help. If it was murder-and he could not ignore the probability-then he must treat it as such. He must go to Chief Superintendent Dudley Athelstan and ask for men to find this boy's identity while he was still recognizable.
'I suppose all this is necessary?' Athelstan leaned back in his padded chair and looked at Pitt with open skepticism. He did not like Pitt. The man had ideas above himself, just because his wife's sister had married some sort of title! He always had an air about him as if he had no respect for position. And this whole business of a corpse in the sewer was most unsavory- not the sort of thing Athelstan wished to know about. It was considerably beneath the dignity he had risen to-and far below what he still intended to achieve with time and judicious behavior.
'Yes, sir,' Pitt said tartly. 'We can't afford to ignore it. He may be the victim of kidnapping and almost certainly of murder. The police surgeon says he is of good family, probably educated, and his last meal was of pheasant and sherry trifle. Hardly a workingman's dinner!'
'All right!' Athelstan snapped. 'Then you'd better take what men you need and find out who he is! And for heaven's sake try to be tactful! Don't offend anyone. Take Gilliv-
9
ray-at least he knows how to behave himself with quality people.'
Quality people! Yes, Gillivray would be Athelstan's choice to be sure of soothing the outraged sensibilities of the 'quality' obliged to face the distasteful necessity of receiving the police.
To begin, there was the perfectly ordinary task of checking with every police station in the city for reports of youths missing from home or educational establishments who fitted the description of the dead boy. It was both tedious and distressing. Time after time they found frightened people, heard stories of unresolved tragedy.
Harcourt Gillivray was not a companion Pitt would have chosen. He was young, with yellow hair and a smooth face that smiled easily-too easily. His clothes were smart; his jacket was buttoned high, the collar stiff-not comfortable and somewhat crooked, like Pitt's. And he seemed always able to keep his feet dry, while Pitt forever found himself with his boots in a puddle.
It was three days before they came to the gray stone Georgian home of Sir Anstey and Lady Wayboume. By now Gillivary had become used to Pitt's refusal to use the tradesman's entrance. It pleased his own sense of social standing, and he was quite ready to accept Pitt's reasoning that on such a delicate mission it would be tactless to allow the entire servants' hall to be aware of their purpose.
The butler suffered them to come in with a look of pained resignation. Better to have the police in the
