coming in, and he asked me what progress we had made.' He allowed himself to smile. 'He was delighted.'
Pitt could imagine it without even looking at the pleasure in Gillivray's eyes. He made an immense effort to hide his own feelings.
'Yes,' he said. 'He would be. Where is this Albie Fro-bisher?'
Gillivray handed him a slip of paper and he took it and read it. It was a rooming house of known reputation-in Bluegate Fields. How appropriate, how very suitable.
The following day, late in the afternoon, Pitt finally found Albie Frobisher at home and alone. It was a seedy house up an alley off one of the wider streets, its brick front grimy, its wood door and window frames peeling and spongy with rot from the wet river air.
Inside there was a hempen mat for a distance of about three yards, to absorb the mud from boots, and then a well-worn carpet of brilliant red, giving the hallway a sudden warmth, an il-
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lusion of having entered a cleaner, richer world, an illusion of promises behind the closed doors, or up the dim stairs to the gaslit higher floors.
Pitt walked up quickly. In spite of all the times he had been inside brothels, bawdy houses, gin mills, and workhouses, it made him unusually uncomfortable to be visiting a house of male prostitution, especially one that employed children. It was the most degrading of all human abuses, and that anyone, even another customer, should imagine for an instant that he had come for that purpose made his face flush hot and his mind revolt.
He took the last stairs two at a time and knocked sharply on the door of room 14. He was already shifting his weight and turning his shoulder toward the door in preparation to force it if it was not opened. The thought of standing here on the landing begging for admittance sent the sweat trickling down his chest.
But it was unnecessary. The door opened a crack almost immediately, and a light, soft voice spoke.
'Who is it?'
'Pitt, from the police. You spoke to Sergeant Gillivray yesterday.'
The door swung wide without hesitation and Pin stepped inside. Instinctively he looked around, first of all to make sure they were alone. He did not expect violence from a protector, or the procurer himself, but it was always possible.
The room was ornate, with fringed covers and cushions in crimson and purple, and gas lamps with faceted pendants of glass. The bed was enormous, and there was a bronze male nude on the marble-topped side table. The plush curtains were closed, and the air smelled stale and sweet, as though perfume had been used to mask the smells of bodies and human exertion.
The feeling of nausea Pitt experienced lasted only for an instant; then it was overtaken by a suffocating pity.
Albie Frobisher himself was smaller than Arthur Way-bourne had been-perhaps as tall, although it was hard,to tell, since Pitt had never seen Arthur alive-but far lighter. Albie's bones were as fragile as a girl's, his skin white, face
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beardless. He had probably grown up on such scraps of food as he could beg or steal, until he had been old enough to be sold or to find his way into the care of a procurer. By then chronic malnutrition had doubtless already taken its toll. He would always be undersized. He might become soft in old age-although the chances of his living to reach it were negligible-but he would never be rounded, plump. And he was probably worth far more in his profession if he kept this frail, almost childlike look. There was an illusion of virginity about him-physically, at least-but his face, when Pitt regarded it more carefully, was as weary and as bleached of innocence as the face of any woman who had plied her trade in the streets for a lifetime. The world held no surprises for Albie, and no hope except of survival.
'Sit down,' Pitt said, closing the door behind him. He balanced himself unhappily on the red plush seat as if he were the host, yet it was Albie who made him nervous.
Albie obeyed without moving his eyes from Pitt's face.
'What do you want?' he asked. His voice was curiously pleasing, softer, better educated than his
