'Oh, God, no! You don't think Arthur took them-?' He could envision Athelstan's reaction to such an unspeakable suggestion.
She went on implacably. 'Maybe it wasn't Jerome who molested the other boys-maybe it was Arthur. If he had a taste for it, perhaps he used them.'
It was not impossible, not at all. In fact, it was not even very improbable, given the original premise that Arthur was as much sinning as sinned against.
'And who killed him?' he asked. 'Would Albie care about one customer more or less? He must have had hundreds of people come and go in his four years in business.'
'The two boys,' she answered straightaway. 'Just because Arthur had a liking for it doesn't mean they did. Perhaps he could dominate them one at a time, but when they each learned that the other was being similarly used, maybe they got together and got rid of him.'
'Where? In a brothel somewhere? Isn't that a little sophisticated for-'
'At home!' she said quickly. 'Why not? Why go anywhere else?'
'Then how did they get rid of the body without family or servants seeing? How did they get it to a manhole connected with the Bluegate sewers? They live miles from Bluegate Fields.'
But she was not confused. 'I daresay one of their fathers did that for them-or perhaps even both, although I doubt it. Proba-
148
bly the father in whose house it happened. Personally, I rather favor Sir Anstey Waybourne.'
'Hide his own son's murder?'
'Once Arthur was dead, there was nothing he could do to bring him back,' she said reasonably. 'If he didn't hide it, he would lose his second son as well, and be left with no one! Not to mention a scandal so unspeakable the family wouldn't live it down in a hundred years!' She leaned forward. 'Thomas you don't seem to realize that in spite of not being able to do up their own boot buttons or boil an egg, the higher levels of society are devastatingly practical when it comes to matters of survival in the world they understand! They have servants to do the normal things, so they don't bother to do them themselves. But when it comes to social cunning, they are equal to the Borgias any day!'
'I think you've got a lurid imagination,' he answered very soberly. 'I think I should take a closer look at what you are reading lately.'
'I'm not a pantry maid!' she said with considerable acidity, the temper rising in her face. 'I shall read what I please! And it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see three young boys playing around at a rather dangerous game of discovering appetites, and being drawn into perversion by an older boy they trust-and then finding it degrading and disgusting, but being too frightened to deny him. Then joining forces together, and one day, perhaps meaning to give him a good fright, they end up going too far and killing him instead.'
Her voice gathered conviction as she pictured it. 'Then of course they are terrified by what has happened, and appeal to the father of one of them, and he sees that the boy is dead and that it is murder. Perhaps it could have been hushed up, explained as an accident, but perhaps not. Under pressure, the ugly truth would come out that Arthur was perverted and diseased. Since nothing could be done now to help him, better to look to the living and dispose of the body where it will never be found.'
She took a deep breath and continued. 'Then, of course, when it was found, and all the ugliness comes out, someone has to be blamed. The father knows Arthur was perverted, but
149
maybe he does not know who first introduced him to such practices, and does not wish to believe it was simply his own nature. If the other two boys-frightened of the truth, of saying that Arthur took them to prostitutes-say that it was Jerome, whom they do not like, it is easy enough to believe them, in which case then Jerome is morally to blame for Arthur's death-let him take the literal blame as well. He deserves to be hanged-so let him be! And by now the two boys can hardly go back on what they have said! How could they dare? The police and the courts have all been lied to, and believed it. Nothing to do but let it go on.'
