apartments?”
“None of them are to lease, sir,” she warned, still standing in the doorway.
“I don’t imagine so,” he agreed. “Nevertheless, I wish to speak to her, if you please. It is a matter of business, with regard to the owner of the property. I think you had better permit me to come in. It is not something to be discussed on the front steps.”
She was a girl of some experience. She knew what the house was used for and perceived the possibilities of what Pitt said. She made way for him immediately.
“Yes, sir. If you come this way, I will see if Mrs. Philp is at home.”
“Thank you.” Pitt followed her into a remarkably comfortable room, discreetly furnished, with a strong fire burning in the grate. He had only a few minutes to wait before Mrs. Philp appeared. She was buxom, growing a little fat now but handsomely dressed; even at this hour her face was rouged and mascaraed as if for a ball. He did not need to be told she was a successful prostitute a little over the hill, promoted now from worker to management. Her clothes were expensive, her jewelry flashy, but Pitt judged it to be real. She looked at him with hard, shrewd eyes.
“I don’t know you,” she said, coming in and shutting the door with a snick.
“You’re lucky.” He was still standing, back to the fire. “I don’t often work vice, especially not this class.”
“A rozzer,” she said instantly. “You can’t prove anything, and you’d be a fool to try. The sort of gentleman that comes here wouldn’t thank you for it.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he agreed. “I’ve no intention of trying to shut you down.”
“I’m not paying you anything.” She gave him a look of contempt. “You go tell anyone you like. See where it’ll get you!”
“I’m not interested in telling anyone either.”
“Then what do you want? You want something! A little custom on the cheap?”
“No, thank you. A little information.”
“If you think I’m going to tell you who comes here, you’re a bigger fool than I took you for. Blackmail, eh? I’ll have you thrown out and beaten so bad your own mother wouldn’t know you.”
“Possibly. But I don’t give a damn who comes here.”
“Then what do you want? You haven’t come here out of curiosity!”
“Godolphin Jones.”
“Who?” But there was a hesitation, only the fraction of a second, a flicker of an eyelid.
“You heard me. Godolphin Jones. I’m sure you’re very competent to handle anything to do with prostitution- you’ve had enough practice to outwit most of us-but how about murder? Do you feel like fighting me over that? That’s what I’m good at, proving murder.”
The painted rouge stood out on her cheeks. Without it she would still have been handsome.
“I don’t know anything about no murder!”
“Godolphin Jones knew about this house and its business because he photographed a few of your girls.”
“So what if he did?”
“Blackmail, Mrs. Philp.”
“He couldn’t blackmail me! What for? Whom would he tell? You? What can you do about it? You’re not going to shut me down. Too many rich and powerful people come here, and you know it.”
“Not blackmail you, Mrs. Philp. You are what you are and don’t pretend to be anything else. But who owns this building, Mrs. Philp?”
Her face went white, but she said nothing.
“Whom do you pay rent to, Mrs. Philp?” he went on. “How much do you take from the girls? Fifty percent? More? And how much do you give him at the end of the week, or the month?”
She swallowed and stared at him. “I dunno! I dunno ’is name!”
“Liar! It’s St. Jermyn, and you know it as well as I do. You wouldn’t pay a landlord you didn’t know; you’re too fly by half to do that. You’ll have an agreement all detailed out, even if it isn’t written.”
She swallowed again. “So?” she demanded. “What if it is? What about? You can’t do nothing!”
“Blackmail, Mrs. Philp.”
“You goin’ to blackmail ’im? St. Jermyn? You’re a fool, a crazy man!”
“Why? Because I’d wind up dead? Like Godolphin Jones?”
Her eyes widened, and for a moment he thought she might faint. There was a funny dry rattle in her throat, a gasping.
“Did you kill Jones, Mrs. Philp? You look strong enough. He was strangled, you know.” He looked at her broad, well-padded shoulders and her fat arms.
“Mother of God-so I did not!”
“I wonder.”
“I swear! I never went near the little sod, except to give him the money. Why would I kill him? I keep a house, it’s my business, but I swear to God I never killed anyone!”
“What money, Mrs. Philp? Money from St. Jermyn to keep him quiet?”
A look of cunning came into her face, then vanished again in uncertainty. “No, I didn’t say that. Far as I know, it was money for a whole lot o’ pictures Jones was going to paint, all of St. Jermyn’s children and himself. ’Alf a dozen or more. Jones wanted the money in advance, and this was the best place to get the ready cash. It was several weeks’ earnings. St. Jermyn couldn’t get all of that much out of ’is regular bank.”
“No,” Pitt agreed. “I’ll bet he couldn’t, nor would he want to. But you see, we never found it on Jones’s body or in his shop in Resurrection Row or in his house, nor was it paid into his bank.”
“What do you mean? He spent it?”
“I doubt it. How much was it? — and you’d better be right. One lie, and I’ll arrest you as an accessory to murder. You know what that means-the rope.”
“Five thousand pounds!” she said instantly. “Five thousand, I swear, and that’s God’s truth!”
“When? Exactly?”
“Twelfth of January, midday. ’E was here. Then ’e went straight to Resurrection Row.”
“And was murdered by St. Jermyn, who took back the five thousand pounds. I think if I check with his bank, which will be easy to do now with your information, I shall find that five thousand pounds, or something near it, was deposited again, which will prove beyond any reasonable man’s doubt that his lordship murdered Godolphin Jones, and why. Thank you, Mrs. Philp. And unless you want to dance at the end of a rope with him, you’ll be prepared to come into court and tell the same story on oath.”
“If I do, what will you charge me with?”
“Not murder, Mrs. Philp; and if you’re lucky not even keeping a bawdy house. Queen’s evidence, and you might find us prepared to turn a blind eye.”
“You promise?”
“No, I don’t promise. I can’t. But I can promise no charge of murder. As far as I know, there’s nothing at all to prove you ever knew anything about it. I don’t so far intend to look.”
“I didn’t! As God is my judge.”
“I’ll leave that to God, as you suggest. Good day, Mrs. Philp.” And he turned and went out, allowing the maid to open the door for him into the street. The light snow had stopped, but there was a watery, blue-white sunshine.
The next thing he did was return to Gadstone Park, not to St. Jermyn’s house but to Aunt Vespasia’s. He needed only one final piece of evidence, a statement from St. Jermyn’s bank, if the money was there, or alternatively a warrant to search his house, although it was highly unlikely he would keep that amount of cash in a household safe. It was more than most men earned in a decade, more than a good servant would earn in a lifetime.
Also, there would be a withdrawal of capital from the bank before the payment, or the sale of some property; either would be easily traceable. As Mrs. Philp had said, he could not have immediately laid his hands on that kind of cash; he certainly would not have sought a loan.
But before Pitt did anything so final, he wanted to know from Vespasia when, the precise day, the bill was coming up before Parliament. If there was any way at all he could put off his last, irreparable task, he would-at least that long.
