be taught a lesson in a way he won’t forget! That’s how I heard about it-the word around.” Suddenly he looked directly at Ross and his eyes were full of brilliance. “But you didn’t kill him, if that’s what you are afraid of.”
“Thank God-I–I-” He stopped, but it was too late. “I didn’t go there for-” He could not bear anyone, even this policeman, to think he had intended to hire some whore and take her there.
Pitt’s face was quite smooth, even friendly. “No, Mr. Ross, I didn’t think for a moment that you did,” he said. “What did you go there for?”
Oh, God! This was even worse. He could not possibly tell him about Christina. His heart pounded at the memory and the room seemed red-edged, whirling far away.
“I cannot say-it is a private matter.” Pitt would have to think whatever he wished. The truth was worse than any imagining.
“Very dangerous, sir.” Pitt’s voice was getting gentler and gentler, as if he were speaking to someone in great trouble. “Three men have been murdered in the Devil’s Acre. But I’m sure you knew that.”
“Of course I knew that!” Ross shouted.
Pitt took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Not a place to go sightseeing, Mr. Ross. It’s ugly and it’s dangerous, and people have paid very highly for then-pleasures there lately. What particular curiosity was it that took you to that house?”
Ross hesitated. The man was like a ferret, tracking him in all the tunnels of his misery to corner him into some damning truth. Better give him one and send him away with it. That would at least guard the others, the ones he could not bear to tell.
“I had an idea whom it belonged to,” he lied, looking Pitt squarely in his bright eyes. “I wanted to know if it was true. I hated to think any acquaintance of mine should make his living on the ownership of such places.”
“And was it true?” Pitt inquired.
Ross swallowed. “Yes, I’m afraid it was.”
“Who would that be, Mr. Ross?”
“Bertram Astley.”
“Indeed.” Pitt’s face relaxed. “Was it indeed? So that is where the Astley money comes from. And now of course Sir Beau has it.”
“Yes.” Ross let his breath go. He felt better. Pitt would never know about Christina, that she had gone there to meet Beau Astley in that filthy place. His wife-lying there in-He forced it from his mind, drove it out. Any other pain was better than this. “Yes, it was,” he repeated. “Perhaps that will help you in your investigations. I’m sorry, perhaps I should have told you before.”
Pitt stood up. “Yes, sir, I think perhaps you should. But now that I do know”-his face split in a sudden charming smile-“I’m damned if I can see where it gets me!”
Ross said nothing. There was no emotion left inside him to draw on; he simply watched Pitt walk to the door and out into the hallway to take his coat from the maid.
8
Pitt stumbled downstairs in the dark and opened the door. Outside on the step, gleaming wet in the lamplight and the rain, a constable stood, water running off his cloak in streams and splashing on the stones. The night was still black, before even the gray smudge of false dawn.
Pitt blinked fuzzily and shuddered with cold as the air hit his body. “For God’s sake come in!” he said irritably. “What is it now?”
The constable stepped inside gingerly, scattering water over the floor, but Pitt was too cold to care. Gracie was not up yet and all the fires were out. “Shut that door behind you, man, and come into the kitchen.” He led the way in enormous strides. The linoleum was like ice under his bare feet. At least the kitchen floor was wooden and kept the warmth of something that had once been alive. And the stove would be alight; it always was. With a little riddling and stoking he might even get the kettle to boil. The idea of a cup of steaming tea was the nearest he could get to decent sense. Going back to bed and the refuge of sleep was obviously impossible.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded again, pushing and pulling at the fire furiously. “And take that thing off”-he gestured at the man’s cloak-“before you drown us all.”
The constable obediently divested himself of the cloak and set it down in the scullery. He was a domestic man, and normally would have known what to do without being told. But the news he had brought had swept away his years of training by mother and wife.
“It’s another one, sir,” he said quietly, coming back into the kitchen and handing Pitt the kettle he was reaching for. “And it’s worse than before.”
Pitt knew why he had come, but it would still be ugly to hear. Before the words were spoken, there was always the hope it might be something else.
The pressure was mounting: Athelstan had called for him again-the newspapers were spreading the panic. And he knew that Charlotte, for all her pretended innocence, was using Emily’s social position to pursue her own suspicions about Max’s women and Bertie Astley’s life. If he accused Charlotte of lying, they would have the sort of argument that would wound them both. Besides, he could not prove he was right; he simply knew her well enough to understand her sense of purpose. And, by God, he was going to get the Devil’s Acre slasher before she did!
He was still standing in the middle of the kitchen floor with the kettle in his hand. “Worse?” he said.
“Yes, sir.” The constable’s voice dropped. “I bin round the Acre ever since I joined the force, but I never seen anythin’ like this before.”
Pitt poured the water into the pot. The steam rose fragrantly into the air. He took half a loaf of bread out of the big wooden bin. Whatever it was that waited for him, however appalling, would be worse on an empty stomach in the icy morning.
“Who is it?”
The constable handed him the bread knife. “A man. Things in his pockets says ’e’s called Ernest Pomeroy. They found ’im on the steps of a charity ’ouse, Sisters o’ Mercy, or something-not Popish-reg’lar church,” he explained hastily. “Woman as found ’im’ll never be the same again. In ’ysterics, she was, poor creature, white as paper and screamin’ somethin’ terrible.” He shook his head in bewilderment and accepted the china mug of tea Pitt handed him. Automatically he put both hands around it and let the heat tingle his numb flesh.
Pitt sliced bread and set it on top of the cooking surface to toast. He reached down two plates, the butter from the cool pantry, and marmalade. He tried to imagine the woman, dedicated to good work, sheltering the homeless and uplifting the fallen. She would be used to death; she could hardly fail to be, in the Devil’s Acre. Indecency would be all around her, but she had probably never seen a naked man in her life-perhaps not even imagined one.
“Was he mutilated?” he asked unnecessarily.
“Yes, sir.” The constable’s face blanched at the memory. “Cut to pieces, ’e was, and sort of-well-like ’e’d bin ripped by some kind o’ animal-with claws.” He took a deep breath, the muscles in his throat tight. “Like someone ’ad tried to pull ’is privates off ’im with their ’ands.”
He was right-it was getting worse. Bertie Astley’s injuries had been slight, almost a gesture. The thought returned to him that Bertie was not a victim of the same killer, but that Beau Astley had seen the chance to step into his brother’s place and lay the blame on a lunatic already beyond the pale of ordinary human decency. It was a thought he tried to reject because he had liked Beau Astley, as one likes from a distance someone one does not know but feels to be pleasant.
The toast was smoking. He turned it over smartly and took a sip of his tea. “Was he stabbed in the back, too?”
“Yes, sir, just about the same place as the others, one side of the backbone, and right about the middle. Must ‘a died quick like, thank God.” He screwed up his face. “Wot kind o’ man does that to another man, Mr. Pitt? It ain’t ’uman!”
“Someone who believes he has been wronged beyond bearing,” Pitt replied before he even thought.
“I reckon as you’re right. An’ you’re burnin’ your toast, sir.”
Pitt flipped the two pieces off and handed one to the constable. He took it with surprise and satisfaction. He
