“And what have they come up with?” Pitt asked, for once permitted-even pleaded with-to sit in the big padded chair instead of standing. He enjoyed the sensation and leaned back, spreading his legs. It might never happen again.
“Nothing much,” Athelstan admitted. “Still don’t know what tied those four men together. Don’t know why Pinchin went to the Acre, for that matter. Are you sure it’s not a lunatic, Pitt?”
“No, I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. A doctor could find a dozen occupations in the Acre if he wasn’t particularly scrupulous.”
Athelstan winced with distaste. “I presume so. But which of them did Pinchin practice, and for whom? Do you think he procured these well-bred women for Max that you insist he had?”
“Possibly. Although there weren’t many society women among his patients.”
“‘Well-bred’ is relative, Pitt. Almost anything would appear to be a lady in the Acre.”
Pitt stood up reluctantly. “Then I’d better go and ask a few more questions-”
“You’re not going by yourself!” Athelstan said in alarm. “I can’t afford another murder in the Acre!”
Pitt stared at him. “Thank you,” he said dryly. “I shouldn’t like to embarrass you.”
“Damn it-”
“I’ll take a constable with me-two, if you like?”
Athelstan pulled himself to attention. “It’s an order, Pitt-an order, you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll go now … with two constables.”
Ambrose Mercutt was incensed with a mixture of outrage and very real fear that he would be blamed for Pitt’s injury, which was now common talk in the Acre.
“It’s your own fault!” Mercutt said peevishly. “Go wandering around places you’re not wanted, poking your nose into other people’s private business-of course you get stabbed. Lucky you weren’t garroted! Downright stupid. If you pushed everyone around the way you did my people, I’m only surprised you weren’t killed.”
Pitt did not argue. He knew his own mistake; it was not in having come into the Acre, but in having forgotten to keep up the appearance, to walk like a man who belonged here. He had allowed himself to become conspicuous. It was careless and, as Ambrose said, stupid.
“And sorry, too, no doubt,” Pitt said. “Who looks after your women when they get sick?”
“What?”
Pitt repeated the question, but Ambrose was quick to understand. “Not Pinchin, if that’s what you think.”
“Maybe. But we’ll speak to all your women, just in case. They may remember something you don’t.”
Mercutt’s face was white. “All right! He may have looked after one or two of them from time to time. What of it? He was very useful. Some of the stupid bitches get with child sometimes. He took care of it, and took his pay in kind. So I’d be the last person to kill him, wouldn’t I?”
“Not if he was blackmailing you.”
“Blackmailing me?” His voice rose to a screech at the idiocy of the idea. “Whatever for? Everyone knows what business I’m in. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not. I could have blackmailed
Pitt could not move him from that, no matter what other questions or pressures he put forth. Finally he and the constables left and went to another bawdy house, and another, and another.
It was five o’clock when Pitt, tired and sore, came with the two constables to the house of the Dalton sisters. He had kept them until last on purpose; he was looking forward to the warmth, the agreeable atmosphere, and perhaps a cup of hot tea.
Both Mary and Victoria were present this time; he was received with the same domestic calm as before and invited to the sitting room. He accepted the offer of refreshment with rather more speed than grace.
Mary looked at him suspiciously, but Victoria was as civil as before. “Ernest Pomeroy did not come here,” she said candidly, pouring the tea and passing it to him. The constables were in the main entrance room, embarrassed and thoroughly enjoying themselves.
“No,” Pitt said, accepting the cup. “I already know where he went. I was thinking of Dr. Pinchin.”
Her eyebrows rose and her gray eyes were like smooth winter seas. “I don’t see all our customers, but I don’t recall him. He was certainly not murdered here-or anywhere near here.”
“Did you know him? Professionally, perhaps?”
The ghost of a smile touched her mouth. “His profession or mine, Mr. Pitt?”
He smiled back. “His, Miss Dalton.”
“No. I have good health, and when I do not, I know well enough what to do for myself.”
“How about your women-your girls?”
“No,” Mary said immediately. “If anyone is sick, we look after them.”
Pitt turned to look at her. She was younger than Victoria. Her face lacked the power of will, the resolution in the eyes, but it had the same smooth, country look, the short nose and soft freckles. She opened her mouth and then closed it again. The meaning was obvious to Pitt; she did not want to admit to abortion.
“Of course we have doctors sometimes.” Victoria took charge again. “But we have not used Pinchin. He has never had anything to do with this establishment.”
Pitt actually believed her, but he wanted to stay in the warmth a little longer, and he had not finished his tea. “Can you give me any reason I should believe that?” he asked. “The man was murdered. You would not wish to admit acquaintance with him.”
Victoria glanced at her sister, then at Pitt’s cup. She reached for the pot and filled it without asking him. “None at all,” she said with an expression Pitt could not fathom. “Except that he was a butcher, and I don’t want my girls cut about so they either bleed to death or are too mutilated ever to work again. Believe that!”
Pitt found himself apologizing. It was ridiculous. He was taking tea with a brothel-keeper and telling her he was sorry because some doctor had aborted whores so clumsily that they never recovered-and they were not even her whores! … Or was she a brilliant liar?
“I’ll ask them myself.” He drank the rest of his tea and stood up. “Especially those who’ve come to you most recently.”
Mary stood up too, hands clenched in her skirt. “You can’t!”
“Don’t be silly,” Victoria said briskly. “Of course he can, if he wants to. We’ve never had Pinchin in this house, unless he’s come as a customer. I’d be obliged to you, Mr. Pitt, if you’d not be abusive to our girls. I won’t permit it.” She fixed him with a firm eye, and Pitt was reminded of governesses he had met in great houses. She did not wait for his answer, but led him into the upper part of the house and began knocking on one door after another.
Pitt went through the routine of asking questions and showing Pinchin’s picture to plump and giggling prostitutes. The rooms were warm and smelled of cheap perfume and body odors, but the colors were gay and the rooms cleaner than he had expected.
After the fourth one, Victoria was called away to attend to some domestic crisis, and he was left with Mary. He was speaking to the last girl, skinny, not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, and plainly frightened. She looked at Pinchin’s face on the paper, and instantly Pitt knew she was lying when she said she had never seen him.
“Think hard,” Pitt warned. “Be very careful. You can be put in prison for lying to the police.”
The girl went pasty white.
“That’s enough!” Mary said sharply. “She’s only a housemaid-what would she want with the likes of him? Leave her alone. She just dusts and sweeps. She has nothing to do with that side of things.”
The girl started to move away. Pitt caught hold of her arm, not roughly, but hard enough to prevent her going. She began to cry, great shuddering sobs as if she were overtaken with some desperate, animal grief.
Instantly, in the bottom of his stomach, Pitt knew she must be one of Pinchin’s “butcheries,” one who had lived, but so damaged she would never be a normal woman. At her age, she should have been laughing, dreaming of romance, looking forward to marriage. He wanted to comfort her, and there was nothing he could say or do, nothing anyone could.
“Elsie!” It was Mary’s voice, loud and frightened. “Elsie!” The little maid was still weeping, clinging now to Mary’s arm.
