is possible she is telling the truth, and it was a mixture of fear and desire to see someone caught and punished for Ada’s death which made her act impulsively in the first place, and on reflection she realized she was not prepared to perjure herself with an identification she was genuinely not sure of. The story of the butler is tragic, and no doubt true, but obviously irrelevant to her death.”
“Do you still think Finlay did it?” Charlotte asked very quietly, anxiety puckering her brows. “I mean … is the evidence really wrong, or has his father very carefully removed it, or invalidated it?”
Pitt considered for several moments.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I think if I have to make a decision I would say he did not, but I’m not certain.”
“That is most unfortunate.” Vespasia was simply stating a fact, but not without sympathy. “If he is innocent, then either he has an exceedingly vicious enemy or an extraordinary series of events has combined to make him appear guilty, which, my dear Thomas, seems unlikely.”
“Yes, it does,” Pitt confessed. “I suppose I return to the very unpleasant task of trying to find the FitzJames family’s enemies.” He sighed. “I wish I even knew whether it was Finlay’s own enemy or his father’s. He seems a fairly harmless young man, a great deal more ordinary than he would probably wish to be….”
“A great deal,” Vespasia agreed with a rueful smile. “I think his sister has more chance of doing something genuinely interesting, but she may well be married out of that before she has the chance. At the moment she is singularly flighty and doesn’t appear to have a thought in her head except to enjoy herself, preferably without thinking of anything with the least meaning beyond the following day. But she does it with such fervor, I have hope she may stumble upon something she will care about, and that will make all the difference.”
Charlotte opened her mouth and then closed it again.
Pitt wondered what she had been going to say. Usually when it was tactless, it was also pertinent. He could ask her after Vespasia had left.
“But he has the arrogance of those who sense their limitations,” Vespasia went on, regarding Pitt seriously, “and who fear they may be smaller than their ambitions, or the expectations of others for them. Who were the other members of this rather juvenile club? One of them would seem to be in the ideal position to provide the model for the badge, and also to be familiar with Finlay’s habits to the degree where he could implicate him successfully.”
Pitt repeated their names.
Vespasia looked blank. “Thirlstone means nothing to me. I have heard of a James Helliwell. He might have a son by the name of Herbert….”
“Norbert,” Pitt corrected.
“Indeed. Or Norbert either,” she conceded. “But he is a very pedestrian sort of man. Sufficient means to be comfortable, and too little imagination to be uncomfortable, unless he sat upon a tack! And Heaven knows, there are as many Joneses as there are Browns or Robinsons. Jago Jones could be anyone at all … or no one.”
Pitt found himself smiling. “Helliwell sounds like the man I met, very concerned with how he was perceived by others, particularly his parents-in-law, and as you say, beginning to be very comfortable, and unwilling to let anything disturb that. He is no longer so keen to defend Finlay, in case some of the notoriety sticks to him as well. Although he certainly did not wish me to continue investigating Finlay.”
“An enemy?” Charlotte said dubiously.
“Insufficient nerve,” Vespasia dismissed him, looking at Pitt, her eyes wide.
“I think so,” Pitt agreed, remembering Helliwell’s red face and his fidgeting manner, his keenness to disclaim any association. “Certainly he hasn’t the honor to be loyal once it becomes costly.”
“Thirlstone?” Charlotte asked.
“Possibly.” As he said it he was seeing Jago Jones’s passionate face. He was a man who had the courage, the fire and the conviction. But had he the cause? “I think …” he said slowly, “that I should look more closely into why Ada was the victim. Why was it someone in Whitechapel, rather than the West End? It seems irrational. Perhaps there is a reason there which may lead us to who it was.”
Vespasia rose to her feet, and Pitt stood instantly also, offering her his hand.
She accepted it, but leaned no weight on it at all.
“Thank you, my dear. I wish I could say I felt easier in my mind, but I do not.” She regarded him very gravely, searching his eyes. “I fear this is a most ugly case. Be careful, Thomas. You may trust John Cornwallis’s honor and his courage absolutely, but I suspect that his understanding of the deviousness of the political mind has a long way to go. Do not allow him to let you down by expecting of him a skill he does not possess and a loyalty which he does. Good night, my dear.”
“Good night, Aunt Vespasia,” he replied as he stood watching while she kissed Charlotte lightly on the cheek. Then, head high, she swept through the parlor door towards the front entrance and her waiting carriage.
He began early the next morning, not exactly with enthusiasm, but with a renewed determination. Ewart was already directed to pursue further details of both Augustus and Finlay FitzJames. Tellman was investigating the other members of the Hellfire Club. Pitt himself went back to Pentecost Alley to speak again with the women who had known Ada last.
It was an inappropriate hour of the morning to find them, but he could not afford the time or the patience to wait until the afternoon, when they would naturally get up to begin the day.
Of course, the sweatshop over the road was thrumming with industry, doors open because they had been at work for several hours by nine o’clock, and it was already hot.
Pitt went up the steps to the wooden door of the tenement and knocked. He had to repeat it several times before the door was finally opened by a bad-tempered-looking Madge, her large face creased with irritation and weariness, her eyes almost disappeared in the folds of fat in her cheeks.
“What the ’ell time o’ day jer think this is?” she demanded. “Ain’t yer got no …” She squinted at him. “Oh, it’s you! Wotjer want this time? I dunno nuffink more ter tell yer. An’ neither do Rose ner Nan, ner Agnes.”
“You might do.” Pitt pushed against the door, but her vast weight was rocklike.
“Yer in’t goin’ ter crop that bastard, so wot’s it matter,” she said contemptuously. “Yer show o’ duty don’t impress me none.”
“Somebody killed Ada,” he insisted. “And he’s still out there. Do you want me to find him, or not?”
“I wanna be young an’ pretty an’ ’ave a nice ’ouse an’ enough ter eat,” she said sarcastically. “W’en the ’ell did wot I want matter a sod ter anyone?”
“I’m not going away, Madge, until I know everything about Ada that I can,” he said levelly. “If you want a little peace to conduct your business and turn a profit, you’ll humor me, whether you think it’s worth it or not.”
She did not need to weigh the issue. Wearily she stepped back and opened the door. She heard him close it with a heavy thud, and led him back into the small room she used as a kitchen, sewing room, and somewhere from which she could listen for calls of distress or sounds of violence.
Pitt asked her every question he could think of about Ada’s life. What time she got up, how she dressed, when she came and went, if Madge knew where to, or where from, who with, whom she had met. He wanted any mention of friends or enemies, however vague, any names of clients or of possible allies. He asked her to estimate Ada’s income from her wardrobe, her behavior, her gifts to anyone else.
“Well,” Madge said thoughtfully, sitting on a stool and staring down at the stained table. “She were generous, w’en she ’ad it, I’ll give ’er that … anyone’d give ’er that. An’ she done well in the last couple o’ months. Got them new boots the day she were killed. Pleased as punch she were wi’ them. Marched up an’ down in ’em showin’ ’em orff. Lifted ’er skirts ter let me see ’em. Mother-o’-pearl buttons they ’ad.” Her face tightened. “But I s’pose yer know that, seein’ as ’ow yer came ’ere that night an’ found ’er!”
Pitt thought back to the boots which had been so laboriously buttoned together. They were beautifully made. He had not given a thought then to their cost.
“Yes, I remember them. Did she usually have boots of such quality?”
She laughed sharply. “Course not! Make do and mend, like the rest o’ us. No, she done well recent, like I told yer.” Her eyes narrowed till the fat in her cheeks almost obscured them. “ ’Ere, are yer sayin’ as she done summink wrong ter get that money?”
“No,” he assured her. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “But I’d like to know where it came from. Did it start when she changed from her old pimp to her new one?”
“Yeah,” she conceded. “Abaht then. Why? Bert Costigan in’t that much better, if that’s wot yer thinkin’. ’E’s a
