Jago sighed. “Of course you have. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to patronize you.”
“Any reason you say that … about Nora?”
“Not directly. Just an impression. She may have said something. Why? Do you think it has any relation to her being killed?”
“I’m looking for anything at all. A handkerchief with Finlay’s initials on it was found under her pillow.”
Jago cleared his throat sharply, his face suddenly very pale.
“You can’t think …” He let out a long sigh. “What do you want of me, Superintendent? I know nothing about who killed either woman. I … I find it hard to believe it was Finlay, and I would regret it more profoundly than you could know if it were.” He did not look at Tallulah. It did not seem at that instant as if her pain was what was uppermost in his mind.
“A man resembling Finlay was the last customer to be seen leaving Nora’s room,” Pitt went on, watching Jago’s face.
“And you think it was Finlay?” Jago asked. “Can’t you trace this man? Someone else must have seen him after he left Myrdle Street. Where did he go? There are all sorts of people around at that time of the afternoon. Why on earth would Finlay come to Whitechapel at that hour? It doesn’t make sense. I assume he can’t prove where he was, or you wouldn’t be here asking me this.” He kept his voice low, so Tallulah, who was almost finished, would not hear him.
“No, he can’t,” Pitt agreed. “And no one saw this man after he left the house in Myrdle Street.”
“Who have you asked?” Jago screwed up his face in concentration.
Pitt listed off all the names he could remember of the neighbors he and Ewart had spoken to. “Where were you, Reverend?” he said at the end.
Jago laughed abruptly. “Playing shove halfpenny with half a dozen urchins in Chicksand Street, then I went back to the vicarage for tea, to meet with some charitably minded ladies. I didn’t go anywhere near Myrdle Street, and I certainly didn’t see Finlay … or whoever it was.”
“No one saw him leave.” Pitt shrugged. “Which doesn’t seem possible. Is everyone lying?”
“No.” Jago seemed certain. “If no one saw him, then either you’ve described him so inaccurately they don’t recognize him from what you say … or he didn’t leave.”
Pitt stared at him. Perhaps that was true? Perhaps whoever it was had not left at all, but gone up or down the stairs and remained on one of the other floors of the tenement?
Or else he had changed his appearance so much he no longer seemed a young man with fair wavy hair and good clothes.
“Thank you,” he said slowly. “At least I know where to try again.”
“Be careful,” Jago warned. “Remember to take a constable with you. The mood is still ugly. No one liked Costigan when he was alive, but he’s a convenient hero now. Anger and despair run deep, and there are always men who are willing to use it, make some poor stupid beggar stick the police for them, take the blame, and leave them to reap the political reward.”
“I know.” Pitt was eager to start. “Don’t worry, I shall be careful. I don’t want to be responsible for a riot as well as a hanging.” And without waiting any longer he started out towards the Whitechapel Police Station and a constable to accompany him back to Myrdle Street.
11
The day after Pitt had his unfortunate experience in the public house in Swan Street, Charlotte also went to the East End, but not before she had first visited Emily, and then together they had gone to see Tallulah.
“We know it was not Finlay,” Emily said decisively, sitting in Tallulah’s bay window overlooking the autumn garden. “And unfortunately we also know it was not Albert Costigan. For all our various reasons, we need to know who it was. We must set about it systematically.”
“I don’t see what we can possibly do that the police haven’t,” Tallulah said hopelessly. “They have questioned everyone. I know that from Jago. They have even questioned him.” It was obvious from her face that the idea of Jago’s guilt had not entered her mind. Her conviction of his goodness was so total that anything but the smallest fallibility was impossible.
Charlotte carefully avoided Emily’s eyes. The same ugly thought had occurred to both of them, and they had both pushed it aside, but it would not disappear.
“We must apply logic,” Emily continued, looking at Tallulah. “Why would you kill anyone?”
Tallulah was startled. “What?”
“Why would you kill anyone?” Emily repeated. “If you were on the streets living from day to day. Make that leap in imagination. What would drive you to do something so extreme, so messy and so dangerous, as to kill someone?”
“If I killed anyone, it would be on the spur of temper,” Tallulah said thoughtfully. “I couldn’t imagine planning it … unless it were someone I was afraid of, and I wasn’t strong enough to do it otherwise. But that doesn’t apply here, does it?”
“So you might if you were afraid of someone,” Emily clarified. “Why else? What would make you lose your temper enough to kill anyone?”
“Maybe if they mocked me?” Tallulah said slowly. “I might hit them, and perhaps it would be too hard. No one likes being made fun of, not if it is something they are very sensitive about.”
“Enough to kill?” Emily pressed.
Tallulah bit her lip. “Not really … perhaps, if I had a very short temper indeed. I’ve seen some men get very angry if their honor is questioned, or perhaps their wife or mother insulted.”
“Enough to lash out, yes,” Charlotte agreed. “But enough to break someone’s fingers and toes first, and then strangle her?”
Tallulah stared at her, the blood draining out of her face, leaving it chalk-white. She moved her mouth as if to speak but made no sound.
With a violent jolt of guilt, and anger with herself, she realized that of course Tallulah would not read newspapers. No one would have told her how the women died. She might have assumed it was just strangling, something quick, a few moments’ struggle for breath and then oblivion. And now she was, in a sentence, hurled into the reality.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said quietly. “I forgot you didn’t know that. I shouldn’t have said it.”
Tallulah swallowed hard. “Why not?” Her voice cracked. “Why should you shelter me from the truth? That is the truth, is it? They were … tortured?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why on earth would anyone do such a thing? Was it … both of them?” Her eyes implored Charlotte to say it was not.
“Yes. I am afraid it was.”
“That’s horrible!” Tallulah shivered and seemed to shrink into herself, as if the bright, warm room with its charming florals and dainty chairs were cold, in spite of the sunlight through the windows and the low fire in the grate.
“There were other things as well”-Emily glanced at Charlotte warningly-”which seem to suggest it was the sort of crime that has to do with …” She hesitated, seeking a way to describe what she meant without further distressing Tallulah, who was not a married woman and was assumed to be still ignorant of many aspects of life. “Relations between men and women,” she finished.
“What … things?” Tallulah asked, her voice husky.
Emily looked unhappy. “Silly things. People sometimes have … odd fancies. Some people …” She stopped and looked at Charlotte.
Charlotte took a deep breath. “All sorts of relationships are odd,” she said quietly. “Sometimes people like to say hurtful things to each other, or establish a dominance. You must have seen it? Well, between a man and woman these things are sometimes sharper, and take a physical form. Of course, most people are not like that. But it looks as if whoever did this … was …”
