to take hold of him. Pitt despised a bought man. Ewart had concealed a brutal murder, one of the vilest Pitt had heard of. God knows how many other things he had done at Augustus FitzJames’s behest. One coercion, one blackmail, led to another. One fall, and there was no road back, except by admission-and payment in full. And the police would not forgive one of its own for such an act of corruption. Mary Smith, or whoever she was, deserved better than that.
“Get me Lennox!” Pitt repeated between his teeth.
White-faced, Ewart went to the door and disappeared along the passage. He came back a moment later. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” he said, uncertain whether to sit or to stand, watching Pitt with apprehension.
“I’ve just been speaking with the Reverend Jago Jones,” Pitt said slowly.
“Oh?” Ewart did not know whether to be interested or not.
“About the murder of Mary Smith,” Pitt went on. “In Globe Road, six years ago.”
Ewart went sheet-white. He struggled for breath and gagged. Very slowly he collapsed back into the chair behind him, feeling for it with fumbling hands.
“Why did you destroy the witnesses’ records?” Pitt asked. “I know the answer, but I’ll give you the chance to say it yourself, if you have that shred of honor left.”
Ewart sat in silence. The torment was plain in his face, as naked as hate and grief and failure and the inner terror that one can never escape, the knowledge of self.
“He offered me money,” he said so quietly Pitt could barely hear him. “Money to make a better life for my family. My sons for his. He said it was an accident. Finlay never meant to kill the girl. When he realized what he had done he tried to revive her. That was why they threw the water over her. But of course he’d gone too far. The game had got out of hand and he had choked the life out of her. He must have gagged her before she screamed. The marks of it were on her cheeks.”
He leaned down and hid his face in his hands. “But he didn’t kill the others.” His voice was thick, half muffled. “You had the right man. Costigan was guilty, I’d swear to that! And Ella Baker too! God knows how Finlay’s things got there. That was one of the worst days of my life, when I saw them. It was like hell opening up in front of me.”
Pitt said nothing. He could imagine it: the sudden, sick horror, the fear, the desperate writhing of the mind to find escape, the relentless terror as fact piled upon fact, and the sheer incomprehensible mystery of it.
There was no sound from the passageway outside, nothing but a blur of sounds from the street.
It was a full fifteen minutes of agonized silence in the room before the door opened and Lennox came in. He looked tired. He saw Ewart first, slumped over the desk, then Pitt in the chair opposite it.
“What is it?” he asked. “Is Inspector Ewart ill?”
“Probably,” Pitt answered. “Come in and close the door.”
Lennox obeyed, still puzzled. Pitt remained where he was.
“You were the first at the scene of Ada McKinley’s death after Constable Binns, weren’t you, Doctor?”
“Yes. Why?” He did not look troubled, only surprised.
“And of Nora Gough’s death also?”
“Yes. You know I was.”
“You examined the bodies before anyone else?”
Lennox stared at him curiously, the dawn of understanding in his weary hazel eyes.
“You know that too.”
“Then you went through to comfort the witnesses before we spoke to them?” Pitt continued.
“Yes. They were … upset. Naturally.”
“Were you first on the scene of Mary Smith’s death also?”
Lennox paled, but he kept his composure.
“Mary Smith?” He frowned.
“In Globe Street, six years ago,” Pitt said softly. “A young girl, only just taken to the streets, about fifteen or sixteen years old. She was killed in exactly the same way. But was she, Dr. Lennox?”
For seconds no one moved. There was not even the sound of breathing. Then Ewart looked up at Lennox, his face haggard.
But the pain in his eyes was a shadow, a ghost compared with that in Lennox’s face, in his whole thin body.
“My sister,” he whispered. “Mary Lennox. She was sixteen when that animal did that to her!” He looked down at Ewart. “And you had the evidence and you let him go! What did he pay you that was worth that, Ewart? What in God’s name was worth that?”
Ewart said nothing. He was too numb with despair and self-loathing to feel another blow.
“So when you found a prostitute murdered, without the use of a knife,” Pitt went on, speaking to Lennox, “and you were the first on the scene, you put Finlay FitzJames’s belongings under the body and broke her fingers and toes to look like Mary’s, and tied the garter, cross-buttoned the boots, threw water over her, and waited for us to do the rest, hoping Finlay FitzJames would be blamed,” Pitt said carefully.
“Yes.”
“Where did you get the badge and the cuff link?”
“I stole them from Ewart. He kept them, so they wouldn’t be in the evidence,” Lennox replied.
“And when Finlay wasn’t blamed, and we hanged Costigan, you were first on the scene of Nora Gough’s death, so you did it again,” Pitt went on. “Did you coach the witnesses too? Persuade them they had seen a man like Finlay at the house?”
“Yes.”
Ewart rose to his feet, swayed and almost overbalanced.
Neither of the others moved to help him.
“I must get out,” he said hoarsely. “I’m going to be sick.”
Lennox stepped back to let him pass. Ewart fumbled for the doorknob, threw the door open and went out, leaving it swinging behind him.
Lennox faced Pitt.
“He deserved to be hanged for what he did to Mary,” he said in a low, husky voice. “Are you going to charge Finlay now, or is he still going to get away with it?” The words were torn out of him.
“I haven’t enough evidence to charge him,” Pitt said bitterly. “Unless Ewart confesses, which he may, or he may recover his composure and realize I have very little proof.”
“But …” Lennox was desperate.
“I can see if Margery Williams will identify Finlay,” Pitt went on. “She might. So might the other two witnesses who saw him. Or there is the possibility Helliwell and Thirlstone may be sufficiently frightened they will speak, especially if they are identified as well.”
“You must!” Lennox leaned forward and grasped Pitt, his grip so hard it pinched the flesh. “You must …”
He got no further because the door opened and a very worried Constable Binns put his head in.
“Sir … Mr. Ewart just went out of ’ere lookin’ like ’e ’ad the devil be’ind ’im, sir, an’ ’e took them sticks o’ dynamite as we took from the-”
Pitt shot to his feet, almost knocking Lennox over, and charged past Binns and out into the corridor. Then he spun around, face-to-face with the two men who were hard on his heels.
“Binns, go and get a hansom. Commandeer one if you have to. Go-now!”
Binns obeyed, ran down the stairs, and they heard his feet clattering on the boards below.
Pitt looked at Lennox. “Give your resignation to the sergeant immediately. Be gone by the time I get back. Just don’t tell me where, and I shan’t look for you.”
Lennox stood motionless, gratitude flooding his face, softening the harsh lines, filling his eyes with tears.
Pitt had no time to say anything further. He plunged down the stairs after Binns and ran through the entrance hall and down the steps into the street. Binns was waiting with a very angry cabdriver standing by the open door of a hansom.
“Number thirty-eight Devonshire Street!” Pitt shouted, and swung himself up and into it with Binns a step behind. “Fast as you can, man! Lives depend on it!”
