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Several days passed in fruitless search for any further evidence. Landladies and landlords were questioned, but there were too many to make anything but a cursory attempt, in the hope that for a little reward someone would come forward. 'Three did. The first was a brothelkeeper from Whitechapel, rubbing his hands, eyes gleaming in anticipation of a little future leniency from the police in recompense for his assistance. Gillivray's delight was short-lived when the man proved unable to describe either Jerome or Arthur Wayboume with any accuracy. Pitt had never expected that he would, and was therefore left with a sense of superiority to soothe his irritation.

The second was a nervous little woman who let rooms in Seven Dials. Very respectable, she insisted-only let to gentlemen of the best moral character! She feared her good nature and innocence of the viler aspects of human nature had suffered her to be deceived in a most tragic manner. She moved her muff from one hand to the other, and beseeched Pitt to be assured of her total ignorance of the true purpose for which her house had been used; and was it not simply quite dreadful what the world was coming to these days?

Pitt agreed with her that it was, but probably no worse than always. She roundly disagreed with him on that-it had never been like that in her mother's day, or that good woman, may her soul rest in peace, would have warned her not to let rooms to strangers.

However, she not only identified Jerome from a photograph shown her, but also three other people who were photographed

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for the purpose of just such identity quests-all of them policemen. By the time she got to the picture of Arthur-obtained from Waybourne-she was so confused she was quite sure the whole of London was seething with all manner of sin, and would be consumed like Sodom and Gomorrah before Christmas.

"Why do people do it?" Gillivray demanded furiously. "It's a waste of police time-don't they realize that? It ought to be punished!"

"Don't be ridiculous." Pitt lost his patience. "She's lonely and frightened-"

"Then she shouldn't let rooms to people she doesn't know!" Gillivray retorted waspishly.

"It's probably her only living." Pitt was getting genuinely angry now. It would do Gillivray good to walk the beat for a while, somewhere like Bluegate Fields, Seven Dials, or the Devil's Acre. Let him see the beggars piled in the doorways and smell the bodies and the stale streets. Let him taste the dirt in the air, the grime from chimneys, the perpetual damp. Let him hear the rats squealing as they nosed in the refuse, and see the flat eyes of children who knew they would live and die there, probably die before they were as old as Gillivray was now.

A woman who owned a little property had safety, a roof over her head, and, if she let out rooms, food and clothing as well. By Seven Dials standards, she was rich.

' 'Then she ought to be used to it,'' Gillivray replied, oblivious of Pitt's thoughts.

"I daresay she is." Pitt dug himself deeper into his feelings, glad to have the excuse to let go of the bridle he kept on them most of the time. "That hardly stops it hurting! She's probably used to being hungry, and used to being cold, and used to being scared half the time she's conscious at all. And probably she deceives herself as to what her rooms are used for and dreams that she's better than she is: wiser, kinder, prettier, and more important-like the rest of humanity! Maybe all she wanted was for us to lend her a little fame for a day or two, give her something to talk about over the teacups-or the gin-so she convinced herself Jerome rented one of her rooms. What do

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you suggest we do-prosecute her because she was mistaken?" He let all his dislike for Gillivray and his comfortable assumptions thicken his voice with scorn. "Apart from anything else, that would hardly be conducive to having other people come forward to help us-now, would it?"

Gillivray looked at him, his face full of hurt.

"I think you are being quite unreasonable, sir," he said stiffly. "I can see that for myself. It does not alter the fact that she wasted our time!"

And so did the third claimant, who came to the police station saying he had let rooms to Jerome. He was a rotund personage with rippling jowls and thick white hair. He kept a public house in the Mile End Road, and said that a gentleman answering the murderer's description to a tee had rented rooms from him on numerous occasions, rooms immediately above his saloon bar. He had seemed perfectly respectable at the time, soberly dressed and well spoken, and had been visited while there by a young gentleman of good breeding.

But he also failed to identify Jerome among a group of photographs presented to him, and when he was questioned closely by Pitt, his answers became vaguer and vaguer, until finally he retreated altogether and said he thought after all that he had been mistaken. When he considered the matter more carefully, Pitt helped to bring back to mind that the gentleman in question had a North Country accent, had been a little on the portly side, and was definitely bald over the major portion of his head.

"Damn!" Gillivray swore as soon as he was out of the room. "Now he really was wasting time! Just after a little cheap notoriety for his wretched house! What sort of people want to go drinking in a place where a murder's been committed anyway?"

"Most sorts," Pitt said with disgust. "If he spreads it around, he'll probably double his custom."

"Then we ought to prosecute him!"

"What for? The worst we could do is give him a fright-and waste a great deal more time, not only ours but the court'sjis well. He'd get off-and become a folk hero! He'd be carried

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down the Mile End Road shoulder high, and his pub would be crammed to the doors! He'd be able to sell tickets!"

Gillivray slammed his notebook down on the table, speechless because he did not wish to be vulgar and use the only words that sprang to his mind.

Pitt smiled to himself, and allowed Gillivray to see it.

The investigation continued. It was now October and the streets were hard and bright, full of the edge of autumn. Cold winds penetrated coats, and the first frost made the pavements slippery under one's boots. They had traced Jerome's career back through his previous employers, all of whom had found him of excellent scholastic ability. If admitting to no great personal liking for him, all felt definite satisfaction with his work. None of them had had the least notion that his personal life was anything but of the most regular-even, one might almost say, prim. Certainly he appeared to be a man of little imagination and no humor at all, except of the most perverse, which they failed to understand. As they had said: not likable, but of the utmost propriety-to the point of being a prig-and socially an unutterable bore.

On October 5, Gillivray came into Pitt's office without knocking, his cheeks flushed either with success or by the sharpening wind outside.

"Well?" Pitt asked irritably. Gillivray might have ambition, and might consider himself a cut above the average policeman, as indeed he was, but that did not give him the right to walk in without the courtesy of asking.

"I've found it!" Gillivray said triumphantly, his face glowing, eyes alight. "I've got it at last!"

Pitt felt his pulse quicken in spite of himself. It was not entirely pleasure, which was unexplainable. What else should he feel?

"The rooms?" he asked calmly, then swallowed hard. "You've found the rooms where Arthur Waybourne was drowned? Are you sure this time? Could you prove it in a court?"

"No, no!" Gillivray waved his arms expansively. "Not the rooms. Far better than that, I've found a prostitute who swears

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to a relationship with Jerome! I've got times, places, dates, everything-and perfect identification!"

Pitt let out his breath with disgust. This was useless-and a sordid contradiction he did not want to know. He saw Eugenie Jerome's face in his mind, and wished Gillivray had not been so zealous, so self-righteously successful. Damn Maurice Jerome! And damn Gillivray. And Eugenie, for being so innocent!

"Brilliant," he said sarcastically. "And totally pointless. We are trying to prove that Jerome assaulted young boys, not that he bought the services of street women!"

"But you don't understand!" Gillivray leaned forward over the desk, his face, shining with victory, only a foot from Pitt's. "The prostitute is a young boy! His name is Albie Frobisher, and he's seventeen-just a year older than Arthur Wayboume.. He swears he's known Jerome for four years, and been used by him all that time! That's all we need! He even says Arthur Way-bourne took his place-Jerome admitted as much. That's why Jerome was never suspected before-he never bothered anyone else! He paid for his relationship-until he became infatuated with Arthur. Then, when he seduced Arthur, he stopped seeing Albie Frobisher-no need! It explains everything, don't you see? It all fits into place!"

"What about Godfrey-and Titus Swynford?" Why was Pitt arguing? As Gillivray said, it all fell into place; it even answered the question of why Jerome had never been suspected before, why he had been able to control himself so completely that his appearance was perfect-until Godfrey. "Well?" he repeated. "What about Godfrey?"

"I don't know!" Gillivray was confused fora moment. Then comprehension flashed into his eyes, and Pitt knew exactly what he was thinking. He believed Pitt was envious because it was Gillivray who had found the essential link, and not Pitt himself. "Perhaps once he'd seduced someone he resented paying for it?" he suggested. "Or maybe Albie's prices had gone up. Maybe he was short of money? Or, most likely, he'd developed a taste for a higher class of youth-a touch of quality. Perhaps he preferred seducing virgins to the rather shop-soiled skills of a prostitute?"

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Pitt looked at Gillivray's smooth, clean face and hated it. What he said might well be true, but his satisfaction in it, the ease with which the words came out between his perfect teeth, was disgusting. He was talking of obscenity, of intimate human degradation, with no more pain or difficulty than if they had been items on a bill of fare. Shall we have the beef or the duck tonight? Or the pie?

"You seem to have thought of every aspect of it," he said with a curl of his lip, at once bracketing Gillivray with Jerome in intent-in nature of thought, if not in act. "I should have dwelt on its possibilities longer, then maybe I would have thought of these things for myself."

Gillivray's face flamed as sharp red as the blood rose, but he could think of no reply that did not involve language that would only confirm Pitt's charge.

"Well, I suppose you have an address for this prostitute?" Pitt went on. "Have you told Mr. Athelstan yet?"

Gillivray's face lightened instantly, satisfaction returning like a tide.

"Yes, sir, it was unavoidable. I met him as I was coming in, and he asked me what progress we had made." He allowed himself to smile. "He was delighted."

Pitt could imagine it without even looking at the pleasure in Gillivray's eyes. He made an immense effort to hide his own feelings.

"Yes," he said. "He would be. Where is this Albie Fro-bisher?"

Gillivray handed him a slip of paper and he took it and read it. It was a rooming house of known reputation-in Bluegate Fields. How appropriate, how very suitable.

The following day, late in the afternoon, Pitt finally found Albie Frobisher at home and alone. It was a seedy house up an alley off one of the wider streets, its brick front grimy, its wood door and window frames peeling and spongy with rot from the wet river air.

Inside there was a hempen mat for a distance of about three yards, to absorb the mud from boots, and then a well-worn carpet of brilliant red, giving the hallway a sudden warmth, an il-

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lusion of having entered a cleaner, richer world, an illusion of promises behind the closed doors, or up the dim stairs to the gaslit higher floors.

Pitt walked up quickly. In spite of all the times he had been inside brothels, bawdy houses, gin mills, and workhouses, it made him unusually uncomfortable to be visiting a house of male prostitution, especially one that employed children. It was the most degrading of all human abuses, and that anyone, even another customer, should imagine for an instant that he had come for that purpose made his face flush hot and his mind revolt.

He took the last stairs two at a time and knocked sharply on the door of room 14. He was already shifting his weight and turning his shoulder toward the door in preparation to force it if it was not opened. The thought of standing here on the landing begging for admittance sent the sweat trickling down his chest.

But it was unnecessary. The door opened a crack almost immediately, and a light, soft voice spoke.

"Who is it?"

"Pitt, from the police. You spoke to Sergeant Gillivray yesterday."

The door swung wide without hesitation and Pin stepped inside. Instinctively he looked around, first of all to make sure they were alone. He did not expect violence from a protector, or the procurer himself, but it was always possible.

The room was ornate, with fringed covers and cushions in crimson and purple, and gas lamps with faceted pendants of glass. The bed was enormous, and there was a bronze male nude on the marble-topped side table. The plush curtains were closed, and the air smelled stale and sweet, as though perfume had been used to mask the smells of bodies and human exertion.

The feeling of nausea Pitt experienced lasted only for an instant; then it was overtaken by a suffocating pity.

Albie Frobisher himself was smaller than Arthur Way-bourne had been-perhaps as tall, although it was hard,to tell, since Pitt had never seen Arthur alive-but far lighter. Albie's bones were as fragile as a girl's, his skin white, face

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beardless. He had probably grown up on such scraps of food as he could beg or steal, until he had been old enough to be sold or to find his way into the care of a procurer. By then chronic malnutrition had doubtless already taken its toll. He would always be undersized. He might become soft in old age-although the chances of his living to reach it were negligible-but he would never be rounded, plump. And he was probably worth far more in his profession if he kept this frail, almost childlike look. There was an illusion of virginity about him-physically, at least-but his face, when Pitt regarded it more carefully, was as weary and as bleached of innocence as the face of any woman who had plied her trade in the streets for a lifetime. The world held no surprises for Albie, and no hope except of survival.

"Sit down," Pitt said, closing the door behind him. He balanced himself unhappily on the red plush seat as if he were the host, yet it was Albie who made him nervous.

Albie obeyed without moving his eyes from Pitt's face.

"What do you want?" he asked. His voice was curiously pleasing, softer, better educated than his surroundings suggested. Probably he had clients from a better class of person and had picked up their tricks of speech. It was an unpleasant thought, but it made sense. Men of Bluegate Fields had no money for this kind of indulgence. Had Jerome unintentionally schooled this child as well? If not Jerome, then others like him: men whose tastes could only be satisfied in the privacy of rooms like this, with people for whom they had no other feelings, shared no other side of their lives.

"What do you want?" Albie repeated, his old woman's eyes tired in his beardless face. With a shiver of revulsion, Pitt realized what he was thinking. He straightened up in the chair and sat back as if he were at ease, although he felt furiously uncomfortable. He knew his face was hot, but perhaps the lights were too dim for Albie to see it.

"To ask you about one of your customers," he answered. "You told Sergeant Gillivray yesterday. I want you to repeat it to me today. A man's life might depend on it-we have to be sure."

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Albie's face stiffened but there was too little color in the skin to see, in this yellow gaslight, if he paled even more.

"What about him?"

"You know the man I mean?"

"Yes. Jerome, the tutor."

"That's right. Describe him for me." He would have to allow some leniency. Customers to places like these often did not wish to be seen closely. They preferred the lights dim, and came in heavily muffled even in summer. It would be cool enough down in these darnk, riverside streets any night. It would not be remarked. "Well?"

"Fairly tall." Albie did not seem hesitant or confused. "On the lean side, dark hair that was always short and neat, mustache. Sort of pinched face, sharp nose, pursed-up mouth as if he smelled something bad, brown eyes. I can't describe his body because he always liked the lights off before that part, but he felt strong, and sort of bony-"

Pitt's stomach lurched, his imagination was too vivid. This boy had been thirteen when it started!

"Thank you," he stopped Albie. It was Jerome, exactly; he could not have phrased it better himself. He took half a dozen photographs out of his pocket, including one of Jerome, and passed them over one by one. "Any one of these?"

Albie looked at them each until he came to the right one. He hesitated only for a moment.

"That one," he said with certainty. "That's him. I've never seen any of the others."

Pitt took it back. It was a picture taken in the police cells, stiff and unwilling, but it was a clear likeness.

"Thank you. Did he ever bring anyone else with him when he came?"

"No." Albie smiled very slightly, a wan ghost of expression full of self-knowledge. "People don't, when they come to places like this. With women they might-I don't know many women. But they come here alone, especially the gentry, and they're mostly the ones who can afford it. Others with that sort of taste exercise it with whoever they can find with the same inclination. Usually the higher they are, the quieter they come, the lower their hats and the tighter their collars to their chins.

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There's more than one wears false whiskers till he gets inside, and always wants the lamps so low he's fallen over the furniture before now." His face was cold with scorn. In his opinion, a man should at least have the courage of his sins. "The more I accommodate them, the worse they hate me for it," he went on harshly, suddenly finding anger because he was despised and knew it, for all their begging and added money. Sometimes, when he had had a good week and he did not need the funds, he turned someone away for the sheer luxury of humiliating him, of stripping naked his need and exposing it. Next time, and perhaps even for a month or two, the man remembered to say please and thank you, and did not drop the guineas quite so offhandedly on the table.

It was not necessary to put his thoughts into words for Pitt. Similar ideas had been running through Pitt's imagination: the two bodies locked together in passionate intimacy, the physical need of the man and Albie's need to survive-^each despising the other, and in their hearts hating! Albie, because he was used like a public convenience in which you relieve yourself and then leave for the next man; the other, whatever dim figure it was, because Albie had seen his dependence-his naked soul- and he could not forgive that. Each was master and slave, and each knew it.

Pitt felt a sudden pity and anger-pity for the men, because they were imprisoned in themselves, but anger for Albie, because he had been made into what he was not by nature but by man, and for money. He had been taken as child and set into this mold. He would almost certainly die in it, probably within a few years.

Why couldn't Jerome have stayed with Albie, or someone like him? What was it Jerome felt for Arthur Waybourne that Albie had not been able to satisfy? He would probably never know.

"Is that all?" Albie asked patiently. His mind was already somewhere else.

"Yes, thank you." Pitt stood up. "Don't go away, or we'll be obliged to look for you and keep you safe in jail so we have you for the trial."

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Albie looked uncomfortable. "I gave Sergeant Gillivray a statement. He wrote it all down."

"I know. But we'll need you all the same. Don't make things harder for yourself-just be here."

Albie sighed. "All right. Where have I got to go, anyway? I have clients here. I couldn't afford to start all over again somewhere else."

"Yes," Pitt said. "If I thought you would go, I'd arrest you now." He walked to the door and opened it.

"You don't want to do that." Albie smiled with wan humor. "I've too many other clients who wouldn't like it if I was arrested. Who knows what I might say-if I was questioned too hard? You're not free either, Mr. Pitt. All sorts of people need me-people far more important than you are."

Pitt did not grudge him his brief moment of power.

"I know," he said quietly. "But I wouldn't remind them of it, Albie-not if you want to stay safe." He went out and closed the door, leaving Albie sitting on the bed, his arms wrapped around his body as he stared at the prisms on the gaslight.

When Pitt got back to his office, Cutler, the police surgeon, was waiting for him, his face wrinkled in puzzlement. Taking his hat off and flinging it at the stand, Pitt closed the office door. The hat missed and fell on the floor. He pulled his muffler undone and threw it as well. It hung over the antler like a dead snake.

"What is it?" he asked, undoing his coat.

"This man of yours," Cutler replied, scratching his cheek. "Jerome, the one who is supposed to have killed your body from the Bluegate Fields sewer-"

"What about him?"

"He infected the boy with syphilis?"

"Yes-why?"

"He didn't, you know! He doesn't have it. Clean as a whistle. Given him every test I know of-twice. Difficult disease, I know. Goes dormant-can stay like that for years. But whoever gave it to that boy was infectious within the last few months- even weeks-and this man is as clean as I am! I'd swear to that

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in court-and I'll have to. Defense will ask me-and if they don't, I'll damn well tell them!"

Pitt sat down and shook off his coat, leaving it sprawled over the back of his chair.

"No possibility of a mistake?"

"I told you-I did it twice, and had my assistant check me. .The man has not got syphilis or any other venereal disease. Done all the tests on him there are."

Pitt looked at him. He had a strong face but it was not overbearing. There were lines of humor around the mouth and eyes. Pitt found himself wishing he had time to know him better.

"Have you told Athelstan?"

"No." This time there was a smile. "I will if you like. I thought you might prefer to do that yourself."

Pitt stood up and reached out his hand for the written report. His coat slid to the floor in a heap but he did not notice it.

"Yes," he said, without knowing why. "Yes, I would. Thank you.'' He went to the door, and the doctor left to go back up to his work.

Upstairs in his polished and gleaming room, Athelstan was leaning back in his chair contemplating the ceiling when he gave Pitt permission to come in.

"Well?" he said with satisfaction. "Good job young Gilliv-ray did turning up the prostitute, eh? Watch him-he'll go a long way. Wouldn't be surprised if I have to promote him in a year or two. Treading on your tail, Pitt!"

"Possibly," Pitt said without pleasure. "The police surgeon has just given me his report on Jerome."

"Police surgeon?" Athelstan frowned. "What for? Fellow's not ill, is he?"

"No, sir, he's in excellent health-not a blemish, apart from a little dyspepsia." Pitt felt satisfaction welling up inside him. He looked straight at Athelstan, meeting his eyes. "Perfect health," he repeated.

"God dammit, man!" Athelstan sat upright sharply. "Who cares if he has indigestion or not! The man perverted, contami-

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nated, and then murdered a decent boy, a good boy! I don't give a fig if he's doubled up in agony!"

"No, sir, he's in excellent health," Pitt repeated. "The doctor gave him every test he knows of, and then did it again to make sure."

"Pitt, you're wasting my time! As long as he's kept alive and fit for trial, and then hanging, his health is of no interest to me whatsoever. Get on with your job!"

Pitt leaned forward a little, keeping the smile from his face with an effort.

"Sir," he said carefully. "He doesn't have syphilis-not a trace!"

Athelstan stared at him; it was a second or two before the meaning of the statement dawned on him.

"Not got syphilis?" he repeated; blinking.

"That's right. He's clean as a whistle. Hasn't got it now- never has had."

"What are you talking about? He must have it! He gave it to Arthur Waybourne!"

"No, sir, he can't have. He doesn't have it," Pitt repeated.

"That's absurd!" Athelstan exclaimed. "If he didn't give it to Arthur Wayboume, then who did?"

"I don't know, sir. That's a very interesting question."

Athelstan swore viciously, then colored with anger because Pitt had seen him lose control of himself and sink to obscenity.

"Well, get out and do something!" he shouted. "Don't leave everything to young Gillivray! Find out who did give it to that wretched boy! Someone did-find him! Don't stand there like a fool!"

Pitt smiled sourly, his pleasure sharply diluted with the knowledge of what lay ahead.

"Yes, sir. I'll do what I can."

"Good! Get on with it then! And close the door behind you- it's damn cold out there in the passage!"

The end of the day brought the worst experience of all. He arrived home late, to find Eugenie Jerome waiting in the parlor

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again. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa with Charlotte, who was pale-faced and, for once, obviously uncertain what to do or say. She stood up the moment she heard Pitt at the door, and rushed to greet him-or perhaps to warn him.

As Pitt entered the room, Eugenie stood up, her body tense, her face composed with an effort that was painful.

"Oh, Mr. Pitt, it is so kind of you to see me!"

He had no choice; he would like to have avoided her. That knowledge made him feel guilty. He could see nothing in his mind's eye but Albie Frobisher-what a ridiculous name that was for a prostitute!-sitting in the gaslight in his disgusting room. He felt obscurely guilty for that, too, although it was nothing to do with him. Perhaps the guilt was because he knew about it, and had done nothing to fight it, to wipe it out forever.

"Good evening, Mrs. Jerome," he said gently. "What can I

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The trial should have been the end of the case for Pitt. He had found all the evidence he could, and had sworn to its truth in court without fear or favor. The jury had found Maurice Jerome guilty.

He had never expected to feel satisfaction. It was the tragedy of an unhappy man with a gift beyond his opportunity to use. The flaws in Jerome's character had robbed him of the chance to climb in academic fields where others of less offensive nature might have succeeded. He would never have been an equal-that was denied from birth. He had ability, not genius. With a smile, a little flattery now and then, he might have gained a very enviable place. If he could have taught his pupils to like him, to trust him, he might have influenced great houses.

But his pride denied him of it; his resentment of privilege burned through his every action. He seemed never to appreciate what he had, concentrating instead on what he had not. That surely was the true tragedy-because it was unnecessary.

And the sexual flaw? Was it of the body or the mind? Had nature denied him the usual satisfaction of a man, or was it fear in him that drove him from women? No, surely Eugenie would have known-poor creature. In eleven years, how could she not? Surely no woman could be so desperately ignorant of nature and its demands?

Was it something much uglier than that, a need to subjugate in the most intimate and physical manner the boys he taught, the youths who held the privileges he could not?

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Pitt sat in the parlor and stared into the flames. For some reason, Charlotte had lit the fire in here tonight, instead of preparing dinner to be eaten in the kitchen, as they often did. He was glad of it. Perhaps she also felt like spending an evening by the warm open hearth, sitting in the best chairs, and all the lamps lit and sparkling, revealing the gleam and nap of the velvet curtains. They were an extravagance, but she had wanted them so much it had been worth the cheap mutton stews and the herrings they had eaten for nearly two months!

He smiled, remembering, then looked across at her. She was watching him, her eyes, steady on his face, almost black in the shadows from the lamp behind her.

"I saw Eugenie after the trial," she said almost casually. "I took her home and stayed with her for nearly two hours."

He was surprised, then realized he should not have been. That was what she had gone to the trial for-to offer Eugenie some fragment of comfort or at least companionship.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Shocked," she said slowly. "As if she could not understand how it had happened, how anyone could believe it of him."

He sighed, it was natural. Who ever does believe such a thing of a husband or a wife?

"Did he do it?" she asked solemnly.

It was the question he had been avoiding ever since he walked out of the courtroom. He did not want to talk about it now, but he knew she would insist until he gave her an answer.

"I imagine so," he said wearily. "But I am not part of the jury, so what I think doesn't matter. I gave them all the evidence I had."

She was not so easily put off. He noticed the sewing was idle in her lap. She had the thimble on her finger and had threaded the needle, but she had not put it through the cloth.

"That's not an answer," she said, frowning at him. "Do you believe he did it?"

He took a deep breath and let it out silently.

"I can't think of anyone else." 144

She was onto it immediately. "That means you don't believe it!"

"It doesn't!" She was being unfair, illogical. "It means just what I said, Charlotte. I cannot think of any other explanation, therefore I have to accept that it was Jerome. It makes excellent sense, and there is nothing whatsoever against it-no awkward facts that have to be faced, nothing unexplained, nothing to indicate anyone else. It's a pity about Eugenie, and I understand the way she feels. I'm as sorry as you are! Criminals sometimes have nice families- innocent and likable, and they suffer like hell! But that doesn't stop Jerome from being guilty. You can't fight it and you won't help by trying. You certainly can't help Eugenie Jerome by encouraging her to believe there is some hope. There isn't! Now accept it, and leave it alone!"

"I've been thinking," she replied, exactly as if he had not spoken.

"Charlotte!"

She took no notice of him.

"I've been thinking," she repeated. "If Jerome is innocent, then someone else must be guilty."

"Obviously," he said crossly. He did not want to think about it anymore. It was not a good case, and he wanted to forget it. It was finished. "And there isn't anyone else implicated at all," he added in exasperation. "No one else had any reason."

"They might have!"

"Charlotte-"

"They might have!" she insisted. "Let's imagine Jerome is innocent and that he is telling the truth! What do we know for a fact?"

He smiled sourly at the "we." But there was no purpose in trying any longer to evade talking about it. He could see she was going to follow it to the bitter end.

"That Arthur Waybourne was homosexually used," he answered. "That he had syphilis, and that he was drowned in bathwater, almost certainly by having his heels jerked up so his head went under the water and he couldn't get up again. And his body was put down a manhole into the sewers. It is almost impossible that he drowned by accident, and completely impos-

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sible that he put his own body into the sewer." He had answered her question and it told them nothing new. He looked at her, waiting for acceptance in her face.

It was not there. She was thinking.

"Then Arthur had a relationship with someone, or with several people," she said slowly.

"Charlotte! You're making the boy seem like-like a-" He struggled for a word that would not be too coarse or too extreme.

"Why not?" She raised her eyebrows and stared at him. "Why should we assume that Arthur was nice? Lots of people who get murdered have brought it upon themselves, one way or another. Why not Arthur Waybourne? We've been supposing he was an innocent victim. Well, perhaps he wasn't."

"He was sixteen!" His voice rose in protest.

"So?" She opened her eyes wide. "There's no reason why he couldn't have been spiteful or greedy, or thoroughly cunning, just because he's young. You don't know children very well, do you? Children can be horrible."

Pitt thought of all the child thieves he knew who were everything she had just said. And he could so easily understand why and how they were. But Arthur Waybourne? Surely he had only to ask for what he wanted and it was given him? There was no need-no cause.

She smiled at him with an oblique, unhappy satisfaction.

"You made me lopk at the poor, and it was good for me." She still held the needle poised. ' 'Perhaps I ought to show you a little of another world-the inside of it-for your education!" she said quietly. "Society children can be unhappy too, and unpleasant. It's relative. It's only a matter of wanting something you can't have, or seeing someone else with something and thinking you should have it. The feeling is much the same, whether it' s for a piece of bread or a diamond brooch-or someone to love. All sorts of people cheat and steal, or even kill, if they care enough. In fact"-she took a deep breath-"in fact, maybe people who are used to getting their own way are quicker to defy the law than those who often have to go without."

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"All right," he conceded a little reluctantly. "Suppose Arthur Wayboume was thoroughly selfish and unpleasant-what then? Surely he wasn't so unpleasant that someone killed him for it? That might get rid of half the aristocracy!"

"There's no need to be sarcastic!" she said, her eyes glinting. She poked the needle into the cloth, but did not pull it through. "He may well have been just that! Suppose-" She scowled, concentrating on the idea, tightening it into words. "Suppose Jerome was telling the truth? He never went to Albie Frobisher's, and he was never overfamiliar with any of the boys-not Arthur, not Godfrey, and not Titus."

"All right, we have only Godfrey and Titus's word for it," he argued. "But there was no doubt about Arthur. The police surgeon was positive about it. It couldn't be a mistake. And why should the other boys lie? It doesn't make sense! Charlotte, however much you don't like it, you are standing reason on its head to get away from Jerome! Everything points to him."

"You are interrupting." She put the sewing things on the table beside her and pushed them away. "Of course Arthur had a relationship-probably with Albie Frobisher-why not? Maybe that's where he got his disease. Did anyone test Albie?"

She knew instantly that she had struck home; it was in her face, a mixture of triumph and pity. Pitt felt a cold tide rush up inside him. No one had thought to test Albie. And since Arthur Waybourne was dead, murdered, Albie would naturally be loath to admit having known him! He would be the first suspect; if Albie could have been guilty, it would have suited everyone. None of them had even thought to test him for venereal disease. How stupid! How incredibly, incompetently stupid!

But what about Albie's identification of Jerome? He had picked out the likeness immediately.

But then what had Gillivray said when he first found Albie? Had he shown him pictures then, perhaps led him into identifying Jerome? It could so easily be done: just a little judicious suggestion, a slight turn of the phrase. "It was this man, wasn't

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it?" In his eagerness, Gillivray might not even have been aware of it himself.

Charlotte's face was puckered, a flush that could have been embarrassment on her cheeks.

"You didn't, did you." It was barely a question, more an acknowledgment of the truth. There was no blame in her voice, but that did nothing to assuage the void of guilt inside him.

"No."

"Or the other boys-Godfrey and Titus?"

The thought was appalling. He could imagine Waybourne's face if he asked for that-or Swynford's. He sat upright.

"Oh, God, no! You don't think Arthur took them-?" He could envision Athelstan's reaction to such an unspeakable suggestion.

She went on implacably. "Maybe it wasn't Jerome who molested the other boys-maybe it was Arthur. If he had a taste for it, perhaps he used them."

It was not impossible, not at all. In fact, it was not even very improbable, given the original premise that Arthur was as much sinning as sinned against.

"And who killed him?" he asked. "Would Albie care about one customer more or less? He must have had hundreds of people come and go in his four years in business."

"The two boys," she answered straightaway. "Just because Arthur had a liking for it doesn't mean they did. Perhaps he could dominate them one at a time, but when they each learned that the other was being similarly used, maybe they got together and got rid of him."

"Where? In a brothel somewhere? Isn't that a little sophisticated for-"

"At home!" she said quickly. "Why not? Why go anywhere else?"

"Then how did they get rid of the body without family or servants seeing? How did they get it to a manhole connected with the Bluegate sewers? They live miles from Bluegate Fields."

But she was not confused. "I daresay one of their fathers did that for them-or perhaps even both, although I doubt it. Proba-

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bly the father in whose house it happened. Personally, I rather favor Sir Anstey Waybourne."

"Hide his own son's murder?"

"Once Arthur was dead, there was nothing he could do to bring him back," she said reasonably. "If he didn't hide it, he would lose his second son as well, and be left with no one! Not to mention a scandal so unspeakable the family wouldn't live it down in a hundred years!" She leaned forward. "Thomas you don't seem to realize that in spite of not being able to do up their own boot buttons or boil an egg, the higher levels of society are devastatingly practical when it comes to matters of survival in the world they understand! They have servants to do the normal things, so they don't bother to do them themselves. But when it comes to social cunning, they are equal to the Borgias any day!"

"I think you've got a lurid imagination," he answered very soberly. "I think I should take a closer look at what you are reading lately."

"I'm not a pantry maid!" she said with considerable acidity, the temper rising in her face. "I shall read what I please! And it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see three young boys playing around at a rather dangerous game of discovering appetites, and being drawn into perversion by an older boy they trust-and then finding it degrading and disgusting, but being too frightened to deny him. Then joining forces together, and one day, perhaps meaning to give him a good fright, they end up going too far and killing him instead."

Her voice gathered conviction as she pictured it. "Then of course they are terrified by what has happened, and appeal to the father of one of them, and he sees that the boy is dead and that it is murder. Perhaps it could have been hushed up, explained as an accident, but perhaps not. Under pressure, the ugly truth would come out that Arthur was perverted and diseased. Since nothing could be done now to help him, better to look to the living and dispose of the body where it will never be found."

She took a deep breath and continued. "Then, of course, when it was found, and all the ugliness comes out, someone has to be blamed. The father knows Arthur was perverted, but

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maybe he does not know who first introduced him to such practices, and does not wish to believe it was simply his own nature. If the other two boys-frightened of the truth, of saying that Arthur took them to prostitutes-say that it was Jerome, whom they do not like, it is easy enough to believe them, in which case then Jerome is morally to blame for Arthur's death-let him take the literal blame as well. He deserves to be hanged-so let him be! And by now the two boys can hardly go back on what they have said! How could they dare? The police and the courts have all been lied to, and believed it. Nothing to do but let it go on."

He sat and thought about it and the minutes ticked by. There was no sound but the clock and the faint hiss of the fire. It was possible-quite possible-and extremely ugly. And there was nothing of any substance to disprove any of it. Why had it not occurred to him before-to any of them? Was it just that it was more comfortable to blame Jerome? They would risk no disturbing reactions by charging him, no threat to any of their careers, even if by mischance they had not, at the last, been able to prove it.

Surely they were better men than that? And they were too honest, were they not, simply to have settled on Jerome because he was pompous and irritating?

He tried to recall every meeting he had had with Wayboume. How had the man seemed? Was there anything in him at all, any shadow of deceit, of extra grief or unexplained fear?

He could remember nothing. The man was confused, shocked because he had lost a son in appalling circumstances: He was afraid of scandal that would further injure his family. Wouldn't any man be? Surely it was only natural, only decent.

And young Godfrey? He had seemed open, as far as his shock and fear would allow him to be. Or was his singular guilelessness only the mask of childhood, the clear skin and wide eyes of a practiced liar who felt no shame, and therefore no guilt?

Titus Swynford? He had liked Titus, and unless he was very much mistaken, the boy was grieved by the whole course of events-a natural grief, an innocent grief. Was Pitt losing his

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judgment, falling into the trap of the obvious and the convenient?

It was a distressing thought. But was it true?

He found it hand to accept that Titus and Godfrey were so devious-or, frankly, that they were clever enough to have deceived him so thoroughly. He was used to sifting lies from truth; it was his job, his profession, and he was good at it. Of course he made mistakes-but seldom was he so totally blinded as not even to suspect!

Charlotte wa^ looking at him. "You don't think that's the answer, do you?" she said.

"I don't know," he admitted. "No-it doesn't feel right."

"And do you feel right about Jerome?"

He looked at her. He had forgotten lately how much her face pleased him, the line of her cheek, the slight upward wing of her brow.

"No," he said simply. "No, I don't think so."

She picked up the sewing again. The thread slipped out of the needle and she put the end in her mouth to moisten it, then carefully rethreaded it.

"Then I suppose you'll have to go back and start again," she said, looking at the needle. "There's still three weeks' time left."

The following morning, Pitt found a pile of new cases on his desk. Most of them were comparatively minor: thefts, embezzlement, and a possible arson. He detailed them to various other officers, one of the privileges of his rank that he made the most of; then he sent for Gillivray.

Gillivray came in cheerfully, his face glowing, shoulders square. He closed the door behind him and sat down before being asked, which annoyed Pitt quite out of proportion.

"Something interesting?" Gillivray inquired eagerly. "Another murder?"

' 'No.'' Pitt was sour. He had disliked the whole case, and he disliked even more having to open it up again, but it was the only way to get rid of the crowding uncertainties in his mind, the vague possibilities that intruded every time his concentration lapsed. "The same one," he said.

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Gillivray was perplexed. "The same one? Arthur Way-bourne? You mean someone' else was involved? Can we do that? The jury found its verdict. That closes the case, doesn't it?"

"It may be closed," Pitt said, keeping his temper with difficulty. He realized Gillivray annoyed him so much because he seemed invulnerable to the things that hurt Pitt. He was smiling and clean, and he walked through other people's tragedies and emotional dirt without being scathed by them at all.

"It may be closed for the court," Pitt said, starting, "but I think there are still things we ought to know, for justice's sake.''

Gillivray looked dubious. The courts were sufficient for him. His job was to detect crime and to enforce the law, not to sit in judgment. Each arm of the machinery had its proper function: the police to detect and apprehend; the barristers to prosecute or to defend; the judge to preside and see that the procedures of the law were followed; the jury to decide truth and fact. And in due course, if necessary, the warders to guard, and the executioner to end life rapidly and efficiently. For any one arm to usurp the function of another was to put the whole principle in jeopardy. This was what a civilized society was about, each person knowing his function and place. A good man fulfilled his obligation to the limit of his ability and, with good fortune, rose to a better place.

"Justice is not our business," Gillivray said at last. "We've done our job and the courts have done theirs. We shouldn't interfere. That would be the same as saying that we don't believe in them."

Pitt looked at him. He was earnest, very composed. There was a good deal of truth in what he said, but it altered nothing. They had been clumsy, and it was going to be painful to try to rectify it. But that did not alter the necessity.

"The courts judge according to what they know," he answered. "There are things they should have known, that they did not because we neglected to find them out."

Gillivray was indignant. He was being implicated in dereliction of duty, and not only him, but the entire police force above

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him, even the lawyers for the defense, who ought to have noticed any omission of worth.

"We didn't explore the possibility that Jerome was telling the truth," Pitt began, before Gillivray interrupted him.

"Telling the truth?" Gillivray exploded, his eyes bright and furious. "With respect, Mr. Pitt-that's ridiculous! We caught him in lie after lie! Godfrey Way bourne said he interfered with him, Titus Swynford said the same. Abigail Winters identified him! Albie Frobisher identified him! And Albie alone has to be damning. Only a perverted man goes to a male prostitute. That's a crime in itself! What else could you want, short of an eyewitness? It isn't even as if there was another suspect!"

Pitt sat back in his chair, and let himself slide down till he was resting on the base of his spine. He put his hands into his pockets and touched a ball of string he carried, a lump of sealing wax, a pocketknife, two marbles he had picked up in the street, and a shilling.

"What if the boys were lying?" he suggested. "And the relationship was among themselves, the three of them, and had nothing to do with Jerome?"

"Three of them?" Gillivray was startled. "All-" He did not like to use the word, and would have preferred some genteelism that avoided the literal. "All perverted?"

"Why not? Perhaps Arthur was the only one whose nature it was, and he forced the others to go along."

"Then where did Arthur get the disease?" Gillivray hit on the weak point with satisfaction. "Not from two innocent young boys he drove into such a relationship by force! They certainly didn't have it!"

"Don't they?" Pitt raised his eyebrows. "How do you know?"

Gillivray opened his mouth; then realization flooded his face, and he closed it again.

"We don't-do we!" Pitt challenged. "Don't you think we should find out? He may have passed it on to them, however innocent they are."

"But where did he get it?" Gillivray still held to his objection. "The relationship can't have involved only the three of them. There must have been someone else!"

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"Quite," Pitt conceded. "But if Arthur was perverted, perhaps he went to Albie Frobisher and contracted it there. We didn't test Albie either, did we?"

Gillivray was flushed. There was no need of admission; he saw the neglect immediately. He despised Albie. He should have been aware of the possibility and put it to the proof without being told. It would have been easy enough. And certainly Albie would have been in no position to protest.

"But Albie identified Jerome," he said, going back to more positive ground. "So Jerome must have been there. And he didn't recognize the picture of Arthur. I showed him one, naturally."

' 'Does he have to be telling the truth?" Pitt inquired with an affectation of innocence. "Would you take his word in anything else?"

Gillivray shook his head as if brushing away flies- something irritating but of no consequence. ' 'Why should he lie?"

"People seldom want to admit to an acquaintance with a murder victim. I don't think that needs any explanation."

"But what about Jerome?" Gillivray's face was earnest. "He identified Jerome!"

"How did he recognize him? How do you know?"

"Because I showed him photographs, of course!"

"And can you be sure, absolutely sure, that you didn't say or do anything at all, even by an expression on your face-a lift in your voice, maybe-to indicate which picture you wanted him to choose?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Gillivray said instantly. Then he hesitated; he did not knowingly lie to himself, still less to others. "I don't think so."

"But you believed it was Jerome?"

"Yes, of course I did."

"Are you sure you didn't somehow betray that-in tone or look? Albie's very quick-he'd have seen it. He's used to picking up the nuance, the unspoken word. He earns his living by pleasing people."

Gillivray was offended by the comparison, but he saw the purpose of it.

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"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't think so."

"But you could have?" Pitt pressed.

"I don't think so."

"But we didn't test Albie for disease!"

"No!" Gillivray flicked his hand to dispel the irritant again. "Why should we have? Arthur had the disease, and Arthur never had any relationship with Albie! It was Jerome who had the relationship with Albie, and Jerome was clean! If Albie had it, then presumably Jerome would have it too!" That was an excellent piece of reasoning, and Gillivray was pleased with it. He sat back in the chair again, his body relaxing.

"That is presuming that everyone is telling the truth except Jerome," Pitt pointed out. "But if Jerome is telling the truth, and someone else is lying, then it would be quite different. And, by the same line of logic you just put forward, since Arthur had it, then Jerome should have it also-shouldn't he? And we didn't think of that either, did we?"

Gillivray stared. "He didn't have it!"

"Precisely! Why not?"

"I don't know! Perhaps it just doesn't show yet!" He shook his head. "Perhaps he hasn't molested Arthur since he got it from the woman. How do I know. But if Jerome is telling the truth, then that means everyone else is lying, and that's preposterous. Why should they? And anyway, even if the relationship included Albie and all three boys, that still doesn't answer who killed Arthur, or why. And that's all that matters to us. We are back to Jerome just the same. You've told me yourself not to torture the facts to fit them into an unlikely theory-just take them as they are and see what they say." He looked satisfied, as if he had scored some minor victory.

' 'Quite,'' Pit agreed. ' 'But all the facts. That's the point-all of them, not just most of them. And in this case we haven't taken the trouble to discover all the facts. We should have tested Albie and the other boys as well."

"You can't!" Gillivray was incredulous. "You can't possibly mean to go to the Waybournes now and ask to test their younger son for syphilis? They'd throw you out-and probably protest to the Commissioner as well, if not all the way to Parliament!"

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"Maybe. But that doesn't alter the fact that we should."

Gillivray snorted and stood up. "Well, I think you're wasting your time-sir. Jerome is guilty and will be hanged. You know, with respect, sir-sometimes I think you allow your concern for justice, and what you imagine to be equality, to override common sense. People are not all equal. They never have been, and they never will be-morally, socially, physically, or-"

"I know that!" Pitt interrupted. "I have no delusions about equality, brought about by man or nature. But I don't believe in privilege before the law-that's quite a different thing. Jerome doesn't deserve to be hanged for something he didn't do, whatever we think of him personally. And if you prefer to look at it from the other side, we don't deserve to hang him if he's innocent, and let the guilty man go free. At least I don't! If you're the kind of man who can walk away from that, then you should be in another job, not the police."

"Mr. Pitt, that is quite uncalled for! You are being unjust. I didn't say anything like that. I think it's blinding your judgment-that's what I said, and that's what I mean! I think you lean over so far to be fair that you are in grave danger of falling over backwards." He squared his shoulders. "That's what you're doing this time. Well, if you want to go to Mr. Athelstan and ask for a warrant to test Godfrey Waybourne for venereal disese-go ahead. But I'm not coming with you. I don't believe in it, and I shall say so if Mr. Athelstan asks me! The case is closed." And he stood up and walked to the door, turning when he reached it. "Is that all you wanted me for?"

"Yes." Pitt stayed in his seat, sliding even farther down till his knees bent and touched the bottom of the desk drawer. ' 'I suppose you'd better go and look at that arson-see if it really is. More probably some fool with a-leaking lamp."

"Yes, sir." Gillivray opened the door and went out, closing it after him with a snap. Pitt sat for quarter of an hour arguing himself out of it and back in again before he finally accepted the inevitable and went up the stairs to Athelstan's office. He knocked and waited.

"Come!" Athelstan said cheerfully. 156

Pitt opened it and went in. Athelstan's face fell as soon as he saw him.

"Pitt? What is it now? Can't you handle it yourself, man? I'm extremely busy. Got to see a member of Parliament in an hour, most important matter."

"No, sir, I can't. I shall need some sort of authority."

"For what? If you want to search something, go ahead and search it! You ought to know how to go about your business by now! Heaven knows you've been at it long enough."

"No, I don't want to search anything-not a house," Pitt replied. He was cold inside. He knew Athelstan would be furious, caught in a trap of necessity, and he would blame Pitt for it. And that would be fair. Pitt was the one who should have thought of it at the right time. Not, of course, that it would have been allowed then either.

"Well, what do you want?" Athelstan said irritably, his face creased into a frown. "For heaven's sake, explain yourself! Don't just stand there like a fool, moving from one foot to the other!"

Pitt could feel his skin flush hot, and it seemed suddenly as if the room were getting smaller and if he moved at all he would knock against something with his elbows or his feet.

"We should have tested Albert Frobisher to see if he had syphilis," he began.

Athelstan's head jerked up, his face dark with suspicion.

"Why? Who cares if he has? Perverted men who patronize that sort of place deserve all they get! We're not the keepers of the public morals, Pitt-or of public health. None of our business. Homosexuality is a crime, and so it should be, but we haven't the men to prosecute it. Need to catch them at it if we're going to take it to court." He snorted with distaste. "If you haven't got enough to do, I'll find you something more. London's teeming with crime. Go out any door and follow your nose, you'll find thieves and blackguards all over the place." He bent down again over the letters in front of him, dismissing Pitt by implication.

Pitt stood motionless on the bright carpet.

"And Godfrey Waybourne and Titus Swynford also, sir."

For a second there was silence; then Athelstan raised his eyes 157

very slowly. His face was purple; veins appeared that Pitt had never noticed before, plum-colored, on his nose.

"What did you say?" he demanded, sounding every word distinctly, as though he were talking to someone slow-witted.

Pitt took a deep breath. "I want to make sure that no other people have been infected by the disease," he said rephrasing it more tactfully. "Not only Frobisher, but the other two boys."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Athelstan's voice rose, a note of hysteria creeping into it. "Where on earth would boys like that contract such a disease? We're talking about decent families, Pitt-not something out of your bloody rookeries. Absolutely not! The very idea is an insult!"

"Arthur Waybourne had it," Pitt pointed out quietly.

"Of course he did!" Athelstan's face was suffusing with blood. "That perverted animal Jerome took him to a damned prostitute! We've proved that! The whole damnable affair is closed! Now get on with your job-get out and leave me to do some work myself!"

"Sir,'' Pitt persisted. ' 'If Arthur had it-and he did-how do we know he didn't give it to his brother, or his friend? Boys of that age are full of curiosity."

Athelstan stared at him. "Possibly," he said coldly. "But no doubt their fathers are better acquainted with their aberrations than we are, and it is most certainly their business! There is no conceivable way, Pitt, in which it is yours!"

"It would put rather a different light on Arthur Waybourne, sir!"

"I have no desire to put any light on him whatever!" Athelstan snapped. "The case is closed!"

"But if Arthur had relationships with the other two boys, it would open up all kinds of possibilities!" Pitt pressed, taking a step forward to lean over the desk.

Athelstan sat as faraway as he could, resting against the back of his chair.

"The private-habits-of the gentry are no business of ours, Pitt. You will leave them alone!" He spat out the words. "Do you understand me? I don't care if every one of them got into

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bed with every other one-it doesn't alter the fact that Maurice Jerome murdered Arthur Waybourne. That is all that matters to us. We have done our duty and what happens now is their own concern-not yours and not mine!"

"But what if Arthur had relationships with the other boys?" Pitt clenched his fist on the desk, feeling the nails dig into his flesh. "Maybe it had nothing to do with Jerome."

"Rubbish! Absolute nonsense! Of course it was Jerome- there's evidence! And don't tell me we haven't proved where he did it. He could have hired a room anywhere. We'll never find it and no one expects us to. He is homosexual! He had every reason to kill the boy. If it came out, the best he could hope would be to be thrown onto the street without a job or a good reputation. He'd be ruined."

"But who says he is homosexual?" Pitt demanded, his voice rising as loudly as Athelstan's.

Athelstan's eyes were wide. There was a bead of sweat on his lip-and another.

"Both boys," he said with a catch in his voice. He cleared his throat. "Both boys," he repeated, "and Albert Frobisher. That's three witnesses. Good God, man, how many do you want? Do you imagine the creature went about exhibiting his perversion?"

"Both boys?" Pitt said again. "And what if they were involved themselves, wouldn't that be just the lie they would tell? And Albie Frobisher-would you take the word of a seventeen-year-old male prostitute against that of a respectable scholastic tutor at any other time? Would you?"

"No!" Athelstan was on his feet now, his face only a hand-span from Pitt's, his knuckles white, arms shaking. "Yes!" he contradicted himself. "Yes-if it fits with all the other evidence. And it does! He identified him from photographs-that proves Jerome was there."

"Can we be sure?" Pitt urged. "Can we be sure we didn't put the idea into his mind, prompt him? Did we suggest the answer we wanted by the way we asked the questions?"

"No, of course we didn't!" Athelstan's voice dropped a little. He was regaining control of himself. "Gillivray is a professional." He took a deep breath. "Really, Pitt, you are al-

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lowing your resentment to warp you. I said Gillivray was treading on your heels, and now you're trying to discredit him. It's not worthy of you." He sat down again, straightening his jacket and stretching his neck to ease his collar.

"Jerome is guilty," Athelstan said. "He has been found guilty by the courts, and he will be hanged." He cleared his throat again. "Don't stand over me like that, Pitt-it's insolent! And the health of Godfrey Waybourne is his father's affair- similarly Titus Swynford. As far as the prostitute is concerned, he's lucky we didn't prosecute him for his filthy trade. He'll probably die of some disease or other in the end anyway. If he hasn't got it now, he soon will have! Now I warn you, Pitt, this matter is closed. If you insist on pursuing it any further, you will be jeopardizing your own career. Do you understand me? These people have suffered enough tragedy in their lives. You will now pursue the job you are paid for-and leave them alone. Have I made myself clear?"

"But, sir-"

"I forbid it! You do not have permission to harass the Way-bournes any further, Pitt! The case is closed-finished! Jerome is guilty and that is the end of it. I don't want you to mention it again-to me or to anyone else. Gillivray is an excellent officer and his conduct is not open to question. I am perfectly satisfied he did everything necessary to determine the truth, and that he did determine it! I don't know how to make it any plainer to you. Now get on with your job-if you want to keep it." He stared at Pitt in challenge.

Suddenly it had become a test between them whose will would prevail, and Athelstan could not afford to let it be Pitt's. Pitt was dangerous because he was unpredictable; he did not give respect where he ought to, and when his sympathies were engaged, his good sense, even his self-preservation, went out the window. He was a most uncomfortable person to have about; at the first available opportunity, Athelstan decided, he would promote him to someone else's area. Unless, of course, Pitt were to press on in this wretched business of the Way-bourne case, in which event he could be reduced to walking the beat again and Athelstan would be as easily rid of him.

Pitt stood still as the seconds ticked by. The room was so si-160

lent 'he imagined he could hear the workings of the gold watch hanging from Athelstan's waistcoat on the thick, gold link chain.

To Athelstan, Pitt was a disturbing person because he did not understand him. Pitt had married above himself, and that was offensive as well as incomprehensible. What did a wellborn woman like Charlotte want with an untidy, erratic, and imaginative paradox like Pitt? A woman with any dignity would have stuck to her own class!

Gillivray, on the other hand, was quite different; he was easy to understand. He was an only son with three sisters. He was ambitious, but he accepted that one must climb the ladder rung by rung, everything in order, each advance earned. There was comfort, even beauty, in observing order. There was safety in it for everyone, and that was what the law was for-preserving the safety of society. Yes, Gillivray was an eminently sane young man, and very pleasing to have around. He would go far. In fact, Athelstan had once even remarked that he would not mind if one of his own daughters were to marry a young man of such a type. He had already proved he knew how to conduct himself with both diligence and discretion. He did not go out of the way to antagonize people, or allow his own feelings to show, as Pitt so often did. And he was extremely personable, dressed like a gentleman, neat and without ostentation-not a veritable scarecrow like Pitt!

All this passed through Athelstan's mind as he stared at Pitt, and most of it was plain in his eyes. Pitt knew him well. He ran the department satisfactorily. He seldom wasted time pursuing pointless cases; he sent his men into the witness box well prepared-it was a rare day they were made to look foolish. And no charge of corruption had been leveled against any man in his division for over a decade.

Pitt sighed and stood back at last. Athelstan was probably right. Jerome was almost certainly guilty. Charlotte was bending the facts to suppose otherwise. While it was conceivable that it could have been the two boys, it was not remotely likely; and quite honestly, he did not believe they had been lying to him. There was an innate sense of truth about them, and he could feel it, just as he could usually tell a liar. Charlotte was

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letting her emotions rule her head. That was unusual for her, but it was a feminine characteristic, and she was a woman! Pity was no bad thing, but it should not be allowed to distort the truth till it became disproportionate.

He resented Athelstan's use of force to prevent him from going back to Way bourne, but he was probably right in principle. Nothing would be served by it but to prolong the pain. Eugenie Jerome was going to suffer; it was time he accepted it and stopped trying to evade it, like some child that expects a happy ending to every story. False hope was cruel. He would have to have a long talk with Charlotte, make her see the harm she was doing by rigging up a preposterous theory like this. Jerome was a tragic man, tragic and dangerous. Pity him, by all means, but do not try to make other people pay even more dearly than they already have for his sickness.

"Yes, sir," he said aloud. "No doubt Sir Anstey will have his own physician make such checks as are advisable, without our saying anything."

Athelstan blinked. It was not the answer he had expected.

"No doubt," he agreed awkwardly. "Although I hardly think-well-that-be that as it may, it's none of our affair. Family problem-man has a right to his privacy-part of being a gentleman, the respecting of other men's privacy. Glad you understand that!'' His eyes still held the last trace of uncertainty. It was a question.

"Yes, sir," Pitt repeated. "And, as you say, there's not much point in checking someone like Albie Frobisher-if he hasn't got it today, he could have by tomorrow."

Athelstan's face wrinkled in distaste.

"Quite. Now I'm sure you have something else to get on with? You'd better be about it, and leave me to deal with my appointment. I have a great many things to do. Lord Ernest Beaufort has been robbed. His town house. Bad thing to happen. I'd like to get it solved as soon as possible. Promised him I'd see to it myself. Can you spare me Gillivray? He's just the type to handle this.''

"Yes, sir. Certainly I can," Pitt said with satisfaction sharply colored with spite. In the unlikely event they would ever find the thieves, the goods would be long gone by then,

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dispersed into a warren of silversmiths, pawnshops, and scrap dealers. Gillivray was too young to know them, too conspicuously clean to pass unremarked in the rookeries-as Pitt could, if he chose. The word would spread before Gillivray, with his pink face and white collar, as loudly as if he carried a bell around his neck. Pitt was ashamed of his satisfaction, but it did not stop the feeling or its warmth.

He walked out of Athelstan's office and back to his own. Passing Gillivray in the hallway, he sent him, face glowing in anticipation, up to Athelstan.

He went into his own office and sat down, staring at the statements and reports. Then, half an hour later, he threw all of them into a wire basket marked "in," snatched his coat from the stand, jammed his hat on his head, and strode out the door.

He caught the first hansom that passed, and clambered in shouting at the driver, "Newgate!"

"Newgate, sir?" the cabbie said with a slight lift of surprise.

"Yes! Get on with it. Newgate Prison," Pitt said. "Hurry!"

"Ain't no 'urry there," the cabbie said dryly. "They ain't goin' nowhere. Less o' course they goin' ter be 'ung! And nobody due to be 'ung yet-not for near on three weeks. Always knows when there's an 'angin'. Guess there'll be farsands out fer vis 'un. I've seen 'em an 'undred farsand thick in years past, I *ave."

"Get on with it!" Pitt snapped. The thought of a hundred thousand people milling around, pressing close to see a man hanged, was revolting. He knew it was true; it was even regarded as something of a sport by a certain set. Someone owning a room with a view over the front of Newgate could rent it out for twenty-five guineas for a good hanging. People would picnic with champagne and delicacies.

What is there in death, he wondered, that is so fascinating-in someone else's agony that is acceptable as public entertainment? Some sort of catharsis of all one's own fears-a kind of propitiation to fate against the violence that hangs over even the safest lives? But the idea of taking pleasure in it made him sick.

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It was raining gently when the cabbie dropped him outside the great rusticated front of Newgate Prison.

He identified himself to the turnkey at the gate, and was let in.

"Who did you say?"

"Maurice Jerome," Pitt repeated.

"Coin" to be 'anged," the turnkey said unnecessarily.

"Yes." Pitt followed him into the gray bowels of the place; their feet echoed hollowly on the stone. "I know."

"Knows something, does "e?" the turnkey went on, leading the way to the offices where they would have to obtain permission. Jerome was a man under sentence of death; he could not be visited at will.

"Maybe." Pitt did not want to lie.

"Mostly when you got 'em this far, I likes to see you rozzers leave them poor sods alone," the turnkey remarked, and spat. "But I can't stand a man wot kills children. Uncalled for, that is. Man's one thing-and there's a lot of women as can ask for it. But children's different-unnatural, that is."

"Arthur Way bourne was sixteen," Pitt found himself arguing. "That's not exactly a child. They've hanged people less than sixteen.''

"Oh, yeah!" the turnkey said. "When they'd earned it, like. And we've 'ad 'em in the 'ouses o* correction for a spell, for being a public nuisance. And more than one in for spinnin' 'is top in the marketplace. Set a lot o' people a mess o' trouble. 'Ad 'em in the 'Steel'-down Coldbath Fields."

He was referring to one of the worst jails in London, the Bastille, where men's health and spirits could be broken in a matter of months on the treadmill or the crank, or the shot drill, passing iron cannonballs endlessly from one to the other along a line till their arms were exhausted, backs strained, muscles cracking. Picking oakum until the fingers bled was easy by comparison. Pitt made no reply to the turnkey-there were no words that would suffice. The Bastille had been like that for years, and it was better than it had been in the past; at least the stocks and the pillories were gone, for any difference that made.

He explained to the chief warder that he wanted to see Jerome on police business, because there were still a few ques-

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lions that should be asked for the sake .of the health of innocent parties.

The warder was sufficiently aware of the case not to need more detailed explanation. He was familiar with disease, and there was no perversion known to man or beast he had not encountered.

"As you wish," he agreed. "Although you'll be lucky if you get anything out of him. He's going to be hanged in three weeks, whatever happens to the rest of us, so he's got nothing to gain or lose either way."

"He has a wife," Pitt replied, although he had no idea if it made any difference to Jerome. Anyway, he was answering the warder out of the necessity for appearance. He had come to see Jerome from a compulsion within himself, a need to try one more time to satisfy his own mind that Jerome was guilty.

Outside the office, another turnkey led him along the gray vaulted corridors toward the death cells. The smell of the place closed over him, creeping into his head and throat. He was assaulted by staleness, a dirt that carbolic never washed away; by a sense that everyone was always tired, and yet could not rest. Did men with the knowledge of certain death-at a given hour, a given minute-lie awake terrified lest sleep rob them of a single instant of the life left? Did they relive the past-all the good things? Or repent, full of guilt, beg forgiveness of a suddenly remembered God? Or weep-or revile?

The turnkey stopped. " 'Ere we are," he said with a little snort. "Give me a shout when you've finished."

' 'Thank you.'' Pitt heard his voice answer as if it were someone else's. Almost automatically, his feet took him through the open door and into the dark cell. The door shut behind him with a sound of iron on iron.

Jerome was sitting on a straw mattress in the corner. He did not immediately look around. The key turned, leaving Pitt locked inside. At last Jerome appeared to register that it was not an ordinary check. He raised his head and saw Pitt; his eyes showed surprise, but nothing strong enough to be called emotion. He was oddly the same-the stiffness, the sense of aloofness as if the past few weeks were something he had merely read about.

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Pitt, dreading a change for the worse in him, had been prepared for all kinds of embarrassment. And now that it was not there, he was even more disconcerted. Jerome was impossible to like, but Pitt was forced into a certain admiration for his total self-control.

How very odd that such a man, seemingly untouched by such appalling circumstances, by physical deprivation, public shame, and the certain knowledge of one of the worst of human deaths only weeks away-how extraordinary that such a man should have been carried away by appetite and panic to his own destruction. So extraordinary that Pitt found himself opening his mouth to apologize for the squalid cell, the humiliation, as if he were responsible, and not Jerome himself.

It was ridiculous! It was the evidence. If Jerome felt nothing, or showed nothing, then it was because he was perverted, deranged in mind and body. One should not expect him to behave like a normal man-he was not normal. Remember Arthur Waybourne in the Bluegate sewers, remember that young, abused body, and get on with what you came for!

"Jerome," he began, taking a step forward. What was he going to ask now that he was here? It was his only chance; he must find out everything he wanted to know, everything that Charlotte had so unpleasantly conjured up. He could not ask Waybourne or the two boys; it must all come from this solitary interview, here in the gray light that filtered through the grating across the high window.

"Yes?" Jerome inquired coldly. "What more can you possibly want of me, Mr. Pitt? If it is ease of conscience, I cannot give it to you. I did not kill Arthur Waybourne, nor did I ever touch him in the obscene manner you have charged me with. Whether you sleep at night or lie awake is your own problem. I can do nothing to help you, and I would not if I could!"

Pitt responded without thought. "You blame me for your situation?"

Jerome's nostrils flared; it was afl expression at once of resignation and great distaste.

"I suppose you are doing your job within your limitations. You are so used to dealing with filth that you see it everywhere.

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Perhaps that is the fault of society at large. We must have police."

"I discovered Arthur Waybourne's body," Pitt answered, curiously unangered by the charge. He could understand it. Jerome would want to hurt someone, and there was no one else. "That's all I testified to. I questioned the Waybourne family, and I checked the two prostitutes. But I didn't find them, and I certainly didn't put words in their mouths."

Jerome looked at him carefully, his brown eyes covering Pitt's features as if the secret lay within them.

"You didn't discover the truth," he said at last. "Maybe that was asking too much. Maybe you're a victim as much as I am. Only, you are free to walk away and repeat your mistakes. I'm the one who will pay."

"You didn't kill Arthur?" Pitt put it forward as a proposition.

"I did not."

"Then who did? And why?"

Jerome stared at his feet. Pitt moved to sit on the straw beside him.

"He was an unpleasant boy," Jerome said after a few moments. "I've been wondering who did kill him. I've no idea. If I had, I would have offered it to you to investigate!"

"My wife has a theory." Pitt began.

"Indeed." Jerome's voice was flat, contemptuous.

"Don't be so bloody patronizing!" Pitt snapped. Suddenly his anger at the whole affair, the system, the monumental and stupid tragedy exploded in offense for the slight to Charlotte. His voice was loud and harsh. "It's more than you have-damn you!"

Jerome turned to look at him, his eyebrows high.

"You mean she doesn't think I did it?" He was still disbelieving, his face cold, eyes showing no emotion except surprise.

"She thinks that perhaps Arthur was the perverted one," Pitt said more coolly. "And that he drew the younger boys into his practices. They complied to begin with, and then when each learned the other was also involved, they banded together and killed him."

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"A pleasant thought," Jerome said sourly. "But I can hardly see Godfrey and Titus having the presence of mind to carry the body to a manhole and dispose of it so effectively. If it had not been for an overdiligent sewerman, and indolent rats, Arthur would never have been identified, you know."

"Yes, I do know," Pitt said. "But one of their fathers might have helped."

For an instant Jerome's eyes widened; something flashed across them that could have been hope. Then his face darkened again.

"Arthur was drowned. Why not just say it was an accident? Easier, infinitely more respectable. It doesn't make any sense to put him down a sewer. Your wife is very imaginative, Mr. Pitt, but not very realistic. She has a lurid picture of the Anstey Waybournes of the world. If she had met a few, she would realize they do not panic and act in such an hysterical fashion."

Pitt was stung. Charlotte's breeding had never been more utterly irrelevant, and yet he found himself replying with all the resentment of the ambitious middle classes and the values he despised.

"She is perfectly well acquainted with them." His voice was acid. "Her family is of considerable means. Her sister is fhe Lady Ashworth. She is perhaps better aware than either you or I of the sort of thing that panics the socially elite-like discovering that your son is a carrier of venereal disease and is homosexual. Perhaps you do not know last year's amendment to the law? Homosexuality is a criminal offense now, and punishable by imprisonment."

Jerome turned sideways, his face against the light so Pitt could not read his expression.

"In fact," Pitt went on a little recklessly, "perhaps Way-bourne discovered Arthur's practices and killed him himself. One's eldest son and heir, a syphilitic pervert! Better dead-far better dead. Don't tell me you don't know the upper classes well enough to believe that, Mr. Jerome?"

"Oh, I believe it." Jerome let out his breath very slowly. "I believe it, Mr. Pitt. But not you, or your wife, or an angel of God will prove it! And the law won't try! I'm a far better sus-

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pect. 'Nobody'll miss me, nobody'll mind. This answer suits everyone who matters. You've less chance of changing their minds than you have of becoming Prime Minister.'' His mouth suddenly twisted with harsh mockery. "Not, of course, that I seriously imagined you meant to try! I can't think why you came. You'll only have more nightmares now-and for longer!"

' Pitt stood up. "Possibly," he said. "But for your sake, not mine. I didn't try you, and I didn't twist or hide any of the evidence. If"-he hesitated, then repeated the word- "if there is a miscarriage of justice, it is in spite of me, not because of me. And I don't give a damn whether you believe that or not." He banged his clenched fist on the door. "Jailer! Let me out!"

The door opened and he walked into the dank, gray passage without looking back. He was angry, confused, and, as far as he could imagine, completely helpless.