Pentecost Alley by Anne Perry Page A

somewhere,but when he looked at FitzJames he met a blank wall of denial. There was not a shadow or flicker of surprise in him. He had expected this answer as if he had known the precise words. Was it rehearsed?
    “The names of the other members?” Pitt asked wearily. Now his lack of sleep was catching up with him, his inner tiredness from too much misery, dark streets and alleys which smelled of refuse and hopelessness. “I require their names, Mr. FitzJames. Someone had that badge last night and left it under the body of a woman he murdered.”
    FitzJames winced with distaste, but he did not move, except his fingers tightened a fraction on the arm of his chair.
    Finlay still looked very pale, and white around the mouth, as if he might be sick.
    In the corner a standing clock ticked steadily with a heavy, resonant tone. Outside the footsteps of a maid clicked softly across the parquet floor.
    “There were only four of us,” Finlay said at last. “Norbert Helliwell, Mortimer Thirlstone, Jago Jones and myself. I can give you Helliwell’s last address, and Thirlstone’s. I have no idea where Jones is. I haven’t seen or heard of him in years. Someone said he’d taken up the church, but they were probably joking. Jago was a damn good fellow, as much fun as anyone. More likely gone abroad to America, maybe. He’s the sort of chap who might go west—Texas or the Barbary Coast.” He tried to laugh, and failed.
    “If you would write the other two addresses for me,” Pitt requested.
    “I don’t suppose they can help you!”
    “Perhaps not, but it will be somewhere to start.” Pitt smiled. “The man was seen, you know? By at least two witnesses.”
    He had expected to rattle Finlay, perhaps even to break him. He failed utterly.
    Finlay’s eyes widened. “Was he? Then you know itwasn’t me, thank God! Not that I know such a woman,” he added hastily. It was a lie, and not even a good one. This time he colored and seemed about to withdraw it.
    It was FitzJames whose face tightened with a lightning flash of uncharacteristic fear, gone again the instant it had come. His look at Pitt now was one of anger, perhaps because he thought Pitt might have recognized it. After all, he had caused it, and that he would not forgive.
    “I doubt it was Helliwell or Thirlstone either,” Finlay went on to cover the silence. “But if you insist, then you’ll discover that. Jago Jones I can’t answer for, because you might find him a great deal harder to trace. I don’t even know if he has family. One doesn’t always ask these things, if it isn’t obvious. Kinder not to, if a fellow comes from nowhere in particular, as he seemed to.”
    There was not a great deal more Pitt could do. He considered asking to see the coat Finlay had worn yesterday evening, but unless he destroyed it, the valet could always answer that later.
    “There is the matter of a cuff link,” he said finally. “A rather distinctive one, dropped down the back of a chair in the woman’s room. It has ‘F.F.J.’ engraved on it, and is hallmarked. Not the sort of thing I think her average customers would possess.”
    FitzJames went white, his knuckles shone where he gripped the chair arms. He swallowed with some difficulty. His throat seemed to have contracted as if his collar choked him.
    Finlay, on the other hand, was totally at a loss. His handsome, blurred face showed nothing but confusion.
    “I used to have a pair like that….” he mumbled. “My sister gave them to me. I lost one … but years ago. Never liked to tell her. Clumsy of me. Felt a fool, because I knew they were expensive. Always meant to get another one made, so she wouldn’t know.”
    “How did it get in Ada McKinley’s chair, Mr. FitzJames?” Pitt said with a faint smile.
    “God only knows,” Finlay answered. “As I said, I don’t frequent places like that! I’ve never heard of her! She is the woman who was killed, I presume?”
    FitzJames’s face was dark with anger and