Pentecost Alley by Anne Perry Page B

contempt.
    “For God’s sake, boy, don’t be such a damn fool. Of course you’ve used women like that in your time!” He turned to Pitt. “But that cuff link could have been there for years! You can’t connect it to last night or anything that happened then. Go and look for these other young men. See if you can find out something about the damned woman. She was probably killed in a quarrel over money, or by a rival in her trade. That’s where your job is.” He rose to his feet, his joints momentarily stiff, as if he had been constricting himself with such a tension of muscles his bones had locked. “We will write these addresses for you. Now I must be about my own affairs. I am overdue in the City. Good day to you, sir.” And he walked out without looking behind him, leaving Pitt alone with Finlay.
    Finlay hesitated awkwardly. He was embarrassed by having not only been caught in a lie but reprimanded for it in front of Pitt. It was stupid and he had no excuse. It was an instinctive act of cowardice, the instant will to deny, to escape, not something for which any man could be proud. Now he was about to give his friends’ names and addresses to Pitt, and that also was something he could not avoid, and yet it sat ill with him. It would have been so much more honorable, more gentlemanly, to have been able to refuse.
    “I’ve no idea where Jago Jones is,” he said with satisfaction. “Haven’t seen him for years. He could be anywhere. He was always a bit of an odd one.”
    “I daresay someone will know,” Pitt replied with a bleak smile. “Army records, or the Foreign Office, perhaps.”
    Finlay stared at him, his eyes wide. “Yes, possibly.”
    “Mr. Helliwell?” Pitt pressed.
    “Oh … yes. Taviton Street. Number seventeen I think, or fifteen.”
    “Thank you.” Pitt took out his notebook and pencil and wrote it down. “And Mr. Thirlstone
    “Cromer Street. That’s off the Grey’s Inn Road.”
    “Number?”
    “Forty-something. Can’t recall what. Sorry.”
    Pitt wrote that as well. “Thank you.”
    Finlay swallowed. “But they won’t have had anything to do with this, you know. I don’t know where that damned badge came from, but… but I’ll swear it wasn’t anything to do with them. It was a damn stupid club in the first place. A young man’s idea of a devilish good time, but all very silly, really. No harm in it, just … oh …” He shrugged rather exaggeratedly. “A little too much to drink, gambling rather more than we could afford to lose, drinking too much … that sort of thing. Immature … I suppose. But basically quite decent fellows.”
    “I expect so,” Pitt agreed halfheartedly. A lot of people one presumed decent had darker, more callous sides.
    “As I said, the badge could have gone missing years ago,” Finlay went on, frowning, staring at Pitt with a degree of urgency. “I can’t remember when I last saw mine. God knows.”
    “Yes sir,” Pitt said noncommittally. “Thank you for the addresses.” And he bade him good-bye and took his leave, shown out by the still-genial butler.
    Norbert Helliwell was not at home. He had gone riding in the Park early, so his butler informed Pitt, and after a large breakfast had decided to spend the morning at his club. That was the Regency Club, in Albemarle Street, although the butler expressed his doubt—not in his words, but in his expression—that it would be acceptable for Pitt to call upon him there.
    Pitt thanked him and took a cab south, and then west towards Piccadilly. The more he thought about it, theless did he feel he would be likely to learn anything of use from Norbert Helliwell. There were aspects of his visit to the FitzJames house which had surprised him. He had expected evasion, anger, possibly embarrassment. He was not unprepared to find Augustus FitzJames a domineering man, willing to defend his son, guilty or innocent.
    He sat back in the hansom as it bowled along the busy streets, passing all