Read Online Bluegate Fields by Anne Perry - Free Book Online Page B

beyond my knowledge. I can tell you all the boys of similar age that Arthur spent time with. Although I don’t envy you trying to discover which of them it was—if indeed it was any of his friends and not just some acquaintance. Personally, I think you are probably mistaken in supposing it to have any connection with his death. Why should anyone indulging in such a—a relationship commit murder? If you are suggesting some sort of an affair, with passion and jealousy or anything of the sort, I would remind you that Arthur Waybourne was barely sixteen.”
    This was something that had troubled Pitt. Why should anyone have killed Arthur? Had Arthur threatened to disclose the relationship? Was he an unwilling partner, and the strain had become too great? That seemed the more likely answer. If it was someone who knew him, robbery would be pointless. Anything he would carry would be far too trivial for a boy of that social circle to covet so violently—a few coins, probably not even a watch or a ring.
    And would another youth, even in panic, have the physical strength to murder, or afterward have the coolheadedness to dispose of the body so skillfully? And it was skillful: for all but mischance, it would never have been identified. An older man was a far more probable suspect: a man with more weight, more inured to his appetite, and better able to deal with the results of satisfying it—perhaps a man who had even foreseen this very danger arising one day.
    Would such a man be fool enough, fragile enough, to become infatuated with a youth of sixteen? It was possible. Or perhaps it was a man who had only just discovered his own weakness, maybe through constant companionship, a proximity forced upon him by circumstances? He might still have the cunning to hide the body in the labyrinth of the sewers, trusting that by the time it was found it would be past connecting with the disappearance of Arthur Waybourne.
    He looked up at Jerome. That careful face might hide anything. He was trained by a lifetime of masking his feelings so that they never offended, and his opinions so that they never clashed with those of his social superiors—even when he was perhaps better informed, or just quicker-witted. Was it possible?
    Jerome was waiting, overtly patient. He had scant respect for Pitt, and he was enjoying the luxury of affording to show it.
    “I think you would be better advised to leave the matter alone.” Jerome sat back and crossed his legs, folding his hands fingertip to fingertip. “It was probably a single instance of excess, certainly repellent.” His face was marked momentarily by a shadow of disgust; could the man really be an actor of such subtlety, such polish? “But not to be repeated,” he went on. “If you persist in trying to discover who it was, apart from the fact that you will almost certainly fail, you will bring a great deal of distress, not least to yourself.”
    It was a fair warning, and Pitt was already aware of how the whole social caste would close its ranks against such an inquiry. To defend themselves they would defend each other—at any expense. After all, one moment of youthful vice was not worth exposing the follies or pains of a dozen families. Memories in society were long. Any youth marred by the stain might never marry within his own class, even if nothing was ever proved.
    And perhaps Arthur had not been so very innocent. After all, he had contracted syphilis. Maybe his education had included women of the streets, an initiation into the other side of appetite.
    “I know that,” Pitt said quietly. “But I cannot overlook murder!”
    “Then you would do better to concentrate on that and leave the other to be forgotten,” Jerome expounded as if it were advice Pitt had sought from him.
    Pitt felt his skin tighten in anger. He changed the subject, returning to facts: Arthur’s daily routine, his habits, his friends, his studies, his likes and dislikes—every clue to character he could think