Krishna
Another one of those Ann Perry’s classic mysteries. For those who have not read Anne Perry, I think of her as a kind of ‘updated’ Agatha Christie. She writes stories that have twists similar to the Grand Dame of Mystery, and some of her denouements are as sophisticated, but she brings two more elements into the story that Agatha did not have. One is the fact that all her stories are set in Victorian times, and she brings Victorian England alive almost incidentally, as she narrates the stories. The second is a willingness to explore the personal side of the chief protagonist, be it William Monk, or, as is the case in this one, William Pitt.
This story features William Pitt and his wife Charlotte Pitt, a duo who have featured in many of her stories.
The story starts with the discovery of the body of Arthur Weybourne, naked and barely twelve, in the sewers. But for an odd coincidence, the body would have been lost completely. Investigations by Pitt turn up the obvious suspect, a cold, arrogant teacher who taught the boy, called Maurice Jerome. The boy was found to have been involved in a homosexual relationship and also had contracted Syphillis before the time of his death. The young seargent assisting Pitt, Gillivray, in his efficient manner, ties up all the loose ends by producing evidence that Maurice Jerome had escorted Arthur to a
male prostitute, to a female prostitute who had syphillis. The final nail in Maurice’s coffin is the admission by two other boys, one a brother of Arthur and the other, a son of a relative nobleman, who admit that Maurice had ‘touched them inappropriately’.
An open and shut case, which gets Maurice the death penalty easily in the face of overwhelming evidence. Yet, something rankles in the back of Pitt’s mind, and he is not sure that justice has been really done. He has to fight not only the established class society that resents the intrusion of a socially inferior detective into the life of the previledged nobility, but also his superior Athelston who resents Pitt’s slowness compared to Gillivray’s razor sharp efficiency, and the fact that he refuses to let go a case that has already been closed.
His wife Charlotte fears both that Pitt would not stop, thus losing the only job he can do and is dependent on for a living, and that he would stop, thereby not making sure that an innocent man is hanged.
A well told story, but the twist at the end is weaker than her usual bombshells. Still a very good read, a vintage Anne Perry.
I think it deserves a 5/10
— Krishna