The Whitechapel Conspiracy Read online

  She turned to the big chair, which was now placed some six feet from the corner and facing the center of the room. Given the position of the window, and the gas brackets on the wall, it was the obvious situation in which to have it in order to read.

  Juno followed her thoughts. “It was over here,” she said, pushing her weight against it and heaving it until it was only three feet from the shelves and the wall. “He was lying with his head behind it. The steps were there.” She pointed to the far side.

  Charlotte went to where his head must have been, squeezing behind the chair on her hands and knees. She turned to look towards the door, and could see nothing of that entire wall. She stood up again.

  Juno was regarding her gravely. There was no need for either of them to say that they believed it had happened as Pitt had said and the jury had accepted. Any other way would have been awkward and unnatural.

  Charlotte looked around the room more closely, reading the titles of the books. All those on the most easily accessible shelves were on subjects she realized after several minutes held one train of characteristics in common.

  Farthest away from the most worn chair were books on engineering; steel manufacture; shipping; the language, customs and topography of Turkey in particular, and the Middle East in general. Then there were books on some of the great ancient cities: Ephesus, Pergamon, Izmir, and Byzantium under all its names from the Emperor Constantine to the present day.

  There were other books on the history and culture of Turkish Islam: its beliefs, its literature, its architecture and its art from Saladin, in the Crusades, through the great sultans to its current precarious political state.

  Juno was watching her.

  “Martin began traveling when he was building railways in Turkey,” she said quietly. “That was where he met John Turtle Wood, who introduced him to archaeology, and he found he had a gift for it.” There was pride in her voice and a softness in her eyes. “He discovered some wonderful things. He would show them to me when he brought them home. He would stand in this room holding them in his hands ... he had beautiful hands, strong, delicate. And he’d turn them ’round slowly, touching the surfaces, telling me where they were from, how long ago, what kind of people used them.”

  She took a deep, shaky breath and continued.

  “He would describe all he knew of their daily life. I remember one piece of pottery. It wasn’t a dish, as I thought at first; it was a jar for ointment. It was fanciful, perhaps, but as I looked at him, his face so full of excitement, I could see a real Helen of Troy, a woman who fired men’s imaginations with such passion two nations went to war for her, and one of them was ruined.”

  Charlotte was angry for Pitt, and for the injustice that men she could not even name had the power to take so much from him. Now she was also touched with the reality of the loss of a man who had been loved, who was full of life, dreams and purpose.

  “Where did he meet Adinett?” she asked. Archaeology was interesting, but there was no time to waste on such luxuries.

  Juno recalled herself to the task.

  “That came long after. Martin learned a lot from Wood, but he moved on. He met Heinrich Schliemann, and worked with him. He learned all sorts of new methods from the Germans, you know.” There was enthusiasm in her face. “They were the best at archaeology. They used to map a whole site and draw it all, not just bits and pieces. So afterwards anyone else could form a picture of a way of life, not just one household, or perhaps one aspect, such as from a temple or a palace.” Her voice dropped. “Martin loved it.”

  “When was this?” Charlotte asked, sitting down in one of the chairs.

  Juno sat opposite her. “Oh ... I don’t think I know when Martin met Mr. Wood, but I know they started work on the site in Ephesus in ‘63. I think it was ‘69 when the British Museum bought the site and they started work on the Temple of Diana, and it must have been the following year that Martin met Mr. Schliemann.” Her eyes were distant with memory. “That’s when he fell in love with Troy and the whole idea of finding it. He could recite pages of Homer, you know....” She smiled. “In the English translation, not the original. At first I thought I would be bored by it ... but I wasn’t. He cared so much I couldn’t help caring too.”

  “And Adinett was a scholar in the same things?” Charlotte asked.

  Juno looked startled. “Oh, no! Not at all. I don’t think he ever went to the Middle East, and he had no interest in archaeology that I heard of, and Martin would certainly have mentioned it.”

  Charlotte was confused. “I thought they were good friends who spent much time together ...”

  “They were,” Juno assured her. “But it was ideals which they held in common, and admiration for other peoples and cultures. Adinett had been interested in Japan ever since his elder brother was posted there as part of the British Legation at Yedo—that’s the capital city. I believe it was attacked by some of the new reactionary authorities who were trying to expel all foreigners.”

  “He traveled to the Far East?” Charlotte could not see any value in the information, but since she had not even the first thread of an idea as to the motive for murder, she would gather everything there was.

  Juno shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was just fascinated by their culture. He lived in Canada for quite a long time, and he had a Japanese friend in the Hudson Bay Trading Company. They were very close. I don’t know his name. He always referred to him as Shogun. It was what he called him.”

  “He talked about him?”

  “Oh, yes.” Juno’s expression was bleak. “He was very interesting indeed. I listened to every word myself. I can see him across the dinner table as he told us of traveling over those great wastes of snow, how the light was, the cold, the vast polar sky, the creatures, and above all the beauty.

  “There was something in it he loved, and it was there in his voice.

  “Apparently there was a brief uprising in Manitoba in 1869 and 1870 led by a French-Canadian called Louis Kiel. They resented the British taking over everything, and executed someone or other.” She frowned. “The British sent in a military expedition led by Colonel Wolseley. Adinett and Shogun volunteered to act as guides for them into the interior, and met up with them at Thunder Bay, four hundred miles northwest of Toronto. They led them another six hundred and fifty miles. It was that he used to talk about.”

  Charlotte could see nothing useful in it at all. It sounded like a far more interesting conversation than was held over most dinner tables. What had happened that led to a quarrel so violent it ended in murder?

  “Was the rebellion put down?” She supposed it must have been, but she had not heard of it.

  “Oh yes, apparently very successfully.” Juno saw Charlotte’s confused look. “Adinett formed a very strong sympathy with the French Canadians,” she explained. “He spoke of them often, and with great warmth. He admired French republicanism and their passion for liberty and equality. He went to France quite often, even up to a few months ago. That was what he and Martin really had in common, the passion for social reform.” She smiled in recollection. “They talked about it for hours, and ways in which it could be accomplished. Martin learned about it from ancient Greece, the original democracy, and Adinett from French revolutionary idealism, but their aims were very close.” Again her eyes filled with tears. “I just don’t understand what could possibly have led them to quarrel!” She blinked several times and her voice wavered. “Could we be wrong?”

  Charlotte was not ready to consider that.

  “I don’t know. Please, think back if Mr. Fetters expressed any difference of opinion or anger over anything.” It seemed a slender thread. Did anyone but a lunatic quarrel to the point of blows over the virtues of one foreign country’s form of democracy rather than another’s?

  “Not anger,” Juno said with certainty, staring at Charlotte. “But he was preoccupied with something. I would have said concern, not really anything more than that. But he was always a trifle absentmi
nded when he was absorbed in his work. He was brilliant at it, you know?” There was urgency in her voice. “He used to find antiquarian pieces no one else could. He could see the value in things. Lately he did more writing about it, for various journals, and went to meetings and so on. He was a very gifted speaker. People loved to listen to him.”

  Charlotte could visualize it easily. His face in the photograph was full of intelligence and enthusiasm.

  “I’m so sorry ...” The words were out before she thought of their effect.

  Juno gulped, and it was a few moments before she regained complete control of herself again.

  “I ... apologize,” she said with a little shake of her head. “He was worried about something, but he wouldn’t discuss it with me, and I couldn’t press him, he just became annoyed. I have no idea what it was. I imagined it was something to do with one of the antiquarian societies he belonged to. They do fight among themselves rather a lot. There is tremendous rivalry, you know.”

  Charlotte was confused. It all seemed so very ordinary and good-natured.

  “But Adinett wasn’t interested in antiquities?” she reaffirmed.

  “Not at all. He listened to Martin, but only because he was a friend, and I could see that sometimes he was bored by it.” Juno looked at her with shadowed eyes. “It doesn’t help, does it.” It was not a question.

  “I can’t see that it does,” Charlotte admitted. “And yet there must be some reason. We just don’t know yet where to look first.” She rose to her feet. She would learn nothing more at the moment, and she had trespassed long on Juno Fetters’s time.

  Juno stood up also, slowly, as if there were a debilitating tiredness in her.

  Charlotte caught a glimpse of the engulfing loneliness of mourning, but she had no idea how to help. She had met Juno less than two hours ago. She could hardly offer to keep her company. And perhaps Juno preferred to grieve alone. The necessity of being courteous to strangers might be the last thing on earth she wanted ... or it might be the first. At least it would force her to keep control of herself, and occupy her mind for a while, not allowing it to be consumed with memory. The conventions that kept a new widow out of society were probably meant to be kind, and to observe the decencies, and yet they could hardly have been better designed to intensify her grief. Perhaps they were for everyone else, to save them the embarrassment of having to think of something to say, and so one was not reminded too forcefully of death and that eventually it would come to all.

  “May I call again?” Charlotte said aloud. She knew she was risking rebuff, but at least that gave the decision to Juno.

  Juno’s face filled with hope. “Please do ... I ...” She breathed in deeply. “I want to know what really happened, apart from the physical facts. And ... and I want to do something more than just sit here!”

  Charlotte smiled back at her. “Thank you. As soon as I can think of anything remotely hopeful to follow, I shall call upon you.” And she turned towards the door, knowing that so far she had accomplished almost nothing to help Pitt.

  •

  Gracie had plans of her own. As soon as Charlotte left the house she abandoned the rest of her own chores, put on her best shawl and hat—she had only two—and taking enough for a fare in the omnibus, she went out also.

  It took her a little over twenty minutes to reach the Bow Street police station, where until yesterday Pitt had been superintendent. She marched up the steps and inside as if she were going to war, and she felt much as if she were. During her childhood police stations had been places to be avoided at any cost, and their inhabitants whoever they were. Now she was going in deliberately. But it was in a cause for which she would have gone into the mouth of hell, had it been the only way. She was sufficiently angry she would have taken on anyone at all.

  She went straight up to the desk sergeant, who looked at her with very little interest.

  “Yes, miss? Can I ’elp yer?” He did not bother to stop chewing his pencil.

  “Yes, please,” she said smartly. “I wish to speak to Sergeant Tellman. It is very urgent, and concerns a case he is working on. I have information for him.” That was a complete invention, of course, but she needed to see him, and any story that accomplished that would do. She would explain when she saw him.

  The sergeant was unimpressed. “Oh yes, miss. And what would that be?”

  “That would be ’very important,’” she replied. “And it’ll not make Sergeant Tellman best pleased if you don’t tell ’im I’m ’ere. My name is Gracie Phipps. Yer go tell ’im that, and leave ’im ter do the choosin’ as ter whether ’e comes out or not.”

  The sergeant looked for a long moment at her face, her unflinching eyes, and decided that in spite of her diminutive size she was determined enough to be a considerable nuisance. Added to which, he knew very little of Tellman’s personal life or family. Tellman was a remarkably taciturn man, and the sergeant was not certain who this girl might be. Discretion was the better part of valor. Tellman could be unpleasant if crossed.

  “You wait there, miss. I’ll tell ’im, an’ see what ’e says.”

  It took Tellman rather less than five minutes to appear. As always he looked lean, dour and so neatly dressed as to be uncomfortable with his tight collar and slicked-back hair. His hollow cheeks were slightly flushed. He ignored the desk sergeant and walked right across to where Gracie was standing.

  “What is it?” he said half under his breath. “What are you doing here?”

  “I come ter find out wot you’re doin’, more like,” she retorted.

  “What I’m doing? I’m investigating burglaries.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re looking after a bit o’ thievin’, w’en Mr. Pitt’s bin throwed out o’ ’is job an’ sent ter Gawd knows w’ere, an’ Mrs. Pitt’s near beside ’erself, an’ the children got no father at ’ome ... an’ you’re chasin’ some bleedin’ flimp!”

  “It’s no pocket-picking!” he said angrily, but still keeping his voice low. “It’s a proper cracksman we’re after.”

  “An’ that’s yer reason, is it?” Her disgust was withering. “Some ruddy safe is more important that wot they done to Mr. Pitt?”

  “No, it isn’t!” His face was white with anger, both at her, for her misjudgment of him, and with the whole injustice of what had happened. “But there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said indignantly. “They aren’t going to listen to me, are they! They’ve already got someone else here, while his chair is still warm. Fellow called Wetron, and he told me to let it go, don’t even think about it. It’s done, and that’s that.”

  “An’ o’ course yer bein’ the soul of obedience, like, yer jus’ do like ’e says!” she challenged, her eyes blazing. “Then I reckon as I’ll ’ave ter try ter fix it on me own, won’t I?” She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “Can’t say as I’m not proper disappointed, though. I counted on yer ter ’elp, knowin’ that in spite o’ yer grizzlin’ an’ gurnin’ ’alf the time, yer still got a kind o’ loyalty, somewhere inside yer ... ter bein’ fair, at least. An’ this in’t fair!”

  “Of course it isn’t fair!” His body was rigid and his voice was almost strangled in his throat. “It’s wicked, but it comes from the power to do these things. You don’t know what they’re like, or who they are, or you wouldn’t talk about it like it was just a matter of me saying ‘Let’s do right by Mr. Pitt,’ and they’d say, ‘Oh, yes, of course we will!’ and it’d all change. Mr. Wetron’s told me to let the whole thing drop, and I know he’s got his eye on me to see if I do. For all I know, he’s probably one of them!”

  Gracie stared at him. There was real fear in his eyes, and for a moment she was frightened too. She knew that he was more than fond of her, much as he wanted to deny it to himself, and that allowing her to see how he felt would cost him dearly. She decided to be a little gentler.

  “Well, we gotta do summink! We can’t just let it ’appen. ’E in’t even at ’ome anymore.” Her voice trembled. “They sent
’im ter Spitalfields, not jus’ ter work but ter live.”

  Tellman’s face tightened as if he had been slapped.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, yer do now. Wot are we gonna do about it?” She stared at him beseechingly. It was very difficult to ask a favor of him, with all the differences that lay between them, and the fighting against any admission of friendship. And yet she had not even considered not coming to him. He was the natural ally. Only now did she wonder at the ease with which she had approached him. She certainly did not doubt it was right.

  If he noticed the “we,” and wondered at her inclusion of herself in the plan, there was no sign of it in his face. He looked profoundly unhappy. He glanced over his shoulder at the curious gaze of the desk sergeant.

  “Come outside!” he said sharply, taking Gracie by the arm and almost dragging her through the door and down the steps into the street, where they could speak without being overheard by anyone but uninterested strangers.

  “I don’t know what we can do,” he said again. “It’s the Inner Circle! In case you don’t know who they are, they are a secret society of powerful men who favor each other in everything, even to protecting each other from the law, if they can. They’d have saved Adinett, only Mr. Pitt got in the way, and they won’t forgive him for that. It’s not the first time he’s crossed them up.”

  “Well, ’oo are they?” She was reluctant to let him see how much that thought frightened her. Anyone who could outwit Pitt had to be kin to the devil himself.

  “That’s the point. Don’t you listen, girl? No one knows who they are!” he said desperately. “You look at someone in power, and they might be, and they mightn’t. No one else knows.”

  She found herself shivering. “Yer mean it could be the judge ’isself?”

  “Of course it could! Only it wasn’t this time, or he’d have found some way of getting Adinett off.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Well, all the same, we gotta do summink. We can’t just let ’im be stuck in a filthy ’ole somewhere an’ never able ter come back ’ome again. Yer sayin’ as Adinett didn’t do in that feller, what’s-’is-name?”