The Whitechapel Conspiracy Read online

  From Cleveland Street he had gone first to Guy’s Hospital to ask something. What? Was he looking for William Crook then too? Only one way to find out: go there herself. She would have to invent a good story to explain her interest in that.

  It took her all the bus journey back westwards, and south over London Bridge towards Bermondsey and the hospital, before she had worked it out in her mind. If you were going to lie, you might as well do it thoroughly.

  She bought a fruit pie and a drink of lemonade from a peddler and stood looking at the river while she consumed them. It was a bright, windy day and there were lots of people out enjoying themselves. There were pleasure boats on the water, flags flying, people clutching onto their hats. Somewhere not very far away the sound of a hurdy-gurdy was cheerful and a little off-key. Half a dozen boys chased each other, shouting and squealing. A couple walked arm in arm, close to each other, the girl’s skirts brushing the young man’s trousers.

  Gracie finished her pie, straightened her shoulders and turned towards Borough High Street and the hospital.

  Once inside she went straight to the offices, composing her face into a serious expression and doing her best to look pathetic. She had tried this many years ago, before going to the Pitts’ to work. She had been small and thin then, with a sharp little face, usually dirty, and it had been very effective. Now it was not quite so easy. She was a person of some consequence. She was employed by the best detective in London, which meant in the world—even if he was temporarily unappreciated.

  “What can I do for you?” the old man behind the desk asked her, peering down over the top of his spectacles.

  “Please sir, I’m tryin’ ter find out wot ’appened ter me granpa.” She guessed that William Crook’s age made that the most believable relationship to use.

  “Was ’e brought in sick?” the man asked kindly.

  “I reckon as ’e must ’a bin.” She sniffed. “I ’eard ’e died, but I in’t sure.”

  “What was his name?”

  “William Crook. It’d a bin a while back. I only just bin told.” She sniffed again.

  “William Crook,” he repeated, puzzled, pushing his spectacles back up so he could see through them. “Don’t recall ’im, not off’and, like. Yer sure ’e was brought ’ere?”

  She tried to look lost and abandoned. “That’s wot they tol’ me. Yer got nobody called Crook bin’ ’ere? Not ever?”

  “I dunno about ever.” He frowned. “We ’ad an Annie Crook ’ere fer ages. Sir William hisself brought ’er ’ere. Mad, she were, poor soul. Did everything ’e could fer ’er, but it weren’t no good.”

  “Annie?” Gracie gulped, trying not to let the edge of excitement in her voice betray her. “She come ’ere?”

  “You know her?”

  “ ’Course.” She did a rapid calculation. “She were me aunt. Not that I ever knew ’er, like. She ... she kind o’ vanished, years back, around ‘87 or ‘88. Nobody never said as she were mad, poor soul. I suppose they wouldn’t, would they!”

  “I’m sorry.” He shook his head slowly. “It can ’appen to all kinds o’ folk. That’s wot I told the other young man as asked. But ’e weren’t family to ’er.” He smiled at her. “She got the very best care there is, I can promise yer that. Yer still want as I should look for yer granpa?

  “No, ta. I reckon as I must ’a got it wrong.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Yeah. I am too.” She turned and walked out of the office, closing the door quietly behind her and hurrying away before he sensed the excitement inside her.

  Once in the street again and the bright sharp wind and the sun, she ran down towards the place where the omnibuses stopped. Now she must go back home and catch up with some of her work. And with luck, Tellman would come this evening and she could tell him what she had found out. He would be impressed—very impressed. She was singing a little song to herself as she stood in the queue.

  •

  “You went where?” Tellman demanded, his thin face pale, his jaw tight.

  “Cleveland Street,” Gracie replied, pouring the tea. “I’ll follow Remus tomorrow.”

  “You won’t! You’ll stay here and do the work you’re supposed to do, where you’re safe!” he retorted harshly, leaning forward across the table. There were shadows under his eyes and a smudge on his cheek. She had never seen him look so tired.

  He was certainly not going to tell her what she could or could not do ... but on the other hand, it gave her a pleasant, warm, almost comfortable feeling that he was concerned that she not be in danger. She could hear the edge of fear in his voice and knew that it was real. It might make him furious, and he might very well deny it the next minute, but he cared very much what happened to her. It was in his eyes, and she recognized it with a little bubble of pleasure.

  “Don’t yer wanna ’ear wot I found out?” she asked, aching to tell him.

  “What?” he said grudgingly, sipping the tea.

  “There were a girl called Annie Crook, ’oo were the daughter o’ William Crook wot died in St. Pancras.” Her words fell over each other. “An’ she were kidnapped from the tobacconist’s in Cleveland Street about five year ago and took ter Guy’s ’Ospital, w’ere the poor creature were called mad, an’ no one ever seed ’er again.” She had the cake out but in her excitement she had forgotten to cut him a slice. “It were somebody called Sir William wot said as she were mad, an’ ’e couldn’t ’elp ’er no more. An’ someone else just asked about ’er too. I reckon as that were Remus. An’ that’s not all! There were a young man kidnapped from the artist’s place in Cleveland Street the same time, a real fine-lookin’ feller wi’ good clothes, a gentleman. ’E were taken out kickin’ an’ struggling poor soul.”

  “Do you know who he was?” He was too elated with the information to remember his anger—or the cake. “Any idea at all?”

  “The lad at the pipe-maker’s thought ’e were Annie’s lover,” she answered. “But ’e don’t know fer sure. But ’e said as she were a decent girl, Catholic, an’ I shouldn’t spread scandal about ’er, ’cos it wouldn’t be right or true.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe their families did it ’cos she were Catholic an’ ’e weren’t?”

  “What could that have to do with Adinett?” He frowned, pursing his lips.

  “I dunno yet. Gimme a chance!” she protested. “But there’s a lot o’ people wot’s off their ’eads, poor devils. There’s the feller wot died up in Northampton too. D’yer reckon as there’s madness somewhere where it really matters, then? Maybe Mr. Fetters knew about it too?”

  He was quiet for several minutes. “Maybe,” he said at last, but there was no lift in his voice.

  “Yer scared, in’t yer?” she said softly. “That mebbe it don’t ’ave nothin’ ter do wi’ Mr. Pitt, an’ we aren’t ’elpin’ ’im?” She wished she could say something to comfort him, but it was the truth, and they were in it together, neither pretending.

  He was on the point of denying it; she could see it in his face as he drew in his breath. Then he changed his mind.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Remus thinks he’s on a big story, and I wish I believed it was the reason Adinett killed Fetters. But I can’t see any way Fetters fits into it at all.”

  “We will!” she said determinedly, breaking the rule she had just made for herself. “ ’Cos, ’e must ’a done it fer some reason, an’ we’ll go on until we find out wot it is.”

  He smiled. “Gracie, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said softly, but the light in his eyes denied his words.

  “Yeah, I do,” she argued, and she leaned forward and kissed him very lightly, then drew back quickly and picked up the knife to cut the cake for him, looking away. She did not see the color rush up his face or his hand tremble so hard he had to leave his cup on the table in case he spilled it.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Pitt continued to work at the silk weaver’s and to run as many errands as possibl
e, watching and listening. At night now and then he took a watch at the sugar factory, standing under the shadow of the huge building and hearing the steady hiss of steam from the boilers, kept going around the clock, and the occasional clatter of footsteps across the cobbles. The smell of the waste washed off the syrup filled the darkness like an oversweet rot.

  Occasionally he patrolled inside, carrying a lantern along the low passages, hunting the shadows, listening to the myriad small movements. He exchanged a little gossip, but he was an outsider. He would have to be here years before he would be accepted, trusted without question.

  Increasingly he heard the ugliness of anger under the surface of what appeared casual conversation. It was everywhere: in the factory, in the streets, in the shops and public houses. A few years ago it would have been a good-natured complaining; now there was an undertone of violence in it, a rage close under the surface.

  But the thing that frightened him the most was the hope that flashed every now and again among men sitting and brooding over a pint of ale, the whispers that things would soon change. They were not victims of fate but protagonists who governed their own lives.

  He was also aware how many different kinds of people there were in Spitalfields, refugees from all over Europe fleeing one kind of persecution or another, financial, racial, religious or political. He heard a dozen languages spoken, saw faces of every cast and color.

  On the fifteenth of June, the day after a series of poisonings in Lambeth occupied all the headlines, he arrived back late and tired at Heneagle Street to find Isaac waiting for him. His face was strained with anxiety and his eyes were shadowed as if he had slept little in many nights.

  Pitt had developed a considerable affection for him, apart from the fact that Narraway had trusted him with Pitt’s safety. He was an intelligent man, well-read, and he liked to talk. Perhaps because Pitt did not belong to Spitalfields, he enjoyed their time after dinner when Leah was in the kitchen or had gone to bed. They argued over all manner of philosophy and belief. Pitt learned much from him of the history of his people in Russia and Poland. Sometimes Isaac told the tale with a wry, self-mocking humor. Often it was unimaginably tragic.

  Tonight he obviously wished to talk, but not in the general way of conversation.

  “Leah is out,” he said with a shrug, his dark eyes watching Pitt’s face. “Sarah Levin is sick and she has gone to be with her. She has left dinner for us, but it’s cold.”

  Pitt smiled at him, following him into the small room where the table was set ready. The polished wood and the unique aromas were already familiar to him, Leah’s embroidery on the linen, the picture of Isaac as a young man, the matchstick model of a Polish synagogue just a trifle crooked with age.

  They had barely sat down to it when Isaac began talking.

  “I’m glad you went to work for Saul,” he remarked, cutting a slice of bread for Pitt and one for himself. “But you shouldn’t be at that sugar factory at nights. It’s not a good place.”

  Pitt knew him well enough now to be aware that this was only an opening gambit. There was far more to follow.

  “Saul is a good man.” Pitt took the bread. “Thank you. And I like going around the neighborhood. But I see a different side of things at the factory.”

  Isaac ate in silence for a while.

  “There is going to be trouble,” he said presently, looking not at Pitt but down at his plate. “A lot of trouble.”

  “At the sugar factory?” Pitt remembered what he had heard said in the taverns.

  Isaac nodded, then looked up suddenly, his eyes wide and direct. “It’s ugly, Pitt. I don’t know what, but I’m frightened. Could be we’ll get blamed for it.”

  Pitt did not need to ask whom he meant by “we.” He was speaking of the immigrant Jewish population, easily recognizable, natural scapegoats. Pitt already knew from Narraway of the suspicions held of them by Special Branch, but it was his observation that they were, if anything, a stabilizing influence in the East End. They cared for their own, they set up shops and businesses and gave people something to work for. He had told Narraway that. He had not told him about their collection of money for those in trouble. He kept that a private thing, a matter of honor.

  “It’s only a whisper,” Isaac went on. “It’s not gossip. That’s what makes me think it’s real.” He was watching Pitt closely, his face puckered with anxiety. “Something is planned, I don’t know what, but it isn’t the usual crazy anarchists. We know who they are, and so do the sugar makers.”

  “Catholics?” Pitt asked doubtfully.

  Isaac shook his head. “No. They’re angry, but they’re ordinary people, like us. They want houses, work, a chance to get on, something better for their children. What good would it do them to blow up the sugar factories?”

  “Is that what it is, dynamite?” Pitt said with a sudden chill, imagining the sheet of flame engulfing half of Spitalfields. If all three factories were set alight, whole streets would be ablaze.

  “I don’t know,” Isaac admitted. “I don’t know what it is, or when, just that something definite is planned, and at the same time there is going to be a big event somewhere else, but concerning Spitalfields. The two are to happen together, one built upon the other.”

  “Any idea who?” Pitt pressed. “Any names at all?”

  Isaac shook his head. “Only one, and I’m not sure in what connection ...”

  “What was the name?”

  “Remus.”

  “Remus?” Pitt was startled. The only Remus he knew was a journalist who tended to specialize in scandal and speculation. There were no scandals among the inhabitants of Spitalfields that would interest him. Perhaps he had misjudged Remus, and he was concerned with politics after all. “Thank you,” he acknowledged. “Thank you for that.”

  “It’s not much.” Isaac dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “England has been good to me. I am at home here now.” He smiled. “I even speak good English, yes?”

  “Definitely,” Pitt agreed warmly.

  Isaac leaned back in his chair. “Now you tell me about this place you grew up in, the country with woods and fields and wide-open sky.”

  Pitt looked at the remnants of their meal on the table.

  “What about this?”

  “Leave it. Leah will do it. She likes to fuss. She will be angry if she catches me in her kitchen.”

  “You ever been in it?” Pitt said skeptically.

  Isaac laughed. “No ...” He gave a lopsided grin. “But I’m sure she would!” He pointed to a pile of linen on the side table. “There are your clean shirts. She makes a good job, yes?”

  “Yes,” Pitt agreed, thinking of the buttons he had found sewn on as well, and her shy, pleased smile when he had thanked her. “Very good indeed. You are a fortunate man.”

  Isaac nodded. “I know, my friend. I know. Now sit, and tell me about this place in the country. Describe it for me. How does it taste first thing in the morning? How does it smell? The birds, the air, everything! So I can dream it all and think I am there.”

  •

  It was early the following morning as Pitt was walking to the silk-weaving factory that he heard the steps behind him and swung around to see Tellman less than two yards away. His stomach lurched with fear that something was wrong with Charlotte or the children. Then he saw Tellman’s face, tired but unafraid, and he knew that at least the news was not devastating.

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

  Tellman fell into step beside him, pulling him around to continue the way he had been going.

  “I’ve been following Lyndon Remus,” he said very quietly. Pitt started at the name, but Tellman did not notice. “He is into something to do with Adinett,” he went on. “I don’t know what it is yet, but he’s alight with it. Adinett was in this area, bit farther east, actually: Cleveland Street.”

  “Adinett was?” Pitt stopped abruptly. “What for?”

  “Looks like
he was following a story five or six years old,” Tellman answered, facing him. “About a girl kidnapped from a tobacconist’s shop there and taken to Guy’s Hospital, then found insane. Seems as if he went straight to Thorold Dismore with it.”

  “The newspaper man?” Pitt asked, starting forward again and skirting around a pile of refuse and only just jumping back onto the footpath in time to avoid being struck by a cart loaded precariously with barrels.

  “Yes,” Tellman repeated, catching up with him. “But he’s taking orders from someone he meets by appointment in Regent’s Park. Someone who dresses very well indeed. A lot of money.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “No.”

  Pitt walked in silence for another twenty yards, his mind whirling. He had determined not to think any more about the Adinett case, but of course it had plagued his mind, teasing every fact to try to make sense of a crime which seemed contrary to all reason or character. He wanted to understand, but more than that, he wanted to prove that he had been right.

  “Have you been to Keppel Street?” he asked aloud.

  “Of course,” Tellman answered, keeping up with him. “They’re all fine. Missing you.” He looked away. “Gracie found out something about this girl from Cleveland Street. She was Catholic and she had a lover who looked like a gentleman. He disappeared too.”

  Pitt caught the mixture of emotions in Tellman’s voice, the pride and the self-consciousness. At another time he would have smiled.

  “I’ll tell you if I find out anything else,” Tellman went on, keeping his eyes straight ahead of him. “I’ve got to get back. We’ve got a new superintendent ... Wetron’s his name.” His voice was laden with disgust. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I don’t trust anyone, and you’d be best not to either. Do you come this way every morning?”