The Whitechapel Conspiracy

by Anne Perry

  What justice was there if Pitt concealed this monstrous selfishness, criminal irresponsibility, because the guilty man was the Prince of Wales? It made him party to the sin.

  And if he did not, then countless people who had no say in it at all would be consumed by the violence which would follow, and the destruction which would leave poverty and waste behind it, perhaps for a generation.

  His mind was in turmoil. Every belief he had lived by forbade he conceal the truth of the debt. Yet even as his thoughts raced, his hand closed over the paper. He crunched it up, then unfolded it and tore it across again and again until it was in tiny pieces. Not yet certain why, he put the note of debt far down inside his shirt, next to his body.

  He was shivering, the sweat standing out cold on his skin. He had committed himself. There was no way to turn back.

  If this had to be known as murder, then he must make it look like one. He had surely known enough murders to know what the police would look for. Sissons had been dead for at least two or three hours. There was no danger they would suspect him. Better it should be an impersonal robbery than hatred or revenge, which would indicate someone who knew him.

  Was there money in the office? He should make it look as if it had been searched, at the very least. And quickly. He must not seem to have stood there debating what to do. An honest man would have raised the alarm immediately. He had already delayed almost too long. There was no time for indecision.

  He pulled out the desk drawers and tipped them onto the floor, then the files. There was a little petty cash. He could not bring himself to take it. Instead he put it under one of the drawers and replaced it. It was not very satisfactory, but it would have to do.

  He riffled quickly through other pieces of paper to see if there was anything else about the Prince’s loan. They seemed to be all concerning the factory and its daily running, orders and receipts, a few letters of intent. Then one caught his eye because he knew the handwriting. Coldness filled him as he read it.

  My dear friend,

  It is a most noble sacrifice you are making for the cause. I cannot stress how much you are admired among your fellows. Your ruin at the hands of a certain person will set off a fire which will never be extinguished. The light of it will be seen all over Europe, and your name remembered with reverence as a hero of the people.

  Long after the violence and the death are forgotten your memorial will be the peace and prosperity of those ordinary men and women who came after.

  Yours with the utmost respect.

  It was signed with a swirl of the pen which could have been anything. What flared in Pitt’s brain like an explosion was the fact that the writer had known about Sissons’s ruin, and very possibly even his death. The wording was ambiguous, but it seemed that was what it meant.

  He must destroy it also, immediately. Already he could hear footsteps in the passage outside. He had been gone too long. Wally would be looking for him to make sure everything was all right.

  He ripped the letter into pieces. There was no time to get rid of it, but at least it would be illegible. He would have to make an opportunity to put the remnants of both letters, and the gun, in one of the vats.

  Even as he was moving towards the door he remembered where he had seen the handwriting. He stumbled and banged into the corner of the desk as the full import struck him. It had been during the investigation of Martin Fetters’s death—it was John Adinett’s hand!

  He stood stock-still, dizzy for an instant, his leg throbbing where the desk corner had bruised it, but he was only dimly aware.

  Wally’s footsteps were almost at the door.

  Adinett had known of the plan for Sissons’s ruin, and had praised him for it! He was not a royalist, as they had presumed, but as far from it as possible. So why had he killed Martin Fetters?

  The door opened and Wally peered around it, the lantern in his hand making his face look ghostly in the upward light.

  “You all right, Tom?” he said anxiously.

  “Sissons is dead,” Pitt replied, startled by how hoarse his voice was, and that his hands were shaking. “Looks as if somebody shot him. I’m going to get the police. You stay here and make sure no one else comes in.”

  “Shot ’im!” Wally was stunned. “W’y?” He stared across at the figure slumped across the desk. “Gawd! Poor devil. Wot’ll ’appen now?” There was fear in his voice and in his face, which was slack with shock and dismay.

  Pitt was hideously conscious of the gun in his pocket and the torn-up pieces of the two letters.

  “I don’t know. But we’d better get the police quickly.”

  “They’ll blame us!” Wally said, panic in his face.

  “No, they won’t!” Pitt denied, but the same thought was like a sick ache in the bottom of his stomach. “Anyway, we’ve got no choice.” He moved past Wally and out of the door, carrying his own lantern high so he could see the way. He must find an unattended vat and get rid of the gun.

  The first room he tried had a night worker in it who looked up without curiosity; so did the second. The third was unoccupied and he lifted the lid of the vat, smelling the thick liquid. The paper would not sink in it. He would have to stir it in, but he dared not be found with the pieces. They could still be placed together, with care. He put them on the surface and used the gun to move them around until they were lost, then he let the gun go and watched it sink slowly.

  As soon as it was out of sight he went out into the corridor again and ran down the rest of the stairs and out into the yard. He went straight to the gates and down Brick Lane towards the Whitechapel High Street. The false dawn had widened across the sky, but it was still long before daylight. The lamps gleamed like dying moons along the curb edge and shone pale arcs on the wet cobbles.

  He found the constable just around the corner.

  “Eh, eh! Wot’s the matter wi’ you, then?” the constable asked, stepping in front of him. Pitt could only see the outline of him because they were between lampposts, but he was tall and seemed very solid in his cape and helmet. It was the first time in his life Pitt had been afraid of a policeman, and it was a cold, sick feeling, alien to all his nature.

  “Mr. Sissons has been shot,” he said, his breath rasping. “In his office, in the factory up Brick Lane.”

  “Shot?” the constable said unsteadily. “You sure? Is ’e ’urt bad?”

  “He’s dead.”

  The constable was stunned into a moment’s silence, then he gathered his wits. “Then we’d better send ter the station an get Inspector ’Arper. ’Oo are you, an’ ’ow’d yer come ter find Mr. Sissons? You the night watch, then?”

  “Yes. Thomas Pitt. Wally Edwards is there with him now. He’s the other night watchman.”

  “I see. D’yer know where the Whitechapel station is?”

  “Yes. Do you want me to tell them?”

  “Yes. You go an’ tell ’em Constable Jenkins sent yer, an’ tell ’em wot yer found at the factory. I’ll be there. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then ’urry.”

  Pitt obeyed, turning on his heel, then breaking into a run.

  •

  It was nearly an hour later when he was back at the sugar factory, not in Sissons’s office but in one of the other fairly large rooms on the top floor. Inspector Harper was a very different man from Constable Jenkins, smaller with a blunt face and square chin. Jenkins was standing by the door, and Pitt and Wally were standing in the middle of the floor. It was now early daylight, gray through the dockland smoke, and the sun was silver on the stretches of the river below them in the distance.

  “Right now, then ... what’s your name? Pitt!” Harper began. “You just tell me exactly what you saw an’ what you did.” He frowned. “And what were you doing in Mr. Sissons’s office anyway? Not part of your duty to go in there, is it?”

  “The door was open,” Pitt replied. His hands were clammy, stiff. “It shouldn’t be. I thought something might be wrong.”

&n
bsp; “All right, all right! So tell me what you saw, exactly!”

  Pitt had prepared this very carefully, and he had said it all to the duty sergeant at the Whitechapel station already.

  “Mr. Sissons was sitting at his desk, slumped over it, and there was a pool of blood, so I knew immediately he wasn’t just asleep. Some of the desk drawers were half open. There was no one else in the room and the windows were closed.”

  “Why d’you say that? What difference does that make?” Harper challenged. “We’re seven storeys up, man!”

  Pitt felt himself flushing. He must not appear too quick. He was a night watchman, not a superintendent of police.

  “None. Just noticed it, that’s all.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” Harper looked at him narrowly.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Harper looked skeptical. “Well, he was shot with a handgun, pistol of sorts, so where is it?”

  Pitt realized with a lurch that Harper was suggesting he had taken it. He could feel the guilt hot in his face. Suddenly he knew exactly how others had felt when he had questioned them, men perhaps innocent of the crime but with other desperate secrets to hide.

  “I don’t know,” he said as steadily as he could. “I suppose whoever shot him took it when they went.”

  “And who could that be?” Harper asked, his eyes wide, pale blue. “Aren’t you the night watch? Who came or went, then? Or are you saying it was one of the men who work here?”

  “No!” Wally spoke for the first time. “Why’d any one o’ us do that?”

  “No reason at all, if you’ve any sense,” Harper replied. “More like he shot himself, and Mr. Pitt here thought he’d take a little souvenir. Maybe sell it for a few shillings. Good gun, was it?”

  Pitt looked up at him with amazement and met his gaze squarely. It was that instant he realized with horror that crawled over his skin that Harper had known what he was going to find. Harper was Inner Circle, and he intended it to be suicide. Pitt’s throat was tight, his mouth dry.

  Harper smiled. He was master and he knew it.

  Jenkins shifted his feet unhappily. “We got no evidence o’ that, sir.”

  “Got no evidence against it either!” Harper said sharply, without moving his eyes from Pitt’s. “We’ll have to see what turns up when we look into Mr. Sissons’s affairs, won’t we?”

  Wally shook his head. “Yer got no reason ter say as Tom took the gun, an’ that’s a fact.” His voice shook with fear, but his face was stubborn. “And any’ow, Mr. Sissons never shot ’isself, ’cos I seen the body. ’E were shot in the right side of ’is ’ead, like ’e were right-’anded, which ’e were! ’Ceptin’ ’is right fingers was broke an’ the wotsits cut, so ’e couldn’t curl up ’is fingers ... so ’e couldn’t ’a pulled a gun tight ter shoot it. Doctors wot looks at ’im’ll tell yer that.”

  Harper was confused and angry. He turned to Jenkins and met a blank stare of dumb insolence and immovability.

  “Well, then,” he said angrily, looking away. “I suppose we’d better find out who sneaked in past our two diligent night watchmen ... and murdered their employer. Hadn’t we?”

  “Yes sir!” he responded.

  Harper spent the rest of the morning questioning not only Wally and Pitt as to every detail of their watch, but also all the night staff and many of the clerks who came in to start the day.

  Pitt did not tell him about the man he had seen leaving. At first he kept silent more from instinct than thought-out reason. It was not something he could have imagined doing twenty-four hours ago, but now he was in a new world, and he realized with incredulity that for weeks now he had been growing closer to people like Wally Edwards, Saul, Isaac Karansky, and the other ordinary men and women of Spitalfields who were distrustful of the law, which had seldom protected them and which had never caught the Whitechapel murderer. He believed what Tellman had told him about that investigation, about Abberline, even about Commissioner Warren. The tentacles of that conspiracy reached right up to the throne itself.

  But it was not the same conspiracy as that which had murdered James Sissons and made it look like suicide, or was feeding Lyndon Remus with information which when complete would expose the greatest scandal in royal history and bring down the government and the crown with it.

  And Harper was part of that second conspiracy; Pitt was certain of that. Therefore he could tell him nothing he did not have to.

  Second to that, and coming to his realization a moment later, was that the description he could give could fit easily many people he knew: Saul, or Isaac, or a score of other older men. And perhaps Harper would like nothing better than to use that excuse to whip up anti-Semitic feeling. It would suit his purposes very well to blame the Jews for the ruin of the sugar factory. It was not as good as blaming the Prince of Wales, but it was better than nothing.

  And so it turned out. By midday, when Pitt was allowed to leave, Harper had suggested, and then paraphrased, answers until he had a definite intruder observed by three different night workers: a thin, dark man of Jewish appearance, carrying something in his hand on which the light gleamed, like the barrel of a gun. He had crept up the stairs, soft-footed, and some little time later crept down again and disappeared into the night.

  Pitt left feeling sick and miserable, and more helpless than ever in his life. His concept of the law and all his beliefs were shifted into a new and ugly pattern. He had seen corruption before, but it had been individual, born of greed or weakness exploited, never a cancer that spread silent and unseen throughout the entire body of those who created the law and admonished it, even those who judged it. There was no recourse, no one left to whom the hunted or injured could appeal.

  As he walked along Brick Lane up towards Heneagle Street he found himself genuinely and deeply afraid. It was the first time he had felt this way since he was a child and his father had been taken away, and the realization had come that there was no justice to save him, no one who could help. They would never meet again, and he was helpless to make any difference to it.

  He had forgotten how terrible that feeling was, the bitterness of disillusion, the loneliness of understanding that this was the end of this particular path. There was nothing beyond except what he himself could create.

  But he was a man now, not a child. He could and would effect it! He changed direction and increased his pace towards Lake Street. If Narraway was not in, he would demand that the cobbler send for him. At least he would find out which side Narraway was on, force him to show himself. He had very little to lose, and if Remus succeeded, then nobody would have.

  He crossed the street and passed a newsboy shouting the headlines. In the House of Commons, Mr. McCartney had asked whether the conflict between political parties in Ireland would be such as to prevent peaceable citizens from voting. Would protection be provided for them?

  In Paris, the anarchist Ravachol had been found guilty and sentenced to death.

  In America, Mr. Grover Cleveland had been nominated as the Democratic candidate for the presidency.

  As he reached Lake Street he passed another newsboy, this one holding a placard saying that James Sissons had been murdered in a conspiracy to ruin Spitalfields, and the police already had witnesses who had seen a dark-haired man of foreign appearance on the premises, and were now looking to identify him. The word Jew had not been used, but it might as well have been.

  Pitt reached the cobbler’s shop and left a message that he required to speak to Narraway immediately. He was told to return in thirty minutes.

  When he did, Narraway was waiting for him. He was not sitting in his usual position, but standing in the tiny room as if he had expected Pitt to the minute and was too restless to make even the smallest concession to the idea that things were as usual.

  “Well?” he demanded as soon as the door was closed.

  Now that it was the moment, suddenly Pitt was undecided. His hands were
clammy, his heart knocking in his chest. Narraway’s eyes seemed to be boring into his mind, and he still had no idea whether to trust him or not.

  “You wanted something, Pitt! What is it?” Narraway’s voice was hard-edged. Was he afraid too? He must have heard of Sissons’s murder, and he would understand all its implications. Even if he were Inner Circle, riot was not what he wanted. But there was nowhere else to turn. A phrase came into Pitt’s mind: if you would sup with the devil, you must have a long spoon. He thought of the five women in Whitechapel, and the coach that had gone around at night, looking for them to butcher. Was it really better than riot, even revolution?

  “For God’s sake, man!” Narraway exploded, his eyes dark and brilliant, his face bleached of color with exhaustion. “If you’ve got something to say, say it! Don’t waste my time!”

  This time there was no mistaking his fear. It was under the surface, but Pitt could feel it like electricity crawling over the skin.

  “Sissons wasn’t murdered the way the police suppose,” he said, committing himself. There was no going back now. “I was the one who found him, and when I did it looked like suicide. The gun was there in his right hand, along with a letter saying that he had killed himself because he was ruined over a loan he had made and which was now denied.”

  “I see. And what has happened to this note?” Narraway’s voice was soft now, almost expressionless.

  Pitt felt his stomach lurch.

  “I destroyed it.” He swallowed. “I also got rid of the gun.” He was not going to mention Adinett’s letter or the note of debt.