The Whitechapel Conspiracy

by Anne Perry

  “Why?” Narraway said softly.

  “Because the loan was to the Prince of Wales,” Pitt replied.

  “Yes ... I do see.” Narraway rubbed his hands over his brow, pushing his hair back into spikes. In that single gesture was a weariness and a depth of understanding that dispelled the outer shell of Pitt’s fear. It was peculiarly naked, as if at last it had exposed something of the real man.

  Narraway sat down and gestured to the other chair. “So what is this about a Jew being seen leaving the factory?”

  Pitt smiled wryly. “Inspector Harper’s attempt to find an acceptable scapegoat—not as good as the Prince of Wales.”

  Narraway looked up sharply. “As good?”

  There was no going back, no safety left. “For his purposes,” Pitt replied. “Harper is Inner Circle. He was expecting Sissons’s death. He was dressed and waiting to be called. He tried to say it was suicide and blame me for stealing the gun. He might have succeeded if Wally Edwards hadn’t stood up to him—and Constable Jenkins as well. It was Wally who said Sissons couldn’t have shot himself because of an old injury; he didn’t have the use of his right fingers.”

  “I see.” Narraway’s voice was bitter. “And do I assume from this that you now trust me? Or are you sufficiently desperate that you have no choice?”

  Pitt would not add to his lies. And perhaps Narraway deserved better, either way. “I don’t think you want the East End in flames any more than I do. And yes, I am desperate.”

  A black humor showed briefly in Narraway’s eyes. “Should I thank you for at least that much?”

  Pitt would have liked to tell him about the Whitechapel murders and what Remus knew, but that was taking trust too far, and once said it could not be taken back. He shrugged very slightly and made no reply.

  “Can you see the police don’t blame some innocent person?” he said instead.

  Narraway gave a short bark of laughter, bitter and derisive.

  “No ... I can’t! I can’t stop this lot from blaming Sissons’s death on some poor Jew, if that’s what they think will get them out of more trouble.” He bit his lip hard, till the pain showed in his face. “But I’ll try. Now get out of here and do what you can yourself. And Pitt!”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t go telling anyone what you did—no matter who they arrest. They won’t believe you anyway. You’ll only make it worse. This has nothing to do with truth. It’s about hunger and fear, and guarding your own when you have too little to share.”

  “I know,” Pitt agreed. It was also about power and political ambition, but he did not add that. If Narraway did not know, this was not the time to tell him; if he did, it was unnecessary. He went out without saying anything more.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  Pitt had never felt so profoundly alone. It was the first time in his adult life that he had deliberately placed himself outside the law. He had certainly known fear before, physical and emotional, but never had he experienced the moral division that was within him now, the sense of being an alien in his own place.

  He woke up cold, the sheets mangled and knotted, half off his body. The gray morning light filled the room. He could hear Leah moving around downstairs. She was frightened. He had seen it yesterday in her averted eyes, the tension in her hands, which were clumsier than usual. He could picture her in the kitchen, her face tight with anxiety, going about her morning rituals automatically, listening for Isaac’s step, perhaps dreading Pitt’s coming downstairs because she would have to pretend in front of him. It was difficult having strangers in the house in times of crisis, and yet it had its advantages. It forced one to hide the terror that threatened to swallow one from inside. Panic was delayed.

  Sissons had been murdered after all ... and then it had been made to look like a suicide, and Pitt had altered the evidence—lied, in effect—to make it murder again. He had made the decision to conceal the truth, what he thought was truth, in order to stop riot, perhaps revolution. Was that ridiculous?

  No. He knew the violence in the air, the fear, the anger, the smoldering despair that could be ignited by a few words, spoken by the right person at the right time and place. And when Dismore—and then all the other editors—published Lyndon Remus’s story about the Duke of Clarence and the Whitechapel murders, the fury would seize all London. It would then take only half a dozen men in positions of power, ready and willing, to overthrow the government and the throne ... with how much death and waste to follow?

  And yet in twisting the truth Pitt had betrayed the man in whose house he now lay and at whose table he would eat his breakfast, as he had eaten last night’s supper.

  The pain of that knotted in his stomach and forced him to get up and walk across the carefully homemade rug to the dresser and the ewer of water. He poured half of it out into the bowl and plunged his hands in it, then lifted them to his face.

  Whom could he turn to for help? He was cut off from Cornwallis, and was certain he was powerless anyhow. Perhaps even Tellman would despise him for this. For all his anger, Tellman was a conservative man, a rigid conformer to his own rules, and he knew precisely what those were. They would not include lies, falsifying evidence, misleading the law—whatever the purpose.

  How often had Pitt himself said “The end does not justify the means”?

  He had trusted Narraway with at least part of the truth, and that thought rippled a cold fear through him, an uncertainty like nausea. And what about Charlotte? He had so often talked to her about integrity.

  He stood shivering a little, sharpening his razor absentmindedly. Shaving in cold water hurt. But half the world shaved cold!

  What would Charlotte say to him about Sissons? It did not matter what she said; what would she think? Would she be so disappointed in him it would kill something of the love he had seen in her eyes only days ago? You could love vulnerability—perhaps more even than the lack of it—but not moral weakness, not deceit. When trust was gone, what was it that was left? Pity ... the keeping of promises because they had been made ... duty?

  What would she have done had she found Sissons and the letter?

  He looked at his face in the small square of glass. It was the same as always, a little more tired, a little more deeply lined, but the eyes were not different, nor the mouth.

  Had he always had these possibilities within him? Or was it the world that had changed?

  Standing there turning it over and over in his mind would achieve nothing. Events would not wait for him, and his decision was already made in that moment in Sissons’s office. Now he must save from it what he could.

  He realized that while he had been scraping at his cheeks, not minding the sting and drag of the blade, it had crystallized in his mind that the only person he trusted and who might have some power to help was Vespasia. He was absolutely certain of her loyalties and her courage, and—perhaps just as important—of her anger. She would feel the same sick, scalding outrage that he did at the thought of what would happen if riot engulfed the East End and spread—or if it were contained and some member of the Jewish population was hanged for a crime he had not committed, because the law was administered by the prejudiced and corrupt.

  That too would be a kind of overthrow of government, deeper to the heart. It would appear to affect fewer, but did it not corrupt all eventually? If the law did not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty but was merely expedient for those in power, then it was worse than useless. It was a positive evil, masquerading as good, until finally it deceived no one and became itself a thing of loathing. Then not only the reality of law was gone, but the concept destroyed in the minds of the people.

  He had made a bad job of shaving, but it did not matter. He washed in the rest of the cold water and then dressed. He had no heart to face Isaac and Leah at breakfast, and perhaps no time. If it was cowardly, today it was a small sin in the balance.

  He said good morning hastily, and without explanation left the house. He walked hurrie
dly down Brick Lane to the Whitechapel High Street and Aldgate Station. He must see Vespasia, regardless of the hour.

  The newspapers this morning were full of Sissons’s murder. There was actually an ink drawing of the supposed killer, made up from the descriptions Harper had drawn from reluctant night staff at the factory and one vagrant ambling along Brick Lane who had seen someone pass. With a little imagination the face in the drawing could have been Saul’s, or Isaac’s, or that of any of a dozen others Pitt knew. What was even worse was the suggestion in print underneath the drawing that the murder had to do with money lending at extortionate rates and a refusal to repay.

  Pitt was furious and miserable, but he knew argument was pointless. Fear of poverty was too high to listen to reason.

  When he arrived at Vespasia’s house it was still before nine, and she had not yet risen. The maid who answered the door looked startled that anyone, let alone an unusually scruffy-looking Pitt, should call at such an hour.

  “It is urgent I speak with Lady Vespasia as soon as she will see me,” he said with something less than his usual courtesy. The raw edges of his emotion were audible in his voice.

  “Yes sir,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “If you would like to come in, I shall inform Her Ladyship that you are here.”

  “Thank you,” he accepted, grateful that he had been here sufficiently often that she knew him, and Vespasia had always been eccentric enough in her affections that his presence was not questioned.

  He stood in the golden breakfast room overlooking the garden, where the maid had left him to wait.

  Vespasia appeared within fifteen minutes, not dressed for the day, but in a long, ivory silk peignoir, her hair hastily coiled up, a look of concern in her face.

  “Has something happened, Thomas?” she asked without preamble. She had no need to add that he looked haggard and no normal occurrence could have brought him here at this time of day and in this state.

  “A great deal has happened,” he replied, pulling out a chair for her and holding it while she sat down. “And it is uglier and more dangerous than anything I have ever imagined before.”

  She waved to the chair at the opposite side of the elegant, octagonal table. It had originally been set for one, but a second place had been added by a maid who anticipated her mistress’s wishes.

  “You had better tell me,” Vespasia instructed him. She looked at him critically. “I imagine you could do so over breakfast?” It was not really a question. “Although it might be prudent to suspend your remarks while the servants are in the room.”

  “Thank you,” he accepted. Already he was beginning to feel a little ease from the sense of despair with which he had begun. He realized with surprise how deeply he loved this remarkable woman whose birth, heritage and entire life were so different from his own. He looked at her beautiful face with its perfect bones and fragile skin, the heavy-lidded eyes, the delicate lines of age, and knew the irretrievable sense of loss he would feel when she was no longer here. He could not bring himself to use the word dead even in the secrecy of his mind.

  “Thomas ...” she prompted.

  “Did you read about the death of Sissons, the sugar manufacturer?” he asked.

  “Yes. Apparently he was murdered,” she replied. “The newspapers imply it was by Jewish moneylenders. I should be very surprised if that is true. I assume it is not, and you are aware of what is.”

  “Yes.” There was no time to be restrained or careful. “I found him. It was made to look like suicide. There was a note.” Briefly he told her what it had said. Then wordlessly he passed over the note of debt.

  She looked at it, then walked over to her escritoire and took out a handwritten note. She looked at both pieces of paper, and smiled.

  “It is a good likeness,” she said. “But not perfect. Do you wish for it back?”

  “I think it is safer with you,” he replied, surprisingly relieved that it was not, after all, one more piece of self-indulgence.

  He told her of the letter from Adinett, and the deduction he had drawn from it. He watched her as he spoke, and saw sadness in her face, and anger, but not surprise. Her belief was a tiny thread of comfort.

  And then it was even harder to tell her what he had done, but there was no way whatever to avoid it. To weigh personal feelings now would be inexcusable.

  “I destroyed both letters and took the gun away when I left, and dropped them in one of the sugar vats,” he said jerkily. “I made it look like murder.”

  She nodded very slightly. “I see.”

  He waited for her to go on, for the surprise, the distancing of herself from the act, but he did not see it. Was she so good at concealing her thoughts? Possibly. Maybe she had seen enough duplicity and betrayal over the decades that nothing shocked her anymore. Or perhaps she had never expected anything different from him. How well did he really know her? Why had he assumed so confidently that she thought of him as honorable, so that anything he did, or failed to do, would mark her more than peripherally?

  “No, you don’t,” he replied, pain and anger sharpening his voice. “I learned from Wally Edwards, the other night watchman, that Sissons had an injured right hand. He couldn’t have pulled the trigger himself. I made a murder, disguised as suicide, look like a murder again.” He drew in a deep breath. “And I think I saw the man who did it, but I have no idea who he was, except that I have not seen him before.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “He was older, dark hair graying, dark complexion, fineboned face. He had a dark-stoned signet ring on his hand. If he was one of the Jews from the area, he’s one I don’t know.”

  She sat silent for so long he began to fear she had not heard him, or had not understood. He stared at her. There was an immense sadness in her eyes. Her thoughts were inwards, fixed upon something he could not even guess at.

  He hesitated, not knowing whether to interrupt or not. Questions beat in his mind. Should he not have troubled her with this? Was he expecting far too much of her, thinking her superhuman, investing her with strength she could not have?

  “Aunt Vespasia ...” Then he realized with a wave of embarrassment that he had been too familiar. She was not his aunt. She was his wife’s sister’s aunt, by marriage. He had presumed intolerably. “I ...”

  “Yes, I heard you, Thomas,” she said quietly, no anger or offense in her voice, only confusion. “I was wondering whether it was deliberate or another piece of opportunism. I can see no way in which opportunism is believable. It must have been planned in order to embarrass the crown, or worse, perhaps to cause riots which could then be exploited ...” She frowned. “But it is very ruthless. I ...” She lifted one shoulder very slightly. He saw how thin she was under the silk of the peignoir, and again he felt her fragility, and her strength.

  “There is more,” he said quietly.

  “There must be,” she agreed. “Alone this does not make sense. It would accomplish nothing permanent.”

  Suddenly he felt as if they were allies again. He was ashamed of doubting her generosity of spirit. Stumbling to find the right words, he told her what Tellman had said about the Duke of Clarence and Annie Crook, and the whole tragic story.

  The clear morning light caught both Vespasia’s beauty and her age, the passion of all that she had seen in her lifetime. It was naked in her eyes and her lips, how deeply she had felt it, and understood.

  “I see,” she said when he finally came to the end. “And where is this man Remus now?”

  “I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. “Looking for the last shred of proof, I imagine. If he had it, Dismore at least would have printed it by now.”

  Vespasia shook her head fractionally. “I think from what you say that it was intended to break at the same time as Sissons’s suicide, and you prevented that. We may have a day or so of grace.”

  •

  “To do what?” he asked, a sharp note of desperation back in his voice. “I have no idea who to trust. The Inner
Circle could be anybody!” He felt the darkness close in on him again, impenetrable, suffocating. He wanted to go on, say something that would describe the enormity of it, but he did not know how to, except by repeating the same desperate, inadequate words over and over again.

  “If the Inner Circle is at the heart of this conspiracy,” Vespasia said, almost as much to herself as to him, “then their desire is to overthrow the government, and the throne, and replace them with a leadership of their own, presumably a republic of some nature.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “But knowing that does not help us to find them, let alone prevent it.”

  She shook her head a little. “That is not my point, Thomas. If the Inner Circle’s intent is to create a republic, then they certainly were not the ones who concealed the tragic marriage of the Duke of Clarence or murdered five unhappy women to make sure it was never known.” She looked at him steadily, her silver eyes unblinking.

  “Two conspiracies ...” he whispered. “Then who else? Not ... not the throne itself?”

  “Please God, no,” she answered. “I cannot swear, but I should guess the Masons. They have the power, and the will to protect the crown and the government.”

  He tried to imagine it. “But would they ... ?”

  She smiled very slightly. “Men will do anything, if they believe in the cause enough and have sworn oaths they dare not break. Of course, it is also possible it has nothing to do with them at all. We may never know. But someone has broken an oath, or been extraordinarily careless, and someone else has been cleverer than anyone foresaw, because the Inner Circle now has both the power to shatter everything and, it seems, the will to do it.” She took a deep breath. “You have delayed them, Thomas, but I doubt they will accept defeat.”

  “And meanwhile I will have contrived to endanger half the Jews in Spitalfields and almost certainly get one of them hanged for a crime he may not have committed,” he added. He hated the self-loathing in his voice the instant he heard it.

  She shot him a look of anger that did not yet include pity, but it would be worse when it did. He burned to prove it unjust.