The Whitechapel Conspiracy

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 hurriedly 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.

"Is there a way we can find out if the Clarence story is true?" he asked. He was not certain what he was reaching towards, only that inaction was surrender.

"I don't think it matters anymore," she answered him, the anger softening from her eyes. "It could be true, and I doubt anyone could disprove it, which is all the Inner Circle will need. The outrage it would create would not hesitate for an instant to weigh or judge facts. If it is to be stopped, then it must be before it is said aloud by anyone outside the Circle." The ghost of a smile touched her lips. "Like you, I am not certain whom I can trust. No one, I think, for morality. There are times when one stands alone, and perhaps this is one of them. But there are those whose interests I believe I can judge well enough to trust which way they will act when pressed."

"Be careful!" He was terrified for her. He should not have spoken; he was aware even as he said it. It was an impertinence, but he no longer cared.

She did not bother to reply to that. "Perhaps you had better see if you can do something to help your Jewish friends. I think there is little purpose in your pursuing whoever really killed poor Sissons. He seems to have been a dupe all the way along-I think to some degree a willing one. He did not foresee death in the end. He had no idea of the power or the evil of the conspiracies with which he was meddling. There are so many idealists for whom the end will justify any means, men who began nobly..." She did not complete the thought. It trailed away, carrying its ghosts of the past.

"What are you going to do?" he pressed her, frightened for her, and guilty that he had come to her.

"I know of only one thing that we can do," she answered, looking not at him but into the distance of her vision. "There are two monstrous alliances. We must turn them upon each other, and pray to God that the outcome is more destructive to them than to us."

"But..." he began to protest.

She turned to face him, her eyebrows slightly raised. "You have some better thought, Thomas?"

"No."

"Then, return to Spitalfields and do what you can to see that innocent bystanders do not pay the price for our disasters. It is worth doing."

He rose obediently, thanked her, and did as she had told him. Only when was he out in the morning traffic did he realize that he had still not had breakfast. The servants had been too conscientious to interrupt them with such trivialities as food.

When Pitt had gone, Vespasia rang the bell and the maid came with fresh tea and toast. While she ate it her mind raced over all the possibilities. One thought underlay all of them, and she refused to look at that yet.

First she would address the immediate problem. It hardly mattered that Sissons had not in fact lent money to the Prince of Wales, so long as the Inner Circle had contrived to make it seem as if he had. And she believed they would have taken care of all other appearances necessary to create the fraud. The sugar factories would close. That was the purpose of the murder. The ordinary men of Spitalfields would not riot unless their jobs were lost.

Therefore she must do something to prevent that, at least in the short term. In a longer time some other answer could be found... possibly even a grand gesture by the Prince? It would be an opportunity for him to redeem himself, at least in part.

She went upstairs and dressed with great care in a gunmetal-gray costume with sweeping skirt and magnificently embroidered collar and sleeves. She collected a parasol to match, and sent for her carriage.

She arrived at Connaught Place at half past eleven-not a time one called upon anybody, but this was an emergency, and she had said as much on the telephone to Lady Churchill.

Randolph Churchill was waiting for her in his study. He rose from his desk as she was shown in, his smooth face severe, displeasure only moments away, held in by good manners, and perhaps curiosity.

"Good morning, Lady Vespasia. It is always a pleasure to see you, but I admit your message occasioned some alarm. Please do..."

He was about to say "sit down," but she had done so already. She had no intention of allowing anyone, even Randolph Churchill, to set her at a disadvantage.

"... and tell me what I can do for you," he finished, resuming his own seat again.

"There is no time to waste in pleasantries," she said tersely. "You are probably aware that James Sissons, sugar manufacturer in Spitalfields, was murdered yesterday." She did not wait for him to acknowledge that he was. "Actually, it was intended to look like suicide, complete with a note blaming his ruin upon having lent money to the Prince of Wales, who had refused to repay it.

As a consequence, all three of his factories would be ruined and at least fifteen hundred families in Spitalfields sent into beggary." She stopped.

Churchill's face was ashen.

"I see you understand the difficulty," she said dryly. "It could become extremely unpleasant if this closure comes about. Indeed, along with other misfortunes which we may not be able to prevent, it could even bring about the fall of the government and of the throne..."

"Oh..." he began to protest.

"I am old enough to have known those who witnessed the French Revolution, Randolph," she said with ice in her voice. "They too did not believe it could happen... even with the rattle of the tumbrels in the streets, they disbelieved."

He relaxed back a little, as if the energy in him to protest had been drained away by fear. His eyes were wide, his breathing shallow. His fine, soft hands were stiff on the polished desk surface. He watched her almost unblinkingly. It was the first time in her life she had ever seen him rattled.

"Fortunately," she continued, "we have friends, one of whom happened to be the person who discovered Sissons's body. He had the foresight to remove the gun and the note of debt, and destroy the letter, so the death appeared to be murder. But it is only a temporary solution. We need to see to it that the factories keep working and the men are paid." She met his gaze unflinchingly, a tiny smile on her lips. "I imagine you have friends who would feel as you do, and be willing to contribute something towards that end. It would be a very enlightened thing to do, in our own self-interest, not to mention as a moral gesture. And if done in such a way that the public were to learn of it, I imagine it would meet with a considerable feeling of gratitude. The Prince of Wales, for example, might find himself the hero of the day-as opposed to the villain. That has a certain ironic appeal, don't you think?"

He took a very deep breath and let it out in a long, slow sigh. He was relieved; it glowed in his face in spite of any attempt to mask it. And he was also awed by her, very much against his will, and that was there also. For an instant he considered prevaricating, pretending to consider the idea, then he abandoned it as absurd. They both knew he would do it; he must.

"An excellent solution, Lady Vespasia," he said as stiffly as he was able, but his voice was not quite steady. "I shall see to it that it is implemented immediately... before any real damage is done. It-it is fortunate indeed that we had a... friend... so well placed."

"And with the initiative to act, at considerable risk to himself," Vespasia added. "There are those who will make life exceedingly difficult for him should they learn of it."

He smiled bleakly, pulling his lips into a thin line.

"We shall assume that that does not happen. Now, I must set about this sugar factory business."

She rose to her feet. "Of course. There is no time to be lost." She did not thank him for seeing her. They both knew it was even more in his interest than in hers, and she made no pretenses for him. She did not like him; she had profound suspicions, close to certainty, as to his deep involvement with the Whitechapel murders, although there was no proof. She was using him, and she would not affect to be doing anything else. She inclined her head very slightly as he passed her to open the door and hold it while she walked through.

"Good day," she said with a thin smile. "I wish you success."

"Good day, Lady Vespasia," he replied. He was grateful, but to circumstance, common interest, not to her.

There was one other matter, a darker, far more painful one, but she was not yet ready to face that.

***

Pitt spent the journey from Vespasia's house back to Spitalfields turning over in his mind what he could do to prevent some innocent man from being made the scapegoat for Sissons's murder. He had heard all the rumors that were on the street as to whom the police suspected. The latest drawings looked more and more like Isaac. It could be only a matter of days at the most, perhaps hours, before his name was mentioned. Harper would see to it. He had to arrest someone to diffuse the mounting anger. Isaac Karansky would do very well. His crime was being a Jew and different, a leader of a clearly identifiable community that looked after its own. Sissons's death was merely the excuse. Usury was a common enemy, an unproven charge, but fixed in the mind over centuries of word of mouth, gossip, and blame for a dozen otherwise inexplicable ills.

Pitt had one advantage: he had been on the scene first and was therefore a witness. He could find a reason to go back to Harper and speak to him.

When he got off the train at the Aldgate Street station he had already made the decision and was only settling in his mind exactly what he would say.

He walked briskly. Someone must have killed Sissons, but as Vespasia had said, it would be a member of the Inner Circle. He would almost certainly never find out who that was. Harper would do all he could to see to that.

By the afternoon the streets were hot and sour-smelling, the gutters nearly dry, refuse piling up. Tempers were short. There was fear in the air. People seemed unable to concentrate on trivial tasks. Quarrels exploded over nothing: a mistake in change, one man bumping into another, a dropped load, a stubborn horse, a cart badly parked.

Constables on the beat were tense, truncheons swinging by their sides. Both men and women shouted abuse at them. Now and then someone bolder threw a stone or a rotten vegetable. Children whimpered without knowing what they were afraid of.

A pickpocket was caught and beaten bloody. No one intervened, or sent for the police.

Pitt still did not know whether he could trust Narraway, but perhaps he could learn something from him without giving away anything himself.

Narraway might be Inner Circle, or he might be a Mason, and willing to do anything, risk anything, to save the order of things as they were, the vested power, the throne. Or he might be neither, simply what he claimed: a man trying to control the anarchists and prevent riot in London.

Pitt found him in the same back room as always. He looked tired and ill at ease.

"What do you want?" Narraway asked curtly.

Pitt had changed his mind a dozen times as to what he would say, and he was still uncertain. He studied Narraway's face: the level brows, the clever, deep-set eyes and the heavy lines from nose to mouth. It would be unwise to underestimate him.

"Karansky didn't kill James Sissons," he said bluntly. "It's Harper's way of putting the blame somewhere. He's coercing the witnesses, making that description up."

"Oh? Sure of that, are you?" Narraway asked, his voice expressionless.

"Aren't you?" Pitt demanded. "You know Spitalfields, and you put me to lodge with Karansky. Did you think him capable of murder?"

"Most men are capable of murder, Pitt, if the stakes are high enough, even Isaac Karansky. And if you don't know that, you shouldn't be in this kind of work."

Pitt accepted the rebuke. He had worded the question too clumsily. His nerves were showing.

"Did you think he was planning insurrection? Or the punishment of borrowers who don't pay usury?" he corrected himself.

Narraway twisted his mouth into a grimace. "No. I never thought he was a moneylender in the first place. He is head of a group of Jews who look after their own. It's a charity, not a business."

Pitt was startled. He had not realized that Narraway knew that. A little of the tension eased inside him.

"Harper thinks he can blame him. Every few hours he's getting closer," he said urgently. "They'll arrest him if they can create one more piece of evidence. And with the high anti-Jewish feeling at the moment, that won't be hard."

Narraway looked tired, and there was a thread of disappointment in his voice. "Why are you telling me that, Pitt? Do you imagine I don't know?"

Pitt drew in his breath sharply, ready to challenge him, to accuse him of indifference, neglect of duty or even of honor. Then he looked more closely at his eyes and saw the disillusion, the inner weariness of a series of defeats, and he let his breath out again without saying what was on his tongue. Should he trust Narraway with the truth? Was Narraway a cynic, an opportunist who would side with whoever he thought would be the ultimate winner? Or a man exhausted by too many losses, petty injustices and despair? Too much knowledge of a sea of poverty-cheek by jowl with affluence. It required a very special depth of courage to continue fighting battles when you knew you could not win the war.

"Don't stand there cluttering up my office, Pitt," Narraway said impatiently. "I know the police are after a scapegoat, and Karansky will do nicely. They are still smarting over the Whitechapel murders four years ago. They won't let this one go unsolved, whether the solution fits or not. They want a resolution that people will praise them for, and Karansky suits. If I could save him, I would. He's a good man. The best advice I can give is for him to get out of London. Take a ship to Rotterdam, or Bremen, or wherever the next one is going to."

Arguments teemed in Pitt's head: about honor, surrender to anarchy and injustice, questions about the very existence of law if this was all it was worth. They faded before he spoke them. Narraway must have said them all to himself. They were new to Pitt. They shook his belief in the principles that had guided him all his life; they undermined the value of everything he had worked for, all his assumptions of the society of which he had thought himself a part. When it came to the final decision, if all the law could say to a man unjustly accused was "Run," then why should any man honor or trust the law? Its ideals were hollow-beautiful, but containing nothing, like a shining bubble, to burst at the first prick of a needle.

He hunched his body, shoving his hands hard into his pockets.

"They knew who the Whitechapel murderer was, and why," he said boldly. "They concealed it to protect the throne." He watched for Narraway's reaction.

Narraway sat very still. "Did they, indeed?" he said softly. "And how do you believe catching him would have affected the throne, Pitt?"

Pitt felt cold. He had made a mistake. In that instant he knew it. Narraway was one of them-not Inner Circle, but Masons, like Abberline, and Commissioner Warren, and God knew who else... certainly the Queen's late physician, Sir William Gull. He had a moment's panic, an almost overwhelming physical urge to turn and run out of the door, out of the shop and down the street, and disappear somewhere into those gray alleys and hide. He knew he could not do it quickly enough. He would be found. He did not even know who else worked for Narraway.

And he was angry. It made no sense, but the anger was greater.

"Because the murders were committed to conceal the Duke of Clarence's marriage to a Catholic woman called Annie Crook, and the fact that they had a child," he said harshly.

Narraway's eyes widened so fractionally Pitt was not certain if he had seen it or imagined it. Surprise? At the fact, or that Pitt knew it?

"You discovered this since you've been in Spitalfields?" Narraway asked. He licked his lips as if his mouth were dry.

"No. I was told it," Pitt replied. "There is a journalist who has all the pieces but one or two. At least he had. He may have them all by now, except the newspapers haven't printed it yet."

"I see. And you didn't think it appropriate to inform me of this?" Narraway's face was unreadable, his eyes glittering beneath lowered lids, his voice very soft, dangerously polite.

Pitt spoke the truth. "The Masons are responsible for it... that is what happened. The Inner Circle are feeding it to the journalist piece by piece, to break it at a time of their own choosing. Half the senior police in charge were in on the original crime. Sissons's murder was Inner Circle. You could be either. I have no way of knowing."

Narraway took a deep breath and his body slumped. "Then you took a hell of a risk telling me, didn't you? Or are you going to say you have a gun in your pocket, and if I make the wrong choice you'll shoot me?"

"No, I haven't." Pitt sat down opposite him in the only other chair. "And the risk is worth it. If you're a Mason, you'll stop the Inner Circle, or try to. If you are Circle, you'll expose the Masons and, I daresay, bring down the throne, but you'll have to reinstate Sissons's death as a suicide to do that, and at least that will save Karansky."

Narraway sat up slowly, straightening his back. There was a hard edge to his voice when he spoke. His fine hands lay loosely on the tabletop, but the anger in him was unmistakable, and the warning.

"I suppose I should be grateful you've told me at last." The sarcasm cut, but it was against himself as much as Pitt. For a moment it seemed as if he was going to add something, then he changed his mind.

Pitt wondered if Narraway felt the same anger, the same confusion that the law was not only failing here, but that there was no higher power to address, no greater justice beyond, to which they could turn. It was corrupted at the core.

"Go and do what you can for Karansky," Narraway said flatly. "And, in case you have doubts about it, that is an order."

Pitt almost smiled. It was the one faint light in the gloom. He nodded, then stood up and left. He would go straight to Heneagle Street. It was a bitter thought that he, who had served the law all his adult life, was now helpless to do anything more for justice than warn an innocent man and help him to become a fugitive, because the law offered him no safety and no protection. He would have to leave behind his home, his friends, the community he had served and honored, all the life he had built for himself in the country he had believed would afford him shelter and a new chance.

But Pitt would do it, if he had to pack for them himself and walk with them down to the quay, purchase their tickets in his own name, and bribe or coerce some cargo captain to take them.

***

Outside, the street was hot and dusty. The stench of effluent hung sour in the air. Chimneys belched smoke, dimming the sunlight.

Pitt walked quickly southwards. He would find Isaac and warn him this afternoon. He passed a newspaper seller and glanced sideways to see the headlines... still the same drawing, but now there was a black caption underneath it-WANTED-SUGAR FACTORY MURDERER-just in case anyone had overlooked his offense against the community. The picture seemed to be changing slightly with each reprint, looking more than ever like Isaac.

Pitt increased his pace. He passed peddlers and draymen, carters, beggars, a running patterer making a rhyme about Sissons's murder. He went so far as to say what everyone else was thinking: the killer was a moneylender teaching a bad debtor to pay his dues. It was a clever piece of doggerel. He did not use the word Jews, but the suggested rhyme did it for him.

Pitt reached Heneagle Street and went in at the front door and straight through to the kitchen. Leah was standing by the stove. There was a pot simmering, and the smell of herbs was sweet in the air. Isaac was on the far side of the table, and there were two soiled cloth bags on the floor beside him.

He turned sharply as Pitt came in. His face was deeply lined, his eyes dull with exhaustion. There was no need to ask if he had seen the posters or understood what they meant.

"You must go!" Pitt heard his own voice unintentionally sharp, fear and anger in it. This was England. They had done nothing; an innocent man should not have to flee from the law.

"We are going," Isaac answered, putting on his old jacket. "We were only waiting for you."

"Your supper is on the stove," Leah told him. "There's bread in the pantry. Clean shirts are on your dresser-"

There was the sound of heavy knocking on the door.

"Go!" Pitt said desperately, the word choking him.

Isaac took Leah by the arm, half pushing her towards the large back windows.

"There's soap in the cupboard," she said to Pitt. "You'll find-"

There was more thunderous banging at the front of the house.

"We'll get word to you through Saul," Isaac said as he opened the window and Pitt moved towards the corridor. "God be with you." And he half lifted Leah out.

"And with you," Pitt replied. The pounding on the front door was so loud it threatened to break the hinges. Without waiting to watch them leave, he went along the short corridor and undid the latch just as another blow landed on the paneling which might well have burst the hinge had he not opened it first.

Harper was standing on the other side, with Constable Jenkins beside him, looking profoundly unhappy.

"Well, you again!" Harper said with a smile. "Fancy that, then." He pushed past Pitt and strode down to the kitchen. He found it empty. He looked puzzled, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the unfamiliar herbs. "Where are they, then? Where's Isaac Karansky?"

"I don't know," Pitt said, feigning slight surprise. "Mrs. Karansky just went out to buy something she forgot for the meal." He indicated the pot simmering on the range.

Harper swiveled around on his heel, frustrated but not yet suspicious. He inspected the pot, the half-prepared meal, the domesticity of the kitchen. Isaac's best jacket was hanging on a hook behind the door. Pitt silently thanked God for the knowledge of fear which had driven him to leave it there, in spite of its value. He looked at Harper with a hatred he could not even try to conceal. It burned inside him with a sharp, grinding pain.

Harper pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. "Then we'll wait for them," he announced.

Pitt moved over to the pot and stirred it gently. He had very little idea what he was doing, but there was no point in letting the food burn. Tending it lent an air of normality and allowed him to seem occupied so he did not have to look at Harper.

Jenkins stood silently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Minutes ticked by.

Pitt drew the pot over to the edge of the range, off the heat.

"What did she go for?" Harper said suddenly.

"I don't know," Pitt replied. "Some herb, I think."

"Where's Karansky?"

"I don't know," he repeated. "I only just got back myself." They probably knew that was true.

"You'd better not be lying," Harper warned.

Pitt kept his back to him. "Why should I lie?"

"To protect them. Maybe he paid you?"

"To say Mrs. Karansky's gone to buy herbs?" Pitt said incredulously. "He didn't know you were coming, did he?"

Harper made a sound of deep disgust.

Another ten minutes ticked by.

"You are lying!" Harper exploded, getting to his feet and banging against the table. "You warned them and they've gone. I'll charge you with aiding and abetting a fugitive. And if you're not lucky, maybe with accessory to murder as well!"

Jenkins cleared his throat. "You can't do that, sir; you got no proof."

"I've got all the proof I'll need," Harper snapped, glaring at his junior malevolently. "And I'll thank you not to interfere. Arrest him, like you're told!"

Jenkins remained stubbornly where he was. "We got a warrant for Karansky, sir. We got nothing for Tom."

"You've got my word, Jenkins! Unless you want to end up in a cell beside him, you'll obey my order!"

Shaking his head, his lips pursed, Jenkins told Pitt he was under arrest, then, as Harper glared at him, he put the manacles on Pitt's wrists. He very carefully took the pot off the range and fixed the lid firmly on it, in case Leah should return and find it spoiled.

"Thank you," Pitt acknowledged the action.

Outside they were watched by a crowd of a dozen or so men and women, angry and frightened. They glared at the police with undisguised hatred, but they did not dare intervene. Pitt, Harper and Jenkins left Heneagle Street and walked the three quarters of a mile or so to the police station. None of them spoke. Harper had apparently accepted that at least for the time being Isaac had eluded him, and it infuriated him.

They passed sullen men and women in the streets, and more newspapers with pictures that were plainly of Isaac. There were rumors that the sugar factories were closing.

In the police station, Pitt was put into a cell and left.

It was over two hours later that Jenkins came back, smiling broadly. "Sugar factories in't gonna close down arter all," he said, standing just inside the cell door. "Lord Randolph Churchill an' some o' 'is friends 'as put up the money ter keep 'em all goin'. In't that a turn up?"

Pitt felt a surge of amazement and relief. It had to be Vespasia!

"An' you'd better go 'ome, an' all," Jenkins added, his smile turning into a positive grin. "In case the Karanskys come back."

Pitt stood up. "Aren't they wanted anymore?" He could scarcely believe it.

"Oh yeah! But 'oo knows where they is? Could be on the 'igh seas by now."

"And Inspector Harper is prepared to let me go?" Pitt did not yet move forward. He could imagine Harper's fury, and his vengeance against Pitt. It would be the Inner Circle's great satisfaction if Pitt spent a few years in prison for aiding the escape of the sugar factory murderer.

"No, 'e in't prepared." Jenkins oozed pleasure. " 'E in't got no choice, 'cos word came down from the top as yer ter be treated right an' let go. Yer got friends someplace real 'igh. Which is as well fer you."

"Thank you," Pitt said absently, profoundly puzzled as he walked out into freedom and received his few belongings back from the desk sergeant. Vespasia again? Hardly... or she would have protected him in the first place. Narraway? No, he had neither the knowledge nor the power.

The Masons... the other side of the Whitechapel conspiracies. Suddenly freedom had a dual sweet and bitter taste.

He would go back to Heneagle Street and eat Leah's dinner, then, when he could do it unobserved, go to see Saul, see about raising all the money they could for Isaac and Leah, all the help.

***

Charlotte was still determined to find the papers both she and Juno were certain Martin Fetters had hidden somewhere. They had exhausted all the places they knew of beyond the house and were back in the library staring around the shelves, searching for further ideas. Charlotte was grimly aware that a few feet away from where she stood, Martin Fetters had been killed by a man he had trusted and believed a friend. Her imagination of that terrible moment hung like a chill in the air. She thought of the instant he saw his own death in Adinett's eyes, and knew what was going to happen, then the swift pain and the oblivion. Surely, Juno must be even more aware of it than she.

Each night Charlotte slept alone in her room, conscious of the empty space in the bed beside her, worrying about Pitt, frightened for him. Juno slept not only alone but knowing what had happened just a few rooms away from her, and that the worst she could possibly dread was already the truth.

"They must be here," Juno said desperately. "They do exist; Martin didn't know to destroy them, and Adinett didn't have time. He left and he wasn't carrying anything with him, because I saw him go myself. And when he came back again that was when we found Martin... I suppose he could have taken something then..." She trailed off.

"When did he have time to look?" Charlotte reasoned. "If Martin had them out, then Adinett must have put them away again, and then got them out when he returned. You said he didn't have a case of any sort, just a stick. How did he carry loose papers, or do you suppose it was all written as entries in one book?"

Juno was staring around the walls. "I don't know. I don't really know what we're looking for, or how much, except from what we know-there were lots more plans. They intended to do something positive. They were not just dreamers, meeting to talk over ideas. And if you mean to achieve something, you need to have very precise actions in mind."

"Then surely as a royalist bent on preventing their plans from being acted upon, Adinett would have wanted to destroy them?" Charlotte said thoughtfully. She gazed around at the book-lined shelves. "I wonder where he looked?"

"Nothing seems out of place," Juno replied. "Except the three books that were on the floor, of course. But we always assumed they were there to make it look as if Martin pulled them off when he fell from the ladder."

"I imagine the police would have searched pretty thoroughly anyway." Charlotte felt hope slip away again. "If there'd been anything on the shelves behind the books, it would have been found pretty easily."

"We could always take all the books down," Juno suggested. "We haven't anything better to do. Well, I haven't anyway."

"Neither have I," Charlotte agreed quickly, turning around one way then the other to gaze at the shelves. "It wouldn't be behind books he took out regularly," she said aloud. "Otherwise it would be seen too easily. Someone would observe it by chance. Do any of the maids take out the books to clean or dust?"

"I don't know." Juno shook her head. "I shouldn't think so, but I suppose they could. You are right. It would be somewhere that no one would pull out. That is if it is behind books at all."

Charlotte felt disappointment fill her again. "I suppose it isn't a very good place. And inside a book would make it fat enough it would be noticed immediately. We're not looking for one or two sheets of paper, I don't think."

"What about..." Juno looked up at the top shelves, where there were large reference volumes.

"Yes? What?" Charlotte said quickly.

Juno pushed her hair back off her brow in a gesture of weariness.

"What about really inside a book... one hollowed out and replaced? I know it sounds like terrible vandalism, but it might be as safe as it could be. Who else is going to look inside some of those?" Juno gestured up at the top shelf towards the window where there was a row of obscure memoirs of eighteenth-century politicians and half a dozen volumes of statistics on export and shipping.

Charlotte went over to the steps and wheeled them around. Then, holding the pole firmly in one hand, and picking up her skirt in the other, she climbed up. "Careful!" Juno warned, stepping forward, her voice harsh.

Charlotte stopped, balanced precariously. She turned to smile at Juno, who stood pale-faced, drained by the dead black she wore.

"I'm sorry," Juno apologized, moving back again. "I..."

"I know," Charlotte said quickly. The steps were quite steady, but she could not help thinking of Martin Fetters, and the way he was first supposed to have died, falling from exactly this position. If she lost her balance from here she would end almost where he had been found, only her head would lie the other way.

She dismissed it quickly. That simple, almost private death was a world away from what they faced now. She reached up and pulled out the first volume, a wide, yellow book on shipping routes, hopelessly out of date. Why on earth would anyone have kept such a thing, except as an oversight, forgetting it was there? It was heavy. She passed it to Juno.

Juno riffled through it.

"Exactly what it says," she said with an effort to mask disappointment. "Martin must have bought it twenty years ago." She put it on the floor and waited for the next one.

Charlotte went through them one by one, and each was examined and then placed on the floor in ever-increasing piles. They kept on because neither of them could think of anything better to try.

It was almost into the third hour and they were both smeared with dust, arms aching, when Juno finally conceded defeat.

"They're all just what they say." The misery in her voice was so sharp Charlotte ached for her. Had nothing more been at stake than the desire to know, she might have encouraged her to abandon the effort. There comes a time when grief must end the struggle to understand, and allow healing to begin.

But she needed to prove to the world that Pitt had been right about John Adinett. She steeled herself to continue.

"Sit down for a while," she suggested. "Perhaps a cup of tea?" She climbed down the steps, and Juno held out a hand to steady her. Her fingers were cool and strong, but her arm shook a little and there was a pallor of strain in her face. She looked away from Charlotte's eyes.

"Perhaps we should stop," Charlotte said impulsively, against all she had intended, but pity hurt inside her too much to listen to sense. "Maybe there's nothing to find after all? It may have been just dreams."

"No," Juno said quietly, still keeping her gaze averted. "Martin wasn't like that. I knew him well." She gave a little jerky laugh. "At least, I knew some parts of him. There are characteristics you can't hide. And Martin always worked to make his dreams come true. He was a romantic, but even if it was something as trivial as getting me roses for my birthday, if he thought of it, he would work until he could accomplish it."

They were walking towards the library door. Juno opened it for them to go downstairs for tea.

Roses for her birthday seemed a very unremarkable gift. Charlotte wondered what made her mention it.

"Did he manage it?"

"Oh, yes. It took him four years."

Charlotte was startled. "Roses grow very easily. I've had them in my garden even at Christmas."

Juno smiled, a sweet smile on the edge of tears. "I was born on Leap Day. It takes a great deal of ingenuity to find roses at the end of February. He insisted I celebrated only on leap years, then he would have a four-day-long party for me and spoil me utterly. He was very generous."

Charlotte found it suddenly hard to swallow for the ache in her throat. "How did he get the roses?" she asked, her voice coming out broken, husky.

Juno swallowed, smiling through tears. "He found a gardener in Spain who managed to force them, and he had them brought by boat when they were in bud. They only lasted two days, but I never forgot them."

"Nor would any woman," Charlotte agreed.

"We've been through all the books." Juno reverted to the search again, closing the library door behind her. "It was a silly idea anyway. I should have known better. Martin loved books. He would never have vandalized one, even to hide things. He would have found another way. He used to mend any books that were broken, you know. He was very good at it. I can see him in my mind's eye, standing with a damaged book in his hands and lecturing me on how uncivilized it was to ill use a book, break the spine, tear it, mark it in any way."

They were going down the stairs and Charlotte saw a maid cross the hall beneath them. Tea was a very good idea indeed. She had not realized until now how dry her mouth was, as if all the paper and the dust had drained her.

"He would completely rebind them sometimes," Juno went on. "Dora, will you bring tea to the garden room, please."

"Rebind them?" Charlotte said quickly.

"Yes. Why?"

Charlotte stopped on the bottom stair.

"What?" Juno asked.

"We didn't look for books that he bound..."

Juno understood immediately. Her eyes widened. She did not hesitate. "Dora! Wait with the tea. I'll tell you when!" She turned to Charlotte. "Come on. We'll go back and find them. It would be the perfect place."

Together they almost ran up the stairs again, skirts in their hands not to trip, and strode along the corridor back to the library.

It took them nearly half an hour, but finally Juno had it: a small book on the Trojan economy, in discreet dark leather with gold lettering, hand-bound.

They stood side by side reading a random page:

The evidence of the loan has, of course, been carefully laid. It will all be in his letter, which will be found on his death. As soon as it is known, the journalist will be given the final piece of proof on the Whitechapel story.

The two together will accomplish all that is necessary.

Juno looked at Charlotte, her eyes questioning.

Charlotte's mind was racing. She understood only part of it, but the reference to Remus was so clear it leaped out from the book, shaking a little in Juno's hand.

"He knew about someone's death in advance," Juno said quietly. "This is part of the plan for the overthrow of the government, isn't it?" Her voice challenged Charlotte to offer some comforting lie.

"It seems so," Charlotte agreed, scrambling in her mind to know whom it referred to. "I know what the journalist is about, and you are right. It is part of the conspiracy for revolution."

Juno said nothing. Her hands shook as she held the book up for Charlotte to read with her, and turned the page.

It was lists of figures of injured and dead in the various revolutions throughout Europe in 1848. From them were projected a new set of figures for probable deaths in London and the other major cities of England when revolution occurred there. The meaning was unmistakable.

Juno was sheet white, her eyes dark in the hollows of their sockets.

They only glanced at the next pages. They were plans and possibilities for redistributing wealth and properties confiscated from those who enjoyed them as hereditary privilege. The document was at least a dozen pages thick.

The last one was a proposed constitution for a new state, led by a president responsible to a senate, not unlike that of republican Rome before the Caesars. It was not set out in a formal way, rather more a matter of suggestions, but there seemed no doubt as to who the first president would be. The writer made reference to several of the great idealists of the past, most especially Mazzini and Mario Corena, the idealist who had so magnificently failed in Rome. But the master himself intended to lead in England.

Charlotte did not need to ask if the handwriting was Martin Fetters's; she knew it was not. There was no resemblance. Fetters's writing was bold, flowing, a little untidy, as if his enthusiasm had run faster than the hand. This was precise, its capital letters only just larger than the rest, little slope to it, no space between one sentence and the next.

She looked up at Juno. She tried to imagine how she would feel if she had found this in Pitt's room. It was passionate, idealistic, arbitrary, violent and utterly wrong. No reform should be brought about by the deception that was proposed here, fomenting riot built on rage and lies, no question of asking the people what they wanted, or telling everyone honestly what they would lose in order to gain it.

Charlotte turned to Juno and saw horror in her face, and bewilderment and grief that eclipsed all the pain of the past few days.

"I was wrong," she whispered. "I didn't know him at all. What he planned was monstrous. He-he lost all his true idealism. I know he thought it was for people's good. He loathed any form of tyranny... but he never asked if they wanted a republic, or if they were prepared to die for it. He decided for them. That's not freedom; it's just another form of tyranny."

There was no argument that Charlotte could give, nor could she think of any comfort. What Juno had said was true: the plan was the ultimate arrogance, the final despotism, no matter how idealistically intended.

Juno stared into the distance, blinking away tears. "Thank you for not saying something trite," she said at last.

Charlotte made the only decision she was certain of. "Let's have the tea now. I feel as if I've been eating paper."

Juno gave a half smile, and accepted. They went downstairs together and within five minutes Dora brought the tea tray. Neither of them spoke. There seemed nothing sensible to say until they had finished, and finally Juno put down her cup, rose and walked over towards the window. She stared out at the sun on the small patch of grass.

"I was uncomfortable with John Adinett. And I hated him for killing Martin," she said slowly. "God forgive me, I was even glad when they hanged him." Her body was rigid, her shoulders high, muscles locked. "But now I understand why he felt he had to. I... hate this... but I believe I should tell the truth... It won't bring Adinett back, but it will clear his name."

Charlotte was not so certain what she felt. Overwhelming pity, and admiration definitely. But what about Pitt? Adinett was in some lights justified in killing Fetters, or at least understandable. If people had known at the trial why he had done it they would never have wanted him hanged. They might even blame Pitt for prosecuting him at all.

But then Adinett had refused to give even the slightest explanation. How could anyone know? Even Gleave had said nothing. Presumably he had not known. Then she remembered his face as he had pressed Juno for Martin's papers. He had not threatened them in words, but it had been there in the air, and they had all felt it like a coldness in the bone.

He had known! Only he was on Fetters's side! Poor Adinett... there had been no one for him to turn to, no one to trust. Little wonder he had remained silent and gone to his death without attempting to save himself. He had known from the moment of his arrest that he had no chance of winning. He had acted to save his country from revolution, knowing it would cost him his life. He deserved the truth to vindicate him now, at the very least.

"Yes," she agreed. "You are quite right. As Inspector Pitt's wife, I should like to come with you, if I may?"

Juno turned around. "Yes, please. I was going to ask you anyway."

"Who will you tell?"

"I have thought of that. Charles Voisey. He is a judge of appeal and was one of those who sat on the case. He is familiar with it all. I know him a little. I don't know the others. I shall see if I can go this evening. I want to do it straightaway... I-I'd find it very difficult to wait."

"I understand," Charlotte said quickly. "I shall be there."

"I will call by in the carriage at half past seven, unless he is unable to see us. I shall let you know," Juno promised.

Charlotte rose to her feet. "Then I shall be ready."

***

They arrived at Charles Voisey's house in Cavendish Square a little after eight, and were shown immediately into the splendid withdrawing room. It was decorated in mostly traditional style, of dark, warm colors, reds and soft golds, but with a startling addition of exquisite Arabic brasses, trays, jugs and vases, which caught the light on their engraved surfaces and simple lines.

Voisey received them with courtesy, his curiosity for their call concealed, but he made no pretense at superfluous conversation. When they were seated, and refreshment had been offered and declined, he turned to Juno enquiringly.

"How can I be of service to you, Mrs. Fetters?" Juno had already faced the worst in acknowledging to herself that Martin was not the man she had loved all the years of their marriage. Telling someone else was going to be difficult, but there were obvious ways in which, if she told the right person, it would be almost a relief.

"As I intimated to you on the telephone," she began, sitting upright and facing him, "I have made a discovery in some of my husband's papers which the police did not find because they were so cleverly concealed."

Voisey stiffened very slightly. "Indeed? I assumed they had made a very thorough search." His eyes flickered towards Charlotte, and then away again. She had the sensation that Pitt's failure pleased him, and she had to make a deliberate effort not to defend him.

Juno did it for her. "They were bound into a book. He did his own binding, you know? He was very good at it. Unless you were to read every volume in the library there would be no way of being certain to find it."

"And you did that?" There was a slight lift of surprise in his voice.

She smiled bleakly. "I have nothing better to do."

"Indeed..." He allowed it to hang in the air, unfinished.

"I wished to know why John Adinett, whom I had always believed to be his friend, should kill him," Juno went on levelly. "Now I do know, and I believe it is morally necessary that I should acknowledge it. It seemed to me you were the right person to tell."

He sat quite still. He let out his breath slowly. "I see. And what did these papers say, Mrs. Fetters? I assume there is no doubt they are his?"

"They are not in his hand, but he bound them into a book and concealed them in his library," she replied. "They were letters and memoranda in a cause in which he very obviously believed. I think when John Adinett found out, that was why he killed him."

"That seems... very extreme," he said thoughtfully. Now he completely ignored Charlotte, concentrating his entire attention upon Juno. "If it was something of which Adinett disapproved so passionately, why did he not simply make it public? I assume it was illegal? Or at the least something which others could have prevented?"

"To make it public might have caused panic, even have provoked others of like mind," she answered. "Certainly it would have caused England's enemies great joy and perhaps suggested to them ways in which to damage us."

Voisey was staring at her with increasing tension. When he spoke his voice was harder, anxiety edged in it. "And the reason you believe he did not report it to an appropriate authority, even discreetly?"

"Because he could not know who else was involved," she replied. "You see, it is a wide conspiracy..."

His eyebrows rose fractionally. His fingers tightened on each other. "A conspiracy? To do what, Mrs. Fetters?"

"To overthrow the government, Mr. Voisey," she replied, her voice surprisingly flat for so extreme a statement. "By violent means-in short, to create a revolution which would bring down the monarchy and replace it with a republic."

He sat silently for several moments before replying, as if he was completely stunned by what she had said and barely able to believe it.

"Are you... quite sure, Mrs. Fetters? Could you not have misunderstood some writings on another country and assumed they were referring to England?" he said at last.

"I wish it were possible, believe me." Her emotion was clear; he could not have doubted it. He turned to Charlotte.

She met his eyes and was aware of an intense intelligence-and a coldness of extraordinary, almost uncontrollable dislike. It startled her, and she found herself afraid. She could think of no reason for it. She had never met him before and certainly never done him harm.

He was speaking to her, his voice sharp.

"Have you seen these papers, Mrs. Pitt?"

"Yes."

"And do you see in them the plans for revolution?"

"Yes, I am afraid I do."

"How extraordinary that your husband did not find them, don't you think?" Now the contempt in him was unmistakable, and she understood it was Pitt for whom he felt this emotion he could not conceal.

She was stung too. "I don't imagine he was looking for plans to overthrow the monarchy and set up a new constitution," she said coldly. "It would have been a more complete case if he could have found the motive, but it was not necessary. And then Adinett chose to go to the gallows rather than reveal it himself-which indicates how wide he believed the conspiracy to be. He knew of no one he dared trust, even to save his life."

Voisey's face was dark with blood under the skin, his eyes glittering.

Charlotte wondered how much he blamed himself, as a judge who had sat on the appeal, that he had condemned a man he now had to acknowledge as both a victim and a hero. She was sorry she had spoken so bluntly, but she could not bring herself to say so to him.

"And was he mistaken, Mrs. Pitt?" he said softly, his jaw tight. "If he had told the inspector his reason for killing Fetters, would he have met with belief and help?" He left the other half of the question unsaid.

"If you are asking if my husband is a revolutionary, or would have conspired with them-" She stopped, seeing his smile. She knew exactly what he was thinking: that Juno Fetters had believed in her husband's innocence also-and been wrong. "I am certain he would have done what he could to expose the conspiracy," she answered him. "But I take your point that he would not have known any better whom to trust. They would simply have destroyed the evidence, and him also. But he didn't see it, so the question does not arise."

He turned back to Juno, and his expression changed, the pity returned to it. "What have you done with this book, Mrs. Fetters?"

"I have it here," she replied, offering it to him. "I believe that we should... that I must... see that Mr. Adinett's name is vindicated and does not pass into history as that of a man who murdered his friend for no reason. I... I wish I could avoid that, for my husband's sake, but I cannot."

"Are you certain?" he said gently. "Once you have put the proof into my hands I cannot give it back to you. I must act upon it. Are you sure you would not prefer to destroy it and keep your husband's name as it is: that of a man who fought for the freedom of all men, in his own way?"

Juno hesitated.

"Will it really do good for the public to know that there are such men among them?" he went on. "Men you cannot name, and therefore the rest you cannot exclude, who would overthrow our Houses of Lords and of Commons, our monarchy, and set in their place a president and a senate, however reformed, whatever justice or equality it offered? Those are strange ideas to the man in the street, who does not understand them and who feels safe with what he is accustomed to, even with the ills and iniquities it sustains. John Adinett may well have kept silent because he knew what turmoil knowledge of such a conspiracy could cause, as well as not knowing whom he could trust. Have you considered that?"

"No," Juno said in a whisper. "No, I had not thought of it. Perhaps you are right. Maybe... if he were afraid to speak then, he would wish it kept silent now. He was a very fine man... a great man. I see why it grieves you so much that he is dead. I am sorry, Mr. Voisey... and ashamed."

"You have no need to be," he said with a brief smile, full of sadness. "It is not your fault. Yes, he was a great man, and maybe history will yet show him to be, but not yet, I think."

Juno rose to her feet and walked over to the fireplace. Deliberately, she dropped the book into the flames. "I thank you profoundly for your advice, Mr. Voisey." She looked across at Charlotte.

Charlotte stood up too, her head swimming, her thoughts in chaos, but at the brilliant, blazing core of her lay one piece of certainty-Charles Voisey was at the heart of the conspiracy! He knew those papers more intimately than they did. Juno had mentioned a presidency, but she had said nothing of a senate. Nothing of doing away with the Lords and Commons.

"Mrs. Pitt..." His voice cut across her thoughts.

"Mr. Voisey," she replied, knowing she sounded awkward, preoccupied in a way for which there was no reason. He was staring at her, his clever eyes studying every expression of her face. Did he guess she knew?

"Perhaps you are right." She forced the words out. Let him think she was disappointed because it would have vindicated Pitt. He hated Pitt. He would believe that. They must get out of here, away from him. Get home safely.

Safely! Martin Fetters had been murdered in his own library. She would have to tell Juno, get her to leave London and go to the country somewhere, completely anonymous. Never be found until they could protect her, or it no longer mattered.

"I believe so," he said with a twisted smile. "It would do more harm than the good of restoring Adinett's good name... which he was prepared to forfeit for his country's sake."

"Yes, I see that." She moved towards the door, but she must go slowly, in spite of the almost overwhelming desire to hurry, even to run. He must not guess she knew. He must not sense fear. She actually stopped and allowed him to come closer to her, before going forward to follow Juno into the hall.

It seemed as if they would never reach the front door and the night air.

Juno stopped again to bid him good-bye and thank him for his advice.

Then at last they were outside in the coach and moving away.

"Thank God!" Charlotte breathed.

"Thank God?" Juno asked, her voice tired, disappointed.

"He knew about the senate," Charlotte replied. "You didn't mention it."

Juno reached out and gripped her in the dark, her fingers digging into Charlotte's flesh, locked tight in terror.

"You must leave London," Charlotte said grimly. "Tonight. He knows you have read the book. Don't tell anyone where you go. Send a message to Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould-not to me!"

"Yes... yes, I will. God, what have we fallen into?" She did not let go of Charlotte's arm as they drove through the night.