The Whitechapel Conspiracy

chapter FOUR
It was not the first night on which Pitt had been away from home, but Charlotte felt a kind of loneliness that she had not experienced at other times, perhaps because now she had no idea when he would be back, or even if. When he was, it would be only temporary.

She lay awake a long time, too angry to sleep. She tossed and turned, pulling the bedclothes with her until she had made a complete mess of them. Finally at about two o'clock she got up, stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets. Half an hour later she finally slept.

She woke in broad daylight with a headache-and a determination to do something about the situation. It was not tolerable simply to endure it. It was completely unjust, firstly and mostly of course to Pitt, but also to the whole family.

She dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Gracie sitting at the table. The scullery door was open and a shaft of sunlight fell across the scrubbed floor. The children had already gone to school. She was angry with herself for missing them, especially today.

"Mornin', ma'am." Gracie stood up and went over to the kettle, which was singing on the hob. "I got fresh tea ready." She poured it into the pot as she spoke and carried it back to the table, where there were two cups waiting. "Daniel and Jemima's fine this mornin', off wi' no trouble, but I bin thinkin'. We gotta do summink about this. It in't right."

"I agree," Charlotte said instantly, sitting down opposite her and wishing the tea would brew more quickly.

"Toast?" Gracie offered.

"Not yet." Charlotte shook her head very slightly. It still throbbed. "I was also thinking about it half the night, but I still don't know what there is we can do. Mr. Pitt told me that Commander Cornwallis said it was for his own safety, as well as to keep him in a job of some sort. The people he's upset would be happy to see him with nothing, and where they can reach him." She did not want to put it into words, but she needed to explain. "They might have meant him to have an accident in the street, or something like that..."

Gracie was not shocked; perhaps she had seen too much death when she was growing up in the East End. There was nothing about poverty she had not known, even if some of it was receding into memory now. But she was angry, her thin, little face hardened and her lips drawn into a tight line.

"All because 'e done 'is job right an' got that Adinett 'anged? Wot der they want 'im ter do? Pretend like it in't wrong 'e murdered Mr. Fetters? Or just act daft like 'e never realized wot 'appened?"

"Yes. I think that's exactly what they wanted," Charlotte answered. "And I think not every doctor would have seen anything wrong. It was just their bad luck that Ibbs was quick enough to realize there was something odd, and it was Thomas he called."

" 'Oo is this Adinett, anyway?" Gracie screwed up her brows. "An' why does anyone want 'im ter get away wi' murderin' Mr. Fetters?"

"He's a member of the Inner Circle," Charlotte said with a shiver. "Isn't the tea ready yet?"

Gracie looked at her shrewdly, probably guessing how she felt, and poured it anyway. It was a little weak but the fragrance of it was easing, even while it was still too hot to drink.

"Does that mean they can get away wi' murder, an' nuffink is supposed ter 'appen to 'em?" Gracie was clenched up with anger.

"Yes, unless perhaps someone either brave or reckless gets in the way. Then they get rid of him too." Charlotte tried to sip the tea, but knew she would burn herself, and more milk would spoil it.

"So wot are we goin' ter do?" Gracie stared at her with wide, unflinching eyes. "We gotter prove 'e were right. We dunno 'oo's in this circle, but we know there's more o' us than there is o' them." It was not a possibility to her that Pitt could have been mistaken. It was not even worth denying it.

Charlotte smiled in spite of the way she felt. Gracie's loyalty was more of a restorative than the tea. She could not let her down by being less brave or less positive. She said the first thing that came into her mind, so as not to leave silence.

"The thing that made this trial so different was that no one knew of any reason why Adinett should do it. The two men had been friends for years, and no one knew anything of a quarrel, that day or any other time. Some people couldn't believe he had any reason, and all the evidence was about things, not feelings. They were a lot, when added together, but each one by itself didn't seem much." She sipped the tea. "And some of the witnesses retreated a bit when it came to swearing in court and sticking to their stories in spite of the defense lawyer's cross-questioning them and trying to make them look foolish."

"So we gotta find out w'y 'e done it," Gracie said simply. " 'E must 'ave 'ad a reason. 'E wouldn't 'a done it fer nuffink."

Charlotte was already beginning to think. Very little had come out in the newspapers about either man, except their general worthiness, their social standing and the incomprehensibility of the whole affair. If the evidence was right, and she did not question it, then there must be a great deal more to know, including something so monstrous and so ugly it had led to the murder of one of them and the sentence to death of the other. And yet it had remained totally hidden.

"Why would a man who is going to be hanged not tell anyone, in his own defense, the reason he killed a friend?" she said aloud.

" 'Cos it don't excuse 'im none," Gracie answered. "If it did, 'e'd a' said."

Charlotte followed her train of thought, sipping at the tea again. "Why do people kill friends, people they know but aren't related to, can't inherit money from, or aren't in love with?"

"Yer lash out 'cos yer 'ate someone or yer scared of 'em," Gracie said reasonably. "Or they got suffink yer want an' they won't give it yer. Or yer crazy jealous."

"They didn't hate each other," Charlotte answered, reaching for the bread and the knife. "They had been friends for years, and no one knows of a quarrel."

"A woman?" Gracie suggested. "Mebbe Fetters caught 'im doin' suffink wi' Mrs. Fetters?"

"I suppose that's possible," Charlotte said thoughtfully, taking butter and marmalade. "He wouldn't put that up as a defense because it isn't. People would only think worse of him for it. Except he could say it wasn't true, Fetters just imagined it, and accused him, wouldn't listen to reason and attacked him." She took a deep breath, and a bite of the bread, realizing she was hungry. "Except he'd hardly do it from on top of the library ladder, would he? I wouldn't believe that if I were a juror."

"Yer wouldn't be a juror," Gracie pointed out. "Ye're a woman. An' yer've gotta 'ave yer own 'ouse an' yer own money."

Charlotte did not bother to answer. "What about money?"

Gracie shook her head. "I can't fink o' nuffink as I'd 'ave a quarrel about from the top o' a set o' steps, 'specially ones wot's got w'eels on!"

"Actually, neither can I," Charlotte agreed. "Which means that whatever it was about, Adinett took a lot of trouble to conceal it and pretend he wasn't involved. So it was something he was ashamed of." They were back to the beginning.

"We gotta find out more," Gracie said. "An' yer should 'ave a proper breakfast. D'yer want summink 'ot? I can make an egg on toast, if yer like?"

"No, this is enough, thank you," Charlotte declined. Maybe from now on they should not be so extravagant as to eat eggs except for the main meal. They were not working men, only women and children.

Gracie was used to the practicalities of poverty and she accepted the answer without argument.

"I think I'll go and see Mrs. Fetters," Charlotte said at last, when she had finished a third slice. "Thomas said she was very agreeable and believed absolutely that Adinett was guilty. She must want to know why her husband died almost as much as we do. I would!"

"That's a good idea." Gracie started to clear away the dishes and put the butter and marmalade back in the pantry. "She's gotta know suffink about Adinett, and lots about 'er 'usband, poor soul. I reckon as mournin' must be awful. If I'd jus' lost someone as I loved, I'd 'ate ter sit around by meself in an 'ouse all muffled up, winders dark, mirrers covered an' clocks stopped, like I was dead meself! Wearin' black'd be bad enough. I wore black fer me granddad's burial, an' 'ad ter slap meself silly ter get a bit o' color in me face, or I'd a bin scared they'd a put me in the 'ole, not 'im."

Charlotte smiled in spite of herself. She stood up and poured a little milk into a saucer for Archie and Angus, then scraped the remainder of last night's shepherd's pie into their dish, and they descended on it, purring in anticipation and winding around her ankles.

After she had made sure that Gracie had everything she needed for the day, she went upstairs again. Actually, Gracie had seemed unusually settled about her chores, almost as if she had already sorted them in her mind and was uninterested in them. But they were the last thing on Charlotte 's mind, too, so it hardly mattered.

She changed her clothes, having selected very carefully from her wardrobe a well-fitting dress of a soft, deep aqua shade. It was very flattering-the reason she had chosen it-but also discreet. She had selected it so it would last several seasons, but that meant it was also not unsuitable for visiting someone in mourning. Prints or yellow would have been insensitive.

She dressed her hair with considerable flair. It had taken her a long time to learn to do this well for herself, but if one's hair looked good, then the rest of one had an excellent chance. Good posture and a smile could achieve most of the rest.

She took the omnibus and then walked. Money should be guarded, and it was a perfectly pleasant day. Of course she knew from Pitt where Martin Fetters had lived, and the newspapers had made the address famous anyway. It was on Great Coram Street, between Woburn Place and Brunswick Square, a handsome house no different from its neighbors except for the drawn curtains. If there had been straw in the street to muffle the passing carriages at the time of Fetters's death, it was not there now.

She went up the steps without hesitation and knocked on the door. She had no real idea whether Mrs. Fetters would welcome her, or be so deep in grief she would consider her call both impertinent and intrusive. But Charlotte did not care. It was a case of necessity.

The door was opened by a somber butler who surveyed her with polite disinterest.

"Yes, madam?"

She had planned what she intended to say. "Good morning." She held out her card. "Would you be kind enough to give this to Mrs. Fetters and ask her if she would spare me a few moments of her time. It concerns a matter of the utmost importance to me, and I believe it may be to her also. It is in regard to my husband, Superintendent Thomas Pitt, who investigated Mr. Fetters's death. He is unable to come himself."

The butler looked startled. "Oh dear." He fumbled for words that were suitable. It was very apparent he had never met with such a circumstance and was still suffering from the distress and the grief of the past two months. "Yes madam, I remember Mr. Pitt. He was very civil to us. If you care to wait in the morning room I shall ask Mrs. Fetters if she will see you." He did not indulge in the polite fiction of pretending he did not know if she were at home.

Charlotte was conducted to a small, bright room facing the early sun and decorated with fashionable Chinese prints, porcelain, and gold chrysanthemums on a silk screen. Within five minutes the butler returned and conducted her to another, very feminine room in rose-pink and green which opened onto the garden. Juno Fetters was a handsome woman, full figured, carrying herself with great dignity. Her skin was very fair even though her hair was an unremarkable brown. Naturally at the moment she was dressed entirely in black, and it became her more than it did most women.

"Mrs. Pitt?" she said curiously. "Please come in and make yourself comfortable. I have left the door open because I like the air." She indicated the door to the garden. "But if you find it cold, I shall be happy to close it."

"No, thank you," Charlotte declined, sitting in the chair opposite Juno. "It is delightful. The smell of the grass is as sweet as flowers. There are times when I prefer it."

Juno regarded her with concern. "Buckland said that Mr. Pitt is unable to come himself. I hope he is not unwell?"

"Not at all," Charlotte assured her. She looked at Juno's intelligent, highly individual face with its direct gaze and lines that at any other time would have suggested humor. She decided to tell her the truth, except where Pitt was, and she knew very little of that anyway. "He has been removed from Bow Street and sent somewhere on a secret mission. It is a sort of punishment for having testified against Adinett."

Juno's face filled with astonishment, and then anger.

"That is monstrous!" Unconsciously she had chosen the very word in Charlotte 's mind. "To whom can we speak to have it changed?"

"No one." Charlotte shook her head. "By pursuing the case he has made powerful enemies. It is probably better if he is out of their sight for a while. I came to you because Thomas spoke very highly of you, and he was certain you believed that your husband was the victim of murder, not an accident." She tried to read Juno's expression and was startled to see a moment of unguarded grief in it. Instead of being perceptive, she felt she had intruded.

"I do believe it," Juno said quietly. "I didn't at first. I was simply numb. I couldn't grasp that it had happened. Martin is not... was not clumsy. And I know perfectly well that he would never have put his books on Troy and Greece on the top shelf. It made no sense at all. And it was other things as well when Mr. Pitt pointed them out: the chair that wasn't where it usually was, and the pieces of fluff on his shoe." She blinked several times, struggling to keep her emotion in control.

Charlotte spoke, to give her a moment and perhaps take her mind from the acutely personal subject of the shoes. Surely mention of them must make her picture Fetters being dragged backwards across the floor. It would be all but unbearable.

"If you had known why Adinett did it, you would surely have said so at the trial, or before." She leaned forward a little. "But have you had time to reconsider since then?"

"I have little else to do," Juno said with an attempt at a smile. "But I can't think of anything."

"I need to know." Charlotte heard the raw edge of urgency in her own voice. She had intended not to betray herself so completely, but seeing Juno's grief had unlocked her own. "It is the only way I can prove to them that it was a just verdict, and Thomas wasn't being arrogant or irresponsible, and there was no prejudice in his actions. He was following the evidence in a case and he was right. I don't want anyone who matters being allowed an inch of room to doubt that."

"How are you going to do it?"

"Find out all I can about John Adinett and-if you will help me-about your husband, so that I know not only what happened but I can prove why it did."

Juno took a deep breath and steadied herself, looking at Charlotte gravely. "I want to know what happened myself. Nothing will stop me missing Martin or make me feel any better about it, but if I understood it I should be less angry." She shook her head a little. "I wouldn't be so confused, and maybe I would feel as if there was some sense to it. It is all so... unfinished. Is that an absurd thing to say? My sister keeps telling me I should go away for a while, try to forget about it... I mean, about the way it happened. But I don't want to. I need to know why!"

Outside in the garden the birds were singing and the breeze brought in the scent of grass.

"Did you know Mr. Adinett well? Did he call here often?"

"Quite often. At least once or twice a month, sometimes more."

"Did you like him?" She wanted to know because she needed to understand the emotions involved. Did Juno feel betrayed by a friend, or robbed by a man who was relatively a stranger? Would she be angered if Charlotte probed critically into their lives?

Juno thought for a few moments before replying, weighing her words. The question seemed to cause her some difficulty.

"I am not entirely certain. At first I did. He was very interesting. Apart from Martin, I had never heard anyone speak so vividly about travel." Her face lit with memory. "He had a passion about it, and he could describe the great wildernesses of Canada in such a way that their terror and beauty came alive, even here in the middle of London. One had to admire that. I found I wanted to listen to him, even if I didn't always want to meet his eye."

It was a curious choice of words, and Charlotte found it highly expressive. She had not been to the trial so she had only newspaper pictures to recreate a picture of Adinett in her mind, but even in photographs there was a stern quality to his face, an ability to exercise self-control, and perhaps to mask emotion, which she could well imagine might be uncomfortable.

What sort of a man had he been? She could not recall having to find the truth of a murder when both the people most closely involved were unknown to her. Always in the past it had been a question of deducing which of several people were guilty. This time she knew who, but she would never meet him or be able to sense any part of his reality except through the observations of others.

She had read that he was fifty-two, but from a newspaper photograph she had no idea whether he was tall or short, dark or medium of coloring.

"If I were to look for him in a crowd, how would you describe him?" she asked.

Juno thought for a moment. "Military," she answered, certainty in her voice. "There was a kind of power in him, as if he had tested himself against the greatest danger he knew and found he was equal to it. I don't believe he was afraid of anyone. He... he never showed off, if you know what I mean. That was one of the things Martin most admired about him." Again her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away with annoyance. "I respected it too," she added quickly. "It was a kind of strength of character that is unusual, and both frightening and attractive at the same moment."

"I think I understand," Charlotte said thoughtfully. "It makes people seem invulnerable, a little different from ourselves. Well, from me, anyway. I catch myself talking too much now and again, and I know it is the need to impress."

Juno smiled, her face suddenly warm and alive. "It is, isn't it! Because we know our own weaknesses, we think other people can see them also."

"Was he tall?" Charlotte realized suddenly that she was speaking in the past tense, as if he were already dead, and he was not. Somewhere he was alive, sitting in a cell, probably at Newgate, waiting the legal three Sundays before he could be hanged. The thought made her feel sick. What if they were all wrong, and he was innocent?

Juno was unaware of what was in Charlotte 's mind, even of the change inside her.

"Yes, far taller than Martin," she replied. "But then Martin wasn't very tall, only an inch or two more than I."

There was no reason why she should be, but Charlotte was startled. She realized she had formed a picture of him quite differently. If there had been a photograph in the newspapers, she had not seen it.

Perhaps Juno noticed her surprise. "Would you like to see him?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes... please."

Juno stood up and opened a small, rolltop desk. She took out a photograph in a silver frame. Her hand was shaking as she held it out.

Charlotte took the picture. Had Juno kept it in the desk to avoid draping it in black, as if to her he were still alive? She would have done the same thing. And the unbearableness of Pitt's being dead washed over her in a wave so immense for a moment she was dizzy with it.

Then she looked at the face in the frame. It was broad-boned, with a wide nose and wide, dark eyes. It was full of intelligence and humor, almost certainly a quick temper. It was vulnerable, the face of a man with profound emotions. He and Adinett might have had many interests in common, but their natures, as far as one could read, were utterly different. The only link was a bold, direct stare at the camera, the sense of dedication to a purpose.

Martin Fetters might also have made people uncomfortable, but it would be by his honesty, and she imagined he was a man who inspired deep friendship.

She gave it back with a smile. He was unique. She could think of nothing to say that would help the pain of his loss.

Juno replaced the picture where she had found it. "Do you want to see the library?" It was a question with many layers of meaning. It was where he had worked, where his books were, the key to his mind. It was also where he had been killed.

"Yes, please." She rose and followed Juno into the hall and up the stairs. Juno stiffened as she approached the door, her shoulders square and rigid, but she grasped the handle and pushed it open.

It was a masculine room, full of leather, strong colors, walls lined with books on three sides. The fireplace had a brass fender padded in green leather. A tantalus stood on the table by the window, and there were three clean glasses.

Charlotte 's eyes went to the large chair nearest the corner opposite and to the left, then to the smoothly turned polished ladder pushed hard up against the shelves. It was only three steps high, with a long central pole to hold on to. It would be necessary to use it in order to reach the top shelves, even for a tall man. If Martin Fetters had been little more than Juno's height, he would have had to stand on the top step to see the titles on the uppermost shelf. This made it seem all the more unlikely that he would have kept his most frequently used books there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Juno was watching her.

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

She took a deep, shaky breath and continued.

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

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

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

Juno recalled herself to the task.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He talked about him?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charlotte was not ready to consider that.

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

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

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

"I'm so sorry..." The words were out before she thought of their effect.

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

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

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

"But Adinett wasn't interested in antiquities?" she reaffirmed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

"Yes, miss? Can I 'elp yer?" He did not bother to stop chewing his pencil.

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

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

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

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

"You wait there, miss. I'll tell 'im, an' see what 'e says."

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

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

"I come ter find out wot you're doin', more like," she retorted.

"What I'm doing? I'm investigating burglaries."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I didn't know that."

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

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

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

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

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

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

She found herself shivering. "Yer mean it could be the judge 'isself?"

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

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

"Fetters. No. I'm not. He did it. We just don't know why."

"Then we'd better find out, an' sharpish, 'adn't we?" she responded. "You're a detective. Where do we start?"

A mixture of expressions crossed his face: reluctance, gentleness, anger, pride, fear.

With a stab of shame she realized how much she was asking of him. She had little to lose compared with what failure would cost him. If the new superintendent had deliberately commanded him to not enquire into the matter anymore, and to forget Pitt, and then Tellman disobeyed, he would lose his job. And she knew how long and hard he had worked to earn his place. He had asked no one any favors, and received none. He had no family still alive, and few friends. He was a proud, lonely man who expected little out of life and guarded his own anger at injustice carefully, cherishing his sense of fairness.

He had bitterly resented it when Pitt had been promoted to command. Pitt was not a gentleman. He was ordinary, a gamekeeper's son, no better than Tellman himself and hundreds of others in the police force like them. But as they had worked together an unadmitted loyalty had grown, and to betray that would be outside Tellman's sense of decency. He would not be able to live with himself, and Gracie knew that.

"Where do we begin?" she said again. "If 'e done it, then 'e done it for a reason. Less'n yer daft, yer don't up and kill someone without a reason so good it's like a mountain yer can't get 'round no other way."

"I know." He stood in the middle of the footpath, deep in thought as carriages and wagons streamed past down Bow Street, and people were obliged to step into the gutter to get around them. "We did everything at the time to find out why. Nobody knew of anything that even looked like a quarrel." He shook his head. "There was no money, no women, no rivalry in business or sports or anything else. They even agreed about politics."

"Well, we in't looked 'ard enough!" She stood squarely in front of him. "What would Mr. Pitt do if 'e were 'ere?"

"What he did anyway," he replied. "He looked at everything they had in common to see what they could possibly have quarreled over. We spoke to all their friends, acquaintances, everybody. Searched the house, read all his papers. There was nothing."

She stood in the bright sun, chewing her lip, staring up at him. She looked like a tired and angry child on the brink of tears. She was still far too thin, and had to take up most of her clothes at the hem or she would have fallen over them.

"Yer don' kill anyone fer nuffink," she repeated stubbornly. "An' 'e did it sudden, so it were summink 'as 'appened just 'afore 'e were killed. Yer gotta find out wot 'appened every day fer a week up until then. There's summink there!" She would not bring herself to say please.

He hesitated, not out of unwillingness, but simply because he could think of nothing useful to be done.

She was staring at him. He had to give her an answer, and he could not bear it to be a denial. She did not understand. She had no idea of the difficulties, of everything he and Pitt had done at the time. She saw only loyalty, a matter of fighting for those she loved, who belonged to her life.

He did not really want to belong to anyone else's life. And he was not ready to admit that he cared about Pitt. Injustice mattered, of course, but the world was full of injustice. Some you could fight against, some you couldn't. It was foolish to waste your time and your strength in battles you could not win.

Gracie was still waiting, refusing to believe he would not agree.

He opened his mouth to tell her how pointless it was, that she did not understand, and found himself saying what he knew she wanted to hear.

"I'll find out about Adinett's last few days before he killed Fetters." It was ridiculous! What kind of a policeman allows a slip of a maid to coerce him into making a fool of himself? "I don't know when," he went on defensively. "In my own time. It won't help anyone if Wetron throws me out of the force."

" 'Course it won't," she said, nodding her head reasonably. Then she gave him a sudden, dazzling smile which sent his heart rocketing. He felt the blood surge up his face and hated himself for being so vulnerable.

"I'll come and tell you if I find anything," he snapped. "Now, go away and leave me to work!" And without looking at her again he swung around and marched back up the steps and in through the doorway.

Gracie sniffed fiercely, and with a lift of hope inside her went to find an omnibus back to Keppel Street.

***

Tellman began that evening, going straight from Bow Street, buying a hot pie from a peddler as he did most evenings, and eating it as he walked up Endell Street. Whatever he did, he must manage to do it without leaving any trace, not only for his own safety but for the very practical reason that if he were caught he would be unable to continue.

Who would know what Adinett had done, whom he had seen, where he had gone in the time immediately before Fetters's death? Adinett himself had sworn that he had done nothing out of the ordinary.

He bit into the pie, being careful not to squash out its contents.

Adinett was of independent means and had no need to earn his living. He could spend his time as he wished. Apparently that was usually visiting various clubs, many of them to do with the armed services, exploration, the National Geographic Society, and others of a similar nature. That was the pattern of those who had inherited money and could afford to be idle. Tellman despised it with all the anger of a man who had watched too many others work all the hours they were awake and still go to bed cold and hungry.

He passed a newspaper boy.

"Paper, sir?" the boy invited. "Read about Mr. Gladstone? Insulted the laborers o' the country, so Lord Salisbury says. Some get an eight-hour day-mebbe!" He grinned. "Or they brought out a new edition o' Darkness an' Dawn, all about corruption an' that, in ancient Rome?" he added hopefully.

Tellman handed over his money and took the late edition, not for the election news but for the latest on the anarchists.

He quickened his pace and turned his mind back to the problem. It would give him more than one kind of satisfaction to find out why Adinett had committed murder, and prove it so all London would be obliged to know, whether they wished to or not.

He was well-used to tracing the comings and goings of people, but always with the authority of his police rank. To do it discreetly would be very different. He would have to call on a few favors done in the past, and perhaps a few yet to come.

He decided to begin at the most obvious place, with hansom cab drivers he knew. They usually frequented the same areas, and the chances were that if Adinett had used a cab-and since he did not own a coach, that was quite likely-then he would more than once have chanced on the same driver.

If he had used an omnibus, or even the underground railway, then there was almost no chance at all of learning his movements.

The first two cabdrivers he found were of no assistance at all. The third could only point him in the direction of others.

It was half past nine. He was tired, his feet hurt and he was angry with himself for giving in to a foolish impulse, when he spoke to the seventh cabdriver, a small, grizzled man with a hacking cough. He reminded Tellman of his own father, who had worked as a porter at the Billingsgate fish market all day and then driven a hansom half the night, whatever the weather, to feed his family and keep a roof over their heads. Perhaps it was memory which made him speak softly to the man.

"Got a little time?" he asked.

"Yer wanna go somewhere?" the cabbie responded.

"Nowhere special," Tellman answered. "I need some information to help a friend in trouble. And I'm hungry." He was not, but it was a tactful excuse. "Can you spare ten minutes to come and have a hot pie and a glass of ale?"

"Bad day. Can't afford no pies," the cabbie answered.

"I want help, not money," Tellman told him. He had little hope of learning anything useful, but he could still see his father's weary face in his mind's eye, and this was like a debt to the past. He did not want to know anything about the man; he simply wanted to feed him.

The cabbie shrugged. "If you like." But he moved quickly to leave his horse at the stand and walk beside Tellman to the nearest peddler, and accepted a pie without argument. "Wot yer wanna know, then?"

"You pick up along Marchmont Street way quite often?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Tellman had brought a picture of Adinett which he had not thrown away after the investigation. He took it from his pocket and showed it to the driver.

"Do you recall ever picking up this man?"

The cabbie squinted at it. "That's the feller wot killed the one wot digs up ancient pots an' the like, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You police?"

"Yes-but I'm not on duty. This is to help a friend. I can't make you tell me anything, and no one else is going to ask you. It's not an investigation, and I'll probably get thrown out if I'm caught following it up."

The cabbie looked at him with awakening interest. "So why yer doin' it, then?"

"I told you, a friend of mine is in trouble," Tellman repeated.

The cabbie looked at him sideways, his eyebrows raised. "So if I 'elp yer, yer'll 'elp me... when yer are on duty, like?"

"I could do," Tellman conceded. "Depends if you can help me or not."

"I did pick 'im up, three or four times. Smart-lookin' gent, like an old soldier or summit. Always walked stiff, 'ead in the air. But civil enough. Gave a good tip."

"Where did you take him?"

"Lots o' places. Up west mostly, gennelman's clubs an' the like."

"What sort of clubs? Can you remember any of the addresses?" Tellman did not know why he bothered to pursue it. Even if he knew the names of all the clubs, what use would it be? He had no authority to go into them and ask whom Adinett had spoken to. And if he found out, it would still mean nothing. But at least he could tell Gracie he had tried.

"Not exact. One was a place I never bin ter before, summink ter do wi' France. Paris, ter be exact. It were a year, as I 'member."

Tellman did not understand. "A year? What do you mean?"

"Seventeen summat." The cabbie scratched his head, tipping his hat crooked. "1789... that's it."

"Anywhere else?"

"I could eat another pie."

Tellman obliged, more for the man's sake than as a bribe. The information was useless.

"An' ter a newspaper," the cabbie continued after he had eaten half the second pie. "The one wot's always goin' on about reform an' the like. 'E came out wi' Mr. Dismore wot owns it. I know 'cos I seen 'im in the papers meself."

This was unsurprising. Tellman already knew that Adinett was acquainted with Thorold Dismore.

The cabbie was frowning, screwing up his face. "That's w'y I thought it real odd, a gennelman like that, askin' ter go all the way past Spitalfields ter Cleveland Street, wot's off the Mile End Road. Excited, 'e were, like 'e'd found summink wonderful. In't nuffink wonderful in Spitalfields nor Whitechapel nor Mile End, an' I can tell yer that fer nuffink."

Tellman was startled. "You took him to Cleveland Street?"

"Yeah... like I said. Twice!"

"When?"

"Just afore 'e went ter see that Mr. Dismore wot owns the paper. All excited, 'e was. Then a day or two arter that 'e went an killed that poor feller. Strange, in't it?"

"Thank you," Tellman said with sudden feeling. "Thank you very much. Let me get you a glass of ale along the way here."

"Don't mind if I do. Ta."