The Whitechapel Conspiracy

chapter FIVE
Pitt found it painfully difficult to endure living in Heneagle Street. It was not that either Isaac or Leah Karansky did not make him as comfortable as their means allowed, or were not friendly towards him on the occasions they were together, such as at the meals they provided. Leah was an excellent cook, but the food was different from the simple and abundant fare he was used to. He could eat only at set times. There were no cups of tea whenever he wished, no homemade bread with butter and jam, no cake. It was all unfamiliar, and he slept with exhaustion at the end of the day, but he did not relax.

He missed Charlotte, the children, even Gracie, more than he would have thought possible. It was some comfort to know that money was provided for Charlotte to collect every week from Bow Street. But watching Isaac and Leah together, the glances between them that spoke of years of shared understanding, the occasional laughter, the way she nagged at him about his health, the gentleness in his hands when he touched her, reminded Pitt the more forcefully of his own loneliness.

Towards the end of the first week he realized the other emotion that was consuming him, knotting his stomach and making his head ache.

He had accepted Isaac's offer to help him find work with Saul, the silk-weaver. Of course, it was completely unskilled labor, a matter of bending his back to lift crates and bales, to sweep the floor, fetch or carry everything as needed, run errands. It was the most manual task in the establishment, and the pay corresponded, but it was better than nothing at all, and probably physically easier than labor in the sugar factory. It also offered him far more opportunity to be in the streets, to listen and observe without calling any attention to himself. Although he could see little purpose in it; the capture of anarchists Nicoll and Mowbray was evidence that the Special Branch's detectives were well schooled in their craft and needed no help from a stranger in the area like Pitt.

As he was walking back to Heneagle Street -he could not think of it as home-he heard shouting ahead of him. The anger in it was unmistakable. Voices were high and rough, and a moment later there was a crash as if a bottle had been hurled to the pavement and splintered to pieces. There was a yell of pain, and then a torrent of abuse. A woman screamed.

Pitt broke into a run.

There was more shouting and the sound of a load of barrels cascading onto the ground, several bursting open as they landed on each other. A cry of rage rose above the general hubbub.

Pitt turned the corner and saw about twenty people in the street ahead of him, half of them partly obscured by a wagon whose tailboard was open. Barrels rolled into the street, blocking the traffic in both directions. Men were already beginning to fight, hard and viciously.

Other people came out of shops and workplaces, at least half of them joining in. Women stood on the sidelines shouting encouragement. One stooped and picked up a loose stone and hurled it, her arm swinging wide, her torn brown skirts swirling.

"Go home, yer papist pig!" she screamed. "Go back ter Ireland w'ere yer belong!"

"I in't no more Irish than you are, yer soddin' 'eathen!" the other woman shouted back at her, and whirled a broom handle around so hard that when it caught the first woman across her back it broke in half and sent her flying into the gutter, where she lay winded for a few moments before sitting up slowly and beginning to curse viciously and repetitively.

"Papist!" someone else shrieked. "Whore!"

Half a dozen more people, men and women, joined in the melee, everyone hurling abuse with all the power of their lungs. Several scruffy children were hopping up and down, squealing encouragement, backing whoever they fancied in the scrum.

A police whistle blew, thin and shrill. There was a moment's lull through which came the pounding of feet.

Pitt swung around. It was not his job to stop this, even if he could have. He saw a constable running towards them, and he stepped back near the arch of the gate into a stonemason's yard.

Narraway would expect him to observe. Although what he could tell him that would be of the slightest use, he had no idea. It was only one of countless numbers of ugly street scenes that must occur regularly and surprised no one.

More police came and started trying to pull the fighting men apart, and were rewarded for their trouble by becoming the victims themselves. Hatred for the police seemed about the only thing that the crowd had in common.

"Useless bloody rozzers!" one man yelled, flailing his fists in the air, willing to hit anyone and everyone within reach. "Couldn't catch a cold, yer stupid bastards! Pigs!"

A policeman lashed out at him with a truncheon, and missed.

Pitt remained in the shadows. He looked around at the shabby, crumbling buildings grimed with the smoke of thousands of chimneys, the patched windows, the broken cobbles of the streets, the overrunning gutters. The smells of rot and effluent were everywhere. The fighting in the street was vicious. It was not a quick flare of temper but the slow, sullen rage of years of anger and hate shown naked for a few moments, before the police frightened or beat it into silence again... until next time.

Pitt turned and walked away before he was noticed-and remembered. He kept his head down, hat jammed forward, hands in his pockets. He went around the first corner he came to, even though it was away from Heneagle Street. He had been aware of a simmering resentment since he came here, an edge to people's voices, a quickness to take offense. Now he had seen how close the rage simmered under the surface. It only needed an insult perceived, one ugly remark, and it broke through.

This time the police had come quickly and some form of order was restored, but nothing was solved. Pitt had been startled by how anti-Catholic feeling had erupted within seconds. It must have been only just controlled all the time. Now, as he walked past a row of small shops, narrow-fronted windows piled with boxes and goods, he remembered other remarks he had heard, slang words for papist said not in fun but with vindictiveness driving them.

And the feeling had been given back with good measure added.

He remembered also snatches of conversation about business that would not be done on religious grounds, hospitality denied, even the reasonable help to one in trouble withheld, not out of greed but because the one in need was of the other faith.

The anti-Semitic taunts were less surprising to him simply because he had heard them before: the dehumanizing, the resentment, the blame.

He went into the first public house he came to, and sat down at a table near the bar nursing a tankard of cider.

Ten minutes later a thin-shouldered young man came in with a finger tied up in a bloodstained rag.

"Eh, Charlie!" the barman said curiously. "Wotcher done ter yerself, then?"

"Bitten by a bloody rat, that's wot," Charlie replied angrily. "Gimme a pint. If I were paid 'alf o' wot I work fer, I'd 'ave a shot o' whiskey! But wot poor sod in Spitalfields ever got paid wot 'e was worth?"

"Yer got a job, yer better'n some," a pale-faced man said bitterly, looking up from his half pint of ale. "Don' know w'en yer well orff, that's your trouble."

Charlie turned on him angrily, his cheeks flushing. "My trouble is that greedy men work me night an' day and take wot I make and sell it and grow fat themselves, an' keep all us poor sods on a pittance." He drew in his breath with a rasping sound. "An' bloody gutless cowards like you don't stand up beside me to fight fer justice... that's my trouble! That's everyone's trouble 'round 'ere! Just roll over an' play dead every time anyone looks sideways at yer!"

"Yer'll get us all out in the gutter, yer stupid sod!" the other man snapped, clinging onto his mug as if it were some kind of protection to him. His eyes were hot with anger struggling to overmaster the fear that haunted him day and night: fear of hunger, fear of cold, fear of being hurt, fear of being despised and excluded.

A fair-haired man looked from one to the other of them, apparently not noticing Pitt at all. "What d'yer want ter do then, Charlie? If we all stand beside yer, wot then, eh?" he demanded defensively.

Charlie glared at him, considering his answer carefully, his face still creased in anger.

"Then, Wally, we'd see a few changes 'round 'ere," he retorted. "We'd see a day w'en a man gets paid wot 'e's worth, not what some fat swine chooses ter give 'im, because 'e's no use if 'e starves!"

Wally coughed into his beer. "Dream on!" he said witheringly.

His tone conveyed his boredom with such empty words he had heard too many times.

Charlie slammed his empty mug on the bar so hard the pewter made a scar on the wood. "Yeah?" he said belligerently. "Well if we 'ad more men wi' the guts ter be men, instead of a lot o' sniveling papists an' Jews creepin' around the place, we'd get up an' fight fer wot's ours! Like the bloody Frogs did in Paris! Cut a few throats an' we'll soon see 'ow quick some o' them fancy bastards can change their minds about 'oo 'as wot!"

A dark-haired man shivered a little, biting his lips. "Yer shouldn't say fings like that!" he warned. "Yer dunno 'oo's listenin'. You'll only make it worse."

"Worse!" Charlie exploded. "Worse? Wot's worse 'n this, eh? Yer expectin' bleedin' crushers ter come in 'ere an' cart us all orff ter the Tower o' London, are yer? All of us, like?" His voice rose, frustration raw and throbbing in his words. "There's 'undreds an' thousan's of us trodden down by a few idle, greedy bastards poncin' around up west, eatin' 'emselves sick an' so fat they can't scarcely 'old their trousers up. An' the rozzers are in their bleedin' pockets, an' all," he added, swinging around, daring anyone to challenge him. "That's w'y they never caught the Whitechapel murderer wot killed them poor cows in '88. You mark my words, 'e's one o' them... an' that's the Gawd's truth!"

There was a sudden chill in the room. At the table next to Pitt three men stopped talking. Even now, nearly four years afterwards, it was not done to speak of the Whitechapel murderer. No one made jokes about him, and there were no songs, no music hall references.

"Yer shouldn't say that!" A gray-haired man was the first to speak, his voice hoarse, his face pasty-white.

"I'll say wot I want!" Charlie retaliated, the blood high in his cheeks.

Someone else started to laugh, and then stopped just as suddenly,

A stoop-shouldered man stood up and held his glass tankard high. " 'Ere's ter nothin'!" he said with a grin. " 'Ere's ter terday, 'cos termorrer yer could be dead." He drank down the entire glass without taking it from his lips to draw breath.

"Shut yer mouth, yer fool!" the man nearest to him hissed, hard anger in his face, his fist clenched on the tabletop.

The man subsided sullenly, his grin vanished. "I never said nothin'!" he snarled. "Our day's gonna come! An' soon."

"Then we'll see 'ow much sugar they can eat!" his companion said between his teeth.

"Yer say 'sugar' again an' I'll put yer bleedin' lights out me-self!" the first man threatened, his eyes hot and black, and hideously sober. "I'll practice on yer, ready fer all them foreigners wot's poisonin' this city an' takin' wot should be ours."

This time there was no reply.

Pitt hated everything about this public house-the smell of it, the sudden anger in the air, the defeat, the gleam of gaslight on the battered pewter mugs, the stale sawdust-but he knew it was his job to overhear. He hunched lower down into himself and sipped at the cider.

Half an hour later a couple of street women came in, soliciting business. They looked tired, dirty, overeager, and for a few moments Pitt was as angry as Charlie had been, for the poverty and despair that made women walk alone around streets and public houses trying to sell their bodies to strangers. It was a squalid and often dangerous way to earn a little money. It was also quick, usually certain, and easier to come by than sweatshop or factory labor, and in the short term, far better paid.

There was a burst of laughter, coarse, overloud.

A man at the table next to Pitt was drowning his sorrows, afraid to go home and tell his wife he had lost his job. He was probably drinking the little money he had left, next week's rent, tomorrow's food. There was a gray hopelessness in his face.

A youth named Joe was telling his friend Percy how he planned to save enough money to buy his own barrow and start selling brushes farther west, where it was safer and he could make a better profit. One day he would move and find rooms somewhere else, maybe in Kentish Town, or even Pinner.

Pitt stood up to leave. He had learned all he was going to, and none of it was anything Narraway would not already know. The East End was a place of anger and misery where one incident would be enough to set it alight with rebellion. It would be put down by force, and hundreds would die. The rage would be submerged again, until next time. There would be a few articles about it in the newspapers. Politicians would make statements of regret, and then return to the serious business of making sure that everything stayed as much as possible the same.

He trudged back towards Heneagle Street with his shoulders hunched and his head down.

The remarks about sugar had seemed irrelevant to the rest of the conversation, at least on the surface, and yet they had been said with such bitterness of feeling that they stayed in his mind over the next few days. He had realized from snatches of conversation overheard in the various places he called at in the course of his duties just how many people were dependent in one way or another on the three sugar factories in Spitalfields. The money that was earned from them was spent in the shops, in the taverns and on the streets.

Had the remarks made been anything more than a bitterness at such dependence, and the fear that the only source of income might fail them? Or was there something more specific? Was the reference to a day coming when there would be justice only anger and bravado, or based in fact?

Narraway's words came back to him that there was a mounting danger, not just the usual underlying resentment. Circumstances had changed; the mix of people had been added to and was more volatile than in the past.

But what was there to tell him? That he was right? If so, the solution lay in reform, not policing. Society had cultivated its own destruction; the anarchists were merely going to light the fuse.

Perhaps he should at least look more closely at the sugar factory in Brick Lane, gain some slight knowledge of the place and see the men who worked in it, get a feeling of their temper.

The best way seemed to be to pretend he was interested in a job there. He had no skill in the processes of making sugar, but there might be something simpler he could do.

The following morning he went early down Brick Lane towards the seven-story-high building with its squat windows overlooking the entire town and the smell of cane syrup, like rotting potatoes, filling the air.

It was easy enough to enter at the yard gates. Huge hogshead barrels were piled up and carts were being unloaded, having just come up from the docks. Men hauled and lifted; cranes were maneuvered into position.

" 'Oo are yer, then?" a bull-chested man asked abruptly. He was dressed in worn dun-colored trousers and a leather jerkin shiny with constant rubbing. He stood squarely in front of Pitt, blocking his way.

"Thomas Pitt. I'm looking for any extra work that might be going." That was almost true.

"Oh yeah? An' wot are yer good fer, then?" He looked Pitt up and down disparagingly. "Not local, are yer." That was an accusation, not a question. "We got all we need 'ere," he finished.

Pitt stared around him at the high, flat sides of the building, the cobbled yard, the wide doors open to the ground floor, and men coming and going.

"Do you work all night?" he asked curiously.

"Boilers do. Gotter keep ' em alight. Why? Yer wanner work nights?"

Pitt most assuredly did not want to work at night, but his curiosity impelled him to pursue the matter.

"Why? Is there night work available?"

The man squinted at Pitt. "Mebbe. Yer wanner stand in if one o' the night watchmen goes sick?"

"Yes," Pitt said immediately.

"Where'd yer live, then?"

" Heneagle Street, on the corner of Brick Lane."

"Yeah? Well, mebbe we'll send fer yer... an' mebbe we won't. Leave yer partic'lars at the office." He pointed towards a small door in the side of the building.

"Right," Pitt accepted. "Thank you."

For several days there was no word from the sugar factory, but work at Saul's silk weaving shop was more interesting than Pitt had expected. He found himself admiring the bright, delicate fibers, and without having intended to, watching how they were woven into brocades, the subtle blending of colors into patterns.

Saul observed him with amusement, his dark, narrow face relaxed for a change.

"You're not from around here, are you?" he said in the middle of one Monday afternoon early in June. "Why are you doing this? It's not your trade!"

"It's a living," Pitt replied, turning his face away. He liked Saul, who had been more than fair to him, but he remembered Narraway's warning to trust no one. "Isaac said it was hard to get into the sugar factories unless you knew someone."

"So it is," Saul agreed. "Everyone wants work. And selling on the street is hard. You can make enemies easily. Everyone's got their own patch. Get your throat cut for pinching someone else's."

Pitt wondered what pressures Narraway had used to persuade Saul to take him on. He noticed most of the other Jews he visited employed their own people, as did all the other identifiable groups.

"I'm sure." Pitt smiled. "And who in Spitalfields cares about sweeping crossings?"

Saul grunted. "There's worse places."

Pitt gave him a glance of incredulity.

"Believe me!" Saul said with sudden fierceness, his dark eyes brilliant. "Spitalfields may be dirty and poor, and smell like a hole in hell... but it's safer than the places I've been... at least for the moment. Here you can say what you think, read what you like, walk out in the street without being arrested." He leaned forward, his shoulders hunched, his face tense. "Robbed... perhaps? Set on by hooligans and religious bigots... some days." He gave a little grunt. "But that's probably so most places. Here at least it's random, not organized by the state." He smiled lopsidedly. "Some of the police are corrupt, and most of them are incompetent-but they're not vicious, bar the odd one or two."

"Corrupt?" Pitt could not help asking. He had not meant to, but the words were out before he guarded them.

Saul shook his head. "You're really not from around here, are you!"

Pitt said nothing.

"There's all sorts of things going on," Saul continued gravely. "You just keep your head down, mind your own business and look after your own. If gentlemen come down here from up west, you don't see them, don't know them. Understand?"

"You mean after women?" Pitt was surprised. There were plenty of better-class prostitutes from the Haymarket to the park and anywhere else. No one had need to come this way where it was dark, dirty and quite possibly dangerous as well.

"And other things." Saul bit his lip, his eyes anxious. "Mostly things you shouldn't ask. Like I said, better you don't know."

Pitt's mind raced. Was Saul talking about private vice or the plans of insurrection that Narraway feared?

"If it's going to affect me, it's my business," Pitt argued.

"It won't, if you look the other way." Saul's face was grave; the urgency of his advice was too vivid to deny.

"Dynamiters affect everyone," Pitt said quietly, afraid the moment he had said it that he had gone too far.

Saul was startled. "Dynamiters! I'm talking about gentlemen from up west who drive around Spitalfields at night in big, black coaches and leave the devil's business behind them." His voice trembled. "You tend to your work, run your errands and look after your own, and you'll be all right. If the police ask you about anything, you don't know. You didn't hear. Better still, you weren't there!"

Pitt did not argue any further, and that evening as he sat over the table with the last of the food, his attention was taken up by a friend of Isaac's coming to the door bruised and bleeding, his clothes torn.

"Samuel, whatever happened to you?" Leah said in dismay, starting up from her chair as Isaac led him in. "You look like you were run over by a carriage." She looked at him with concern puckering her face, judging what she should do to help him.

"Had a bit of trouble with a bunch of local men," Samuel answered, dabbing a bloodstained handkerchief to his lip and wincing as he tried to smile.

"Here! Don't do that," Leah ordered. "Let me look at it. Isaac, fetch me some water and ointment."

"Did they rob you?" Isaac asked without moving to obey.

Samuel shrugged. "I'm alive. It could be worse."

"How much?" Isaac demanded,

"Never mind how much," Leah said sharply. "We'll deal with that afterwards. Fetch me some water and the ointment. The man's in pain! And he's bleeding all over his shirt. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of good cloth?"

Pitt knew where the pump was, and the ewer. He went out of the back door and came back five minutes later with the ewer full of water. How clean it was he had no idea.

He found Leah and Isaac together, heads bent, talking quietly. Samuel was sitting back in a chair, his eyes closed. The conversation stopped the moment Pitt came in.

"Ah, good, good," Isaac said quickly, taking the ewer. "Thank you very much." He set it down and poured about a pint into a clean pan and put it on the stove. Leah already had the ointment.

"It's too much," Leah demanded, her voice low and fierce, her fingers clenched on the jar. "If you give all that this time, then what about next time? And there will be a next time, never mistake it!"

"We'll deal with next time when it happens," Isaac said firmly. "God will provide."

Leah let out a snort of impatience. "He's already provided you with brains! Use them." She moved fractionally to place her back to Pitt. "It's getting worse, and you can see that as well as anyone," she urged. "With Catholics and Protestants at each other's throats, and dynamiters all over the place, each one crazier than the last, and now talk about blowing up the sugar factory..."

Samuel sat patiently and silently between them. Pitt leaned against the dresser.

"No one's going to blow up the sugar factory!" Isaac said tensely, with a warning glance at her.

"Oh? You know that, do you?" she challenged him, her eyebrows arched, eyes wide.

"Why would they do such a thing?" He kept his tone calm.

"They need a reason?" she demanded with amazement. She lifted her shoulders dramatically. "They're anarchists. They hate everybody."

"That's got nothing to do with us," he pointed out. "We look after our own."

"They blow up the sugar factory, it'll have to do with everyone!" she retorted.

"Enough, Leah!" he said, finality in his tone. Now it was an order. "Look after Samuel. I'll find him some money to tide him over. Everyone else'll help. Just do your part."

She stared at him solemnly for several seconds, on the edge of further argument, then something in his face deterred her, and without saying anything further she obeyed.

The water reached the boil, and Pitt carried it over so she could minister to Samuel.

An hour later, in the privacy of the room Isaac used to work on his books, Pitt offered him a contribution of a few shillings towards the fund for Samuel. He was unreasonably delighted when it was accepted. It was a mark of belonging.

***

Tellman said nothing to anyone about his interest in John Adinett or his conversation with the cabdriver. It was three days before he was able to take the matter any further. Wetron had spoken to him again, questioning him about his present case more closely, wanting a detailed accounting of his time.

Tellman answered with exactness, obedient and unsmiling. The man had taken Pitt's place, and he had no right to it. It might not have been of his choosing, but that excused nothing. He had forbidden Tellman to contact Pitt or take any further interest in the Adinett case. That was his fault all right. Tellman stared at his round, smooth-shaven face with bland, dumb insolence.

By late Tuesday afternoon he again had time to himself, and the first thing he did was to leave Bow Street, buy a ham sandwich from a peddler, and a drink of fresh peppermint, then walk slowly up towards Oxford Street, thinking hard.

He had taken another look at the notes he had made during the investigation and had seen that there were several spaces of time, often as much as four or five hours, in which they did not know where Adinett had been. It had not seemed to matter then, because they were concerned with the details of the physical facts. Where Adinett had spent his time seemed to be irrelevant, only a matter of catching all the details. Now it was all he had.

He walked more slowly. He had no idea where he was going, except that he must pursue something definite, both for Pitt's sake and because he had no intention of going back to Gracie empty-handed.

Why would a man like John Adinett go three times to a place such as Cleveland Street? Who lived there? Was it possible he had odd tastes in personal vice which Fetters had somehow discovered?

Even as he said it to himself, he did not believe it. Why should Fetters care anyway? If it were not criminal, or even if it was, it was no one else's concern.

But perhaps Fetters had discovered something about Adinett which he could not possibly afford to have known. That would have to be something criminal. What?

He increased his pace slightly. Perhaps the answer was in Cleveland Street. It was the only thing so far that was unexplained.

At Oxford Street he caught an omnibus going east, changed at Holborn, and went on towards Spitalfields and Whitechapel, still turning the question over and over in his mind.

Cleveland Street was very ordinary: merely houses and shops, tired, grubby, but reasonably respectable. Who lived here that Adinett had come to see three times?

He went into the first shop, which sold general hardware.

"Yes sir?" A tired man with thinning hair looked up from a kettle he was mending. "What can I get yer?"

Tellman bought a spoon, more for goodwill than because he wanted it. "My sister's thinking of getting a house around here," he lied easily. "I said I'd look at the area for her first. What's it like? Quiet, is it?"

The ironmonger thought about it for a moment, the metal patch in one hand, the kettle in the other.

Tellman waited.

The ironmonger sighed. "Used ter be," he said sadly. "Got a bit odd five or six years ago. Got kids, 'as she, yer sister?"

"Yes," Tellman said quickly.

"Better a couple o' streets over." He indicated where he meant with a nod of his head. "Try north a bit, or east. Keep away from the brewery an' the Mile End Road. Too busy, that is."

Tellman frowned. "She thought of Cleveland Street. The houses look about right for her. Right sort of price, I should think, and well enough kept. But it's busy, is it?"

"Please yerself." The ironmonger shrugged. "I wouldn't live 'ere if I didn't already."

Tellman leaned forward and lowered his voice. "There are not houses of ill repute, are there?"

The ironmonger laughed. "Used ter be. Gorn now. Why?"

"Just wondered." Tellman backed away. "What's all the traffic, then? You said it was busy lately."

"Dunno." The ironmonger had obviously changed his mind about being so candid. "Just people visiting, I expect."

"Carriages and the like?" Tellman tried to assume an air of innocence.

He must have failed, because the ironmonger was imparting nothing more. "Not more than most places." He returned his attention to the kettle, avoiding Tellman's eyes. "Quieter now. Just a bit busy a while back. Forget what I said. I in't 'eard there was nothin' for sale, but if the price is right, you go fer it."

"Thank you," Tellman said civilly. There was no point in making an enemy. Never knew when you might want to speak to him again. He left the shop and walked slowly down the street, looking from side to side, wondering what had taken Adinett's attention, and why.

There were several houses, a few more shops, an artist's studio, a small yard that sold barrels, a maker of clay pipes, and a cobbler. It could have been any of a thousand streets in the poorer parts of London. The smell of the brewery not far away was sweet and stale in the air.

He stopped and bought a sandwich from a peddler at the end of the road where it turned into Devonshire Street.

"Glad to find you," he said conversationally. "Do much business here? I've hardly seen a soul."

"Usually stop down the Mile End Road," the peddler replied. "On me way 'ome now. Yer got the last one." He smiled, showing chipped teeth.

"My luck's changed," Tellman said sourly. "Been here all evening on an errand for a friend of my boss's who came here a few weeks back and dropped a watch fob. 'Go and look for it,' he tells me. 'I must have left it behind.' Wrote it down for me, and I lost the paper."

"Name?" the peddler asked, staring at Tellman with wide blue eyes.

"Don't know. Lost it before I read it."

"Watch fob?"

"That's right. Why? You know where it might be?"

The peddler shrugged, grinning again. "No idea. What's your boss like, then?"

Tellman instantly described Adinett. "Tall, military-looking gentleman, very well dressed, small mustache. Walks with his head high, shoulders back."

"I seen 'im." The peddler looked pleased with himself. "Not in a few weeks, like," he added.

"But he was here?" Tellman tried not to let his eagerness betray him, but he could not keep it out of his voice. "You saw him?"

"I jus' said I did. Din't yer say as 'e were yer guvner an' 'e sent yer ter fetch 'is fob?"

"Yes. Yes, I know. But if you saw him, maybe you knew which house he went into." Tellman lied to cover his mistake. "He's a hard man. If I go back without a good explanation, he'll say I took it!"

The peddler shook his head, sympathy in his face. "Times I'm glad I don't work fer no one. Get good days an' bad days, but nob'dy's on me back, like." He pointed down the road. "Were that one down there, on that side. Number six. Tobacconist and confectioner. Lots o' folk comin' an' going there. That's w'ere all the trouble were, four or five year back."

"What trouble?" Tellman said casually, as if it were of no real interest.

"Carriages comin' and goin' at all hours, and that bit o' a fight wot there were," the peddler replied. "Not that much, I s'pose. Bin a lot worse since then, in Spitalfields and 'round there. But it seemed kind o' nasty at the time. Lot o' yellin' an' cursin' an' so on." He screwed up his face. "Odd thing, though, they was all strangers! Not a one o' them local, like." He looked at Tellman narrowly. "Now w'y would a lot o' strangers wanner come 'ere just ter fight each other? Then quick as yer like, they was all gorn again."

Tellman could feel his heart beating in his chest.

"At the tobacconist's?" His voice caught. It was ridiculous. It probably meant nothing.

"Reckon so." The peddler nodded, still watching him. "That's w'ere yer guv'ner went, any'ow. Asked me the same thing, 'e did, an' then went orff like a dog wi' two tails w'en I told 'im."

"I see. Thank you very much. Here." Tellman fished in his pocket and brought out a sixpence. His fingers were shaking. It was a bit extravagant, but he felt suddenly optimistic and grateful. "Have a pint on me. You've probably saved me a packet."

"Ta." The peddler took the sixpence and it disappeared instantly. " 'Ere's ter yer 'ealth."

Tellman nodded and then walked quickly down to where the peddler had indicated. It looked much like any other shop on the outside, a small area for selling sweets and tobacco, with living quarters above. What on earth could be here that John Adinett had found exciting? He would have to come back when the shop was open. He would find a way of doing that tomorrow, when Wetron would not find out.

He walked back towards the Mile End Road with a spring in his step.

But when he managed to return to Cleveland Street in the middle of the next afternoon, after some considerable difficulty, and having stretched the truth to his inspector so far it bore little resemblance to the facts, the shop seemed exactly like a thousand others.

He bought threepence worth of mint humbugs and tried to start a conversation with the owner, but there was little to talk about except the weather. He was becoming desperate when he made a remark about heat and fevers, and poor Prince Albert 's having died of typhoid.

"I suppose no one's safe," he said, feeling foolish.

"Why should they be?" the tobacconist said ruefully, chewing his lip. "Royals ain't no better off than you nor me when it comes to some things. Eat better, I s'pose, an' certainly wear better." He fingered the thin cloth of his own jacket. "But get sick like we do, an' die, poor sods." There was a sharp note of pity in his voice which struck Tellman as extraordinary from a man in such an area, who obviously owned little and worked hard. This was the last place he would have expected compassion for those who seemed to have everything.

"You reckon they've got troubles like ours?" Tellman said, trying to keep all expression out of his voice.

"Yer free to come an' go as yer please, aren't yer?" the tobacconist asked, gazing at Tellman with surprisingly clear gray eyes. "Believe what yer want, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or nothin'? God wi' six arms, if that's what takes yer fancy? An' marry a woman wot believes anything, if she's willing?"

Gracie's sharp little face came instantly to Tellman's mind with its bright eyes and determined chin. Then he was furious with himself for his weakness. It was ridiculous. They disagreed about everything. She would have felt with this tobacconist and his sympathies. She saw nothing wrong in being in service, whereas Tellman was outraged that anyone, man or woman, should be fetching and carrying and calling other people "sir" and "ma'am" and cleaning up after them.

"Of course I can!" he said far more tartly than he meant. "But I wouldn't want to marry a woman who couldn't believe the same things I do. More important than religion, about rights and wrongs on how people behave, what's just and what isn't."

The tobacconist smiled and shook his head patiently.

"If yer fall in love, yer won't think about w'ere she came from or what she believes, yer'll just wanna be with 'er." His voice was soft. "If yer sittin' arguin' over rights an' wrongs o' things, yer in't in love. 'Ave 'er fer a friend, but don't marry 'er." He shook his head, his voice making plain his opinion of such a choice. " 'Less she's got money or summink, an' that's wot yer want, like?"

Tellman was offended. "I wouldn't marry anyone for money!" he said angrily. "I just think that a person's sense of fairness matters. If you're going to spend your whole life with someone, have children, you should agree on what's decent and what isn't."

The tobacconist sighed heavily, his smile vanishing. "Could be you're right. Gawd knows, fallin' in love can bring yer enough grief, if yer beliefs an' yer station in life is different."

Tellman put one of the humbugs in his mouth as the shop door opened behind him. He turned instinctively to see who it was, and he recognized the man who came in but could not place him.

"Afternoon, sir." The tobacconist dismissed Tellman from his mind and looked to the new customer. "What can I get yer, sir?"

The man hesitated, glanced at Tellman, then back at the tobacconist. "That gentleman was before me," he said politely.

" 'E's bin served," the tobacconist answered. "Wot will it be fer you?"

The man looked at Tellman again before replying. "Well, if you're sure. Half a pound of tobacco..."

The tobacconist's eyebrows shot up. "Half a pound? Right you are, sir. What kind'll it be? I got all sorts... Virginia, Turkish-"

" Virginia," the man cut him off, fishing in his pocket for his money.

It was the voice that Tellman recognized. It took him a moment or two, then he knew where he had heard it before. The man was a journalist named Lyndon Remus. He had followed Pitt around asking questions, probing, during the Bedford Square murder. It was he who had written the piece which had done so much damage, implying scandal.

What was he doing here in Mile End? Certainly not buying tobacco, half a pound at a time! He didn't know Virginia from Turkish, or care. He had come in for something else, then changed his mind when he saw Tellman.

"Thank you," Tellman said to the tobacconist. "Good day." And he went out into the street and along about forty yards to a wide doorway where he could stand almost unseen and watch for Remus to come out.

After about ten minutes he began to wonder if there were a way out of the shop and into a back street. What could Remus be doing in there so long? There was only one answer which made any kind of sense-Remus was there for the same reason he had come himself, scenting a story, a scandal, perhaps an explanation for murder. It must be to do with John Adinett. There could hardly be two murderers tied to that small tobacconist's shop.

The minutes went by. Traffic passed along the street, some towards the Mile End Road, some the other way. After another ten minutes Remus came out at last. He looked to left and right, crossed the road and walked south, passing within a yard of Tellman, then realizing who he was, stopped abruptly.

Tellman smiled. "Onto a good story, Mr. Remus?" he asked.

Remus's sharp, freckled face was a total blank for a matter of seconds, then he recovered his composure. "Not sure," he said easily. " Lot of ideas, all disconnected at the moment. Since you're here, maybe it does mean something."

"Humbug," Tellman said with a smile.

"Oh no... I don't..." Remus began.

"Mint humbugs," Tellman clarified. "That's what I bought there."

Remus's expression smoothed out.

"Oh! Yes, of course."

"Better than tobacco," Tellman went on. "I don't know one tobacco from another. Neither do you."

"Not your beat, is it?" Remus said, shifting the subject back to Tellman. "Still on the Adinett case, are you? Interesting man." His eyes narrowed. "But why bother? You got your conviction. What more do you want?"

"Me?" Tellman said, affecting surprise. "Not a thing. Why? What more do you think there is?"

"Motive," Remus said reasonably. "Did Fetters ever come here?"

"What makes you think that? Did the tobacconist say he had?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. "I never asked him."

"So it's not Fetters you're after," Tellman deduced.

Remus was momentarily taken aback. He had let slip more than he'd intended. He recovered, looking at Tellman with a sly smile. "Fetters and Adinett... it's all the same thing, isn't it?"

"You didn't say you were after Adinett," Tellman pointed out.

Remus pushed his hands into his pockets and started to walk slowly in the direction of the Mile End Road, allowing Tellman to keep pace with him.

"Not exactly news now, is he?" he said thoughtfully. "For me or for you. He'd have to have had a really interesting reason for killing Fetters for me to bother to write it up. And I reckon it would have to be connected with another crime, a pretty big one, before you'd still be following it too... don't you think?"

Tellman had no intention whatsoever of allowing him to know anything about Pitt. "Sounds sensible," he agreed. "Presuming I wasn't just after a mint humbug."

"Humbug, maybe," Remus said with a twisted smile, and increased his pace slightly. They walked in silence for a few moments, crossing an alleyway leading towards the brewery. "But be careful! There's a lot of very important people'll try to stop you. I suppose Mr. Pitt sent you here?"

"And Mr. Dismore sent you?" Tellman countered, remembering what the cabbie had said about Adinett's going to Dismore's newspaper after leaving Cleveland Street the last time.

Remus was momentarily nonplussed, then again he disguised his emotions and replied blandly. "I'm independent. Don't answer to anyone. I thought you would know that... a sharp detective like you!"

Tellman grunted. He was not sure what he believed, except that Remus thought he was onto a story which he had no intention of sharing.

They reached the Mile End Road, and Remus said good-bye and plunged into the stream of people going west.

Tellman decided on the spur of the moment to follow him. It proved more difficult than he had expected, partly because of the amount of traffic which was trade carts and wagons rather than hansoms, but mostly because Remus very apparently did not wish to be followed and was aware of Tellman behind him.

It took him a succession of very rapid sprints, a good deal of bribery, and a little luck not to lose him, but half an hour later Tellman was in a hansom crossing London Bridge. Just beyond the railway terminus, Remus stopped ahead of him and got out. He paid his fare, then ran up the steps of Guy's Hospital and disappeared through the doors.

Tellman alighted also, paid off his driver and went up into the hospital as well.

But Remus was nowhere to be seen.

Tellman walked over to the porter and described Remus to him, asking which way he had gone.

"Asked after the offices," the porter replied. "That's that way, sir." He pointed helpfully.

Tellman thanked him and went the same way, but search as he might, he found no further trace of Remus, and finally after nearly half an hour of wandering corridors, he left the hospital and took the train north over the river again. He found himself at Keppel Street just before six o' clock in the evening.

He stood at the back door for several minutes before he summoned enough courage to knock. He wished there were some way he could see Gracie without having to encounter Charlotte. He was embarrassed by the fact that he had done nothing to help Pitt. He was sure she was going to be distressed, and he had no idea what to say or do.

It was only the very vivid imagination of Gracie's total scorn for him that stopped him from turning around and hurrying away. He would have to face her sometime. Putting it off would only make it even more difficult. He took a deep breath, then let it out again, still without knocking. Perhaps he should find out more before he spoke to her. After all, he didn't have very much. He had no idea why Remus had gone to Guy's Hospital, not even a guess.

The door opened and Gracie let out a shriek as she almost ran into him. The saucepan she was holding slipped out of her hands and fell onto the step with a crash.

"Yer stupid great article!" she said furiously. "Wot d'yer think yer doin' standin' there, wi' a face like a pot lion? Wot's the matter with yer?"

He bent down and picked up the saucepan and handed it back to her. "I came to tell you what I've found out," he said tartly. "You shouldn't drop the good saucepans like that. You'll chip them and then they'll be no good."

"I wouldn't 'a dropped it if yer 'adn't give me the fright o' me life," she accused. "Why din't yer knock, like any ordinary person?"

"I was about to!" That was not really a lie. Of course he would have knocked any moment.

She looked him up and down. "Well, yer'd better come in. I s'pose yer've got more ter say than can be done on the step?" She whisked around, her skirts swirling, and went back inside, and he followed her through the scullery into the kitchen, closing both doors behind him. If Charlotte were at home, she was nowhere to be seen.

"An' keep yer voice down!" Gracie warned, as if reading his thoughts. "Mrs. Pitt's upstairs reading ter Daniel and Jemima."

"Jemima can read herself," he said, puzzled.

"O' course she can!" she said with an effort at patience. "But 'er papa's not 'ome anymore, an' we 'aven't 'eard a thing from 'im. Nobody knows wot's goin' ter 'appen, if 'e's bein' looked after, or what! It does yer good ter be read to." She sniffed and turned away from him, determined he should not see the tears spill down her face. "So wot 'ave yer found out, then? I s'pose yer want a cup o' tea? An' cake?"

"Yes, please." He sat down at the kitchen table while she busied herself with the kettle, the teapot, two cups, and several wedges of fresh currant cake, all the time keeping her back to him.

He watched her quick movements, her thin shoulders under the cotton dress, a waist he could have put his hands around. He ached to be of some comfort to her, but she was far too prickly proud to let him. Anyway, what could he say? She would never believe lies that everything would be all right. More than twenty-one years of life had taught her that tragedy was real. Justice sometimes prevailed, but not always.

He must say something. The kitchen clock was ticking the minutes by. The kettle was beginning to sing. It was the same warm, sweet-smelling room as always. He had been ridiculously happy here, so comfortable, more than anywhere else he could remember.

She banged the teapot down, risking chipping it.

"Well, are yer goin' ter tell me or not?" she demanded.

"Yes... I am!" he snapped back, furious with himself for wanting to touch her, to be gentle, to put his arms around her and hold her close. He cleared his throat and nearly choked. "Adinett went to Cleveland Street in Mile End at least three times. And the last time he was really excited about something. He went straight from there to visit Thorold Dismore, who owns the newspaper that's always going on against the Queen and saying that the Prince of Wales spends too much money."

She stood still, her brows furrowed, confusion in her eyes.

"Wot does a gentleman like Mr. Adinett go ter Mile End fer? If 'e's lookin' for an 'ore, there's plenty closer, an' cleaner! 'E could get 'isself done in, down Mile End way."

"I know that. And that isn't all. The place he went to isn't a brothel, it's a tobacconist's shop."

" 'E went ter Mile End ter buy tobacco?" she said in disbelief.

"No," he corrected her. "He went to the tobacconist's shop for some other reason, but I don't know what it was yet. But when I went back there today, and went into the shop myself, who should come in but Lyndon Remus, the journalist who was trying to dig up all that dirt back when Mr. Pitt was working on the murder in Bedford Square." He leaned forward urgently, putting his elbows on the scrubbed wood of the table. "He wouldn't say anything while I was there, but he stayed another twenty minutes after I'd gone. I know because I waited for him. And when he left I spoke to him."

She was transfixed, her eyes wide, the teapot forgotten. Only the screaming of the kettle brought her back to the moment. She pulled it off the hob and then ignored it.

"So?" she demanded. "Wot'd 'e want? Wot's so special about Cleveland Street?"

"I don't know yet," he admitted. "But he's after scandal, and he thinks he's really onto something. He tried to ask me what I was doing there. He was sort of excited to see me. He thought it proved he was right. It's to do with Adinett, he as good as admitted that."

She sat down in the chair opposite him. "Go on!" she urged.

"When he left I followed him. He tried to make sure I didn't, but I stuck with him."

"Were'd 'e go?" Her eyes never left his face.

"South of the river, to Guy's Hospital... the offices. But I lost him there."

"Guy's 'Ospital," she repeated slowly. Finally she stood up and made the tea and set it on the table to brew. "Now whyever did 'e not want yer ter know 'e went there?"

"Because it has something to do with Adinett," he answered. "And Cleveland Street. But I'm damned if I know what."

"Well, yer'll just 'ave ter find out," she said without hesitation. " 'Cause we gotta prove Mr. Pitt is right an' Adinett were as guilty as 'e said, an' fer a wicked reason. D'yer want a piece o' cake?"

"Yes, please." He took the largest piece on the plate she offered. He had long ago stopped pretending to be polite. Gracie made the best cake he had ever eaten.

She was looking at him earnestly. "Yer goin' ter find out wot it is, in't yer... I mean, wot really 'appened, an' why?"

Tellman wished she had even a shred of the admiration for him that she had for Pitt. And yet the belief in her face now, even if it was born of desperation, was both wonderful and frightening. Could he live up to it? He had very little idea what to do next. What would Pitt have done were their roles reversed?

He liked Pitt, he had to admit that, in spite of not wanting to, not agreeing with him over dozens of things. He had disapproved violently of Pitt's appointment. He was not a gentleman and had no more right to expect the rest of them to obey him than any other ordinary policeman had. But on the other hand he had been reasonable-most of the time. He was eccentric, took a lot of getting used to.

But for better or worse, Tellman was part of Pitt's life. He had sat at their table too often, shared too many cases, good and bad. And there was Gracie.

"Yes, of course I will," he said with his mouth full of cake.

"Yer goin' ter foiler this Remus?" she pressed. " 'E's onter it... whatever it is. Mrs. Pitt's tryin' ter find out more about Mr. Fetters, but she don't 'ave nothin' yet. I'll tell yer if she does." She looked tired and frightened. "Yer won't stop, will yer?" she insisted. "No matter wot! There's nob'dy ter do it but us."

"I told you," he said, meeting her eyes steadily. "I'll find out! Now, eat some of your cake. You look like a fourpenny rabbit! And pour the tea!"

"It in't brewed yet." But she poured it anyway.