The Whitechapel Conspiracy (40 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She nodded very slightly. “I see.”

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

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

She waited for him to continue.

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

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

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

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

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

“There is more,” he said quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But …” he began to protest.

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

“No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There is no time to waste in pleasantries,” she said tersely. “You are probably aware that James Sissons, sugar manufacturer in Spitalfields, was murdered yesterday.” She did not wait for him to acknowledge that he was. “Actually, it was intended to look like suicide, complete with a note blaming his ruin upon having lent money to the Prince of Wales, who had refused to repay it. As a consequence, all three of his factories would be ruined and at least fifteen hundred families in Spitalfields sent into beggary.” She stopped.

Churchill’s face was ashen.

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

“Oh …” he began to protest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We shall assume that that will not happen. Now, I must set about this sugar factory business.”

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