Whitechapel Conspiracy

“Eh, eh! Wot’s the matter wi’ you, then?” the constable asked, stepping in front of him. Pitt could only see the outline of him because they were between lampposts, but he was tall and seemed very solid in his cape and helmet. It was the first time in his life Pitt had been afraid of a policeman, and it was a cold, sick feeling, alien to all his nature.

“Mr. Sissons has been shot,” he said, his breath rasping. “In his office, in the factory up Brick Lane.”

“Shot?” the constable said unsteadily. “You sure? Is ’e ’urt bad?”

“He’s dead.”

The constable was stunned into a moment’s silence, then he gathered his wits. “Then we’d better send ter the station an get Inspector ’Arper. ’Oo are you, an’ ’ow’d yer come ter find Mr. Sissons? You the night watch, then?”

“Yes. Thomas Pitt. Wally Edwards is there with him now. He’s the other night watchman.”

“I see. D’yer know where the Whitechapel station is?”

“Yes. Do you want me to tell them?”

“Yes. You go an’ tell ’em Constable Jenkins sent yer, an’ tell ’em wot yer found at the factory. I’ll be there. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then ’urry.”

Pitt obeyed, turning on his heel, then breaking into a run.

It was nearly an hour later when he was back at the sugar factory, not in Sissons’s office but in one of the other fairly large rooms on the top floor. Inspector Harper was a very different man from Constable Jenkins, smaller with a blunt face and square chin. Jenkins was standing by the door, and Pitt and Wally were standing in the middle of the floor. It was now early daylight, gray through the dockland smoke, and the sun was silver on the stretches of the river below them in the distance.

“Right now, then … what’s your name? Pitt!” Harper began. “You just tell me exactly what you saw an’ what you did.” He frowned. “And what were you doing in Mr. Sissons’s office anyway? Not part of your duty to go in there, is it?”

“The door was open,” Pitt replied. His hands were clammy, stiff. “It shouldn’t be. I thought something might be wrong.”

“All right, all right! So tell me what you saw, exactly!”

Pitt had prepared this very carefully, and he had said it all to the duty seigeant at the Whitechapel station already.

“Mr. Sissons was sitting at his desk, slumped over it, and there was a pool of blood, so I knew immediately he wasn’t just asleep. Some of the desk drawers were half open. There was no one else in the room and the windows were closed.”

“Why d’you say that? What difference does that make?” Harper challenged. “We’re seven storeys up, man!”

Pitt felt himself flushing. He must not appear too quick. He was a night watchman, not a superintendent of police.

“None. Just noticed it, that’s all.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Harper looked at him narrowly.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Harper looked skeptical. “Well, he was shot with a handgun, pistol of sorts, so where is it?”

Pitt realized with a lurch that Harper was suggesting he had taken it. He could feel the guilt hot in his face. Suddenly he knew exactly how others had felt when he had questioned them, men perhaps innocent of the crime but with other desperate secrets to hide.

“I don’t know,” he said as steadily as he could. “I suppose whoever shot him took it when they went.”

“And who could that be?” Harper asked, his eyes wide, pale blue. “Aren’t you the night watch? Who came or went, then? Or are you saying it was one of the men who work here?”

“No!” Wally spoke for the first time. “Why’d any one o’ us do that?”

“No reason at all, if you’ve any sense,” Harper replied. “More like he shot himself, and Mr. Pitt here thought he’d take a little souvenir. Maybe sell it for a few shillings. Good gun, was it?”

Pitt looked up at him with amazement and met his gaze squarely. It was that instant he realized with horror that crawled over his skin that Harper had known what he was going to find. Harper was Inner Circle, and he intended it to be suicide. Pitt’s throat was tight, his mouth dry.

Harper smiled. He was master and he knew it.

Jenkins shifted his feet unhappily. “We got no evidence o’ that, sir.”

“Got no evidence against it either!” Harper said sharply, without moving his eyes from Pitt’s. “We’ll have to see what turns up when we look into Mr. Sissons’s affairs, won’t we?”

Wally shook his head. “Yer got no reason ter say as Tom took the gun, an’ that’s a fact.” His voice shook with fear, but his face was stubborn. “And any’ow, Mr. Sissons never shot ’isself, ’cos I seen the body. ’E were shot in the right side of ’is ’ead, like ’e were right-’anded, which ’e were! ’Ceptin’ ’is right fingers was broke an’ the wotsits cut, so ’e couldn’t curl up ’is fingers … so ’e couldn’t ’a pulled a gun tight ter shoot it. Doctors wot looks at ’im’ll tell yer that.”

Harper was confused and angry. He turned to Jenkins and met a blank stare of dumb insolence and immovability.

“Well, then,” he said angrily, looking away. “I suppose we’d better find out who sneaked in past our two diligent night watchmen … and murdered their employer. Hadn’t we?”

“Yes sir!” he responded.