Whitechapel Conspiracy

There were faint spots of color in his cheeks again. “Who’d you meet?”

“Florence Nightingale,” she said immediately.

“I knew you’d say that,” he replied. “But she isn’t dead yet.”

“Don’t matter. She’s still ’istory. Oo’d you meet?”

“Admiral Nelson.”

“W’y?”

“Because he was a great leader as well as a great fighter. He made his men love him,” he replied.

She smiled. She was glad he had said that. It sometimes showed a lot to know who people’s heroes were, and why.

He grasped her arm suddenly. “There’s Remus!” he said fiercely. “Come on!” He yanked her forward and plunged across the road, dodging in between traffic and reaching the footpath at the far side just as Remus went in through the door.

“Remus!” Tellman called out, stopping just short of actually bumping into him.

Remus turned, startled. As soon as he recognized Tellman his face darkened. “No time to talk to you,” he said briskly. “Sorry.” He took another step forward, his back to Tellman, and started to close the door.

Tellman put his foot in the doorway, still dragging Gracie with him by the hand, not that she was unwilling.

Remus stopped, his expression changing to one of anger.

“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve nothing else to say, and no time. Now, get out of my way!”

Tellman tensed his body as if to resist a blow, and remained exactly where he was. “If you’re still going after the Whitechapel murderer and the story of Annie Crook, you should leave it. It’s too dangerous to do alone—”

“It’s a damned sight too dangerous to tell anyone about until I’ve got the proof,” Remus retorted “And you, of all people, should know that!” He turned to Gracie. “And you, whoever you are.”

“I know who you can trust,” Tellman said urgently. “Let them know. It’s the only safeguard you’ve got.”

Remus’s eyes were bright, and there was a decided sneer on his lips. “No doubt you’d like me to tell the police. Perhaps starting with you, eh?” He gave an abrupt little laugh, full of contempt. “Now, get your foot out of my door. I know how dangerous it is, and the police are the last people I’d trust.”

Tellman struggled to find an argument, and failed.

Gracie could think of nothing either. In Remus’s place she would have trusted no one.

“Well, be careful,” she said. “Yer know wot they done ter them women.”

Remus smiled at her. “Of course I know. I am careful.”

“No, you in’t!” she challenged, the words spitting out. “I followed yer all the way ’round Whitechapel, even spoke ter yer, an’ yer never knowed. Followed yer ter Mitre Square, too, but yer was so full o’ wot yer was thinkin’ yer ’ad no idea!”

Remus paled. He stared at her. “Who are you? Why would you follow me—if you did?” But there was fear in his voice now. Perhaps the mention of Mitre Square had made him realize she spoke the truth.

“It don’t matter ’oo I am,” she argued. “If I can follow yer, so can they! Do like ’e says.” She gestured to Tellman. “An’ be careful.”

“All right! I’ll be careful. Now go away,” Remus replied, stepping farther inside and beginning to push the door closed.

Tellman accepted that they had done all they could, and he retreated, Gracie with him.

Back across the street again he stopped, looking at her questioningly.

“ ’E’s onter summink,” she said decisively. “ ’E’s scared, but ’e in’t givin’ up.”

“I agree,” Tellman said in a low voice. “I’m going to follow him, see if I can protect him at all. You go home …”

“I’m comin’ wif yer.”

“No, you’re not!”

“I’m comin’—wif yer or be’ind yer!”

“Gracie …”

But at that moment Remus’s door opened again and he came out, looked from left to right and back again, and apparently concluding that they had gone, he set out. There was no time to argue. They went after him.

They followed him successfully for nearly two hours, first to Belgravia, where he stayed for about twenty-five minutes, then east and south to the river and along the Embankment just short of the Tower. They finally lost him as he was going east again. It was just growing dark.

Tellman swore in frustration, but this time watching his language far more carefully.

“He did that on purpose,” he said furiously. “He knew we were here. We must have shown ourselves, got too close to him. Stupid!”

“ ’E mebbe knew we would be,” she pointed out. “Or p’rhaps it weren’t us ’e were tryin’ ter shake? Mebbe ’e were bein’ careful, like we told ’im?”

Tellman stood on the footpath, staring along the street in the direction they had last thought they saw Remus, his eyes squinted, his mouth pulled tight.

“We’ve still lost him. And he’s going towards Whitechapel again!”

It was growing dark. The lamplighter was working the farther side of the street and he was hurrying.

“We’ll never find him in this.” Tellman looked around at the traffic, the rattle and clatter of hooves and wheels over the cobbles, the occasional shouts of drivers. Everyone seemed to be pressing forward as fast as they could. They could barely see fifty yards ahead in any direction in the gloom and the shifting mass of horses and people.