Whitechapel Conspiracy

The room was plainly a study, with a large desk and several bookcases and two carved, leather-padded chairs. The gas was turned up and the room flooded with light. On the floor, as if he had been walking from the door towards the desk, lay a slender man with a dark complexion and dark hair liberally threaded with white. On his fine-boned hand was a signet ring with a dark stone in it. His face was handsome, almost beautiful in the passion of its form and the peace of its expression. The lips were curled in the faintest smile. Death had come to him with no horror and no fear, even as a long-awaited friend.

Narraway stood motionless, fighting to control emotion.

Pitt knew the man. He knelt and touched him. He was still warm, but apart from the bullet hole in his chest and the scarlet blood on the floor, there was no mistaking death.

Pitt straightened up again and turned to Narraway.

Narraway swallowed, looking away. “Let’s go and speak to Voisey. See how he can … explain this!” His voice was choked but the rage poured through it.

They went out, and Narraway closed the door softly, as though the room were now a kind of sanctuary. He walked across the hall to where the second man stood waiting. They exchanged only a glance of understanding, then the man opened the door and Narraway went in, Pitt on his heels.

This was the withdrawing room. Charles Voisey sat on the edge of the large sofa, his head in his hands. He looked up as Narraway stood in front of him. His face was drained of all color except for the livid marks where his fingers had pressed into the flesh of his cheeks.

“He came at me!” he said, his voice rising high and cracking. “He was like a madman. He had a gun. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. He—he didn’t seem to be hearing anything I said. He was … a fanatic!”

“Why would he want to kill you?” Narraway asked coldly.

Voisey gulped. “He—he was a friend of John Adinett, and he knew I had been also. He thought I somehow … betrayed him … by not being able to save him. He didn’t understand.” He glanced at Pitt, then back to Narraway. “There are loyalties higher than friendship, no matter how you … regard someone. And there was a great deal that was fine in Adinett … God knows …”

“He was a great republican,” Narraway said with an edge to his voice, a mixture of passion and sarcasm that Pitt could not read.

“Yes …” Voisey hesitated “Yes, he was. But …” Again he stopped, uncertainty in his eyes. He looked at Pitt, and for a moment the hatred in his face was naked. Then as quickly he masked it again, lowering his gaze. “He believed in many reforms, and fought for them with all his courage and intelligence. But I could not deny the law. Corena could not understand that There was something of the … savage … in him. I had no choice. He came at me like a lunatic, swearing to kill me. I struggled with him, but I could not take the gun from him.” The flicker of a smile touched his lips, more in amazement than any kind of humor. “He had extraordinary strength for an old man. The gun went off.” He did not add any more; it would have been unnecessary.

Pitt looked at him and saw the blood on his own shirtfront, at the right height to have matched Corena’s wound It could have been true.

“I see,” Narraway said grimly. “So you are saying it was self-defense?”

Voisey’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course I am! Good God—do you think I would have shot the man on purpose?” The amazement and incredulity were so intense in his whole being that in spite of his own feelings, Pitt could not help but believe him.

Narraway turned on his heel and strode out, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.

Pitt looked at Voisey once more, then followed after Narraway.

In the hall, Narraway stopped. As soon as Pitt caught up with him he spoke very quietly.

“You know Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, don’t you?” It was barely a question. He did not even wait for an answer. “Perhaps you didn’t know that Corena was the greatest love of her life. Don’t ask me how I know; I do, that is enough. You should be the one to tell her this. Don’t let her read it in the newspapers or hear it from someone who doesn’t know what it means to her.”

Pitt felt as if he had been hit so hard the breath had been forced out of him, and he could not fill his lungs again. Instead there was an ache inside him almost enough to make him cry out.

Vespasia!

“Please do it,” Narraway said urgently. “It shouldn’t be a stranger.” He did not beg, but it was there in his eyes.

There was only one possible answer. Pitt nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and went back to the front door and out to the quiet street.

He took the first hansom and gave Vespasia’s address. He rode through the darkness without thinking. There was no point in rehearsing how he would say such a thing. There was no way.

The cab pulled up and he alighted. He rang the doorbell and to his surprise it was answered within moments.