Whitechapel Conspiracy

She was staring at him. He had to give her an answer, and he could not bear it to be a denial. She did not understand. She had no idea of the difficulties, of everything he and Pitt had done at the time. She saw only loyalty, a matter of fighting for those she loved, who belonged to her life.

He did not really want to belong to anyone else’s life. And he was not ready to admit that he cared about Pitt. Injustice mattered, of course, but the world was full of injustice. Some you could fight against, some you couldn’t. It was foolish to waste your time and your strength in battles you could not win.

Gracie was still waiting, refusing to believe he would not agree.

He opened his mouth to tell her how pointless it was, that she did not understand, and found himself saying what he knew she wanted to hear.

“I’ll find out about Adinett’s last few days before he killed Fetters.” It was ridiculous! What kind of a policeman allows a slip of a maid to coerce him into making a fool of himself? “I don’t know when,” he went on defensively. “In my own time. It won’t help anyone if Wetron throws me out of the force.”

“ ’Course it won’t,” she said, nodding her head reasonably. Then she gave him a sudden, dazzling smile which sent his heart rocketing. He felt the blood surge up his face and hated himself for being so vulnerable.

“I’ll come and tell you if I find anything,” he snapped. “Now, go away and leave me to work!” And without looking at her again he swung around and marched back up the steps and in through the doorway.

Gracie sniffed fiercely, and with a lift of hope inside her went to find an omnibus back to Keppel Street.

Tellman began that evening, going straight from Bow Street, buying a hot pie from a peddler as he did most evenings, and eating it as he walked up Endell Street. Whatever he did, he must manage to do it without leaving any trace, not only for his own safety but for the very practical reason that if he were caught he would be unable to continue.

Who would know what Adinett had done, whom he had seen, where he had gone in the time immediately before Fetters’s death? Adinett himself had sworn that he had done nothing out of the ordinary.

He bit into the pie, being careful not to squash out its contents.

Adinett was of independent means and had no need to earn his living. He could spend his time as he wished. Apparently that was usually visiting various clubs, many of them to do with the armed services, exploration, the National Geographic Society, and others of a similar nature. That was the pattern of those who had inherited money and could afford to be idle. Tellman despised it with all the anger of a man who had watched too many others work all the hours they were awake and still go to bed cold and hungry.

He passed a newspaper boy.

“Paper, sir?” the boy invited. “Read about Mr. Gladstone? Insulted the laborers o’ the country, so Lord Salisbury says. Some get an eight-hour day—mebbe!” He grinned. “Or they brought out a new edition o’ Darkness an’ Dawn, all about corruption an’ that, in ancient Rome?” he added hopefully.

Tellman handed over his money and took the late edition, not for the election news but for the latest on the anarchists.

He quickened his pace and turned his mind back to the problem. It would give him more than one kind of satisfaction to find out why Adinett had committed murder, and prove it so all London would be obliged to know, whether they wished to or not.

He was well-used to tracing the comings and goings of people, but always with the authority of his police rank. To do it discreetly would be very different. He would have to call on a few favors done in the past, and perhaps a few yet to come.

He decided to begin at the most obvious place, with hansom cab drivers he knew. They usually frequented the same areas, and the chances were that if Adinett had used a cab—and since he did not own a coach, that was quite likely—then he would more than once have come upon the same driver.

If he had used an omnibus, or even the underground railway, then there was almost no chance at all of learning his movements.

The first two cabdrivers he found were of no assistance at all. The third could only point him in the direction of others.

It was half past nine. He was tired, his feet hurt and he was angry with himself for giving in to a foolish impulse, when he spoke to the seventh cabdriver, a small, grizzled man with a hacking cough. He reminded Tellman of his own father, who had worked as a porter at the Billingsgate fish market all day and then driven a hansom half the night, whatever the weather, to feed his family and keep a roof over their heads. Perhaps it was memory which made him speak softly to the man.

“Got a little time?” he asked.

“Yer wanna go somewhere?” the cabbie responded.