Whitechapel Conspiracy

She followed after him quickly, running a little to catch up. She must not lose him. She could stay quite close; after all, he did not know her.

She was right; he went to the omnibus stop. Thank heaven for that! There was no one else there, so she was obliged to stand more or less beside him to wait. But she need not have been concerned he would remember her if he saw her again. He seemed oblivious to anyone else, straining his eyes to watch the traffic for the omnibus and shifting from one foot to the other in his impatience.

She went with him as far as Holborn, then, as he changed for another omnibus eastwards, she did the same. She was taken unaware and nearly left behind when he got off at the farther end of Whitechapel High Street opposite the railway station. Surely he was not going somewhere else by train?

But he walked up Court Street towards Buck’s Row and then stopped, staring around him, facing right. Gracie followed his gaze. She saw nothing even remotely interesting. The railway line north was ahead of them, the board school to the right, and the Smith & Co. distillery to the left. Beyond that was a burial ground. Please heaven he wasn’t come to look at graves.

Perhaps he was! He had already enquired into the deaths of William Crook and J. K. Stephen. Was he after a trail of dead men? They couldn’t all have been murdered … could they?

There was plenty of traffic in the street, carts and wagons, people going about their business.

She was shivering in spite of the close, airless warmth of the day. What was Remus looking for? How did a detective know, or find out? Perhaps Tellman was cleverer than she had given him credit for. This was not so easy.

Remus was moving forward, looking around him as if now he had something definite in mind, yet he did not seem to be reading numbers, so perhaps it was not an address.

She moved very slowly after him. In case he turned around, she glanced at doors, pretending to be searching also.

Remus stopped a man in a leather apron and spoke to him. The man shook his head and walked on, increasing his pace. He turned up Thomas Street, at the end of which Gracie could just see a notice proclaiming the Spitalfields Workhouse. Its huge, gray buildings were just visible, shelter and imprisonment at once. She had grown up dreading this place more than jail. It was the ultimate misery that awaited the destitute. She had known those who would rather die in the street than be caught in its soulless regimentation.

Remus spoke to an old woman carrying a bundle of laundry.

Gracie moved close enough to overhear. He seemed so absorbed in what he was asking she hoped he would not be aware of her. She stood sideways, staring across the street as if waiting for someone.

“Excuse me …” Remus began.

“Yeah?” The woman was civil but no more.

“Do you live around here?” he asked.

“White’s Row,” she answered, pointing a few yards to the east, where apparently the street changed its name. It was only a short distance before it finished in the cross street, facing the Pavilion Theater.

“Then perhaps you can help me,” Remus said urgently. “Were you here four or five years ago?”

“O’ course. Why?” She frowned, narrowing her gaze. Her body stiffened very slightly, balancing the laundry awkwardly.

“Do you see many coaches around here, big ones, carriages, not hansoms?” Remus asked.

Her expression was full of scorn. “Does it look ter yer like we keep carriages ’round ’ere?” she demanded. “Yer’ll be lucky if yer can find an ’ansom cab. Yer’d be best orff ter use yer legs, like the rest of us.”

“I don’t want one now!” He caught hold of her arm. “I want someone who saw one four years ago, around these streets.”

Her eyes widened. “I dunno, an’ I don’t wanner know. You get the ’ell out of ’ere an’ leave us alone! Gorn! Get out!” She yanked her arm away from him and hurried away.

Remus looked disappointed, his sharp face surprisingly young in the morning light. Gracie wondered what he was like at home relaxed—what he read, what he cared about, if he had friends. Why did he pursue this with such fervor? Was it love or hate, greed, the hunger for fame? Or just curiosity?

He crossed the road past the theater and turned left into Hanbury Street. He stopped several people, asking the same questions about carriages, large closed-in ones such as might have been cruising to pick up prostitutes.

Gracie stayed well behind him as he went the length of the street right up to the Free Methodist Church. Once he found someone who gave him an answer he seemed delighted with. His head jerked up, his shoulders straightened and his hands moved with surprising eloquence.

Gracie was too far away to hear what had been said.